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Beginning of A Time
Kivi slid silently down the
side the mountain the grin of his face
growing ever wider as he crept closer and closer to the raven. The bird
was too busy hopping after a bear in hopes of stealing some of its
recent catch of fish to notice the rock spirit creeping up behind him.
One of Kivi’s many little sisters nearly giggled as she peaked
out of
her boulder but a look from Kivi caused her to throw her hands over her
mouth so as not to give him away. He sent a snare of ivy snaking across
the ground where the raven unknowingly caught his foot. Once the ivy
was secure Kivi jumped out with a shriek causing the bird to fly with a
start but the ivy held its foot fast so he snagged and fell back. |
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“Ymir’s maggots eat you,” the raven swore at the rock
fairy and his siblings who’d started laughing uproariously at the
bird who was trying to pull the snare from his leg.
“It serves you right for trying to steal the old blind bears
catch, you know she never gets enough to eat,” Kivi told the
raven with a laugh.
“Its not my fault she’s blind,” the raven scowled
back. “And if you care so much why not simply heal her?”
“I can’t heal everyone who falls ill,” Kivi sighed.
“Besides there is a certain wisdom that comes with being blind
that the other animals need and I wouldn’t want to take that away
from them.”
A twig crackled a few steps
away from them causing Kivi to look up with
a start. Although the sound of twigs breaking was common enough in the
forest something about this sound seemed different, somehow
supernatural. He furrowed his brow in puzzlement as he gazed on what
looked and felt almost like the spirit of an ash tree gathering acorns
some distance away. She brushed a braided lock of hair out of her eyes
as she looked up at him.
Kivi felt exceedingly uncomfortable under her gaze and he thought about
vanishing or turning into a bird to excape it but he felt even more
uncomfortable with the idea of doing either of those things in
front of her. Kivi shifted anxiously as she stared at him, she
wasn’t like any |
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ash tree fairy he’d ever met. She smiled at him and carefully put
down the long stick she’d been carrying causing Kivi to glance at
it. He furrowed his brow further when he noticed a sharp rock strapped
to its end. He’d seen animals once before that had done the same
thing but they’d been nothing like this girl..
She took a careful step back from him and turned around to give him the
time he needed to run and slide into the safety of his rock. Once he
was securely hidden she approached him carefully as he watched her from
inside his rock. She took a necklace of carefully woven flowers
and laid it on his rock before laying down a handful of acorns..
Kivi felt a sudden rush of uncontrollable gratitude wash over him from
the simple gift.
“I don’t have much,” she told the rock sadly as tears
began to form in her eyes. “My people and I were forced to flee
our home and are new to this land. I hope that we can be good
neighbors, she continued nearly choking on the tears she was trying to
hold back, and you can provide me with some luck as I search for more
food.”
The sudden rush of sympathy and gratitude intensified tto the point
that Kivi nearly sprang from his rock to embrace and reassure her. But
her gaze caused him to flinch back uncomfortably again keeping him in
the safety of his rock until she had turned away once again allowing
him to rush out of his stone and up the side of the giant oak which had
dropped the acorns. He knocked on the side of the tree calling out the
fairy queen that before crawling out over the branches to watch as the
girl walked away her stick back in her hand.
“What is she?” Kivi asked as the trees spirit crawled out
beside him.
The ancient oak mother pursed her lips in thought. “She is the
child of an ash tree, but there is something different about her. I
have heard from the ones who live in the sky that there are a group of
fairies that left their ash trees called humans and forgot what they
were as they mixed with the animals, perhaps thats what she is.”
“How very strange,” Kivi noted his sympathy for the girl
rising to an uncomfortably intense level as he watched her disappear
from view. I’m going to help her he told the Fairy Queen as he
sprang from her branches and landed on an old pine above the girls
head. The pine understanding Kivi’s need for silence didn’t
move or rusltle as he crawled quickly into its branches to hide from
the girl below him.
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