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Flora

Once there was a beautiful girl who lived in the middle of a brier patch. She had been born in a small house in the middle of a meadow but, as she grew, her parents had begun to worry.

The lords of the land had a bad habit of taking beautiful girls away with them, and the lords’ ladies had a bad habit of preemptively murdering their competition. It wasn’t unknown for poor parents to mar the beauty of their own daughters in order to keep them safe.

Flora’s parents, however, had a different plan.

They planted fruiting thorny bushes all over the meadow, then trees, then hay, then vegetables. They raised chickens and small pigs and miniature cows, and so had everything they needed.

And their beautiful baby grew into a beautiful girl and then a beautiful woman, and nobody knew she existed, so nobody coveted her or was jealous of her.

One day, a bird landed on her windowsill and said, “Flora, are you lonely?”

No bird had ever spoken to her before, at least not in human language, but she knew so little of the world she didn’t think it was strange — at least, not very strange.

“What is lonely?” she asked.

“Lonely is when there’s an empty place inside you where someone else should be. If you didn’t have your mother or your father, you would be lonely for them.”

“But I have my mother and father,” said Flora, “so, no, I’m not lonely.”

The next day and the next, the bird came to her window and said, “Flora, are you lonely?” and each day she said, “No, I’m not lonely.”

The next day the bird didn’t come, nor the next nor the next nor the next. For a week, Flora looked for the bird in vain.

After seven days, the bird came to her window and said, “Flora, are you lonely?”

“No,” she said, with tears in her eyes, “but I was. I was lonely for you.”

“Would your heart break without me?”

“Well, no. But I’m happy you’re back.”

This time, two weeks passed before the bird returned.

“Flora, are you lonely?”

“I was. I was lonely for you. I wept.”

“Did your heart break? Would it break if you never saw me again?”

“I think my heart would hurt for a long time, but it wouldn’t break.”

For a month, there was no bird. Flora’s parents asked her what was wrong with her, and she said she was fine. They brewed her medicine and sang happy songs and did everything they could think of to lift her melancholy, but she was never far from tears, more so as time passed.

At last, the bird returned.

“Flora, are you lonely?”

“I am. I was lonely while you were gone, and I’m lonely now because I know you’ll leave. My heart is breaking with happiness to see you and sorrow to be without you.”

“Then follow me to the briers. Come now.”

Flora followed the bird through the gardens, the barnyard, and the hayfield to where the briers twined a barrier between safety and the world.

“Prick your finger,” said the bird, and step back.”

Flora ran a finger along the point of a brier and watched her blood spill down the stem.

When she stepped back, the bird threw itself onto the bloody thorn, piercing its breast. It fell to the ground, dead.

Flora gasped and knelt beside the bird. She cupped its body in her hands and wept so that she couldn’t see.

The bird grew too heavy to hold. She let it go and wiped her eyes.

In place of the dead bird was a living person dressed in pale blue. The person was young, as she was, but had a beard, like her father.

He took her in his arms and held her gently and dried her tears with his sleeve.

“I am Avis,” he said. “No one in particular. There were those who called me handsome, and my vanity knew no bounds. As a punishment, I was changed into a small, plain bird, doomed to remain so until a beautiful maiden’s heart broke for me, small, unimportant, and plain as I had become. Thank you, Flora.”

“But,” she said, “now that you’re unenchanted, are you handsome again? I have no way of knowing, but I like the way you look. Is that handsome?”

He shrugged. “Perhaps.”

“Will you leave?”

“How?” said Avis.

“You could take my father’s hoe and cut through the briers and go back to the wide world. I’ve known for years how it could be done, but I had no reason to leave. I wanted nothing but what I had here. Now I want to be with you.” She sighed. “And then my heart will break of loneliness for my parents and for my little house.”

“My heart was never in danger of breaking until I spoke to you and then spent time away,” he said. “Now, I want both of us to have full, happy hearts. Suppose I speak to your parents and ask to be your husband. Suppose we live here together in our own little household.”

And so they did.

A year later, Flora delivered a beautiful daughter and they named her Blossom.

As Avis looked warmly at his wife and child, he said, “Flora, are you lonely?”

Flora looked from the babe in her arms to the (she was convinced) handsome man at her hearth, she said, “No. Not yet.”

GOD, I love fairy tales!

Anyway, I’m still having a blast with Maniology’s Korea plates. My base color is bright blue, stamped with dark brown and reverse-painted with pink, dark green, and pale blue.

MY PROMPT FOR TODAY: These nails.

MA