Illustrated Fantasy and Realism
“What should I call you?” the mage paraphrased the question and asked again.
The girl pondered deeply. Stubborn in the face of reality, she was unconsciously determined to hold on to what she used to believe. Her attitude softened after a brief, awkward pause.
The mage interrupted the girl in reminiscence, “Second question, why do you choose my identity to project for yours?”
The girl’s voice was suffused with fervour, “You are mysterious, respected, free to do whatever you want, and capable of all kinds of magic.”
“Technically, I am not a witch as I have no formal witchcraft training or practice, but I do perform some sort of magic,” the other girl in the hooded cape tried to calm her down.
“You stole my face!” whimpered the girl pathetically as she mummified her head with her scarf. She was paralysed with fear, unable to run away from the source of danger she imagined, and started to choke for breath.
“Where’s she going?” alarmed Bass as the girl’s silhouette vanished in a swirl of snowflakes at the cul-de-sac. He sprang to his strings and leaped to the residual image trying to fetch her, but to no avail.
The girl elbowed through the circle of bystanders and knelt down beside Prince’s motionless body. Her blinking lashes were clutching salty droplets to where they started, as she shook his right shoulder as hard as she could, “Wake up, wake up…”
“Could time efface the unwanted memory?” Prince murmured.
“Huh? Could memory be unwanted?” the girl was confused.
