ART



Fluxion

issue
4
here once was a cranky wood sprite who left his beloved, isolated
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forest to undertake a long journey in a distant land. After many
months he returned home to find that a group of pesky humans
had built a village in his woods. He was outraged. But rather
than kill them or evict them, the spiteful sprite cursed them
with the inability to communicate. Reduced to incoherent gesticulation and
mumbly gibberish, the community quickly declined into chaos while the
sprite watched gleefully.
The sprite’s only neighbor was a sorceress who had tried to warn the
people that the resident wood sprite would not be happy to find them in his
domain, but they paid her no mind. After the curse took effect, the sorcer-
ess pitied the hapless humans and managed to restore some of their ability
to speak and write, but none of them could string together more than a
few words at a time. Chaos had been tempered into chronic confusion, but
the villagers were still fairly helpless, and the sorceress, being softhearted,
provided them with all manner of assistance. She also convinced the wood
sprite to allow them to stay so long as they maintained a respectfully low
profile and cleaned up after themselves. In exchange, the villagers gratefully
shared with the sorceress what meager goods they managed to produce.
And so a harmonious balance of sorts was struck.
One summer an unfortunate spate of mishaps left the villagers excep-
tionally needy. They required medications and meditations, cooking and
consolation, mending and tending. After a particularly trying afternoon,
the sorceress had a horrible premonition that there would be no relief, that
this was the new norm. In a fit of anxiety, she made up her mind to pack her
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