CHAPTER XI

The white queen sat, waiting for the dreamer's return. Her ravens would not talk to her, and that could mean nothing good. But she kept her composure and sat, waiting patiently. Finally, he strode into the throne room, with his hands behind his back, until he had reached the foot of her throne.

"You have been to the crone of the forest, and you return?" She said, still managing to seem calm. "I know then, what it is you bring. We shall have tea together, you and I."

"You think I bring you poison?" He asked. "You're wrong, I bring only what you sent me to bring." And then he handed her the flowers. They were just tiny, simple little things, but their beauty was undeniable.

"You bring only a more subtle poison." She said taking them from his hand. At her touch they began to wither, crumble, and turn to dust, and a sudden wind rose up and blew the dust away.

"You have discovered the secret." She said, her expression unchanged, but her voice almost trembling with hatred. "What now? Will you create an army? Will you overthrow me and take my place?"

"Oh course not!" Said the dreamer. "I want none of that! Return my friend to me, and I will leave in peace."

"You wish to see your friend?" Asked the white queen, finally losing her composure.

"Well, you have your wish! Here she sits before you, the barren queen of a barren land, the dreamer who forgot how to love! I hate you, as I hated your flowers, for they are a reminder of everything that I am not, and everything that I can never have. You see how they withered at my touch!"

The dreamer gazed at her. There was no telling, from his face, how he reacted to this.

"The gryphon..." He finally said, "Told me that the reason why nothing here is beautiful is that you cannot own something and love it at the same time. Set free the things of this land, and perhaps, you shall learn to love, and your love shall make them beautiful."

"But I can't!" Said the white queen. "You don't understand! Dreams are weak and frail. If I were to set them free, the world would destroy my dreams, just as it destroyed all of yours! I must keep my dreams to keep them safe, to protect them!"

"But why do you care about protecting the dreams, if you do not love them?"

"Because!" She said. "If I kept my dreams safe, for all these years, and protected them, whatever the cost to my self, then..."

And in that moment, she remembered. The tower, which had become her prison, began to turn against her. It turned inward on her, transforming into jagged spines, but it was too late. A single tear fell from her eye, and she said...

"Then one day you would return, and I could share them with you."

In that moment, her tear hit the ground, and the tower began to crumble. In her heart, she set free all the dreams she had enslaved, everything in the entire world, except those two parts of herself she had banished, because they did not fit in with her ideas of "perfection." These she welcomed back into her heart, and allowed herself to be old and young again. And just before the tower collapsed, she grabbed his hand, and together they fell, while the world around them fragmented and dissolved into a swirling sea of color so bright they had to close their eyes, and still they saw it.