Test Chapter: Aphid and the Bat

A Selection from The Dreaming:

{Note: The Dreaming is a collection of myths and children's fantasy stories}

Long ago, in a land much different than our own, there was a forest. What is a forest you ask? Well, I shall tell you. If ever you find a place where tall, emerald trees grow thickly together like an army of soldiers standing at attention - trees thrice the size of any full grown Palzune - their boughs and branches so thick and intertwined that flying through them would be an impossible task, you have discovered yourself a forest. Sunlight only breaks through on rare occasions, and it is the home of thousands of creatures. No two forests are the same, just as no two oceans can be the same. Their borders and inhabitants make each one unique. In a forest, streams of water flow freely along the ground without a care in the world of where they might end, and the land surrounding them drinks at its leisure from its cool and endless depths. Sometimes, if you listen with your full attention - never tense but always ready, never thinking but always aware, you can hear the whispers of the rulers of the woods singing – the faeries of the forest realm.

Now a faerie is something amazing to behold. They are a cheerful, proud people, though they stand no taller than a crag lily flower. Long have they communed and loved nature and all of the Author’s creation. Where a faerie steps, life is bound to blossom. The trees in which they dwell can never die, and life has kissed them with purity of the heart. In their merry dancing dwells the gift of happiness, and hidden within their laughter resides a touch of healing. In their realm exists no sorrow, no hunger, and before their playful song no tears are shed.

This story is about a particular faerie by the name of Sterling, though you would not know that was her true name. Since birth, she was instead called Aphid, for she was the smallest faerie in her clan. Her home was in the enclosed pedals of a sunflower near a small lake, where her favorite thing to do was tell and solve riddles. Now, if you know anything about faeries, you should know that puzzles and riddles are not a common past time. In fact, very little thought is ever seriously engaged in the faerie realm, for there is usually not much need of it. Life is almost always generally pleasant and untroubled, so stretching intellectual capacities, especially when no particular problem is in need of solving, is typically seen as energy wasted.

So, in order to satisfy her constant thirst for puzzles, Aphid made many new and unusual friends in the forest. She had tried telling riddles to the squirrels, but discovered their attention spans to be smaller than a ladybug. amd the raccoons were only interested in puzzles that involved food. The foxes had at first seemed like promising intellectual partners, but soon she discovered that their craftiness was more of a cruelty they lent toward scheming and jokes rather than enjoyable conversation. She had tried the mice, and the owl, the crickets, and even a deer, but none of them seemed to share her passions.

Many seasons passed, and at long last on one particularly ordinary spring day, she found the friend that she had always wanted: a fellow riddle lover named Edee. Edee was a water nymph who lived at the bottom of the lake near Aphid’s sunflower. She had often been lonely in her pond, for she was the only known naiad in the woods, and fear of the surface had kept her in the depths for many years. However, the sound of Aphids sweet singing had given her enough courage to brave the shores, and their friendship had been an instant one.

One day Aphid sat humming to herself as she guided a large oak leaf around the shallows of her home lake. She did this often, for she found that the sounds of the water and the company of the fish brought a particularly pleasant joy to her heart. Using a small twig in both hands as a paddle, she would take herself to the very center of the pond on her leaf-boat to exchange riddles with Edee, who day after day tried rigorously to stump her. Today, however, Edee did not greet her.

Aphid gave a low whistle to make her presence known.

“I know the answer!” she called playfully across the still water. “And this one was tricky! You’re cleverness seems to sharpen by the day!”

Besides the tiny ripples caused by her boat, the water was still. In no hurry, Aphid decided to enjoy the intermittent speckles of sunlight that streamed through the boughs of the overhanging trees. Soon she began to doze, spreading her delicate wings up and out, up and out.

She wasn’t sure how much time had passed when she at last heard a soft splash next to her. Opening her eyes, she spied Edee peering up at her from the water, eyes black and bulging. Overjoyed, she quickly recited the latest riddle.

"What do bear cubs, human infants, and faeries all have in common? They all have bear (bare) feet!!" she said with gusto.

Edee nodded halfheartedly. “Well done, Aphid. You have beaten me yet again.”

“Edee, what makes your face that shape?” Aphid asked.

“Dear Aphid,” Edee moaned, “I have heard a creature screaming in the woods for hours this morning, and it frightened me. You should not be here - you must go home at once and save yourself!”

Aphid frowned. “A creature is screaming in the woods? What if it needs help?”

“It isn’t just any creature, sweet Aphid - I think it’s a bird. You know that I cannot go near the air riders, for they would surely eat me for a snack, and this one is very frightening indeed!”

“Frightening?” asked Aphid, suddenly intrigued.

“Yes! It has no feathers, but hair, and the face of a demon!” Edee shuddered slightly as she spoke, her silvery sleek body quivering all over.

“That does sound quite frightening,” mused Aphid, who was working hard at trying to mask her excitement. A demonic, hairy bird is screaming somewhere in the woods nearby. I must investigate this at once!

"You must return home at once,” pressed Edee.

“But you have not given me a new riddle!” protested Aphid.

“Fine,” said Edee. She thought for a moment, and then recited, “Only one color, but not one size, stuck at the bottom, yet easily flies. Present in sun, but not much in rain, doing no harm, and feeling no pain.” Edee smiled with pride. “This one took me a very long time to think of, so it had better stump you good!”

Aphid smiled, then asked,“Edee, will you tell me where the bird is?"

Edee’s eyes went wide with horror. “You’re not really going to go look for it, are you?”

Aphid did not answer the question directly, and instead said simply, "Well, it will be much easier to avoid it if I know where it is.”

Edee’s body relaxed, and her eyes returned to their normal size. She pointed down a stream that trickled slowly out of the west side of the pond. “It was down that way.”

Aphid thanked her, and once her friend was gone, began paddling her leaf directly toward the west side of the pond.

It didn’t take her long to find the creature the naiad had described, though Aphid was somewhat disappointed upon her arrival. Instead of a demonic hairy bird, she found only an injured fruit bat. It was making quite a ruckus, and Aphid could see that something awful had happened to its right wing.

“Sir?” Aphid called politely from atop a small rock.

The bat was whimpering loudly, but at the sound of Aphid’s voice he turned with a sharp glare. “What do you want?” he rasped.

“Only to help,” Aphid replied in a gentle voice. “What happened?”

The bat gave a shrill moan. “No one can help me,” he sniffled. “My wing is ruined. Ruined! That nasty little farmer’s boy threw a stone at me. A stone! Right at my wing - as though I were nothing but target practice. Or worse - a meal! Who ever heard of humans hunting bats for a meal? I’m tiny enough already. It was an act of pure cruelty, that’s what it was. And now I’m doomed to lie here until a fox finds me.”

“Well, it seems that I’ve found you first,” Aphid observed. “And as you can see, I’m not a fox.” Aphid fluttered softly from her rock and landed near the bat’s face. It was an unusual face, Aphid saw, but far from demonic in her opinion. The bat’s face reminded her a bit of a strange looking mouse, with an elongated muzzle and lots of tiny sharp teeth in it’s mouth, but it’s eyes were kind.

“What’s your name?” asked the bat.

“My name is Aphid. What’s yours?”

“Cricket,” he replied glumly.

“You were named after an insect?”

“No, I was named after a delicacy," Cricket replied indignantly. It sounds like you’re the one who’s named after an insect.”

“My real name is Sterling,” Aphid explained as she moved closer to Cricket’s broken wing. “But I was always called Aphid because I’m so small.”

“I thought all faeries were small,” Cricket mused.

“Well, we are relative to you,” Aphid replied. She could see where delicate bones between the wing’s membranes had been shattered by the flying stone, and though it looked painful, Aphid knew it was not beyond repair.

“Don’t touch it!” Cricket snapped as Aphid reached out a hand.

Aphid pulled her hand back quickly. “Tell me a joke.”

“What?”

“Make me laugh,” Aphid explained.

Cricket only frowned. “What for? I’m not exactly in a cheery mood at the moment...”

“You’ll be glad you did,” Aphid said as she gave him a bright smile.

“I don’t know any jokes,” Cricket huffed.

Aphid only winked. “You’ll find I’m a very forgiving audience.”

Cricket’s frown deepened, and he fell silent in thought for a few moments. After a while he perked up slightly. “Well, I can tell you a funny story, if that will suffice."

Aphid smiled pleasantly. “That will work.”

“All right,” Cricket licked his lips with a flick of his long pinkk tongue. “A few nights past I was scouting out the land near my cave for fresh fruits. I wasn’t having much luck until I happened upon a small farm. (The same one that has the cruel boy on it.) I was investigating some of the orange trees when I spotted an aquaintance of mine near the barn. His name is Redfoot, if you care, and he’s a vampire bat. I perched myself next to him on the ceiling - you know, trying to be friendly and all. I assumed he had been sampling some of the livestock, because his entire face was red and wet with fresh blood, so I also presumed he would be in a good mood. However, once I had landed he started griping about new inventions, humans and their nasty trickery, and something a bit more profain than I care to repeat.

“Anyway, I didn’t know what he was talking about, so I tried to change the subject by asking him where he had received his evening meal from. He only scowled at me and pointed with a wingtips toward the side wall.

“See that window?” he had asked with a snarl.

“No,” I replied after a bit of squinting.

So he then mutters, “Neither did I."

Aphid couldn’t help herself. She exploded into a fit of giggles, and soon noticed that Cricket was chuckling along with her. Trying to be discreet, she reextended her hand toward Cricket’s damaged wing and continued to laugh. Once the two of them had calmed down again, Cricket noticed the location of her palm.

Pulling his wing back angrily from her touch, shouting “Don’t touch that! It hurts!”

Aphid smiled proudly back at him. “I think you’re lying.”

Cricket glanced with surprise at his old wound, which had vanished. “But ... I... how did you do that?”

Aphid only giggled again with delight and sprang to her feet. “All better now?”

Cricket gave his wings a tentative test flap. “It’s as if nothing happened,” he announced with awe. “How did you do that?”

Aphid dusted off her hands briskly. “Laughter is great medicine,” she replied simply.