The Red Crystal Goblet

She lay in her hospital bed, connected to drips and other contraptions of modern medicine. Dreams of dragons and interstellar galaxies swamped her consciousness keeping the "reality" around her at bay. Despite the resistance to return to her room... something called her back... A reddish glow surrounded her.

She sought out its source, and found a red crystal goblet on her bedside table. Scrambling a little to sit up, her eyes observed the mystical object. Who had placed it there? Had she slept, unaware that someone had been in the room?
It was a gift of some sort, from whence it came remained unrevealed. But her heart called to her. "Accept this gift. You already know what it contains."

Bright light streamed in her window. Reaching out, her hands brought the red crystal goblet to her lips. She lapped the contents deftly, and tasted sweetness, and herbs, and other flavours she couldn't place. Tipping the goblet, a feeling of magic poured into her mouth. What is this? It isn't alcohol - I've drunk enough in my past to know that - but it is so intoxicating...

Drinking half the goblet down, giddiness surrounded her, but with a clarity and peace at its centre which she had never known. Perhaps not all at once. She replaced the red crystal goblet on her bedside table. In a few moments sleep came, and dreams.

:::

Outside her window, the invisible dragon hovered. His father the Magician was comfortably seated on his shoulders, cloaked by his son's invisibility. The young dragon felt a little awkward. "Father, isn't it not-quite-right that we are looking in a young woman's window without her knowing?"

His father stroked his son's neck affectionately. "Yes ...but this moment is special, so we are excused."

With a wave of his hand, the Magician brought to life the dreams that had entered the soul of the girl who had drunk from the red crystal goblet. Dreams of travel, adventure, love affairs, relationships, sharing, caring, and friendships. All the experiences her illness had denied her.

:::

Her body stirred, her eyes opened. The hospital room, and the needles and monitoring equipment that chained her to her life as a sick patient, all dismayed her. Sitting up, she reached over, then cradled the red crystal goblet in both hands.

The Magician and the invisible dragon watched from beyond her window.

She seemed to make a wish, or say a prayer, then gulped down the rest of the elixir.

:::

The dragon found himself entranced by the scene. "Father, what did she wish for?"
The heaviness in his father's voice caught him off guard. "What she has wished for a thousand times, and never been granted."
His young son sometimes found all the mystery around these moments confusing. "Have we granted her wish?"

:::

They watched her return to slumber. She dreamed of their presence, but the next morning could not remember the dream.

:::

The Magician's mood lightened. He was satisfied with their work. With a snap of his fingers, the red crystal goblet returned to his hands, and he stowed it in his robes. "Fly us home, my good son."

As they soared over the Pacific ocean, the invisible dragon sought his explanation. "What was the potion? What magic did she need to grant her wish, good father?"
His father had been lost in thought, a reverie, and took a moment to answer. "The potion was nothing special. One of the sweet drinks the wise woman used to make for me as a boy..."

His father's incomplete answer frustrated the young dragon to the point that he thought about jolting his passenger unceremoniously off his shoulders. He hovered in mid-air, and craned his neck backward... and discovered his father had leaned forward to whisper. "That's just the thing. There was no magic in the glass. She didn't need magic." The old man rubbed his chin, and with sparkling eyes explained. "She chose to heal herself tonight. A choice she, for her own reasons, was not able to make until now."
His son cocked his invisible head right, and then left. "So, why did we need to be there? Why the red crystal goblet?"

The sunlight, the blue sky, and the peaceful ocean played audience to the moment. "In an as yet unknown future, we shall meet her again. She will have forgotten the choice she made today. The memory will become swamped by new, rich experiences which will have formed her new life. Adventures, romances, ups and downs. Her culture will give her a thousand illusory explanations for her recovery - rebuilt immunity, spontaneous recovery, and other Illusory GobbledyGook like that. She will have fallen for those illusions."

He paused a moment, and seemed to speak from within a reverie. "But we were there. We saw her make the choice. And when I give her the red crystal goblet it will remind her - she healed herself, by choosing for herself."

Part 2
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The girl who drank from the red crystal goblet is alive and well and living in Los Angeles