Vocaloid Tales: The Summer and Winter Garden

Chapter 5: The Immortal Song

The audience listened with rapt attention as Miku, the glamorous soloist, serenaded the theater with her glorious melody. Her snow-white gown glowed under the soft aura of the stage lights.

As she finished her song, the audience erupted into thundering applause.  Miku gracefully bowed towards her adoring public as red roses showered the stage.

After giving her audience the attention they deserved, she began her exit from the stage.  As she made her way towards the curtains, she stopped her departure as something unusual caught her eye.  Amongst the dozens upon dozens of red roses blanketing the stage lay a single blue rose.

Miku knelt down and picked it up by the stem, examining it against the spotlight.  Only one person could have sent her this.

She clutched the rose tightly to her chest as she crossed the curtain.  Awaiting her was a handsome young man in a fine silk suit, a glimmering crown upon his head.  He approached her, clutching an elegant box in his arms.  "Miku, you are the world's finest Diva!  I present to you this fine gift if only you'll accept my marriage proposal and become my Princess!"

As he lifted the lid to show her more jewels than she could count, Miku grew excited and began to speak. But out of the corner of her eye, she spied a familiar silhouette in the doorway to the outside that made her hesitate...

Miku awoke from her evening's slumber with a sense of confusion.  Every other time she had this dream, she unquestioningly agreed to marry the prince.  After all, he completed her lifelong dream of living an easy life as the princess to a glamorous husband and being a world-renowned star.  Yet this time, where she once unquestioningly took the box of jewels and the easy life... this time she found herself having second thoughts.

"It must have been that mysterious stranger," Miku said to herself, "I wonder who he was? And why he'd make me change my mind like that?"

That "mysterious stranger" would have to wait until another day – she still had a breakfast to cook.

In the weeks since Kaito's health returned, the two had fallen into a rather stable routine.  In the mornings, Miku prepared the breakfast as Kaito tended to the gardens. She'd asked him more than once if she could help in this gargantuan task, but on this point he remained firm – for the enchantment to remain, he couldn't pass on his responsibilities to someone outside his family. But he did welcome her company, and on more than a few mornings Miku found herself obliging if only to change up her routine and have someone to talk to.

Enchantments and magic were a subject Miku still didn't entirely grasp – while everyone in Melodia certainly believed in the "good spirits" that protected their homes, few of them truly believed in magic.  And what had Kaito called them?  "The Fair Folk?"  Growing up, she and the other children used to tell each other stories about the fairies – maybe it was just another word for them.  But her father always insisted that's all the "fairies" were, just stories.

Like the "Demon Prince."

Even if the nature of magic and those who used magic meant little to Miku, there still remained evidence of its existence in the perpetually blooming gardens.  And surely Kaito would not have invoked them as he did were they not real.  While Kaito seemed to appreciate a playful joke from Miku, he never told them himself.

Miku's mind turned over the many stories she and the other children shared about the fairies, wondering if any of them might shed some clues on the magic in Kaito's castle.  Rin often told a story about a girl who rescued a Prince from being enchanted to literally dance to his death by a group of playful faeries.  Meiko once shared a tale of a peasant girl who, to save her true love from becoming a tithe to Hell by the Queen of the Faeries herself, had to hold him tightly as the Queen transformed him into any number of horrifying creatures.  As Miku reflected on all of these tales, the Fair Folk sounded as though they could be incredibly cruel if even one of those stories were true.  Yet Kaito seemed unafraid of them as a group, even if the Demon Prince stories were true and he himself was a victim of a fairy's magic...