It’s Wednesday, the day of the great votational. I seriously just made that word up. It’s going to be in dictionaries soon I swear to cow. This intro might be taking a strange turn…

Anyway, you probably know what happens today so I am just going to give a quick summation. Saturdays, Indies Unlimited gives us a written prompt and a picture. It is then up to us to write a 250 words or less story based on these prompts and post them to their site. The stories are screened by a group of “Select” Judges and the best are offered up for vote on Wednesdays.

Now for the rest of the intro. Sometimes the solution to our problems leads to bigger problems, more or less…

The Blue Sprite’s Warning

Photo by K.S. Brooks

George, the miller’s son, waited at the waterfall for the blue sprite to appear. He was sure she would be able to help him, or so the legends said.

As the sun finally crept behind the hill, dusk invited the first fireflies. George watched them with a sense of wonder, yet he also began to feel anxious. The fireflies danced in the air like yellow sparks, entrancing him. He did not know how much time had passed when he finally noticed one of the sparks was blue. He watched intently as the little blue light flashed and weaved about in the air.

With some trepidation, he asked in a soft and respectful tone, “Are you the blue sprite? I need your wisdom.”

A soft, feminine voice, barely audible over the sound of trickling water, answered, “I am she, but I must warn you that the help you seek is not always the help you get. Men are foolish in this way. If you ask anything of me, you must accept that what I advise will be for the best, even if it seems opposite your heart’s desire.”

George bit his lip. How could there be any help but for the money to pay the landlord?…

“Those are the terms?” George said. His voice broke a little as he fought to keep the trepidation out of his words.

The blue sprite hovered inches from George’s face, a flicker of blue light without physical form. “Since the start of time.”

George spit in his hand and extended it. “I accept.”

Nothing touched him but a flash extended from his open hand and washed through the rest of his body. In the blink of an eye, George had been engulfed in a deep blue light. In that small span of time the world around him had faded away and when it came back the world he saw had changed. The colors of the world around him reflected through a blue filter. This blue tinged everything, even his body, standing in front of him.

Words came from him as if through water. He could understand what was said but it echoed and distorted, almost stretched like each word came over a great distance. “As a blue sprite, the troubles you knew as human are no more.”

“What the @#$#,” George the sprite screamed but the words he knew he said were different than he intended.

“Did I forget to mention that you can’t say certain words? This isn’t much, but you will fill my spot with the other sprites for the next hundred years. I know it sucks but that’s the bargain.”

Sprite the George disappeared down the trail as George the sprite raged and glowed with the other sprites.

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