RSS

Tag Archives: magical

The Gift That Didn’t Fit

15 Dec

Chapter One: The Immediate Chaos

The air in the Quince living room was thick with the suffocating scent of fresh pine and manufactured guilt. It was 11:37 PM on Christmas Eve, and sixteen-year-old Lily Quince was perched on the edge of the sofa, trying to ignore the dazzling, high-wattage shame radiating from the pile of wrapped goods under the tree.

“Honestly, Mom, why does a human being need a self-stirring cocoa mug?” Lily muttered, batting a stray, metallic ribbon off the sofa cushion and onto the carpet. “It’s exactly what’s wrong with Christmas. Too much stuff.”

Her little brother, Sam, only eight, nodded solemnly, his brow furrowed with devastating sincerity. He was crouched by the fireplace, sketching feverishly in a notebook. “That’s what I keep trying to tell Santa, Lily. We need effort, not expenditure.” He looked up, his eyes shining with pure, tragic longing. “I just hope he remembered the Woven Basket of Live Earthworms this year. I truly don’t know how I’ll run my pet farm without them.”

“You’ll be yearning for a ceramic garden gnome that plays the lute by morning.”

Lily froze, her hand hovering near the tin. “Did… did the shortbread just talk?”

“Was that about the worms?” Sam asked, looking hopeful.

Lily shook her head, feeling a cold dread replace her cynicism. Outside, the first flakes of snow began to fall, but the typical, cozy feeling of Christmas Eve was absent. Something felt fundamentally wrong with the world. Across the street, they heard the distinct sound of Mr. Henderson, the CEO, weeping inconsolably about his lack of a custom-made tuba.

The Silent Night is Loud

Lily slipped on her coat, unable to wait for morning. If the Shifter had affected the desires of the entire neighborhood, Christmas Day would be a disaster—or a surreal comedy show.

“I’m just getting some air,” she mumbled to Sam, who was now meticulously reviewing his notebook, listing the exact dimensions required for a thriving earthworm community.

The moment Lily stepped onto the porch, the magnitude of the problem hit her like a punch of frosted air. Usually, Christmas Eve was silent and respectful. Tonight, it was a discordant mess of frustration and absurd longing.

Mr. Henderson, usually an impeccably tailored man, was kneeling in his snow-dusted front yard, staring mournfully into an empty, expensive-looking violin case. “They didn’t listen!” he wailed to his terrified poodle. “They brought me a watch! I need the booming resonance! I need the tuba!”

Two doors down, Mrs. Petula, the neighborhood’s notorious gossip, was shrieking at her husband, clutching a gift-wrapped broomstick. “A stick, Gerald! You call this a gift? I explicitly asked for a custom-made chandelier constructed entirely of dried macaroni! My heart is broken!”

Lily pulled her hood tight. The Shifter hadn’t just changed what people wanted; it had filled the absence of that desired object with genuine, heart-wrenching disappointment. It was weaponized absurdity.

She rushed back inside, snatching the Chrono-Crumble Tin off the mantel. “Listen, you rusty, talking dessert container,” she whispered fiercely. “What did you do? And how do I turn you off?”

The grumpy butler voice sighed dramatically from inside the tin. “Oh, the drama! I simply adjusted expectations, young hero. And I am only deactivated by a truly Perfectly Thoughtful Gift. A transaction of the heart, not the wallet. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to observe the mailman lamenting his lack of a ceramic foot bath.”

Lily stared at the tin, then down at the gigantic pile of expensive, unwanted electronics destined for Sam. “A perfectly thoughtful gift,” she repeated. “Something that proves I know him.”

Suddenly, a memory sparked: the feeling of peeling away a piece of glow-in-the-dark putty—a tiny, molded star—from her mirror two Christmases ago. And a ridiculous, low-value object immediately sprang to mind: the Worry-A-Day Jar. A simple jar filled with 365 days of Sam’s cheesy jokes and encouraging observations. Lily had scoffed at it then. Now, it felt like the only non-absurd object left in the world.

“That’s it,” Lily whispered, ignoring the tin’s muffled giggling. “The jar. I have to find that jar.”

Chapter Two: The Search for the Sublime

Lily’s bedroom was a landscape of teenage archaeology, a place where sentimental objects went to be buried under layers of homework, fashion magazines, and forgotten technology. The room was the first place she looked for the Worry-A-Day Jar, and it instantly felt like searching for a needle in a haystack—a haystack that suddenly felt full of unwanted and cursed gifts.

She dug through her closet, shoving aside boxes of things she’d asked for but never really used. Under a pile of textbooks, she found a plastic, voice-activated diary she’d begged for last year. It beeped softly.

Diary: “My deepest desire is for a miniature, fully functioning, decorative garden hedge.”

Lily slammed the lid shut. The Shifter was still working its magic on things, too.

She pulled out her winter wear. There, tucked inside a ski boot, was the brightly colored, slightly misshapen Green and Purple Mitten that Sam had knitted two years ago—the one intended to replace the left mitten she always lost. She felt a pang of guilt, remembering how quickly she’d bought a professional black pair instead.

“A thoughtful gift,” Lily muttered, holding up the uneven wool. “This could have been it, except I tossed it aside.”

The Chrono-Crumble Tin, which she’d tucked under her arm like a mischievous football, offered a raspy chuckle. “Close, but no cigar. The magic requires perfect thoughtfulness, not near-perfect discardment. And besides,” the tin added with spite, “it’s nearly Christmas morning. You’re running out of time.”

A glance at her phone confirmed the tin’s warning: 1:15 AM.

Lily began tearing through her desk drawers, scattering papers, pens, and loose change. The desk was where the Jar belonged. Sam had presented it to her with such a proud, serious expression two years ago.

“It’s the Worry-A-Day Jar, Lily,” he had announced. “You open one slip when you’re worried. I filled it with things you need more than homework.”

Lily remembered politely putting it behind her laptop, deeming it too childish. She hadn’t even opened a week’s worth of slips. Now, the space was filled with charger cables and empty soda cans.

Frustration bubbling up, she accidentally kicked a box under her bed. It was a dusty container labeled “Old Toys.” She pulled it out, coughing in the dust cloud. The box contained all the childhood treasures she thought she had outgrown: old picture books, a handful of plastic dinosaurs, and—

Bingo.

Sitting nestled between a stuffed unicorn and a broken kaleidoscope was the Worry-A-Day Jar: a simple, painted mason jar, the lid wrapped with a glittery pipe cleaner, looking utterly out of place amidst the chaos of her teenage room.

Lily carefully lifted the jar. The hundreds of small, folded paper slips inside were the only thing that felt real and pure in the whole magical, ridiculous night.

“Okay, Shifter,” she whispered to the tin under her arm. “I have the tool. Tell me how to use it to reverse the spell.”

The Chrono-Crumble Tin cleared its metallic throat. “You must craft the desired gift—the earthworm basket—with an act of love so genuine that it proves you truly saw the recipient. The key is in the Jar, child. The key is in the words.”

Lily frowned. “The words? The terrible jokes and advice?”

“They are proof of his attention,” the Shifter corrected with a rare note of seriousness. “You need to read the slips, understand how he sees you, and reflect that sincerity back in your gift to him. Go now. The sun rises in four hours.”

Lily clutched the Jar and the Tin, the strange weight of the magical responsibility settling on her shoulders. She had to rush downstairs, read her brother’s heart, and then craft a perfectly thoughtful earthworm basket before the world woke up to the most disastrous, absurd Christmas morning in history.

Click HERE to read the rest of this story

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on December 15, 2025 in fantasy story, funny story, humor, humour

 

Tags: , , , ,

Old Elf and the Dragon

11 Dec
Old Elf and the Dragon

Fle and the Obsidian Sky-Weaver

The air tasted like crushed silver and distant thunder. Below them, the valley of the Winding River was painted in the soft, bruised colours of twilight, where mushroom-capped towers and luminous flora dotted the emerald cliffs.

Fle, the Old Elf, sat tall upon Kaelen, the Sky-Weaver, his emerald robes catching the last amber rays of the setting sun. Fle’s face was a map of ages, his eyes holding the patient light of a thousand moons, but his grip on the dragon’s jeweled harness was firm. He was guiding Kaelen through the Veil of the Shifting Dusk, the narrow passage between the mortal realm and the High Dreaming.

Kaelen, whose scales were an armour of deep, shimmering teal and night-sky black, did not flap his colossal wings with brute force. He moved with a mystical grace, riding the invisible currents that flowed from the Rainbow of Eld arching high above them—a phenomenon that only appears when a creature of pure elemental magic and a being of profound age travel together.

“The Gem of Constant Dawn,” Kaelen’s thought resonated, deep and guttural, in Fle’s mind, “lies just beyond that cloud-bank, where the river meets the mist. But the Silence has claimed it.”

“The Silence,” Fle murmured, pulling his hood closer, “is fear, Kaelen. It is the dread that paralyzes creativity. And it has used the Gem to still the music of the World-Heart.”

Their mission was perilous: The Gem of Constant Dawn, which normally sang the world into existence every morning, had been stolen and wrapped in the Web of the Soul-Moths, creatures of pure, paralyzing inertia. If the Gem was not freed by midnight, the sun would rise only as a suggestion, and the world would remain perpetually quiet, perpetually grey.

As they flew past the floating, crystalline peaks, Fle reached into a hidden pouch woven into his sash and withdrew three small items:

  1. A feather from a thought-bird, which allowed him to hear the whispers of possibility.
  2. A shard of frozen laughter, which could break the densest concentration of sorrow.
  3. A single, petrified tear of a nymph, which held the warmth of summer.

They broke through the last cloud layer. There, floating motionless above the swirling mist, was the Gem—a sphere of blinding, imprisoned light, tightly encased in thick, silvery cobwebs. And hovering around it were the Soul-Moths, silent, dark insects whose flapping wings emitted a negative sound that drained the air of hope.

Kaelen stopped, hanging suspended in the air. “I cannot approach, Old Friend,” he admitted. “My fire is too loud, my being too grand. The Silence would snuff me out like a candle.”

“Then we shall be quiet,” Fle replied, his voice barely a breath.

He slipped off Kaelen’s back and, rather than falling, began to descend slowly on a column of shimmering, green energy—the focused memory of every happy song he had ever heard.

As he neared the Gem, the cold of the Silence hit him. His memories felt heavy, his purpose uncertain. He could feel the Soul-Moths trying to wrap his own thoughts in their numbing web.

Fle raised his hand and opened his palm. He did not cast a spell; he simply released the shard of frozen laughter.

The laughter shard—the captured echo of a thousand innocent giggles—didn’t explode. It simply melted, forming a thin, high chime. The sound was so unexpected, so pure and non-serious, that the Soul-Moths paused, momentarily confused.

In that fraction of a moment, Fle used his second item: he took the thought-bird feather and gently tickled the Web of the Soul-Moths. The Moths, overwhelmed by the sudden influx of chaotic and funny possibilities, flew away in disarray, unable to process the illogical joy.

The Gem of Constant Dawn was now free, but still cold and muted. Fle pressed the petrified tear of the nymph against the crystalline sphere. Instantly, the warmth of all past summers infused the Gem. It flared, shining with a light that pushed back the twilight and sent a vibrant, resonant thrum through the entire valley.

Above, Kaelen roared—a sound that was now one of pure, unrestrained elemental joy. The Rainbow of Eld above them deepened in colour, and the Winding River below seemed to sing as the music of the World-Heart returned.

Fle rose back to Kaelen’s side, weary but successful. “The Silence is broken, my friend. Let us fly home. It’s been a long age.”

Kaelen dipped his great head in agreement. With a powerful beat of his massive wings, he turned toward the dawn, carrying Fle, the keeper of memory and laughter, out of the high, mystical air and back toward the newly singing world.

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on December 11, 2025 in children's stories, elf, fle, Magic, magical, mystical, Stories for children

 

Tags: , , , , ,

The Pointing Elf

11 Dec
The Pointing Elf

Fle was not your average elf. For one, he was ancient, with a beard that could rival a white waterfall and ears so long they sometimes tripped him if he wasn’t careful. For another, he didn’t live in a sparkling, forest-canopy palace or a cozy mushroom home. No, Fle resided in the rather pungent, yet undeniably magical, depths of the “Finest Fertilizer Mine.”

Now, this wasn’t just any fertilizer. This was magical fertilizer, dug from the very bowels of the earth where forgotten spells congealed and ancient dragon sneezes settled. It made grumpy gnomes grow sunflowers taller than mountains, turned barren desert into candy floss forests, and once, famously, made a flock of sheep spontaneously learn opera.

Fle’s job was simple: dig. And point. He believed the pointing was crucial. “You see, my dear saplings,” he’d croak to the tiny, bewildered pixies he occasionally conscripted for help, “the pointing directs the inherent whimsy of the earth towards the digging! Without proper pointing, you might just unearth… well, an old boot. And who wants that?”

One Tuesday, a particularly vibrant Tuesday where the air smelled faintly of blueberry muffins and old socks, Fle was pointing with gusto. “Hark! The earth beckons!” he declared, gesturing wildly with a gloved hand. His shovel, lovingly named ‘Sparkle-dig,’ plunged into the soil. Instead of the usual shimmering, nutrient-rich earth, he hit something solid.

“Aha!” Fle exclaimed, convinced it was a particularly stubborn clump of enchanted compost. He dug around it, grumbling about the lack of respect for ancient digging techniques. Suddenly, the ground beneath him began to rumble. The “Finest Fertilizer” bags around him, filled with their magical contents, started to jiggle ominously.

“By the beard of Merlin’s mushroom!” Fle cried, momentarily forgetting to point. The solid object beneath him wasn’t a clump of compost. It was a giant, petrified, disco ball. And it was waking up.

With a final, earth-shattering thump, the disco ball erupted from the ground, sending Fle and his bags of fertilizer flying. It spun, glittering with a million tiny mirrors, illuminating the mine with a kaleidoscope of color. Funk music, surprisingly loud and bass-heavy, started to emanate from it, shaking the very foundations of the mine.

Fle landed rather ungracefully in a pile of “Not For Sale” fertilizer (which, ironically, was the most potent). He brushed himself off, adjusted his crooked spectacles, and stared at the pulsating disco ball. The pixies, who had thankfully scampered off at the first rumble, peeked back in, their tiny eyes wide with wonder.

“Well,” Fle mused, stroking his magnificent beard, “that explains the blueberry muffins. And the old socks, I suppose.” He then began to point at the disco ball with renewed vigor. “Now, if we can just harness this… this luminescent boogie… imagine what it could do for the petunias!” The pixies, sensing a new, undeniably absurd, magical project, began to hum along to the funk, already envisioning disco-dancing daisies. And so, the Finest Fertilizer Mine gained a new, shimmering, and exceptionally loud, resident.

*******************************************************************

The Pointing Elf: Fle and the Funk of the Fertilizer

Fle, the ancient elf, stood proudly on a giant sack of “Super-Grow Garlic Granules,” pointing with focused intensity at the colossal, glittering disco ball that had taken up unwelcome residence in the center of the Finest Fertilizer Mine.

“Listen up, you minuscule mischiefs!” Fle boomed, his voice echoing over the steady, bass-heavy thrum emanating from the sphere. The pixies—who had taken to wearing tiny reflective hats—were bobbing their heads in time with the funk. “The goal is synchronization! We must harmonize the whimsy of the earth with the inherent groove of this giant, petrified party favor!”

His plan was, naturally, absurdly complex. It involved a series of copper wires salvaged from a forgotten goblin telegraph, a repurposed ladle, and several yards of elasticated pixie-pants (for conductivity, Fle insisted). The objective was to channel the disco ball’s pure funk energy into a special, highly volatile batch of fertilizer: The Rhythm Compost.

“Remember the rules, team!” Fle adjusted his spectacles, which were now flickering with reflected light. “One: Always point towards the whimsy. Two: Never, under any circumstances, allow the funk to touch the opera sheep. We don’t need a chorus of ‘Baa-ss Nova’ again. Three: If you hear pan pipes, run.”

For three glorious, bass-filled days, Fle and the pixies worked. The mine was transformed into the world’s funkiest excavation site. The digging equipment vibrated with the beat, the walls pulsed, and even the air seemed to shimmer with purple and turquoise light.

Finally, the Rhythm Compost was complete. It was a shimmering, dark green mixture that pulsed with a faint, irresistible beat.

“The test, my dear saplings! The test!” Fle announced dramatically, scooping a tiny pinch onto a sickly-looking fern that had been drooping pathetically in the corner.

The fern twitched. Then it straightened. Then, to the astonishment of all, it began to breakdance.

It spun on its roots, popped and locked its fronds, and finished with a flourish, striking a dramatic pose.

“Success!” cried Fle, doing a surprisingly spry jig on the sack of garlic granules. “The Rhythm Compost works! Imagine the agricultural implications!”

But then, disaster struck. The fern, overwhelmed by the funk, started growing violently. It burst through the mine ceiling, transforming into a towering, rhythmically-shaking jungle of floral power. The fern’s breakdancing moves caused powerful tremors, sending dust, rocks, and, worst of all, an avalanche of Super-Grow Garlic Granules cascading down onto the disco ball.

Krrrr-ZAT!

The contact was catastrophic. The highly pungent granules, combined with the pure funk energy, caused a massive magical feedback loop. The disco ball didn’t just spin; it began to levitate, pulling the entire mine with it!

“RUN, PIXIES, RUN!” shrieked Fle, forgetting the pan pipe rule and resorting to common sense.

The last anyone saw of the Finest Fertilizer Mine was a colossal, earth-caked, funk-blasting disco ball soaring into the sky, dragging the mine’s contents behind it. Fle, clinging precariously to his giant sack of garlic, was still pointing.

“I still maintain,” he shouted into the rushing wind, adjusting his beard, “that the pointing was necessary! The whimsy is simply outside the earth now!”

And somewhere, far below, a flock of opera sheep looked up, suddenly feeling an inexplicable urge to compose a power ballad about disco lighting and airborne agriculture.

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on December 11, 2025 in magical, mine

 

Tags: , , , ,

The Beetle and the Bubblegum Bomb

28 Sep

The Beetle and the Bubblegum Bomb

 

Box Privet, a boy whose soul was perfectly calibrated to the clean, predictable logic of circuitry and oscilloscopes, was currently driving in a state of barely contained panic. His world, once dominated by the pleasant hum of his soldering iron, had been usurped by the utterly unpredictable presence of his cousin, Harry Rotter.

Harry (or Harriet, as her tormented parents used to call her) was the family’s dreadful, dark secret—a calculating girl wizard who had, in a spectacular fit of carelessness, lost her Magical Marbles. These marbles contained the bulk of her power, and without them, her raw, volatile magic was leaking out, manifesting as miniature bursts of utter, sticky nonsense across number five Dorsley Drive.

Their mission—or rather, Harry’s command—was to retrieve those marbles before the leaking magic warped reality completely. This meant Box, the only person with a driver’s license (barely), was behind the wheel of his father’s sacred, air-cooled German machine, the Volkswagen Beetle. Affectionately, and nervously, dubbed ‘The Bug’ by Mr. Privet, the car was a shrine to vinyl and order, and Box was terrified of upsetting its balance.

The Beetle was currently thrumming down Dorsley Drive. Box was at the wheel, his large glasses nearly touching the steering wheel as he gripped it at ten and two, perfectly mimicking the instructional video he’d watched five times.

“You’re driving far too slowly, Box,” Harry said, chewing a massive wad of lurid pink bubblegum. She was sprawled across the passenger seat, legs up on the dashboard despite Mr. Privet’s strict, hand-written sign that read: Absolutely No Feet on the Vinyl. Ever.

“I’m driving precisely the speed limit,” Box mumbled, checking his speed against the needle and the satnav app he’d rigged to the car’s ancient radio. “And get your feet down! Dad measures the scuff marks.”

“Relax,” Harry drawled, blowing a bubble the size of a small melon. “Your father’s currently preoccupied with whether tinned peaches are the only thing keeping the alien-lizard-people from taking over the council. He’s in no state to check for scuffs.”

“That’s beside the point! This car is a precision instrument!”

“This car is a metal tin can with a funny little engine and a distinct smell of disappointment,” Harry corrected, popping the bubblegum with a sound like a distant gunshot. She then picked a speck of lint off her cherubic cheek and flicked it toward the windshield.

It never hit the glass.

Instead, the speck of lint paused in the air, shimmered with a sickly green light—a burst of Harry’s runaway magic—and instantly grew into a tennis ball-sized globe of thick, sticky, neon-pink bubblegum, pulsating gently. It smacked wetly onto the inside of the windshield, directly in front of Box’s eyes.

“Harry!” Box shrieked, slamming on the brakes. The Bug shuddered violently, narrowly avoiding swerving into a neighbour’s immaculate prize-winning fuchsia bush. “What did you just do?!”

Harry casually peeled another strip of gum. “Just losing a tiny bit of magic, Box. Don’t get your resistor in a twist. I told you, I’ve lost my Magical Marbles. The magic is leaking out whenever I’m bored, and your driving style, Box, is a magical sieve.”

Box was already fumbling with his box of tools, pulling out a multi-meter. “This is a Class 3 Bio-Hazard, Harry! It’s highly volatile and gum-based! I can’t just scrape it off—it’ll void the sound dampening material!”

Harry sighed with exaggerated patience. “Just get us moving. We need to find those marbles before I turn your father’s prized vehicle into a giant, chrome hamster wheel. And don’t worry about the gum.”

She reached over and, instead of touching the luminous pink orb, she merely pointed her finger at it.

The sphere of gum didn’t move. But the entire windshield, along with the steering column, the dashboard, and Box’s large spectacles, suddenly rotated ninety degrees counter-clockwise.

The Beetle was now being driven by Box, who was squinting sideways through the rotated windshield, viewing the world at a slightly dizzying angle. The car was accelerating again, heading straight for the high curb.

“Harry!” Box yelled, fighting the crooked steering wheel. “We’re going to hit the pavement sideways!”

“Oh, lighten up, Box,” Harry giggled, now looking straight ahead through the newly vacated passenger window. “It’s just a new perspective! Now, did you remember to bring the copper wiring for the electro-magical wand?”

Chapter Two: The Architecture of Absurdity

Box Privet’s bedroom was not a place for relaxation; it was a sanctuary of solder fumes and blinking LEDs. Every wall was lined with shelves overflowing with neatly organized bins labeled with terrifying precision: ’7400 Series Logic,’ ‘1/4 W Resistors (Tolerance < 5%),’ and the truly disturbing ‘Mystery Wires (Handle with Gloves).’

On his workbench—a repurposed dining table covered in an anti-static mat—the parts for the Foci-Finder lay assembled. For Box, this was the ultimate engineering challenge: designing a sensor that could detect “magic”—a field he considered purely theoretical, like unicorns or reliable transit schedules.

“Are you sure about this configuration, Box?” Harry asked, draped over a beanbag chair made entirely of recycled circuit boards. She held a damp, crumpled blueprint of the design, which Box had spent three hours perfecting.

Box didn’t look up, his soldering iron whispering against a tiny surface-mount capacitor. “Yes, Harry. The Phase-Shift Oscillator requires a precise resistor to maintain frequency stability. Any deviation and the entire magnetic pulse generator will—”

“Too much math, Box,” Harry interrupted with a sigh. “That little copper coil needs flow. You’ve measured all the angles, but did you check its vibe? It feels rigid. Maybe if you gave it a little… wiggle.”

Box slowly raised his head, his safety goggles magnifying his glare. “If I ‘wiggle’ the core component, Harry, it won’t detect residual quantum entanglement; it will detect sparks and fire. It’s not a wishing well, it’s a circuit board.”

He picked up the final piece of the device: a bent, metallic object with a thick, insulated handle.

“And what is that?” Harry peered at it.

“This,” Box announced, his voice tight with defensive pride, “is the antenna. It’s a custom-built, directional Faraday Loop Antenna, optimized for capturing localized energy field disruptions.” He paused. “I took the whisk from Dad’s new stand mixer.”

Harry clapped her hands. “Excellent! That has great kitchen-magic potential. But it still needs something… wizardy. It’s a wand, not a calculator.”

Box took a deep breath, fighting the urge to explain that a calculator was infinitely more complex than a wand. To appease her, he used a hot glue gun to affix three tiny, flickering blue LEDs to the tip of the whisk-antenna. He then wrapped the handle in iridescent metallic duct tape.

The finished product looked like a kitchen appliance that had been mugged by a glowworm and forced to take a physics class. It featured a flashing circuit board, a digital readout, and the unmistakable head of a stainless steel whisk.

“It is complete,” Box declared, wiping his soldering brow. “The device now measures for a fluctuation caused by the presence of your Foci. We should achieve detection accuracy within a radius.”

Harry slid off the chair, beaming. She snatched the wand and gave it a joyful wave, which Box noted with horror sent the digital readout briefly spiking to an impossible value of .

“Perfect! Let’s go find those marbles before Dad notices the kitchen appliance theft, or before the Beetle’s tires re-inflate.”

Want to read more? Simply click HERE and enjoy.

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on September 28, 2025 in Harry Potter, Harry Rotter

 

Tags: , , ,

Two Rivers: One Green, One Brown

23 Sep
Two Rivers: One Green, One Brown

Two Rivers: One Green, One Brown

 

The land was divided by two rivers, and everyone knew that their waters must never touch. On one side was the Green River, its current shimmering with the laughter of a thousand emeralds. Its water tasted of mint and new leaves, and it carried whispers of spring and the secrets of the forest. The creatures who drank from it—the silver foxes, the songbirds, the deer with antlers like branches—were quick of foot and light of heart. Their fur and feathers held the green shimmer of their home.

On the other side flowed the Brown River. Its waters were deep and rich, the color of wet earth and autumn. It sang a low, humming song of ancient roots and buried memories. The creatures that drank from it—the slow, wise turtles, the burrowing moles, the great brown bears—were strong and steady. Their coats were the color of the river, and they held the patient wisdom of the stones at its bottom.

For centuries, the two rivers flowed side-by-side, parallel but separate. A narrow strip of land, overgrown with thick moss and ancient trees, was all that kept them apart. The animals of the Green River would sometimes look across at their brown-furred counterparts, curious but cautious. The animals of the Brown River would do the same, their steady eyes watching the flash of green across the way.

One day, a terrible drought came. The land grew parched, and the sun beat down with a relentless fury. The Green River, which relied on the soft rains of spring, began to shrink. Its laughter faded into a murmur, and the creatures who depended on it grew weak and weary. The Brown River, which drew its strength from deep, hidden springs, was still full, its song a low thrum of endurance. But the animals of the Brown River watched as their neighbors withered, and their own hearts grew heavy with a sorrow they had never known.

A young emerald fox, its fur dulled by thirst, crept to the edge of its riverbed and stared at the full, flowing Brown River. A large brown bear, its eyes full of concern, watched the fox from the opposite bank. The fox’s need was great, and the bear’s compassion was greater. The bear stretched a massive paw and, with a silent wish, nudged a large, round stone into the water. It landed with a splash that created a ripple, a tiny, determined wave that traveled across the narrow strip of land. The stone, a gift from the bear, created a bridge, a momentary link between the two rivers.

The ripple from the Brown River met the last of the Green River’s flow, and something magical happened. For a moment, where they touched, the water didn’t mix but swirled in a mesmerizing dance of jade and amber. The combined water, a single, intertwined current, sparkled with an energy neither had ever known alone. The creatures who saw it felt a sense of awe.

The fox, seeing the combined water, carefully stepped onto the new, small bridge of rocks and dipped its head, drinking from the water where the two had met. The moment the water touched its tongue, a new energy surged through its body. Its fur shimmered with a vibrancy it had lost, but it was not just green now; a deep, earthy wisdom seemed to flow beneath its skin.

The bear, watching the fox, felt a similar transformation. As the Brown River touched the Green, it no longer carried just the weight of the earth. A new lightness and joy bubbled within it.

From that day forward, the rivers continued to flow side-by-side, but they were no longer strangers. The animals on either side learned to build more stone bridges, to share the water, and to share their stories. The Green River still sang of spring, and the Brown River still hummed of ancient roots. But now, in the shared water, the melodies of joy and wisdom played together, creating a new, vibrant song that flowed through the heart of the land, forever changed.

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on September 23, 2025 in rivers, Short story

 

Tags: , , ,