Edward and Grace: A Forbidden Magical Adventure in the Desert

I remember the feeling of the warm sand on my feet, the smell of the desert, and the sound of the wind as I opened my eyes. I remembered being under the stars with him in my arms, just watching each other. It was during one of those moments that I first spoke to him. And he spoke back.

"This is where I was born." He said softly. "I always wanted to bring someone here." He rubbed a hand over his face and then looked at me. "I never thought it'd be you though." He paused for a moment and looked out over the dunes and the mountains beyond them. "It's so beautiful here." He said in wonder.

"Beautiful?" I replied, laughing softly. "This place is desolate! No one lives here."

"Why not? This place is perfect." He replied, shaking his head slightly. "The mountains keep the heat off during the day, and then at night they keep it from getting too cold."

He had a point there. The temperatures were moderate most of the time and only got really hot or really cold when it rained or snowed. There weren't many days where it was really hot or really cold because of that. "But why is no one here? There are cities all around us!"

"Because people are afraid of this place." He said with a nod. "Or they used to be anyway."

"Afraid?" I asked, furrowing my brows at him. "Of what?"

* * *

He turned to me with a smile that made my heart beat faster in my chest. His eyes seemed softer now than before and he reached out to take my hand in his own. "They're afraid of it changing." He whispered softly as he began to walk forward through sand that rose up around our ankles like water as we walked through it. We walked for a while and neither of us spoke until we stopped before a small dune that was broken through by a large rock sticking out from its side like an island in a sea of moving sand beneath our feet. He smiled down at me again and gestured for me to continue on ahead of him up the dune towards the rock sticking out from its side like an island in a sea of moving sand beneath our feet. As I approached it, I realized the rock wasn't an island at all but rather an archway carved into the stone itself; one that led into a dark tunnel hidden beneath its surface that ran straight back into the earth behind it for several hundred meters until it ended abruptly inside another archway shaped like a circle carved into another large stone standing upright in the middle of another deep green valley surrounded by mountains whose peaks disappeared into white clouds above them like fluffy cotton candy candy clouds brought in on an icy wind by an impatient child who wanted their ice cream so badly they couldn't wait until they got home to eat it anymore and instead decided they would eat theirs while they were still walking along the sidewalk heading home from school so they could get there faster...