(This beginning of a story actually won a contest in my High School magazine. Honorable mention for prose. *sniffles* I'm so proud.)

For many weeks it sat. The wind singing through the upper branches of the grove wove a sweet trance through the air. With closed mind it listened. Only listened. Creatures were born, lived, died and were born again before the violet gem decided to stop listening and allow sight to claim precedence.

The rock shifted, and prisms filled the bank glinting off every leaf within sight. It looked around, causing a small ripple through the solid crystalline surface. Vision of the beauteous forest was found to be pleasurable. A strange thought came as a shaft of light misdirected into its soul. All senses were opened at once to the mysteries of a live forest in preparation for the new moon.

With a slight jerk the jewel encountered softness past the imagination of even its higher intelligence. All light was shut out for a few seconds, the darkness began immediately to eat away the soul of the light-absorbing crystal. A prick of life endowing light in the form of a green ember glowed through what the jagged shard would later find to be fingers. With a sigh of relief at the lack of darkness, the purple rock returned the elf's steady green gaze.