The squeaky voice broke the ticks-long silence with a flurry of responses. “Oh, wow! Nice to meet so many of you I found my way over and thought a little company would be nice but now I guess you al enjoy little company so that makes us friends, right ‘cause I’m little.” His words, sentences and thoughts all ran together but over time, the average ear begins to hear in a different way that allows him or her to deal with the rapidfire of syllables. “I love telling that story, I’m so glad you asked. You see, I was walking along this wooded path in Sylira when I thought I saw a furry little squirrel run up a tree with something shiny.” Zoot took a breath. “So I spent the whoooooooole next day climbing and climbing and climbing until I reached the hole which the squirrel had chewed into a knt on the main trunk of the big tree. It was a really, reeeeaaaallllly big tree.”
The tiny clay arms extended out to emphasis his point which even included some reenactments of the actual climbing. Zoot might have been easily distracted once or twice but it was never in the middle of a story so he continued with a strong zest for telling his tale. “When I reached the place where I want to be, I stepped into the tree and took a look around. Wouldn’t you know it? The first step I took, I fell into the trunk. I tumbled down and down and down until there was nothing but this strange stone like that which you see around us. Turns out, I had fallen into an old ,old ,old ,old ,old building that once belonged to some kind of guild from the pre-Valterrian days. It had beautiful walls lined in gold paint, gold everything and there were lots and lots of jewels. There was this one jewel that was so perfect that it didn’t reflect light so much as it glowed.”
Zoot was teetering in his excitement while retelling of how he was introduced to the magic that transformed his eyes. “The thing sat on top of what looked like a well but it held no water. I climbed up to get a better look at this amazing stone but it fell from its frail stand and struck a piece of metal on its way down to the inside of the empty well. The impact did something and the stone flashed so bright that Syna would have been jealous and it knocked me unconscious.” The Pycn rocked back on his heels then fell flat onto his back. For nearly a chime he remained spread out on the ground. Then his eyes popped open and he got to his feet before continuing. “I wandered for days trying to find my way out…perhaps even weeks bevause it was such a large stricture that I had a hard time telling when I had switched rooms. There was this one room though that had nothing in it but hundreds of pictures on the walls. They really told a pretty story all about how everything works and what makes it important. I mean, we all know life is important but learning is always the first thing I prioritize.”
Zoot got up and climbed around the girls making large motions for his small self to outline battle plans and even stopped to gather another one of those floating lantern lily pads so he could continue to fuel his fire. “The stars let Zoot see the magic people leave behind. The star can be shared with others and made to be stronger. Zoot likes the stars because they brought him down to see the small merforlk in the water here.” If anyone cared to look back and could see with the huge lack of natural light, a dozen tiny sets of eyes looked at them all from the surface of the water. The first person to physically turn to look at them would chase them all back down into the depths of midnight. Zoot paused his story for a drink. He was feeling satisfied with his answers and turned his gaze back to his new friends.
Are you ready to learn your fate?
A Firenze Template
