The Gardenkeeper's Daughters

Epilogue

One night, a family of five was reduced to four.

The next night, they were reduced to naught but two.

The next night, the two remaining Virtues and the Princess they no longer knew came up with a long and elaborate myth to tell the world. No one would ever have to know the real origins of the mysterious "Princess of Dreamland". No one would find out about the bloody cloth that she kept tucked away in a tiny room above the throne, about the royal guard's medals awarded posthumously to a certain Vivian, or why a certain family in the country was shipped food from the castle for the rest of their lives.

Many, many nights later, a flower died in a castle that had just been built for two sisters on the land where long ago, a garden had grown and two young dreamers had been sisters, closer than a dragon and companion, closer than two lovers, closer, perhaps, than even Verhamera and The Princess, who spoke her words and knew the secrets of the universe.

This castle would be the place where the dreams of the younger sister would be realized, and where Hope and Determination would once again meet beneath the moon and fall in love beneath a willow.

It would be known as a place of hope for the hopeless, love for the lonely, and where two sisters took on the burden of being determined enough to survive to go on living when the world had long been done with them, and where two sisters had to learn to trust a world that would never feel quite as solid beneath their feet again.

The first sister, the eldest, failed the latter.

The younger sister failed the former.

It's cruel fate, but in the end, the gardenkeeper's daughter could not even nourish the flower that grew on her own back.

As best the older sister could, many nights after that, she tended to the garden that now her whole family had neglected.

She plans to die this very night, tending to her flowers.
It is the only way I could ever wish to go.

As the rest of this story is currently unwritten, this is where I leave you.

May you sleep with the still of the deepest waters, and may your paws ever run quickly across the stars.