The Crystal Gardens

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”  She asked.

“Yes, it is.”  He answered, but his gaze was not on the crystals that clung to every surface of the garden.  It was on her, standing before him in a simple light blue gown.  Her golden hair fell down her back in a gentle waterfall.  Some of it had been pulled back and pinned together with a crystal flower.

From the first moment he’d met her, he had thought she was beautiful, but it was in this moment that he truly realized just how beautiful she was.  He felt his heart beat a little faster as she moved closer to him to view a cluster of blood red crystals.  He wanted to lean in, to tell her how much he loved her, but he didn’t.  After all, how could she love a criminal like him?

He was a man that would take the life of another at the drop of a hat.  It was true that he wanted to help people, to heal them as she did, but he was not afraid to take a life either.  It was how he’d lived his life for so long.  In the beginning, it was the money; the need to survive that drove him against his childhood innocence.  And after a while when the money didn’t matter anymore, it became his life.

“It’s called the Crystal Gardens.  The story goes that an elven princess stumbled into the cave one day.  She had been running from an evil enchantress who sought to cut off her golden hair.  Her hair, you see, had magical properties.  It could heal minor wounds and even reverse aging.  She stayed here in the cave for many years only going out to find what food she could.”  She said as she looked up at the ceiling, watching the star-lit sky twinkle high above them.

“Did the enchantress ever find her?”  He asked.

She shook her head, “Don’t you remember?  Every fairy tale ends with happily ever after.  When three years had passed a man stumbled into the cave, a human man.  The princess was afraid the evil enchantress had sent him, but when she saw him she fell deeply in love with him.  She immediately thought this was a spell of course, so she forced him from her sanctuary.”

“Not everything can end in happily ever after…” he commented quietly.

She laughed softly and it sent a shiver of desire through him.  She turned to look at him, “Well this one ends with happily ever after.”

“Thanks for spoiling the ending.”  He grumbled, smirking.

She laughed again.

“So how does it end?”

“Well, when the princess shoved the man out of her cave, he tripped and fell onto a cluster of crystals outside the cave.  Seeing him injured, the princess rushed out to help him.  The moment she left her cave, the enchantress appeared.”

“I don’t see how this is going to end happily ever after.”  He said.

She smiled, “That’s because you’re not looking at it positively.  You see the world as black.  Around every corner is another struggle, another battle, but what you need to do is open your eyes.  There will always be another struggle, but we make it through those and we have our happily ever after.”

He chuckled at her, shaking his head, “Are you going to tell me the end of the story or just lead me in circles again?”

She laughed, “The enchantress had grown old with age.  Her skin was wrinkled and her hair was whiter than the beautiful red it had once been.  As the princess knelt by the man, the enchantress dove at her with a dagger in her hand.  The man was not so injured to not stand, so he pushed the princess out of the way and the enchantress stabbed him instead.”

He studied her as he listened.  Would he dive in front of her if someone sought to kill her?  He didn’t need to think about it for long.  He would take the dagger for her too.  Through their travels she had annoyed him beyond reason.  At one point they had even parted ways in bad terms, but somehow here they stood together.

“The princess saw what the man had done and she became angry.  The man had done nothing but come to rest in her cave and she had shoved him out the door, even injured him and now here he lay dying because of her.  But it wasn’t just because of her.  She couldn’t control what the man did or what the enchantress did.  All she could have done is let him rest in her cave awhile, but she had not done so.”  She continued.

She was closer now, her fingers almost brushing his own as they stood there.  He wanted to put his arm around her, pull her close to him, but he couldn’t find the strength to handle her rejection.  He watched her in silence as she licked her lips and continued her story once more.

“She broke off one of her precious crystals and thrust it into the enchantress’s heart while she was distracted.  Something amazing happened then.  The crystal grew bright and bright.  It spread over the enchantress’s body and encased her in crystal.”

“What happened to the man?”  He asked.

“I’m getting to that.”  She chuckled and lightly slapped his arm.  “When the enchantress was defeated, the princess knelt by the man.  He was barely alive.  The princess cupped his cheek and promised to help him.  He smiled and told her it was okay, that death was merely part of life and he was glad to have laid his eyes upon such a beautiful woman as she before he died.”

He started to ask another question, but she pressed her finger to his lips.  It surprised him and he forgot what he had been going to ask her.

“She began to cry as she loosened her hair from its braid.  She knew of the properties of her magical hair, so she lay her long hair over the man’s wound and pleaded from the healing to come to her.  But nothing happened.  Again and again she pleaded, but still nothing happened.  Her tears began to fall more and more until they were streaming down her face.  She bowed her head and several tears fell upon the man’s wound.  She thought him lost, but when his hand tipped her chin upward she broke into happier tears.”

She smiled and withdrew her hand from his lips and waited.

“And…they lived…happily ever after?”  He asked.

She laughed softly and stepped closer to him, “Yes.  They did.”