Bubbling Mud Heads

WOOOOTTTT!!!! I finally finnished one of my stories!!!!! Yay!!! It's soo hard to find endings!!!!

The Fiddler and the Pea Many stories start with a mistake. This story is an exception; it begins with success, though perhaps the success was a mistake. One morning cycle, on old Earth-that-was, a geneticist was fiddling with the DNA of a sweet-pea plant. She put it is test tubes, and isolated it, extracted it from the cells and looked at it under her trusty microscope. She took out certain proteins and replaced them with others, and she placed the DNA in a blank bacteria cell. As she fed her little creation proteins, sugars, and other nutrients, she saw it quickly grow and divide and grow some more. Thanks to binary fission, by the time she stopped for lunch this fiddler had a beautiful little colony of glowing green prokaryotes. Carefully, very carefully, the geneticist isolated her colony, placing it in a controlled glass box under her one and only window, and left it to itself for an hour. Now, a lot can happen in an hour. You can take a short nap, do a jigsaw puzzle, write a short story, or die from the bite of a snail in an hour. Incidentally, one hour was all it took for a sneaky little girl to sneak into the geneticist's little underground lab and completely ruin her marvelous new creation. This sneaky little girl was the geneticist's daughter, and having already eaten her sugar-tuna and peantnut butter sandwich she wanted to explore and to marvel at her mother's facinating creations, and being only eight years old, she couldn't resist playing with them just a little. Coming apon the little glass box on the window sill she half remembered her mother telling her something bad would happen if she opened her boxes. Pendra, which was the girl's name, thought it over. She could leave the box alone, she was almost certain her mother would be angry if she found out, but her mother would be angry with her for being in the lab anyway. The green stuff in the box sloshed around she nicely when she shook it, it looked almost like the green cool-aid back in the top cupboard at home. Believing her mother would never know, Pendra lifted the lid and stared at the green liquid. She poked it, “This feels like green cool-aid jello!” She sniffed it, “This smells like green cool-aid jello!” and finally Pendra liften it up to her mouth and took a big slobbery mouthful, “This tastes like green cool aid jello! But, a little different...” and she happily ate all the rest of it. Eating too much in a short while tends to have one of two effects on small children, they either become extremely sleepy, or they become rather hyper. In Pendra's case she became extremely sleepy and, spying her mother's lab coat in a puddle on the floor of the little closet, she crawled over and curled up in it, already dreaming of sunlight and spiders. When the fiddler returned from her delicious luncheon, still wiping a bit of tomato ice cream off her nose she discovered to her horror what had occurred. On the floor by the window lay the empty glass box and a sticky little handprint trail leading off to the supply clost in the corner, where, curled up in her lab coat on the floor, the geneticist found a small green creature that vaguely resembled her eight year old daughter, fast asleep. When the Pea woke up she was sleeping comfortably in her own little bed. She had woken up because she was a little cold and thought to move into the sunlight under the window. Being in her own bed in her own room was only the first of several changes she noticed. First and most importantly, she noticed she was not alone, staring at her from the other side of her little bed was the fiddler. The Pea, which was previously Pendra, tried to smile sheepishly, whereapon her mother glared and shook her head. Looking down into her hands, the Pea noticed something strange. Her hands were green! Not only were they green, but they had little vines growing from them, and not only did she have vines, but, apon closer inspection she didn't appear to have any skin at all. Instead the green covering had toughened over her whole body, her bones were soft and movable, and little leaflets had sprouted all over, turning her hair, eyebrows and even eyelashes into soft, green, viney, tendrils, and the previously known Pendra looked down at her new body and said, “Awesome!” Her mother sighed, and gave a tired smile, it hadn't been easy stablizing her daughter, luckily the girl had eaten most of the bacteria, sending it to be broken down in her stomach, and yet the speed with which the tiny amount of virus the girl had breathed in had taken over her entire system was frightening. The geneticist was careful to clean up everything the bacteria gotten stuck in and had to wipe down her whole lab after fixing up her daughter, but at least everything was well now. She had made it back to the lab in time to save her Pendra's major organs, her heart, brain, lungs, and a few others. Unfortunately, she hadn't been able to stabilize her completely, or restore her to her previous state, as a little girl. So Pendra became Pea, a happy, curious, odd little creature, mutated greatly from her former self, and the fiddler swore to never leave her lab unlocked again. The years flew by, and the fiddler and the pea were happy on the barren dusty shell of Earth-that-was. One of the pea's siblings became jealous, and her father was heartbroken, but those are different stories. Eventually, all the rest of the scavengers living on Earth-that-was left the place, including the pea's father and older brothers and sisters. Only the pea's mother stayed, and they tried to make the best of it and live happily over the years. Occasionally one of the two's relatives would visit, and once a whole team of other scientists came to view the 'anomaly' but left apon hearing of another, more interesting genetic mix up, between a vlob mushroom, a space squid, and a Jolperian time traveler. The worlds continued turning and the geneticist grew older, the pets Pea and the fiddler kept died off one by one, and were buried with a few tears and much solemnity in their backyard. The fiddler became blind from all the years spent pearing down at slides through her trusty miscrope. The pea meanwhile ran the house, and helped her mother with everything she could. She rented the extra rooms to the occasional sightseer wanting to come see the barren deadness of Earth-that-was. The pea followed the fiddler's directions, to find and create new creatures, ideas, and type up new theories. Meanwhile the pea was noticing new things, she discovered she didn't need to eat, only stand in the sunlight and drink a bit of water now and then. She and the fiddler had noticed early on that she appeared to have stopped aging, though with each season she felt new changes come across her, and with each year that passed her beautiful green skin turned paler, dryer and browner. Perhaps it was only her human face that remained as young and lively as ever. Lastly, she discovered one winter that it just felt like the most natural thing ever to step outside without a mask, and sink her toes deep down into the sandy soil. She even found that by reaching down far enough with her feet her could find some earth that was not sand.... The fiddler, to her credit, never stopped searching for a way to help her daughter, however, she never found it, and on one sunny, windswept saturday, late in the month of July, the fiddler died. Pea threw herself to the ground and wept. She could feel herself sinking farther and farther down into the sand, but she no longer cared. She let herself be pulled deep, deep, down into the soil, her dry brown skin cracking and breaking off on the sand as she felt it pull past her. Deep, deep down in the bit of true earth she nestled, and there, she felt a warmth that reminded her of the fiddler's hugs. She wrapped her arms around herself and let the earth take in her tears until she felt almost completely drained of water. Then pea's true instincts took over and as many many years passed she cracked, broke, and hatched from her shell, racing up through the sand and spreading her arms to the sunlight once more. She grew and grew, and became so tall that she had to bend over and cover the ground. Pea grew so vast that she covered the whole of Earth-that-was, and visitors returned to the empty shell with awe and wonder. Once she had grown and covered Earth-that-was several times in a dense green jungle of vines, Pea died. She withered up and let the rains that now fell turn her into a delightfully soft and squishy mud which soaked down and mixed with the sand all the way through to the deep, deep, earth. A soft primordial soup, full of life and squishy critters, just waiting for a fiddler to come around and create something new.

Earlier, on a previous night, whilst M. D'Aire was still barely alive, an elderly couple were startled awake by the 4am train from Clifton. Shrieking filled the comfortable apartment as the couple huddled together in their sunken king-sized bed listening. From the first whistle they counted the train's screams hissing and zipping past, the honking of a car alarm outside their apartment, and the cadence of a two voices swirling above, on the next floor, until a last train whistle cut everything off, and the night resumed it's dead silence, as before. The couple sighed, sinking together in grief. This last trick, they knew could not be shaken off. Their child would die, tears filled their throats and shone in their eyes as they allowed a few drops to fall together, onto the blankets. No more could they do for their little one, they had tried to teach the hidden way and it was not accepted. In their hearts they knew that this was for the best for the child, and for the rest of them, that it forever ended it's movements. In their grief, no noise did they ever make but a small rustle of sheets, and a slight creaking of the bed, and a few taps of the water falling on blankets. Simply their tears, and then comfort, as the couple leaned together and lay back on their giant bed still shivering with repressed grief, the little old couple held each other till they fell back asleep. In the early morning, the great emperor and empress awoke, arose wiping away all traces of their night-time weakness, and conferenced with their advisers on how best to deal with this problem. Another train whistle arrived in the course of their discussion relaying the news of M.'s death as well as a few messes M. had left behind, for the sovereign's to clean up. The old couples sighed inwardly and rose as one, their stern faces perfect reflections of the authority they bore, whilst they swiftly began to make tracks, weaving their webs quietly and subtly throughout their kingdoms. Mrs. D'Aire, for that is what we shall call the great empress, abandoned the body of her child in the tomb where it lay, allowing a small punishment for the one, as an example of it's disgrace. Mr. D'Aire, the high emperor, meanwhile sent emissaries, and diplomats to his child's enemies distracting them with other important news, and setting their minds against new foes. A brief consternation arose on Mr. D'Aire's features as he pondered what to do with the man left behind in all the mess. Of course they must use him, but how? Consulting with Mrs. D'Aire they thought to give him free reign, he did not know everything, he had only briefly met the three of them, and had only ever seen the face of M. D'Aire. To underestimate was never wise, the D'Aires agreed, yet what harm could he cause? A short phone call to the man revealed part, a broken heart, a betrayal, by them, and small threat. A threat? Their majesties mentally queried, to us? How could you possibly harm us? Yet the line had ended before this question could be asked, and the D'Aires pondered in silence all they knew. He was the most loyal of all, yet his life had belonged entirely to M. D'Aire, he was the most trusted of M.'s partners, and the only one M. had kept though all it's criminal history. He had been bought by M. as a child, and they had grown up working together. Yet, despite all their history, what did he know that could hurt them? A quick fear crossed Mrs. D'Aires face as an idea of his abilities set in. Catching sight Mr. D'Aire brow wrinkled in response. Understand the enemy, anticipate moves, retreat, react. Shortly the two set out to one of their little hideaways, to better think and be in a starting position for whatever else might take place.

This story begins, as many good stories do, with a death. The death of an important criminal, though not an extremely flashy one. M. D'Aire, as this criminal was called, had supposedly died in one of a series of conflicts fought across the globe. This news grabbed at the hearts of the criminal and law communities and completely flipped their worldview, it enraged a high detective, awakened an elderly couple in the middle of the night with dread, and broke the heart of a poor middle-aged man. M. D'Aire had been a part of the notorious, though highly speculated, D'Aire family, which is only the oldest criminal family time had ever known, and the only one able to keep up it's enterprising into the 21st century. Their work resembled not so much the quick and abstract art common among the museums nowdays, nor the crumbly old renaissance styles with it's so carefully trained skills, but a new, simple, and completely modern yet obviously old style filled with so much hidden meaning the critics would find themselves puzzling over it for years. Many lesser gangs had risen and fallen, it has been rumored that the D'Aire house had briefly entertained the thought of working with Al Capone in his early years, but dismissed him early on as 'a flashy youth'. “Lucky for the D'Aires,” one might here remark, knowing how that history has turned out. However, it is as far from luck as the turkey vulture is from the blakiston's fish owl. If a decent criminal were to rob a bank, steal the money, and hide their tracks, they would have to convince the police and public that the money actually belonged to them. If a D'Aire were to rob a bank, though I can't imagine one of them stooping to so crude a gesture, they would do it in such a way that the law and the people never knew the money even existed. The D'Aires could not be tracked, they could not be traced, yet their invisible presence was clearly there, in the shadows, ever craftily tinkering with the very frames of our lives. The D'Aires knew everything before it happened, and though the regular folk, like you and me, upon hearing their fabled existence pass them off as mere rumor and myth, for the high law, and the very best detectives, they are the real, yet impossible, truth. The very existence of M. D'Aire rocked the two worlds and even slightly impacted the third. The criminal and legal worlds now had stories, shocking but by far more realistic stories, based off actual events, rather than the obviously false campfire tales usually heard about the D'Aires. The general public, who would not have for one instant believed in their existence, now paused and considered, “perhaps,” their thoughts might say, “Perhaps, one might have existed.” This person, this D'Aire, was the very first in known history that could be traced, almost tracked, whose movements, though as completely invisible as those of it's predecessors, left undeniable ripples, ripples that led back to M. D'Aire. There were even a few rumors about this criminal. The ardent detective, T. Levran, had put together a list of them all in his speculation, and had crossed out the more far-fetched. However, some of those included stated: that 'the 'she-devil' was colder than hell itself,' or ''he' led the charge', on one or another of the vicious battles, 'that fine bastard, slaughtered the lot in cold blood'. A recent tale appeared on the nets of the mighty M. D'Aire: Once upon a time, there existed a thief so cunning and a murderer so bloody, that the devil himself bowed to his power. The thief was the king of an extensive court, reaching all across the world and he had as many riches as his heart could desire. Yet, the thief was insanely bored with his staff and his riches. So, one day he took all of his most trusted and best advisers, and invited them to a ball. In the thief's underground mansion, the top criminal lords danced away before retiring to a conference. There in the room, the thief announced he was supremely bored with them all, and had decided to start over, in hopes of finding a more exciting game. The advisers, who had heard this sort of tale before from their young master, did not fear, but simply nodded and waited to hear what came next. Yet, to their surprise the cunning thief had no more to say, he simply vanished, leaving them locked in a massive underground death chamber, slowly emptying of oxygen. The criminal lords, advisers, ladies and servants all choked to death. While the evil thief, depositing his massive wealth in an empty yet not completely unused gold mine, disappeared to start his life over, in a new and exciting way. And he lived happily ever after. The end. While Levran noted the lack of a name, and the magical appearance or the crude little tale, there were certain startling similarities. For example, an underground mass grave had been recently discovered, where the bodies, of servants, middle and upper class men and women lay together in groups on the ground near assumed exits. The doors had been scratched and bashed in feeble attempts to break them down, and yet the cause of death, was not asphyxiation, but some other unknown method, scientists and even conspiracy theorists could not make heads or tails of. The recent discovery of a large horde of gold bars had been found in an old gold mine used for tourism. A neighboring rancher told the news he had seen smoke coming out of the mine in the past few months and coined the belief that a dragon might have briefly made the mine it's home. There had been many rumors of a D'Aire involvement in the mass grave in both the law and the crime worlds. Yet, this story brought together a few of the frightened theories in a bold statement. 'D'Aires existed, and one was coming.' Levran was astonished and at the same time incensed that a member of the notorious D'Aires would allow a trail to be speculated, allow stories to emerge, or allow their existence to become more than rumor and myth. To catch a D'Aire, the phrase had once been such an impossibility, and such a rude remark to the clear beauty of the D'Aire involvement, like an ethereal web spun of finest fairy gossamer, and utterly invisible to the naked eye. This work, though cunning and deceptive, could surely not be the work of a D'Aire, and yet, the theory was not without merit. It was possible, and reviewing rumors from some of his more trusted sources, plausible considering the supposed nature of M. D'Aire. Levran was disappointed, his long childhood dream seemed more real to him than ever, and he had vowed that if such a man existed, he, Levran, would find him and uncover his real name before putting him to justice. The fraud, attempting to use the D'Aire name to detail his mischief, must be caught. When he first heard the news, that M. D'Aire had died, Levran tossed it aside as a groundless rumor. He had half convinced himself that the criminal was a D'Aire, and had faked it's death in order to return to the underground for a brief calm in the music. Of course, being a D'Aire, the criminal could not die. In his other half, Levran speculated that perhaps the criminal had died was proof, that it could not have been a D'Aire, yet that seemed too coincidental a belief to be true. Sitting at his impeccably neat and completely clutter-free desk, sipping his latte and scanning the newspaper, Levran had seen a brief note in the obituaries, "M. D'Aire. cause of death: murder. means of death: burnt at the stake with another wooden stake through the heart. Time of death: April 23rd, at approximately 2:00 o'clock." How this story had not made the front page could only be through unpure means, Levran noted. Some slight decency, a token respect for the D'Aire name, to not allow a member the humiliation of public existence, while still shaming the criminal for it's lack of immortality. Levran, clipped out the obituary for habit's sake, and added it to the less likely of the D'Aire file he now had.

"Perhaps you don't know either?" The Professor sighed, "Oh, well..." The Professor half turned as if to leave, but was stopped by the shadowy figure. "Oh! You want to help me? That is very kind of you! Thank you so much!" and linking arms with the shadowy figure, the Professor skipped off merrily down the hall... .... Mara found a hole in the wall and, thinking it a rat's nest, she squeezed inside and looked around. Mara sneezed, "My what dust!" sweeping her tail across the floor created a cloud of little terrified lumps of dirt, all fleeing before her... Mara grimaced, she absolutely hated dirt, and followed a little tunnel inside the walls, careful not to brush the sides or floor with the fur. The tunnel led directly into a drop, with the outer wall on one side and the inner wall with the tunnel opening on the other, little bridgelike tubes and flooring stuck out into the drop, and Mara, feeling slightly impish, hopped down onto good, sturdy-looking piece of pipe, and slipped completely off the side into the drop. Falling down, a long long way down, Mara tried to catch boards or hook her claws into the wall, but they were too far away. Then the floor appeared, or what she thought was the floor, it was green and slimy and sploosh, Mara fell straight into a pool of nasty sewage water. Claws sprang into action and Mara latched onto a strip of cloth, pulled herself up onto a cleanish wooden board and looked around. She was still between the walls, "Good, no one watching." Mara shook herself, rather like a dog, and turned the walls slightly hairy and dark. Luckily, dirt was afraid of her, and she was mostly just wet and cold. Looking up she spied an opening in the wall, and dragged her drenched and shivering carcass across the wooden board. Through it an amazing battle was taking place, water splashed, magic glowed, and mighty warriors danced. Mara watched in wide eyed amazement, as the fight continued....

Elsewhere in the Pen, Mara decided she was bored. The professor was still trying to find room 47, and was as usual, very lost. So, Mara lagged behind until he disappeared and snuck off in another direction. She had heard a squeaking earlier and traced back to the room where she saw a large black rat sniffing at mugs and cupboards. Silent as the feline she was, Mara pounced, paralyzing the rat with a bite to the back of it's neck, and breaking it's spine. Mara looked around, there were several more squeaks, echoing in the room, apparently they were unused to cats. Mara picked up the now dead rat and carried it to the door, proudly depositing her offering to the occupant of the room, and crept back out into the hall to hunt for more. .... The Professor looked around, each door looked the same, the wooden floor of the hallway divided a nearly identical pair of walls. He turned around searching for some sign, anything when a shadowy figure menacingly stepped around a column towards him. "Oh, my! Are you a shadowy figure?" the figure hissed in response, "Well, it's very nice to meet you! Might you be able to direct me to room 47 please?"

The Professor struggled to hold his footing on the sand as wind whipped around him, there was not even a fence post to grab hold of, despite the fact that his hands tightly clutched a book, and birdcage and his eyes were barred shut against the flying sand. A cat was yelling from inside the cage, but the professor could barely even hear her. Then suddenly, a stronger hand of wind tossed the professor up high in the air, his hat flew away and disappeared, while the birdcage and book dug little groves in his palms in their efforts to escape as well. The Professor opened his eyes a crack, a mistake, instantly a horde of little sandy gnats stung his eyes forcing them completely open to drain out sandy tears. Through the battering clash of the storm the Professor could see a looming shape edging closer, then crash. Down through the roof along with quite a bit of debris the Professor fell. "Ouch." Struggling out from the pile, he looked around, dust everywhere, and little fires eating up the edges of crates, and old supplies of goodness knew what. The professor called his hat, which appeared quite happily and shook dirt out of it's corners against everything, including him. Sighing, the Professor dug a cleaning charm out of one of his pockets, tapped it a bit, and was relieved to see it's edges glow faintly. Then digging his birdcage and book out of the debris the professor tripped over to a little fire, removed a small black cat from the birdcage and placed it inside the flames. As he curled up beside the flames with his book, hat and birdcage, the professor smiled, and drifting off to sleep, he thought, "This place looks like fun..."

Wow, you two can go back and forth with haikus! I can't do that. Here is my first attempt... A sip, happiness, warmth, seeping into fingers, Coffee is my love...

I have a few questions about citing work from the pen: is it allowed? does it depend on the author? is it allowable to cite names that arn't true?

This is so awesome!!!

Now I can get back to my story! I will grab some of Ethele's maps and stick them in here later, to help with seeing pictures. Right now I am sitting in my room writing to you instead of sulking. I don't want to go to sleep and I doubt I could sleep even after what happened today; also I am locked in my room. Mara said they should keep me in here for the rest of my life, they probably could too, but I really hope they don't! I'll tell you why I'm here, and how this happened. It all started, Jurnel, when I got an idea. The idea was from reading my father's books, it basically the same thing he did for years to the ol' wiz. I thought if I could create a diversion or a double or something then I would be able to sneak out of this old castle or maybe off Mara completely and have an adventure! My first goal though was just to get out of the castle. So, here is how it went. I had this idea to build a flinger and send bits of my magic up past my father's window. He would notice the strange smell, and while he was distracted I would disguise myself as him, I am fairly good at illusions, and slip past the guards by the castle gates. It did work in a way I guess, I snuck in Master OrNele's clock-tower and built the flinger. Master OrNele is a good friend of mine, mostly I think, because he has pet mice, which I help him hide from Mara. He helped me build the flinger, and I took it and set it up in my room. Then I snuck out of the tower and across town, only to be caught by Michael. I felt a hand grab the back of my shirt and lift me up into the air, as a voice beside me bellowed, “where are you sneaking off to now?” I twisted my head around and smiled sheepishly, “hello Michael!” “I am.... going nowhere?” I am not a good liar. “No, that's not right, you are going somewhere. Will you tell me where you are going, or should I tell you where you are going?” I looked down at the cobbles, trying to think of an answer, Michael was tricky, he would always find a way to trick me, no matter what I said, but I still wanted to think of something, the only thing I could think of was, “I am going to see if I can sneak past the guards and get outside town to the cloud forest so I can have an adventure and see what the clouds are like and jump around in them and try to catch frogs, and see if anything else lives there and have tons of fun!!” I didn't say this, because this was the only thing I could think of, instead of speaking at all I just hung there in the air, looking at the ground. Michael broke the silence, “can't think of anything? Well, I'll tell you what you're doing, you are coming with me to the kitchens to help prepare for the evening meal.” I sighed, somehow, I knew he was going to say something like this. Michael marched me to the kitchens and I spent what must have been hours scrubbing, and peeling gouti fruit. The nuts inside the fruit are super bitter and gross, but the peels are soft and crunchy once the juice has been drained, for use in other dishes. Even the bitter nuts inside gouti are used, in this drink that older people like, which is naturally disgusting. I finally managed to slip out when Michael was flirting with Strea. Jurnel, you probably wouldn't think that looking at someone’s face and barely talking could be flirting, but the way they acted definitely was flirting. It was scary. I sincerely hope this never happens to me. Anyways, I slipped out of the kitchens the first chance I got and raced across town. I slowed down when I was in range of the gate and slipped into a dark corner. I sent my mind back through the town, up the tower to my room and triggered the flinger. Then, I pulled my mind back to myself and cast a simple hiding spell, and an illusion spell. The hiding spell just tricks the eyes of anyone nearby into not seeing at me, but if they accidentally did notice me then it wouldn't be that great, I'd have to send the illusion of my father in first, and get the gate open, then sneak through the gate while the guards are distracted, and have my 'father' change his mind and decide to not go out today. Surprisingly, this all worked! I walked right up to the gate and waited. As soon as they saw 'my father' the guards opened the gate and I snuck through, onto the 2 feet of cobbles before the barrier, then I had 'my father' mumble something about checking his notes to the guards, turn around walk a few paces and disappear. I heard the guards muttering their annoyance, “Guy's like a cat....” as they closed the gate. I turned and walked through the barrier. Now, that I can think about it Jurnel, that was not the best thing I could have done. Luckily for me, the guards were facing the city and no one was looking over the wall. The barrier, the giant dome around our island removed all magic spells when you passed through it, I have been studying it, it's the Professor's, Mara's and a few other people's magic. They specifically designed this spell so that anyone entering our town would be revealed as who or what they actually were. The Professor and I prefer to know exactly who the people entering our world are. Anyway, when I passed through the barrier, my hiding spell completely disappeared, and I scurried into the cloud trees before someone saw me.

That makes sense, I'll try to edit it a little and see if I can create paragraphs. I think my main problem is I have way too much that I want to say, but It's really not necessary to say it all and it creates clutter when I try to put those parts in... but I still want to add more to it... Anyway, Thank you! I will try to put up more soon!

this fits everyone I know, including me! We all have attention deficient... Oh Look! Peanuts! ...Also don't you think OCD should be CDO, the letters are in the proper alphabetical arrangement in CDO.... but Yes! This is a great poem! I Love it!!

Yup! it's nice having an intern though... Oh! I forgot to have Pickle ask if he was dill or sweet!! Another day in a pickle-ish life: The next day, the Author was hungry. Hungry for pickles. So, she created a she-pickle named Sweet and sent her to live with Pickle the pickle. Eventually, they was children hordes and masses of little baby pickles, most of which the Author devoured. Several of Pickle's other children went on to be great heroes and heroines of the unclear realms. But the rest of them settled down with other wandering pickles (and one cucumber) and created more comfortable houses with terrified flowers everywhere, and they formed the happiest village in the Void Lands, Pickle Town, named after their founder, Pickle. Pickle lived to a very ripe old age and died happily and in peace, and Seamus the goat, who came and took the job of village undertaker in Pickle Town, ate Pickles corpse, and all was happy and strange in the world. The (better) End.

The Professor trudged through a dry and withered land, the wind blowing bits of sand and dust everywhere. He was incredibly bored hot, and tired. In one hand he clutched a book and his jacket, and in the other he carried a covered birdcage, while a small black cat sat on his shoulder licking her already clean paws. The Professor had come through a strange unknown portal in one of the unclear realms and was trying to find some sort of life, or food, or even possibly a portal back into his own realm. But alas, all he could see in this barren waste was..."Wait, what's that?" On the edge of the horizon he saw a shape, a small dark smudgy shape but still definitely a shape! Hopeful, the Professor shook his hair out of his face, squinted against the increasingly strengthening wind and continued his trek a little less tiredly than before.

A Day in the Life of a Pickle Once upon no time at all, in a void-like land of endless black-ish colors very un-uniquely named The Void Lands, there lived a pickle. This pickle was a very happy pickle, and it lived comfortably in it's home at the edge of the abyss. The pickle sang as it watered the few terrified flowers that it had coaxed in life in the area surrounding the abyss. Suddenly a question flew out of the abyss and straight into the pickle's green and warty head! The pickle looked up, and for the first time asked, “If I am a pickle how can I speak?” The pickle puzzled over this peculiar question, but when the question showed no promise of an easy explanation, the pickle decided to ignore it. However, the question continued to annoy the pickle so the pickle decided to build a dam around the abyss to prevent more questions from flying out while it took a nap. The pickle thought the dam was a damn good dam, so good in fact that the pickle decided to call the dam Fred and took it's nap in the shade of it's fluffy cover. While the pickle was napping, Fred the dam caught all the questions it could until eventually it caught a funny question. “What utter nonsense!” thought Fred with a smile, but his smile became a chuckle as he caught more and more absurdity until finally, Fred completely cracked up. The pickle woke up just in time to see the horde of questions flying straight for it. It got up and tried to run, but the questions all raced up and into it's poor head before the terrified flowers could even blink! Luckily, most of the questions were repeats and dissolved into dust, which the abyss ate, once the pickle had already thought of them. Unfortunately there were still more questions in the pickle than it could take at once! The pickle was in a pickle indeed. It shouted out into the Void Lands of void it's questions in frustrated anguish, for once it had thought of them it couldn't un-think them. “WHAT AM I?” “WHY DO I NOT HAVE A NAME?” “AM I REALLY A PICKLE?” “HOW CAN I SPEAK?” “WHY AM I ALIVE?” “WHAT AM I DOING BY AN ABYSS?” and many others. Strangely, the pickle's pointless shouting helped a little. Calmer, though still frustrated and sad (the Pickle had never been sad before) the pickle decided the best thing to do was to was to leave it's comfortable little home and wander aimlessly in search of someone who could help it. So the pickle fetched a little bag it had made with scraps of cloth from it's comfortable home and put a terrified flower and a few shards of Fred in it to keep him company. Then it looked out at the view over the abyss and sighed (it really was quite a beautiful picture). Then before the pickle could think of new questions of it's own. It turned and disappeared into the void fog. The pickle wandered and wandered, seeming to get nowhere, though occasionally passing glittering bits of dust. Then when most of his hope had disappeared into the void fog's endless twilight gloom, he spied another abyss! This abyss had a city suspended over it on beautiful stone-like bridges, and the pickle could just barely glimpse through the void fog shapeless blobs moving around and mumbling to each other. “Well, they must be good if they live by an abyss!” thought the pickle and it moved towards them quicker.” When the pickle crossed one of the stone-like bridges it discovered the city was made of bits of rubble, debris, and trash, and what the pickle had assumed to be shapeless blobs were actually goats. All sorts of goats. The pickle asked a goat with a long scraggly beard if it would be so kind as to help him. Seamus, for that was the goat's name, asked him, “what's wrong, umm.... pickle?” The pickle explained it's tragic tail-less tale, as Seamus 'hmmm-ed', 'Oh my-ed', and made other thinking noises. By the time the pickle had finished explaining it's plight a crowd of 'hmmm-ing' goats had gathered around it. “Well,” Seamus mused, “the best thing to do would be to ask the Author your questions.” “the Author?” “Oh yes, the amazing, awesome, wonderfully kind and wise Author who knows all things (related to this story), but we all just call her 'the Author' for short.” “Where can I find this author?” “Well, I have heard she lives in a fathomless jungle library of ever-speeding time. It is impossible to get there from here so your best bet is to go back to your abyss and ponder the questions yourself.” The pickle sighed, it was discouraged, sad and frustrated at the same time, but mostly discouraged. So turned around and walked away from the city, back into the Void Lands. As the pickle walked it grew sleepy and the pickle yawned loudly, took out it's terrified flower and told it reassuring things until it looked a bit less terrified, and was about to put it back in it's bag when it heard a voice. “I hear you're lookin' for the Author, I'll trade ya that there flower for directions.” The pickle looked right up into the sly face of a pudgy rat riding a unicycle. The terrified flower immediately looked much more terrified. “Directions? What are directions? And why in the void would I need them? “Whell..” said the rat, looking around conspiratorially, “directions are.... oh shoot! There's that kid again!” the pickle turned to see a girl with fuzzy black hair come swimming through the void fog, and make a grab for the rat's tail, “Leave me alone kid!” shouted the rat as he pedaled furiously away through the fog with the girl chasing after him. So the pickle trudged on through the void fog and as it trudged it thought about it's options, it could go back home and try to forget, but the pickle was certain that it would take many many days to forget all it's questions, and the Void Lands days are long. It could go back and ask the goats for help again, but the way the goats had surrounded it while eating trash had scared the pickle. So the pickle decided to go on until it either found the Author or found something to help get rid of or answer it's questions. Eventually, the pickle got tired of wandering aimlessly onward. So it found a nice clump of shapeless fluff, the same stuff it had used to make Fred, lay down underneath it and fell into a bad dream. In the pickle's dream goats chased it into an abyss covered in terrified flowers that echoed with strange laughter. The pickle was just about to ask Fred for help when it remembered that Fred was dead and woke up. The poor pickle cried for a little while and it tears formed a little ball in the void. When pickle had cried itself out it took out the terrified flower again and set it near the little ball of tears. The pickle began talking to the flower again, asking it why all this happened to it and crying more. The flower drank up all the pickles tears, sighed and said in a tiny timid little voice, “I will help you. Keep going until you reach the next abyss, it should have a little green light in it, jump into that abyss and you will find the fathomless jungle library of ever speeding time. I do not know if you will find the Author there though, she is not always in the library, you may have to wait for a while until she appears, or until she decides to see you.” Then the more of a timid than terrified flower vanished in a wisp of flame. The astounded pickle watched as the flame became ash and the ash got caught up in a strange new wind. The pickle blinked it's three invisible eyes rubbed them with a nonexistent arm and hurried after the ashes. The pickle went so fast it was on the edge of an abyss before it knew it, wobbling back and forth, when it saw there was a greenish cast to the abyss and as lost it's feeble grip on the edge of the void around the abyss (which is quite literally the edge of nothing) and tumbled head long into this abyss it saw a faint green-ish light at the end of the fall. The pickle fell hard on it's stem and heard a crunch, it was about to sit there and complain for a minute before it realized it was a pickle, and it didn't get hurt because it had no bones. So it got up brushed itself off and looked around. The pickle realized how small it really was, no bigger than a person's hand. It was certainly not bigger than the lowest shelf of any of the book shelves it saw clustered about in the room. It also felt ground for the first time and realized the green stuff it saw poking up from the ground was like his terrified flower, but less flowery and not terrified at all. In the distance the pickle could see a person silhouetted in a pool of lamplight. It was sitting at desk, scratching away at several papers at once with quill pens stuck through everywhere and erasable ink. The pickle climbed up on an empty stool and hopped on the table. The silhouette, which turned out to be a girl with messy hair and big glasses, completely ignored him. “Excuse me!” said the pickle. “huh?” the girl looked up, “oh! I'm sorry! May I help you?” “Are you the Author?” “What me? Oh goodness no! I'm just an intern! Since the Author is gone so much of the time she hired me to sit here and do all her taxes and other important paper stuff.” “Why are you writing on all of these at once?” “Oh, a few reasons, one: I have a deadline to meet, and two: I'm just not very organized... but I can still help you! I read the Author's script, well the beginning of the script, I couldn't read the end because it wasn't in there yet...... But anyway, you're here to get answers about some questions right?” The pickle looked up hopefully, “Yes! A flood of questions flew out of the abyss and into my head! How can I get rid of them?” “Hmm, well I think I remember some of your questions... You are a sentient pickle! You used to be a semi-sentient pickle, but with everything that has happened to you your mind has changed, so you are now sentient! You are alive and live by an abyss because the Author wanted to have you live there! It was a beautiful view too, right? Now umm.. What were the rest of your questions?” “I did love my abyss... but, why don't I have a name? Why am I always called an it? What are the Void Lands? How did the Author make me? Why did the questions fly out of the abyss in the first place? How do I stop other questions from flying out of the abyss? What am I supposed to do now? Why did my flower disappear? Can you make Fred come back? And what is a script?” During the pickle's rant the intern's eyes had steadily widened, “Wow, I'm not sure if I Can answer all those!” “Hmmmm.... Oh! Idea!” the intern rummaged through the desk, pulled out pulled out a deck of cards, and flicked through them until she found the two she was looking for, then placing the cards, a king and a queen of diamonds, face up in front of the pickle she asked, “Which one do you like better?” The pickle looked at the cards, confused, then after much deliberation, it pointed to the king of diamonds. “Not the best one I think, but it's your choice... it really doesn't matter as you are a vegetable...You are now a 'he'” She picked up the king card and handed it to the no longer gender-less pickle. This made the pickle so happy he spun around in circles until the intern spoke again, “As for a name, the Author probably didn't give you a name just because she was lazy, either that or she wanted you to be confused later on... but anyway, how does the name Thomas sound?” the pickle shook his head. “Alexander? ...Wilhelm? ...Arthur? ….Joe? ….Tristan?….Ooh Ooh! How about Larry?” “Miss, I am a pickle, Larry is Not a name for a pickle.” The intern sighed, she had had a long day, “Well, what name would you pick?” The pickle thought a minute, then said, “I like being a pickle, and now that I know I really am a pickle.... is Pickle a name?” “Pickle's much better than my name,” said the intern while thinking, “and there are so many strangely named things around, I am sure a pickle named pickle wouldn't be too much of a pickle.....oops” “To answer your next question, the Void Lands are the a group of clustered together nothingness inside of a black hole, or multiple black holes depending on how you see it. As to how the Author made you, that's classified, we can't have just anyone making new charac....umm people...” Pickle looked at the intern strangely, “Ahem, back to your questions, the questions flew out of your abyss because the Author wanted them too, and there is really no way to stop them from flying out, but I will write down your complaint in a sticky note and put it on the Author's office door. The script is the paper that says what is going to happen to you next, that's really all you need to know about it, and it's not really finished, so, I could 'continue' the script... make you into an amazing hero pickle, who rescues the dilapidated muffin people, slays the terrible nothing beast who lives in the red abyss and...” “No!!! Stop! Stop!!!” “What's wrong?” “I don't want to be a hero pickle!!! I want to be Pickle who lives in his comfortable house with his terrified flowers and is happy!!” “Really? Huh, well... ok.” The intern rummaged around in the desk for a minute, pulled out a blank paper and wrote down 'Summary' on the top, then scribbled quickly in unreadable handwriting, a nice round paragraph... “There done, after meeting me and having your questions answered you will go back to your comfortable home and live happily ever after with your terrified flowers. Will that work?” Pickle nodded, “Yes, but you still haven't told me why my flower died or brought Fred back.” Pickle fished in his bag, “He cracked up really badly, this little piece I have of him is still giggling.” The intern picked up the shard of Fred and held it to her ear. “Hmm..” Then she squished up it shaped it a bit until it resembled the shape of an ear, and whispered something Pickle couldn't quite hear into it. Then squishing it back into a blob, she handed Fred back to Pickle. It wasn't giggling anymore, or even smiling at all, so Pickle shaped it into Fred and ask if it was alright. When he was certain Fred was not dead Pickle placed Fred carefully back into his bag and the intern spoke again. “About your flower, it's really not dead either, when terrified flowers become not terrified any more, they come to this library. You might have passed your flower when you came in. Now all you questions are answered.” and immediately a black sphere appeared and engulfed Pickle, and Pickle and the sphere shrank into into nothing and disappeared leaving intern alone at last. Meanwhile, back at Pickle's home, the abyss began coughing, then clearing it's long tunnel throat, it spat Pickle out and up into the air, and he floated back down to the ground and went back into his house and took a long nap, and when he woke up, he sat on his porch with a glass of flinn and terrified his flowers to keep them from leaving. The abyss for it's part, having decided it did not like coughing up pickles, directed all other questions it had to the trash city of goats where they were eaten, and everyone lived happily ever after, except for the intern who was promptly grounded when the Author returned. The End.

Thanks! I like Bananas!

There will be even Moar later, but this is all I will put up for now: Jurnel, sulking isn't nearly as fun as it should be, especially when there isn't anyone in the area to complain to. Hmm, I should also probably tell you about how I know all these things, too! I have been picking locks and could practically breathe the written languages, since I was 5! So, when I found a more difficult lock in the lower fake corner of my father's wardrobe I just had to see what was beyond it. However, this lock was guarded by a few spells of the Professor's, really annoying ones too, I remember one of them would have made created a flashing yellow sign appear over my head that read “Thieving Urchin”, a pair of hands that you cannot move would have appeared over my eyes intermittently blocking and unblocking my sight, and another would have created a floating face that followed me everywhere shrieking insults at the same time. But I didn't set any of them off; I looked up the spells in the Professor's books instead, and by looking them up and studying them for about a month, I was able to remove them when my father was asleep. Late one night, I was sure I knew exactly how to remove the spells and had practiced casting and removing them each a few times. Maybe I over-prepared, Jurnel, I mean, I probably would have been fine without practicing the spells so much. Ah well, at least I did prepare, as nervous as I was something was sure to go wrong. As I crept into the Professor's room, I noticed there were lamps still on. I carefully crept over the piles and paper littered floor towards my father's bedroom. The door was open, and I peeked around the bottom just far enough to see that he was sitting up in bed in his night shirt, books and papers strewn around him, as he scribbled down thoughts in a brown leather bound book. Jurnel, I was terrified he would look up right then and there and see me, not that anything really hideous would have happened had I been caught, but it's the principal of the thing, when one is sneaking around doing suspicious activity to be afraid of getting caught. I scooted backwards so fast I knocked over one of the Professor's piles. I froze. I heard no noise besides the scribble of my father's pen on the pages, so I looked around the door just far enough that I could see my father. He was still scribbling in his pages; suddenly he looked up, glanced around the room eyes going completely past my head without seeing it. “Huh? I thought I heard something... hmm.. Maybe one of my dirt rabbits...” he muttered skritching at his head and going back to his pages. Then, possibly because of this display from the Professor's, I got an idea. I decided that it would be foolish to cast a hiding spell or try to cause a distraction, like making a noise sound away from me. Here is way: one, any major magic would cause him to look up (I wasn't thinking about the unlocking spells then), two, he was already sufficiently distracted, and three any sound or further distraction he most likely would not even notice until morning. Also, trying to create a mess or sound or something would almost definitely make Mara notice that I was sneaking about in here. So, here is what I did, I summoned up my nerves, stood up and walked right past my father as he scribbled and into his wardrobe where I squirmed down into a cubby box near the fake corner. I had just pushed some boots, clothes, and boxes of things into the opening of the cubby box, when I heard a “Wait, what?” from my father, and the wardrobe doors were pulled open by a magic rope of wind, the Professor seems to be favoring wind usage lately, and clothes were lifted up in the air. Then the clothes were placed back down with a thump. The Professor sighed, “Huh, guess not.” He set his book and other things off to the side and the next thing I felt were layers of magic being wrapped around the room, alarms and spells far worse than any of the ones on this fake corner. The spells complete, I heard my father flop down onto his pillow and felt a thread of magic go off to extinguish his light. I had not prepared for this, Jurnel; I did not realize I would be trapped in here until the spells were removed. “Well, I guess there's nothing to do but wait,” I told myself as I tried to calm my pulse, and settled in to listen for my father's snores. I must have waited a few hours my heart pounding like crazy the whole time, but I heard it, finally, I heard the sound of my father's snores. Then I carefully created a simple light spell in the shape of a butterfly to hover by my shoulder as I began the spells... Maybe at this point I should explain a little about magic. You see, Jurnel, magic is basically scientific knowledge of the way things work, and the power to bend the way things work just a bit, or in mine and my father's case, quite a lot. Magic is sort of an extra sense, like seeing, or like your arms but bigger than that, like you have a whole separate body that you control in your magic. I have a theory, Jurnel, that this separate body thing is how Mara is able to be in multiple places at once, but the only way I can see her doing that is with really complex and precise magic, which somehow doesn't make any sense at all as she never really uses any other magic, besides the whole dirt being afraid of her thing, and the spiders... Anyway, all this means is that spell she uses would probably be pretty impossible for me. Not that complex spells are hard, Jurnel, I am quite sure that I could master any complex spell I wanted to. The difficult thing for me is precision, this is another thing about magic; every magician's magic is different. Some of them can cast the most specific and precise spells ever, and have this appear then and not a second earlier and nothing ever explodes ever! Others, like the Professor and I, have very chaotic magic, so when we cast something our magic always changes it. Simply put, we have very little control over our magic, though we have a lot of it, others may have more or less control and more or less magic, one of the magicians I read about could only make/cast spells in the form of mushrooms... One important thing to know about magic is we only have a certain amount, by using or exercising our magic, it gets larger and usually more controllable. Also, we reuse our magic, it never disappears, and is only used up if we leave our magic somewhere as I and the Professor seem to do often. Then we have to call our magic back before we can use it again, or undo a few spells we have up and use the same magic for different spells. One spell will not use up all the magic that we have, Jurnel, because me and my father were made with much magic, but if we leave our magic in enough little spells everywhere, then we will not have enough to use for big spells. Another thing about magic is all magicians sense it differently, we can tell if a spell is not our own by it's unique, well, I guess the best comparison word would be, smell. It's easier to say smell I suppose, because none of us can feel the magic, or sense it, and only if magic is cast in a visible form can we see it, but we can sort of "smell" magic. For example: my magic 'smells' different from the other magic a few persons on Mara have. I can't really describe they way my magic smells, but the little magic Thren, the ax teacher, has smells cold and iron-like. There's also a master weaver here on Mara named Mr. Froma, The magic he has smells sticky, but not sweet, more like the sticky sap of an pine tree, or a spider's web. Last thing, like 'smelling' magic, casting magic is a relative term; we simply hold what we want to happen, how we want to reshape reality, in our minds until we have used the power portion of our magic to complete what we wanted. I think that's a fair amount about different magics, now on to the spells I am undoing. The way I described them before is not completely accurate I suppose, the way the flashing yellow sign works is by mutating the top of the victims head, in an unobservable way, to emit puffs of glowing yellow gas at the correct places and times that they always spell the letters. This I discovered could be undone simply by 'casting' another light butterfly and sending my magic through the light butterfly to set the spell off, thus making the sign appear over the butterfly before undoing the spell. The butterfly is extinguished and the sign is released as magic to float back over to the Professor and join the cloud around him. Jurnel, it is a marvelous thing how deeply my father can sleep, he did not notice that, or my removal of the other two spells. Those two I had to defuse, by which I mean, pick apart carefully, rather like lock picking, only if I made a mistake it might accidentally set them off. So I picked them apart, sent the extra magic back to my father, and pulled out my lock-picks. Of course, my father had to lock this as well as protect it with spells, even though there was no one on Mara crazy enough to get into his things, well, except me, of course. I heard a click and pulled out my picks, and heard my father mumble something about not eating the frogs in his dreams. Then, I carefully lifted the corner piece out and looked underneath, into a small crawl space almost completely filled with heavy leather bound books, none of them were numbered and several of them looked very old, so I picked one at random and began to read. Luckily, when my father woke up in the morning, I also awoke and managed to hide while he removed the spells, and I sneaked back to my room (the nursery, because Mara did not believe I was old enough for my own room yet) with a few of his books before he noticed. I am fairly sure that if he hadn't been concentrating so hard on whatever it was he was doing he would have seen me, and my secret would be out. I like to keep everyone in the dark about how much magic I really know, Jurnel. I am sure they would have some sorts of work or tests or something or other for me to do besides what I want, which would not be fun at all. I suppose it doesn't matter though because they all found out soon enough, that I will have to tell you later though. So, there you have it Jurnel, that is how I know about My father's adventures and Mara, and how everything came to be here. Well, I also know because of the stories my father, Michael and Mara tell me. But, my father always adds extra parts and leaves out others in those stories that he doesn't leave out or add in his books, and Mara won't tell me anything that I really want to know, like how he created the spell that turned the tribe into glowbugs. Michael doesn't know everything that happened so he just makes up silly stories that I know can't be real. Anyway, I'm done! Goodnight for now, Jurnel.

One day, approximately three and a half years later, my father was doodling on the edge of one of the many papers on his desk, and got an idea. Fortunately at the same time Mara came into his rooms and plopped me down on his desk, right on top of his papers. The annoyed Professor looked up, straight into the terrifying glare of an angry Mara, and was scared out of his wits. Then Mara spoke a question that had been bothering her for the past three and a half years, “what is her name?” She had tried to fix it herself and nothing she tried had stayed, she had even gotten others, famous others, to help her, none of the solutions had stuck either. She knew names were very important; there was only one who could truly give her the right name, her only living relative, her father. Right now however, as well as for the past three and a half years her father had been dithering and dithering while The Professor had been making messes, excuses, and having strange ideas that never seemed to work quite right. Right now my father was procrastinating, mumbling and hoping he could get away from this situation for just a little while longer, and the Professor was trying to remember what his teleportation spells involved, after all these years he was still better at casting illusions that much of anything else, reaching for a pen to write down the idea he just had before he forgot it, and trying to tug the piece of paper he had been doodling on out from under me to write on. Mara however was serious, deadly serious, so serious the cloud we live on began to shake, spider-lings and insects that had been attracted to my father's messes shriveled up burst into flame and died, and mice fled from the tower only to find the rest of the cloud shaking with equally terrifying quakes. Mara glared at The Professor in all her fury and shouted “If you do not give her a name right now then I'm quitting!!!” The Professor looked up into Mara's eyes and quickly looked away; he knew he had no excuse for not giving his daughter a name for three and a half years. He looked around the room, out the window, at anything and everywhere except at Mara or the creature sitting on his papers. Mara glared at him, “Today, I told her our names, I pointed to myself saying Mara, and to Michael with his name. Then, she pointed to herself and made that face! So, give her a name now!” The Professor looked down, at his desk, one of the papers read: “Desi- New Cl-.” That paper really read: “Design for The New Clock Tower,” but I was sitting on more than half of it. The Professor could feel Mara's glare on the back of his head, he looked up and Mara spoke, “look at her, and give her a name.” The Professor looked at at the confused expression his daughter bore, and scratched his head, “ummm...” he glanced down quickly. “D-E-S-I....um....uhhh...” Unwilling or unable to move me from atop his papers he guessed for the rest of the spelling, “...I-N-E!.. Desine! Her name is Desine!!” Mara snatched the paper out from under the child, shot the Professor a withering look, causing a spider behind her to spontaneously implode, then rolled her eyes and sighed. I, the newly christened Desine, giggled and kicked over an ink bottle, I only partially understood what was happening. I suppose I was mostly just happy that everyone else was happy, because I honestly doubt I really understood what they were speaking about. Mara scooped me up and carried me out to the nursery, and this was how I received my name. Well, now that I'm done with this, maybe I should tell you a little about the Professor, Mara, and the place where we live here, they are fairly important I guess. Then I can get started on my story, and perhaps catch up to where I am now in my room, sulking. Yes, Jurnel, I can admit that I am sulking, but only to you. I'll start with my father; my father lived down on the land for the first 87 years of his life, at least 72 of which were spent as an apprentice to The Olde Wizard Oliver. (I guess you wouldn't know this, that wizards normally live a lot longer than other people, or that the stronger a wizard is the longer they usually live, my father is currently about 340 years old, he'll probably live to be at least 850 some.) Side Note: If I ever meet The Olde Wizard Oliver I will have to ask him what my father's real name is, I believe he is the only living one who might know. That is a long name to write, I think from now on I am going to call him the old wiz. Anyway, my father spent the longest time as the old wiz's apprentice, more precisely my father spent the longest time creating doubles of himself and sneaking off to go adventuring whenever the old wiz's back was turned. His doubles looked and acted enough like him, lazy, secretive, and perpetually bored of everything, always hungry, etcetera, that he was able to go missing for weeks at a time with no one ever knowing he was gone! I have been searching for that spell, I have a few ideas, Jurnel, on how it might work but I really need to see a book to understand completely. Oh, the adventures he had, Jurnel! He sneaked off to rescue a dragon from a miserable princess the elderly nobles of Asteria had set upon it. He stole the crown of Esstim from the very head of King Anlebd and still has it locked away until he finds the right person to give it to. He even worked with the members of a group of old fairy godmothers, giving them advice and helping to carry out their plans to right toppled kingdoms and cement their role as advisers. It was on one of these quests that he met Mara, and saved Mara, I guess he must have made quite an impression on her because she has been with him ever since. It was when he helped a giant defend his floating land from a night thief, and received a copy of the plans to his floating castle in payment, that he got the grand idea to quit his apprenticeship. He had already learned everything he needed to know at least 49 years ago, but still enjoyed having a place to come back to when he was tired of adventuring. So, he told the old wiz he was done, passed all the tests he had put off for 49 years and left. He moved into his own little shack out in the ruins of an old castle, and started work, first he created the designs for his own floating land, using the old ruins as a starting base, and added his own touches to them. He also gathered tons of friends or friends of friends of his from all over this planet to act as staff for various things in the castle. Well, technically Jurnel, HE didn't gather anyone or even think that he might need serving staff. That was all Mara's doing. Then he got to work on the spell he needed and failed consistently for about 3 months, after which he thought he got a grand plan, and it backfired sending his power halfway around the world to the monastery labyrinth of Furellan to create a very elaborate pond full of gemstone colored ever-fish. Here's the problem, basically, the spell he was trying to use was very precise, really complicated, and it needed more power. My father happens to be a very chaotic, absent-minded and scatterbrained person, and The Professor was too proud to ask anyone on he knew for help. So, naturally, he begged Mara. I don't know how he convinced her, but he did, and he linked Mara into the spell, giving him the stability to actually cast the spell and the necessary order and power to get the job done. The castle ruins reshaped themselves into the Professor's designs and rose up into the air, carrying all the staff and him and Mara and the few friends the Professor hoped to try and convince to work for him. I think he actually did manage to convince a few of them, I mean the elven gun-master is still here, and Jevnk the old tailor, Oh, and Vyl the hand fighting-master! Vyl is scary, but fairly nice; at least, that's what I think. Anyway, a side effect of the Professor's spell was that Mara's soul or personality or whatever it is we have that makes us different from dumb ki-birds became sort of meshed in with the castle itself, so Mara literally is the castle and the cloud, trees, buildings and everything that we live on/in. I suppose it is a good thing that this happened to Mara and not to anyone else, because you see Jurnel, Mara is able to be in more than one place at the same time; I'm not sure how she does it, so I'll tell you more when I figure it out. Now, just because Mara is the 'land' we live on and can be everywhere at once doesn't mean that Mara knows everything that is happening on Mara. There are mice living here, she wouldn't allow it if she knew where they all were. Also, Mara is the castle, meaning: she is a ton of wood and stone as well as everything else, because stone cannot really be hurt and dead wood cannot feel anything neither can Mara feel if there are feet walking on her hallways, or small creatures hiding up in her wooden rafters. Another thing about Mara that is important is dirt, dust, spiders and unclean things either flee from her or become clean when she touches them. This happens because a genie granted her wish to never be dirty again, or something like that. Anyway, that's all I will explain for now, my hand is tired and I want to sulk more...

I think I will name you Jurnel, (I hope that's spelled right), I will keep my story with you, and I won't tell any lies, or have any secrets in your pages. I promise I won't even exaggerate, like I know my father must do in his books, because I think it's important to have at least one place without secrets. You, Jurnel, will be my secret keeper.….. My name is Desine, its spelled wrong, I know. It's spelled wrong because my father is a harebrained professional magician not a professor, scholar or whatever else they may think he is. Even though every single person who's ever lived on Mara calls him “the Professor.” (I've never seen his real name, I'm not sure if he even has a real name.) My name is also Desine because my father had papers on his desk.... Why don't I back up a bit farther so you can get down a bigger picture... He was waiting impatiently for her to arrive that Saturday. He would pace back and forth, spill his tea, earning a glare from Mara, tap his feet and stare straining out the window to see if she was coming yet. The Professor was in love. All the staff could tell by his erratic skipping, tuneless humming, and the incessant smile on his face, but right now he was even more annoying sitting in their work space, blocking their way, making it hard to concentrate with all his noise. In fact he was so annoying the head cook later wrote a note to Mara, asking her to put windows in The Professor's rooms. Suddenly, he looked out the window and cried “there she is!!!” then he ran straight through the closed door skipped up through the air meet her and cried “Did it come? Do you have it? Where is it? Can I see it? Please?” She looked at him, an annoyed expression on her face and said, “Go back down to the ground and wait, I will to get to everyone in order.” The Professor took this as a good sign and said “but you have it right?” She ignored him and continued in her route with the professor following annoying her so much that she finally gave in. Reaching into her bag she brought out a small but heavy wooden box, shoved it into The Professor's waiting arms and marched away toward her next customer. The Professor giggled with excitement, called “thank you!” over his shoulder and teleported to his study, where he literally ripped off the lid of the chest, cracked open a book and delved his mind into it's contents. You see Jurnel, The Professor was in love with an idea, an idea he had gotten a few weeks ago, forgotten, and remembered by looking the doodles in the margins of his notes. Approximately nine months later...... All the staff, in fact everyone on Mara was terrified of him. Well, everyone on Mara besides Mara, but Mara was super busy doing everything at multiple times so Micheal the serving staff, brought him lunch. Micheal swallowed nervously; balancing the tray on one hand he wiped the other on his pants, and quickly placed his hands back on the tray handles. He didn't think anyone was watching him, but he never knew with some of the other serving staff. He knew they sent him up here because he was the most afraid of The Professor, but if he was afraid it was their fault! He had just started working on Mara and had never seen The Professor, and the other staff kept telling him stories of the Professor. The worst part about those stories is at least some of them had to be true, what with the extra arms Taelin had and the bright purple hair Jemsi had, and the moveable wooden legs Strea had. Michael swallowed again, and heard a muffled giggle behind him. He felt his face grow bright red with embarrassment and he knocked softly, and winced. Nothing happened. He looked back at the door, and heard giggles behind him. He knocked harder.... Nothing happened. Micheal set the tray down on a small table beside the door, amidst echoing giggles, and pounded on the door with both fists. The door creaked open of it's open accord, and a slightly annoyed voice said, “Quit banging on my door and come in!” Michael slowly uncurled from the crouched position he had taken when the door started to open. He picked up the tray from the table slowly, and slowly dragged himself into the room. He closed the door with his back and looked up, The Professor was a tall slightly tan young man in his mid-thirties, Michael guessed, with a short mop of black and silver curls which seemed to be every where at once. He was wearing a plain white shirt that had ink stains on the cuffs and back pants that looked as if they had been slept in, he sat in a broken chair at a desk completely covered in papers, ink, pens, and odd looking instruments. A quill pen was in one hand tapping upon a page and the other hand was scritching through his hair making it messier than it already was. His glasses were a bit askew as they perched on the end of his nose and his green eyes were trained directly onto the papers in front of him, the Professor was paying him no attention at all as he scribbled down several notes, looked at them, crossed parts of them out, and occasionally rummaged through his book shelves/piles for more information. Michael relaxed a bit, this strange man was certainly not the infamous Professor he had heard about, he looked about, perhaps the real Professor was hiding somewhere. He didn't see anyone else, though there were plenty of hiding places, even if this man was the Professor he certainly didn't invoke fear in him. The Professor shouted “Ah HAH!!!!” and resumed his scribbled at a faster pace. Michael had heard The Professor did shout occasionally but it usually didn't mean anything, so he stepped carefully through the messy floor over to an upturned table and balanced the tray on the table foot which was sticking up into the air. He was just turning to make his way back through the mess to the door when he heard muttering behind him. He glanced over his shoulder and his eyes went wide as the dishes he had been carrying. He looked around frantically and stumbled through the mess toward the nearest cover he could find, a wooden closet imbedded in the wall. He had just reached the door and grabbed onto the handle when there was a “BOOOOM” and the whole room became a whirlwind of dirt, clothes, furniture, lunch and remains of other old meals, and papers. Papers and books flew through the mayhem as if they had just been waiting for the wind to give them wings for flying. As the room settled down, a thick black smoke that had been a less noticeable participant in the room's chaotic dance choked out the sunlight from the closed windows and made the Professor and Michael start coughing. Michael was half buried in a pile of debris still clutching the handle, of the closet he had tried to hide inside. Before he could even get up from where he lay a scream was heard. The scream was so loud the Professor and Michael's eardrums nearly burst. Michael got up and tried to stumble in the direction he thought he remembered the windows being. Then the door burst open, and Mara stormed in. Her footsteps tapped immediately toward the windows, debris scattering before her, and threw them open. The black smoke rushed eagerly out the escape, and Mara turned and glared at a figure emerging from the rapidly clearing air in the center of the room. Mara turned and saw Michael staring at the windows in a confused manner, as if they had moved without his knowledge. Mara smiled at him, “Michael, thank you for bringing his lunch up. Would you mind bringing up a tub of warm water, some clean hand cloths, and a bottle full of milk, to the nursery? You can get those layabouts around the corner to help you.” Michael looked up, blurted “Yes, Mam.” and hurried from the room. Mara turned her stare back to the figure in the center of the room. She sniffed. He was fairly clean standing in the center of a little circle of clean, with a sheepish smile on his face and a baby screaming it's lungs out in his arms. Mara looked at the room and sniffed; The Professor followed her gaze and shrugged. Mara raised one eyebrow and sniffed. The Professor tried and mostly failed to arrange his face into an apology. Mara gave him one last glare, looked down at the babe and sighed. The Professor grinned. “So” he restated, “you'll let me keep it?” Mara sniffed. “Here, give her to me.” The Professor looked up “What? But just you said-” “Technically, I never 'said' anything. Now, she has a poopy diaper, unless you really want to change her yourself, hand her over. We'll settle the rest later.” The Professor's eyes grew big, he sniffed and immediately grimaced. Then kissing his daughter on the forehead, he placed her carefully into Mara's waiting arms and turned to start on the mess he had made. Now I don't remember any of this, of course, because I was still just a baby, I only started being able to remember things when I was about 2 and a half. Michael, Mara, and my father told me these stories in bits and pieces, so I really don't know any of this for certain. Also, Michael wasn't there to tell me, and neither my father nor Mara will talk about it but there will always be rumors. According to my source, when I got back some sort of a deal was struck. Papers were supposedly signed, though I have never seen a leaf or particle of them. To this day the Professor has never created an explosion the size of that one inside his room ever again, also, I heard that for the first 5 months after my birth his room was so clean and shiny it attracted glow bugs. That baby was the Professor's daughter, me, and that was the story of how I was born.