once there was a monastery on a high mountain, where the soil is packed and sterile and dry, and its garden was failing--only a few rows of cabbage the color of mud, three stalks of soggy corn, and a small patch of beautiful flowers. one day a bear came and, not wanting the beige cabbage or the sickly-looking corn, instead ate the flowers of the garden. when the monks came out and found the bear with petals in the shag of his fur, they scolded him, for they had so little to eat themselves, and the guilt-ridden bear agreed to become the gardener of the monastery, the same way a child stealing from a fruit cart might be made to apprentice the farmer whose wares he stole.

in a few years, they had the grandest garden in all of that sparse mountain country, and the ecumenical patriarch of constantinople himself insisted the bear be beatified for his repentance and fine work with a trowel.

(sorry for the wonky border, ill fix that soon)