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TITLE: Little Girl With An Inner Dragon
SUMMARY: The other girls were happy to be fairies for the class performance.
NOTES: For The Remyth Project, kicked off by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
yeloson.
Little Girl With An Inner Dragon
The other girls wanted to be fairies for the class performance. Pastels pinks and greens and yellows and blues with fluffy wings and satiny skirts that showed off their pale skin and hair of yellow and brown and red.
Teacher turned from Hannah and flashed the big smiling smile. "What colour do you want, Mei-Lin?"
She wanted red. Strong red like the colour of joy - like the colour of her blood when she fell out of the tree, which gong-gong said was the colour of everyone's blood and she shouldn't be ashamed because they were different on the outside. It is in the spirit - in the heart of our beings that we are the same, Mei-Lin.
"Well, we don't have any red," said Teacher, getting the funny look she sometimes did when Mei-Lin asked the questions Sara said were stupid. "Because everyone knows that!" Except Mei-Lin didn't, and so she asked so she would know. "There's some yellow left. You could be a yellow fairy."
"But I don't want to be a fairy at all," she explained, careful to pronounce the words as Teacher did, as the other children did. "I want to be a dragon."
In the classroom behind her, someone sniggered. Teacher went still, and a line creased her brow. "We don't have dragons in this performance, Mei-Lin. You'll just have to be a fairy like the other girls."
She walked back to her chair with the yellow wings and sat down.
Two seats away, Sara leaned over to Michelle and whispered loudly, "What kind of person wants to be a dragon, anyway? Dragons are evil and ugly."
Michelle giggled. "So it's perfect for her!"
Mei-Lin stared at her hands, at her skin which the other children said was yellow and thought of the dragon dancing in the street in the New Year, chasing the pearl of prosperity. She thought of the Four Dragons of the Eastern Sea, bringing rain to the parched villagers when the Jade Emperor had turned his face from the earth. She thought of her birthday, in the Year of the Dragon.
Her gong-gong always said she had a dragon inside her - luck-bringer, rain-giver, prosperous, fortunate, and blessed.
But the class performance had no dragons, and so the little black-haired fairy donned her yellow wings and dutifully sang and recited with the others and went home that night with her hand firmly holding her gong-gong's to dream of a day when the dragon might spread its wings and be recognised in all its glory.
It never came.
--
SUMMARY: The other girls were happy to be fairies for the class performance.
NOTES: For The Remyth Project, kicked off by
yeloson. Little Girl With An Inner Dragon
The other girls wanted to be fairies for the class performance. Pastels pinks and greens and yellows and blues with fluffy wings and satiny skirts that showed off their pale skin and hair of yellow and brown and red.
Teacher turned from Hannah and flashed the big smiling smile. "What colour do you want, Mei-Lin?"
She wanted red. Strong red like the colour of joy - like the colour of her blood when she fell out of the tree, which gong-gong said was the colour of everyone's blood and she shouldn't be ashamed because they were different on the outside. It is in the spirit - in the heart of our beings that we are the same, Mei-Lin.
"Well, we don't have any red," said Teacher, getting the funny look she sometimes did when Mei-Lin asked the questions Sara said were stupid. "Because everyone knows that!" Except Mei-Lin didn't, and so she asked so she would know. "There's some yellow left. You could be a yellow fairy."
"But I don't want to be a fairy at all," she explained, careful to pronounce the words as Teacher did, as the other children did. "I want to be a dragon."
In the classroom behind her, someone sniggered. Teacher went still, and a line creased her brow. "We don't have dragons in this performance, Mei-Lin. You'll just have to be a fairy like the other girls."
She walked back to her chair with the yellow wings and sat down.
Two seats away, Sara leaned over to Michelle and whispered loudly, "What kind of person wants to be a dragon, anyway? Dragons are evil and ugly."
Michelle giggled. "So it's perfect for her!"
Mei-Lin stared at her hands, at her skin which the other children said was yellow and thought of the dragon dancing in the street in the New Year, chasing the pearl of prosperity. She thought of the Four Dragons of the Eastern Sea, bringing rain to the parched villagers when the Jade Emperor had turned his face from the earth. She thought of her birthday, in the Year of the Dragon.
Her gong-gong always said she had a dragon inside her - luck-bringer, rain-giver, prosperous, fortunate, and blessed.
But the class performance had no dragons, and so the little black-haired fairy donned her yellow wings and dutifully sang and recited with the others and went home that night with her hand firmly holding her gong-gong's to dream of a day when the dragon might spread its wings and be recognised in all its glory.
It never came.
--
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