Canto 3 – The Rooster Riders
When it was decided that there would be three teachers rather than one for the start of Poppy’s magical training, the debate between them was about what to do next.
“I will explain as we head to the stables,” said Flute rather imperiously. Poppy supposed his status as Prince, Prinz in the Zauberin language, gave him that authority to decide things without asking for anyone else’s opinion.
“Not Roosters again?” asked Tod with a pained expression.
“Poppy and I can fly,” added Glittershine.
“Rooster riding is an important skill for life in Tellosian Court. And besides, we need to ride out to Castle Cornucopia to fulfill my duties to the White Stag’s needed magical research. We need riding beasts that can fight back if we are attacked by Cyclopes and Wartoles between here and there. We will be crossing lands contested by the Stoor.”
This was distressing news to Poppy. She hated chickens. They had bird capabilities, but dinosaur temperments. And she remembered from her time enthralled by the Necromancer that the Stoor’s people were always ugly, cruel, and mean. Worse even than chickens.
Of course, the walk down to the stables would take them all the way to the root of the willow tree that had been shaped into Cair Tellos. There they would find two large Rhode Island Red Roosters, their wings strapped down with Fairy saddles to keep them on the ground and ready to ride.
“The biggun is Tannehauser en the little-un is Seltzerwater,” said the naked little stable boy.
“Those are their names?” asked Poppy.
“Yessum,” said the Sylph boy with a proud salute.
Steps made from Slow Ones’ cracker boxes and matchsticks were pulled up to each rooster.
Prinz Flute mounted Tannehauser with Glittershine behind him. Poppy mounted Seltzerwater with Tod climbing up behind her and taking the reins by reaching around her with both arms. To be comfortable in that position, she had to put away butterfly wings with a Wingaway spell. Most Butterfly Children didn’t have the option to put their wings magically away in such situations, but she had never noticed how much of an advantage the spell really was.
“So, we’re going to Cornucopia?” Poppy asked Tod.
“Apparently. King Mouse needs assistance with something that requires some of Prinz Flute’s Invention Magic.”
“Oh.” Of course, Poppy had no Fairy-worldly idea what the heck “Invention Magic” even meant.
Seltzerwater eyed Poppy with one creepy yellow eye before Tod turned its chicken head with the reins and spurred it to make it go.
Poppy wished she were riding naked, the way the Elder Gods made Fairies to be, but even with these clothes on, it felt good to lean back against Tod’s strong chest and feel his quickening heartbeat, knowing he was forbidden to assault her in any way. For the first time in her young life, she was feeling safe and unafraid. And she really was no longer thinking about hitting Tod anymore.
The roosters ran out of the castle gate at a very fast pace.
No Slow Ones were watching, although the massive homes of the gigantic human ones surrounded Cair Tellos. The Slow Ones’ town of Norwall had been built all around the willow tree quite by accident. And the fairies refused to move as their kingdom had been there first. But it mattered little. There were many glammers, disguising magics, that kept Slow Ones from seeing fairies as they really were. The roosters were even hidden from their big Slow-One eyes.
In minutes the roosters were through the wire field-fences and running through the farmers’ fields that made up the bulk of Tellosia’s above-ground territories.
“Did you give Poppy her new spellbook?” Flute shouted at Tod.
“Not yet, but I will do it now.”
Tod reached into his bag of holding and brought out a vellum-covered book made of highly magical pages. Normally it would be a carefully crafted thing made by the hand of the apprentice’s new master. This, however, was an ordinary and rather plain one bought at Oddbod’s Magic Emporium.
“Thank you!” Poppy hugged it to her chest as a treasure she would never part with.
“I’m sorry the Master didn’t make you one with his own hands. Master Pippen is too often thinking only of himself.”
Tod’s face was red at the embarrassing confession.
“Oh, no, Tod. I love it. I have never owned any such thing before. This is something I would never have imagined I could ever own only a year ago.”
“Well, the White Stag says you have many worthy spells to be written in it. Glittershine will help translate them by magic into the spellbook this very evening when we make camp. You really deserve something better.”
“How could one such as I, lucky to even be alive at this point, expect anything finer? I will thank Master Pippen over and over again for giving me a treasure such as this.”
That made Tod smile. He had a lovely smile.
Catch a Falling Star 
Self-Reflection
Every writer, whether he or she writes fiction or non-fiction, is really writing about themselves. The product originates within the self. So, that self has to gaze into the mirror from time to time.
So, the question for today is, who, or possibly what, is Mickey?
I have been posting stuff every day for a few years now, and in that time, I have been much-visited on WordPress. Maybe not much-read, but then, you cannot actually tell if somebody read it or not. Most probably look only at the pictures. And, since I am also an artist of sorts, that can also be a good thing. Though, just like most artists, my nude studies are more popular than the pieces I value the most. But unless the looker makes a comment or leaves a “like”, you really have no idea if they read or understood any of the words I wrote. And you have no idea what they feel about the art. Maybe they just happened to click on one of my nudes while surfing for porn.
I rarely get below 50 views of something in my blog every day. The last three days were 86 views, 124 views yesterday, and 88 views already today. My blog has definitely picked up pace over the length of the coronavirus quarantine. But no definable reason seems obvious. Some of my posts are polished work, but Robin is right when he says today’s post is merely fishing with the process, which is true almost every day.
As a person I am quirky and filled with flaws, pearls of wisdom that result from clam-like dealing with flaws, strange metaphors that shine the pearls, and obsessions like the one I have with nudism that leaves me properly dressed for diving for pearls.
I have demonstrated throughout my life that I have an interest in and experience with nudism, though not the boldness to parade my naked self before the world outside of the writing that I do. I also spent most of my bachelorhood dating reading teachers and teachers’ aides, finally settling down and marrying another English teacher. I completed a thirty-one year career as an English teacher, which means I spent a lot of time teaching writing and reading to kids who were ages 12 to 18. Twenty-four of those years were spent in the middle school monkey house. And all of that led to being so mentally damaged that I wasn’t good for much beyond becoming a writer of YA novels or possibly subbing for other mentally-damaged teachers in middle schools around our house.
A real telling feature of what I have become is the fact that most of the characters I write about in my fiction are somehow a reflection of me. Milt Morgan, seen to the left, is illustrated here with a picture of me as a ten-year-old wearing a purple derby. Yes, I was that kind of geeky nerd.
And most of the plots are based around things that happened to me as a child, a youth, or a young teacher. Many of the events in the stories actually happened to me, though the telling and retelling of them are largely twisted around and reshaped. And I am aware of all the fairies, aliens, werewolves, and clowns that inhabit my stories. Though I would argue that they were real too in an imaginative and metaphorical way.
So, here now is a finished post of Mickey staring into the metaphorical mirror and trying in vain to define the real Michael, an impossible, but not unworthy task.
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