Wedding of the Millennium
Jean-Baptiste Rioual, Group 4: Fiction, French International School
he gazed into the soft glimmer of his lucid eyes passionately. "You came back!" she whispered lovingly,
her eyes glistening in the moonlight. He set his hands on her waist and lifted her swiftly off the ground,
her tulle dress twirling in the crisp night air. Just before the screen blackened and the closing credits
began to scroll, the sharp-edged letters “Fin” were outlined skilfully on the screen, as if an intangible
hand had drawn them.
For the first time of the voyage, a hint of a smile could be seen on the Kurun Princess’ usually indifferent
face. Gingerly, she removed the high-tech hologram viewer from her head with her perfectly-shaped nails,
revealing her squinting eyes, which were the gleaming duskiness found on a beetle’s wing.
The first gleams of sunlight peered through the battlements of the Great Wall, piercing the shrouding
morning mist. The pilot of her hoverscooter, a young man of pallid complexion, yelled in an effort to overcome
the deafening sound of the wind: “We have just passed Datong, Your Royal Highness; I reckon we will be in the
outskirts of Beijing around the tenth hour of the morning.” She did not respond. She could not respond. She
contemplated the Chinese landscape, wondering if she would ever see it again after moving to her betrothed
groom’s palace in Vienna. In three hours, she would be at her Beijing palace. She would be marrying the
handsome but vain Austrian Prince her father had chosen for her. She would be giving her life away. Had her
father lost his mind? What had happened to the loving father who had elevated her to the status of a “Kurun
Princess”, although she was born to his concubine? We were not in the first millennium, when duchesses were
forced into marrying dukes, and neither were we in the second millennium, when daughters of prominent
families were arranged into marrying sons of even more prominent families. We were at the end of the third
millennium for heaven’s sake! Was her destiny really to be betrothed to a prince solely to form an alliance with
Europe?
She lowered the drooping hood of her sea silk cloak, releasing her incandescent auburn hair into the
morning wind, in which it flowed relentlessly, as if it was the tail of a fiery phoenix. Her ferocious impenetrable
eyes fixated a distant object emerging from the dissipating mist. She pointed at it. Promptly, the oval formation
of titanium hoverscooters tightened around hers. She observed as her brawny escorts uttered incomprehensible
words in their earpieces, their eyes shifting apprehensively towards the approaching object, which now seemed
to be some kind of metallic parachute. After aiming his laser x-ray gun at the object, one escort at the front of
the formation, to the relief of everyone, announced: “It's safe. It is a parcel from your husband-to-be, Your
Royal Highness”. Immediately, the intensiveness of the atmosphere faded. But she persisted to purse her lips
that were painted black, and launched a despising look towards the solid gold casket attached to the parachute
she had just mistaken for a threat. But now, it seemed to be an even more preponderant threat: he was rubbing
her pre-arranged marriage in her face once again, and she could not take it anymore.
Abruptly, she opened the casket, divulging a red lacquered box in which she discovered a ravishing tiara
comprising seven single pear-cut diamonds supported by pearl-encrusted oak leaves. The morning mist had
dissipated entirely now, and the diadem’s glint blinded her eyes. She gasped in horror at the lavish present. He
had done it again. He had given her a present not from the heart, but a present for him to gloat of. Again. She
took a long, deep breath. Slowly, a single tear, shaped like the diamonds of her diadem, rolled down her cheek,
shining brighter in the peaking sun, than any of the tiara’s stones. Nonchalantly, she reached her trembling hand
to the box, and lifted the diadem from its velvet cushion, her polished nails delicately holding the flawless sides
of the bijou. Gracefully, she propped the opulent jewel on the top of her head, her stern eyes cast frontwards,
where the cluster of tall, smoked glass buildings known as Beijing was emerging from the grey shadows
surrounding the city. She had to get out. She had to escape.
She threw an anxious glance at her unsuspecting escorts. They were already on the outskirts of Beijing, the
sun rays filtered by the dusty grey clouds of acrid smog above them. In half an hour, they would be at the palace.
But she wouldn’t. She was clutching her improvised weapon tightly against her thigh, underneath her sea silk
cloak, ready to pounce. She had prepared it beforehand, bending the precious tiara to form an arc wide enough
to be used as a weapon. The Great Wall was coming to an end, and soon they would take on the main road,
surrounded by fanatical patriots waving the two nations’ flags. She had to act now.
On the spur of the moment, she jammed the sharp metal into her hover scooter pilot’s jaw, forcing him to let
go of the steering handle. Briskly, she elbowed him off the hover scooter, and took off as he plummeted
S
Shortlisted