The Scott and Jean Archives
In a small town, a tailor shoppe called “The Red Rose” is owned by a blind tailor (Scott Summers). He owns a talking crystal ball which he uses as his eyes to get around town. The tailor makes bridal dresses on the side, to which the ball criticises “why bother...if you’re never going to find yourself a wife”? But the tailor is still insistent that he’ll “find the right woman one day”. Then, the ball reminds him that he is late in delivering a customer’s cloak. He dashes out into the woods with the cloak and ball.
On the way back, the ball spots “a light coming from under a thicket of brush” and directs the tailor towards it. Feeling the glass box, he concludes it to be a coffin of sorts. He lifts the cover of the glass coffin, feeling the still warm body inside. Feeling “drawn” to the woman (Jean Grey), he kisses her and she awakens. The woman has no recollection of what had happened to her. With the help of the ball, the tailor is able to see the woman’s face and falls in love with her. He offers to take her back to the village for shelter and safety.
The butcher (Logan) in the meat shop in the village spots the tailor and the woman in the streets. Stopping what he was doing, the butcher stalks them, claiming there was something he “shoulda done in the first place”.
Back at the tailor shoppe, the tailor offers the woman a cup of hot tea. She catches eye of a pair of scissors, which stirs up some memories that frighten her, and spills her cup of tea. The tailor stows the scissors in a drawer, and offers her a change of clothing.
After changing, she comes face to face with the butcher instead. He calls her “princess” and attempts to kill her with his knife. The tailor lungs forward to protect the woman with his scissors. The ball advises the tailor to “stay low”. The butcher swings forward and cuts the woman on her face instead.
Having regained her memory, the woman transforms into a fiery, bird-like creature. Angered, she destroys the tailor’s shop and flees for the woods.
The tailor demands an explanation from the butcher. The butcher tells the tailor that the woman was a princess whose body is inhibited by “the witch who never dies”. The story, thought to be a mere “old wives’ tale”, was true, and the butcher expresses regret that he should have killed her “the last time”. As the two men head into the woods, the butcher tells his story:
“The last time the Witch was seen was across the borders in the lands to the far north. Warriors, witches and wizards of all kinds tried to stop her. Long believed to be dead, she seemingly rose from the ashes to possess the body of the red-haired princess there. She wanted the kingdom for her own and single-handedly fought the armies dispatched against her to claim it. They never stood a chance. No one stood a chance. Just when all hope was lost, a single man, the knight who was to marry her, was able to defeat the princess with nothing more than his heart. In the end, it wasn’t any weapon that won the day. It was the simplest but most powerful of emotions...love. The knight and princess were never seen or heard from again.”
The knight was the butcher, who could not bear to kill the princess because he still loved her then. Having put those emotions aside, the butcher tries to go for the kill again but the woman kills him with her powers. The tailor confronts the woman, wishing nothing more than to see her face again before she kills him. The tailor’s love manages to subdue the witch for an instance when he and the woman touch, but the woman urges him to kill her before the witch takes control of her again, to which the tailor does.