"I will not harm you, Monkey. Do not be afraid. Please, bring me over to the tiger, so that he can hear my story and may choose not to eat me after all."
The monkey complied out of fear, and sat down near Rosie and the tiger.
She cleared her throat and began her tale;
Long ago, the Count Del Toro caused a great deal of suffering to those whom he held close. His wife was a loving and giving woman, but lacked the more feminine charms that my father cherished so. Their marriage was an arranged one, and while they both respected their parents wishes, they both longed for something more. She longed for someone to understand her, and he longed for romance and they did not meet at the middle. With time, the Count's heart began to wander through fantasies and then through the forest and surrounding towns in search for the passion his life lacked. On one of his forays, he spent the night in the forest alone under the stars. In the middle of the night, a Druidess stumbled across the sleeping Count and sat beside him, careful not to wake him. Finding him handsome beyond any that she had seen before, she crafted a wreath of ivy and placed it upon his head. She smiled and wandered off into the night in silence.
When he awoke and found the wreath that now covered his head, he was puzzled. Rolling up his mat, tucking the wreath into his knapsack and tying it to his horse, he continued to the town. All the way through the murky forest he felt that he was being watched, but he ignored the feeling. Upon arriving, he bought his wife the books she desired and a few other needed odds and end, and headed into the pub before he set out for home. He met a girl, soft and curvaceous that served him his sandwich, chips and beer. He watched her move about the room, gently smiling at all the patrons all the while balancing trays and mugs with ease and grace. Her wondered at her beauty, and asked the bartender if she was a taken woman. The bartender laughed a hearty laugh and replied, "No, but if you can catch her, you'd be the luckiest man alive." The Count viewed it as a challenge and his mind formed plans as his heart raced. The time came to return home, and he left her a small note that read;
Your smile, your grace enraptures my heart like no other
Away I must go, but know that until you are in my sights again
My heart will not beat, and I will be empty without you near.
The rustle of leaves followed him along his journey towards his keep. Again, he had a feeling that he was being watched as he made camp for the evening. As he drifted off into slumber, the Druidess again visited his side. She sat beside him for a while, watching the stars and keeping him safe from harm. She tended to his horses ailing hoof, healing it with her druidic magic. She returned to him once more, leaving a flower upon his breast and disappearing into the misty dawn. As the sun began to rise, he awoke to find the beautiful almost shimmery flower that had be placed upon his chest and as he smelled the flower the most amazing feeling of love and kindness washed over him. The Druidess waited in the shadows for him to turn around and look at her, but he did not turn. He thought only of the town and the woman he was so smitten with there. He decided that instead of returning home, he would again return to the town and the beautiful barmaid.
Walking back into town, he saw the girl fetching water for the days dishwashing. Catching her at the waters edge, he snuck up behind her and placed the flower directly in the barmaids face. She saw the flower and was immediately taken with him. Her eyes twinkled like diamonds, and her cheeks became blush with the passion of love. Seeing this, the Count took that opportunity to kiss her, and she kissed him back. The effects of the flower had been so intoxicating that she had let go of herself with wild abandon. Falling into the soft grass, they made love there and spend the better part of an hour tending to each others needs. The barmaid fell asleep for a moment, and awoke slightly confused and embarrassed. The Count was still half asleep when the barmaid wandered naked into the pond to wash herself, and when she went under to wet her hair, he blinked twice and she was gone. He waited for her to emerge from the water for almost an hour. Her clothes never moved, and she did not return. He went to the bar, to see if she had snuck off to her home to dress and return to work but she was nowhere to be seen. Telling the bartender his tale, he was laughed at and told that it was a very fishy story.
Confused, the Count returned to his horse and started back for home, heartbroken. He did not stop that night in the forest, but still had the distinct feeling that he was being watched. Arriving home, he fell into his bed exhausted leaving the knapsack with his wife's things by the front door. When his wife opened the knapsack, She found the wreath and the beautiful flower. Thinking that they were a gift to her, she donned the wreath and put the beautiful flower in a vase near their bed. Lying down next to him, and reading her new book until he awoke she was content and felt that maybe he did love her, and maybe he understood what she needed. When he woke, the smell of the flower and the sight of his wife lying there next to him filled him with love, and he kissed her softly at first, and then with a passion that neither had ever felt towards the other. Then they made love, and both felt one with the other. It felt magical and wonderful, and hours later they fell asleep in each others arms and under the soft scent of the flower.
When the morning light spread gently over her face, the Countess woke and decided to take her morning bath. While she was filling the tub, she felt as if someone was watching her. Checking out the window, she saw nary a soul about and glanced down at the flower box and found it undisturbed. She climbed into the tub, and relaxed for a bit. Closing her eyes for a moment, she felt something brush her leg and opened her eyes to a tub full of lily pads and a beautiful shimmery fish the size of her thigh swimming about. All of the sudden, the fish popped out of the water and spoke to the Countess, "M'lady. I am but a poor barmaid that your husband the Count took advantage of in the town a day's ride from here. He made love to me on the shore of a pond, and the next thing I knew, I was swimming at the feet of a Druidess who cursed me into this form out of her own jealousy. She brought me here to tell you, on the promise that I would be released from my spell if I did so and on the condition that I never spoke to your husband again. It was the Druidess's flower that cast a spell on us both, for she intended to have her for himself all the while. I fear for you now." And with that, the Druidess reached her hand in the water and pulled the plug. The fish swam down the drain and the tub was empty except for the lily pads and the wet and tearful Countess.
The Countess, naked and dripping stormed into the bedroom and narrowly missed the Count's head with the vase from the table. The Count looked at her confused and afraid and she pointed at the sad Druidess who was now standing in the window. Donning his clothes quickly he shoved the woman out the window and ran outside to chase her away. But when he found her, she had broken her neck from the fall and was no longer breathing. Not wanting the Countess to see what had happened, in his bare feet he carried the Druidess into the forest and back to her home. He walked onward for hours, looking for a place to lay her to rest. At nightfall, he found a clearing that was alight with fireflies and had a beautiful canopy where the stars peaked through and seemed to shimmer. The wind whispered the story of how the Druidess loved him, and when he laid her on a bed of moss, a soft humming overcame the glade. From the shadows stepped a circle of druids, humming a requiem soft and low. The Druid King stepped forward and asked him to explain himself.
As he recanted the story, he felt his toes and feet entwining themselves in the ground and forming roots. He continued on, and his hair seemed to grow into long twigs, and his arms into branches as he stood there. As he finished, quite unable to move, the Druid King spoke to him, "Count Del Toro, you have committed crimes against the nature of women. For that, you must remain here for a thousand years… one of many men just like you in the glade. Look around you before you can't any longer and view the nature of man and it's lust. This is where you will remain." Tree Sap poured from his eyes as he realized his fate. He watched as the druids surrounded the lifeless body of the jealous Druidess, and suddenly a soft light filled the glade, and she awoke a hundredth of her normal size and with wings.
The Druid King spoke again, this time to the nymph. "Druidess, for your crimes against the nature of man and for the evils you have placed against the unsuspecting women, you are hereby bound to this glade for a period of a thousand years, with only the ability to spread happiness and love to others. You can not serve yourself, and you can not go against the will of others. This is your punishment." In a breath of wind, the druids were gone and the man and the nymph were alone in the glade. Months passed, with both unable to speak to the other and both in misery.
When the Count failed to return, the Countess decided that then and there she would remain alone. As the months passed, it became painfully obvious that the Countess had become pregnant. Spending most of her time in the bathtub filled with lily pads, days passed into months and soon the Countess was in labor with nobody around to help. Soon, she delivered and when she brought the baby up out of the water to see it, she screamed in horror at the sight before her eyes. Dropping the tadpole out of the window and into the moat below she didn't notice her bleeding, and fainted back into the bathtub where she drowned. Years later, after her mother had not heard from her, she went to the house to find it filled with cobwebs and empty. The strangest part was the large perfect ruby laying at the bottom of the now dry and dusty tub. The mother retrieved the gem, and had it fashioned into a lovely necklace. When the mother herself passed, she was buried with it, but the grave was somehow covered in vines and flowers and the gem had gone missing.
The tadpole, alone and afraid swam and swam in search of warmth. She followed brooks and streams through the forest for months. Finally, she came upon a glade so beautiful that she wanted to rest. Her legs had almost completely grown in, and she climbed out of the water and found haven in a small log at the foot of a weeping willow. A few hours into her slumber, she was awakened by a fluttering noise, and quite instinctually her tongue flew out and swallowed up the nymph in one swift movement. A feeling of powerful magic grew within her, and as she stepped out from the log, she left behind small footprints of soft moss. Finally free from the chains of silence that burdened her father, he spoke to her and explained his tale of woe. She told him of her birth, and the fate of her mother and his wife the Countess. They both wept in agony, but at least they had each other. She stayed in the glade and made friends with the frogs, the leaves, the trees and the flowers. Her life was not unhappy, but the sadness of her predicament and that of her father and mother bothered her. When she was old enough to make it on her own, she and her best friend went off to search for answers from the druids."
She stops for a moment to wipe away a tear, and take a sip of water. Looking at the motley crew before her and wondering if she should continue.
