@Yolech said in Fan-fiction: Tearmoon Empire short story: Starting at the Guillotine—Again and Again and Again…:
@jazzyjeoff cool story. It feels complete as is imo.
Oh my, she's The Diary?! Or the biography in the later iterations?
Did you plan to expand on the imperfect futures Mia read about?
Thanks for reading!
I did start a new volume with this, but I hit a block and now there are two stories ahead of it (A Citrina story and an original work that I am trying to write in time for the J-Novel contest).
I am not going to pull out the semi-complete chapters, but the plot is as follows (I will probably delete this at some point).
The original idea was to do a little bit of “Lion King 1 and 1/2” with part of it—having an arc that follows the original Tearmoon diary arc—with Mia’s mom communicating in Mia’s dreams in the diary. The empress gives Mia some very cold and calculating ideas on how to survive. Mia has no memory of these dreams each times she awakens—but has vague urges to do something related to what her mother suggests, but Mia takes on a completely different strategy (her mom knows that a plague is going to start in the New Moon district, so she tells Mia to chase out the residents and burn it down. She urges Mia to seduce Gain Remno to secure an army, etc.) At the end of the arc Mia changes her fate by doing essentially the exact opposite of what the empress directed Mia to do, The diary disappears and Mia’s mom magically appears behind Mia’s back. Realizing that Mia succeeded by essentially doing the opposite of everything that she instructed, Mia’s mom concludes that maybe her sanity is not so good and maybe she needs to work on that before she reveals herself to Mia. So she secretly runs away to Mathias (the emperor) who she tells everything to. Matthias says he will help the Empress recover and she can reveal herself to Mia when she’s ready. (there will be a scene in which the empress uses magic to disguise herself as a maid and brushes Mia’s hair as she talks to her.) While Mia begins the Remno Arc, the Empress feels recovered and tells Mathias that she is going to reveal herself to Mia when she returns. But then Matthias and the Empress are alerted that Mia has run off to Remno that’s in the middle of a revolution. The Empress panics and asks a crystal ball if Mia will be murdered. The CB says yes. She then uses one of her magic time-travel spells to take her to where Mia is located a week before Mia is to be murdered. Of course, the empress is assuming that she will be killed in Remno, but instead she Mia was to be murdered 40 years into the future into the timeline that would become Bel-Evil Rafina timeline—and once again she’s trapped in a book, The Saint Princess Mia Chronicles! Mia dies and the SPMC is passed on to Bel. The empress is able to talk to Bel in her dreams, the same way she talked to Mia—but this time the empress gives compassionate advice—when Bel’s heart begins to become poisoned with hatred ed towards Rafina—the Empress reminds her that she is Mia’s Granddaughter and that is not what she would want, etc. When Bel meets her apparent end she gives her impassioned speech to her pursuers—and a drop of her blood falls onto the SPMC which sends Bel back into time and frees the Empress. As that happens Bel’s hellscape Tearmoon is transformed into an utopian paradise. The newly released Empress is wandering around and runs into Bel’s father who is searching for Bel, whose horse had returned without her. The Empress asks to be taken to the the alive and healthy Mia—which he does eventfully. Mia recognizes her mom. Her mom tells her the whole story. Mia’s mom postulates that Bel must have gone back in time and stopped Rafina from destroying the continent. At first no one believes her because they have no memories of Bel in the past or an evil Rafina. But then everyone except Mia begins to smile—they have the taste of yummy cookies in their mouths—this taste is accompanied by them remembering some of their past adventures with Bel—a similar thing happens with Mia, but her mouth tastes like celery (this gag is continued through the arc —each time the crew recalls a new memory of Bel the flavor of increasingly wonderful pastries magically appear—while a jealous Mia tastes celery each time—Mia even begins to fake that she is getting the pastry taste, but is very unconvincing). The empress tells the crew that she can fix everything by using magic to switch places with Bel. Right before the empress is about to use her spell a 75 year old Mathias goes up to say goodbye to the only woman he ever loved—and kisses the 25 year old Empress—who immediately throws up. Matthias is crushed—and the Empress is taken to a doctor. When she returns it is revealed that the Empress was not really grossed out by the kiss—she is just pregnant and was having morning sickness. Bel’s little sister who is in attendance concludes that the Empress got pregnant from the kiss—Bel’s parents argue over who gets to explain to Bel’s sister why kissing can’t get a person pregnant. It turns out that when the Empress was first released from the diary forty years ago the Emperor and Empress decided to make up for lost time and made like bunnies. So the empress was pregnant even before she left Mia’s redemption timeline. Since she is now pregnant she thinks it’s better if she doesn’t try the magic thing—so stays in this timeline until the baby is born. So Bel has to stay a while longer in the redemption timeline. So everyone is remembering new adventures they had with Bel—which means they all get to taste sweets, while Mia tastes celery. The empress gives birth to a baby boy. Everyone is elated. Eventually the Empress and the young prince extit back to the redemption timeline and Bel returns to her parents (it is unclear how old Bel is).
Mia then has a new memory of her baby brother and mother’s return and it tastes like a wonderful strawberry shortcake. Bel finds her great-grandmother’s spellbook and then announces that she intends on becoming a time-traveler. She promises to visit often. Her mother demands that she be back in time for dinner. Bel recites a spell and disappears. Dinner time approaches. Her parents are sad. Bel re-appears in time for dinner but asks if a friend can stay over. Her parents say the more the merrier. The friend is Citrina, of course. The pair leave again to go on time-traveling adventures. The End!
