Not so long ago, in fact it might have just been last week, at the eastern edge of the Crystal Lake, where it feeds into the crystal creek, a great adventure was about to begin. A short distance from the water's wetern shore, there was a series of graceful rings made out of what appeared to be stones. If you took the time to look a bit closer, you would see that within these rings was a bustling little village. In these homes made out of stones lived the Royal household of the Tourmalinians. The Tourmalinians were the oldest fairy tribe of the crystal mountain region. Their history stretched back to before the mountain was even a bump. In the village near the lake, a pure white stone had been carved into the home of the Tourmalinian princess named Lilly. She was young for a fairy, only a few hundred years old. Her birth had been a difficult one for her mother. It had lasted many days and when she finally emerged, her heart wasn't beating. Fortunately the Crystal Fairies and the Butterfly Fairies were very close. They had been allies for almost as long as the mountain had existed. When they Butterflies saw Lilly lying there helpless, they quickly wrapped her in their silks.
Back in the epoch of the fairies, they looked a lot like you and I do today. The Butterflies had their gossamer wings and the crystal fairies had hair like strands of supple glass that sparkeled with all the colors of the rainbow, but they still had arms and legs like we do. They had a face like we do with two eyes, two ears, a nose and a mouth. And it was the same for all the fairies and most of the creatures of the earth. But that was when magic was alive. Back then, magic was vibrant. It wasn't dormant like it is today.
So, Lilly lay in her silk cocoon for one cycle of the moon. The magic of the silk nourished her, and when she emerged she looked like no other crystal fairy had before. She had wings of iridescent crystal, hard as diamond but soft as silk. She had eyes that glowed with a soft radiant light, and when she closed her eyes her whole body would shine. Her skin was the color of buttermilk and she had freckles of gold flowing up her spine across her arms and down her chest to the tips of her toes.
Lilly Quickly became known far and wide as the Butterfly Princess. On this particular day, she sat with her friend Jasmine and her brother Ellion in the central room. About a week prior, Ellion had come across an old stone carving deep in the woods. On the carving was a beautiful flower that he had never seen before. The carving was to bulky to bring home, but he had made a rubbing with some charcoal and parchment. There had also been some strange text around the carving in a script that looked familiar but he could still not make any sense of it. The three of them were gathered arond the parchment trying to figure out the riddle of the flower.
