Kaiser looked at me and did his best please smile. "Come on, you know you want to!" Kaiser glazed deeply into my eyes I tried to repress a smile I really did, I hated encouraging him, but I had no power. I had to smile.

"See I knew you wanted to!"

I hid the smile away quickly and argued, "But you didn't believe me yesterday when I told you, why should I prove it to you now?" I asked showing him that I really was hurt for him not believing me the other day.

"Because you want to prove me wrong, you know you do!"

Again I tried not to smile, but I couldn't help myself, I wanted to show my brother I wasn't crazy, that I was actually what I claimed to be yesterday. But I had my suspensions of why he cared so much to prove my claim true now; when yesterday he just wanted to believe that I was a crazy woman.

"Why do you want to see? Yesterday,-"

"Yesterday, I was a fool and a ninny to think you a liar, please show me." He held his heads together in a sign of great defeat and fell to his knees. Now there were a few things I've learned about Kaiser growing up with him. One; he hated cherry pie, two; he was scared of the dark, just couldn't sleep if no one else was with him. But most of all three; it was impossible for me to get him to fall to his knees on any accord. Him on his knees gave him away.

He had other intentions!

"It's for her, isn't?" I said defeated and a bit spiteful, I knew for awhile that Kaiser had eyes for a woman-a very special woman.

"No, of course not. How could you think such a thing?" Kaiser asked standing up and brushing himself off, but looking totally guilty.

"Because you fell on your knees, brother. Do you believe me blind?"

Kaiser watched me for a second, probably thinking me naïve and young, which I guess to him, I was. We were twins, but to him I was always little, being born second had those affect. I also believed that he blamed me for our mother's death, as our father did. But I would have been considered a disappointment to Father anyways; I was after all a girl. I was no use to my father, unless I married a rich man, which of course was not going to happen.

"No, it's just that I thought it would persuade you."

"Persuade me into doing what, helping you win a girl that you're not even supposed to be in love with?" Kaiser had the uncanny habit of falling in love with the totally wrong woman. When he was really young and first set eyes on her I could tell he was smitten. I tried to make him see other girls more pretty and ravishing then her, but he loved her all the same. It was always a fool love, until recently when a new law was introduced and promised the possibility of being with her.

Who was the woman that my brother just happened to love, well, she was the princess. Princess Liper, a woman unable to see my brother for nothing more than another man that had fallen under her charm. I have yet to figure out why she attracts so many of the men in her province, it was not for her looks or even her money-the royal family was no richer then the better off families that lived closest to the castle. So what could it be?

Maybe Princess Liper was prettier than I gave her credit for, but I didn't think so. Not that I could voice my options to Kaiser, he would have had my head if I ever spoke ill of his love.

But up until recently, I had been able to tell him that he could never have her, that she was getting married to another man-to the whole province's disappointment-and he would come back down to Earth. Not anymore, the new law that they set in place had something to do with the king disapproving his daughter's future husband, so he put it in place that no man could have his daughter unless he got her a rare flower.

The law had been in place for all couples, actually. If you wished to married a man or woman above your station, you would search out the rare flower and if the person you wished to marry did not already have a spouse, then you could marry them. No one could really complain about the law because it was nearly impossible to get to where the rare flowers grow and back all in one piece.

The people who go to retrieve the flower either end up being eaten by the trolls; the giants, the griffins, or just end up dying.

Very few ever return and the ones that do never have a flower, they just have the experience of cheating death and the wise decision to stick with a marriage to someone of their own station. The only person to ever make it back with a flower was the king's very own wizard, it was said that no one that doesn't posses magic could survive.

I had finally figured out why my brother was so anxious to see if my claims were true, "You wanted me to show you my magic so that you could then persuade me to go on this suicide mission to get your love, didn't you?!"

"Well, maybe. But come on, Q, I have to know. If you can we-"

"WE won't be doing anything; it's your love, not mine. I'm a witch, not a gene, I have my own free will. I won't risk my life just because you think that you need magic to live!" I turned my back on him and refused to continue this conversation.

But apparently he didn't get the message, "Would you rather I die out there?"

"NO!" I roared, scared at the very thought of his death, "But I don't want to go. I don't want to give that pampered princess the one thing she truly does not deserve. Kaiser, she sees you only as another loyal peasant. A man in love by her infuriating spell, she sees you as nothing more. And if we did succeed, do you think she would love you then? No, she would be forced to marry you because of a law her father stupidly set in place."

I wanted to hug my brother and protect him from my awful words, but he had to hear them, they had to reach his brain because if they didn't I would have to concede to his suicidal plan to march off in search of this flower and try to help him win a woman I believed would never want him under normal circumstances.

"She will never see you as more than a bug buzzing in her ear. Please, Kaiser, listen to me. Why risk our lives when we can find happiness in our own stations? Beside, maybe the wizard just got lucky, maybe magic has nothing to do with the matter in living." I finally stopped talking because I had nothing else to say except; "Please!" But Kaiser just stood there looking off in the distance and remained unnervingly quiet. I couldn't take it.

"Say something!"

"You may be right Q, in everything you said right then, but why can't I at least try. Then, I can at least die knowing that I tried! The decision is made," Kaiser suddenly looked more determined then anything, he stood taller and looked wiser. I was afraid to ask what decision had been made.

"I will seek out the See-Through Flower, so beautiful in its design that even the king deemed it magnificent enough to rest the future of his daughter's marriage on its petals. And I will do it with or without you. So, Q, I had only one question for you. Are you coming?"

I sighed as I stared at him in horror, but I could not dismiss what I would say, it would determine the rest of my life. It would either end it drastically or I would see my strong, handsome, smart, older brother married to a woman whose very name made my blood boil.

"When are we to leave?"