The Last Sapphire
In the first millennium, castles rose, European kings ruled, some not so kind to their people. For those who lived under King Marcomer, this could not have been truer. While riding through his towns, he became transfixed with a young common girl and brought her back to his castle to be wed to him. Despite carrying great affection, he was cruel to her during the union.
She grew erratic over time, lashing out and fainting often, until one day, she went for a walk and never returned. Search parties dispersed until Marcomer received word that his wife had wandered into the forbidden forest. Thinking her mad, he ventured to get her himself.
There, under pale moonlight, he was met with her true form. Hiding in the skin of a common mortal was a Sapphire, a race older than the first blood, thought to be nothing more than fiction.
He begged for her return, but she told him she had been away from her mother tree too long and wilted far too much. She’d now need to return to the Earth as a seed and could be gone for centuries before resurfacing.
Moss and dirt of the forest floor began turning to grain. The angry king drew his sword as the earth swallowed his dear wife whole; the mother tree’s roots snaked over the grave and kept it from being dug up.
The king demanded his wife back, which is when a Great Forest Spirit spoke to him. A Sapphire’s devotion runs deep, and because he had not shown her proper care and affection during their marriage, he had caused her to wilt at an alarming rate. Though the great spirit assured him there was a way to bring her back himself, it was grueling. He was told to return to the tree the next day.
When he came back, the mother tree was moving. Its leaves blew like strands of hair in a gentle breeze, and her branches moved as lanky limbs. Marcomer drew his sword once more as the great tree extended a limb and touched his heart. The great king fell to his knees and began to sob, twisting his heart and giving him great pain. He would return every day for the next several months and purge every emotion he had never set loose. It is said that flowers bloomed from his daily tears.
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Once his throat was raw and his body could cry no longer, he was told to bring offerings and came with his wife’s favorite flowers, her wedding dress, and the land’s expensive resources. The tree planted the flowers at its base and wore rings on its tiny twig branches, which sparkled in the forest sun.
Two years post-burial, whispers spread through the castle of the king’s increasingly maddening behavior. His servants and guards watched him enter the forbidden forest every day, sometimes with full wagons of wealth, and return empty-handed and befuddled.
Marcomer hadn’t ceased, and during one of his visits, he made the choice to stay. He told tales of his wife to the mother tree, and lamented his mistreatment of her. He was spurred on by ambition, surviving off berries and, some say, the magic of the forest itself. Marcomer stayed and meditated for one thousand days, certain his willpower would seep into the soil.
On what would be her birthday, he lay flat on the ground, gripping the mulch and dirt beneath his hands. Silently, he whispered, “Happy Birthday, my dear wife. I love you”
Just as the words exited his mouth, a great rumbling arose. The flowers shook, and the rings fell from the twigs, thudding onto the forest floor. He sat up quickly; the ground beside him turned to sand and fell away to reveal his wife. Her eyes fluttered open, and she sat up, as if only having taken a short nap.
They fell together in a new loving embrace. Those years had changed him from an apathetic, malevolent ruler to a gentle, kindly husband. Her hands cupped his face, seeing how his hair had grown past his shoulders, his once clean-shaven skin bearded and mangy, and his sunken cheeks from sparsely eating.
Marcomer had lost his throne, but gained an eternal love. They stayed in the forbidden forest together, Marcomer, unaging, as his Sapphire wife shared her eternal life with him.
Treat what you have well; the process to regain it may cost you everything.
