Birthday Stuff

Yesterday was my wife's birthday. There were a number of presents involved, but two of the nicest came from our kids. Maya produced the following original card:

Not to be outdone, Sage produced an original story. For your reading pleasure, the text:

Gudrun the Fair Isle Fairy
-a birthday story by Sage Anthony Durham

Gudrun raced through the woods, feet flying over the hard earth. Her bare soles crunched the leaves of fall beneath them, but she didn’t even hear them. All she could think about was getting to the otter. She didn’t know why but she knew she had to get to it. She had a bad feeling. And when she had bad feelings it meant something. Maybe the birth had gone wrong. The otter wasn’t due for another month, but…

Oh, she just ran. Good thing she had her trainers and spin gear on. Suddenly she was slipping and sliding down the stones toward the beach. Sure enough the otter had given birth. The pups were sooo cute. Small and lovely, eyes closed and looking like the best things ever. But… something was definitely wrong. She could see it in the mother otter’s eyes and hear it in her breath and feel it in her heart beat.

And then she knew. The otter pups were too small. Of course! It was a really early birth so the pups wouldn’t have nearly enough fat to stay warm in the North Atlantic. But that wasn’t all. They were cool to the touch, not warm like new pups should be. They needed to be heated up and soon. The sun was sinking into the hills and in the east a raucous gathering of clouds promised a storm. There was going to be weather, no doubt.

 Gudrun looked around. The landscape, bare and craggy and beautiful as it was, offered no help. Not a person to be seen. It was all on her. She inhaled. All on her. Nobody watching. That was bad, but it also meant one good thing...

With no witnesses, Gudrun pulled her knitting needles from the quiver on her back. Quick as an Elfen archer, she began to work her magic. She reached up and snatched at the last golden rays of the setting sun. The staccato click of her needles snapped away on the wind, but she didn’t falter. She wove the sunlight into glimmering yarn.

And she knitted. Oh, she knitted. This was her magic, something only she could do.

She worked fast, as was her style. When she was done the pups were snuggled up in warm gold hats, cardigans, scarves and pants; all of them pulsing with sunlight. Gudrun was content that the pups would live and grow up to be big and healthy, for they were covered in the magic of a Fair Isle fairy, a rare, secret breed, one of the last of the species.

 That day, feeling young and fit and in control of herself and her skills and her meaning in the world, Gudrun set off to look for other animals in need. She helped forty animals that day and saved forty lives. Next year, she’d aim to help forty-one.

Better with age, of course.

More magical.

(Not bad, huh?)