The green daylight of an early Friday morning seeped into the woods. A bloody and battered Mr. Fluffington gripped his claws into the branch of a tree and managed to squeeze out three hours of sleep in total.
At the crack of dawn, he scanned his surroundings below. He watched every bush and counted every individual sound he heard. After analyzing the ground beneath him to his satisfaction, he slid down the trunk of the tree, reeled from an impact he would normally walk off without thinking about, and then went to find the Summer Canary.
She was a self-proclaimed ‘elementalist’ known throughout the Little Woods. Many sought to find her sanctuary which was only difficult because it constantly moved. She could apparently perform many different kind of magics, namely those related to the summer, but Mr. Fluffington wasn’t looking for magic. He was looking for bandages, and he was in desperate need of some quickly.
He found her fifteen minutes later by tracking her incense. It was the other reason he decided to find her. The aroma often filled the woods around her, and she never conducted business without it. He followed the scent until it led to her mobile sanctuary which consisted of half a dozen candles currently unlit because it was day, two lumps of garlic, and piles upon piles of spirit-deterring cloth. Perfect.
“Fern Fluffington, it is a pleasure to see you,” she said, and quite notably, she did it without turning around to look at him approaching. “The past several days have been tough for all of us magically inclined Mystics.”
“Yes, Hilda, I am aware.”
Only then did she turn around. She was a small yellow canary and so she had to look up to see his scrunched up face and constantly shifting eyes. She proceeded to look him up and down.
“You are going to ask to use some of my spirit warding talismans, aren’t you?”
“Yes, please…”
She looked him up and down again.
“You did help me with the candles last month,” she said. “I could lend some talismans. Yes, it will not hurt me, and certainly no evil spirits will dare to go wherever you walk.”
Mr. Fluffington left her sanctuary ten minutes later looking like a mummy. She offered him additional healing services as well as a general Prayer of the Seasons. He rejected kindly but then gave in for a Whisper of the Seasons when she insisted. It involved her leaning into his ear and whispering a quick chirp. Altogether, he didn’t feel very different or “summery”, but he was certain he wasn’t going to bleed to death or die of an infection anymore. He refocused on the offensive only after scanning his surroundings again, a second time, and then a third time.
After leaving the area around the mobile sanctuary, he checked another six times and then leapt into a bush to watch out for hidden stalkers. He rinsed and repeated the same careful steps over and over. It was a new method of getting to places that slowed the “getting to places” part to a standstill. He crept silently through the woods. He smothered himself with berries to hide his scent and then ate those same berries. Sometimes, he jumped out at random passerby, but somehow he was the one who always received the apologies in the end. One look at the lumbering cat wrapped in red and brown berry-stained spirit cloth and suddenly the other animals were all sympathy.
Mr. Fluffington’s paranoid shuffle through the Little Woods brought him to the far edge on the other side where the trees broke up to reveal a lake. The lake belonged to one of the few Westshire aquatic populations, but more importantly than that, it contained the Ex-Calibur. It was once a magical sword called the Calibur that could split through bark and stone despite not weighing a pound. It was malleable enough to be wielded by birds and fish. Its hilt adapted to claws or paws regardless of their shape and dexterity. That was a long time ago. Now it had dulled in both gleam and sharpness. Hence it was called the Ex-Calibur and labaled a remnant of its once legendary status. Adventurers still occasionally ventured into the Little Woods to find the magical sword, but alas it had sunken to the bottom of the lake. It was said to have been trapped in stone that no pressure or force could loosen.
Mr. Fluffington walked towards the lake and stopped a few feet before the water. It was a vibrant blue, more unnatural and cleaner than any other lake or pond in a ten mile radius. Even still, he did not touch it because he disliked water. He certainly wasn’t in a good mood, and he wasn’t about to make it worse for an old fairytale. No. It was rather the opposite. The old fairytale was about to make his mood better. Much better.
He meowed once and then waited. Shortly after, a small bug flew and landed on his nose. He tried crossing his eyes, but it rested on the blind spot between both eyes. At around the same time, a dark green bass poked its head out of the water, and a falcon landed a few feet away from the fish. Mr. Fluffington could feel all three of their gazes resting upon him.
“I have come to borrow Ex-Calibur,” said Mr. Fluffington.
The insect on his nose flapped her wings which sent the fish to gurgle and then dive back underwater. While waiting for it to resurface, he watched the falcon’s beak bob open and closed. His name was Sir Lands-a-Lot. Due to his asthma, he couldn’t fly very long before landing. He lived near the Lake in order to translate for the bass because fish spoke a different language from all the other animals.
The fish resurfaced and then gurgled again. It translated for the insect because they spoke an entirely different third language.
Sir Lands-a-Lot closed his beak and then spoke to Mr. Fluffington.
“Arthur sayeth the Ladybug of the Lake offers thee the Ex-Calibur on loan for one day in exchange for the rogue’s head.”
“Rogue?” said Mr. Fluffington.
“Thee knoweth the rogue for he hast disturbed the peace and nearly killed thee. He resides north of Kilter Cove. He knoweth thy secret behind thy nine lives.”
Mr. Fluffington was left momentarily speechless even if he shouldn’t have been. It was the Ladybug of the Lake, Sir Lands-a-Lot, and Arthur he was talking to here. If they didn’t know everything then something was wrong.
“And what if I can’t bring back his head?” he said at last.
Sir Lands-a-Lot turned and then spoke in fish, which was a lot like gurgling. The bass went back underwater. Bubbles floated to the top before it resurfaced again. The ladybug flapped her wings, the fish repeated its process, and then the falcon spoke again.
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“The Ladybug of the Lake sayeth it doesn’t matter because thee shall be dead in sucheth a case. But she doubts the Ex-Calibur can ever loseth anyways. In a worst case scenario, however, she shall accepteth two dahlias and a daisy.”
Mr. Fluffington nodded. “Then I accept.”
The falcon cawed, the fish bubbled, and then the ladybug flew off his nose and over the water. As she kept airborne over the center of the lake, a pillar of stone rose out of the water below her until it was two feet high. The hilt of a sword erected out the top of it. It had no shine or luster, but all those watching from within the lake’s water or the branches of the surrounding trees saw its true beauty.
Mr. Fluffington walked over the lake. The surface was kept solid for several seconds, allowing him to walk over it. He stopped short of the stone, stood on his hind legs, and then gripped his front paws around the hilt. He pulled, and it dislodged without resistance, nearly knocking him backward into the water. He then carried it back over the lake and started breathing normally again when he was on top of solid land.
He thanked the three keepers of the sword again and then headed off.
Sir Lands-a-Lot called out after him one last time and said, “Good luck and may thee prosper! Arthur thankt thee for cleaning the Lake lasteth spring, and the Ladybug thankt thee for the marigold!”
He nodded at the asthmatic bird one more time and then left the vicinity of the Lake for good. He hoped one day he might return, but before that he was going to head toward one more destination and then end up at Kilter Cove—a classic misspelling of Killer Cave, and he could only imagine why any newcomer might want to stay around there.
Mr. Fluffington spent the rest of the day heading up to the Blissjin Spire.
It wasn’t in the Little Woods, but it neighbored and towered over the woods. It was hundreds of feet high, and the only reason it often couldn’t be seen from over a mile away was because animals couldn’t see past the trees obscuring the view. Bits and fragments of the triangular tipped stone pillar showed only when viewed at certain angles or by birds soaring over the trees. Mr. Fluffington did neither, but he knew where it was located all the same. It wasn’t that far of a walk. The plains and meadows leading up to it were noticeably untouched by the typical grazers. The grass grew tall and only the sneakiest rodents dared living among them.
He entered the grasses only after making sure no one was following him and then trekked to the base of Blissjir Spire to begin the long ascent upward. The Ex-Calibur didn’t exactly slow him down because it was weightless, however it didn’t help. The path up to the peak wasn’t designed for animals that couldn’t fly. It required climbing and leaping. Mr. Fluffington had to find a way to maneuver upward while carrying a giant sword whilst also wrapped up in his spirit dispelling bandages. They tore away and unraveled as he went along. Sometimes he would get caught by a rock or lose his footing and slide down a slippery slope. He had taken the same route before, however, and so he eventually made it to the top and past the challenges.
At its peak, Blissjir Spire was windy, cold, and barren of all life except for an entrance into a cave which belonged to the dragons.
Pillars of Sky waited for Mr. Fluffington at the top. You couldn’t climb all the way without her noticing. She was nearly a thousand years old, weighed more than any other animal in the Forest, and was hundreds of feet large. Besides, there was no telling the power or reach of a dragon’s mind, especially not one belonging to an elder dragon.
Her grandson, Scorched Fiery Earth, who was a mere one hundred and fifty years of age, played with the wizarding nexus that Mr. Fluffington had repaired what seemed like a lifetime ago. Mr. Fluffington could tell instantly that the device was going to overheat again by the way the glimmering holo-lights flashed a darker hue. He said nothing and instead stared into the giant yellow eyes of the dragon directly before him. He would have looked entirely pathetic if not for the slight reflection of light from the Ex-Calibur in his grasp and the sad little bowtie hanging around his neck for dear life.
“Mr. Fluffington,” said the dragon. When she first spoke, she almost blew him off the cliff. She adjusted her volume to avoid it from happening again. “You are here early. Is it already cleansing time?”
“No, that’s next Tuesday,” he said. “I was wondering if you could spare me a dragon scale―a small one, of course―and for only a very short time.”
“You’re going around gearing up to be a warrior, are you?” she said. She may have been old and technologically inept, but she was still clever and wise.
“Yes, I have already been killed once by an assassin, and I am afraid he is determined to finish me.”
“Burning away your gift of extra extra life, is he?”
Mr. Fluffington stared at the ground, but only for a moment.
“Yes. I am planning to deal with him tonight. I think I need one of your dragon scales to defeat him.”
“Then you have my blessing,” said Pillars Of Sky. “If you were to die, then who would come up here to help around the place? Who would help cleanse us of parasitic dirt and dirty parasites? How would Scorched Fiery Earth ever learn the blessings of proper hygiene?”
At that point Scorched Fiery Earth roared. She roared back.
Mr. Fluffington tried covering his ears too late, but she had already finished and then gone to fetch him one of their shedded dragon scales. Dragons rarely shedded their scales. In fact they mostly never did, but occasionally a scale came off and a new one had to grow to replace it. The process took decades, but it resulted in leftover scales.
While waiting, he thought about her questions even if they were solely rhetorical. Who would help the dragons? Or the lowliest rodents and highest up birds? Who would try to clean the fishes’ water and attend the loneliest funerals? If he were gone, who would help?
Mr. Fluffington, despite his position in the Westshire hills, didn’t take any pride in his work. He did it all because he had carved a niche lifestyle out of a brutal world and that lifestyle was designed around tending to others and softening the cosmic blows of life. He did it because it was required of him, and he could only wonder that after his final death, there would be no one to replace him because the same obligation wasn’t required of anybody else. He would have to think about it more in depth later because Pillars Of Sky returned with a dragon scale.
It was petal-shaped but looked more accurately like the scale of an oversized pine cone. It produced a light orange glow around its brownish red exterior. It likely belonged to an infant dragon at one point, because it was almost as large as Mr. Fluffington’s entire body.
She passed it down to him, and although he felt its weight, he could bear it. Until he could find a way to strap it onto himself and create a near indestructible plate of armor, his only struggle would be having to find a way to move it back down the Blissjir Spire.
“It would be great if you could return it on the next cleansing day,” she told him.
“If I am alive, I will,” said Mr. Fluffington.
“Are you sure you don’t need my help?” A billow of smoke exhaled from her nose. It created a cloud that momentarily blocked his vision.
“No, I have to do this alone,” he said, although he knew the real reason was because he couldn’t risk her collateral damage, not to mention that the assassin would in no way show themselves if she were present.
“Then good luck down there.”
“Thanks,” he stood at the start of the pathway down and looked at the endless expanse of trees and plains currently reduced to tiny dots beneath them. “Also, tell Scorched Fiery Earth to take a break from the nexus. It overheats.”
Pillars Of Sky smiled a big toothy grin.
“Thank you.”
It was around midnight by the time he got back down to the Little Woods. Mr. Fluffington found a long enough vine and then struggled to wrap it around himself, the scale he placed on his back, and all his bandages. He eventually succeeded. The final effect was a mummified cat with an ancient dull sword nearly twice his size and a turtle-adjacent shell of armor that burned the darkness away with an orange glow. For once, he stopped nervously glancing around.
He was finally ready to take on the rogue that started the whole mess. He would put an end to the newfound hysteria to both his life and the other animals once and for all. It would also mark the end to the worst week of his life. It had already been awful enough so far, and he couldn’t imagine how it could get any worse from there. Well, he could think of one way.