– The Mythical Earth Series – Nayad – The Water Lily Weeps –
In the time before man knew the world beyond the walls, there was a young prince who ruled over a great city. Though strong and handsome, the prince was rash and foolish. He saw himself above the old gods, and speaking ill of those Gods and the sacred faith, the prince was cast out from his people, exiled from his city. He wandered for many days and nights, across uncounted miles through the vast expanse of open desert. The coarse sand whipped around him, blinded him, tore his former finery to rags, abraded his tender flesh until he was raw, until his footsteps in the sand became red with blood.
As he marched onward toward his certain death, he began to pray forgiveness from those Gods which he had scorned. Just as he felt his end was near, he chanced upon an oasis, long lost within the very heart of the desert. His mind and body were worn, and with dire thirst chasing at his heel, he fell upon the oasis with grateful desperation, drinking deeply from the crystal waters with his cupped hands.
As he drank, he was unaware of a movement in the water below. The surface rippled, and a female figure broke through, blue and blue throughout her wavering form, wading slowly toward him. In his haste, he had not noticed the shrine which surrounded the pool, had not realized that the oasis was a sacred haven, watched over by an ancient and powerful being; She was of the Nayad, known in the ancient tongue as The Weeping Lily. She was both ruler and denizen of her sacred waters, the paradise of lost pilgrims, granting protection to those who come empty of want, asking for nothing, but willing to give everything of themselves in return; but for those who sought to drink from her in greed, the consequence was great.
She rose from the water and embraced him as he continued to drink from her fount, slowly drawing him down as he leaned deeper into her. She reached out to grasp his very soul, to take it into her own, drinking her fill from his life energy as he had from her waters. His body began to wither from the inside out, his skin became hard and cracked like dried leather, his bones breaking like twigs beneath the weight of the water. As the last of his remains drifted beneath the surface, she whispered into his ear,
“Fear the beauty that lives beyond the lilies, for I am life and death as one entwined.”
