It took me a while to get this done, mainly because I was lazy. I've had this idea for the epilogue since about halfway through the story, so it's a weird little thing.

I want to think all of you for your input on my sequel questions. Overall, I've decided I do very much want to write one, and I will. However, it will be a bit before I get it up. I want to plot out most of it before I dive in.

Once again, thanks everyone for the ride. And the support. And all the jazz ;)

Arnold Shortman

Prompt 27 – Fairy tales

Inspiration – The girl at the bookstore who said write about love, and for the girl who inspired the feeling

The Tale of Two Gardens

"Once upon a time, in a kingdom far far away, there lived a young gardener. He was known the kingdom over for his skills, and he had yet to come across any species of flora he could not tame. He was able to fix just about any problem there was to be had with gardens.

And the king did indeed have a problem. He had two large gardens on his castle grounds, one that flourished with almost no effort at all. It was a gorgeous sight to behold, and it was admired by many. But the other garden was no such sight, instead filled with thorns and weeds that overtook the walls and grew back as quickly as they were pulled.

When the gardener finally arrived in response to his summons, he was given a brief set of instructions that went as follows: "The garden to the right is my prize. It is gorgeous, and it takes very little maintenance. There is a small stream that runs through it, and it gets plenty of sunlight. It rarely has any weeds to pull, and it does not try to grow over the walls. But I ask that you check it each morning when you rise and each night when you sleep. Now the garden to the left is a challenge. It has the potential to grow into a garden to rival my other, but no garden has been able to give it the spark it needs. I ask you to tend my gardens for me for the next two months. Keep in mind the gardens are both magic, and I shall let you take a souvenir from whichever garden you choose. Also keep in mind, your treatment of the garden will determine what souvenir will be presented to you. There is one rule I ask you not to break, however. Do not roam my gardens after dark."

The gardener agreed to this deal, and set to work immediately. For the first week he spent most of his time tending to the flourishing garden on the right, basking in the sun and admiring the beauty. He'd visit the garden to the left, but found the recurring harshness a bit much to bear. But he pressed on, relentless. He fought the weeds, he cuts down the thorns, and he spent hours watering the ground that never seemed to be anything but dust. He had grown to hate the chore of returning every day to find all his work seemed for naught as all he cut the day before returned.

But one day, he found something had grown.

And this spark of hope drove him to spend more time in the garden than anyone before ever had. It began to burst forth flowers he had never seen, the weeds decreasing in numbers. And he found himself spending less and less time in the garden on the right, finding it did not needing watering nor did it need it's plants cut back. He admired it's beauty, yes, but found nothing for him to do but wonder about, which left him feeling useless. This was a garden for someone else.

When the two months time had come to an end, the King was pleased beyond measure. "You are the first to make the garden on the left grow! Others gave up after a few short weeks. It never responded to them as it has to you. As promised, you may take a souvenir from my gardens. Meet me back at sunset."

The gardener did as he was bid, and was astounded to find that as the sun disappeared behind the hills, two large flowers burst for from the earth in front of the gates of each garden. Each opened to reveal two beautiful girls, though the gardener could tell from the way the extracted themselves from the flowers that they were two opposites.

"These are my two daughters," the king explained. "A curse was laid on them years ago by a witch whom I had hired to enchant my gardens. She cursed them to each have a garden to represent them, hoping that none could tame my daughter's rough ways." The girl on the left snorted. "Only when she had bloomed, would the curse break. Many found her too hard to work with, and much preferred my other daughter's garden that would never wilt." The girl on the left gave a graceful curtsy. "I offer you in return for your dedication, the choice of one of my daughters, should you so choose."

"I choose the girl who embodies the girl on the left," the gardener replied without a moment's hesitation. He watched her eyes grow wide in surprise.

"Me?" she asked incredulously. "Why would you pick me? Pick her! Everyone else has for years!"

"She is lovely, and her garden was nothing but a delight," the garden said with a nod to the other daughter. "But she did not challenge me, nor did she offer me surprises. Admittedly, it was not her garden that drove me to anger or caused me pain, but it was these things that drove me to make your garden grow. Watching it, well you, come to life was the best thing I could have ever asked for. If you are anything like your garden, then I could gladly spend years being surprised by you."

And so he was."

I bounced my feet on the linoleum, my hands clasped together in my lap to keep my hands from roaming all over the desk and the paper as she read over my story. I really hadn't planned on letting her read it, but she reminded me in a rather forceful manner that I had promised to let her read it all those weeks ago. She was right, of course, and I could not back out of promises.

"So…..?" I said with a hesitant cough, embarrassed beyond measure already. I felt like I could hold cookie dough on my cheeks and bake a batch in the time it was taking her to read my dang paper.

"So?" she said in a neutral voice as she peered up at me, her face blank. I felt my stomach drop into my intestines at her look, and I squirmed in the desk uncomfortably. I could lie and say I had to go pee. She wouldn't follow me in the bathrooms and I could wallow in my embarrassed pity until the bell.

"I know, it was crap and I can't write worth a hill of beans anyway so I'm sorry you had to-" I started to babble, cut off by Helga jerking me by my shirt collar and giving me a rough kiss. Whether she was shushing me or not, I didn't mind.

A collective noise of surprise and fear went up from my classmates, scattered around the room as we were spending our last day in Mr. Simmons's class sharing the stories we had gotten back the day before with our prompt book. I hadn't actually asked Helga about our relationship status until this morning, having felt a bit a nervous about crossing that threshold. She had agreed eagerly, and we'd agreed to share the news at lunch with Phoebe and Gerald at lunch.

Obviously, she decided she'd waited long enough.

But it was alright, we'd have the entire summer to figure out how to deal with the pressures of having to survive our friends. Or survive each other. Whichever proved to be the more daunting issue.