All For a Red Rose.

"I would write you as a princess," the Storyteller said, holding her fingertips. "Or a fairy. As the Queen of the Fae!"

The Girl laughed, graceful as she stepped en pointe, bowing low, low, low, arms stretched behind her like wings.

"Anything I'd like?" the Girl asked, her dark hair kept from her face, her blue eyes warm as they looked at her. The Storyteller helped her on her piruette, turned with her and embraced her. "Anything at all?"

"I'll bring you the moon if you ask for it," the Storyteller agreed.

"Not the world," the Girl said, holding his hand, her breast against his chest before she danced away, the loveliest prima donna the world had ever seen. "Just a red rose."

"And then you will dance with me at the Fire's Eve festival?"

The Girl laughed again and she bowed at him. Her dress was so white and her skin fair and wan, the color of a rose as its petals barely started to bloom. The Storyteller held her hand for a breath longer, for two.

"Bring me a red rose, and I'll dance with you tomorrow," the Girl promised, moving away.

And so the Storyteller went to search for a red rose.

The Storyteller wasn't the most perfect dancer, he knew, and he wasn't the most handsome or the most brave. All he had were his hands, who could make stories and fairytales come true and the love he had for the Girl.

So he would get her a red rose, and she would dance with him: and during the Fire's Eve festival, the Prince would gift the Storyteller and the Girl with the golden apple, and their own fairytale would begin and end. This was a story he needn't to write, for he knew it must be true. It sang upon his blood as he gazed at his love's face, as he saw the way she danced, as she saw the way she laughed: like a nightingale, there was no-one more beautiful or sweeter, and he loved her so.

And she, the Storyteller knew, would love him too. He didn't dare to write this story because he wanted it to be true on its own.

All he had to do was to gift her a red rose and she would dance with him. The Girl would lay her head against his shoulder and the Storyteller would hold her waist, would lift her up, would be her partner for a pas the deux.

If only, the Storyteller thought, he could find a red rose. But there was none left upon Kinkan, no red rose that he could gift to her. He found white roses, roses the color of moonlight and snow, roses that reminded him of the Girl's dress, so he had to buy one of those. He found roses the color of peach and the color of a maiden's blush, so alike the skin that surrounded the Girl's existence; yellow roses, tea-colored roses; every color he had ever known the Storyteller found, except for the one that would bring him to dance with his love.

By sunset, at last, the Storyteller knew he had to give up. There was no red rose left upon Kinkan, and the only rose ha had was the white one he had bought on remembrance of his love's dress, of her white en pointe shoes, of the white feathers that she wove upon her hair when she danced.

Surely that must be enough, he thought, for his love was fair and kind, and she would know he had spent the whole day searching for a rose. Even if she wouldn't wear a red rose upon her breast, he thought that his white rose could still be upon her hair.

"I'll still take it, and I will dance with you," the Girl said, bowing her head, taking the rose gently. "I'm sorry you had to go through so much."

"Not at all!" the Storyteller smiled, helping her put the rose in her hair. "I'm glad that even this... even if it's not your red rose..."

But then, as he looked at her, he noticed: his love's appearance wasn't that of light and snow, wasn't just that of moonlight upon her. There was red upon her breast, a lone teardrop the color of the rose he hadn't been able to find that rested there, the seal of the Prince upon the jewel she carried with her.

And then his love blushed at his gaze but not because of him. Her blue eyes, her sweet face, the blush upon her petal-soft skin. She was the loveliest prima-donna that ever was, but never for him: for he had been useless, useless as a nightingale who sang petty promises of forever, for he hadn't been able to find her one lonely, perfect red rose. Not one like the Prince had been able to, not like the ones the Prince would be able to gift her.

The Girl called his name, but the Storyteller could feel it, in the way his hands itched as he wrapped them around her neck, in the way his eyes were filled with tears how the story should go, and he knew the way this had to end, for he would gift her her red rose.

"Once upon a time," the Storyteller started writing, tears upon his eyes, blood upon his hands. The letters were red with the blood of the Girl, red like the rose the Storyteller now had upon his desk, the thorns bloodied, and the Storyteller kept on writing. "There was a Prince who loved everyone and everything, the champion of everything small and weak... and there was a Crow."