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The Girl in the Garden: A Fairytale, Doctor/Rose, All ages
All his life they told him, "Don't go down to the gates, and do not go outside. Outside, there are monsters, and terrors, and the Big Bad Wolf waits to devour you.", 2570 words
A/N: The thing about writing a fairytale is the Rule of Threes. So thanks, three times, to seeing_history for the beta, and to you, for reading the disturbed furniture of my medicated mind.
The Girl in the Garden: A Fairytale
Once upon a time, there was a young prince with a wanderer's soul. All his life they told him, "Don't go down to the gates, and do not go outside. Outside, there are monsters, and terrors, and the Big Bad Wolf waits to devour you." And for ages and ages, he listened to them.
They lived in perfect ivory towers that soared, unassailable, inside a single, perfect crystal with twelve gates. Safe behind the gates from the terrors that beset all other kingdoms, they watched with calm, studious gazes, and did not judge. They had no needs and few wants, kept in absolute comfort in the untarnished beauty of pure intellect. They were wise and strong and impartial, and nothing could touch them.
Time had no power over them, and Death drifted away. They were content with this, and grateful to the mysteries of their ivory towers and their perfect crystal. And if they had the occasional wandering soul, they told them all, always, "Don't go down to the gates, and do not go outside. The Big Bad Wolf will destroy you."
The Wanderer would go down to the gates anyway and stand there, and he would listen to the plights of the worlds beyond the crystal, calling to him, and he would hear the lonely song of the Big Bad Wolf. For that was what it was to him, a song, and not the pitiless wail his people described.
He went down the day he was made a Prince, and the song of the Wolf sounded like a celebration, and the gleam of the worlds beyond the crystal looked like a highway of diamonds. They shone and glowed, and the ivory towers seemed dim behind him in comparison.
"Don't go down to the gates," they said, "and do not go outside. The Big Bad Wolf is there." And he turned away, because he had much to do and much to learn, and he believed that he was needed. There were things outside the gates that only he could see, and he needed to teach the people to see them, too.
But the wanderer's soul within him burned, and the song of the Wolf ached in his memory. And the people listened for a time, and then forgot.
The day they brought him the foundling child, and asked him to care for her, he went down to the gates again. The song of the Wolf sounded like a promise, and the winds of the worlds beyond the crystal smelled like hope. They wafted through his senses, thick with apples and oceans and foods he had never heard of, and the ivory towers seemed dull to him in comparison.
And they pleaded, "Don't go down to the gates, and do not go outside. There are horrors and evils and the Big Bad Wolf is there." And he had the child to care for, and there were stories he needed to write, and he believed that he was needed. There were words outside the gates that only he could read, and he needed to teach the people to read them, too, and especially to teach the child.
But the wanderer's soul within him was lonely, and the song of the Wolf whispered hope in his memory. And the people learned for a time, and then forgot.
He went down once more the day his family died (all except one child), and the song of the Wolf sounded like sympathy. The wailing of the worlds sounded like forgetfulness of the sorrow that held him. They had pain and despair like his despair, and his grief and their fire made the ivory towers seem frozen in comparison.
"Don't go down to the gates, and do not go outside," the people pleaded. "There is nothing out there for you, and the Big Bad Wolf is waiting to devour you." And there was nothing inside for him either, and his pain was like an ever-spinning blade within him, and so the Wanderer Prince put up his hand and touched the gate, and left the crystal safety behind him.
**
He wandered alone for an endless time, unable to return through the gate, and unable to reach the worlds beyond. The place was still and cold and the Wanderer Prince wondered why he had wanted to come this way, and also why he had been afraid. There was nothing, and even the song he had always heard seemed dim.
When he came upon the wall, it looked very grim. The wall was dark and dirty and covered with plants like the Wanderer had never seen, and buried among the plants was a single dark blue door. He pushed it open for want of anything else to do, and for a long moment saw nothing inside. He took a deep breath, and stepped through this blue door, and as it closed behind him, the Wanderer Prince found himself inside a dark, ruined garden. Just ahead of him, leaning against a tree, was a girl. She was nothing special, just a girl, and he had seen hundreds more lovely.
"I was waiting for you," said the girl.
The Wanderer Prince was curious. "Why?" he asked.
"I have sung for you," she said, "all your life."
"Why?" he asked again, though he could not imagine that this was true.
"You alone can see."
"Why?" he wondered, a final time, because this had always bothered him, how his people could never seem to understand with any sense they had what was beyond the gates.
"You have breathed the air of freedom, and that has changed you. You have been here long enough that already the darkness has lifted."
"But this is nothing to look at, and the world inside the crystal is better, though there is sorrow for me, there as well." Then, he found himself telling her a thing he would never have told anyone. "I came here because I did not care any more if I should be devoured by the Big Bad Wolf."
"Perhaps you will," she said. "Certainly, there is every chance that the Big Bad Wolf will consume your life."
"I don't understand. There's nothing here at all, except the cold and scruffy plants, and this tree, and you."
"You have a choice," she said. "Go back to your ivory towers and live safe with the knowledge that they were right all your life, and there is nothing out here."
"But I have seen the gleam of the worlds beyond," he replied.
"Go back, and know that they are of no consequence."
"But I have read the words of their stories and their legends."
"Go back, and be secure that they mean nothing to you."
The Wanderer Prince shook his head stubbornly. "But I have heard the song of the Wolf," he said, "and I know that, at least, is real."
The girl gave a coy little smile, and pointed to the tree she leaned against. A puddle of dirty water rested at its base. The Prince stared at her, and she said nothing, merely gestured. He walked around the tree to find a good angle to reach the puddle without ruining his clothes, and the girl shook her head, grinning. He circled until he could see where he had been, the crystal and the ivory towers, shining bright and fair under their glittering orange sky. The girl's grin grew wider, and her tongue poked through her teeth, and the Prince was a little amazed by her. So he knelt at her feet, and at the base of the tree, and cupped his hands, and took a reluctant drink. He expected to be disgusted.
The water was finer than any he had ever tasted, pure and clean, and cool with the flavors of life. The Prince closed his eyes and drank deep, once, twice, three times, and thought that he would never find anything finer than the sweet, rich flavor. He looked up, then, delighted, and opened his eyes.
The world he had come from, the soaring ivory towers and the crystal that shielded them from the worlds, was revealed to him, suddenly, a bleak shrine guarded by shadows, encased in the darkness of ignorance. The Prince was appalled to realize that his people lived their lives there. More, he knew at once that it was deliberate, that the leaders kept them cheerful captives, willfully convinced of the greatness of their crumbling mausoleums. They had locked themselves inside a prison of their own devising.
He turned his head, unable to look at what he suddenly felt he should have always known. The ivory towers had always seemed dim - he should have realized they actually were.
The garden, he was surprised to see, had come alive, bright green and fair and glistening, a thousand thousand colors of life, glowing in the gentle daylight of a warm sun he could suddenly feel. He saw a hundred things at once that he wanted to do, a hundred things at once that he needed to see, a hundred things at once that he longed to try.
Then, he looked up at the girl to thank her, and everything stopped.
He couldn't understand how he could have ever thought her ordinary. Nothing had changed, and yet she was completely different to his eyes, a perfect creature of impossible beauty. Her hair was like fine spun gold, her eyes alive with the light of stars. Her form was fair enough to drive a man mad with longing, and yet she seemed to carry herself with strength. He was in awe of her, enthralled by her, in love with her, all in the space of a few startled gasps of air.
He tried to speak, of how strange and familiar she was at once, how beautiful, how fantastic. He tried to find even a word, but they wouldn't come. The girl, however, just smiled, and helped him to his feet, and reached up a small, soft hand to touch his face.
"Do you think you know me now?" she asked, and the Wanderer Prince did not know what to say.
"It will happen," she said, and then she stood on her toes, and then he did know that there was a flavor finer than the water: the lips of this wayward girl.
**
They wandered together for an endless time, running through the garden and never seeming to reach the end of it. They talked and he learned all the things he should have known, about the worlds beyond, and how much they needed something to help them. He taught the girl the things she would need to understand if she was to come back with him. He made plans to find the way back into the ivory towers, to free them from their prison and from their willful ignorance. He also made plans to go out into the worlds and help them. He knew he would have a hard time doing both, but if he could free his people, then they could help.
They loved and they laughed and they danced, and they lived together in joy and in stillness, and they were happy, truly happy, in their love. She believed in him in ways even he never had, and in the light of her faith, he knew he could succeed.
"I'll make them better," the Wanderer Prince said one day, "I'll do what I can to help everyone."
"You'll be a healer," she said, "a doctor."
"The Doctor," he decided, and he smiled. "But you..."
"I'll always be the same," she said. "Changes don't change me."
"But you always change," he protested, for she did. Her colors were brighter or cooler, her eyes were dark or gold, her speech was strong or halting, her knowledge was great, or tiny. She was so young and so old at once, and the only thing that didn't seem to change was a strange innocence that hung around her.
"Not the way you will," she said. "And not in the ways that matter, either." She stood, and faced the blue gate, her back straight, her eyes bright and full of something wonderful. "I am the Bad Wolf," she told him, confessing herself at last. "I create myself."
"But you haven't devoured me," he said, standing with her, disbelieving.
"But I will consume the balance of your life."
"My choice, then," he said firmly. "I will always want to be with you."
"And I with you," she assured him. "The tree will take you everywhere you need to go."
"I don't understand," he began.
The girl sighed and touched his face again, and her eyes were the most sorrowful thing he had ever seen. "It's getting late. Come find me."
"What?" he said.
The blue gate burst open, and an arrow flew into the garden before the gate had even stopped moving. It arched high into the air and fell toward the girl. The Wanderer Prince reached for her, desperate to save her, to protect her life with his own.
She had gone. In her place at his feet, a single flower grew instead. All incredulous, and knelt there to see what she had become. "Rose," he said, and was filled with the strangest hope.
**
They had come to save the prince with the wanderer's soul, to take him back to their ivory towers, to the prison they could not see. But the prince had seen them for what they were, and knew what the world they had made was, and nothing could change that. He had a new name for himself now, and a new quest. He would make them see what they were, and he would go out into the worlds beyond, and take them with him to help him help the worlds. He would find the Bad Wolf, and he would bring her home.
He tried to make the rescue party see the garden, but they couldn't even see the fragrant rose that bloomed at his feet. They couldn't see the tree, even as he stepped next to it. They couldn't feel the water, even as he offered it to them to drink. He dared not risk that they could find a way to blinker and blind him as they were blind, and so he touched the tree that the girl he loved had shown him.
It opened up, the very trunk of the tree sliding away to reveal a shadowy interior, and when he stepped inside, he was in a world he knew. The ivory towers had trees like this one, though none of the corridors within echoed with hints of a lover's laughter. The tree was no tree at all. It was a ship.
He took it from the garden to the world inside the crystal, and began his quest to change them, to save them from their willful ignorance, to bring them back to themselves. The fight would be a long one, he knew, but he would make it, he was sure of that. He could save them, from themselves and from what had been done to them, and then the Bad Wolf would be waiting for him to find her.
He would always find her, he knew that. She had promised to never change, and she had promised to be there. If he believed in one thing, just one, it was her, the Bad Wolf, his Rose.
All his life they told him, "Don't go down to the gates, and do not go outside. Outside, there are monsters, and terrors, and the Big Bad Wolf waits to devour you.", 2570 words
A/N: The thing about writing a fairytale is the Rule of Threes. So thanks, three times, to seeing_history for the beta, and to you, for reading the disturbed furniture of my medicated mind.
The Girl in the Garden: A Fairytale
Once upon a time, there was a young prince with a wanderer's soul. All his life they told him, "Don't go down to the gates, and do not go outside. Outside, there are monsters, and terrors, and the Big Bad Wolf waits to devour you." And for ages and ages, he listened to them.
They lived in perfect ivory towers that soared, unassailable, inside a single, perfect crystal with twelve gates. Safe behind the gates from the terrors that beset all other kingdoms, they watched with calm, studious gazes, and did not judge. They had no needs and few wants, kept in absolute comfort in the untarnished beauty of pure intellect. They were wise and strong and impartial, and nothing could touch them.
Time had no power over them, and Death drifted away. They were content with this, and grateful to the mysteries of their ivory towers and their perfect crystal. And if they had the occasional wandering soul, they told them all, always, "Don't go down to the gates, and do not go outside. The Big Bad Wolf will destroy you."
The Wanderer would go down to the gates anyway and stand there, and he would listen to the plights of the worlds beyond the crystal, calling to him, and he would hear the lonely song of the Big Bad Wolf. For that was what it was to him, a song, and not the pitiless wail his people described.
He went down the day he was made a Prince, and the song of the Wolf sounded like a celebration, and the gleam of the worlds beyond the crystal looked like a highway of diamonds. They shone and glowed, and the ivory towers seemed dim behind him in comparison.
"Don't go down to the gates," they said, "and do not go outside. The Big Bad Wolf is there." And he turned away, because he had much to do and much to learn, and he believed that he was needed. There were things outside the gates that only he could see, and he needed to teach the people to see them, too.
But the wanderer's soul within him burned, and the song of the Wolf ached in his memory. And the people listened for a time, and then forgot.
The day they brought him the foundling child, and asked him to care for her, he went down to the gates again. The song of the Wolf sounded like a promise, and the winds of the worlds beyond the crystal smelled like hope. They wafted through his senses, thick with apples and oceans and foods he had never heard of, and the ivory towers seemed dull to him in comparison.
And they pleaded, "Don't go down to the gates, and do not go outside. There are horrors and evils and the Big Bad Wolf is there." And he had the child to care for, and there were stories he needed to write, and he believed that he was needed. There were words outside the gates that only he could read, and he needed to teach the people to read them, too, and especially to teach the child.
But the wanderer's soul within him was lonely, and the song of the Wolf whispered hope in his memory. And the people learned for a time, and then forgot.
He went down once more the day his family died (all except one child), and the song of the Wolf sounded like sympathy. The wailing of the worlds sounded like forgetfulness of the sorrow that held him. They had pain and despair like his despair, and his grief and their fire made the ivory towers seem frozen in comparison.
"Don't go down to the gates, and do not go outside," the people pleaded. "There is nothing out there for you, and the Big Bad Wolf is waiting to devour you." And there was nothing inside for him either, and his pain was like an ever-spinning blade within him, and so the Wanderer Prince put up his hand and touched the gate, and left the crystal safety behind him.
**
He wandered alone for an endless time, unable to return through the gate, and unable to reach the worlds beyond. The place was still and cold and the Wanderer Prince wondered why he had wanted to come this way, and also why he had been afraid. There was nothing, and even the song he had always heard seemed dim.
When he came upon the wall, it looked very grim. The wall was dark and dirty and covered with plants like the Wanderer had never seen, and buried among the plants was a single dark blue door. He pushed it open for want of anything else to do, and for a long moment saw nothing inside. He took a deep breath, and stepped through this blue door, and as it closed behind him, the Wanderer Prince found himself inside a dark, ruined garden. Just ahead of him, leaning against a tree, was a girl. She was nothing special, just a girl, and he had seen hundreds more lovely.
"I was waiting for you," said the girl.
The Wanderer Prince was curious. "Why?" he asked.
"I have sung for you," she said, "all your life."
"Why?" he asked again, though he could not imagine that this was true.
"You alone can see."
"Why?" he wondered, a final time, because this had always bothered him, how his people could never seem to understand with any sense they had what was beyond the gates.
"You have breathed the air of freedom, and that has changed you. You have been here long enough that already the darkness has lifted."
"But this is nothing to look at, and the world inside the crystal is better, though there is sorrow for me, there as well." Then, he found himself telling her a thing he would never have told anyone. "I came here because I did not care any more if I should be devoured by the Big Bad Wolf."
"Perhaps you will," she said. "Certainly, there is every chance that the Big Bad Wolf will consume your life."
"I don't understand. There's nothing here at all, except the cold and scruffy plants, and this tree, and you."
"You have a choice," she said. "Go back to your ivory towers and live safe with the knowledge that they were right all your life, and there is nothing out here."
"But I have seen the gleam of the worlds beyond," he replied.
"Go back, and know that they are of no consequence."
"But I have read the words of their stories and their legends."
"Go back, and be secure that they mean nothing to you."
The Wanderer Prince shook his head stubbornly. "But I have heard the song of the Wolf," he said, "and I know that, at least, is real."
The girl gave a coy little smile, and pointed to the tree she leaned against. A puddle of dirty water rested at its base. The Prince stared at her, and she said nothing, merely gestured. He walked around the tree to find a good angle to reach the puddle without ruining his clothes, and the girl shook her head, grinning. He circled until he could see where he had been, the crystal and the ivory towers, shining bright and fair under their glittering orange sky. The girl's grin grew wider, and her tongue poked through her teeth, and the Prince was a little amazed by her. So he knelt at her feet, and at the base of the tree, and cupped his hands, and took a reluctant drink. He expected to be disgusted.
The water was finer than any he had ever tasted, pure and clean, and cool with the flavors of life. The Prince closed his eyes and drank deep, once, twice, three times, and thought that he would never find anything finer than the sweet, rich flavor. He looked up, then, delighted, and opened his eyes.
The world he had come from, the soaring ivory towers and the crystal that shielded them from the worlds, was revealed to him, suddenly, a bleak shrine guarded by shadows, encased in the darkness of ignorance. The Prince was appalled to realize that his people lived their lives there. More, he knew at once that it was deliberate, that the leaders kept them cheerful captives, willfully convinced of the greatness of their crumbling mausoleums. They had locked themselves inside a prison of their own devising.
He turned his head, unable to look at what he suddenly felt he should have always known. The ivory towers had always seemed dim - he should have realized they actually were.
The garden, he was surprised to see, had come alive, bright green and fair and glistening, a thousand thousand colors of life, glowing in the gentle daylight of a warm sun he could suddenly feel. He saw a hundred things at once that he wanted to do, a hundred things at once that he needed to see, a hundred things at once that he longed to try.
Then, he looked up at the girl to thank her, and everything stopped.
He couldn't understand how he could have ever thought her ordinary. Nothing had changed, and yet she was completely different to his eyes, a perfect creature of impossible beauty. Her hair was like fine spun gold, her eyes alive with the light of stars. Her form was fair enough to drive a man mad with longing, and yet she seemed to carry herself with strength. He was in awe of her, enthralled by her, in love with her, all in the space of a few startled gasps of air.
He tried to speak, of how strange and familiar she was at once, how beautiful, how fantastic. He tried to find even a word, but they wouldn't come. The girl, however, just smiled, and helped him to his feet, and reached up a small, soft hand to touch his face.
"Do you think you know me now?" she asked, and the Wanderer Prince did not know what to say.
"It will happen," she said, and then she stood on her toes, and then he did know that there was a flavor finer than the water: the lips of this wayward girl.
**
They wandered together for an endless time, running through the garden and never seeming to reach the end of it. They talked and he learned all the things he should have known, about the worlds beyond, and how much they needed something to help them. He taught the girl the things she would need to understand if she was to come back with him. He made plans to find the way back into the ivory towers, to free them from their prison and from their willful ignorance. He also made plans to go out into the worlds and help them. He knew he would have a hard time doing both, but if he could free his people, then they could help.
They loved and they laughed and they danced, and they lived together in joy and in stillness, and they were happy, truly happy, in their love. She believed in him in ways even he never had, and in the light of her faith, he knew he could succeed.
"I'll make them better," the Wanderer Prince said one day, "I'll do what I can to help everyone."
"You'll be a healer," she said, "a doctor."
"The Doctor," he decided, and he smiled. "But you..."
"I'll always be the same," she said. "Changes don't change me."
"But you always change," he protested, for she did. Her colors were brighter or cooler, her eyes were dark or gold, her speech was strong or halting, her knowledge was great, or tiny. She was so young and so old at once, and the only thing that didn't seem to change was a strange innocence that hung around her.
"Not the way you will," she said. "And not in the ways that matter, either." She stood, and faced the blue gate, her back straight, her eyes bright and full of something wonderful. "I am the Bad Wolf," she told him, confessing herself at last. "I create myself."
"But you haven't devoured me," he said, standing with her, disbelieving.
"But I will consume the balance of your life."
"My choice, then," he said firmly. "I will always want to be with you."
"And I with you," she assured him. "The tree will take you everywhere you need to go."
"I don't understand," he began.
The girl sighed and touched his face again, and her eyes were the most sorrowful thing he had ever seen. "It's getting late. Come find me."
"What?" he said.
The blue gate burst open, and an arrow flew into the garden before the gate had even stopped moving. It arched high into the air and fell toward the girl. The Wanderer Prince reached for her, desperate to save her, to protect her life with his own.
She had gone. In her place at his feet, a single flower grew instead. All incredulous, and knelt there to see what she had become. "Rose," he said, and was filled with the strangest hope.
**
They had come to save the prince with the wanderer's soul, to take him back to their ivory towers, to the prison they could not see. But the prince had seen them for what they were, and knew what the world they had made was, and nothing could change that. He had a new name for himself now, and a new quest. He would make them see what they were, and he would go out into the worlds beyond, and take them with him to help him help the worlds. He would find the Bad Wolf, and he would bring her home.
He tried to make the rescue party see the garden, but they couldn't even see the fragrant rose that bloomed at his feet. They couldn't see the tree, even as he stepped next to it. They couldn't feel the water, even as he offered it to them to drink. He dared not risk that they could find a way to blinker and blind him as they were blind, and so he touched the tree that the girl he loved had shown him.
It opened up, the very trunk of the tree sliding away to reveal a shadowy interior, and when he stepped inside, he was in a world he knew. The ivory towers had trees like this one, though none of the corridors within echoed with hints of a lover's laughter. The tree was no tree at all. It was a ship.
He took it from the garden to the world inside the crystal, and began his quest to change them, to save them from their willful ignorance, to bring them back to themselves. The fight would be a long one, he knew, but he would make it, he was sure of that. He could save them, from themselves and from what had been done to them, and then the Bad Wolf would be waiting for him to find her.
He would always find her, he knew that. She had promised to never change, and she had promised to be there. If he believed in one thing, just one, it was her, the Bad Wolf, his Rose.