Hello, it's me, Lily, a frog who lives in a pond and loves to tell stories. You're going to do. A long time ago there lived an emperor. He had everything an emperor could

want a beautiful palace where he sat on a golden throne that looked out

over vast tracks of fertile farmland and rugged mountain wilderness. The land was his. He was young and healthy and he didn't just own land. He employed the very best musicians and dancers and artists and philosophers in his court

and the most exquisite cooks in his kitchens.

Make me dumplings, he might say, and cooks would bring a golden platter of

dumplings made with ingredients from around the world to his throne and he would

eat them while a musician strummed a dancer danced and a

philosopher helped him tune into the flavors and savor the present moment. He kept storytellers, physicians, and engineers close to him.

He built libraries and bridges and temples and statues and hospitals and strong armies to defend it all.

He had a wife, three sons, and three daughters.

He had everything an emperor could want, everything.

Until he learned of something he didn't have.

The emperor heard of a nightingale that nested in his mountains every spring

and sang so sweetly, so beautifully that everyone who beheld her song stopped under whatever branch she was perched and wept.

Small children and strong men alike would fall to their knees, young women with flowers in their hair, and

old crones with bent limbs and walking sticks, all who wandered under the forest boughs in which

the Nightingale

sang, would stop, hold still, and feel their troubles and

worries flow away, as if washed in the current of a clean fast river.

Hers was a healing song.

I must hear this song, the Emperor take me to the Nightingale.

It was not an easy journey.

...