Chapter 18

Before reaching a definitive conclusion Adair decided to read the other two books to see if they gave her any insight into what she needed to do to access the locked books. She then randomly picked the "Tale of the Bamboo Princess" next, since she planned to read them all anyway.

This time the title rang no bells with Adair. She assumed that it had to be a children's story from this world and not one that also existed in the Galactic Empire. At least not one she was familiar with.

It began with a young princess who was having a hard time trying to fall asleep, so her grandma offered to read her a bedtime story. Alas, even after the older woman was done with her story, her granddaughter was still refusing to sleep. Tired herself, she cautioned the young girl that if she would not fall asleep soon, the Bamboo King would come and take her away.

Soon after the grandma left, the princess started to toss and turn until she entered the darkness of sleep. However, when she woke up, she noticed that she did not appear to be in her own bedroom. Everything around her was huge, and she was able to see herself in a mirror pointing in her direction. It took her a moment to wrap her mind around the reality that she had been transformed into a doll.

Even stranger was that she could see her own body start to get up. Whoever was inside of it tried to walk around but was doing a bad job at it, merely wiggling all over the place. This is when the princess inside the doll asked aloud, "Can't you walk normally?"

The person inside the princesses body responded, "I'm usually only allowed to walk with stilts, so I'm not used to walking without them. My name is Muse, but everyone just calls me the Bamboo Princess. How should I address you?"

The young princess introduced herself and after the two girls went through the normal pleasantries, the girl in her body asked her if she could help her because she was having some issues. Because the princess was kind, she listened to what the Bamboo Princess said, and she agreed.

It turned out that the Bamboo Princess lived in a kingdom where her uncle, the current king, had banned all songs and dances and the kingdom was falling apart because of it. She apologized to the young princess she was the one responsible for turning her into a doll, explaining that her father had told her that if she ever ran into any issues, she could always trust humans to help them.

The princess turned doll quickly agreed to help because she couldn't believe that there was a place that didn't allow songs or dances. She then asked the Bamboo Princess how to get to her uncle, so Muse taught her all the customs and mannerisms that she had so the young princess would be able to take her place.

It took a bit of time, but eventually, after the young girl got to inhabit the other's body, the princess learned how to walk on stilts and all of her double's mannerisms. Afterward she got teleported to the Bamboo Princess' bedroom.

As soon as she arrived in the room, she grabbed some stilts and started walking down the staircase to meet with the king. The guards were shocked to find the princess returning after the Bamboo King had put a bounty on her head when she ran away from home. However, since it made their job easier they safely escorted her to the chamber room.

After they got there, the king dismissed the guards and asked his niece why she came back. The young princess pretended that she had never intended to run away. She had merely roamed around the kingdom's boundaries and had trouble finding the way back.

The king did not seem pleased with such an answer, yet he asked her whether she had at least learned a lesson. Unaware of what the Bamboo Princess was supposed to have done wrong, the young princess simply asked what lesson she was supposed to have learned.

Annoyed, the king exclaimed that she should have learned to never sing. When asked what was wrong with it, he justified it by claiming that he disliked singing. The young princess questioned him if she could dance or have a party, but that only made the Bamboo King even more furious. According to him, dancing was just as bad, and parties were undoubtedly the worst thing ever, since they combined singing and dancing.

Having had enough of his niece's questions, he sent her back to her room. There, the young princess saw cracks forming on the walls. When she looked out her window, she discovered that it was in fact not only her room but the whole kingdom which was crumbling. She then knew what she needed to do.

She snuck out of her room, bypassed the guards, and sneaked her way into the king's chamber again through a secret side entrance the Bamboo Princess had told her about. The king didn't notice her entrance, and right after she entered, the king called the head guard into the chamber.

The king then asked the guard to sing for him, which shocked the princess so much that she almost gasped aloud. A few minutes into the singing of the guard, the Bamboo King suddenly fell asleep, at which point she came out and asked the guard what just happened? Why would the king ban all singing if he enjoyed it himself?

The guard told her that the king was ashamed of his inability to sing. Not wanting anyone to find out about that shameful secret of his, he had banned singing and dancing all together. Ironically, he suffered from insomnia and needed someone to sing for him, so he could actually fall asleep.

The young princess called injustice. The whole kingdom shouldn't have to suffer for one man's problems. And right as she exclaimed this, a large chunk of ceiling fell into her hand. The head guard warned her that they had to get out. Since it had been years since a song had been heard by anyone other than the king, everything was falling apart because of it.

The princess ran up to the king and snatched the crown off of his head. This action made him wake up and he instantly reached to grab the crown back, but he fell out of his chair in doing so. Some guards heard the thud of the king falling out of the throne's chair and came rushing into the room to see the king holding the princesses hand while on his knees with the crown on the princess' head.

The crown was supposed to be only passed down from one person to the next person. All of the guards then knelt and bowed to the new queen of the Bamboo Kingdom. She then exclaimed to everyone there to spread the message that the king had passed down the throne to her and that a mass celebration would happen later today to celebrate such an occasion.

The party happened, and as soon as it was done, all of the cracks and pieces of the Bamboo Kingdom had fixed themselves. The princess was suddenly transported back into her own body, where she softly heard the Bamboo Princess thank her, before she disappeared, never to be seen again.

After Adair finished reading the story, she was left very confused. 'This has nothing to do with me learning my mom's magic powers. This seems just like a normal children's story. And an absurd one at that.' While she was able to extrapolate some core ideas from it, such as 'Being a dictator is bad' and 'If you are brave and willing to go against the threat of everyone else, you can save everything you love', but neither of these things had anything to do with magic as far as she could tell.

The book also touched on transforming into one thing from another thing, so maybe it was not uncommon for people to transform from one being to another? ...or perhaps she was looking too deep into this whole thing, and it really was just a children's book that had no other significance.

Adair refused to believe such a possibility. There had to be a reason why her mom had included these books. If they were just simple entertainment for a little kid then why did they all have those small circles that needed a blood drop to be opened?

Adair read through the book a few times trying to find a hidden message like a password that unlocked the other books if she read it.