Heart of Clear Springs: IV

A legend the hunters of Springvale pass mouth to mouth—the youth no longer young and the unaging spirit at last face a bitter, imperfect end.

Later, and later still, the youth gradually grew, made new friends, had new experiences.

The spring spirit still, as in youth, quietly sang him every gentle lament.

Until the day she finally left, and no longer looked toward the youth.

The spring's trickle no longer formed words; the moon shattered in ripples no longer re-formed in footprints on the water.

The spring spirit suddenly realized that though she had found a home, though she had known brief happiness, she was still alone.

The youth no longer a youth did not grasp the spirit's flight, and blamed the loneliness on himself.

"Perhaps she was only a childish dream."

Listening to the murmuring spring, he sometimes thought so.

But that cool kiss was real—as real as the night wind that had once toyed with her long hair.

Suddenly he realized that even after meeting and parting from countless new friends, after countless adventures and homecomings, he was still alone.

So, as years before, the youth's tears fell into the pure pool and wet the shattered moon.

But this time the spring spirit did not keep the appointment.

She stubbornly turned her back, preferring to take herself as a pure childhood dream, a temporary guest wandered from a far foreign land, rather than with near-eternal life fail the beloved's vow.

Legend says that whenever heavy rain falls, among the drops into the pool are always mixed the spring spirit's tears.

When the youth at last grew old, he still believed such nonsense without doubt.

Unhappily, the spring spirit who fled true feeling could not doubt that fact either.