Crystal opened her eyes with the utmost feeling of satisfaction - two parts well-rested to one milligram of adequate progesterone. Those chemicals were all that stood between her and a raging period; though she couldn’t possibly know that her monthly cycle was due that day. As a fourteen year old raised in the great state of Texas, Crystal was lucky her state education allowed her to know she even had a uterus. Never mind giving her the know-how to predict its monthly cycle. What was the Texas school system going to teach her? Math? 

She stretched her toes toward the foot of her bed, reached her arms up past her ears, feeling the glossy smooth plastic surface of her kids bed headboard. She smiled at it, brimming with spite - today couldn’t be more perfect, and it hadn’t even started. Today, she turned fifteen. One step closer to indepdence. One extra hour to her 10pm CST curfew. And one new, grown-up bed delivered from a European furtunitre outlet that at least some of the kids at school would have heard of - and potentially uploaded YouTubes on how to build. A day of adulthood at last in a lifetime of the coddled mediocrity of middle class middle school Americans. 

Still, Crystal didn’t feel like she was growing up.  She hadn’t felt that way last year, either.  Perhaps it was the immortal mind of the teenager that prevented her from believing in age, but Crystal knew she would never grow old.  In fact, today was the last time she would ever age.  Today was the first day in the rest of her life.

“YYYEEEEEEAAARRGG!!!!!” Crystal’s little brother flung himself into her bedroom - hands poised at an ominous downward angle. “H-h-h-haaaapppyy Birthdaaayyy!” He juddered, spraying ejaculate across her secondhand 1970s CareBear bedsheets.  

“Mike, get out of my room!”

One hell of a life this was going to be.

Later, after the revenge-bleach (half a cap in Mike’s laundry load; he’ll never know), the modest birthday party attended only by relatives, the cake from the grocery store, and the goodnights from two parents on their way to work graveyard shifts at the sleep clicking - Crystal made her way to her disassembled bed with the feeling of supreme contentment.  In less than two months, she started grade nine at a new school with new teachers and none of the old baggage that held her back a year in school already. Her relatives, worried for her fragile reputation, gifted her with new clothes, new bags, new makeup. All the ways in which she would forge a new life for herself by pretending she had someone else’s.All that remained was opening the door…

Crystal opened the door to her room. The new bed, instead of unpacked in its sad stack of slats with labeled bags of blogs was completely assembled with crisp, new sheets tucked into all four corners of an overstuffed mattress. It loomed large in the darkened bedroom, but shrank a bit into something more dainty and Swedish-looking once she’d flicked on the light. Had her dad done this?

On the bed was a small, prettily arranged package, with a bow on top.  Oh, how sweet, Crystal thought, one final gift.  As she undid the bow, something round and solid fell on her sheets. Crystal picked up the smooth, disc-like object, wondering at it’s cool feel that seemed to warm beneath her fingers. There was a little symbol engraved on the white marble-like disc. It looked vaguely Celtic to Crystal, like an Ankh superimposed on a three-leaf clover.

Curious, she opened the rest of the package.  A small, black box with a rounded indentation on top lay beneath the shimmering paper.  It was considerably heavy, and appeared to be made of stone.  There were no buttons, no knobs, and no instructions of any kind, save the indication that the disc belonged in the indent.

Crystal fitted the disc into the opening.  A soft, musical tinkling began to play.  It was somehow familiar….  She closed her eyes and for a moment, it felt like she was standing somewhere else, somewhere far away.

“Most gracious queen,” a deep, musical voice said.

Crystal spun around and found herself face to face with one of the most exotic people she had ever seen.  He was half a foot taller than her - but that only made him short for a boy. Being five feet tall and a year behind your peers at school only made everyone seem tall. He had the tucked-down leanness of a runner and the squared shoulders of a swimmer. His hair was stark, snowy white and framed his angular face in feathered locks.  

Crystal couldn’t tell if he was a man or a boy; she wasn’t even sure he was completely human. He looked human enough, with a lean build and skin that seemed only one shade off from alabaster.  He could have been an albino, save for the fact that his eyes were a shockingly deep indigo  If that was strange enough, a symbol was tattooed on his forehead that seemed to glow the same eerie purple color as his eyes. Crystal didn’t even notice that the man was dressed in strange robes, or that he had a staff in one hand; she was stuck on his eyes, which seemed hauntingly familiar.

“A-are you…? A gigilo…?” Crystal asked in a quavering voice that didn’t sound quite like her own. “Did my uncle hire you to take my virginity…?

“What? Gods, no. Please,” he replied in a smooth, musical lilt, inclining his upper torso in a shallow bow. “I am call Kaine. Guardian Priest to the Last Lady of Avalon.”  As he said these words, the translucent sphere at the end of his staff flared brightly.  “That would be you.”

“Uh-huh…” Crystal managed, her jaw gaping. She was ashamed to say she’d be less upset if this were her uncle Jorge’s gigalo friend he paid to help her be more popular in high school. Like a sort of fucked up My Fair Lady.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“My Fair Lady is already sufficiently fucked up, ma’am,” Kaine said.

Crystal froze. He can read minds?

 “Yes,” Kaine answered, smiling.  “I am pleased that you are following along rather quickly.”

Crystal opened and closed her mouth a few times before doing the only logical thing there was to do; she passed out.  

“Well, perhaps that was too quick…”  The priest passed the end of his staff once over the head of the sleeping girl.  

Crystal started to dream.  In her dreams, Crystal was herself, but different. Her mother had just died.  If that wasn’t bad enough she also had the feeling that she was about to die. Someone was tugging at her, dragging her out of a mindless haze of tears and agony.  No, no…why can’t they just leave me alone?

Someone was calling to her. 

In the dream Crystal could not see him, but she could feel him standing over her.  Her eyes opened, hot tears of defeat spilling down her cheeks and onto the soft grass beneath her.  She curled her fingers into it, digging until her beautiful nails cracked.  She couldn’t see but she knew that behind her, her castle was aflame. Shouts and roars came from beyond the high walls of the courtyard. A war raged beyond those white, crystal walls, and soon it would spill over and consume her.

“We must go,” he urged.

“Where,” she cried.  The walls were breaking and she could not fight. She would not fight. She had the staff her mother had given her to use as a weapon, but Crystal did not know how to use it. All the years of learning and training did not serve her now, when she needed it the most.  

“How did it come to this?” she whispered, cupping her hand over her mouth.

“Through ignorance,” he said, his lilting voice harsh with rarely shown emotion.  “And folly…but, Princess, it need not end here.”

“Where will it end?” Crystal asked.  “When? When Astrea arrives? When the dead are reborn?”

“No…it will end at the beginning,” he said.

“Do not say religion to me!” she snapped.  She stood, brushing grass form her skirt; the blood would not come off so easily.  She faced him, her eyes blazing.  “Now I need actions not words.”

“You need time,” Kaine answered.  He leaned heavily on his staff.  He had not escaped the conflict; his black and white robes were smeared with grime and his smooth, pale face was stained with sweat and blood.

“And what time do I have?” Crystal screamed.  “All of five minutes before the walls are taken, before my kingdom fall completely to ruin?  And if I did run, where would I go?  Not a place in all of eternity exists where I could not be found by my enemies.”

“You will make the time, and you will make the place.”

She stared at him, her rage and fear boiling inside her chest.  Then, because she could not think what else to do, she embraced him, crushing her head to his chest.

At first, his body resisted, stiffening.  And then he sagged his weight against her, resting his chin on her head.  

“Crystal,” he said, his free arm circling behind her back to press her against him more firmly, “Please.  I could not bear the thought of you dead.”

“Is this my fate, Kaine?” she asked, softly.  “If it truly is, I cannot avoid it.”  She looked up into his eyes and he rested his forehead on hers.  Her skin tingled where his Emblem rested against her.

“No,” he admitted, hoarsely.  “You cannot...we cannot”

Angrily, she shoved him away.  “You were supposed to deny it!  Tell me there is a way!  Tell me I can undo this terrible end!”  They were through the gates now.  She knew she had precious little time left.

Kaine stared at her, his mouth partway open.  She knew then that he thought there was no other way.  He believed that this was their fate to share.

No, there must be another way…I will make another way.

“Kaine,” Crystal said.  “You told me once that Astrea and my mother were two halves to the same whole.”

Kaine blinked, and dipped his head a nod.

“If I can find her…beseech her…Kaine, with the power that she possesses…”

“Astrea…walked a fine line, Your Highness.  And I may remind you that she has not been heard of since before you were born.”

“Power does not die,” Crystal said.  “It can neither be created nor destroyed. It just goes somewhere else. It passes on to someone else.” She touched her chest, where her heart still beat furiously within her. “Just as my mother’s continues on within me, Astrea, one way or another will continue on.  And so shall I until the day that my mother’s half can be reunited with Astrea’s.”

Kaine gaped at her. She couldn’t not tell if it were in awe or horror.  

They were coming now; Crystal was out of time.  She seized the staff that had been lying on the grass.  She whirled it above her, tilting her head back.  She spoke the words and sealed her fate. The last thing she could remember before the brilliant flash of light engulfed her vision were his eyes, purple and sad.

 I will remember you…and this love that I bear for you…even when you fall far beyond this time and this place.

With a single sharp sound of pain, the staff shattered like broken glass.  The light receded, burying itself in the half-forgotten memory of a dream.

The next morning, Crystal blinked groggily and began her morning ritual of attempting to force herself into a cold shower.  She stepped over crinkled wrapping paper from open gifts, the game boy she had stolen from her brother, and stumbled onto the cool tile surface of the bathroom floor.  The white and black tile reminded her of something…but it was way too early to even try and remember what.  As she pulled off the fuzzy teddy bear pajamas, she thought Jeez; did I actually wear this to bed?  I’m fourteen-no, fifteen, and you’d think I wasn’t so tired as to…

She stopped.  White…the white-haired guy!  Crystal raced back to her new bed - majestic and imposing, queen like with its ruffled bedskirt. Frantically she peeled the covers back, looking for that thing, that little black box….  When she found nothing, she allowed herself to relax, sinking into a sitting position on the floor.  She sat on something cold and hard.

“Ow!” she sprang up and turned around to see what it was.  I was the carved disc and attached to it was a tiny note:

> Happy Birthday, Crystal.  We’ll be in touch.

>

> --Kaine (The white-haired guy)