ORIGINS: In the original series, each of the third character’s eyes looked like a face in profile. It wasn’t much of a prompt, but we thought we could use the expression In whose favor will the scales tip? and see who would gain ownership of the body.
By the way, the winners are built from the eyes of each character.
The little monkey lost; the scales tipped in the wizard’s favor, and I have the dubious honor of having to explain why. It would hurt less if I could just say that the wizard has my eyes and that was all it took, but that would be a lie. I didn’t factor into the decision at all. The wizard won because the little monkey only knows how to imitate others. Because it would never have thought of stealing the Fire, not before watching someone else do it first. And the wizard has already coined the spell that will turn fire balls into a relic of the past.
I want to cry, but I am doing my best to refrain. The duck has already won; the prize is his, and I have no intention of adding my tears to it. I am not a mermaid; my tears will never be worth their weight in pearls, but they mean something to me, and I refuse to share them with that duck. Never with that duck that lives between two Blue Things, and doesn’t seem to care all that much about any of them. If it were allowed, I would like my tears to be a consolation prize. For that lamia that combs her hair every day, and at least seems to be treasuring her memories. But only the winner gets a prize, and I will do my best to keep my tears to myself.
Today my childhood comes to its natural end. It’s time to weigh what I have gained against what I have lost. In this bowl goes the owl and in that one goes the pierrot. The lessons I have learned, the ones that make the world a darker place, and all my heartbreaks, all the things that I can no longer love because it hurts too much. My dreams. The tender parts of myself that made me easy prey. All the words that weren’t just borrowed moonlight. There, it’s done. The owl weighs more, and I guess I should smile because it means that I have gained more than I have lost. But I just wish I could have grown into someone I could still love.
I don’t know what to tell you. One is a penguin that’s doing its best to keep its egg warm, and the other is just a doll that isn’t worth anything without a child hugging it tight. I never expected any other outcome. I just wish that all the little parts of myself that I buried like treasure when I was a child could still be found where I left them. That all the dreams I put in my dolls’ mouths still fit in the grown-up I am now. But the cold has already touched me, and dreams are what I want to nurture in someone that only knows warmth, like I once did.