Worth Is Measured In Love

Chapter 6

By sundown the stage was all set up perfectly. The puppets and silhouettes were ready, as was the background, and the music. All that was needed now were some candles to use as spot light. Jellal had to go buy some from a shop just down the street from the fair, he left Shagotte to keep an eye on the children while he was gone. Gray and Juvia were sitting on the stage, eagerly waiting for his return so they could see the show. Juvia loved her brother's stories almost more than anything, because imagination was the only way she could see now. She would always listen so intently to his words and picture each detail in her mind.

"I wonder what's taking him so long." Gray thought out loud. "People are going to start arriving here soon and I doubt they'll be patient."

"Is there anyone out there right now?"

"Just people passing by." Then Gray saw the among them was a pretty young woman who was carrying a basket flowers. Roses to be exact. Yellow ones, pink ones, red ones, and of course white ones. An idea occurred to him. "Wait here Juvia."

He stepped down from the stage and approached the woman.

"Hello there." She greeted him kindly. "Would you like a flower?"

"Yes please." He said. "A white one."

She handed him the prettiest white rose in her basket.

"Thank you." He said.

 Gray hurried back to the stage and sat next to Juvia.

"I've got something for you." He told her.

"What is it?" She asked.

"Give me your hand."

He carefully guided her fingers on to the parts of the stem that didn't have thorns, she could recognize what the flower was but tracing the stem with her finger and smelling the petals's perfume.

"It's a rose." She said.

"A white one. You said that they were your favorite."

"You remembered." She said looking at him touched. "Ouch!"

"What?" 

"I think I pricked my finger on a thorn."

Gray took her hand into both of his and saw a tiny drop of blood drip from her finger.

"You did." He said, pulling out a handkerchief and using it to bind her minor wound. "I don't know why you like these flowers so much. Yes they're pretty but they're painful if you don't hold them right."

"I love them because they're in my favorite story."

"Oh yeah. I forgot, the beast wanted to kill Beauty's father over a rose. That's kind of morbid don't you think?"

"I like to think that the rose was magic and that's why the beast was so mad."

"Magic? How?"

"We'll maybe the roses acted as a form of hour glass. What if the beast had until all the roses in his garden died to break the curse? If they wilted away before he found love then he'd be a beast forever. And when the merchant plucked that one rose, he shorted the beast's time and that's why he was so furious."

"Okay that does make his reaction more understandable."

"And I also like to pretend that Beauty didn't know that the beast would die if she never came back. Because that kind of makes her come off as little dim when her sisters trick her into staying longer."

"Not to mention I don't think the beast letting her go home for just a week counts as setting her free. Do you?"

"Not really. Ooo! I have a wonderful idea. Until Jellal comes back, why don't we tell our own story of Beauty and the Beast. Just for fun?"