Chapter Text
Long ago, there was a gardener who kept many beautiful roses in his garden. Roses of pink, of white, of red and yellow, all kept in neat rows in his garden. The gardener loved his roses very much and did his best to protect them, but many would die: snow would fall and smother them, wild animals would leap his walls to eat them, and even the life-giving sun would shine too bright and burn them.
In despair for the loss of his beloved flowers after one too many wilted beneath his hands, the gardener went on a journey. Perhaps, he thought, he could find a hardier plant to care for, if the beauty of the rose could not be protected. He was surprised, however, at what he found deep in the forest: bushes and bushes of wild roses, growing all over and around a clearing, climbing trees and carpeting the ground in vines and bushes.
"How can this be?" he asked himself. "My roses die under my care, but here with no one to protect them at all, they flourish."
He reached out a hand to touch them, and pricked his finger on a thorn. He was all the more surprised at this, because his roses had no thorns, and as he marveled at the sight of his own blood, he understood that he could hear the wild roses speak.
"It is because we have thorns that we flourish," they said. "Though our flowers are beautiful, it is our thorns that allow us to live. With them we can climb and stay safe from snow and flood. With them we can defend ourselves from the animals who would eat us. With them we can live together with the trees and the rocks and the logs that protect us from the harsh sun."
The gardener bowed his head, and he received the wisdom of the wild roses. With their permission, the wild roses' seeds joined his own in his garden, creating flowers with great beauty and great strength, as he reshaped his garden to provide places for vines to climb and shade to cool and shelter, and the roses flourished, for they protected each other.