"Here, exactly where we lay our feet, once grew stong one of the Sacred Threes. And what we do, sitting here by this nice fire, is resting our limbs where in an ancient time the Greens did. We share no connection with this population of the past, except that we stomp in their footprints and live in what was once their reign. You may know that already, but the Greens were..."

"We know what they were, Jul! Tell us about Grishua and Kyill, you promised us! You promised!" interrupted one of the kids sitting around her. She smiled: keeping those little pests focused was not so easy, but this time they were not looking elsewhere or chatting and murmuring. Their eyes glittered in the purplish light of the twilight, even shinier thanks to the reflection of the bonfire. She laughed at their expecting faces and started to tell her story.

"Grishua and Kyill, you said, and Grishua and Kyill be it!"

All the kids held their breaths, they'd been waiting for that story long enough. And for a child, three days may be a really long time when waiting for something.

"During the Age of the Blue Leaf, there lived a girl named Kyill. She belonged to the Greens, and her silky, waist-long green hair was the proof. Everyone she knew loved her dearly, for she was not only beautiful outside, but a beauty on the inside too, gentle and cheerful as a fawn. She was also skilled in many arts, such as sewing, dancing and most important of all, singing. She had the voice of a nightingale, and sang of heroes and loves, marvellous places, Greens and humans. But even if her songs told tales about the world, never had she visited it, nor had she ever met a human.

She was nineteen when our story really starts, and she had never felt the bittersweet taste of love, nor met a man other than her father and the few neighbours she had, too old and grey for her too feel more than affection towards them. She would have loved to meet new people and places, but she lived deep into the woods, confined in a safe bubble which kept her locked away from the horridness of the world as her parents wished. Her purity was not a common feature, and they wanted to mantain it as stainless as possible.

One day, a spring morning caressed by a flowery breeze and by the golden warm rays of the Sun, she was singing in her yard, and her notes were spread around all the forest. They were heard by a fine young human, who was hunting nearby. He had never before entered so deep within the forest, and it was his first time coming across a voice so sweet and stunning. He left his bow and arrows behind and sprinted towards the voice, following his heart, ad you would expect, for his name, Grishua, means "the one who follows feelings". He ran and ran, and while running he already felt inside him the stung of a love such as he had never felt before. And his love fully bloomed when he saw the goddess who was blessing him with her singing. She was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen, and he could guess the kindest too, since she was tending to a rabbit he himself had shot not long before. 

He sighed to such a sight, and Kyill heard him. She turned to that strange person hiding behind a three, scared, and found herself staring at a pair of brown eyes so full of love and marvel she immediatly knew she would have ended up sharing that same feelings. She took a better look at the stranger, and she was struck by the discovery that his hair was not green, but brown as the earth. He was human! She was so excited, and quite nervous too, for she found herself thinking of how handsome that guy was, a thought that never before had crossed her mind. 

They stared at each other for a while, then Grishua suddenly regained his full consciousness and ran away, too shocked to even dare to speak to that mystical creature. He had seen Greens already, but never of such beauty. All that Kyill, on the other hand, could feel was disappointment for her handsome watcher having disappeared, and also expectation of his coming back to see her. She truly wished to be able to meet him another time.

And her wishes came true, for the next day he showed himself up again, and finally thay talked. They discovered each other names, about which they'd wondered all night. and found out they shared a lot of passions and ideas: they both wanted to explore the world, had a desire for adventure and for knowledge, they were in a word kindred spirits. Every day for a month they saw each other in secret, she sang for him and he made her little gift crafting them out of branches or rocks. And their love grew strong. They confessed their feelings, and nothing could have made them happier than knowing they were reciprocated. Grishua and Kyill felt now like an only soul and an only body.

But Kyill's parents started to suspect something. And they discovered their daughter's story following her one day. They were scared, they thought she had been stained by that strange human boy and just wanted her to revert to her old pure self, without all of that sighing and caressing the places where her lover had kissed her. They saw the two lovers kissing and getting rid of their dresses to fully express their passion, and that shocked them. their kid had lost herself! Let alone the fact that she had lost herself thanks to a human! Mixed unions were a taboo for almost everyone in that period, and even more for those two strict and conservative Greens! Their rage broke out when she confessed everything, one night, and presented them Grishua, adding that she had just discovered she was pregnant and that she wanted to leave and travel around the country with him and the child she had in her belly. They got mad, folly was in their eyes. And in their actions. Her father stabbed the poor guy in the chest and then tried to do the same to her own daughter's belly, wanting to kill that child who was the living proof of her Kyill being beyond repair. her mother tryied to help, but the girl reacted faster, and she managed to knock them off with carved rock the guy had given her that same day, and all her father cut was her arm. She left her house crying, with a knife and her beloved. She had to carry him, for he was almost dead.

She arrived to their secret meeting place, a beautiful clearing near a stream, where they shared the happiest moments of their life. But as soon as she started to cure Grishua's wound, he let out his last breath and died with his farewell to his goddes on the lips. "I love you" he murmured, and made a tiny simple ring slip around her ringfinger before closing his eyes, and than his heartbeat stopped and his skin went greyish. Kyill screamed and cried until nothing of her stunning voice had remained, she expressed all her sufference for three whole days and nights, and when finally she stopped and broke into silent sobs Grishua's body had turned to stone, preserving his body for all eternity. It was a gift from the gods, but nothin culd now make the miserable girl happy. She had forever lost her voice and her lover, and she decided she would have lost her hair too, to show her sadness and to rebel against her parents, who had always loved it, with the same knife that was used to kill Grishua she shaved her head completely, and let her emerald green hair on her beloved as a token of eternal love. 

Than she rose up, and decided she would have lived for her child only, and to take revenge. She returned home and killed her parents in their sleep, but she discovered killing was not so easy, even if for a right reason, even more if the victims where the parents she loved so dearly. Regret was added to the previous pain, and she felt like she really couldn't live anymore. She tried to keep on living, hoping the birth of the child would have helped her, never taking off Grishua's last gift, the ring that should have represented a happy marriage and a life full of love, not a too early separation. But the struggle was too big, and eventually she died of sorrow, her body falling suddenly lifeless on Grishua's stone corpse. She met the same fate as him,  

And their corpses fused toghether in an only simulacre, always togheter even after death." she concluded. 

"And what about their child?" was the question asked by a curious little girl covered in freckles.

"No one knows. Somebody says that he turned to stone alongside with the mother, for others the gods blessed him to make amend for the parent's terrible fate, and after the remaining months of pregnancy he came out of Kyill's belly like a blossom, to be then taken in and raised by a Green passing by."

She stood up and bowed to her audience, and all the kids bursted into an applause, asking for another story and arguing with each others on what she should have told them next. She laughed with them and promised them a story for next month, when she would be back there again, then took them back to their mothers, who were waiting nearby. Thay thanked her, as always, and gave her little shiny coins, while their kids covered her in tears and snot at the thought of having to wait for a full month before a new story. She stayed a little bit more to console them, but then bedtime came, she said her goodbyes and went back to the bonfire.