Week 6 Storytelling: Two Bottles of Wine

Spilled bottle of wine

Princess Hase-Hime sat in the living room playing with her younger half-brother. As she played she thought about the last few years. Her mother had died when she was just five, and her father had remarried a year later. Where her mom had been loving and kindhearted, her step-mother was cruel and vindictive.

Hase-Hime had tried so hard to be good over the years. She had weathered her step-mothers cruelty without complaint and worked hard to make her father and her proud, however nothing seemed to be able to change her step-mother's feelings towards her. In fact, over the past couple of weeks, things had been worse than ever.

Hase-Hime had been invited by the Emperor to play the koto for him. Her step-mother had even been asked to accompany her on the flute. However, while Hase-Hime had practiced tirelessly, perfecting her songs, and memorizing notes, her step-mother had done neither. It had been a great embarrassment when her step-mother had played so poorly during the performance that another lady had had to step in for her. When the emperor had lavished gifts on her, her step mother had seethed in jealousy.

She'd been especially cruel to Hase-Hime since. Hase-Hime had even overheard her muttering to herself in the kitchen saying, "If only Hase-Hime were not here, my son would have all of the love of his father." Hase-Hime had been disturbed by this, but had quickly put it out of her mind.

Today she was playing in the living room with her half-brother. At four years old, he was playful and goofy, and he idolized her. She loved spending time with him, helping him to play make believe with his toys, telling him wonderful stories about all kinds of magical creatures. They were currently sitting on the floor surrounded by toy warriors, acting out a story with them as Hase-Hime told it aloud.

She glanced up as she saw her step-mother walking into the room with two bottles of sweet wine. Strange she would have two bottles, she thought.

"You two are both so good and so happy that I have brought you some sweet wine, and some cakes," her step-mother said, her voice sounding a little strange. Hase-Hime watched as her step-mother fumbled over the glasses, hands shaking as she poured two cups of wine, one from each bottle.

She seemed flustered and out of sorts as Hase-Hime and her half-brother grabbed their glasses and sipped at the wine. Over the next half hour, Hase-Hime noticed her mother staring at her keenly, but she'd quickly look away when Hase-Hime noticed.

Suddenly her half brother screamed in pain, doubling over and grasping at his stomach. He vomited violently, before collapsing onto the ground, seizing. Hase-Hime jumped toward him terrified and panicked. Her step-mother screamed, eyes wide in shock and horror.

"My baby, oh my baby!" She grabbed at him, fumbling her arms around trying desperately to make him stop shaking, but when he finally did, his body fell limp, his eyes open but unseeing.

Hase-Hime looked on horrified. Her baby brother, her precious baby brother was dead. Just like that. As she stood there, frozen in shock, her step-mother turned toward her, her gaze wild and angry. She opened her mouth to speak, but quickly closed it before turning back to her lifeless son.

Hase-Hime looked around the room, eyes settling on the two separate bottles of wine her mother had brought in from the kitchen, and shivered. Something was not right here.

Author's Note: So I wrote my story based off the second part of the story of Princess Hase from the Japanese Fairy Tales told by Ozkani. I tried to give a little bit of background into who Hase-Hime was before going into the part of the story that I was going to focus on, but basically Hase-Hime's mother died when she was little and on her death bed had told Hase-Hime that no matter what she was to honor her father and to be a good and obedient child. When her father married her step-mother, Hase-Hime continued to be a perfect child, even though her mother was so incredibly cruel. In the story it is pretty matter of fact about how her step-mother accidentally kills her son while trying to poison Hase-Hime. I wanted to make it a little bit less obvious, and just allude to the truth behind her half-brother's death in my version of the story. I know this story is pretty dark, but it just really intrigued me and gave me the chills when I was reading and I wanted to share. You should definitely check out the rest of the story however (Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four), it has a happy ending! Thanks for reading!