GOOD NEWS AND BAD
“When winter snows were deep, slip and slide, we shared our tales of Jaha, shouting from nest to nest. I, down from my boulder lookout, shouted longest and loudest. I am the best, slip and slide, of the jarbot tellers of tales. Never could I know or think, slip and slide, that deep now here in summer a story come true, you, the Jaha true and real, would bring yourself to fetch us away to silver sands. Dreams are dreams, slip and slide, hopes. They are stories. But here you are, Jaha, you are here. I have seen you fly, slip and slide. I have seen your pet change shape into forms most wondrous, slip and slide. I have watched while you created a bear from a sticky patch of darkness! Slip and slide! Slip and slide! Oh, oh, slip and slide!”
Jerrandal rolled and tumbled madly about, so such as jesterbeasts seem to do when excited. I stood there feeling the blush in my cheeks and at the back of my neck. The great beast’s hopes of escaping the world down the Well were every one of ‘em tied to me. I’ll get ‘em up the Well somehow. I am their Jaha. I never knew. Such thoughts sparked while I watched Jerrandal romp. My gaze wandered down the slope to the trees of a forest. A white Dragon appeared soaring above ‘em. Ah, Kar, a new Dragon shift. She swooped a low dive straight at us, flattening Jerrandal and lifting the hat from my head with a gust power flap of her membraned wings. She turned a tilt, and landed lightly, laughing in shimmer. She shifted to bendo dreen Kar and held out to me the wand and my crystal ball.
“Nice flagon … Dragon,” I remarked calmly, taking the wand and the crystal ball from her. “Where did you bind … find ‘em?”
She picked up my hat and plonked it on my head, stepped back, stepped forward, adjusted the hat, stepped back. I remained patient. Kar is my best friend from ever, and she does things in her very own oddment of ways.
“Are you blue … through … playing with my … bat … hat?” I asked.
“Yes, I’m through playing with your bat hat,” she said smiling in her jark dweg cracked melon way. “I found ‘em, Bek! I was the first. I jrabe sensed ‘em and narrowed in. Did you like my white Dragon? I used that shift when I got to the meadow and the cluster of trees where we saw the dangerous creatures. Thought I’d scare ‘em proper away if they appeared. No need, though. They didn’t. Couldn’t, more so such, I bet. I … Bek! Where’s the patch of tar?”
“I unspelled it,” I announced with a level of pride.
“Why, that’s good, that’s great! You can do the others then. How did you unspell it? And better more, what was it?!” bubbled Kar.
“My buckles … a wooly mound … round creature,” I said before suddenly realizing all Kar had bubbled. “Others?!”
“Yes, I was going to say,” continued Kar. “The wand, like as I told you it would be, was lying helpless in that cluster of trees. The crystal ball was right next to it, as I also told you it so such would be. And I was going to have you announce to the jesterbeasts that they need no longer fear the creatures we saw there yesterday. All four of ‘em are patches of tar next to a cloth dome hut.”
I staggered a step or two backwards.
“I have to … unspell … ‘em,” I said.
“Of course you do,” said Kar, and it was right there then that the crystal ball began to pulse hot in my hand.