In a land not so far away there once was a little garden. It was full of beautiful flowers, Roses of every color. In the very center of this garden was a special Rose. It was the most beautiful flower in the entire garden. It just so happened that this garden was owned by two sisters, and both of them loved the Rose with all their hearts. Every morning, just as the sun was peeking its head above the edge of the world, the elder sister would go out to the Rose and, with the most tender care, she would paint the Rose with bits of stray clouds, dewdrops, and sunlight.The Rose would sparkle and shine like the most glorious flower on earth, which it was. Then, every night, the younger sister would also, very gently, paint the Rose. But she would paint it with touches of night, splashes of darkness, and twinkles of starlight. So when the moon would shine its light onto the Rose, it would shimmer and glow - more beatiful than any star in the sky.
One day the sisters got into an arguement about who actually owned the Rose. The older sister, being the wisest of the two, said that the Rose belonged to neither of them, that they were just there to take care of the beautiful flower. But the younger sister wanted the Rose all to herself. So the next morning after the elder sister had painted the flower, the younger sister snuck into the garden by herself. Using her collection of moondus, starlight, threads of darkness, and bottles of night, she painted the Rose all black, just like at nightime.
"There," she said, "as long as you are black, you belong to me." And with that she left the Rose by itself.
Now the Rose tried very hard to shine through the darkness, but it could not. It knew that it was white, and it wanted so bad to show everyone its beauty, but the youger sister had done a very good job of painting it black, and the Rose could do nothing about it. So it had to sit in the blackness, as all the animals of the garden mocked it>
"A black Rose?" said one, "Who ever heard of such a thing?"
"Roses should be beautiful, and this one is not." said another.
As much as the Rose disliked the animals' talk, it could do nothing about it. It tried to call out, to tell the animals that it really was white and that it had been cruelly painted, but none of them would listen. For the sister had done such a good job of painting the Rose that no one would believe the poor thing.
Every day, after the elder sister had painted the Rose white, the younger would come by and paint it black again. And every day the Rose would fight as hard as it could to shine through. But every day the sister put it on just a little bit thicker. Finally, one morning, the elder sister went out to paint the Rose, but when
she leaned over she saw, to her horror, that her precious Rose was dead!
"How can this be?" she cried, "We took care of the Rose, how could this happen?"
When the younger sister heard her cries, she rushed into the garden. Seeing the Rose, she realized what she had done. Heart stricked over the loss of their beloved Rose, she told her sister what she had done.
"It is my fault the Rose is dead!" the younger sister wailed.
"No!" cried the elder, "Don't say such things!"
"But it's true," cried the younger "every day after you painted the Rose white, I went back and painted it black again. I thought that if I kept the Rose black, then it would always belong to me!"
The elder sister stepped away from the younger and looked on her with sadness.
"You just don't understand, do you? You can't own something by trapping it. Sometimes, to hang on to
something, you have to release it! The Rose would have given us both joy throughout our whole lives, but your quest for power has destroyed it. I made the flower white, because that is what it needed to survive. And I allowed you to make it black, because it had to have that to survive also. But you couldn't see that. You where too selfish to see past your own wants, and now you have destroyed everything you sought to gain."
With that the elder sister turned and left her sister in the garden, never to return again.
