//This is not my story.I found this while reading a book.This is a good story.Apparently without a copyright.So enjoy...And this story is said to contain healing powers if u read it out loud...^_^" //
Once, in another time and another place, a kingdom of magic
and beauty knew a time of peace. No armies threatened its
boarders, no bandits plundered its trade routes, no plagues
sickened its people. Yet even in such peaceful times, bad
things could happen: accidents, misunderstandings, even
good people doing bad things.
The third daughter of the king was a bright and cheerful
sort. She wasn't the strongest or the prettiest of the
royal princesses, but she did have the nicest wings of
anyone her age. She loved to fly around the countryside
and explore the groves and meadows she found...they were
always full of surprises.
One day she found a particularly pretty grove, with a pond
glistening in a little clearing in the middle. As she went
in for a closer look, she saw images start to form. She saw
her own reflection, and as she lightly touched the ground
she saw that her reflection was watching reflections of her
own...dim watery reflections from her past.
"So you can see the pictures." The voice from among the
trees made her jump. "Don't worry," continued the young man
as he stepped out from among the trees, "nobody else can see
the same images, Princess. It's part of the magic."
"How...?" she asked, looking him up and down. He was a young
man, no older than the princess herself, dressed in the
rough tunic of a wizard's apprentice. "Who are you? How did
you know who I am, what I saw?"
"I am apprenticed to the Court Wizard. Everybody knows who
you are, Princess...and besides, I have seen you at the
palace when I have been there with my master." He paused,
glancing at the ground and lowering his voice. "As to the
images...well, at one time I had need of their magic."
"When I entered the Wizard's service, I had a great and
secret fear. Something...bad...happened to me when I was
younger. It hurt to even think about, and after time I
didn't think about it much. But ever since that time, I had
lived with the fear. When my master learned of this, he
taught me the magic of this pool and its stream".
"The pool reflects images from your mind...scenes from your
past, dreams of the future, even fantasies of the present.
The stream flows like time itself, upstream into the past,
and downstream into the future. If I followed the ritual he
described, these magics could wash clean the fear."
She made a face. "I suppose this ritual involves deep magics
usable only by Wizards?"
"Not really. All the magic is in the waters, and anyone can
use the ritual. Even a lowly apprentice." He grinned. "It's
pretty simple. After he told me about it, he brought me here
and then stood back by the trees. He said that he would
answer any questions I had but otherwise I was on my own."
"I stood where I could see my reflection in the pool, and
then thought about my fear. As I thought, my reflection
watched a reflection of my thoughts...like a stage where
dimly lit actors played out the scene against a colorless
backdrop. I looked up and saw that I was still here, in the
glade. I looked back at the water, holding on to a small
part of the special feeling of fear it had given me. As I
turned and looked back upstream, I saw more images...each
earlier than the last. I relaxed and let the feeling guide
me back to the earliest image. When I had that, I turned
back to the pool and found my reflection watching the same
colorless players in their dim reflection of the memory. As
my reflection watched, the image went from a time shortly
before the bad thing happened, through the whole thing, and
on to a time when it was all over. When it passed the ending
that way, it stopped...like a drawing. Then the drawing
faded away, and I was just looking at my reflection. The
Wizard had told me that if I stepped into that last part of
the image, it would run very quickly backwards, with full
color and sound and me living backwards through it all...all
the way through to the part before the beginning. It sounded
very strange. As I looked at my reflection again, it was
watching the image go forward again in its dim, colorless
way. When it reached the drawing at the end, I stepped into
the image and was plunged into a world going backwards! It
went clear through to before the beginning in less than a
second, then stopped. Startled, I let the water carry me
downstream, through all that had happened since, with the
fear gone and the memory unable to hurt me. When I reached
the here-and-now, I got out and just stood there, knowing
that the fear would trouble me no more." He stopped, and
suddenly seemed to remember where he was, and who he was
talking to. "That was over a year ago, and the fear is still
gone. The Wizard says it is gone for good."
She thought for a moment. "So all there is to this ritual is
think of the problem until your reflection sees it, follow a
part of the feeling upstream to my earliest memory of it,
wait for my reflection to see it all the way through, step
into the ending, and live it backwards quickly? What kind of
magic is that?"
He thought for a minute, shrugged, and said "Effective? If
you wish, I will withdraw to the trees while you try it."
"What makes you think that I NEED it?"
"Because the images only come to those who do." His voice
faded to an embarrassed silence as he realized what he had
said. "I'll go now."
"Yes, do." She said absently, already thinking. Then: "But
not too far, in case I need you." She was remembering an
incident a few days back which had set off her special fear,
and just as the apprentice had described, her reflection in
the pool was watching a dim and watery scene of the memory.
Startled, she looked up again. Yes, she was in the clearing,
with the trees all around and the apprentice all but lost
among the closer ones. She could still feel a part of that
fear, so she kept that feeling while she looked back up
stream at all the images from the past that the feeling had
touched...until she found the earliest of them all. She
brought that memory back to the pool and released it as her
reflection started to watch it unfold in its dim and watery
way. Her reflection seemed to have a life of its own as it
watched the pale scene start before anything happened, run
through the bad parts, and then pause at a time when it was
all over. She watched her reflection shift as she prepared
for what she would do. Her reflection settled as it watched
the scene unfold again. The dim scene passed through the
beginning, through the bad time and on past again. When it
stopped, she jumped in to it. Suddenly, she was there again:
back where and when it had happened. Everything was moving
backwards, and in a flash she had lived backwards through it
and past the beginning. Shocked, she let the water carry her
down stream, forward through all the rest of her yesterdays
without the bad times for company. When she got to today,
she stood up. There she was...standing, dripping in a stream
in the clearing. She looked around for the apprentice, half
expecting him to be laughing at the soggy mess she must be.
He was there, by the trees...not laughing, just smiling in
an understanding way.
In the years that followed, they became friends. Although
they went their separate ways...he, as wizard to one of the
King's high lords and she as wife to a neighboring prince...
they valued that friendship to the end of their days. And
from that time on, neither was ever again troubled by their
great fears.
Everybody has a black one and a white one inside their mind. white one to tell what's right and black one to tell what you want. But you need to choose which one to listen to.
