Diamond Hearts: A Diamond Castle Fanfiction

2 Melody

That night, I couldn't stop worrying about our garden. How much would be left?

What remained of our garden confirmed my worst fears. Almost everything was swept up or destroyed; even the rose arches lay crushed in the mud.

"Oh, Liana..."

"I know," I whispered, more to myself.

"Well," Alexa sighed. "Let's salvage what we can."

After hours of scavenging, we each had only a basket full of flowers that were mostly unscathed. We would be lucky if half of these sold.

"Even if we sell them all, the money will never last us until next spring," Alexa said, voicing both of their thoughts.

"Of course it will." It wouldn't. "Come on, let's have some lunch."

The nearly empty pantry served as another reminder of how little we had.

"What would you like? Looks like we have bread and jam, or jam and bread."

She didn't respond.

I packed our lunches and ushered for us to leave.

"You know what I would wish for, if those stones were really magic?" said Alexa at last. "More. More food than we could possibly eat, more house than we could ever explore, more clothes than we could ever wear. Then we'd never have to worry about another thing ever again." Her pain was nearly tangible, and I longed to reach over and reassure her.

"Except how insufferable we'd be." I put on a posh accent, "Butler, I can't possibly wear all these beautiful dresses, it's horrible!"

Alexa smiled. "How dare those princes invite me to five different balls on the same night? I can't possibly go to all of them!"

We continued to crack jokes as we walked to town.

Along the way, we encountered an old beggar woman carrying a basket.

"Good day, ma'am," I greeted.

"And to you, miss," the woman replied.

We passed her, and I felt bad. "She looks..." I whispered.

"Starving," Alexa agreed.

"Excuse me, ma'am. Please, may I share this with you?" I offered half of my sandwich.

"But it's your lunch."

"I'm not very hungry, go ahead."

She took the sandwich and smiled. "Thank you. Please, take one of my treasures." She gestured towards her basket filled with junk.

"I couldn't," I said, shaking my head.

"You don't want to hurt her feelings," whispered Alexa.

I looked again in the woman's basket. "Well..." A tarnished handheld mirror caught my eye. "Maybe this?"

"There you go then, a nice present for a nice girl."

"Thank you," I said. She seemed kind, so I was glad to make her day.

Once back from town, we collapsed into chairs at the kitchen table. Alexa counted our meager money we earned today, while I cleaned up the mirror the woman gave us. The more I cleaned, the more I realized how valuable it was. Covered in ornate flowers and jewels with gold swirls up the handle, the mirror was easily worth enough to get us by for a year.

"Liana! Did you hear me?"

I snapped out of my trance and shook my head.

"I guess it doesn't matter. What are you—oh! Now that is magical."