This is a simple story. A story about how the 4 seasons began; a Queen and a King who ruled over two different lands of eternal Spring and Winter, respectively. I am the traveller, the story-teller who has had the immense pleasure of knowing them both. Here is their story.
In the land of eternal Spring, a Queen reigns proud and strong. She is the essence of Spring, the embodiment of all life. Her name means exactly that: Full of Life. In her warming presence, each gentle step melts away the night's chill, renewing life in her wake. Her kindness and her giving nature embraces all forms of life, great and small. No part is unimportant in her eyes, no one should ever be left out of her rejuvinating reign. Even the most stubborn hermits eventually yield to her sunshine. Her presence is celebrated by all civilisation, and her coming always herald new life and happiness in all her subjects' minds.
To the White King we now go. He reigned upon his throne of ice within his kingdom of white. Few had ever been allowed to have, much less survive, an audience with this monarch. Legends foretell of the cold bitter months in his kingdom, where black and white ruled side by side. By day, the King's castle was a blinding, collosal sculpture of crystal -- unequalled throughout the kingdom for its natural beauty and strength. The snow always covered up the injustices of the night, renewing life upon a blanket of white. By night, the fotress loomed like a dark sword across its kingdom of moonlight silver snow. Nightly snow always sought out disloyal subjects, freezing them into beautiful but deadly sculptures. The king was always dressed in magnificent white fur coats, though many say that he does so only to hide his black heart. The unatural snow that ruled this kingdom were once said to be his tears, a tough love that hardens his subjects and carves out some of the most beautiful natural terrain ever known. A trying place, indeed, but only if you're afraid of the cold, for beauty was always said to be the king's first love.
And did the King and Queen meet? Surely, they must have, for both kingdoms were vast and undeniable. Ancient folk-lore rumoured of wars once fought between these two monarchs, each wanting to claim the other kingdom for their own, in the name of their envisioned ideals. Though both King and Queen never spoke of the truth behind these rumours, I sensed from them both a hidden truth and sadness. This was expected, for this war between kingdoms had existed for a long time. However, it was not until I saw for myself these rumoured battlefields that I understood why.
At the boundary of the two kingdoms lay the source of true beauty. This "war" which the ancient story tellers spoke of was no more than the magical meeting between the unique landscapes of the two kingdoms. The soldiers of Spring and Winter were no more than the liquid gold of sun rays and the cooling waves of gentle snow flakes. The blood that flowed forth from the clashes was life-giving nectar -- water. Upon these fields lay a greater diversity of life and landscape than could never be found in either kingdom alone.
Where the Spring Queen's warm smile met the cool charm of the White King, her liquid fire lighted the spring fields, yielding a charging season of heat and sweetness. This season was Summer. This season was beautiful, for it was where the Queen's power shone to its fullest potential. Her warm steps and carrass ceased to merely urge life forward, but commanded life to wake and listen to her. With each wave, her hand sent forth the glorious birds of prey and bustling evergreen vegetation to colonise all that was hers, and to protect her fragile Spring fields. Summer was a land of brilliance, passion and ambition. The Queen was happy with Summer.
The White King sat stubbornly in his Winter kingdom, and sought to match the Queen's Summer. With measured grace and dignity, he sent forth his warriors in relentless waves, seeking to weaken the Summer heat. It seemed for a while that the sun would soon be drained of its heat as each cold wave crashed upon its shores of evergreen trees. The animals of Summer retreated from these waves, but in their place came others -- those who were able to adapt to the winds and the cold. However, the White King still seemed to be quickly gaining ground. The heat and dampness of Summer mellowed, combined with the dryness of the Winter winds set the forests ablaze in a slow, brilliant nova of orange, copper and brown. Young trees became yellow in the warmth, while their elders coughed and shook their coper crowns in the mild weather. Autumn was born, in all its metallic splendor. The White King was pleased with Autumn, because it was colder than Summer.
It seemed that the ancient rumours had been hiding something else. My youthful and adventurous eye told me that there was probably another reason that the White King loved Autumn -- why he had not sought to create a land of "Summer" for himself. The King loved Autumn because he loved the Queen, and sought only to balance her natural beauty with his cold alchemy. It was during preparations for "war", the King had commanded his subjects that the essence of his kingdom was not cold and bitterness, but the essential balance to the heat of life. With that in mind, he told his most trusted generals: "Go forth, to calm the heat of Summer and cool its inhabitants, so that they might understand the beauties of our land. Show them that they can still burn without fire, shine without light and be alive without hot passion."
Autumn was born of both kingdoms. And Autumn was beautiful.
===========================
I know a girl. She is fast becoming a woman, and eventually a queen. She is beautiful, and her name tells all about her: Full of Life. She is free and she is beautiful. She bears upon all like the sun -- hot, glowing with passion and charming as Spring. Everyone smiles in her warmth. Her relentless and fun-loving nature makes her irresistible. I love her.
I am like Winter to this girl -- colder, harder and darker. I shine without the sun, for my snow is both delicate and hard. My seasonal processes are like ice, hard and transparent. Snow erases the tracks and shapes the ice. Storms and rain cover all that is ugly and unclean. But frequently, the scars remain and my heart is frostbitten.
Where we meet, it is Summer. Where we linger, it is Autumn. Back and forth we flow. Where we meet, everything should be beautiful. But because we travel, I sometimes find myself uncomfortable in her Spring showers and heat, longing for the clarity of ice. And she too, finds my palace too solid, too unforgiving, too cold to the touch. But it's these very reasons that we are different. These are the seasons we lived in. These were the reasons we loved the seasons.
These are the reasons why we can and also should be happy. Seated in our own thrones, it will be hard to understand why the other could not move to change. When we truely meet, and shed our crowns, we will see that we are the same, that we belonged with the seasons.
This story is dedicated to her, and to us. And to the enduring happiness that we shared and will continue to share.
: )
JKLM
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