[Crystal Heart]

Crystal sighed.

"You know the reason why. You know what my father did to me. When things got to hard for me to handle any more I would hid. As I got older I would run away. Arthur was the only thing that had ever kept me in Rohan. You know that. When I ran away from Rohan it was because I had lost Arthur. There wasn't a thing left for me in Rohan. You were my best friend Cordelia, but I just couldn't stay. I am a widow and I had to bury a child. I can't handle the memories there," Crystal started.

She rubbed her face slowly, her hand shaking violently.

"You don't have the memories that I have. All the years of abuse. . . brutual abuse by the hands of man that should have loved me only because I was his daughter. Then having a little silver light come into your life for a short time and then it is ripped out of your grasp. What else do you do? Stay and be beaten? Wait for the death that your father will sentence you to? No. You run. You pray to live your life . . ."

Crystal swallowed hard and took a in a deep, jagged breath.

"You find a place that is so beautiful and peaceful. There is no one here to hurt you. People become friends. Friends soon turn to family. You begin to be known. To be loved. To have a purpose. You find love. You learn a new type of loss. One that doesn't hurt so. And then my silver light came back. You experience a joy that you never have known. One that surpasses any kind of magic. You go on adventures. You learn. You marry. Oh . . . that blessed day. . . . You go home. Father is dead. He can't hurt you any more. You create a life, a world. . . then you're pregnant. Oh that joy. I pray you'll know it one day Cordelia. The joy of knowing that there is a little someone inside of you that depends upon you and your love to care for them. To know that they are the product of your love. You begin to change. You can feel the child inside moving. You grow anxious to meet your little one. And then it stops moving, but people tell you that's normal. You think nothing of it. Being the new mother that you are. . . then your husband falls deathly ill. He lays, clinging to life. He keeps promising he'll survive the night just to see the daughter you carry. He keeps promising that tomorrow he'll be even better, even stronger. . ."

Crystal stopped and bit her bottom lip for a moment before continuing on.

"Then you give birth. Without him by your side. And in the moment that there should be the joyous screams of your child's life there is silence. Unearthly silence that kills your soul with each passing moment. Then they tell you that your daughter. . . is dead. You beg and scream and nearly die, but it doesn't bring your child back to life. Then you have to tell your dying husband that the child that he has loved so . . . has died in your very womb. The place where it should have been living and thriving! You barely hang on from the shock. From the grief. And then your husband gives up the fight and dies as well."


She licked her lips and looked back up in Cordelia's eyes.

"Wouldn't you run?! Wouldn't you want to go far away from everything?! Wouldn't you pray for death yourself?! I had to face you. Your family. To tell them once again that their son is dead - really dead and that their grand daughter died within me. Then have to live with the looks. The hatred. The way that they blame me for what happened. What would you have done?! Until you have walked my life. . . you shouldn't blame me for the occurances of the world."