Mini Mission: A fairy day

"I don't know if we should do this." His concern was clear in his voice and body posture as he looked cautiously over at the mushrooms lying in the shade of some trees. "You know what they say about fairy rings."

Storyteller sighed. Yes, she knew the rumors. She had known it before and had heard it several times from Jaden, who had been in her ears with these stories the whole time. But, the rumors were the reason why they were there! They sounded so interesting, full of adventures and maybe mysterious meetings!

They had heard about the circle this morning and had set off almost immediately to inspect it for themselves. They were told, that someone had started a ring in the forest by collecting lots of mushrooms and placing them in a circle. The adults wanted to destroy it in the evening, so the children had to hurry. Everyone knew that this provoked spirits and that they could materialize in this ring, so some adults were concern about it. But this ring was not complete: On one side, the mushrooms became sparser until they finally stopped altogether, leaving a large gap in this magical circle. As soon as Storyteller had noticed this mistake, she had decided that they would complete the work of this unknown adventurer. And so she scurried around among the trees while her friend Jaden kept an eye on the incomplete fairy circle. He was not comfortable with all this.

"You'll only summon a ghost!"

"That's the whole point of circles like this." Storyteller waved it off without looking up as she carefully tried to dig a mushroom out of the ground with her paws. "That's what fairy circles are for: to get in touch with a forest spirit." Now she lifted her head and looked adventurously at Jaden. "Imagine how cool that would be! Who knows what he could tell us!"

"I don't even want to imagine it! What if he's evil and takes us with him?"

Storyteller raised an eyebrow. "Us? I think he'd regret it faster than we would. We're..." She searched for words. "Exhausting." And that had been the nicest euphemism Azalek or the others had used for the troop of children. "Everything will be alright, you'll see, trust me. Look what I found." She lifted the mushroom. "It just grows around the circle and no one has picked it up."

"Maybe there's a reason why the circle isn't finished?" Jaden was still very worried. "I mean, no one would be stupid enough to overlook that mushroom and walk away unfinished. It wasn't picked on purpose!"

"But why start a circle if you're not going to finish it?" Storyteller shook her head as she walked back to the circle. There she put the mushroom she had just found in its new place. "Then it would have been much easier and also more time-saving not to start it in the first place."

"And why wasn't the mushroom picked then?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "Maybe he or she just missed it. Or the adventurer was disturbed."

"Yes, by a ghost!" Jaden was 100 percent sure that the action would end in disaster.

"Oh, come on, don't be like that." Storyteller sighed and tilted her head as she scanned the surroundings for more mushrooms. "Forest spirits are peaceful creatures. They don't kidnap anyone. And certainly not if the medium used to call them has not yet been completed." 

She looked briefly at her friend. 

"Now help me instead of nagging me!"