Lilly

Once, long ago there was a lush valley cradled on the face of a fresh world. It was alive and thriving with every manner of plant, tree, and insect. The flowers and trees were happy and joyful at the abundance of everything, life was grand. One day A beautiful, rare and solely unique flower sprouted. Absolutely a child of grace and wonder, directly from Gods hand himself. The whole valley wondered in amazement at the pure beauty and awe of the flower and its radiance. The bees made special trips to visit the flower and bask in her light as the Sun sang its songs, so the flower would wake up and dance.

The other flowers began to take notice of the extra attention the new flower was getting and became envious and spiteful. They made many attempts to gain the attention back, changing colors, smelling sweet, but it was all in vain. Eventually the flowers spoke with the trees and asked them to shade the beautiful flower and keep her out of sight of the sun so that only they would see her. The trees were unaware of the flowers intent to harm the new special flower and so they grew new branches to cover her in shade and keep her splendor to themselves. After a while the sun looked for her, but each day is born anew, and the beautiful flower was forgotten. Without the suns light to shine on her none could see her glow but the trees. Soon the Beauty and grace that was the new flower withered and died. The other flowers, glad to have all the attention back, soon forgot about the beautiful flower and her grace.

On the first day of the next spring God was taking in the splendor of the valley and all that he had created. He did not see the special flower nor her glow. He began to ask the bees and sun, but they had no memory of any special or unique flowers. Soon he came to the trees and since they had not known what had done, they told God of the other flowers asking them to grow in a new direction so that they may bask in the glow of the new flower. God became angry and demanded to know why the other flowers would chose to be so hateful to one of their own kind. They all shied and withered at his wrath, but when they had no answer for him he told them they were responsible for the destruction of one of his own creations and would forever wear the badge of their hate and deceit. The valley became as dark as sack cloth as the Sun was sent away. The next morning, they opened to find that they were all red as blood and covered in spines, curled and gnarled. The bees were wary to approach them for fear they would be pricked. The Sun even shied away for they had become a monstrous mass of spikes and thorns. The valley was forever darker place for having lost the flower and the light of Gods hand.