The Prisoner Of Stone/Part 2

Far outside the village, the evil witch named Chlorhydris is alone in her observatory with her pet toucan, sitting in her favorite chair, sulking and feeling miserable about herself. "Blast this cursed day...how I hate it so," Chlorhydris said as she looked at the calendar with the days of the current month marked off up to the 14th.

"Awwwk, why's it that?" her toucan asked.

"It was twenty years ago on this very day when my one true love, Manfred the Magnificent, the most truly wonderful wizard that ever lived, broke my heart," Chlorhydris answered as she picked up a picture frame that had the image of her beloved framed in it. She held the image close to her chest as she closed her eyes and thought about the days of her youth. "I could remember the day when we first met, which was at sorcery school, when he came to visit my fellow classmate Drusilla. She thought that she was the best-looking witch out of all the young witches that attended the school...oh, how she thought that very much. I honestly don't know what Manfred could ever see in a woman like her that made him think that she was anything that she imagined herself to be."

She saw herself and her classmate Drusilla back in the school they both attended, on the night that she and Manfred first met. Manfred was waiting beneath the balcony of Drusilla's bedroom, looking eager to be with the woman that he first loved.

"Oh, Drusilla, Drusilla, wherefore art thou, Drusilla?" Manfred called out, hoping to catch the young witch's attention.

Drusilla went out to the balcony when she heard her beloved's voice. "Manny!" she exclaimed, excited to see him appear.

"Oh, my dearest, come and jump into these raging arms," Manfred said, extending his arms out as he was preparing to catch her.

"Ready or not, here I come," Drusilla said as she threw herself off the balcony to be caught by her beloved.

"Well, hello there, big boy," another female voice broke in, which drew Manfred's attention away from Drusilla. He turned and saw another female standing on another balcony, wearing a hood over her head and looking even more attractive than Drusilla.

"Well, hello," Manfred said as he walked away from under Drusilla's balcony to stand under the other woman, allowing Drusilla to land on the ground with only her pride hurt. "I don't think I ever had the pleasure of meeting you before. Tell me, what is your name?"

"Oh, my name is Chlorhydris," the other woman said. "I hope that I wasn't distracting you from something more important in your life."

"Why, not at all, not at all," Manfred said. And Drusilla looked on in jealousy as Manfred caught Chlorhydris when she jumped into his arms and went off together on a date.

"From that day forward, Manfred and I were inseparable," the Chlorhydris of the present said as she continued to recall the days of her youth, now seeing herself in those moments of happiness that she shared with her beloved. "It was the best years of my life that I ever had with a man, even though Drusilla tried her best to make trouble for the both of us. Then came the day when he asked me that important question, of whether or not I would marry him. I accepted his proposal like the foolish young girl that I was, and soon I was in the chapel, preparing for the moment when we would be joined together as sorcerer and wife."

She saw her younger self standing in the vestibule with another girl putting the final touches to the wedding dress that the witch wore on that day, when Drusilla burst into the room, looking rather mischievous with an evil smile on her face.

"Drusilla!" Chlorhydris exclaimed. "I don't seem to remember inviting you to the wedding."

"Don't fool yourself with believing that you're ever going to happy with Manfred, Chlorhydris," Drusilla said. "He's never going to marry a witch like you, never in a million years. You just wait and see if he will show up at your wedding and take you as his bride."

"Manfred will come for me, just as he promised, Drusilla," Chlorhydris said. "Now begone from me or I will show you how much I love that man."

"You're going to be a lonely old witch for the rest of your life...mark my words," Drusilla said, laughing cruelly as she left the vestibule, pleased to have gotten under her rival's skin.

"I tried to pay no attention to every evil thing that she said on that day, but I waited and waited for Manfred to show up at the altar, and by the time that night fell, I came to realize how right she was, when I sat there at the entrance of the church with my heart broken," Chlorhydris of the present said as she saw herself still clutching the bouquet from her wedding and looking like the whole world had turned against her on that day. "I have never seen Manfred since, and all he left me with is a daughter that I had to take care on my own...the cruelest thing that a man like him could ever leave me with."

"Awwwwk, that's a sad story," her toucan said as she rose up from her chair, placed her portrait of Manfred face down on a table, and went over to her giant telescope to look out at the forest outside her observatory.

"How I hate love and what it has done to me, playing with my heart and making me think that I was ever going to be happy with someone in my life," Chlorhydris said. "I swore on that day that if the world was going to deny me love, then I would return the favor and deny the whole world love. There would be no more happiness, no more singing, no more private moments of intimacy being shared between people, and the most important of all, no more children ever created from those moments. I would make the whole world be as dark and cold as my heart has been since that very day that my wedding was not meant to happen."

To be expanded on.