Never a smile. Never a laugh. Even for a little while.

He danced and sang. He made a big bang. Nothing. Not even a twinkle of an eye. Because of this, he grew up too soon.

Instead of rushing over to hug her legs like other children would have, he stepped out from his hiding place and jumped warily down from his fort. Aware of his presence, she whirled around to face him. Her eyes were a luminous blue like his. They stood out against her fair skin and raven black hair. He wished he had black hair like hers. Everyone in Sykotica had dark hair. He felt out of place with his slivery blonde hair.

“Hero…” she spoke his name. He could feel the pillars humming her echoes.

“I have come, my queen,” he bowed low. As much as he would have liked to call her “mama,” he never dared.

“You’ve taken something from me, my love.” Her voice was cold like the bitter winter.

Hero felt like protesting but he found his mouth unable to form the right words. She had so many mirror shards. It wasn’t like she was using them all…

“Hero, you mustn’t take any more from the throne room.”

“It is for your own good.” she added as if to say protecting him was her only motive.

“Is there anything you want to say to me?”

Hero shook his head in reply.

She wasn’t convinced but dismissed him anyway, “You may go, darling. Remember that I love you.”

She always spoke those three words but never showed it. Perhaps deep down inside, he knew it was true. It felt more like a dream.

Hero excused himself and left his mother’s side. Even though he loved her, he was relieved to go. She always made him feel like he was a disappointment… maybe she didn’t mean to…

He should have known. There was no way of fooling his mother. She had a knack for knowing what happened behind closed doors. It was somewhat scary but necessary for the country of Sykotica. Hero didn’t exactly know why he took the broken shard. Yesterday, it all happened so suddenly during a game of hide and seek with his baby dragon. Hero searched high and low but his baby dragon was nowhere to be found. It was particularly good at hiding… sneaky little guy. And in the search for his playmate, Hero wandered into his mother’s throne room.

Odd… she wasn’t perched on her high chair.

He carefully tippy toed across the room towards the long jaggy curtains in hopes of finding his baby dragon behind them. Before he made it safely across the field of broken shards scattered on the floor, one glowed in front of him, catching his eye.

Hero bent down and retrieved the shiny little piece of glass expecting to see his own reflection as he stared down at it. Instead, he saw a girl looking at him (or maybe she wasn’t looking at him but something else). Her eyes were round like marbles and brown like the mud he liked to play in with his dragon. Her skin was as fair as his mothers. He wondered who she was.

Is she trapped in the broken shard? Maybe a jealous, evil witch captured her and put her in there because she was prettier. Hero thought it through and decided it was an improbable theory. She wasn’t really a beauty… but she wasn’t unpleasant to look at either. A sudden racket outside the marble doors startled him and Hero was reminded that he had a baby dragon to find. Without thinking of the consequences, he carefully slipped the shard into his pocket and skillfully avoided each and every piece of broken glass as he dashed out of the throne room.

At night when he was alone in his bedchamber, Hero took out the shard again and watched the girl move about her daily life. She looked no older than his mother (who never ages). She was in her bed with white sheets and in her hand, she held a picture of a couple. Hero didn’t know if his eyes were playing tricks on him but he saw little beads of water form in her eyes. The beads grew bigger until it bursts down her cheeks like miniature waterfalls. Never had he seen something happen like that before. No one in Sykotica ever had water coming out from their eyes. Although he knew not what was happening to her, she looked sad and that made his heart heavy.

Every night after that, he would watch her for a while before sleeping. Hero didn’t know it then but her existence in his heart grew day by day. After many nights of observing, he somewhat understood what the shards were showing. It reflected a story… a story about her tragic life. When the story ends, the glass shard would turn black as onyx and when that happened, he found himself sneaking into the throne room to steal another shard. There must have been a thousand shards on the floor. Each one telling a different story about the same protagonist.

His mother must have known he was taking them but she never brought up the subject again.

Twenty years had come and gone.

Hero was still fantasizing about the day he would get to meet her. If he focused enough, he could make out her high crystal clear voice… or was it all his imagination? She called herself Cyndi once when talking to herself in the mirror hanging on her bedroom wall… had he finally gone insane? No… it can’t be. He was very much sane. She was out there somewhere waiting for him to come alter her tragic fate. He shouldn’t be sitting here waiting for her to come to him. He had to go out there and find her himself.

Without a goodbye or a glance back, he left his mother, his home, and his title to venture out into the unknown. Hero took off into the darkening horizon upon the back of his childhood friend, the dragon. He was determined to find the girl, Cyndi, oblivious to the fact that he was not the only one who left the castle. His mother had disappeared and not a soul was willing to stay behind in the castle, the heart of Sykotica.