Storytime;

there was a lake. mythical & strange & shrouded in mysterious mysteries. and there was a girl, and there was a boy, and they were the best of friends. as children, they were warned to stay far, far away from the terrible lake, but as kids usually do, they did not listen. everyday at lunch, the girl would bring sandwiches & books and the boy his guitar & lemonade. and everyday, they'd sit just a little bit closer to the magnanimous water. and as time crept on, and the kids became older, they too grew closer. a love blossomed. innocent & pure, unheard of in quite some time in the lands they lived in. they did not care for riches and fame, only for the delight of each others company. and these children (for children they still were) forgot about the dangers of the lake. the stories they were once told, of illustrious silver-blue liquid that stole away your fears and dreams, of golden knights slayed by its sanguineous nature, of Nordic heroes falling into its treachery. for the lake was no ordinary lake, as i'm sure you've come to realize. filled with curses & spells of ancient times, it drew in those kind & bright of heart; the strong willed & adventurous; the cruel & skeptical. you see, it feasted on emotions; a toe in the water as it swirled systemically into the fool who dared venture too close. up & up & up it would sway and splash until nothing was left but a turquoise-tinged scaly fish. turquoise being for fear. opaque pearl for madness, sapphire for melancholy, garnet for bravery, so on & so forth. the waves crashed, the warriors succumbed and the children remained. as it were, the children were the epitome of emotion, for try as it might, the lake never did conquer illusive love. it was just one of those things, you know, those unattainable & disastrous things you can always reach for but, like the water itself, never hold. the lake needed it, for love was the strongest of all feelings; a mixture of everything and anything: fear, anxiety, rage, elation, hypocrisy, desire, passion...it had it all. love was the all encompassing sensation, love is love, all you need is love. without it, you have not lived and with it, well then you're the luckiest of them all. the lake was not so lucky and it was tired, tired of yearning & dreaming of what was so close yet farther than ever. it set a plan in motion; with every breeze, every drop of rain & clap of thunder, the lake would unleash all its power to lure in the unsuspecting lovers. and lure it did. the children crept closer, the lake pined for all they had, the cycle unrelenting.
and one day, had the lake not focused all its energy on them, it wouldn't have noticed the ripples made by the boy slowly walking past its shores, into its heart, deeper and deeper, the girl screaming bloody murder behind him. stuck in a transcendental trance, he walked on until there was no where else to walk. she followed.
and one day, two small & figurine amethyst hued fish, the only of their kind, appeared to swim infinitely in the lake's center.
one day, the lake found love.