The Tale Teller

The Story of The Magical Tea Party

The origins of magic are unknown, for when The Mother stepped from the shore, and The Father from the mountain, it was already there to welcome them into the land they would make their home. It was as natural as the wind that blew, or the sun that shone.

It was shaped like balls, as big as one's fist, or as small as one's big toe. It came in a variety of colours, from vibrant greens the shade of Albazkurish Limes, to pinks as sweet as a maiden's lips. It flew through the forests, just how a small bird would. Wild. Living side by side with the plants and trees, with the deer, the foxes and swans, and our ancestors themselves.

Our story surrounds one little girl, whose name I never did learn. Each day she would wander into the forest behind her humble home, and hold a tea party for the animals she would find, along with the rag dolls she would bring with her.

Occasionally, the trees nearby, with branches that twisted to form harps for maiden's to play upon, would be alive with song. On one chilly day, they stood silent, for no maiden's wished to visit the forest when the air was so cold. No children played, and no fathers chopped wood or collected mushrooms for soups and stews.

The little girl was all alone, in a clearing with no sound but the bopping of the fish in the ponds, and the scurries of the fox cubs as they chased around the trees, rolling in the lush grass. The girl was lonely with just her fox friends and dolls to serve tea to, and so the magic whooshed by, setting her tree stump table alight with its powers.

A figure appeared beside it, a pale imp of a thing which the girl could see right through should she stare hard enough. Another appeared, and another, until the area was full of willowy guests as thin as the cotton petticoat beneath the girls dress. Some carried bowls of make-believe foods, whilst other's held lanterns high as the dusk began to fall. They played upon the harps, and danced with the playful cubs, as graceful as the swans that soon joined them.

When the night fell to darkness, and the girl knew her family would worry should she fail to return home, she knew she must bid goodbye to her new friends. They didn't leave her though, but instead walked her to the cottage she called home, lighting her steps with the lanterns they still held.

Once safely inside, she told her mother and father of her forest adventure, but neither thought magic could be so powerful as to form friends that a girl could play with. Perhaps this was true, and it was simply a child's imagination, or maybe her parents underestimated the power in the environment around them.

We know the full strength of that magic, but our ancestors did not. They took it for granted; and when it was captured, experimented and tested upon, the magic rose in its full power. In retaliation, it killed the people, before rotting into the ground. How difficult it is to imagine the glorious city that once stood, and the utopia that life was, when in its wake, the magic created the toxic wasteland we know the west to be today.

Sadly, the little girl likely died in the magic's path of distruction, though perhaps she was one of the lucky few who escaped it by journeying east beforehand. We can only hope so.

Should she have kept her secret, would the power of magic have been unknown, and curiosities avoided? We cannot blame her, for a child does not know the selfishness of man. But a lesson is learned to respect, and to not force the will of others.

It is disheartening to see such innocence, swallowed by a darkness that in life, perhaps we cannot avoid. But no matter how sweet and innocent something, or someone, may seem, there is always a strength within them that holds no boundaries.