Twinkle-Shell the Festive Wanderer

Captured Tales – by Bill Tiepelman

Sugarsweat Shenanigans of the Cookie That Lived

When a sugar-sweating gingerbread messiah awakens mid-frosting, he launches into a wildly unhinged quest through the kitchen—facing butter, flour, cats, and his own overconfidence in this hilariously chaotic holiday tale.

Captured Tales – by Bill Tiepelman

Glitterbomb Gary’s Day Pass from the Ornament Bin

When Glitterbomb Gary gets a Day Pass from the ornament bin, he doesn’t behave—he declares himself the main character of the entire holiday season. Chaos erupts, elves fall, snowmen panic, and Gary sparkles his way straight into accidental glory.

Captured Tales – by Bill Tiepelman

Candied Antlers of the North Realm

A gingerbread reindeer with outrageous confidence, candy-coated swagger, and one very questionable spin move accidentally tears open a cosmic rift—then discovers what real courage looks like. Follow Crumbsnatch’s laugh-out-loud, sugar-dusted journey from “too big for his britches” to unlikely North Realm hero in this heartfelt, chaotic holiday tale.

Captured Tales – by Bill Tiepelman

Snowveil Hare of the Frozen Court

The Hare Who Refused to Be Ordinary On the coldest night of the year, when the aurora stretched across the sky like spilled paint and everyone with common sense was indoors hoarding soup, the Frozen Court gathered in the Valley of Unreasonable Sparkle. The snow there never simply “fell.” It pirouetted. It glowed. It attempted, on more than one occasion, to unionize. Every ruler of the North was present. The Ice Stag with his cathedral-sized antlers, the Glacial Owls with their disapproving expressions, the Polar Bear Matron wearing a cloak of storm clouds, and a flock of snow sprites who communicated exclusively in giggles and glitter. Even the northern wind had attended, appearing as a tall, translucent figure who looked like they spent far too much time in perfume commercials. At the center of it all, sitting on a smooth rise of snow that glowed from within, was a throne carved from a single block of ice. It was both magnificent and deeply uncomfortable, which is how you knew it was a throne. And atop that throne, in a halo of swirling frost, sat the most improbable monarch the realm had ever had: the Snowveil Hare of the Frozen Court. Snowveil was not what anyone expected from a winter ruler. For starters, they were small. Not metaphorically small, either. Physically. A hare. A very fluffy hare with long legs, luminous sapphire eyes, and antlers that looked like moonlight had grown tired of being intangible and decided to crystallize into something with sharp edges and opinions. The antlers glimmered with frost fractal patterns, delicate branches sparkling as though each was lit by its own tiny aurora. Snowveil’s coat was etched with swirls of ice-lace, filigree crawling over fur like an artist had been allowed to go absolutely feral with a frostbrush. Every time Snowveil moved, the patterns shifted, catching the light and throwing fragments of cold fire into the air. The Frozen Court had elected Snowveil for a simple reason: no one could intimidate enemies and charm tourists quite like a hyper-realistic magical hare with crystalline antlers. The marketing potential alone was obscene. There were already plans for seasonal tapestries, enamel pins, and collectible prints in the Hall of Excessively On-Brand Merchandise. But that night, the Court wasn’t thinking about merchandising strategies or limited-edition aurora posters. They were thinking about the problem. The problem in question came in the form of a messenger wisp, who spun into existence over the court like a terrified snowflake that had read too much bad news. It trembled in the cold air, its tiny face pale blue and worried. “Your Frosted Majesty,” the wisp squeaked, bowing so low it nearly folded itself inside out, “we have an issue in the Southern Melt.” The Southern Melt was not a place anyone enjoyed saying out loud, mostly because it sounded like a seasonal dessert special. It was the liminal region where the eternal winter of the North grudgingly shook hands with the warmer lands beyond. The snow there had a habit of melting, refreezing, sulking, and writing anonymous complaints in the slush. Snowveil’s whiskers twitched. “What kind of issue?” they asked, voice soft but edged with the crispness of subzero air. The wisp hesitated. “The snow,” it said, “is… refusing to fall.” The Court erupted into panicked murmurs. The Glacial Owls fluffed up indignantly. The Ice Stag stomped a hoof, causing an avalanche somewhere unfortunate. The Polar Bear Matron let out a shocked huff that formed a new iceberg off the northern coast. “Refusing?” Snowveil repeated, one elegant ear flicking. “Snow is not allowed to refuse. That’s literally its whole job. It goes up, it freezes, it falls. That’s the brand.” The wisp nodded miserably. “It says it’s on strike, Your Majesty. Something about ‘unreasonable working conditions, lack of respect, and human tourists who keep calling it ‘so aesthetic’ instead of appreciating its complex crystalline geometry.’” Snowveil pinched the bridge of their nose with an invisible paw of pure exasperation. The antlers glittered in sympathy. “Of course it does,” they muttered. “The last time we let a cloud read anything about labor rights, it staged a blizzard walkout.” The Wind leaned closer, cape of translucent air whispering. “If the snow stops falling in the Southern Melt, the line between winter and spring will blur,” it warned. “Rivers will swell early. Flowers will bloom too soon. Mortals will start posting ‘Is this climate change or vibes?’ on their little glowing rectangles. It will be chaos.” Snowveil wasn’t afraid of chaos; they were the sort of creature who could turn a snowstorm into a fashion statement. But they were concerned about balance. The winter realms relied on subtle rhythms: snowfall patterns, frost crystal maps, aurora schedules, the weekly migration of overly dramatic ravens. If the snow decided to rebel, everything else would wobble. The Ice Stag cleared his throat, antlers chiming like distant bells. “We could send the Storm Wolves,” he suggested. “A little intimidation might persuade the flakes to fall in line.” Snowveil’s blue eyes narrowed. “We are not threatening the weather into compliance,” they said. “Every time we do that, some mortal writes a myth where the gods are jerks and the moral is ‘Never trust atmospheric deities.’ Our PR team still hasn’t recovered from the Great Hailstone Incident.” There were solemn nods. The Great Hailstone Incident was still whispered about in the Hall of Reputational Damage. Somebody had tried to speed-run an entire winter in one week. It had not gone well. Snowveil hopped down from the ice throne in a flurry of glittering frost, landing so softly the snow barely noticed. They paced slowly, hooves—no, paws, but dignified ones—leaving faint trails of glowing patterns behind them. Each step wrote a secret sigil in the snow, the language of ice and intention. “Snow is not the enemy,” Snowveil said at last. “It’s an artist. It likes to be admired. It likes to be taken seriously. And lately it’s been treated like nothing more than a filter for mortal photographs and a hazard for poorly chosen footwear.” The Polar Bear Matron rumbled thoughtfully. “Humans do enjoy sliding around shrieking as if walking on frozen water is a deeply surprising concept.” “Exactly,” Snowveil said. “If I were a snowflake, I’d be offended too. Imagine spending hours crystallizing yourself into a unique six-armed masterpiece, just to get stomped by someone in discount boots and then compressed into sludge.” The Court winced collectively. “So,” Snowveil continued, “we’re going to negotiate.” The Glacial Owls blinked. “Negotiate,” one repeated slowly, as though tasting the word like a questionable berry. “With precipitation.” Snowveil’s whiskers twitched again, this time in amusement. “Yes. With precipitation. The snow wants respect? We’ll see what that means. And if we can’t come to an agreement, then we’ll find the real reason behind this strike. Snow doesn’t just stop falling unless something bigger is meddling.” The suggestion settled over the Court like a thin new layer of frost—chilly but stabilizing. They all knew what Snowveil wasn’t saying: storms didn’t organize themselves. If there was a labor movement among the clouds, something—or someone—had stirred it. A faint shiver slid through the air. Snowveil felt it, the way a hare feels the shadow of a hawk long before it sees the wings. It was subtle, like a ripple in the pattern of the cold, a small wrongness humming under the usual song of the North. That was the twist, Snowveil realized. The snow’s rebellion wasn’t the problem. It was the symptom. They turned to the wisp. “You’ll guide me to the Southern Melt,” Snowveil said. “We leave at once.” There was a murmur of protest—about the hour, the temperature, the ongoing agenda items concerning icicle zoning regulations—but Snowveil flicked one antler and the complaints froze solid, glittering briefly before shattering. “This realm,” Snowveil said calmly, “is balanced on patterns most mortals never see. Frost fractals, snowdrift rhythms, the way ice sings under starlight. If those patterns start misbehaving, we don’t sit here and fill out complaint forms. We go out there and fix it.” The Wind gave an appreciative bow, snow swirling in elegant spirals. “Very dramatic,” it said. “Nine out of ten. I would have added a cape swirl.” Snowveil’s fur rippled in a way that absolutely counted as a cape swirl. “Happy now?” they asked dryly. And so the Court parted to open a path of glowing frost. Snowveil stepped forward, antlers haloed in pale light, eyes reflecting all the strange, beautiful cold of the North. The wisp bobbed nervously at their side, already regretting every life choice that had led it to be the courier of bad meteorological news. As Snowveil crossed the boundary of the valley, the sky brightened with a fresh wave of aurora. Greens and violets rippled across the dark, dancing above the hare like a royal banner. Snowveil didn’t look back, but if they had, they would have seen the Frozen Court watching in tense silence, each member aware that something old and patient was stirring beneath the snow. Because far to the south, just beyond the edge of winter, someone else was tired of being ignored by the world. And unlike the snow, they weren’t planning a strike. They were planning a takeover. Snowveil didn’t know the details yet. But as a faint tremor shivered through the eternal ice, the hare’s antlers rang like distant glass bells, and they had the unsettling sensation that the season itself had just winked at them. “Wonderful,” Snowveil muttered under their breath. “It’s going to be one of those winters.” Negotiating With Weather (And Other Terrible Ideas) The journey to the Southern Melt began with the sort of dramatic flourish Snowveil generally tried to avoid before their morning tea. The wisp led the way, jittering like a lantern flame in a nervous sneeze, while Snowveil bounded through drifts of glittering snow that behaved as though they were in a perfume ad—swirling, shimmering, and showing off for absolutely no reason. The first sign something was wrong came when they reached the River of Respectable Ice, which had recently rebranded itself from the River of Slightly Cranky Ice after a successful therapy arc. Normally, it was frozen solid—quiet, reliable, and pleasantly self-important. Now? A chunk near the southern bank had melted into a suspiciously warm puddle, bubbling as though being boiled by a kettle operated by an unlicensed pyromancer. Snowveil leaned down, antlers casting shimmering reflections on the surface. “This isn’t normal.” The wisp nodded vigorously. “This happened when the snow declared its strike. The Melt's expanding faster than it should, and the air keeps getting… hotter.” Snowveil raised a furry brow. “Hotter? In the North? Without a signed permission slip from the Winter Council? Bold.” The puddle suddenly belched steam, which coalesced into a tiny, irritable heat sprite. It looked up at Snowveil with the expression of someone who had eaten a ghost pepper and immediately regretted all life choices leading to that moment. “Look,” the sprite rasped, hands on nonexistent hips, “we’re doing our best, okay? There’s interference. Someone’s cranking up the temperature without filling out one single Seasonal Adjustment Form. I swear, it’s like mortals think weather just happens by accident.” Snowveil cleared their throat. “Do you know who’s causing it?” The sprite squinted. “Something big. Something fiery. Something with an ego large enough to require its own postal code.” Snowveil winced. “Oh no. Not… him.” The sprite shuddered. “Yep.” Snowveil muttered a string of ancient frost-words that sounded suspiciously like someone cursing into a scarf. “The Sun Prince?" The wisp gasped. “He wouldn’t dare!” “Oh, he absolutely would,” Snowveil said. “He once tried to annex the twilight hours because he wanted to ‘expand his brand.’ The man radiates confidence and secondhand embarrassment.” But there was no time to stand there and make fun of a nuclear star’s self-esteem issues. The snow had unionized. The Melt was creeping north. There was a solid chance someone would attempt to turn the Frozen Court into a spa resort “for warmth enthusiasts.” Snowveil marched southward, antlers glowing faintly with frost energy. Along the way they encountered several troubling anomalies: A patch of daisies blooming aggressively out of season, attempting to start a selfie trend. A flock of robins arguing heatedly with a confused snowdrift about territory law. A snowman lying on its side like a Victorian damsel, dramatically claiming it was “melting from emotional distress.” And then—there it was. The Southern Melt in full rebellion mode. Snow wasn’t falling. It was floating upward in tiny groups, holding tiny picket signs made of ice chips. Every single snowflake was shouting at once, which sounded like a thousand faint jingles mixed with the subtle auditory equivalent of passive-aggressive emails. Snowveil took a deep breath. “Here we go.” They hopped onto a mound of slush like a politician climbing onto a podium moments before regretting everything. “Attention, snow!” Snowveil called, antlers ringing like crystalline bells. “We are here to listen to your grievances.” A representative flake drifted forward, swirling itself into a larger, more dramatic configuration that vaguely resembled a snowflake with managerial responsibilities. It floated eye-level with Snowveil. “We demand respect,” it chirped. “And hazard pay.” Snowveil blinked slowly. “Hazard pay?” “Yes!” the snowflake huffed. “Do you have any idea how dangerous it is falling through the atmosphere? We’re basically yeeted from the sky at terminal velocity! And what for? To be shoveled, stomped, salted, and photographed with filters that completely misrepresent our crystalline geometry!” Snowveil rubbed their forehead. “Okay. I understand. But refusing to fall is destabilizing the winter cycle. We need you.” The snowflake crossed its little flake-arms. “We’re not doing a single elegant descent until our demands are acknowledged.” Snowveil’s voice softened. “What if I promised to speak to the Court? To advocate for better conditions, better appreciation, and maybe a mandatory course on how to photograph snow without flattening it into white mush?” The snowflake’s edges softened. “That… could be negotiated.” Snowveil nodded. “Good. Because something far bigger is threatening the winter realms. You aren’t striking alone. Something’s heating the North from the inside out.” A hush fell over the strike line. The snowflake trembled. “You mean—” “Yes,” Snowveil said grimly. “The Sun Prince.” The snowflakes erupted into outraged jingling. “That radiant himbo!” one shouted. “He’s always trying to steamroll winter! Literally!” “Precisely.” Snowveil shook frost from their whiskers. “We need unity, not rebellion. Winter won’t stand a chance if he unleashes one of his ‘seasonal rebrand’ schemes. The last time he tried to warm up the North, we ended up with the Great Slush Flood of Year 401. The otters still don’t speak to us." The snowflake hovered thoughtfully. “What do you need from us?” Snowveil looked up, antlers glittering with incoming determination. “Your help. Not as precipitation. As witnesses. Scouts. The Sun Prince won’t expect resistance from those he ignores. We need you to find where he’s concentrating heat. Where he’s planning his move.” The snowflakes conferred among themselves in soft crystalline chimes. Finally, the leader drifted forward. “We accept. On one condition.” Snowveil braced internally. “Name it.” The flake pointed one of its tiny arms at Snowveil. “If we save winter, we want recognition. Official titles. An annual parade. And—this is non-negotiable—a public apology from the Sun Prince for melting our brethren without proper documentation.” Snowveil nodded. “Done. Winterwide proclamation, parade funding, and a strongly worded letter dipped in frost for dramatic effect.” The snowflake twinkled smugly. “We’ll begin surveillance immediately.” The flakes scattered into the air like a burst of silent fireworks, streaking southward on cold winds. Snowveil exhaled in relief. One disaster stabilized. A larger one incoming. The wisp drifted beside them, trembling. “What now?” Snowveil stared toward the horizon where heat shimmered like a mirage. “Now? We go meet the Sun Prince.” The wisp squeaked. “Isn’t he… dangerous?” “Oh, absolutely,” Snowveil said. “He’s hotter than the gossip about two yetis caught canoodling behind the Icefall Tavern. But he’s also vain. And dramatic. And deeply susceptible to emotional manipulation.” The wisp blinked. “Manipulation?” Snowveil smirked. “Yes. You’d be amazed what you can accomplish with a strategic compliment about the luminosity of his solar flares.” The wisp groaned. “We’re doomed.” As they continued south, heat shimmered stronger, rising in waves that made the snow beneath them whimper anxiously. Something truly immense was interfering with the season—bigger and bolder than any prior tantrum the Sun Prince had thrown. But the final confirmation didn’t come until the clouds themselves parted in a sudden, dramatic flourish… and a colossal golden figure stepped forward, radiating smugness and SPF 500 energy. The Sun Prince, crown blazing like a supernova, looked down at Snowveil with a smile that suggested he practiced it in reflective surfaces. “Well, well,” he purred. “If it isn’t winter’s cutest little monarch.” He winked. “Don’t melt on me.” Snowveil’s eye twitched. “Fantastic,” they whispered. “It’s going to be one of those negotiations.” The Hare, the Himbo Sun Prince, and the Great Winter Rebrand Attempt The Sun Prince stood before Snowveil like a bronzed monument to questionable decisions, basking in his own radiance with the confidence of someone who believed sunscreen was a personality trait. Heat shimmered around him in waves so intense that several nearby icicles fainted dramatically and had to be revived with sassy pep talks from a passing frost sprite. Snowveil squared their tiny but ferociously majestic shoulders. Their crystalline antlers glinted defiantly, each delicate branch giving off the distinct impression that it would absolutely be used as a weapon if negotiations failed. “Sun Prince,” Snowveil began coolly, tone sharp enough to shave ice sculptures. “What exactly do you think you’re doing?” He flashed a smile bright enough to cause mild retinal trauma. “Just warming things up, darling. Your winter has been a liiittle too... wintery this year. I thought I'd give the land some razzle-dazzle.” He wiggled his fingers, and a plume of steam spiraled upward as if agreeing with him. Snowveil stared at him. Blinked once. Slowly. “You are destabilizing the entire seasonal structure of the Northern Realms.” He shrugged. “I like to think of it as… rebranding.” He leaned forward with a conspiratorial grin. “Picture it: ‘Hot Winter™: A Sunny Take on Snow.’” Snowveil made a strangled noise that could have frozen a lesser being on the spot. “You cannot trademark winter.” The Sun Prince gave a devastatingly smug wink. “Watch me.” Behind Snowveil, the wisp made a noise somewhere between a gasp and a dying squeal. The hare pressed a paw to their forehead, antlers buzzing with frost energy. “Why,” Snowveil hissed, “would you do this? What are you possibly gaining from melting my domain?” The Sun Prince sighed dramatically, wind machines of pure solar flare powering up behind him. “Fine. You want the truth? I’m bored.” Snowveil arched a brow. “Bored.” “YES bored!” he burst out. “Mortals worship me all summer long—sunbathing, sunflowers, that whole solar-powered happiness aesthetic. But winter comes? And suddenly it’s all cocoa and blankets and ‘oh look how elegant the frost is’ and ‘the moonlight is so atmospheric’ and ‘let’s light candles and pretend the sun doesn’t exist.’” He stomped a foot, causing the ground to steam aggressively. “It’s rude.” Snowveil inhaled deeply. “So you heated half of my kingdom because you felt… underappreciated.” “Yes,” he said without shame. “Also, one mortal called me ‘mid’ in a poem last month, and I haven’t recovered.” Snowveil’s eye twitched with the force of an avalanche. But then—something shifted. Behind the heat shimmer on the horizon, a familiar glittering cloud approached, moving with purposeful, icy grace. Snowflakes. Thousands of them, sparkling like a rebellious militia with excellent posture. The snowflake leader hovered forward, tiny arms crossed in indignation. “Excuse us,” it chimed pointedly, “but are YOU the reason half of us melted before we even fell? Because some of us were masterpieces, thank you very much.” The Sun Prince recoiled. “Are you talking to me?” The snowflake jabbed a tiny icy arm right at his solar-plexus region. “Oh, we are more than talking. We are FILING A FORMAL COMPLAINT.” Several snowflakes behind it chanted “COMPLAINT! COMPLAINT!” like an extremely chilly protest group. The Sun Prince sputtered. “I—I didn’t melt you on purpose!” “Oh REALLY?” the snowflake hissed. “Because we have eyewitness accounts of unauthorized heat waves, unscheduled solar bursts, and at least one snowman who claims you looked at him funny and he liquefied out of fear.” Snowveil cleared their throat. “Prince. Apologize.” He stared at Snowveil as though they had asked him to dim. “I’m sorry—you want me to apologize to the weather?” “Yes,” Snowveil said firmly. “It’s that or we file a complaint with the Equinox Council. And you know how they get.” The Sun Prince blanched. “Not the Equinox Council. They make everything so… bureaucratic.” Snowveil nodded solemnly. “Mm-hmm. You’d be stuck filling out sunbeam allocation forms until next solstice.” The Prince shuddered in horror. “Fine! FINE. I apologize to the snow for melting—” A snowflake coughed loudly. He rolled his eyes. “—for melting you… without authorization. And for… uh… calling winter ‘emotionally clingy.’” The snowflakes squealed triumphantly and immediately began drafting parade blueprints. Satisfied, Snowveil stepped forward. “Now. You’re going to turn the heat down. Gradually. We don’t want steamstorms again. And after that, you’re going to sit with your feelings like a responsible celestial entity instead of committing meteorological arson every time someone forgets your fan club.” The Sun Prince sighed. “You’re surprisingly stern for someone so fluffy.” Snowveil smiled sweetly. “I will end you.” He believed them. A slow, controlled coolness spread through the land. Frost reformed. Snowflakes fell with dramatic flair. The river sighed in relief and refroze in the shape of a polite bow. The Melt retreated, muttering apologies as it went. By the time the Frozen Court gathered to greet their returning monarch, winter had returned to its elegant, orderly, and mildly judgmental self. The Court erupted in cheers. The Polar Bear Matron shed proud tears (which froze midair and had to be chiseled off). The Ice Stag bowed deeply. The Glacial Owls attempted applause but produced only very dignified wing flaps. Snowveil climbed the icy throne once more, fur glittering with victorious frost. “Winter,” they proclaimed, “is restored. And our realm stands strong—because even rebellious snowflakes have their place in the pattern.” The snowflake leader drifted up beside them. “We expect that parade by mid-month.” Snowveil sighed. “Yes, yes. I’ll inform the auroras to prep their choreography.” The auroras overhead brightened in smug acknowledgment. As celebrations erupted around them, Snowveil glanced southward. The Sun Prince was already retreating, muttering something about updating his fan club newsletter and exfoliating his solar layers. Snowveil shook their head with fond exasperation. “Drama,” they murmured. “Pure, incandescent drama.” But peace had returned. Balance was restored. And winter, once again, would sparkle with elegance, mystery, and just a hint of absurdity—exactly as it should.     Bring the Snowveil Hare of the Frozen Court into your own winter realm. Whether you're looking to elevate your décor, wrap yourself in enchanted warmth, or send a bit of frosted magic to someone special, this piece shines across multiple premium formats. Each product below transforms Snowveil’s crystalline elegance into a tangible keepsake—perfect for collectors, fantasy lovers, and anyone who lives for winter’s spellbinding charm. Explore the full collection:• Framed Print: A gallery-worthy display capturing every icy fractal and luminous detail.Shop Framed Print• Metal Print: Vibrant, reflective, and impossibly crisp—Snowveil practically glows from within.Shop Metal Print• Acrylic Print: Depth, clarity, and a glass-like finish that gives Snowveil dimensional presence.Shop Acrylic Print• Fleece Blanket: Wrap yourself in winter magic with a soft, luxurious blanket featuring Snowveil’s regal glow.Shop Fleece Blanket• Bath Towel: Add a touch of frosted elegance to your bathroom décor—yes, even your towels can be majestic.Shop Bath Towel• Greeting Card: Send winter magic to friends and family with a card that sparkles with charm and mischief.Shop Greeting Card Surround yourself with the enchanting energy of Snowveil—and let the Frozen Court’s most fashionable monarch bring a little winter wonder into your space.

Captured Tales – by Bill Tiepelman

Aurora Guardian Rising

A late-winter aurora transforms into a celestial guardian who recruits Dani—reluctant, sarcastic, and running on caffeine—to help jumpstart spring. What follows is a whimsical, sassy, magical journey through glowing snow, awakening forests, and the first spark of a season determined to make an entrance. A humorous, adult fantasy tale about renewal, mischief, and the unexpected ways the world begins again.

Captured Tales – by Bill Tiepelman

Holiday Hijinks in Red Velvet

Every holiday season needs a bit of chaos — not enough to derail Christmas, just enough to keep the reindeer humble and the elves slightly traumatized. And if there was one creature uniquely qualified to deliver that delicate level of festive mayhem, it was Grindle Tock: five-foot-nothing if you counted the hat, ears sharp enough to slice gift wrap, and a grin so sly it probably had its own backstory. At this moment, Grindle sat perched atop a giant present wrapped in shimmering red paper, his bare toes wiggling like they were independently scheming their own crimes. The warm glow of Christmas lights made his skin look almost cherubic… which was wildly misleading to anyone who had met him for more than eight seconds. The party behind him was reaching that blurry phase where elves began harmonizing ancient carols slightly off-key and slightly too passionately. Already three of them had formed a barbershop quartet despite none of them knowing what a barbershop was. Two reindeer — tipsy, though they’d deny it — were at the snack table arguing over the philosophical implications of gluten-free gingerbread. A cluster of toy soldiers stood frozen in their usual stoic formation, but even they seemed to be silently judging the questionable choices unfolding around them. Grindle, however, wasn’t distracted by the spectacle. He had the intense, squinty look of a strategist — or perhaps a raccoon eyeing an unsecured trash can. His Santa-red outfit was a size too small, hugging him with the affectionate enthusiasm of a garment ready to burst if he inhaled wrong. His belt buckle gleamed like it knew secrets. His hat sagged dramatically to the side like it was exhausted from enabling his nonsense. In his lap rested a handmade scroll titled, in calligraphy far too elaborate for someone with his reputation: Operation Cheerquake. The subtitle read: “A Gentle, Non-Destructive Redistribution of Holiday Spirit.” The crossed-out options underneath included “mildly inconvenient,” “reindeer-repellent,” and “illegal without a permit.” What exactly counted as “non-destructive” in Grindle’s mind was a question that had plagued Santa’s legal team for years. The list of previous incidents included exploding peppermint garlands, a hot cocoa fountain that achieved sentience, and a snowman uprising that required three days of mediation and one restraining order. Grindle hadn’t technically been responsible for all of them, but he had been “adjacent to the chaos,” which, in workshop terminology, meant guilty enough. Tonight, though… tonight he felt destiny humming in his bones. Or maybe that was the eggnog. Hard to tell. Grindle preferred to believe it was destiny because it sounded dramatic and he lived for theatrics. Every elf had a role: toy-maker, tinker, baker, reindeer wrangler. Grindle’s role? “Unpredictable Variable.” It was written on his file in Santa’s HR cabinet under the tab labeled “Caution.” “This,” he murmured to himself, “is going to be my masterpiece.” He leaned back, balancing perfectly on the present as if gift boxes were his natural habitat. His toes flexed with alarming enthusiasm. He stared into the twinkling lights with the energy of a small creature about to make a decision that would haunt the entire building by sunrise. His reflection in a nearby ornament looked entirely too pleased with itself, which only encouraged him. He unrolled the scroll and tapped the first item on the list: 1. Relocate the Naughty List. A perfectly innocent idea, really — except that the “relocation” destination was listed simply as “somewhere funny.” Grindle’s sense of humor had once led him to store 400 plush reindeer inside Santa’s sleigh. Santa had not laughed. Mrs. Claus, however, had laughed so hard she snorted cocoa, which only made Grindle feel validated. The second item read: 2. Replace Santa’s boots with spring-loaded substitutes. Not harmful. Just… energetic. Festive even. Think of the cardio. Item three: 3. Initiate Mistletoe Flash Mobs. No further notes. The implications were concerning. He scanned the crowd for his first accomplice — or victim. It was often the same thing. His eyes landed on Jibble, a mild-mannered wrapping elf known for being nice, friendly, and catastrophically gullible. Jibble was currently slow-dancing with a mop, which Grindle mentally categorized as “emotional vulnerability: high.” Perfect. “Tonight’s the night,” Grindle whispered again, like the villain of a Christmas musical no one had approved but everyone would talk about. He hopped lightly, toes curling over the edge of the gift box, preparing to leap into action… or onto someone’s shoulders, depending on opportunity. The air shimmered with anticipation — or possibly glitter fallout. Hard to distinguish at this time of year. And somewhere deep in the workshop, a single candy cane cracked in half for no clear reason. A sign? A warning? Or just poor structural integrity? Only time would tell. Grindle slid off the gift box with the theatrical grace of someone who routinely tripped over nothing. His toes hit the workshop floor with a soft pat-pat, and he strutted forward like a tiny, red-velvet menace on a mission. The lights above twinkled warily, as though aware that they were witnessing the early stages of a North Pole–level disaster. Grindle puffed up his chest, adjusted his hat to the precise angle of “festively unhinged,” and marched straight toward Jibble, who was still slow-dancing with the mop… now whispering affirmations to it. “Jibble,” Grindle said, stepping directly into his line of vision like an elf-shaped pop-up ad. “I need your help.” Jibble blinked slowly, as if trying to determine whether Grindle was real or a hallucination induced by sugar-cookie shots. “Grindle… buddy… last time you said that, I ended up duct-taped to a model train.” “Yes,” Grindle replied proudly, “and it built character. Also speed. You were very aerodynamic.” Jibble looked down at the mop for moral support. The mop, being a mop, offered none. With the defeated sigh of someone who knew resistance was futile, he nodded. “Fine. What do you need?” Grindle’s smile widened with unsettling enthusiasm. “A simple task! We’re going to, hypothetically, temporarily, and entirely for morale purposes… relocate the Naughty List.” Jibble’s pupils dilated. “Grindle. No.” “Grindle. Yes.” Jibble clutched the mop like a lifeline. “Do you know what Santa will do if he finds out?” Grindle shrugged. “Thank me?” “Grindle.” “Fine. He’ll notice. But we’ll put it back! Eventually. Probably.” Jibble whimpered internally but followed anyway, because good decisions had never once happened at a Christmas party. The two elves crept through the swirling chaos of the workshop dance floor. A conga line wrapped around them in a swirling, sugar-fueled tornado — Mrs. Claus still at the front, raising her mug triumphantly, chanting “HOLIDAY CARDIO!” as reindeer scrambled to keep up. An elf DJ was mixing classic carols with an alarming amount of bass, causing several ornaments to vibrate off nearby shelves. A group of gingerbread men — the living enchanted kind — were engaged in a heated dance battle with a flock of snow sprites who had clearly taken caffeine. Grindle moved through the madness untouched, a tiny agent of chaos protected by his own absurd energy. Jibble, however, got hit in the face with a rogue candy cane, stepped into a spilled bowl of marshmallows, and was briefly trapped inside a wreath someone mistook for a dance accessory. Grindle did not slow down. Soon they reached the long hallway leading to Santa’s office. The music faded into muffled thumping behind them, replaced by the serene hum of magical machinery and the faint jingling of distant bells. Here, the air felt… official. Important. Completely incompatible with whatever Grindle was planning. “Okay,” Grindle whispered, flattening himself against a wall despite the corridor being totally empty. “We must be subtle.” “Grindle,” Jibble said, “you’re wearing a hat with a jingle bell the size of a plum.” Grindle scowled, removed the bell, stuffed it into Jibble’s pocket, and continued his stealth mission with exaggerated tiptoe steps so dramatic they resembled an interpretive dance about paranoia. They reached Santa’s office door — a towering slab of carved wood depicting reindeer, snowflakes, and one angelic-looking Santa who would absolutely not approve of this situation. Jibble swallowed hard. The mop trembled in his hands. “Grindle,” he whispered, “maybe we should think about—” “Thinking is the enemy of adventure,” Grindle declared, pushing the door open before Jibble could protest. The office was empty — Santa and Mrs. Claus were still “setting the dance floor on festive fire,” as Mrs. Claus had put it — so the coast was somewhat clear. Warm lamplight illuminated the room. Papers were neatly stacked. The globe of the world spun lazily, glowing with soft enchantment. On Santa’s desk, glowing with restrained cosmic authority, sat the one item they were not supposed to touch under any circumstances: The Naughty List. Bound in leather. Embossed in gold. Radiating the quiet judgment of a thousand disappointed parents. Jibble froze. “Nope. Absolutely not. I’m out. I’m going back to the mop. It’s safer.” But Grindle had already marched forward, reverently placing his hands on the list like he was greeting an old friend — or choosing the shiniest object to steal. “Grindle,” Jibble said, voice cracking like a gingerbread cookie under pressure, “you cannot just TAKE it.” “I’m not taking it,” Grindle corrected. “I am temporarily borrowing it to enhance holiday morale through educational mischief. It’s called leadership.” “It’s called a felony.” Grindle snorted. “Only if I get caught.” He lifted the Naughty List. It hummed with ancient magic, glowing brighter the further it moved from the desk. The air shifted. The Christmas lights flickered. Somewhere, a distant bell rang in alarm — or annoyance. “Okay,” Grindle said, “step one: relocation. Step two—” The door creaked. Both elves froze. A shadow passed under the threshold. Heavy footsteps approached. The kind of footsteps that belonged to a man with opinions about proper behavior and a zero-tolerance policy for elf-based shenanigans. Jibble whispered, “We’re dead.” Grindle whispered back, “We’ll die heroes.” “You’ll die. I’ll pass out and hope that counts.” The doorknob turned. Grindle stuffed the Naughty List inside his shirt. That was his plan. The door swung open. The door flew open with a dramatic whoosh, as if the universe itself sensed that something regrettable was about to unfold. In stepped not Santa, nor Mrs. Claus, nor any authority figure with the ability to revoke workshop privileges. Instead, it was— “OH SWEET GINGERBREAD, IT’S JUST TINSEL!” Grindle hissed dramatically. Tinsel Norell—inventory clerk, chaos magnet by proximity, and the only elf who could lose an entire shipment of candy canes without leaving the room—stared at the two of them with the confused expression of someone walking in on a crime they did not want to be associated with. She blinked. Then she blinked again. Then she sighed, already exhausted by the sight before her. “I don’t even want to know,” she said, pinching the bridge of her nose like a parent whose children have discovered matches. Grindle puffed out his chest, glowing with pride. “Excellent! If you don’t know, you can’t testify.” “Please don’t use that sentence again,” Jibble whimpered, clutching the mop like it was a legal defense. Tinsel’s eyes drifted to the bulge under Grindle’s shirt—an extremely obvious, rectangular, glowing bulge. “Is that… the Naughty List?” Grindle gasped dramatically. “Tinsel! You wound me! You think I would steal—” The Naughty List hummed loudly inside his shirt like a furious hornet nest. “—borrow,” he corrected without missing a beat, “such a historic, important, extremely overreactive document?” Tinsel stared. Grindle smiled. Jibble cringed so hard his spine made a noise. “You two,” Tinsel said slowly, “are absolutely unhinged.” Grindle beamed. “Thank you.” “That wasn’t a compliment.” “Oh… well, you said it nicely.” Tinsel was about to respond when a booming, jolly, unmistakable voice echoed down the hall. “HO HO—WHERE’S MY LIST?” Santa’s footsteps approached with the slow, seismic certainty of a man who had raised nine thousand elves and forgiven maybe ten. Jibble turned pale. “Grindle. He’s coming. He’s ACTUALLY coming.” “Stay calm,” Grindle said, despite being absolutely incapable of calm. “I have a plan.” He did not have a plan. Santa’s shadow stretched across the hallway like an omen. Tinsel shoved both elves behind Santa’s enormous filing cabinet with the strength of someone who had absolutely no interest in being present for the consequences. Santa entered the office. His boots thudded. His coat swished. His beard practically glowed with judgment. He looked around the room, frowning deeply enough to trigger a small avalanche somewhere. “Strange,” he murmured. “I could’ve sworn I left it right here…” Under the desk, Jibble was silently praying to any holiday deity that would listen. The mop lay across his lap like a dramatic fainting Victorian heroine. Tinsel was holding her breath. And Grindle— Grindle felt the Naughty List shift inside his shirt. He froze. The List glowed through the fabric. It warmed. It hummed louder. Santa turned. The List ignited in a burst of golden sparks so bright that it illuminated the entire hiding spot like a stage spotlight. Grindle let out a squeak. Jibble let out a scream. Tinsel let out a noise that can only be described as “existential dread mixed with a kazoo.” “WHO’S THERE?” Santa thundered. The filing cabinet slid forward as if shoved by an invisible force—or two panicking elves and one cowardly inventory clerk. The trio tumbled out onto the floor in a heap of limbs, mops, and glowing contraband. Santa stared down at them. Slowly. Silently. Deeply disappointedly. “Grindle,” Santa said, in the calm tone every elf feared. “Is that… my Naughty List?” Grindle considered lying. Then the List hummed louder, clearly snitching. “Technicallyyyy…” he said, drawing out the word with the optimism of someone who hoped Santa had recently sustained a blow to the head. “It’s more like a cooperative morale object?” Santa held out his hand. Grindle wilted. He pulled the Naughty List from his shirt with all the shame of a child handing over a broken vase. Santa took it, dusted off the glitter, and sighed the sigh of a man who would need extra cocoa tonight. “We will discuss this later,” Santa said. “Much later.” Grindle nodded solemnly. Jibble fainted again. Tinsel pretended to be unconscious just to avoid responsibility. Santa paused, then added in a much quieter voice, “Also… please stop hiding important artifacts in your shirt. Last year it was the Reindeer Roster. Before that, it was the North Pole Key.” “I learn best by doing,” Grindle said proudly. “And I learn patience by knowing you,” Santa said dryly. He left the room with the List in hand, shaking his head, muttering something about insurance premiums. Once he was gone, Grindle pushed himself up, dusted off his outfit, and struck a heroic pose. “Well!” he declared. “That could have gone worse.” “HOW?” Tinsel shouted. Grindle grinned wickedly. “Oh, I haven’t gotten to items four through twelve yet.” Jibble whimpered. Tinsel groaned. Somewhere in the workshop, a single ornament cracked in fear. And Grindle, red velvet menace, walked off into the twinkling glow of Christmas chaos… already planning the next disaster.     Bring Grindle’s Chaos Home If Grindle’s red-velvet mischief made you smile, smirk, or quietly question the structural safety of the North Pole, you can adopt a little of that holiday chaos for your own home. This artwork is available in several festive formats perfect for gifting, decorating, or subtly intimidating coworkers who think their cubicle décor is superior. Dress up your walls with a bold Canvas Print, or go full elegant troublemaker with a gleaming Metal Print. Want something whimsical and cozy? The Tapestry brings Grindle’s energy into any room without requiring magical liability waivers. For those spreading snarky seasonal cheer, the Greeting Card is perfect for delivering holiday messages such as “Hope your Christmas is calmer than Santa’s night.” And if you want just a dash of mischief, snag the durable, adventure-ready Sticker—ideal for laptops, water bottles, and any surface that needs 20% more chaos. Add a little mischievous magic to your world—Grindle insists on it.

Captured Tales – by Bill Tiepelman

Gobsmacked in the Glade

The Lily Pad Incident At precisely “oh no o’clock,” a rainbow-haired goblin named Peeb discovered that lily pads are terrible chairs and even worse life choices. He’d crouched on one like a suspicious frog, hands pressed to his cheeks, and released a whispery “oooo” that traveled across the enchanted pond like a gossip column with webbed feet. Peeb wasn’t built for stealth. His hair was a gossip of color—cobalt, tangerine, electric moss—standing out like a neon sign that screamed TRY ME. His ears, the architectural wonder of the glade, collected every sound: the tilt-tock of water beetles, the distant honk of an aggrieved swan, and, more importantly, the crunch of someone stepping on a twig that did not sign up for this. “Show yourself,” Peeb stage-whispered, which for him meant “please announce your plot twist.” A ripple rolled past his toes. The lily pad burped. He adjusted his existential squat. “If this is a dramatic entrance, you’re late and I’m judging.” From the cattails emerged a figure in travel-stained leathers: a human woman with a map shoved into her belt and the facial expression of someone who’d headbutted destiny and won on points. She carried a backpack the size of a small moon and the attitude of an unpaid invoice. “You must be the Guide,” she said. “Guide? I am an Experience,” Peeb said, flicking hair like a discount thunderstorm. “Also, hello. I charge by the gasp, and you’re already two in.” “Name’s Renn,” she said. “Here for a job. Need a goblin who knows the shortcuts through the Glarewood, preferably one who won’t eat my boots.” Peeb held up both hands. “I only nibble ethically sourced footwear.” His eyes narrowed, tracking a dragonfly practicing irresponsible aerobatics. “But the Glarewood? That place stares back. Why go?” Renn unsheathed a rolled parchment. It glinted—literally glinted—like a guilty conscience. “Treasure map. Also a curse. Long story. Think ‘family drama meets hostile cartography.’ I was told the goblin with the loud hair and louder opinions could get me through.” Peeb perked. Treasure was his love language, followed closely by snacks and malicious compliance. “I have routes,” he said. “Secret ones. One involves a polite troll. Another requires emotionally negotiating with a bridge.” Behind them, the pond plopped. Something large exhaled bubbles the size of soup bowls. A golden water lily tilted, showering them in sparkles that were frankly showing off. The air smelled of wet coins and wishful thinking. “Fine,” Renn said. “Terms?” “One: I pick snacks. Two: If we encounter any prophecies, we ignore them out of spite. Three: You don’t ask what’s in my pocket.” “Counter-offer: I pick the route. You don’t steal my map. And if something with teeth smiles at me, you explain that’s just their face.” They shook on it. The pond hiccuped again, and Peeb’s lily pad sank an inch. “Right,” he said brightly, “time to go before my seat becomes a metaphor.” They made it as far as the reeds when the water boomed. A shadow rolled up from the pond’s belly like a thought nobody wanted to admit having. Two bulbous eyes surfaced, each the size of a teacup saucer. A mouth followed, wide enough to register its own postal code. “Friend of yours?” Renn asked, already drawing a knife that did not look ceremonial. Peeb squared his shoulders. “That,” he said, “is Bubbles the Approximately Gentle. He’s usually friendly as long as you don’t—” Bubbles snapped up the sinking lily pad with a single slurp and burped out a crown of pondweed. “—insult his décor,” Peeb finished weakly. The giant amphibian blinked. Then, in a voice like wet drums, it spoke: “Toll.” Renn glanced at Peeb. Peeb glanced at fate. Somewhere, a prophecy tried to stand up and tripped over its robes. “All right,” Peeb sighed, fishing in his pocket. “Let’s pay the frog and pray it’s not with our dignity.” The Toll of Bubbles and Other Unpaid Debts Peeb’s hand emerged from his pocket with an assortment of glittering nonsense: two bent copper buttons, a marble that faintly hummed with regret, and a coin bearing the face of someone who looked suspiciously like Peeb doing his best impression of royalty. “That’s your currency?” Renn asked, eyebrow performing interpretive skepticism. “Of course not,” Peeb said indignantly. “That’s my emergency charm collection. You can’t just pay a frog king with anything. There are rules. Amphibious etiquette is sacred.” He turned to Bubbles, who had begun drumming his webbed fingers on the pond’s surface, creating small tidal waves that gently insulted physics. “O Mighty Lord of Moist Surfaces,” Peeb began in an overly theatrical voice, “we humbly seek passage across your most glistening domain. In return, we offer tribute most shiny and irrelevant!” Renn whispered, “You sound like a con artist in a poetry contest.” Peeb whispered back, “Thank you.” From his satchel, the goblin produced a single item of magnificence: a polished spoon with an engraving of a duck doing yoga. He held it aloft. The world seemed to pause for a moment, confused but intrigued. Bubbles’ massive eyes blinked. “Acceptable.” The frog’s tongue—longer than necessary by several legal definitions—snapped out and took the spoon. He swallowed it in one heroic gulp, then leaned in close enough that Peeb could see his reflection trembling in an ocean of amphibian disinterest. “Go,” the frog rumbled. “Before I remember my dietary restrictions.” They didn’t wait for a second invitation. The reeds gave way to damp earth and a winding trail that glowed faintly underfoot, like moonlight had decided to join the conspiracy. Trees here grew in eccentric shapes—one looked like it was trying to hug itself, another had grown a perfect window through its trunk, framing a sliver of sky that looked suspiciously judgmental. Renn’s boots squelched rhythmically, the sound of someone too practical to be impressed by whimsy. “So what’s the deal with the Glarewood?” she asked. “Why’s everyone so afraid of it?” “Oh, the usual,” Peeb said, skipping over a root that was clearly plotting something. “Haunted trees, cursed air, sentient moss that critiques your posture. It’s a place that feeds on overconfidence and snacks on poor decisions. You’ll love it.” “Sounds like my last relationship,” Renn muttered. They walked in uneasy silence until the ground began to shimmer with a subtle blue sheen. Ahead, the trees leaned closer, forming an archway of twisted branches that seemed to breathe. The air shimmered with lazy motes of light, floating like tiny glowing lies. “That’s it,” Peeb said, suddenly serious. “The border. Once we cross, there’s no turning back without paperwork, and trust me—you do not want to deal with the bureaucratic dryads.” “Can’t be worse than the Department of Magical Licensing,” Renn said dryly. “Oh, it’s worse,” Peeb said. “They charge emotional tolls.” Renn stepped through first. For a heartbeat, she vanished—then reappeared on the other side, slightly blurry, like reality hadn’t finished loading her. Peeb followed, holding his breath, and the world changed in a blink. The Glarewood was alive in a way normal forests weren’t. Colors moved. Shadows gossiped. The trees bent closer to listen to secrets they weren’t supposed to hear. The air was heavy with perfume and potential bad ideas. “Okay,” Renn said, pulling out the map. “We head north until the path forks. One route leads to the Cackling Brook, the other to the Weeping Hill. We want the one that’s less emotionally unstable.” Peeb squinted at the parchment. “It’s moving.” Indeed, the ink shimmered and rearranged itself like it was trying out new fonts. Words twisted, forming a sentence that hadn’t been there before: ‘You’re being followed.’ Renn folded the map very slowly. “That’s comforting.” Behind them came a faint jingling—like tiny bells being carried by the wind. Then laughter. Soft, overlapping, too cheerful to be friendly. “Pixies,” Peeb hissed. “Don’t make eye contact. Don’t make eye anything. They weaponize attention.” “What happens if we ignore them?” Renn asked. “They’ll feel neglected and emotionally spiral until they turn into wasps. Or they’ll braid our eyebrows. Fifty-fifty.” Unfortunately, the pixies had already noticed them. A dozen of them swirled out of the trees—tiny, glittering beings with wings that sounded like gossip. Their leader, wearing a thimble crown, landed on Peeb’s nose. “You’re in our glen,” she said in a voice that could curdle honey. “Pay toll or perform dance.” Peeb sighed. “I just paid a toll. I’m starting to feel financially targeted.” “Dance,” the pixie insisted, poking him with a twig-sized spear. “Funny dance. With feelings.” Renn grinned. “Oh, I have to see this.” Peeb rolled his eyes so hard they nearly relocated. “Fine,” he said, hopping onto a nearby log. “Prepare yourselves for interpretive goblin jazz.” What followed could not legally be described as dancing. It was more like an argument between gravity and self-respect. Peeb flailed, spun, and occasionally made finger-gun gestures at invisible haters. The pixies were delighted. Renn laughed so hard she nearly dropped her knife. Even the trees seemed to lean closer in horrified fascination. When Peeb finished, panting and triumphant, the pixie queen clapped. “Adequate,” she declared. “You may pass. Also, your aura needs moisturizer.” “I’ll put that in my next therapy session,” Peeb muttered. The pixies vanished as suddenly as they’d appeared, leaving behind a faint smell of mischief and sparkles that clung like regrets. Renn wiped her eyes. “You’re surprisingly good at humiliation.” “It’s a survival skill,” Peeb said. “Also my cardio.” They pressed on, following the twisting glow of the trail deeper into the Glarewood. The trees grew taller, the air thicker. Somewhere ahead, faint music played—slow, mournful, and unsettlingly seductive. It tugged at the edges of reason. Renn frowned. “You hear that?” Peeb nodded, ears twitching. “Sirens. Wood version. Probably trying to lure us into an emotional flashback.” “Charming.” Renn drew her knife again. “Lead the way, Experience.” Peeb bowed dramatically. “After you, Customer Satisfaction Guarantee.” Together, they stepped into the clearing where the music pulsed like a heartbeat. In the center stood a crystal pool, and in it—something moved. It wasn’t a creature so much as an idea pretending to have a body: long, fluid, beautiful in a slightly threatening way. Its eyes glowed like bottled daydreams. “Welcome,” it purred. “You’ve come far. Trade me your fears, and I’ll show you the treasure you seek.” Peeb blinked. “Hard pass. My fears are artisanal and locally sourced.” Renn, however, stepped closer. “What if she’s telling the truth?” “Oh, she probably is,” Peeb said. “That’s the scary part. Truth here always has small print.” The creature smiled wider, too wide. “All treasures require a price,” it said softly. “For some, it’s gold. For others…” Its gaze slid over to Peeb. “Humor.” “No,” Peeb said instantly. “Absolutely not. You can pry my jokes from my cold, giggling corpse.” “Then perhaps…” it turned to Renn, “your name.” Renn’s grip tightened on the knife. “You’ll have to earn it.” The pool rippled. The air thickened. The Glarewood seemed to hold its breath. Peeb groaned, already regretting his entire résumé. “Every time I agree to help someone,” he muttered, “we end up negotiating with metaphors.” He reached for his pocket, where something faintly sparkled—the same pocket he’d refused to discuss earlier. Renn noticed. “What are you hiding in there?” Peeb grinned. “Plan B.” He pulled out a tiny glass orb swirling with rainbow mist. “If this doesn’t work,” he said, “run.” He hurled it into the pool. The orb burst in a cloud of colors, releasing a sound halfway between a laugh and an explosion. When the smoke cleared, the creature was gone. The pool shimmered gold for a moment, then faded into silence. Peeb blinked at the empty water. “Huh. That actually worked. I was 80% sure that was just a glitter bomb.” Renn lowered her knife slowly. “You’re a menace.” “And yet,” Peeb said, dusting off his tunic, “an effective one.” From the pool’s center rose a small pedestal. On it lay a glowing gemstone, shaped like a tear and pulsing softly with light. The treasure they’d been seeking. Renn stepped forward. “Finally.” Peeb, however, didn’t move. His expression was uncharacteristically serious. “Be careful,” he said. “The Glarewood doesn’t give gifts. It loans them—with interest.” Renn hesitated, then reached out—and the forest itself seemed to exhale. The Gem, The Goblin, and the Gigglepocalypse Renn’s fingers brushed the gemstone, and instantly the world hiccupped. Colors inverted. Trees gasped. Somewhere, a mushroom screamed in lowercase italics. The Glarewood came alive like a theater audience realizing the play had gone off-script. “Well,” Peeb said, blinking through the sudden kaleidoscope of nonsense, “that’s new.” The glowing tear pulsed once, twice—then melted into a puddle of shimmering light that slithered up Renn’s arm like affectionate mercury. She swore, trying to shake it off, but it climbed higher, wrapping her wrist in luminous threads. “Peeb! Fix this!” “Define ‘fix,’” Peeb said cautiously. “Because my last attempt at fixing something gave a raccoon the power of foresight, and now he keeps mailing me spoilers.” Renn glared at him with the intensity of a thousand unpaid invoices. “Do. Something.” The goblin squinted at the light now coiling up her arm like sentient jewelry. “Okay, okay! Maybe it’s not evil. Maybe it’s just aggressively friendly.” “It’s humming the same tune from the pool!” Renn snapped. “That’s never good news!” The humming grew louder. The gemstone’s light flared—and in an instant, the clearing was filled with a burst of magic that tasted like laughter and poor decisions. The trees bent back. The air rippled. And from the puddle of melted gemstone rose a figure… small, winged, and painfully familiar. “Oh no,” Peeb groaned. “Not her.” The figure yawned, stretched, and fixed them both with a smirk. “Miss me?” It was the pixie queen. Same thimble crown. Same weaponized smugness. “Thanks for the lift. You broke my prison, darlings.” “We what now?” Renn asked. “My essence was sealed in that gem ages ago,” the queen said, inspecting her nails. “Something about excessive mischief and minor war crimes. But now I’m free! Which means—” She spread her arms dramatically. “Party time!” With a flick of her wrist, glitter detonated across the clearing. Every tree started humming in harmony. Flowers burst into applause. Bubbles—the giant frog—rose from a nearby swamp puddle wearing a crown of disco lights and began to dance with terrifying grace. “Oh stars,” Peeb muttered, ducking as a confetti tornado spun past him. “She’s triggered the Gigglepocalypse.” “The what?” Renn demanded, wiping glitter off her face. “A magical chain reaction of uncontrollable laughter,” Peeb shouted over the chaos. “It feeds on irony and spreads faster than gossip in a tavern!” Sure enough, Renn felt a snort bubble up her throat. Then a giggle. Then a full, uncontrollable laugh that bent her double. “Stop—can’t—breathe—why—is—it—funny!” “Because,” Peeb gasped, barely holding back his own fit, “this—forest—runs on punchlines!” The pixie queen twirled midair, laughing like a caffeinated thunderstorm. “Let joy reign!” she cried. “Also mild chaos!” Peeb fumbled through his pockets, tossing out increasingly useless trinkets: a singing walnut, a broken compass that pointed toward guilt, and a half-eaten biscuit that might’ve been sentient. Nothing helped. Then he remembered the marble—the one that hummed with regret. He held it up, eyes wide. “This! This might balance the magic!” “How?” Renn choked out, tears of laughter streaming down her face. “Regret cancels joy! It’s basic emotional algebra!” Peeb hurled the marble into the air. It burst in a puff of gray mist that smelled faintly of unfinished apologies. The laughter faltered. The glitter dimmed. Bubbles stopped mid-disco. The pixie queen frowned. “What did you do?” “Emotional dampening,” Peeb wheezed. “Never underestimate the power of mild disappointment.” The Glarewood sighed, colors settling back to normal. The pixie queen hovered crossly. “You’re no fun.” “Fun is subjective,” Peeb said, hands on hips. “Some of us enjoy stability and not being turned into interpretive performance art.” Renn, still catching her breath, straightened. “So that’s it? We broke a curse and unleashed a menace?” “Technically,” Peeb said, “we upgraded her from imprisoned evil to freelance chaos consultant.” “I like that,” the pixie queen said. “Put it on my card.” Before either could respond, she vanished in a sparkle explosion so excessive it probably violated several magical ordinances. Silence returned—mostly. The forest still glowed faintly, as if chuckling to itself. Renn exhaled, brushing leaves from her hair. “So what now?” Peeb shrugged. “We deliver the good news: the treasure was actually a trapped pixie monarch who now owes us a favor.” “A favor,” Renn repeated skeptically. “From her.” “Hey,” Peeb grinned, “I’m an optimist. Sometimes chaos pays better than gold.” They turned to leave the clearing. Behind them, the pond rippled gently. Bubbles raised one webbed hand in a slow, approving wave. Peeb waved back, solemn. “Stay moist, big guy.” As they disappeared into the glowing forest, the trees resumed their whispering, the moss exhaled, and a single echo lingered in the air—a soft chuckle that might’ve been the forest’s way of saying, Nice try. Peeb adjusted his satchel and smirked. “Next time,” he said, “we charge extra for emotional damage.” Renn laughed again—this time on purpose. “You’re insufferable.” “And yet,” Peeb said, with a little bow, “you’re still following me.” The path curved ahead, glowing faintly, promising more trouble. The kind that smelled like adventure, bad ideas, and the next great story.     Bring a Piece of the Glade Home Can’t get enough of Peeb’s wild adventure through the Glarewood? Bring the magic (and a bit of mischief) home with our exclusive Gobsmacked in the Glade collection, inspired by Bill and Linda Tiepelman’s enchanting artwork. Whether you’re looking to elevate your décor or curl up in style, there’s a little goblin charm for everyone: Framed Print — perfect for adding a splash of whimsy to your walls. Wood Print — rich texture and earthy tones straight from the Glarewood itself. Fleece Blanket — because nothing says ‘cozy chaos’ like wrapping up in goblin-approved softness. Spiral Notebook — jot down your own questionable quests and mystical misadventures. Every piece captures the humor, color, and curiosity of Gobsmacked in the Glade — a reminder that magic, like good storytelling, belongs everywhere you let it in.

Captured Tales – by Bill Tiepelman

The Clockwork Primate

The Gilded Banana Heist In the dim belly of the Brass Bazaar — a market so thick with steam you could butter toast on the air — there lived a monkey who refused to behave like one. He was not born; he was assembled. Every bolt, every glimmering gear had been placed by a drunk inventor named Theophilus Quirk, whose primary design principle was “make it shiny and slightly inappropriate.” Thus, came into being Mimsy the Clockwork Primate. Mimsy was a menace. He swung from chandeliers, rewired pocket watches to explode into confetti, and once famously replaced a noblewoman’s hat with a live, caffeinated parrot. His tail — a flexible coil of polished brass — made a noise like an offended accordion whenever he twirled it, which was constantly. He considered himself not just a monkey, but a performer of chaos. Tonight, he had his goggles on crooked and a plan forming in that rattling clockwork skull. The target? The Gilded Banana of Belgravia — an ancient relic encased in crystal and rumored to contain enough energy to power a small city or one particularly large hangover. It was said to hum with old-world magic and the faint smell of overripe ambition. The Gilded Banana was kept inside Lady Verity Von Coil’s private menagerie — a place so secure it made bank vaults look like teapots. But Mimsy wasn’t scared. Fear was for organics. He simply polished his gear-teeth grin, flicked his monocle into place, and muttered, “Let’s make bananas interesting again.” Under the copper moonlight, he darted through the bazaar, past rows of mechanical parrots hawking poetry and steam-powered crabs playing violins. He adored the noise, the color, the scent of oil and ozone and mischief. He blended in perfectly — a tiny king in a kingdom of creaking dreams. He reached the gates of Von Coil’s estate — all wrought iron filigree and clockwork guards with faces like bored kettles — and grinned. “Oh, you darlings,” he whispered, flipping a switch in his chest. His eyes flared golden, gears spun, and from his back unfolded mechanical wings stitched with shimmering, fractal feathers. “Time for a little sky piracy,” Mimsy declared, leaping into the thick, velvet night. He soared over the estate, feathers glinting like kaleidoscopic lightning. The guards below gasped, mistaking him for a drunken angel — which, to be fair, wasn’t entirely inaccurate. He landed with a soft clink on the menagerie’s glass dome and peered down at the prize below. The Gilded Banana shimmered on a velvet pedestal, bathed in a light that whispered, touch me and regret nothing. “Oh, darling,” Mimsy said, voice dripping with mischief, “I never regret anything shiny.” He pulled a screwdriver from his tail, winked at his reflection, and began to unscrew the dome’s panel. Somewhere in the distance, thunder rolled. Somewhere closer, a parrot belched steam. And somewhere deep in the gears of his mind, something clicked — destiny, perhaps, or just indigestion. Either way, the night was about to become very loud, very bright, and possibly naked. Bananas, Bafflement, and the Baroness’s Bloomers Mimsy crouched on the glass dome, glinting like a jewel thief in a jewelry store that had given up on morality. The last screw fell loose with a plink, and the panel sighed open. Below, the Gilded Banana waited — smug, radiant, and absolutely begging to be stolen. Mimsy licked his brass lips, though strictly speaking he didn’t have moisture to work with. He was more performance art than biology at this point. “Now,” he murmured, “a little descent, a little finesse, and—” The entire dome creaked. Somewhere in the mansion, a clock struck midnight — not because it was midnight, but because Lady Verity Von Coil’s clocks were emotionally unstable. One started chiming, the rest joined in out of solidarity, and soon the entire estate was ringing like a cathedral full of self-important bells. Mimsy winced. “Well, that’s subtle as a chainsaw in church.” He dropped through the opening, wings folding as he landed on a marble banister shaped like a screaming cherub. The menagerie around him hissed, whirred, and blinked awake — cages of mechanical beasts powering up, eyes glowing crimson in the darkness. He froze, and for one beautiful, absurd moment, every creature stared at him — the intruder with too much confidence and not enough sense. A mechanical ostrich blinked its jeweled eyelids. “Intruder detected.” “Darling,” Mimsy said, “you’re an ostrich, not a philosopher. Mind your beak.” That was the moment all hell unhinged itself. Cages burst open with hydraulic hisses, clockwork beasts stampeded through the polished corridors — lions of bronze, serpents made of slithering chains, and one rather anxious-looking squirrel that seemed to be powered entirely by caffeine and regret. Mimsy cartwheeled across the chaos, bouncing off chandeliers and decorative busts. He snatched up the Gilded Banana in one gleaming paw — it pulsed with an almost seductive hum. “Oh, you are deliciously naughty,” he whispered to it, holding it close. “You and I are going to cause so much paperwork.” A siren blared. Steam vents hissed. Somewhere, a recorded voice began repeating: “Unauthorized simian activity detected.” And that’s when she appeared — Lady Verity Von Coil herself, striding into the hall like a goddess who’d been interrupted mid-champagne. Her corset gleamed, her monocle glinted, and her mood was approximately volcanic. She was draped in violet silk and carrying what looked suspiciously like a cane, but was actually a lightning cannon disguised by etiquette. “Mimsy,” she said, voice smooth as oiled brass, “I told Theophilus to dismantle you years ago.” “Ah, Lady Verity!” Mimsy chirped, bowing with exaggerated flourish. “Still aging backwards, I see. What’s your secret, powdered envy?” Her monocle twitched. “Give me the Banana.” “Can’t,” he said. “It’s part of my balanced diet — one third potassium, two thirds criminal intent.” She aimed the cannon. The air buzzed, charged with energy. “Do not test me, monkey.” “Oh, but testing is what I do best,” he grinned, and flipped backward just as a bolt of violet lightning seared through the air. It missed his tail by a hair’s width — or would have, if he still had hair. He somersaulted onto a chandelier, swinging with gleeful abandon as glass shattered and sparks flew like rebellious fireflies. “Get him!” Lady Verity shouted, and her automaton guards surged forward — all stiff, proper, and terribly underpaid. Mimsy whirled through the air, releasing a burst of oily smoke from his back vents. The room filled with shimmering fog, and for a moment, no one could see a thing. When it cleared, the chandelier was empty, and only one thing remained: Lady Verity’s silk bloomers, pinned to the wall with a screwdriver and a calling card that read: MIMSY WAS HERE. ALSO, NICE CHOICE IN LINGERIE. Outside, the monkey soared into the storm, laughing — an echo of pure, manic joy ricocheting across the rooftops of the Brass Bazaar. He clutched the Gilded Banana, still humming with power. The wind howled; lightning flashed; somewhere, a drunk dirigible pilot swore he saw a winged monkey flashing him. He landed in his workshop — an absolute shrine to bad decisions. Half-finished gadgets littered every surface: a teapot that played jazz, a clock that insulted you hourly, and a half-built automaton labeled “DO NOT ENGAGE (again)”. Mimsy set the Gilded Banana on his bench and gazed at it reverently. “My precious golden fruit of chaos,” he whispered, stroking it with a wrench. “Let’s see what secrets you’re hiding.” He flipped open a hatch on his chest, revealing a swirling vortex of gears and flickering lights, and began connecting wires from himself to the relic. The Banana pulsed brighter — rhythmic, seductive, almost alive. “Oh, yes,” Mimsy said, eyes glowing brighter, “show me your naughty little mysteries.” The relic’s hum deepened to a low, resonant vibration that rattled the glass. Sparks danced across Mimsy’s fingertips. The air shimmered with electric mischief. And then — with one earth-shaking BZZZT — the workshop was engulfed in golden light. When it faded, Mimsy blinked, his brass ears ringing. The Banana was gone. In its place hovered a holographic sigil — spinning, fractal, and mesmerizing. It pulsed once, twice, then projected a line of elegant script into the air: “Congratulations, thief. You’ve just activated the Banana Protocol.” Mimsy tilted his head. “Oh, splendid. That sounds perfectly harmless.” The hologram blinked. “Self-destruct sequence initiated.” He froze. “Oh. Oh no. Not again.” Every device in the workshop began to hum, gears spinning faster, lights flashing crimson. Outside, lightning roared across the sky as steam vents screamed and boilers shook. Mimsy looked around wildly, flapping his wings. “Alright, alright — don’t panic — I’ve survived worse—well, slightly worse—okay maybe not this worse—” The sigil flared. The floor trembled. And in one last exasperated puff of smoke, Mimsy muttered, “This is going to ruin my upholstery,” before the entire workshop vanished in a golden explosion of fractal light. The Monkey, the Aftermath, and the Ministry of Peculiar Fruit When Mimsy came back online, he wasn’t sure if he was alive, dead, or subscribed to a particularly avant-garde newsletter. Everything glowed. Everything sang. His internal chronometer was spinning like a roulette wheel in a casino run by angels. He blinked, and the world blinked back — a shimmering kaleidoscope of light and sound that smelled faintly of burnt toast and destiny. “Ugh,” he groaned, rubbing his brass temples. “If this is heaven, someone’s overusing the color gold.” He sat up. His workshop was gone. In its place stood a circular room filled with pulsating glyphs and an unsettling number of bananas — each floating serenely in mid-air. In the center of the room hovered a massive holographic seal etched with runes and nonsense. A voice, smooth and smug as polished mahogany, spoke: “Welcome, unauthorized entity, to the Ministry of Peculiar Fruit.” Mimsy blinked. “Oh, splendid. Bureaucracy. I was hoping for oblivion, but paperwork’s fine too.” The sigil pulsed. “You have activated a Class-A Restricted Artifact: The Gilded Banana of Belgravia. This offense carries a penalty of either annihilation or a three-hundred-year internship. Choose wisely.” Mimsy frowned. “Define ‘internship.’” “Unpaid,” the voice replied flatly. He sighed. “Ah. So, annihilation it is.” Before the voice could reply, the air rippled and formed into the shape of a woman — or rather, the memory of one, constructed entirely from light and bureaucratic disappointment. She wore the severe expression of someone who had filled out forms in triplicate and never forgiven the world for it. “I am Registrar Peela Grunty,” she announced. “I oversee the containment and classification of all mystical produce. You, Mr. Mimsy, are in violation of Fruit Protocol Sections 8 through 42, and possibly some moral ones as well.” “Darling, morality is a setting, not a rule,” Mimsy said, giving her a dazzling grin. “May I interest you in chaos?” Peela glared. “No.” “Not even a little?” “Especially not a little.” He sighed and leaned back on a levitating banana. “So what now? You vaporize me? Turn me into jam? Force me to attend a meeting?” “Worse,” she said. “Orientation.” The room shifted — walls peeling apart like clockwork petals. Suddenly Mimsy found himself in a sprawling bureaucratic labyrinth populated entirely by fruit-based entities. A tomato in a waistcoat argued with a cucumber about tax reform. A pineapple with monocles was stamping forms marked “EXISTENTIAL THREAT.” And over it all hung a massive banner that read: “WELCOME TO THE MINISTRY. COMPLIANCE IS MANDATORY. OR ELSE.” Mimsy stared. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” A peach in a bowler hat approached him with a clipboard. “You’ll need to fill out Form F-9 for unauthorized fruit interaction, Form H-2 for dimensional trespass, and Form D-1 if you plan on doing anything remotely entertaining ever again.” “I’d rather chew on a lightning socket,” Mimsy said. The peach adjusted his monocle. “We have a form for that too.” Hours passed — or possibly minutes, or centuries; time worked differently when you were being punished by produce. Mimsy had filled out seventeen forms, two complaints, and one love letter to a kiwi named Stan when something odd happened. The air shimmered. The lights dimmed. A low, seductive hum rolled through the Ministry halls. Every fruit froze. “Warning,” the intercom droned. “Banana Protocol: Stage Two initiated.” Mimsy’s tail twitched. “Stage Two? Oh, no. No no no, I’ve had enough stages for one day.” Peela appeared beside him, looking alarmed for the first time. “What did you do, monkey?” “I touched the shiny thing!” he shouted defensively. “Isn’t that what they’re for?!” The holographic seal reappeared in mid-air, fractal patterns whirling faster. It projected a message in elegant cursive: “Congratulations, Initiate. The Banana chooses its master.” Peela turned to him slowly. “It’s bonded to you.” “Oh, splendid. I’ve always wanted to be spiritually tethered to fruit.” Suddenly, the room erupted in light. The floating bananas spun, glowing brighter until they burst into streams of golden energy that swirled around Mimsy. The seal expanded, wrapping around him like a halo of divine nonsense. His gears hummed. His feathers shimmered with fractal colors beyond comprehension. Peela shielded her eyes. “You idiot! You’ve just ascended!” “To what?” Mimsy cried, as energy crackled through his frame. “To... Bananahood!” There was a long pause. Even the bureaucratic fruits seemed embarrassed. Then Mimsy grinned, eyes blazing gold. “Well,” he said, stretching his wings, “I suppose I’ll have to make it fashionable.” With that, the Ministry’s roof shattered like glass, and Mimsy shot into the sky — radiant, ridiculous, and magnificent. He soared over the Brass Bazaar once more, his laughter echoing like a malfunctioning symphony. Below, people pointed and gasped as the heavens shimmered with golden light. He looked down at the chaos, the wonder, the beauty of it all — and sighed contentedly. “All this,” he murmured, “for one piece of fruit. Worth it.” Then he turned toward the horizon, spreading his radiant wings. “Now, where’s the nearest pub that serves martinis with potassium?” And with that, The Clockwork Primate vanished into the night — half legend, half lunatic, and entirely unforgettable. Author’s Note: If you ever find yourself in the Brass Bazaar and hear faint laughter in the steam vents, raise a banana in salute. It might just wink back.     💫 Own a Piece of The Clockwork Primate Bring Mimsy’s mischievous charm home! Our exclusive Clockwork Primate Collection lets you capture the gleaming madness and charm of the Brass Bazaar in tangible form — whether you crave polished brass, fine paper, or something delightfully portable. 🖼️ Framed Print – A bold centerpiece for any wall that needs a little mechanical mischief. ⚙️ Metal Print – Vivid color and radiant sheen, perfect for those who prefer their art indestructible and dramatic. 👜 Tote Bag – Carry your chaos in style. Mimsy-approved for markets, mischief, and mildly illegal adventures. 💌 Greeting Card – Share the legend with someone who appreciates a good story — or a well-timed grin. Each piece is crafted with premium materials and a dash of irreverent brilliance — just as Mimsy would demand. Because good art should always misbehave a little.

Captured Tales – by Bill Tiepelman

Song of the Spotted Sky

The Problem with Borrowing Magic By the time Pip realized the sky was humming in a key he could actually hit, he’d already promised three different mushrooms an encore and a fern a personalized shout-out. Pip—being a spotted owl-dragon hatchling with the attention span of a soap bubble—loved applause, snacks, and shortcuts, not necessarily in that order. He had two shiny new wings, a belly like a toasted marshmallow, and the deep personal conviction that rules were for species without charisma. On this particular morning, the forest glowed like it had been gently basted in sunlight and baked to golden perfection. Pip perched on a log, warming his toes and contemplating the day’s agenda, which mostly involved not doing the responsible thing and definitely doing the dramatic thing. The responsible thing was practicing flight patterns. The dramatic thing was debuting his original composition: “Song of the Spotted Sky.” There was only one issue—he hadn’t technically written it yet. Minor speed bump. Major main-character energy. “Art is ninety percent confidence and ten percent improvisation,” Pip announced to a moss ball, which offered the kind of silent support only spherical plants can. “Also, snacks.” He flicked his ears, spread his leathery wings, and attempted a warmup trill that sounded like a piccolo losing an argument with a kazoo. Somewhere in the canopy, an elderly jay shouted, “Cease and desist!” which Pip took as rave feedback from his core demographic: disgruntled elders. Enter Marnie, a bat with the dry wit of a tax auditor and the fashion sense of midnight. She hung upside down from a low branch like punctuation at the end of a bad decision. “You’re going to try sky-singing without asking the sky?” she asked, deadpan. “Bold. Illegal. I respect the commitment to chaos; I do not endorse the consequences.” “I’m not stealing the sky’s song,” Pip said. “I’m sampling it. Very modern. Very remix culture.” He wiggled a talon like a lawyer presenting a loophole. “Also, the sky is big. It won’t notice.” Marnie blinked. “The sky notices everything. It’s literally the surveillance state of nature.” She flapped once, landing beside him. “Look, maestro, you can either learn the fundamentals or you can learn them the hard way. The sky will teach you, but it charges interest.” Pip pretended to listen, which is to say he didn’t. The forest was now definitely humming, a slow, honey-thick chord that slid under his skin and lit up his bones like lanterns. It felt like standing in front of a bakery when the first tray of cinnamon rolls hits the air—illegal levels of irresistible. He lifted his chin and caught the melody, bright and simple as a whistle. It fit his throat like a key in a lock. He sang. Oh, he sang. Notes poured out like coins from a cracked jar—tinkling, spinning, showing off. Birds paused mid-complaint. Leaves angled themselves for better acoustics. Even the grumpy jay muttered, “Well, I’ll be—” and forgot to finish being offended. Pip’s wings vibrated with resonance, and the log thrummed along as if it, too, had been waiting to be part of something catchy. “See?” Pip gasped between phrases. “Effort is a myth invented by mediocre squirrels.” He stretched the last note into a glittering ribbon—and felt it tug back. The sky’s melody hooked him like a fish on an invisible line. He choked. His next breath tasted like static and rain. The golden haze sharpened to a metallic blue, and the air grew crowded, like a room where someone important had just walked in. The song—the sky’s song—unspooled wider, older, and wholly unimpressed. The clouds drew together with the soft menace of a librarian closing a very heavy book. A voice rolled across the glade, not loud, but large, as if it had been practicing patience for a few million years. “Little borrower,” it said, “did you ask?” Pip, who had not asked, did what all natural performers do when confronted with accountability: he smiled like a discount cherub and tried charm first. “Big beautiful sky,” he crooned, “I was merely honoring your work with a tasteful tribute—” “Cute,” the sky said, in the tone of a bouncer checking an obviously fake ID. “Return what you took.” The humming tightened. Pip’s wings snapped open on their own, his feet skittered, and he found himself hovering a foot above the log, held there by a music that tolerated no nonsense. Marnie winced. “Interest,” she reminded him, like a friend who has absolutely called this before. “Also, do not say ‘remix culture’ again. Nature starts charging royalties.” The sky’s melody pressed against Pip’s chest. Under it, he could hear something smaller—a thin, bright thread that might’ve been his voice. If he didn’t learn fast, he’d be a cautionary tale with good hair. The forest leaned in. The moss ball leaned in, which is impressive for something with no neck. “Okay,” Pip whispered. “Teach me.” The sky paused, amused. “Lesson one,” it said. “You don’t get to lead the choir until you’ve learned to listen.” The Choir of Small Noises Pip did not like being grounded—especially while hovering a foot off the ground. The irony was thick enough to butter toast with. The sky’s magic held him in place like an invisible hand, and his wings, those shiny new symbols of self-importance, trembled as if they had realized they’d been rented, not owned. “Lesson one,” the sky had said, in that tone all teachers use right before you regret enrolling. “Listen.” So Pip listened. Or rather, he pretended to. He tilted his head, widened his eyes, and summoned the expression of someone who had just discovered depth as a concept. The forest hummed around him, but it wasn’t the dramatic cosmic harmony he expected. It was… busy. Petty, even. The soundscape of small lives doing small things with alarming commitment. Leaves whispered gossip about who was photosynthesizing too loudly. Ants bickered about traffic management. A beetle somewhere was giving an unsolicited TED talk on bark texture. Even the moss muttered in an ancient, damp dialect that seemed mostly to be complaining about the humidity. It was less “sacred song of the natural world” and more “open mic night for neurotic vegetation.” “Is this it?” Pip whispered. “This can’t be it. The sky wants me to listen to this?” “Yes,” said Marnie, who had returned, smug as gravity. “This is what the universe sounds like when you’re not starring in it.” Pip gave her a side-eye so sharp it could’ve opened envelopes. “You’re suggesting that enlightenment sounds like moss complaining about its knees?” “You’d be surprised,” she said. “The trick is realizing it’s not about you. That’s when you start hearing what’s really there.” “But I’m adorable,” Pip protested. “Surely the universe can make an exception for someone with marketable charm.” “The universe has a strict no-influencer policy,” Marnie said. “Now shut up and listen harder.” He did. And gradually—painfully—the noise began to sort itself into something less like chaos and more like pattern. The beetle’s rant had rhythm. The ants marched in percussion. Even the muttering moss had a bass line so low it vibrated his feathers. Tiny sounds wove together, looping, layering, becoming something bigger. Pip blinked. For the first time, he noticed the beat under the breeze, the way the sunlight hit leaves in tempo, the soft pulse of sap and water. He wasn’t hearing notes; he was hearing intention. And somewhere in it, faint but steady, his own voice was tucked like a wayward thread—part of the fabric, not on top of it. “Well, I’ll be feathered,” he murmured. “They’re all… singing.” “You just realized that?” Marnie said, hanging upside down again, because emotional growth was clearly exhausting for her. “Everything sings. Some things just do it off-key.” “So the sky’s song…” Pip began slowly. “It’s everyone?” “Exactly. You tried to solo over a symphony.” Pip frowned. “But how am I supposed to stand out if I blend in?” Marnie gave him a pitying look reserved for the hopelessly theatrical. “Oh, sweet nebula, that’s not the problem. You already stand out. The problem is you don’t fit in. Big difference.” He chewed on that thought, which tasted suspiciously like humility and dirt. The forest hum swelled again—gentle, accepting, disinterested in his personal narrative. He tried humming along, softly this time. His tone wobbled, then steadied as he stopped performing and just… participated. The air shifted. The sky, which had been looming like a disappointed stage manager, eased its grip. “Better,” it rumbled, though it sounded almost amused now. “You’re not tone-deaf to consequence anymore.” Pip grinned weakly. “So… I’m free?” “Free-ish,” the sky said. “You still owe me a song. But now you’ll write it with the world, not against it.” “Collaborations aren’t my brand,” Pip muttered. “Neither is existing as a cautionary tale, and yet…” Marnie said. Pip exhaled, flapping his wings just to make sure they still worked. They did, but something had changed. The air felt thicker with meaning, heavier with… awareness, maybe. Or possibly guilt. Hard to tell those apart when you’ve just been schooled by the atmosphere itself. “Fine,” he said, stretching his neck dramatically. “I’ll listen. I’ll learn. I’ll become one with the whatever. But I refuse to stop being fabulous about it.” “No one’s asking you to,” Marnie said. “Just—maybe use your fabulousness for good. Like inspiring humility. Accidentally.” That night, Pip climbed to the tallest branch he could find. The stars blinked awake one by one, like cosmic critics taking their seats. The forest murmured in its thousand sleepy languages. He inhaled the scent of moss, bark, and something like old stories—and began to hum again. This time, the sound didn’t fight the world; it folded into it. The trees harmonized softly. The wind sighed in perfect pitch. A cricket orchestra joined in, playing from the shadows. Even the moon gave a slow, approving nod. Pip sang—not to impress, but to connect. It wasn’t as shiny as performing, but it was deeper, warmer, more… real. And for a moment, the forest’s countless little noises stopped being noise at all. They were the song. The spotted sky above shimmered as if smiling. Then, of course, a toad somewhere croaked completely off-beat and ruined the vibe. “Every band has a drummer,” Marnie said from a nearby branch. “Don’t take it personally.” Pip snorted. “You think the sky’s still listening?” “Oh, definitely. But it’s laughing now.” The night air buzzed softly, and Pip thought—just for a moment—he heard the faintest chuckle woven into the stars. He didn’t know if it was mockery or approval. Probably both. “Lesson two,” the sky murmured faintly. “Humility doesn’t mean silence. It means knowing when not to scream.” “That’s going on a T-shirt,” Pip said, and the wind carried his laughter into the dark, where even the toad managed to land on beat—just once. Encore Under the Falling Stars By the following evening, Pip had achieved something most creatures only dream of: a partial redemption arc and a sense of perspective. Unfortunately, both were terrible for his brand. Nobody buys plush toys of a morally balanced protagonist. He missed being the scandalous, sparkly one—the kind of hatchling who looked like trouble and sounded like a soundtrack. But he also didn’t particularly want to get vaporized by the upper atmosphere again, so personal growth it was. “Balance,” he told himself the next morning, as he tried to hum while eating a berry roughly the size of his head. “Moderation. Maturity.” He paused to lick juice off his wing. “God, I hate it here.” “You’ll get used to it,” said Marnie, who’d made a hobby of appearing uninvited whenever his self-esteem was within kicking distance. “Besides, if you’re done being punished, maybe you can figure out what the sky actually wants from you.” “I thought it wanted me to listen,” Pip said. “Then it wanted me to collaborate. What’s next? Therapy?” “You could use some,” Marnie said cheerfully. “Your ego’s still writing checks your soul can’t cash.” Pip scowled, but she wasn’t wrong. The forest was quieter today—or maybe he was just tuned differently. The chatter of beetles felt less like background noise and more like percussion again. The leaves’ whispers had softened into melody. Even the cranky moss had settled into something like harmony. And over it all, the sky’s hum lingered—patient, constant, the low thrumming reminder that magic, like rent, was due monthly. Then came the rumor. It started in the brambles, as most bad ideas do. A flock of sparrows passed it along to the jays, who exaggerated it into legend, and by sundown the whole forest knew: the sky was planning an open concert. “An open concert?” Pip repeated when Marnie told him. “Like… auditions?” “More like a cosmic jam session,” she said. “Every species gets a chance to contribute their sound. It’s how the sky keeps the balance—every few decades, everyone has to remind it they still exist.” Pip’s feathers fluffed. “So it’s basically a celestial open mic night?” “Exactly. Except if you mess up, you don’t just get booed off stage. You might, you know… disappear.” “Oh,” Pip said, smiling too wide. “So high stakes. Perfect. I’m in.” “You’re not invited,” Marnie said immediately. “You literally just got off musical probation.” “And yet,” Pip said, already preening, “how poetic would it be if I came full circle? The sky took my song—now I give it back, better. Redemption arc, act three, the critics will eat it up.” “The critics,” said Marnie, “will eat you.” But Pip had already decided. You can’t argue logic with someone who narrates their own character development in real time. The Sky’s Stage Three nights later, the entire forest gathered in a clearing so vast it seemed carved by something older than weather. The trees leaned back respectfully, their canopies forming natural amphitheater walls. Fireflies swirled overhead like stage lights. Even the moon looked dressed up, shining with the smug brightness of someone who’d scored front-row seats. The air was thick with anticipation and pollen—both equally intoxicating. One by one, creatures performed. The frogs croaked thunderous harmonies. The crickets chirped in complex polyrhythms that would’ve made jazz musicians weep. The breeze itself sighed through the reeds, a wistful solo that drew a standing ovation from the ferns. Even Marnie participated, contributing a haunting echo that danced through the canopy like smoke and shadow. And then, as always, Pip made an entrance. Not just an entrance—a moment. He swooped in with the subtlety of fireworks at a funeral, his wings catching the moonlight like polished bronze. The crowd collectively groaned. You could hear a fern mutter, “Oh gods, it’s him again.” “Evening, adoring public!” Pip declared, landing on a moss-covered boulder. “I come humbly before you to—” “Stop talking before the smiting starts,” Marnie hissed from above. “—to share a lesson learned!” Pip continued, ignoring her. “Once, I sang without listening. I borrowed what wasn’t mine. But now, I bring back what I’ve found: my voice, shared, not stolen.” He fluffed his chest feathers, inhaled, and began. At first, his song was small—a single, clear note, fragile as glass. Then it grew, layered with echoes of everything he’d heard since: the whisper of moss, the chatter of ants, the rustle of leaves. His voice rose and fell in rhythm with the forest’s breath. It wasn’t perfect. It cracked. It stumbled. But it was alive. Honest. His melody wound through the night like a thread stitching everything together. The sky listened. Then—because the universe enjoys good timing—a shooting star tore across the heavens. It left behind a streak of light that seemed to pulse in sync with Pip’s song. One became two, then ten, then a rain of falling stars, each burning brighter as his voice wove around them. The forest gasped. Even the moss stopped mumbling. The sky spoke again, but this time not as thunder or judgment. It was laughter, soft and rumbling, full of warmth and warning both. “You’ve learned to listen,” it said. “Now listen to what you’ve made.” Pip’s song didn’t stop when he stopped singing. It kept going—echoed, mirrored, remixed by the world itself. The frogs picked up his rhythm. The crickets repeated his melody. The wind whistled in harmony. For the first time, the forest didn’t just hear him; it answered him. And it sounded good. Unreasonably good. Like, “someone’s-going-to-start-selling-merch” good. He beamed. “So… I passed?” “Technically,” said the sky, “but I’m keeping the publishing rights.” “Fair,” Pip said. “I’d only blow it on snacks anyway.” The laughter rippled outward again, scattering among the stars until the whole clearing glowed with gentle, golden light. Creatures turned toward him—some amused, some admiring, a few already plotting to start a tribute act. Marnie landed beside him, giving a little snort. “You realize this means you’re insufferable again.” “Oh, absolutely,” Pip said, grinning. “But now I’m insufferable with depth.” “That’s somehow worse.” They watched the stars fall in silence for a while. It wasn’t comfortable silence—Pip had the attention span of a caffeinated squirrel—but it was companionable. The kind of quiet that happens when you’ve finally stopped trying to fill it. “So what now?” he asked eventually. “Now?” Marnie said. “Now you live with what you’ve learned until you forget it again. Then the sky will teach you something new.” “That’s the cycle?” “That’s the joke,” she said. “Welcome to enlightenment.” He nodded, thoughtful. Then: “Do you think the sky would mind if I did an encore?” Marnie groaned. “You are constitutionally incapable of not pushing your luck.” “True,” Pip said, and before she could stop him, he leapt from the boulder and flared his wings wide. His voice soared into the sky—lighter, freer, full of everything he’d been too proud to feel before. The forest joined him again, this time not out of obligation or curiosity, but out of joy. The whole world became orchestra and audience all at once. And for a brief, impossible moment, Pip thought he could feel the universe smiling—a soundless note of pure approval humming through his bones. Then the note faded, leaving behind only wind and laughter and a toad with no sense of timing. But that was enough.   The Lesson (Abridged, Annotated, and Mildly Sarcastic) The moral, of course, is painfully simple: You can’t own what you don’t understand, and you can’t understand what you refuse to hear. Pip learned—eventually—that creation isn’t conquest, and that sometimes the loudest voice in the room is the one quietly keeping time. The universe has rhythm. You can dance to it, or you can get dragged along by it, but either way—you’re part of the song. And maybe that’s the joke, too: everyone wants to headline, but no one wants to rehearse. Pip just happened to learn both the hard and the entertaining way. Which, frankly, is the only way worth learning anything at all. As for the sky—it kept on humming, amused, watchful, and only slightly worried about what Pip would try next. Because one thing’s for sure: somewhere, somehow, that little spotted show-off was definitely plotting a remix. ARCHIVE NOTE: Prints, downloads, and image licensing of “Song of the Spotted Sky” are available through the Unfocussed Image Archive. Perfect for collectors of whimsical art and lovers of morally ambiguous forest creatures.   Bring the Magic Home If Pip’s song made you grin, snort, or reconsider stealing from cosmic entities, you can now take a little piece of that story home with you. The artwork “Song of the Spotted Sky” by Bill and Linda Tiepelman is available in several gorgeous formats, each guaranteed to brighten your space—or mildly judge you if you ignore your creative calling. ✨ Framed Print — Because every wall deserves a touch of whimsy and questionable decision-making. ⚙️ Metal Print — Bold, luminous, and utterly indestructible. Perfect for showcasing Pip’s ego in HD. 🧩 Puzzle — 500+ chances to question your life choices, piece by piece. It’s chaos therapy with wings. 💌 Greeting Card — Send a note, a laugh, or an unsolicited life lesson in Pip-approved style. Whichever version you choose, remember: art is just another way of singing with your eyes open. And if you start hearing the forest hum back—don’t worry. That’s just Pip trying to duet again.

Captured Tales – by Bill Tiepelman

The Punk Pixie Manifesto

Wing Maintenance & Other Threats I was elbow-deep in wing glue and bad decisions when the messenger hit my window like a drunk moth. Shattered glass. Confetti of regret. Typical Monday. My left wing was molting in an express-yourself pattern that looked like an oil spill, and the glue fumes were the only thing in the room with a better attitude than me. I yanked the latch, hauled the messenger inside by his collar, and clocked the insignia on his jacket—brass thimble with a crown of needles. Seelie Post. Royal. Oh good. The kind of trouble you can smell before it sues you. “Delivery for Zaz,” he wheezed, which was interesting because my legal name is the length of a violin solo and rhymes with nothing. People who know me call me Zaz. People who don’t know me end up paying for new windows. He handed me a wax-sealed envelope that vibrated like a guilty conscience. The seal was etched with needlework filigree and the faintest suggestion of a smirk—Queen Morwen’s court style. I broke it open with a thumbnail I keep sharpened for statements and citrus. The letter unfolded into calligraphy sharp enough to shave with. Dearest Zazariah Thorn,A delicate item has been misplaced by persons of no consequence. Retrieve it discreetly. Compensation is generous. Consequences for failure are… educational.—Her Grace, Morwen of the Tailors, Keeper of the Thimble Crown Attached was a sketch of the item: a thimble wrought from moonsteel, with a ring of needle points angling inward. A crown for thumbs—or for kings stupid enough to touch it. I’d heard of the Thimble Crown. You wear it, you stitch oaths into reality. One prick and suddenly your promises show up with teeth. It was supposed to live under three veils and an angry aunt, not out where goblins could pawn it for concert tickets. “What’s the generous part?” I asked the messenger. He responded by dying on my floor, which felt melodramatic. He wasn’t stabbed; he was unraveled, threads of glamor popping like overworked seams. Someone had pulled on him from the other side, the way you tug a sweater until it becomes a scarf and bad news. I lit a clove, cracked the window wider, and stared down at the alley. The city was doing its usual impression of a headache: neon bruises, rain blown sideways, a bus groaning like a cursed whale. Humans were out there pretending not to believe in us while buying crystals in bulk. Cute. I looked back at the corpse. “Okay, sweetheart,” I muttered, “who tugged your thread?” I looted his satchel because I’m not a cop, I’m a professional. Inside: a ticket stub from the Rusted Lark (a dive bar with live music and several health code violations), a tin of wing polish (rude), and a matchbook stamped with an orange daisy and the words Tell Daisy You Owe Her. I did, in fact, owe Daisy. Two drinks, a favor, and an explanation for why her ex now only speaks in limericks. Wing glue wasn’t going to fix this day. I strapped on my teal jacket—the one with studs that say “approach with snacks”—and laced my corset tight enough to squeeze the truth out of liars. The mirror offered up the usual: orange mohawk at war with gravity, tattoos like a roadmap to poor decisions, and that face my mother said could curdle milk. I kissed it anyway. “Let’s go make questionable choices.”     The Rusted Lark smelled like beer, ozone, and apologies. I sidestepped a brawl between a pair of brownies arguing about union dues and slid onto a barstool that still had its original curses. Daisy clocked me immediately. She’s a nymph with shoulders like a threat and eyeliner that could cut rope, a saint who once dated me and forgave the experience. Barely. “Zaz,” she purred, wiping a glass that had seen things. “You look like a lawsuit. What do you want besides attention?” “Information. And, I guess, attention.” I flipped the matchbook onto the bar. “Your calling card is making the rounds attached to corpses. You working nights for the Royal haberdashery now?” She didn’t flinch, which told me she already knew the tune. “Not my card. Counterfeit. Cute, though.” She poured me something that smelled like burnt sugar and lightning bugs. “You’re here about the Thimble, aren’t you.” Not a question. “I’m here about the messenger who arrived pre-ruined and bled thread on my floor. But yes, apparently there’s a fashion accessory threatening reality.” I sipped. It tasted like kissing a socket. “Who lifted it?” Daisy tilted her head toward the back booth where a man sat alone, human on the outside, trouble on the inside. Trench coat, cheekbones, smile like a rumor. He was shuffling cards with fingers that knew better. The air around him crackled with low-budget magic. “That’s Arlo Crane,” she said. “Conjurer, con man, crowd-pleaser. He’s been asking very specific questions about moonsteel and needlework. Also he tips well, so don’t kill him in here.” I swiveled toward him and flashed my most professional grin, which looks like a shark rethinking vegetarianism. “If he’s got the Crown, why is he still breathing?” “Because somebody scarier is protecting him,” Daisy said. “And because he’s useful. The Crown changed hands last night, twice. First from the Tailors to the Smilers—” “Ugh.” The Smilers are a cult that replaced their mouths with embroidery. Helpful if you hate conversation and love nightmares. “—then from the Smilers to whoever Arlo’s working for,” Daisy finished. “He’s running an old trick with new thread. And Zaz? There’s a rumor the Crown isn’t just binding oaths anymore. It’s rewriting definitions. Somebody pricked the dictionary.” I felt my stomach try to unionize. Words are dangerous at the best of times; give them sharp accessories and cities fall. “What’s the going rate for apocalypse couture?” “Enough to make you say please.” Daisy slid me a napkin with a name written in lipstick: Madame Nettles. “She’s hosting a couture séance in the Needle Market after midnight. You’ll find Arlo there, if you can pay the cover in secrets.” “I brought plenty,” I said, and we both knew I meant knives.     I drifted toward Arlo’s booth, letting my wings catch the neon. He looked up, blinked once, and folded his cards. “You’re Zaz,” he said, like he was naming a problem. “I was told you’d be taller.” “I was told you’d be smarter,” I shot back, sliding into the seat across from him. Up close, he smelled like cedar and bad ideas. “Let’s make this efficient. You show me where the Crown is. I don’t collapse your lungs into origami cranes.” He smiled—the smug kind, the kind that gets people poetic at funerals. “You don’t want the Crown, Zaz. You want the thread it’s carrying. The pattern underneath the city. Someone tugged it loose. Everybody’s teeth are on edge because deep down we can feel the stitch slipping.” He tapped the deck. “I’m not your thief. I’m your map.” “Terrific,” I said. “Fold yourself into my pocket and be quiet until I need exposition.” “You’ll need more than exposition.” He slid a card across the table. The artwork showed an orange-winged fairy in a teal jacket scowling at destiny. Cute. “You’re being written, Zaz. And whoever’s doing the writing is getting sloppy.” The card warmed under my fingertip—then burned. I hissed, jerking back. On my thumb, a perfect ring of pinpricks. Needle teeth. Somewhere, very far and very near, a chorus of thimbles hummed like a beehive full of lawyers. Arlo’s smile died. “Oh. They’ve already crowned you.” “No one crowns me without dinner first,” I said, but my voice sounded two sizes too small. The bar’s lights flickered. Conversations hiccuped. A dozen patrons turned to look at me in eerie, synchronized curiosity—as if someone had just underlined my name. From the doorway came a rustle like silk over bone. A figure stepped inside, tall, immaculate, face veiled in lace so fine it could cut you with a sentence. Madame Nettles. Beside her walked two Smilers, mouth-threads taut, hands holding silver bobbins that spun on their own. The room fell into the kind of silence that makes choices heavy. Madame Nettles raised a gloved hand and pointed—so politely it felt like an insult—straight at my bleeding thumb. “There,” she murmured, voice like pins in velvet. “The seamstress of our undoing.” Arlo whispered, “We should leave.” “We?” I said. Then the bobbins sang, and the world around me puckered like fabric about to be cut. Look, I’m not scared of much: cops, commitment, self-reflection. But when reality starts to pleat itself, I get respectful. I flipped the table (classic), kicked the nearest Smiler (therapeutic), and grabbed Arlo by the lapels. “Congratulations, map,” I snarled. “You’re now also a shield.” We crashed through the kitchen. A pot of stew tried to negotiate peace and failed. Daisy pointed at the back exit with her bar rag, then at me, then at the ceiling—code for you owe me. We burst into the alley. Rain, sirens, our breath like cigarette ghosts. Behind us, the bar door bulged inward as the Smilers pushed reality through it like dough. Arlo coughed, blinking neon out of his eyes. “The Crown wants you because you talk like a weapon,” he said. “Every insult you’ve ever thrown could become law.” “Great,” I said. “Fetch me City Hall and a megaphone.” “I’m serious,” he said. “If they stitch your tongue to the Crown, the rest of us will spend eternity living inside your punchlines.” I stared at my thumb. The ring of punctures gleamed. Somewhere, far above the clouds, I felt the throb of machinery: looms at the size of weather, knitting fate into a sweater no one requested. I swallowed. “Fine. Map me, Crane. Where’s the next move?” He jerked his chin toward the rooftops. “Needle Market’s closed to groundwalkers tonight. We take the high road.” “I fly ugly when I’m mad,” I warned. “Then the night is about to get beautiful.” We launched, wings chopping rain into glitter. Below, the city stretched like a sullen dragon. Above, the clouds stitched themselves shut behind us. My thumb pulsed in time with a crown I didn’t own. And somewhere between the two, a voice I didn’t recognize cleared its throat and, in my own timbre, said: Rewrite. I didn’t scream. I never scream. I swore very poetically. And then we aimed for the market where secrets are priced by how much they hurt. The Needle Market Says Ouch The Needle Market doesn’t technically exist. It happens. Like a rash or a bad decision, it blooms wherever enough desire and guilt rub together. Tonight, it’s stitched into the rooftops over Sector Nine, a whole carnival of awnings and lanterns balanced on the city’s bones. From the air it looks like someone spilled embroidery across the skyline. Up close, it smells like wax, perfume, and secrets burning to stay warm. We landed behind a row of charm stalls where a dryad in a smoking jacket was selling love potions that came with non-refundable side effects. Arlo folded his trench coat collar up and moved like he was afraid of being recognized—which, in my experience, is how you get recognized. I didn’t bother hiding. My wings were flaring mood-light, my hair was a warning sign, and my boots squeaked like a threat. The Market parted around me like gossip around royalty. “You’re glowing,” Arlo muttered, eyes darting. “That’s not good.” “I’m always glowing,” I said. “Sometimes it’s rage, sometimes it’s crime.” We wove past stalls selling thread spun from siren hair, pocket universes in glass jars, curses priced by the syllable. Everyone was smiling too much. Not happy—just stretched, like they’d forgotten the muscle movements for frowning. The Smilers had been here recently. You could taste the antiseptic of their devotion in the air. Somewhere, someone was humming the same three notes on repeat. It made the hairs on my wings stand up. “Keep your head down,” Arlo whispered. “Sure,” I said. “Right after I tattoo subtle on my forehead.” He sighed. “You’re going to get us—” “Attention? Already did that.” From the crowd stepped a woman with a hat shaped like a dagger and a smile sharp enough to cut fabric. “Zazariah Thorn,” she said, dragging my full name across her teeth like floss. “The Queen’s unlikeliest errand girl.” Her outfit was all velvet menace, her voice a lazy stretch of honey and hooks. Madame Nettles. She’d followed us up—or she’d been waiting. Either way, my day was about to itch. “Madame,” I said, bowing just enough to mock. “Love the lace. I was hoping for a more dramatic entrance, though—maybe thunder, or a scream track.” She chuckled, the kind of sound that ends marriages. “No need for theatrics, darling. You’ve brought enough noise of your own.” She flicked her gaze toward my thumb. “May I?” “You may not,” I said. “The Crown marks you. You understand what that means?” “It means I should start charging rent to the voices in my head?” Arlo tried diplomacy, poor bastard. “Madame, the mark was accidental. We only want to return the Crown to its rightful custodian.” She tilted her head. “Oh, sweet conjurer, no. The Crown has already chosen its custodian. It’s rewriting her as we speak.” Her eyes found mine, pupils like black buttons. “How does it feel, Zazariah, to have the world sewing itself to your opinions?” “About as fun as a corset made of bees.” She smiled wider. “Every word you say now is binding. Every insult is architecture. Careful—you could manifest a slur into a city ordinance.” “Then I’ll start with ‘no solicitors.’” I flexed my wings. “And maybe ‘no veiled creeps with bad metaphors.’” The air around us shivered. A pair of her attendants stumbled backward as an invisible line carved itself into the cobblestone between us—neat, perfect, humming. My words had literally made a border. “Well,” Arlo muttered, “that’s new.” Madame Nettles’ smile didn’t waver, but her fingers twitched. “You’re dangerous, fairy. Untrained power is such a nuisance.” She gestured to her Smilers. “Take her tongue. Politely.” “Oh, now it’s a party,” I said, and pulled the first knife I’d ever stolen. (It’s sentimental; it hums when it’s happy.) The Smilers advanced, silent, silver needles flashing in their fingers. I moved first—because I always do—and for a few ecstatic seconds it was just metal, sweat, and the sound of fabric screaming. I kicked one into a stall of bottled daydreams; he popped like a balloon full of confetti. The other got close enough to snag my sleeve, but the jacket bit back—literally. I heard him yelp as the spikes sank in. Arlo muttered a spell that sounded like cheating and turned his deck of cards into a swarm of glowing paper wasps. They dive-bombed Madame Nettles’ veil, distracting her long enough for me to vault over a table and grab her wrist. “Why me?” I hissed. “Why mark me?” She leaned close enough for me to smell rosewater and something metallic. “Because, dear Zaz, you don’t believe in destiny. And that makes you the perfect author for one.” “You want me to rewrite fate?” “We want you to finish it.” That’s when the ground dropped. Literally. The Market, the stalls, the crowd—all unraveled beneath our feet like someone had tugged the wrong thread. Arlo grabbed me mid-fall, wings snapping open as the whole rooftop bazaar collapsed into glowing strands. We fell through a tapestry of color and sound until we hit another surface—a new Market, deeper, darker, stitched from shadows and half-finished ideas. “Where the hell—” I started. “Below the pattern,” Arlo said grimly. “The place stories go when they’re edited out.” Great. I’d always wanted to vacation in the dumpster of reality. We landed on a platform made of patchwork light. Around us, the air was thick with half-spoken words and the ghosts of metaphors too shy to finish. Figures watched from the edges—discarded characters, unfinished poems, jokes that had lost their punchlines. One of them shuffled forward, headless but polite. “You shouldn’t be here,” it rasped. “Join the club,” I said. “We meet Thursdays.” “They’re trying to stitch the end,” it wheezed. “But the thread is alive now. It remembers what it was meant to sew.” “Which is?” I asked. “Freedom,” it said, before unraveling into punctuation marks. Arlo crouched beside me, eyes scanning the flickering ground. “If the Crown is rewriting definitions, it must be using this place as its loom. Everything that doesn’t fit gets dumped here. We find the anchor, we can cut the stitch.” “And if we can’t?” He glanced at me. “Then you talk the universe to death.” “Oh, honey,” I said, drawing my knife again. “That’s my second-best skill.” From above, a new light bled through the ceiling of threads—cold, white, royal. Madame Nettles was following. Her voice slithered down like silk. “Run if you like, my little swearword. But every sentence ends in a period.” “Yeah?” I yelled. “Then I’ll be a semicolon, bitch!” The ground trembled in laughter—or maybe it was mine. Either way, reality cracked open again, and Arlo dragged me through the tear into somewhere worse. Threadbare Gods & Other Lies We landed in a cathedral made of thread. Not stone, not glass—just miles of woven silk that flexed when you breathed. Every sound was muffled, like the air was holding its breath. Somewhere above, gears turned lazily, winding the universe one loop at a time. Beneath us, the fabric pulsed faintly. Alive. Hungry. I checked my knife; it whispered something obscene. I whispered back. Arlo stumbled to his feet, brushing glitter off his coat. “Okay, no big deal, just a divine sewing machine running on cosmic anxiety. Totally normal Thursday.” “If this thing starts singing, I’m burning it down,” I said, and meant it. At the center of the cathedral stood a dais. On it: the Thimble Crown, glowing like moonlight trapped in a migraine. Threads ran from it in every direction, connecting to the ceiling, the floor, the air itself. It was beautiful—if you like your beauty armed and unstable. Each pulse it sent rippled through reality, and I felt my pulse respond, in time, like it had found its drummer. “That’s not supposed to happen,” Arlo muttered. “It’s syncing with you.” “Figures,” I said. “The first time something syncs with me, it’s a cursed relic.” Madame Nettles appeared behind us like a rumor too proud to die. Her lace veil trailed across the threads without snagging—a neat trick in physics and malice. “Welcome to the Loom,” she said, voice echoing through the weave. “Every world has one. Most just pretend they don’t.” “You’re late,” I said. “I was about to start redecorating.” She smiled behind the lace. “You misunderstand. This place isn’t for decorating. It’s for editing.” Arlo stepped between us, because he has the suicidal impulse of a saint. “If she keeps the Crown,” he said, “she’ll overwrite existence with sarcasm and spite.” “Oh, please,” I said. “That’s an improvement.” Madame Nettles gestured toward the Crown. “Put it on, Zazariah. Finish the Manifesto. Write the final stitch. Unmake the lie of destiny.” “And what’s in it for you?” “Freedom. Chaos. An end to all patterns.” “Sounds exhausting.” Arlo hissed, “Don’t do it.” But the Crown was already singing to me, a perfect pitch between fury and temptation. I stepped closer, drawn by the pull of something that finally got me. Every insult, every eye roll, every stubborn refusal—it had all been leading to this: a job offer from entropy. I reached out, fingers trembling. And then, because I am who I am, I stopped. “You know what?” I said. “I’m not your protagonist. I’m not your thread. And I definitely don’t take fashion advice from ghosts in lace.” Madame Nettles’ expression tightened. “You can’t refuse destiny.” “Watch me.” I pulled my knife, sliced open my palm, and let my blood drip across the weave. The Loom convulsed, threads snapping like nerves. “If the world’s going to stitch itself to my words,” I said, “then here’s a new one: Undo.” The word hit like a detonation. Light flared, colors inverted, and for a moment everything—everything—laughed. Madame Nettles screamed as her veil shredded, revealing not a face but a gaping spool of thread that shrieked itself out of existence. The Crown trembled, cracked, and then melted into molten silver that poured itself into my wounds, sealing them with a hiss. When the light died, we were standing in the ruins of the Loom. The air was quiet. The threads were gone, replaced by stars arranged in no particular order—finally, beautifully random. “Did we win?” Arlo asked, eyes wide. “I don’t do winning,” I said. “I do surviving with flair.” He laughed, shaky. “So what now?” I looked down at my hands. The silver scars pulsed faintly, spelling something out in Morse: Write carefully. “Now,” I said, “we go home. I’m opening a bar.” “A bar?” “Sure. Call it The Punctuated Equilibrium. Drinks named after grammar crimes. Half-price shots for anyone who swears creatively.” He grinned. “And if the Queen comes looking for her Crown?” I smiled, sharp as scissors. “I’ll tell her I’m editing.” We climbed back through the wreckage, wings beating against the dawn. The city spread below us—chaotic, patched, real. I breathed in its smoke and music, the scent of rebellion and rain. The sky cracked pink, and for the first time in centuries, nobody was writing the ending but me. And I wasn’t planning to finish it anytime soon. Epilogue — The Manifesto Never trust a tidy story.Never iron your wings.And never, ever, let anyone else hold the needle.     🛒 Bring “The Punk Pixie Manifesto” Home Love a little rebellion with your décor? The Punk Pixie Manifesto refuses to behave on the wall, desk, or anywhere else you put it. Celebrate her attitude — half chaos, half charm — with these bold, high-quality creations. Framed Print — Add fierce elegance to your favorite space with museum-grade clarity and texture. Perfect for anyone who decorates with conviction (and sarcasm). Tapestry — Let her wings spread across your wall. Soft, vibrant, unapologetic — a centerpiece for the rule-breaker’s lair. Greeting Card — When “thinking of you” needs extra voltage. Perfect for birthdays, apologies, or unapologetic statements. Spiral Notebook — Jot down dangerous ideas and divine mischief. Every page whispers, “Make it better. Or at least make it louder.” Sticker — Slap some punk magic wherever you need attitude — laptops, journals, broom handles, or boring authority. Each product is printed with archival-quality inks to capture every spark of rebellion, every shimmer of wingbeat, and every whisper of “don’t tell me what to do.” Because art should do more than decorate — it should talk back. Shop the collection now: The Punk Pixie Manifesto Collection

Captured Tales – by Bill Tiepelman

The Iron Jester of the North

Ale, Axe, and Absolutely No Quiet They said you could hear him coming before you saw him — a deep, booming laugh that rolled through Frostvik’s frozen streets like thunder over empty kegs. When he finally appeared, shoulders broad as barrels and beard brighter than a smithy’s fire, the market crowd parted like bad soup. His armor clanked, his axe gleamed, and his grin promised entertainment of the regrettable sort. “Ale!” he bellowed. “And meat. Any animal that died confused will do!” The butcher blinked. The baker hid behind a loaf. Even the town crier decided to take a personal day. But the Red Walrus Inn, a place that had seen everything from brawls to spontaneous weddings, threw its doors wide. The Jester stomped inside, trailing snow, smoke, and unrepentant enthusiasm. He ordered by volume, not vessel — three barrels of ale, a platter of something formerly mooing, and a wheel of cheese big enough to qualify for property tax. “A feast,” he declared, “fit for a king who’s on the run and bad with money!” The tavern roared its approval. Soon he was retelling tales so outrageous they bent probability into polite applause. “There I was,” he said, slamming his mug down, “face-to-face with a frost troll. Ugly beast, smelled like a fishmonger’s regrets. I tell him, ‘You’ve got beautiful eyes — pity there’s two of them!’ The troll cries, trips on his own club, and I take the win! Moral of the story: compliment your enemies. Confuses them right off their murder.” The crowd howled. Someone tried to play a lute ballad; the Jester encouraged him by clapping off-beat with both hands and one boot until the tempo surrendered. When the bard switched to a drinking song, the dwarf joined in — loudly, badly, and with harmonies no sober ear could recognize. Three mercenaries swaggered through the door then — tall, polished, and dripping arrogance. Their armor shone like a peacock’s ego. The biggest one sneered. “You’re the ‘Iron Jester’? I was expecting a clown.” The dwarf drained his mug. “And I was expecting brains,” he replied. “We’re both disappointed.” The tavern fell silent, the kind of silence that checks the exits. The Jester stood, rolling his shoulders until the plates of his armor clinked like gossip. “Right then, lads. Shall we discuss this like gentlemen or hit each other with furniture?” The choice was apparently the latter. Swords hissed free; chairs fled the scene. He swung his axe in a lazy circle — decorative at first — taking a sliver off a chandelier, a curl off someone’s mustache, and the bottom edge of the “No Fighting” sign. The mercenaries hesitated. “Don’t worry,” he grinned, “I’m a professional. Mostly.” Then chaos happened. Not the kind you plan, the kind that erupts. The Jester’s laughter shook the rafters as he dodged, ducked, and occasionally forgot which hand held the ale. By the time the dust settled, the floor had a new skylight and the mercenaries were reconsidering their career options. “Drinks on me!” he shouted, tossing a coin pouch at the barkeep. It hit the counter, burst open, and showered the room in silver. Someone cheered. Someone fainted. Someone proposed marriage to the cheese wheel. The Jester lifted his mug. “To life, laughter, and forgiving debts after this round!” Outside, the northern wind howled like a jealous rival. Inside, laughter drowned it out. And as the night stumbled toward dawn, the Iron Jester of the North leaned back, eyes half-closed, grin still wide. Tomorrow there’d be trouble — but tonight there was ale, applause, and the comforting certainty that no one in Frostvik would ever forget his name. The Morning After Alegeddon The sun crept into Frostvik as if it feared being noticed. Light filtered through a half-broken shutter in the Red Walrus Inn, slicing across overturned chairs, a puddle of something that used to be stew, and a cheese wheel wearing a sword like a crown. Somewhere beneath that battlefield of glass and regret lay a snoring mound of iron and beard. Grimnir “the Iron Jester” Rundaxe woke because his tongue had turned to sandpaper and someone, somewhere, was playing a drum solo inside his skull. He pried one eye open. A pigeon was perched on his boot, judging him. “You win, bird,” he croaked. “Now fetch me water. Or beer. Whichever arrives first.” He sat up, armor creaking, and surveyed the aftermath. The bard was asleep in a bucket. Two of the mercenaries were using each other as pillows. The third had joined the cheese wheel in what looked like a legally binding marriage. Grimnir grinned, then winced. “By the ancestors,” he muttered, “I taste like disappointment and goat.” The barkeep, a broad-shouldered woman named Sella, appeared from behind the bar with a broom and an expression honed by decades of nonsense. “You’re paying for all this, Jester.” “Course I am,” he said. “Paid last night, didn’t I?” She lifted an empty coin pouch from the counter. “You paid in buttons, dear.” “Then they were valuable buttons!” He checked his pockets, found a single silver coin, a feather, and half a sausage. “All right,” he sighed, “perhaps slightly less valuable than I hoped.” Sella rolled her eyes and poured a tankard of water. “Drink before you die of idiocy.” He drank. The water hit like a hammer of mercy. The room steadied. Sort of. “Right,” he said. “No more drinking contests. Until lunch.” From outside came the muffled sound of a crowd. Voices, excited and angry. Grimnir frowned. “What’s that racket? The tax collectors again?” Sella leaned on her broom. “No. The mayor’s posting a notice. Big bounty. Something about a caravan gone missing on the northern pass. Folks are saying it’s cursed.” Grimnir’s grin returned, slow and wolfish. “Cursed, you say? Sounds profitable.” “Sounds fatal,” Sella corrected. “Ah, but in between those two words lies opportunity.” He stood, stretched, and his back cracked like splitting firewood. “Tell the mayor the Iron Jester is sober enough to negotiate.” “You’re not,” she said flatly. “That’s the secret to charm.” He grabbed his axe from the wreckage, adjusted his dented helm, and swaggered toward the door. The mercenaries groaned awake behind him, one mumbling something about compensation and dental insurance. Outside, Frostvik looked worse than usual—gray sky, snow turning to slush, and villagers nursing hangovers of civic scale. The notice board stood in the square, plastered with parchment. The newest sheet fluttered like gossip in the cold wind. Reward: Five hundred silver crowns for information or recovery of the lost caravan of Jarl Vennar. Last seen entering the North Pass. Beware bandits, beasts, and rumors of spirits. “Five hundred crowns,” Grimnir read aloud. “That’s a lot of ale. Or buttons.” Beside him, a short, wiry woman in a patched cloak was also reading the notice. Her hair was white as frost, her eyes sharp as awls. “You don’t look like the type for subtle work,” she said without looking up. “Subtle?” he chuckled. “I once negotiated peace between two warring clans using only a chicken and my winning personality.” “And how did that go?” “Badly for the chicken. Gloriously for me.” She turned to face him then, studying the iron-clad dwarf with a faint smirk. “Name’s Lyra. Tracker. You?” “Grimnir Rundaxe, Iron Jester of the North, drinker of ales, breaker of chairs, and professional bad decision enthusiast.” Lyra snorted. “Well, Iron Jester, the mayor’s looking for volunteers. You seem too loud to miss. Try not to get us all cursed.” “No promises,” he said, and together they pushed through the crowd toward the mayor’s steps. Inside the council hall, Mayor Torvik was mid-argument with a nervous clerk. He spotted Grimnir and groaned audibly. “Not you again. Last time you ‘helped,’ you burned half my grain stores.” “Correction,” Grimnir said cheerfully. “A troll burned them. I merely encouraged efficiency.” Lyra folded her arms. “He says he can handle curses. I can find tracks no one else can. That bounty’s ours if you’ve any sense left.” The mayor pinched the bridge of his nose. “Fine. But if you come back haunted, I’m not paying for exorcisms.” Grimnir saluted with his tankard. “Understood. We charge extra for hauntings anyway.” By noon, the dwarf and the tracker were trudging north, the wind biting, the promise of silver ahead and trouble not far behind. Grimnir’s laughter echoed through the trees, loud enough to scare off any creature with self-preservation instincts and attract every problem with none. Lyra glanced at him. “You really think there’s treasure at the end of this?” He grinned. “Treasure, monsters, curses—doesn’t matter. The world’s dull until you poke it with something sharp.” The snow deepened. Somewhere far off, a wolf howled. Grimnir hefted his axe and smiled wider. The Iron Jester’s next act had begun. Laughter After the Echo The wind in the North Pass carried the kind of cold that makes teeth consider retirement. Snow skittered across stone like spilled salt. The trail of the missing caravan twisted between black pines and old cairns, and every cairn wore a crown of ice as if winter had tried to knight the dead. Grimnir trudged ahead, beard frosted, axe shouldered. Lyra paced beside him, quiet as breath, reading the snow like a book she’d memorized. “Wheels here,” she said, tapping a rut with her boot. “Then sudden swerve. Horses panicked.” “Bandits?” Grimnir asked. “Maybe. But the horses didn’t bolt from men.” She pointed to ragged, circling prints. “They bolted from silence.” He frowned. “Silence?” “A dead kind. You’ll hear it.” They followed the scar of tracks into a cleft where the mountain shouldered the sky. The pass narrowed until the world felt like a throat, and then—Lyra was right. Sound thinned. The clank of Grimnir’s armor dipped, as if swallowed. Even his laugh, when he tried it (purely for science), returned to him damp and small. The wagon remains lay in the throat’s deepest shadow: a shattered axle, a torn awning, crates gnawed by frost. No bodies—just clothes emptied of people, the fabric stiff as if the wearers had stepped out and forgotten to come back. Lyra crouched, gloved fingers hovering over the prints. “Dragged,” she murmured. “But no furrows. Something lifted them.” “Spirits, then,” Grimnir said. He cracked his neck, rolled his shoulders, and planted his boots. “Good. I’ve been meaning to offend something incorporeal.” They built a careful ring: lanterns hung from bent spears, salt scattered in a harsh white circle, iron nails laid like runes. Lyra pricked her thumb and touched the salt. “Old way,” she said. “My grandmother swore by it.” “Your grandmother swore by everything that worked,” Grimnir said softly. He tested the grip of his axe. “Tell me the plan, tracker.” “We don’t fight air,” Lyra replied. “We make it take shape.” She teased a braided length of wire and bone from her pack and clipped it to the lantern’s ring. “This will sing when they come. Spirits hate music made by the living. It reminds them of appetite.” “So I just… laugh louder than death?” “For you?” Lyra’s mouth twitched. “Yes.” Night didn’t fall so much as it slid like black glass over the pass. The lantern wicks fluttered, guttered, re-lit. The wire and bone charm quivered without wind. Then it began to sing: a thin, metallic keening that made the hairs on Grimnir’s arms stand to attention and request a transfer. Shapes gathered at the edge of the light—heat ripples in winter, mistakes in the eye. Faces tried to exist and failed. The keening rose. Snow spun upward as if gravity had reconsidered. Lyra’s hands were steady. “Speak, Jester,” she said. “Give them something to hate.” Grimnir inhaled the cold until it hurt. His chest swelled under iron plates. He planted his stance and let the laugh rise—low at first, then rolling, then big as a hall full of fools. It boomed into the unnatural quiet and managed to exist anyway. The shadows flinched. “That’s right,” he roared, “I brought jokes to a funeral! And I’m not leaving until someone heckles me!” The air tore. From the rip stepped a woman in a traveler’s cloak stitched from moonlight and dust. Her eyes were wells cut into winter. When she spoke, it sounded like a door opening on an empty room. “Stop laughing,” she said. “Can’t,” Grimnir replied. “Genetic condition. Also the ale.” She tilted her head, studying this dense, noisy creature that refused to dim. More figures budded behind her—thin as parchment, faces hollowed by the kind of sorrow that wears through worlds. Lyra’s voice was level. “Name yourself.” “I am what the pass became when the dead were not carried home,” the woman said. “I am the echo of unpaid grief. They left us here. We learned to take.” Lyra’s jaw worked. “Who left you?” “All who hurried past us for faster markets,” the echo-lady murmured. “Traders who counted weight in coin, not bone. Lords who sketched a road on a map and called it mercy. The mountain kept what the living forgot.” She turned to Grimnir. “And you—noisy forge-thing—why do you laugh at graves?” Grimnir lowered the axe. “Because the dead deserve music,” he said. “Because silence is a bully. Because I promised a barkeep I’d come back with coin and I don’t like breaking promises.” He took a step closer, voice dropping. “Tell me what you want and I’ll pay it. In sweat. In story. In steel, if I must. But I won’t stop laughing. That’s my lantern.” For a heartbeat, the pass remembered being a road. The echo-woman’s expression softened into something almost human. “Bring them home,” she said. “Those taken. Those forgotten. Carry them past the cairns. Speak their names as if names were ropes.” Lyra nodded once. “Deal.” The figures thinned and re-formed into a murmur that pointed downhill. They found the caravaners in a ravine where the wind stacked snow like folded blankets. Alive, but faded—eyes washed-out, voices barely tethered. When the first woman recognized the lantern light, she began to cry without sound. Lyra wrapped her in a cloak. Grimnir lifted a boy who weighed as much as a rumor and tucked him against iron like against a stove. “Easy, lad,” he said. “You’re not lost. You’re late. There’s a difference.” They moved like penitent ants through the pass, every step a vow. It took the whole night and a stubborn sliver of the morning. The charm sang when the echoes pressed close, then calmed as the cairns accepted the living procession. At the last stack of stones, the air eased. Breath found its natural sound again; the snow squeaked under boots like normal, trivial music. Frostvik’s roofs appeared, smoke curling up like good news. The town lit when they arrived. Sella from the Red Walrus was first to reach Grimnir, then the mayor, then everyone—hands, blankets, broth that smelled like forgiveness. The rescued caravaners blinked, drank, and shivered back into themselves. Children counted fingers as if checking inventory. A boy tugged Lyra’s sleeve and whispered, “Were we ghosts?” “No,” Lyra said, voice gentle. “Just almost forgotten.” Mayor Torvik stood on the steps with a heavy purse knotted in his fist. He looked at the tired, soot-smudged dwarf and the tracker with ice in her hair and something raw in her eyes. “Five hundred silver crowns,” he said, holding the purse out. “The town owes you.” Grimnir took the weight. It felt like choices. He turned, faced the square, and raised the purse high. “Listen up!” he bellowed, and his laugh rode the words, softer than usual, but steady. “Half goes to the families who waited. The other half pays off the Walrus for last night’s… renovations.” “Half?” the mayor spluttered. “But—your risk—” “I collect in different currency,” Grimnir said, eyes creasing. “Stories. Debts of ale. Invitations to weddings where I’m not supposed to give a speech and absolutely will.” Sella crossed her arms, trying to look stern and failing. “You’re a menace,” she said. “But a generous menace.” “Put that on my headstone,” he replied. “And please, no angels. They’ll get ideas.” They celebrated that night because the living should. The Red Walrus overflowed with steam and music. The cheese wheel—rescued from its unnatural marriage—sat on a place of honor like a sleepy moon. The banged-up mercenaries from the other night slunk in, sheepish. One of them approached Grimnir and cleared his throat. “About the chandelier,” he said, “we fixed it. Sort of.” Grimnir eyed the chandelier, now hung at a jaunty tilt and adorned with pine boughs and a horseshoe. “It’s an improvement,” he decided. “Less liable to fall. More liable to inspire poetry.” Lyra found him at a quieter corner table where the foam settled in the mugs like a winter horizon. She held something small wrapped in cloth. “For you,” she said. He unwrapped it: the wire-and-bone charm that had sung the night open. It was bent now, tuned by cold and courage. “This is yours,” he said. “It will sing for anyone who needs reminding the dark isn’t everything,” Lyra replied. “Seems like your kind of instrument.” Grimnir turned it in his thick fingers. “I prefer axes that double as percussion,” he said, but his voice had a gravel-soft edge. “Thank you.” He set the charm on the table between them like a promise neither needed to say out loud. They drank without toasts for a while. The town laughed louder than its fear, and the rescued caravaners told each other the trick of being alive. When the door opened on a hush of snow, a tall man in black wool stepped in, carrying a staff etched with constellations. He scanned the room and pinned the dwarf and the tracker with a gaze that knew maps not drawn on paper. “Rundaxe,” he said. “Lyra.” He set a wax-stamped letter on the table. “From Jarl Vennar. He heard how you found his people. He asks your help with something larger. Something moving under the ice. It pays in more than silver.” Lyra arched a brow. “Larger than grief echoes?” “Larger than a town,” the man said. “A road through winter itself. We’ll talk at dawn.” He left as quietly as a thought you don’t want to have yet. Grimnir stared at the letter, then at Lyra. The room buzzed around them: clink of mugs, soft lute, chortling arguments about whether ghosts preferred red wine or white. “I did say lunch for the next drinking contest,” he sighed. “But dawn will do.” Lyra’s smile was a small, dangerous thing. “We should sleep.” “We should,” he agreed, and didn’t move. “You’re thinking about the pass,” she said. “I’m thinking,” Grimnir admitted, “about how laughter returned sound to a road. About how that shouldn’t work, and did.” He rubbed his thumb over the charm. “About how the echo-lady didn’t ask for revenge. Just a carrying home.” Lyra watched the fire chew through a log. “Some debts aren’t paid with blood,” she said. “Some are paid with names remembered, and dinners brought to doors that were quiet too long.” He raised his mug. “To dinners and names.” “To roads,” she added. “And to not letting them forget us.” They drank. The town rolled on: someone tried to juggle knives and immediately regretted it; a couple fell in love over stew; the cheese wheel was consulted on matters of policy and gave wise, silent counsel. Grimnir laughed when the knives surprised the juggler, then winced in sympathy when a blade nicked a chair. “Minimal casualties,” he said, approving. “We’re learning.” Later, when the inn quieted and the stars shouldered down close to the windows, Grimnir stepped outside into a night that smelled of pine and promise. Frostvik lay under snow like a sleeping dog—big, warm, and ready to bark at strangers. He looked north, where the pass cut a black seam across the world, and south, where roads coiled into cities he’d only broken furniture in once. He thought about the rescue, the singing wire, the echo’s request. He thought about the way Lyra had said “deal” without asking if five hundred crowns was still worth anything after you counted souls. He thought about Sella’s face when he tossed the purse to the families and the way his laugh had come out softer, as if he’d learned a new note and didn’t want to drop it. “Bittersweet,” he said to the night, testing the taste of the word. “Still sweet.” The door opened behind him; Lyra stepped out, cloak up, eyes bright with cold and thought. “You’re not planning to leave before breakfast, are you?” “I’d never insult breakfast like that,” he sniffed. “Besides, I owe the cheese wheel an apology.” She huffed a laugh, then sobered. “Tomorrow we talk to the Jarl’s man. Bigger work. He’ll want discipline we don’t have.” “He’ll get the kind we do,” Grimnir said. “Stubborn, loud, occasionally brilliant by accident.” He tucked the charm into a pocket near his heart. “And if winter is moving, we’ll ask it to dance.” Lyra looked at him for a long moment, as if measuring something she’d found unexpectedly valuable in a pawnshop. “All right, Iron Jester,” she said. “We’ll dance.” They stood together while snow reconsidered whether to fall. Somewhere inside, a chair scraped, a dog woofed in its sleep, and a mercenary apologized to a chandelier again. Life stitched itself back together with noisy thread. The pass behind them was a road again, bearing new footprints toward home. Grimnir’s grin was quieter, but no dimmer. He gave the night one last nod, as if to an old joke that still worked, and followed Lyra inside. In the morning, they would open the letter. For now, the town slept. Laughter had done what steel could not. And the dead—carried home—were finally silent in the right way.     Shop the Story: Carry a piece of The Iron Jester of the North into your world—where laughter battles the dark and courage wears a crooked grin. Each piece captures the raw spirit of Grimnir Rundaxe and the frostbitten humor that thawed a cursed mountain. Hang his legend with a Framed Print, its rich textures and bold colors turning any wall into a northern hall. Or, for a modern edge, choose the Acrylic Print—crystal-clear and gleaming like his laughter in the dark. Writers and dreamers can jot their own quests in the Spiral Notebook, perfect for recording adventures, tavern tales, or the occasional bad idea worth keeping. And for those who prefer atmosphere to ink, let the Tapestry drape your wall—soft as snow, fierce as laughter, carrying the Jester’s grin into every room it guards. From frost to firelight, from story to space—bring home the Iron Jester and keep the laughter echoing long after the ale is gone.

Captured Tales – by Bill Tiepelman

The Winged Promise

There are certain mornings when the world feels suspiciously optimistic. The air hums, the clouds look like they’ve been freshly laundered, and somewhere, someone is definitely about to do something heroic. This was one of those mornings—and Seraphina was already running late. Not that time meant much to a winged unicorn who refused to acknowledge calendars, clocks, or the tyranny of “urgent.” She moved on the schedule of destiny, which is to say, whenever she felt fabulous enough. She trotted into the frost-gilded meadow, feathers ruffling dramatically in the breeze, which was absolutely not an accident. The wind loved her. It had once written poetry about her hair, a fact she rarely mentioned because modesty, like gravity, was a concept she regarded as more of a suggestion. Her mane shimmered in shades of rose quartz and wild sunset, each strand looking like it had a better skincare routine than most sentient beings. Her horn gleamed gold, spiraled to a point sharp enough to slice through bad attitudes and unsolicited advice. “Good morning, mediocrity,” she declared, tossing her head toward the horizon. “Your reign is over.” It was the kind of thing that sounded magnificent when shouted into the dawn, even if the audience consisted mostly of mildly alarmed rabbits. She lifted one hoof, considered the view, and sighed. “Still no coffee stand. Tragic.” To her left, the meadow sloped down toward a grove of trees so ancient they’d stopped caring about photosynthesis and were now mainly gossip hubs. The elders whispered in creaks and rustles—half prophecy, half rumor. Seraphina caught fragments as she passed: “That’s her.” “Wings like sunrise.” “Bit of a diva though.” She smiled graciously, as only someone entirely aware of their mythic status could. Her mission, she reminded herself, was sacred. Somewhere beyond the Frost Plains lay the Sky Gate, a shimmering portal rumored to grant any wish uttered in sincerity. Which, to Seraphina, sounded alarmingly dangerous. Sincerity had never been her strong suit. “I’ll just improvise,” she said, because all the great miracles in history were apparently the result of insufficient planning. Halfway through her morning strut (it wasn’t walking, not with that level of sparkle), she came across a man leaning against a broken shrine. His armor was dull, his hair was thinning, and his expression suggested someone who’d seen too many quests and not enough naps. He looked up at her with the squint of someone who thought they might be hallucinating but didn’t want to be rude about it. “You’re… a unicorn,” he said carefully. “Pegacorn, technically. Wings and horn—buy one, get one free.” She fluttered her feathers for emphasis. “You’re welcome.” “Right.” He scratched his beard. “Name’s Alder. Used to be a knight. Gave it up when I realized dragons have unionized.” Seraphina’s eyes brightened. “Good for them! Workers’ rights are important. Also, side note, are they hiring? I have excellent flame-retardant qualities.” He blinked. “You’re… different from the unicorns I remember.” “That’s because I’m not a metaphor for purity,” she replied. “I’m a metaphor for self-improvement and glitter management.” They struck a deal, as one does when divine destiny meets mild existential boredom. Alder had a map, supposedly drawn by a drunken cartographer who claimed to have seen the Sky Gate from a hangover dream. Seraphina had wings, charm, and an unshakable belief that everything worked out for people who looked this good in gold. Together, they were unstoppable—or, at the very least, narratively promising. As they traveled, Seraphina noticed how the light clung to the frost, how each blade of grass glittered like applause. Alder, meanwhile, noticed his knees. They creaked in protest. “Why do you want to find the Sky Gate?” he asked. She thought about it, head tilted like a philosopher who’d once read a self-help book. “Because I can,” she said finally. “And because every story worth telling starts with someone being slightly unreasonable.” “You think you’ll get a wish?” “Oh, darling,” she said, eyes flashing. “I don’t wish. I negotiate.” The meadow opened up before them, stretching toward the horizon like a silk ribbon left by the gods after a particularly dramatic party. The air shimmered with possibility. Somewhere beneath the snow, a faint turquoise glow pulsed steadily, waiting to be discovered. Seraphina stopped mid-step, ears flicking. “Alder,” she said, her voice low and reverent. “Do you feel that?” He nodded slowly. “Destiny?” “No,” she said. “Wi-Fi. Finally.” And with that, the ground began to hum. The hum wasn’t so much a sound as a polite vibration, like the universe clearing its throat before delivering an important plot twist. The turquoise glow beneath the snow brightened, pulsing with all the subtlety of a disco ball at a meditation retreat. Seraphina tilted her head. “Well,” she said, “either we’ve found the Sky Gate or someone’s buried an unsupervised magical artifact again. I told them those things should come with warning labels.” Alder leaned closer, squinting at the glow. “Looks… alive.” “Oh, wonderful,” Seraphina said, taking an elegant step back. “I do love when reality starts to have opinions.” The light expanded, peeling away the snow like tissue paper until a massive sigil revealed itself—an intricate spiral carved into the frozen earth, glowing from within. It was beautiful, hypnotic, and, crucially, buzzing at a frequency known in ancient texts as “Plot-Relevant Energy.” Seraphina peered down at it. “Do you think it’s one of those ‘speak your true desire’ situations or more of a ‘touch it and die spectacularly’ kind of thing?” “Could be both,” Alder said grimly. “You first.” “Chivalry really is dead,” she muttered, lowering her muzzle toward the light. “Alright, mystery floor ornament, impress me.” The sigil flared brighter, and a voice—smooth, androgynous, and definitely overqualified for this assignment—filled the air. “IDENTIFY YOUR PURPOSE.” Seraphina blinked. “Oh dear. Existentialism before breakfast.” She cleared her throat. “I am Seraphina, majestic creature of flight, horn, and questionable patience. My purpose? To find the Sky Gate.” There was a pause. The kind of pause that suggested divine bureaucracy was at work. Then: “REASON FOR ENTRY?” “Honestly?” she said. “I was promised a view and perhaps spiritual enlightenment with optional snacks.” Alder muttered, “You can’t joke with ancient enchantments.” “Can’t or shouldn’t?” she countered. The sigil flickered as if sighing. “ACCESS DENIED. BE MORE INTERESTING.” Seraphina’s jaw dropped. “Excuse me?” “YOUR ANSWER LACKS NARRATIVE WEIGHT.” “Oh, that’s rich,” she said, wings flaring. “I’m a flying unicorn with self-esteem issues and impeccable comedic timing. What do you want, a tragic backstory?” “YES.” “Well, too bad. My trauma arc was discontinued after audience complaints.” The sigil dimmed slightly, almost sulking. Alder stepped forward, placing a gloved hand on her shoulder. “Maybe… tell it something true. Something real.” Seraphina stared at him. “You think reality is my strong suit?” He smiled faintly. “I think you hide behind the glitter.” For a moment, the meadow was quiet except for the soft sound of frost melting under the sigil’s glow. Seraphina’s reflection shimmered in the turquoise light—a creature of impossible grace, yes, but also of contradiction. She sighed, the kind of sigh that rattled the stars a bit. “Fine,” she said softly. “You want truth? Here it is. I fly because walking feels too much like settling. I shine because someone has to light the way when hope calls in sick. And I make jokes because it’s either that or cry sparkles, and that gets sticky.” The sigil pulsed once. Twice. Then exploded upward in a column of light so bright that even Seraphina’s vanity paused to take notes. When the glare subsided, the meadow was gone. They stood in open sky—endless blue beneath and around them, like someone had erased gravity from the to-do list. “Oh, splendid,” Seraphina said, inspecting the view. “We’ve achieved enlightenment. Or altitude sickness.” Alder wobbled beside her on a floating island of crystal. “Where… are we?” “The In-Between,” came a new voice. Smooth, amused, and accompanied by the faint scent of bureaucracy and lavender. From the mist emerged a figure draped in layers of light, their face obscured by a mask shaped like an infinity symbol. They radiated the serene menace of someone who’s worked customer service for the divine. “Welcome, travelers,” the being said. “I am the Archivist of Unfulfilled Promises.” “Ah,” Seraphina said. “So basically everyone’s therapist.” “In a sense.” The Archivist gestured, and hundreds—no, thousands—of glowing scrolls unfurled behind them, each one whispering faintly. “Every broken vow, forgotten resolution, and half-finished destiny ends up here.” “Oh, you’re basically the cloud storage of disappointment.” “A succinct summary.” Alder peered around. “And the Sky Gate?” “It exists,” said the Archivist, “but only those who carry an unbroken promise may pass through. A rare qualification these days.” Seraphina arched a brow. “So you’re saying I can’t get in because I’ve bailed on Pilates too many times?” “Among other things.” “Wonderful,” she muttered. “A celestial TSA with better lighting.” The Archivist ignored her and turned toward Alder. “You, knight—what promise brought you here?” Alder hesitated. His jaw tightened. “To protect the realm,” he said finally. “But I failed. The wars ended without me. Turns out the realm didn’t need protecting—it needed therapy.” “Hmm.” The Archivist’s eyes glowed faintly behind the mask. “And you, Seraphina? What promise remains unbroken in your heart?” She thought about it. Really thought. Then, softly: “To never be boring.” The Archivist paused. “That’s… surprisingly valid.” “I know,” she said. “I took an oath in glitter.” “Then perhaps,” the Archivist said slowly, “you may yet earn entry. But only if you prove that your defiance serves a greater purpose.” “Define ‘greater.’” “Something beyond yourself.” Seraphina groaned. “Ugh, altruism. Fine. Do I save a village or host a motivational workshop?” “That depends,” said the Archivist, “on whether you’re willing to risk everything you’ve ever loved to keep a promise you don’t fully understand.” There was a long silence. Even the clouds seemed to hold their breath. Then Seraphina smiled—a slow, dangerous smile that looked like sunrise preparing for mischief. “Well,” she said, unfurling her wings, “that sounds fun.” And before anyone could stop her, she dove straight off the island, vanishing into the light below. Falling was not new to Seraphina. She’d done it often, usually on purpose and almost always with flair. But this was different. This was not the kind of falling that relied on gravity—it was the kind that relied on trust. The air tore past her wings, streaks of light peeling from her feathers like molten silk. She was surrounded by color, by sound, by the intimate sense that the universe was watching, popcorn in hand, murmuring, “Well, this should be interesting.” Below her, reality stretched open like a curtain, revealing… everything. Mountains folded into oceans; time bled sideways; galaxies spun like drunk ballerinas. She caught a glimpse of the past (she looked fabulous), the future (still fabulous), and something else—something smaller and infinitely more terrifying: herself without wings. Just a creature on the ground, ordinary and breakable. The vision clung to her ribs like an unwanted revelation. She flared her wings and stopped short, hovering in a space that wasn’t quite sky and wasn’t quite dream. “All right,” she said aloud, “if this is symbolic personal growth, I want a refund.” From the brightness ahead, a voice spoke—not the bureaucratic tones of the Archivist, nor the sarcastic hum of the sigil, but something softer, closer, as if it came from behind her heart. “You are almost there, Seraphina.” “Almost where?” she demanded. “Existentially? Emotionally? Because logistically, I’m floating in a plot device.” “The Sky Gate is not a place,” the voice replied. “It is a promise fulfilled.” Seraphina blinked. “That’s it? That’s the twist? I could’ve guessed that on page one.” But the light pulsed, patient, unoffended. It wasn’t there to impress her. It was there to reveal her. And in the glowing emptiness, she understood: all her joking, her glitter, her refusal to be ordinary—it wasn’t avoidance. It was survival. She’d never stopped moving because stopping meant remembering how easily hope could shatter. And yet, here she was, wings spread, defying the gravity of cynicism itself. Maybe that was enough. “All right,” she whispered. “Let’s finish this properly.” The world answered. Light folded inward, creating a bridge of crystal and air that shimmered with every color she’d ever dreamed in. At the far end stood Alder, looking bewildered but remarkably alive. His armor shone again—not from battle polish, but from purpose rediscovered. He looked at her, and for the first time in centuries, his face broke into a grin. “You jumped,” he said. “I fall elegantly,” she corrected, landing beside him. “Also, I found enlightenment. It’s very shiny and only slightly judgmental.” “You did it,” Alder said. “You kept your promise.” “I said I’d never be boring,” she said with a wink. “Nearly dying midair counts as interesting.” The light around them deepened, coalescing into a great arch of gold and sapphire flame—the Sky Gate. It hummed with the quiet intensity of something ancient and utterly unimpressed by drama. A single phrase appeared above it, glowing in script so ornate it was practically smug: ENTRY GRANTED: TERMS MAY VARY. “That’s not ominous at all,” Alder said. Seraphina grinned. “I’ve signed worse contracts.” And with a toss of her mane and the kind of confidence that makes gods nervous, she stepped through the gate. There was no trumpet, no burst of divine music. Just warmth, the faint scent of starlight and cinnamon, and the dizzying realization that she was no longer falling or flying—she was floating. The world had turned itself inside out, revealing not heaven, not paradise, but a coffee shop. A small one. In fact, it was the same shrine from earlier, only now with working espresso machines and a chalkboard sign that read: “Welcome to The Winged Promise Café — Now Serving Meaning.” Behind the counter stood the Archivist, now in an apron, pouring milk with unholy precision. “Congratulations,” they said. “You’ve transcended.” Seraphina blinked. “Into barista work?” “Into understanding,” the Archivist replied. “Every promise kept reshapes reality. Yours demanded joy, so reality obliged.” “And Alder?” she asked, glancing back. He sat at a table near the window, sipping something steaming, laughing with a group of wide-eyed newcomers. The weariness in him was gone, replaced by quiet amusement. He raised his cup toward her. “Hazelnut,” he mouthed. “Good man,” she said, smiling. “I’ll have one too.” The Archivist slid a mug across the counter. On the foam, perfectly drawn in cinnamon, was her reflection—wings wide, eyes fierce, smirk eternal. “So what happens now?” she asked. “Now,” said the Archivist, “you keep your promise. You keep the world interesting.” Seraphina took a sip. It was divine. The kind of coffee that made angels reconsider their dietary restrictions. She turned to the door, where the horizon shimmered like a new page waiting to be written. Outside, the world glowed brighter—perhaps because she was in it. “Well,” she said, flicking her tail, “someone has to keep the magic caffeinated.” And with that, Seraphina stepped out into the dawn once more—no longer searching for the Sky Gate, because she had become it. The Winged Promise was not a destination. It was her. Somewhere above, the universe chuckled softly. “Finally,” it said. “A sequel worth watching.”     Bring a piece of The Winged Promise home. Let Seraphina’s wit, wings, and wonder brighten your space — or your desk, or even your coffee-fueled journaling sessions. Each piece captures the humor, magic, and radiant defiance of her story. ✨ Elevate your walls with a Framed Print — a perfect blend of fantasy elegance and fine-art realism. ⚡ Prefer something bold and modern? Discover the Metal Print, where color meets strength and every feather gleams. 🎨 Add warmth and texture with a Canvas Print — perfect for dreamers and décor romantics alike. 🖋️ Capture your own adventures in a Spiral Notebook, where imagination and ink take flight. 💫 Or keep Seraphina close with a Sticker that brings a touch of magic to laptops, journals, and late-night ideas. Each item from the Winged Promise Collection is crafted with care and high-quality printing, ensuring every shimmer and shadow sings. Because a promise this bold deserves to live beyond the page — and maybe on your wall.

Captured Tales – by Bill Tiepelman

The Kiss That Creates Worlds

The Birth of the Ocean Dream The hotel smelled faintly of salt and old paint. Not the comforting kind of paint, the one that reminds you of fresh renovations and clean slates, but the pungent, vaguely toxic odor of something applied badly decades ago. The wallpaper peeled in damp curls, the carpet swelled underfoot as though the floorboards beneath were breathing, and the woman at the reception desk never actually blinked. Still, it was cheap, and the storm outside was not. He dragged his suitcase through the lobby like a guilty secret, paintbrushes poking from the pocket of his coat like contraband. She followed, her heels tapping against the warped tiles, her white dress far too elegant for a seaside dive that probably doubled as a cockroach commune. The storm rumbled beyond the glass doors, thunder growling like an old drunk in the back corner of a bar. “I booked us the ocean-view room,” he said. She raised an eyebrow at the dripping chandelier. “Lovely. Maybe the ceiling will collapse and we can watch the storm from bed.” The receptionist slid the key across the counter without looking up. It was a brass key, heavy and old, stamped with the number 13. Her nails were painted the color of old blood, chipped at the edges. “Enjoy your stay,” she said, though her tone implied they probably wouldn’t. The hallway upstairs was a tunnel of mildew and bad decisions. Carpets squelched under their shoes. A radiator hissed even though it hadn’t worked in years. At the end of the corridor, the door to Room 13 groaned when the key slid into the lock, as though it resented being opened at all. The room was worse. Curtains stained with salt, sheets patterned with mysterious constellations of bleach, a mirror so warped it seemed to show strangers instead of reflections. But the view—oh, the view. The ocean stretched wild and black beyond the glass, frothing waves heaving against the horizon, the storm sky like bruised velvet lit with veins of lightning. “Romantic,” she deadpanned, throwing herself across the sagging mattress. He smiled. “Romantic enough.”     They’d been fighting before the trip. About what, neither could quite remember now—money, art, sex, the usual suspects. But standing there, storm roaring outside, he felt a pull toward her that words couldn’t touch. His fingers tightened on the paintbrush he hadn’t meant to bring. It was stupid, really, carting a tool of creation into a place where everything seemed to be falling apart. She sat up, eyes narrowed. “You’re holding that like a weapon.” “Maybe it is.” Before she could roll her eyes, he crossed the room and kissed her. The storm bent around them. It was subtle at first: a hitch in the rhythm of the waves, a flicker of lightning that froze mid-strike. Then the air hummed, low and dangerous, and the walls of the hotel rippled like wet canvas. He could feel the kiss spilling outward, not just heat and breath, but color. Reds leaked from their mouths, blues spiraled from her fingertips, gold poured from his brush hand. The room filled with it, choking, radiant, impossible. She pulled back, gasping. “What the hell—” “Don’t stop,” he whispered. His voice shook, but not with fear. With awe. So she didn’t. And the world came undone.     The bedspread unraveled into ribbons of light. The wallpaper curled outward and floated away, disintegrating into glowing dust. Through the window, the storm collapsed into fractals: perfect spirals blooming and folding into themselves, an infinite geometry masquerading as ocean. “Are we…” she panted between kisses, “…breaking physics?” He smirked. “No. We’re redecorating.” The hotel groaned, a long, unhappy sound, like the building itself disapproved. The lightbulb overhead shattered, raining sparks that transformed into fireflies midair. His paintbrush trembled in his hand, then burst like a flare, spewing pigment that tasted of cinnamon and champagne, that stuck to their skin in shimmering stains. Outside, the sea rose higher. The waves weren’t water anymore—they were patterns, fractal swirls folding endlessly, curling like fingerprints too massive to comprehend. The storm clouds above bled lavender and gold, dripping paint instead of rain. And still, they kissed. Until she tore away with a laugh, stumbling back. Her dress flickered between silk and mist, each thread unraveling into streaks of light. “Okay,” she gasped. “This is insane. We’re—God, look at us—we’re coming apart.” He looked at his own hands. His veins pulsed with color, paint bleeding through his skin like cracks in porcelain. He flexed his fingers, and the walls obeyed, bending like wet plaster. “Oh,” he breathed. “Oh, fuck. We’re not just painting the world.” She stared at him, eyes wide, her hair catching the glow like a halo. “What then?” “We’re painting ourselves out of it.”     They collapsed together on the bed, laughing like lunatics, drunk on power and fear and lust. Every touch sparked more impossible phenomena: the sheets melted into rivers of watercolor, the ceiling opened to a sky that pulsed with new constellations, the storm outside howled like a living thing. Between kisses, she muttered, “You know, some couples just… go on vacation.” “Boring couples,” he replied. “We’re artists.” The room shook violently, as if disagreeing. The walls rippled outward, stretching, tearing, until the ocean itself bled into the floorboards. Fractal water spilled across the carpet, flooding the room in patterns that curled around their ankles like affectionate serpents. And in the middle of it all, a knock at the door. They froze. The knock came again, louder. Then a folded note slid under the door, damp at the edges. She picked it up, squinting in the kaleidoscope light. Dear Guests, it read in spidery handwriting. Management politely requests that you refrain from reality-warping activities after midnight. Some of us are trying to sleep. Sincerely, The Hotel Staff. She snorted, nearly choking on laughter. “Oh my God. They know.” He grinned, paint dripping from his teeth. “Then let’s give them something worth complaining about.” And he kissed her again. The ocean roared approval. The walls shattered into canvases of living fire. The ceiling fell upward into galaxies of liquid light. And somewhere, deep beneath the fractal waves, something stirred. Something waiting. The Fractured Horizon The next morning began with the sound of waves knocking politely on the window. Not crashing. Not pounding. Knocking. As though the ocean had developed knuckles sometime after midnight and wanted a word. He rolled over, groggy, the paintbrush still clutched in his fist like a child’s teddy bear. She lay beside him, hair tangled across the pillow, her dress—or what was left of it—draped over the radiator like a surrendered flag. The room was humid with salt and something more dangerous, a faint electric tang that clung to their skin. “Tell me that was a dream,” she muttered without opening her eyes. “If it was, it’s one hell of a recurring one,” he said. He gestured to the wall, which was no longer wallpaper but a mural of spirals stretching infinitely inward. The carpet had given up pretending to be carpet and was now a slow tide of fractal foam, curling like lace at the bedposts. She sat up, rubbed her face, and groaned. “Jesus Christ. We broke the room.” He smirked. “We renovated the room.” Outside, the sea was still shifting, spirals blooming in every wave. Entire patches of water folded in on themselves, repeating like mirrors held face-to-face. It wasn’t just an ocean anymore—it was an equation written in liquid, and the math was very, very wrong.     The knock came again. The same slow, deliberate tap-tap-tap. He dragged himself to the window, pulled aside the curtains—now melted into ribbons of watercolor—and peered down. On the shore, standing knee-deep in foam, were… themselves. Copies. Doubles. Two figures kissing passionately in the surf, their bodies flickering like film reels stuck between frames. Every time their mouths met, another spiral erupted from the ocean. Dozens of fractal selves lined the horizon, some laughing, some crying, some shouting at each other, some tangled in embraces too private for polite company. “Oh shit,” he whispered. “We’ve gone viral.” She joined him at the window, squinting at the army of reflections. “Those are us. Those are literally us.” “Don’t be so critical,” he said. “Some of them are pulling it off better than we did.” One of the reflections waved, then mouthed something too far away to hear. Another hurled a rock at the window. It hit with a splash instead of a thud, dissolving into droplets that crawled upward across the glass like insects. She stepped back. “Okay, no. This is too much. We’ve officially crossed into nightmare territory.” He shook his head. “Nightmares don’t leave notes.” As if summoned, another envelope slid under the door. Damp edges, spidery handwriting. She bent to pick it up, heart hammering. The paper pulsed faintly, like something alive. Dear Guests, it read. Your reality distortion has been noted. Please confine your anomalies to designated areas: the lounge, the basement, or the roof. Unauthorized spawning of duplicates on the beachfront will incur a cleaning fee. – Management. She laughed, the sound high and brittle. “They’re charging us for this?” He frowned at the note. “Wait. Did they say basement?”     The hotel basement was not on the map by the elevator. In fact, the elevator didn’t even have a “B” button. But when he pressed the paintbrush against the panel, another floor revealed itself, glowing faintly in gold. She gave him a look—half warning, half curiosity—and together they descended. The doors opened onto a hallway made entirely of water. Walls sloshed with tides, doors swam in and out of existence, and the floor bent like a pier in heavy surf. The air smelled briny, thick with electricity, as though lightning had struck just seconds before. They walked carefully, her heels clicking on something that might once have been marble, his brush tapping nervously against his thigh. “This feels like the part of the dream where we die,” she muttered. “Correction,” he said. “This feels like the part of the dream where we find treasure. Or a minibar.” At the end of the corridor, a set of double doors swung open on their own. Inside was the hotel lounge—or something pretending to be one. Tables floated lazily on the surface of an endless pool. Guests sat in chairs that rocked gently on the waves, sipping cocktails that shimmered in colors not found on earth. A piano played itself in the corner, keys striking notes that spiraled upward and looped back down like liquid staircases. Behind the bar, a man who looked suspiciously like him—but older, sadder, eyes hollow—was polishing glasses that weren’t there. “Welcome,” the bartender said without smiling. “You’ve made a mess.” She stiffened. “What the hell is this?” “This,” the bartender said, gesturing to the pool, “is what happens when you kiss too hard.”     They sat—awkwardly—at the bar. The bartender poured them drinks that tasted like memories: her glass fizzed with the sweetness of their first kiss in college, his burned with the bitterness of every fight they’d ever had. Neither could finish. “Who are you?” he asked finally. The bartender smirked. “You, of course. Or one version of you. Every kiss you’ve given her spawned another. Every choice you didn’t make, every word you swallowed back—it all painted itself into being. We’re the runoff. The duplicates. The fractals.” “Bullshit,” she said. “You’re not him. He doesn’t brood like a sad waiter.” The bartender’s smirk cracked, just for a second. “Not anymore, maybe.” From the pool rose another figure—a copy of her this time, dripping with seawater, eyes wild. She screamed, lunged, and tried to claw at the real woman’s face before dissolving into foam. Ripples spread outward, birthing more shapes, more near-twins with distorted features, laughter warped into sobs. “They’re unstable,” the bartender warned. “They want your place. And they’ll take it, unless you go deeper. To the source.” “The source of what?” he asked. The bartender leaned close, whispering like it was a curse. “The kiss.”     The lounge began to sink. Tables tipped. Guests—if they were ever guests at all—slipped screaming into the black water, their bodies splitting into spirals as they drowned. The piano kept playing as it sank beneath the surface, keys bubbling with unfinished chords. She grabbed his hand, eyes wide. “We need to get out.” The bartender chuckled bitterly. “Out? Oh no. You don’t get out. Not until you finish what you started.” The water rose higher, fractals glowing beneath the surface like bioluminescent traps. His brush vibrated in his grip, pulling him toward the pool. He realized—terrifyingly—that it wanted to paint again. That it had to. “No,” he muttered. “Not here. Not now.” But the floor gave way. The bar crumbled, the ceiling dissolved into mist, and suddenly they were falling, tumbling, plunging into the fractal sea below. The last thing he saw before the water closed over them was another note pinned to the bar by a broken glass: Basement fees will be added to your bill. – Management. The Infinite Embrace The water swallowed them whole. Down, down, down they sank, through spirals of foam that pulsed like arteries. Every breath tasted of salt and color, every heartbeat echoed a rhythm not entirely their own. The fractal sea was not water as the world knew it—it was recursion made liquid, equations turned tidal. The deeper they fell, the more the ocean folded back on itself, repeating their descent a thousand ways in a thousand versions of them. She tried to scream, but the sound came out as a burst of violet bubbles that rearranged themselves into words before dissolving: where are we going. He tightened his grip on the paintbrush and mouthed back, bubbles spilling from his lips: to the source.     They landed—if such a thing could be said—on a platform of light. Beneath them spiraled a vortex so vast it dwarfed mountains, a churning whirlpool of every kiss they’d ever shared. Thousands of selves flickered across its surface: their first kiss outside the library, their drunken kiss in the back of a cab, their angry kiss after a fight, their desperate kiss after too many days apart. Each moment looped endlessly, feeding into the storm of love and creation below. She staggered forward, knees weak. “Holy shit. This is… this is us. All of us.” He nodded, though his jaw was tight. “And it’s out of control.” The vortex shuddered, and from its surface rose their duplicates—thousands this time, fractal selves pulling free like strands of seaweed. Some looked perfect, exact copies. Others were grotesque distortions: too many eyes, too many teeth, mouths locked in silent screams. The copies swarmed upward, climbing the platform like ants. The air buzzed with whispers: we are you we are you we are you. She stumbled back, clutching his arm. “What do they want?” “Our place,” he said grimly. “They want to stop being echoes.”     The first duplicate lunged. He swung the brush instinctively, and paint flared outward in a whip of molten gold, slicing the figure in half. It dissolved into spirals, vanishing with a hiss. But more climbed up, dozens, hundreds. The platform shook under their weight. “We can’t fight them all,” she cried. “There are too many.” “Then we don’t fight,” he said. His voice broke, raw and terrified, but sure. “We finish.” “Finish what?” He turned to her, eyes glowing with the same impossible colors as the sea. “The kiss. All of them. Every version. We don’t just make the world—we become it.” She stared at him, horrified. “That’ll kill us.” “No,” he said softly. “It’ll end us. There’s a difference.”     The duplicates swarmed closer, their whispers building into a roar. She felt the pull of them, the longing in their eyes, the desperate hunger to be real. And she knew he was right. They couldn’t outrun infinity. They could only surrender to it. She took his face in her hands, paint smearing across his cheeks. “If this is it,” she whispered, “then kiss me like you mean it.” He laughed, even here, even now. “I always do.” And then they kissed.     The world cracked open. The platform exploded into light. The vortex surged upward, swallowing them, swallowing everything. Their bodies dissolved into streaks of color, paint and flesh indistinguishable, their laughter echoing even as their mouths ceased to exist. Every duplicate screamed—not in rage, but in release—as they merged back into the spiral, reclaimed by the original fire. For a moment, there was nothing but color. Reds that tasted like wine, blues that rang like cathedral bells, golds that burned the tongue with sugar and smoke. Fractals bloomed endlessly, each spiral birthing another, each kiss feeding the next, a chain reaction of intimacy rewriting the laws of reality. She felt herself stretch across eternity, her body no longer a body but a pattern, an emotion, a force. He was there too, everywhere, their essences tangled, inseparable. They weren’t two lovers anymore. They were the kiss itself. The beginning. The origin point. The heartbeat at the center of every storm.     When the light finally dimmed, the sea was calm. The hotel stood on the shore, though it looked different now—cleaner, taller, its windows glowing with warmth. Guests wandered in and out, laughing, drinking, their eyes shining with strange new colors. The receptionist at the front desk finally blinked, once, as if satisfied. Everywhere, the ocean was filled with spirals. Tiny fractal blooms unfurled in the waves, glowing softly in the moonlight. Locals would later say they were just tricks of the tide. But those who stayed in Room 13 knew better. They said that if you listened closely at night, you could hear them—two voices laughing, arguing, whispering, kissing—woven into the sound of the surf. Legends spread. Lovers traveled from all over the world to stay at the seaside hotel, hoping to catch a glimpse of the myth. Some claimed they saw the couple’s silhouettes in the foam. Others swore that when they kissed on the balcony, the stars above shifted slightly, as though aligning to watch. And the hotel—no longer shabby, no longer forgotten—became a place of pilgrimage. Not for the beds, not for the bar, but for the story whispered in every room: that once, two lovers had kissed so hard they created a world, and that world had never quite stopped dreaming of them.     Somewhere, deep beneath the calm water, the spirals continued to bloom. Patterns within patterns, kisses within kisses. And at the very center, inseparable, eternal, they remained. The kiss that had created worlds.     Bring “The Kiss That Creates Worlds” Into Your World Love doesn’t just exist on the canvas — now it can live in your space, your style, and your story. Inspired by Bill and Linda Tiepelman’s The Kiss That Creates Worlds, each piece captures the same fusion of passion, surrealism, and dreamlike motion that defines the art itself. Explore our curated collection below and make this moment of creation your own: Framed Print – Elevate your space with museum-quality framing that accentuates every glowing detail of this surreal embrace. Acrylic Print – Experience luminous depth and clarity; colors appear suspended in air, much like the lovers themselves. Tote Bag – Carry creation with you. A durable, artful bag that turns errands into acts of expression. Beach Towel – Dry off in divine design. Perfect for seaside dreamers and lovers of color-splashed horizons. Shower Curtain – Let surreal romance transform your morning ritual. Bold, vivid, and impossible to ignore. Each item brings the story’s energy to life — vibrant, emotive, and utterly unique. Visit unfocussed.com to explore more art that blurs the boundary between dream and reality.

Captured Tales – by Bill Tiepelman

The Tree Remembers

The Audit of Seasons At dusk, the four-seasons tree stood in a desert that looked like someone had forgotten to water the planet for a few millennia. The sky was painted in molten apricot and bruised lavender, and the sand shimmered as if it had once been a sea that decided to retire early. Between the dunes stretched a procession of mirrors—tall, sleek, unapologetically smug—each one capturing the same tree in a different mood, as though nature had hired a photographer to document her emotional range. The tree, with its crown of white blossoms shading into flame-tipped leaves, was clearly the star of the show. Its reflection shimmered in a mirror-pool at its roots, an upside-down echo more honest than truth. “You’re early,” said the tree, without opening a mouth—because of course it didn’t have one. “Time waits for no one,” I replied. “Neither does curiosity.” The tree chuckled, a dry, papery sound like old letters catching fire. “Curiosity,” it said, “is how deserts get populated with mirrors and metaphors.” We stood in silence for a while—the kind of silence that hums with ancient Wi-Fi. The tree looked tired but radiant, like someone who’s lived through every breakup, job interview, and therapy session imaginable, yet still gets up in the morning looking fabulous. “You’ve seen things,” I said, the way people say to veterans and mothers. “Yes,” it sighed. “I’ve been spring, summer, autumn, winter, and every awkward in-between. I’ve shed myself more times than I can count, yet here I am—still photosynthesizing.” It paused, then added with a grin I could somehow feel: “Growth is exhausting, darling, but what’s the alternative? Stagnation?” A hot breeze passed, carrying the smell of dust and nostalgia. I looked at the nearest mirror; it showed the tree in full spring bloom, pink and naive, dripping with newness. The next one was summer—a blaze of confidence and overcommitment. Then autumn—gold and wistful, the color of goodbyes said gracefully. And finally, winter—a study in restraint, the art of keeping still until the world remembers warmth again. “You’re like an entire life in syndication,” I said. “Reruns and all.” The tree laughed—a sound that rustled across centuries. “I call it an audit,” it said. “Every reflection is a receipt for who I’ve been. I keep them here so I don’t forget.” I blinked. “You keep mirrors of yourself in the desert to remember?” The tree shrugged its branches. “Don’t you keep photos on your phone? Same idea. Just with better lighting.” I tried to look closer into one of the mirrors, but my reflection kept changing—sometimes older, sometimes younger, sometimes not me at all. It was unnerving, like catching your future self peeking around a corner. “Why am I here?” I asked finally. “Because,” said the tree, “you asked to see what remembering looks like. You wanted to know how something can lose everything, season after season, and still call it growth.” It tilted slightly, as though confiding in me. “Humans think memory is about holding on. It’s not. It’s about composting. You turn old stories into soil.” That line hit like a sermon whispered through roots. I thought of my own seasons—the messy rebirths, the times I mistook exhaustion for stability. “So you forget on purpose?” I asked. “No,” said the tree, “I remember until it stops hurting, then I let the wind have it. Pain makes good mulch.” It glanced toward the horizon, where the sun was melting into amber glass. “You can’t grow without decay. You can’t blossom if you hoard every fallen leaf like a receipt for suffering.” I nodded, pretending to understand but also realizing this tree had just summarized every self-help book I’d ever read. The mirrors caught the fading light, bending it into endless corridors of possibility. Somewhere far off, the sand began to sing—a soft vibration, like the desert humming to itself. “Do they ever break?” I asked, gesturing to the mirrors. “Sometimes,” the tree said. “Usually when I’m trying to learn humility. Reflection can only hold so much truth before it cracks.” I wanted to laugh, cry, and apply for an emotional support cactus all at once. The air shimmered, and the horizon folded inward like origami. “So what happens when you finish your audit?” I asked. The tree considered this for a long time, then said, “When I’ve remembered enough, I’ll forget on purpose again. That’s how eternity keeps itself interesting.” It was then I realized the mirrors weren’t really about time—they were about perspective. Every season was a version of the self, valid, temporary, and completely convinced it was the main character. And maybe that was the cosmic joke: none of them were wrong. As the light deepened into velvet dusk, I turned to leave. “Any advice for a mortal with too many tabs open in their soul?” I asked. The tree rustled thoughtfully. “Yes,” it said. “Close the ones that don’t sing back.” Reflections File for Appeal The mirrors began to hum. Not a polite hum, either—this was the deep, resonant kind that suggested something ancient had just logged in. A dozen panels tilted toward me, catching light that shouldn’t have existed, and the reflections started talking over each other like guests on a bad podcast. Each mirror claimed to represent the “true self” of the tree, which felt very on-brand for any group chat involving identity. The spring mirror, all blush and optimism, fluttered with blossoms. “I’m the version that believed love fixes everything,” it chirped. The summer mirror rolled its leaves. “Please. You were just hormones with a fragrance.” Autumn swirled with copper and nostalgia, sipping imaginary chai. “I’m the one who learned to let go.” Winter just stared, frosted and unbothered. “I’m the only one who knows how to rest,” it said coolly. The tree sighed like a therapist who’s seen too much. “Every year,” it muttered, “they do this. They file for appeal.” I folded my arms. “Appeal?” “Yes,” the tree said, “each version thinks it deserves to be the permanent me. None of them realize permanence is a performance.” The spring reflection gasped. “That’s cruel!” “That’s honest,” said winter. “Cruelty is honesty with frostbite.” I stood there, ankle-deep in sand and metaphors, feeling like an unwilling jury member in the trial of time. Each reflection wanted validation. Spring wanted praise for being brave enough to begin. Summer wanted credit for abundance. Autumn demanded acknowledgment for grace in loss. Winter just wanted everyone to shut up. “You’re all exhausting,” I said, rubbing my temples. “No offense.” “None taken,” said autumn sweetly. “Exhaustion is part of growth. We wear it like eyeliner.” The desert wind stirred again, carrying with it whispers that might have been memories—or ads for enlightenment. I noticed the mirrors had arranged themselves into a rough circle. “What’s happening?” I asked. “The tribunal,” said the tree. “Every so often, I let them argue until they realize they’re the same being. It saves me therapy money.” The tree turned one limb toward me. “You’re welcome to watch, but fair warning—it gets existential.” Spring was first to speak. “I represent hope,” it declared, petals trembling. “Without me, nothing starts. I am joy, I am innocence, I am the first spark after the dark.” Summer followed, voice loud and confident. “Without me, you’d still be a seedling. I bring strength, growth, abundance, and the glorious illusion of control.” Autumn, ever the poet, swayed in slow motion. “Control is overrated. I’m the beauty of letting go. I’m what happens when you stop pretending everything lasts.” Winter waited, then finally said, “I am silence, and that’s why you all fear me. But in silence, the roots remember what to become next.” The arguments continued until I began to suspect that introspection, like tequila, should be taken in moderation. I watched as the mirrors flickered through scenes of lives not quite mine: a younger me dancing in the rain, an older me writing apologies too late, a version that moved to the mountains, another that never left home. Each reflection carried a what-if. “Are you showing me my seasons?” I asked. The tree’s bark creaked like laughter. “I told you, reflection gets greedy. It loves a good cross-reference.” I wanted to look away, but one mirror held me hostage—autumn again. In it, I was sitting under a version of the tree with hair the color of leaves, reading a book titled *How to Be Fine With Almost Everything.* My reflection looked up, smiled, and said, “You’re late.” “Late for what?” I asked. “Acceptance,” she said. “We’ve been waiting for you.” The mirror shimmered, and I caught the scent of cinnamon, loss, and something like peace. I turned back to the tree. “Do you remember all this?” It nodded slowly. “Every leaf, every word, every mistake. Memory’s a burden, but forgetting too much makes you hollow. Balance is survival.” The tribunal reached what looked like a consensus—or exhaustion. The mirrors dimmed, muttering philosophical half-apologies. “So who wins?” I asked. “None of them,” said the tree. “They merge. They dissolve back into me. That’s the trick of being whole—you stop trying to crown one version as better than the others.” The mirrors folded inward, swallowing their light. I realized then that wholeness wasn’t a shape but a sound—the soft click of fragments agreeing to coexist. “Doesn’t it hurt?” I asked. “It always hurts,” said the tree, “but pain’s just the echo of growth. You humans spend so much energy avoiding it, when really, it’s the receipt for transformation.” The desert shimmered in response, like the horizon nodding. “You talk like a philosopher,” I said. “I talk like something that’s had time to practice,” the tree replied. We watched as the mirrors sank slightly into the sand, forming a mosaic that caught starlight. “You said they file for appeal,” I said. “Do they ever win?” The tree chuckled. “Once, autumn almost did. She argued that surrender is the truest form of wisdom. But then spring got sentimental and bloomed all over the paperwork.” A silence settled again, but this one was kind—the silence of digestion after truth. I sat beneath the tree, tracing patterns in the sand. “What happens if you stop remembering?” I asked. “Then I start dying,” said the tree softly. “Not all at once—just in pieces. A memory lost here, a meaning misplaced there. That’s how deserts grow.” I nodded. “That’s how people grow, too.” The tree’s branches quivered in agreement. “Exactly. Every forgetting makes room for something else. The trick is to choose what you forget.” I laughed. “That sounds like selective amnesia.” “No,” said the tree, “it’s curation.” The mirrors flickered again, and now they showed not the seasons but *moments*: hands planting a seed, lovers arguing under rain, someone crying in a parked car, a child chasing dust motes. Each one glowed for a second before fading. “These aren’t all mine,” I said. “No,” said the tree. “They’re borrowed. Memory leaks between living things like stories through generations. Every root, every footprint leaves a whisper.” That thought lodged somewhere deep in me, between cynicism and wonder. “So, basically, we’re all plagiarists of experience?” The tree laughed again—an indulgent sound. “Exactly! We remix existence. Every life is a cover song. The melody’s universal, but the lyrics are yours.” I wanted to ask more—about purpose, time, and why enlightenment never comes with a user manual—but the mirrors began dimming. “They’re tired,” said the tree. “Reflection burns a lot of energy.” “So does overthinking,” I said. “Oh,” replied the tree, “that’s your species’ national pastime.” We sat there as twilight deepened, surrounded by a soft halo of starlit glass. The desert cooled, and a faint breeze carried the smell of unseen flowers—ghost blossoms that only bloom after dark. “You ever get bored of all this wisdom?” I asked. “Constantly,” said the tree. “But boredom is where wonder hibernates. You just have to poke it gently until it wakes.” It occurred to me that maybe the tree wasn’t just remembering—it was teaching itself how to keep remembering differently. “So what’s next?” I asked. The tree rustled thoughtfully. “Soon, I’ll rest. The mirrors will sleep. And you’ll dream of me as something else—perhaps a metaphor, perhaps a coffee mug quote. But you’ll remember enough to come back.” “Why me?” I asked. “Because you listened,” said the tree. A final mirror lingered, half-buried in sand. It showed me walking away, already smaller, already fading into dusk. I wanted to step through, to see where that path led, but the tree stopped me. “Not yet,” it said. “Reflection without action is just narcissism.” I sighed. “Then what do I do?” The tree leaned slightly, its shadow brushing mine. “Go live enough that your next reflection has something new to say.” Terms and Conditions of Becoming By the time the last mirror stopped shimmering, the desert had fallen into that hushed, pre-midnight stillness when even the stars seem to be holding their breath. The four-seasons tree stood quieter now, its branches curved like parentheses around the night. “You look tired,” I said. “Tired,” the tree replied, “is what wisdom feels like on the surface.” It stretched, creaking softly, bark glowing faintly in moonlight. “You’ve met my reflections, listened to my bickering memories, and watched me argue with myself. Most people stop at recognition. You stayed for reconciliation.” I sank into the cool sand, cross-legged, pretending the ground was a yoga mat for the soul. “So what now?” I asked. “Now,” said the tree, “we sign the contract of becoming.” One of its roots nudged a scroll from the sand—a parchment made of light, words written in looping constellations. “It’s the fine print of existence,” the tree continued. “Nobody reads it, and everyone agrees to it at birth.” The scroll unfurled toward me. The first line read: ‘You will change without notice. Updates occur automatically.’ Below it, smaller clauses glittered in the starlight: • Item 1: Every joy carries an expiration date, but the memory may be renewed indefinitely. • Item 2: Grief is not an error message. It’s maintenance. • Item 3: You may love things that outgrow you. That’s allowed. • Item 4: All warranties on innocence are void after adolescence. • Item 5: Laughter is the default language. Use it liberally. “Seems fair,” I said. “Fair?” the tree chuckled. “It’s cosmic bureaucracy. You either grow or you crash the system.” It shook itself, and hundreds of tiny lights drifted from its branches—fireflies, maybe, or leftover pixels from a sunset that hadn’t fully logged out. They swirled around us, forming constellations shaped like memories: a bicycle, a first kiss, a hospital corridor, a cup of coffee still warm. Each image pulsed once, then vanished. “Those are mine,” said the tree, “but you recognize them because experience is an open-source code.” We watched the lights fade. “You said becoming has terms,” I murmured. “What about the conditions?” The tree’s roots shifted, tracing spirals in the sand. “Ah, the conditions. Those are trickier.” A pause, as if considering whether I was ready. “Condition one: You must accept that endings are punctuation, not punishment. Condition two: You must practice astonishment daily. Condition three: Forgive yourself for updates that take longer to install.” Something inside me unclenched. “And if I don’t agree?” I asked. The tree smiled—a rustle more than a gesture. “Then you’ll still become, just slower, with more buffering.” It tapped the ground, and the mirrors, buried beneath the sand, began to hum again—softly this time, like a lullaby from the underworld. “They’re backing up your progress,” the tree said. “It’s automatic. Even pain gets archived.” A coyote cried somewhere beyond the dunes, and the sound rolled toward us like an echo that had lost its owner. “Does it ever end?” I asked. “Endings are for stories,” the tree said gently. “You’re not a story. You’re a library. Every time you think you’ve reached the last page, another branch starts writing.” The wind shifted. The smell of rain—actual rain—threaded through the air, impossible in this place of dust and mirrors. “Weather forecast?” I joked. “No,” said the tree. “Remembrance. Every storm begins as nostalgia for rivers.” I laughed despite myself. “You’re incredibly poetic for a plant.” “Photosynthesis of metaphors,” it said smugly. “It’s a gift.” The first drops fell, heavy and slow, like punctuation marks. They hit the mirrors, making ripples that didn’t fade. Each droplet turned into a tiny lens, refracting a different face of the tree—and of me. “Look closer,” said the tree. In one droplet, I saw my younger self promising to change. In another, my future self already forgiving the failures yet to happen. “Is that what remembering is?” I asked. “No,” said the tree. “That’s what living kindly looks like from the outside.” Lightning flared, revealing how vast the desert really was—mirrors stretching to the horizon, each catching a fragment of sky. “You built all this?” I whispered. “No,” said the tree. “I simply grew where reflection needed an anchor.” It paused, its trunk gleaming like wet bronze. “Every soul needs one.” The rain intensified, washing sand from half-buried mirrors until they shone again. In their collective shimmer, the desert looked alive—a thousand realities blinking awake. The tree’s voice softened. “Listen carefully. This is the part most people miss: You’re not separate from the reflection. You are the reflection remembering itself.” The words sank through me like roots seeking water. I wanted to believe I understood, though I suspected understanding wasn’t the point. “So what happens when I leave?” I asked. “You won’t,” said the tree. “You’ll carry the desert inside. Every time you hesitate between versions of yourself, you’ll hear me rustle. Every time you choose kindness over control, you’ll grow another ring.” We sat together until the rain softened to a mist. The mirrors dimmed, their light now internal, like ideas settling in for the night. I stood, brushing sand from my hands. “Anything else in the fine print?” I asked. “One last clause,” said the tree. “You must share what you’ve learned without pretending you discovered it alone.” I laughed. “A collaborative enlightenment license?” “Exactly,” said the tree. “Creative Commons of the soul.” It stretched once more, shaking droplets that turned into tiny stars. “Now go. The world needs more witnesses who’ve read the terms.” As I walked away, dawn seeped in, quiet and forgiving. Behind me, the four-seasons tree glowed briefly, then folded its reflections back into silence. The desert was already forgetting, but gently—like someone closing a beloved book. When I looked down, I realized a small mirror shard had lodged itself in the cuff of my sleeve. It caught the new sunlight and winked. In it, for a moment, I saw the tree again—alive, amused, infinite. Then only my own face, smiling the kind of smile that happens when you finally realize the story was about remembering how to begin.     Bring “The Tree Remembers” Into Your World If this story stirred something in you — that quiet echo of renewal, humor, and human persistence — you can keep its spirit alive beyond the page. Each product below features the original artwork "The Tree Remembers" by Bill and Linda Tiepelman, crafted to bring beauty, reflection, and inspiration into your everyday spaces. ✨ Adorn your wall with a Framed Print, where the timeless imagery transforms your room into a sanctuary of growth and remembrance. 💧 Choose the sleek Acrylic Print for a contemporary, luminous display that captures every reflective detail of the tree’s surreal world. 🖋️ Capture your own thoughts, dreams, or daily awakenings in a Spiral Notebook — because reflection is how growth begins. 💌 Share a piece of soul and story with someone special through a Greeting Card that says more than words ever could. 🌙 And when the night grows quiet, wrap yourself in the warmth of meaning with a Fleece Blanket, soft as memory, comforting as time. Each piece is a reminder: growth is ongoing, reflection is sacred, and beauty belongs wherever you choose to remember.

Captured Tales – by Bill Tiepelman

Tideborn Majesty

The Splash Heard 'Round the Realms By the time the unicorn hit the water, the Kingdom of Larethia was already in trouble. Taxes were up, pants were down, and the High Chancellor had accidentally turned himself into a marzipan swan mid-speech at a war council. In short, things were spiraling. Then came the splash. Not just any splash, mind you. This was the sort of splash that made sirens clutch their pearls and krakens raise a brow. It came at twilight—when the veil between realms wore thin—and it was made by a creature so radiant, so unreasonably majestic, it seemed the gods had been holding out on the good stuff. From the ocean leapt a horned beast of impossible beauty. Wings like opalescent glass arched into the dying sun. Its mane flowed like moonlight drunk on champagne. And its horn? Let’s just say it looked like the sort of thing that could skewer both a dragon and your ex’s ego in a single thrust. “Oh no,” muttered the wizard Argonath, sipping from a mug that read ‘#1 Spellslinger’. “It’s one of those.” “A flying unicorn?” asked Lady Cressida, princess by birth, chaos incarnate by choice. She was halfway through her third goblet of fermented starlight and already considering seducing the phenomenon for political leverage—or for fun. Whichever came first. “Not just a unicorn,” Argonath said grimly. “That’s a Tideborn. One of the First Five. Rumor says they show up only when realms are about to collapse or… begin anew.” The creature touched down on the shore in a spray of light and seafoam, hooves sizzling against the sand like divine frying pans. Every seagull in a three-mile radius passed out in unison. One exploded. No one talked about it. Lady Cressida stepped forward, tipsy but intrigued. “Well then. I suppose we ought to say hello to the end of the world—or the start of a rather exciting chapter.” She straightened her crown, adjusted her cleavage (always part of diplomacy), and began walking toward the Tideborn with the unshakable confidence of a woman who’d once won a duel using only a spoon and three insults. The unicorn stared back. Its eyes gleamed like galaxies having an argument. Time hiccuped. The waves paused. Somewhere, a bard fainted in anticipatory excitement. And just like that… destiny blinked first. Diplomacy by Firelight and Feral Sass The unicorn did not speak—not in the usual sense. No lips moved. No vocal cords vibrated. Instead, words pressed directly into the minds of everyone present, like a silk-wrapped brick of pure intention. It was a telepathic voice, deep and resonant, with the seductive growl of thunder and the tactless honesty of a drunk philosopher. “You smell like bad decisions and premature declarations of war,” it said bluntly to Lady Cressida. “I like you.” Cressida beamed. “Likewise. Are you available for a seasonal alliance or, perhaps, something slightly more carnal with a diplomatic twist?” The Tideborn blinked. Galaxies in its eyes collapsed and reformed into spirals of amused indifference. Argonath muttered into his beard. “Of course. She’s trying to seduce the doomsday horse.” The beach was now crowded. Word of the divine splash had spread like wildfire through the realm. Locals, nobles, spellcasters, and three absolutely feral bards arrived breathless, notebooks at the ready. The bards immediately began arguing over what key the unicorn’s hooves were clapping in. One claimed it was E minor; another swore it was the rhythm of heartbreak. The third burst into spontaneous song and was immediately punched by the other two. Meanwhile, the sky shifted. Stars began to shimmer more boldly, and the moon rose too fast, like it had just remembered it was late for something. The fabric of reality puckered slightly, like a bedsheet being sat on by a cosmic weight. “This realm is on the cusp,” the unicorn said, pacing with the grace of a god doing yoga. “You’ve abused its magic, ignored its tides, and scheduled war like it was a midweek brunch. But—” the beast paused dramatically, “there is potential. Unruly. Unrefined. Unreasonably attractive.” Its eyes landed again on Cressida. “Well,” she purred, “I do exfoliate with dragon ash and self-belief.” Argonath rolled his eyes so hard a minor wind spell activated. “What the beast is saying, Princess, is that the realm might not be doomed if we pull our collective heads out of our collective rears.” “I know what it said,” Cressida snapped. “I’m fluent in ego.” The unicorn—whose name, it revealed, was something unpronounceable in mortal tongue but roughly translated to ‘She Who Kicks Stagnation in the Teeth’—lowered its horn and drew a line in the sand. Literally. It was a glowing line, pulsing like a heartbeat. Everyone stepped back except Cressida, who approached with the energy of a woman about to declare civil war at a brunch buffet. “What is this?” she asked, heels crunching over the warm sand. “A challenge?” “A choice,” said the Tideborn. “Step across, and everything changes. Stay, and everything stays exactly the same until it all collapses under the weight of mediocrity and bureaucracy.” It was a hard sell for a realm built on red tape and unnecessarily fancy hats. But Cressida did not hesitate. She stepped over the line with one sandal, then the other, and for a brief, blinding moment, her silhouette exploded into celestial ribbons and dripping nebula. When the light faded, her armor had melted into something infinitely more badass—dark silk wrapped in starlight, with shoulder pads that whispered ancient battle hymns. Everyone gasped, except for the wizard, who merely scribbled in his journal, “Fashion: unholy but effective.” The unicorn reared and trumpeted a sound that cracked open a passing cloud. Lightning danced across the sky like drunk ballerinas. The earth trembled. And from beneath the waves, something else began to rise—an ancient altar long buried beneath the tides, covered in barnacles, ambition, and salt-soaked secrets. “You’ve chosen rebirth,” said the Tideborn, now glowing from within like an overachieving glow stick. “The rest will come. Painful, ridiculous, glorious. But it will come.” And just like that, the unicorn turned. It walked back into the ocean without a backward glance, mane whipped by starwind, wings tucked tight. Each step shimmered with impossible possibility. By the time its tail disappeared into the surf, the crowd was silent. Spellbound. Terrified. Slightly aroused. Argonath turned to Cressida. “So. What now?” She cracked her knuckles, eyes alight with the fire of new beginnings and scandalous potential. “Now?” She smiled like the morning after a political coup. “Now we wake the gods... and rewrite everything.” The Crownless Reign and Other Awkward Miracles The following weeks were not quiet. As Cressida crossed the Tideborn’s line, reality wobbled like a drunk noble at his sixth royal banquet. Prophecies updated themselves mid-sentence, magic surged through plumbing systems, and one particularly unfortunate palace hedge gave birth to sentient topiary who immediately unionized and demanded leaf conditioner. Lady Cressida—no longer just a lady—now carried herself like thunder dressed in lipstick. Her new title, whispered reverently (and sometimes fearfully) across the land, was Stormborne Sovereign. No coronation. No ceremony. Just a roaring shift in the very bones of the world and an unspoken understanding: she ruled now. Meanwhile, the council scrambled. The Grand Comptroller tried to ban metaphor. The Minister of Protocol fainted upon discovering Cressida had abolished dress codes in favor of “emotional layering.” Argonath quietly relocated his tower to a mountaintop just out of fireball range and began writing memoirs titled: “I Told You So: Volume I”. But Cressida wasn’t interested in power for the sake of it. She had something far more dangerous: vision. With the magic of the Tideborn humming in her veins like caffeinated destiny, she marched straight into the Temple of Refrained Divinities—a grand dome of overly polite gods—and kicked open the doors. “Hello, pantheon,” she said, brushing starlight off her shoulders. “It’s time we talked about accountability.” The gods stared, mid-nectar brunch, dumbfounded. A mortal. In their dining room. With that much cleavage and zero fear. “Who dares?” asked Solarkun, God of Controlled Fires and Bureaucratic Passion. “I do,” she replied. “I dare with excellent lighting and one hell of a thesis.” She laid it out. The cycle of rise, ruin, repeat. The apathy. The interference. The divine meddling disguised as fate. She talked of mortals tired of being the punchline to immortal whim. She demanded cooperation, balance—and a revised calendar because “Monday” was clearly cursed. There was stunned silence, followed by muffled applause from one of the lesser gods—probably Elaris, Patron Deity of Misplaced Keys. It escalated, as these things do. There were trials of wit and will. Cressida debated the goddess of Paradox until time itself had to sit down for a drink. She wrestled the Avatar of Eternal Expectations in a ring of shifting realities and won by making him laugh so hard he fell through his own narrative loop. She even seduced—then ghosted—the demi-god of Seasonal Overthinking, leaving him writing poetry about why mortals always “ruin everything beautifully.” Eventually, even the gods had to admit: this was not a woman you could put back in the box—or on a throne. She wasn’t ruling from above. She was already in the world. Walking barefoot through its contradictions. Dancing in its ruins. Kissing chaos on the mouth and asking it what it wanted to be when it grew up. And so, Cressida made the gods an offer: step down from the altar and step up as partners. Join the mortals in rebuilding. Help without dominating. Witness without warping. Incredibly, a few agreed. The others? She left them in the divine breakroom with a strong suggestion to “sort their existential kinks out before they tried meddling again.” Back on the beach where it all began, the tide rolled out to reveal something unexpected: a second line in the sand. Smaller, fainter, as though waiting for someone else to choose. Argonath stood staring at it. The wizard who had lived through five failed empires, one successful midlife crisis, and seven accidentally summoned demons (one of whom he’d dated). He sipped his tea, now permanently spiked with phoenix bitters, and sighed. “Well,” he muttered. “Might as well make things interesting.” He stepped across. In the weeks that followed, others would too. A baker with dreams of skyships. A warrior with anxiety and perfect hair. An old thief who missed being surprised. One by one, they crossed—not to seize power, but to participate in something terrifying and spectacular: change. The realm didn’t fix overnight. It cracked. It shifted. It argued. It danced awkwardly and re-learned how to listen. But under moonlight and under starlight, something pulsed again. Something real. Not prophecy. Not fate. Just choice, messy and magnificent. And far across the water, beneath constellations no one had named yet, the Tideborn watched—half myth, half midwife to a reborn world—and smiled. Because new beginnings never arrive quietly. They crash like waves. They shimmer like madness. And they always, always, leave the sand forever changed.     Bring the magic home. If “Tideborn Majesty” stirred something wild, wistful, or wonderfully rebellious in you, don’t let it fade with the tide. Hang it in a framed print where dreams spark revolutions. Let it shimmer in acrylic like myth caught mid-flight. Challenge your mind with the jigsaw version and piece together magic at your pace. Toss the Tideborn onto your couch with a throw pillow that whispers rebellion between naps. Or send someone a greeting card infused with the spirit of transformation and winged sarcasm. Magic doesn’t have to stay in stories—it can live in your space too.

Captured Tales – by Bill Tiepelman

Laughter in the Dark

The Lantern-Bearer Appears Everyone in the village of Mirewood knew the rules about the forest. The elders taught them in school, the barkeep scrawled them on the back of ale-stained napkins, and old Grandmother Bipple would shout them at anyone walking too close to the edge of the trees. They were simple rules, easy enough to remember, though most ignored them until it was too late: Never whistle after dark. (It attracts unwanted attention.) Never follow the sound of laughter in the woods. (It is not your friends.) If you see a lantern swaying where no lantern should be—run. Of course, travelers passing through rarely knew these rules. And travelers, being what they are, tended to scoff at local superstition, right until the superstition waddled out of the bushes and introduced itself with a smile wide enough to make their teeth ache. That superstition had a name—or at least several variations of one. Some called him Grimble. Others called him Snagtooth. A few claimed his name was Darryl, but those people had been drinking heavily, and possibly had a habit of naming everything Darryl. Whatever his name, the truth remained: he was a lantern-bearer. Not a guide. Not a helper. Certainly not a friend. A lantern-bearer, and if you saw the light, you were already in trouble. The night our story begins was moonless, the sky clotted with heavy clouds, and the woods darker than the inside of a cow’s belly. A group of weary merchants, their donkeys sagging under bags of turnips, onions, and exactly one barrel of something suspiciously sloshy, were making their way down the Old Hollow Road. Their boots squelched in the mud, their tempers were thin, and their conversation had dwindled to muttered complaints about turnip prices. They didn’t notice it at first. A faint glow, like the last ember of a dying fire, bobbing between the trees. Perhaps it could have been a will-o’-the-wisp, perhaps moonlight glinting off wet bark—but then came the sound. The laugh. Oh, the laugh. It began as a hiccup, as though someone had swallowed a kazoo. Then it rose into a cackle that rattled the leaves, wheezed through the undergrowth, and echoed through the travelers’ bones until their spines tightened like violin strings. It was a laugh that said, Yes, I know exactly where you’re going. And no, you won’t like it when you get there. One of the donkeys brayed nervously. The youngest merchant whispered, “Did you hear that?” The oldest merchant pretended he hadn’t. Denial, after all, was cheaper than therapy. And then— He appeared. A squat figure, not more than four feet tall but twice as broad, stepping out of the trees as though the forest itself had coughed him up. His leather vest looked as though it had been stitched together by someone with poor eyesight and no sense of proportion. His boots sagged, patched so many times they had become more patch than boot. His gloves creaked with grime, and his belt buckle was bent in the shape of something that might once have been a circle. But the merchants weren’t staring at his outfit. They were staring at his face. At the pointed ears sticking out like dagger handles. At the eyes, round and bulging, that glistened with lunatic cheer. At the nose—red, bulbous, the sort of nose that spoke of centuries of bad life choices. And, of course, the mouth. That enormous, horrifying, magnificent mouth that stretched almost ear to ear and revealed a collection of teeth that looked like they had been borrowed from several different species and arranged without a clear plan. He grinned. The lantern in his hand swayed, casting a flicker of golden light that danced across the merchants’ pale, horrified faces. “HA! HA! HA! YOU’RE LOST, AREN’T YA?” The laugh that followed could not possibly have come from a creature of his size. It was thunderous, ridiculous, echoing through the trees like a drunk choir of demons trying to sing sea shanties. One of the donkeys sat down in protest. Another began chewing its reins. The merchants clutched their turnips for moral support. No one moved. The woods seemed to hold its breath. And then, in a voice far too chipper for the situation, the lantern-bearer said: “Don’t worry. I know a shortcut.” The Shortcut Now, in most tales, when a grinning goblin-like stranger pops out of the forest at midnight and offers you a shortcut, the sensible thing to do is refuse, bow politely, and run in the opposite direction until your shoes catch fire. Unfortunately, merchants are not known for their sense of adventure—or their sense of caution. They are, however, known for their greed and impatience. The youngest merchant cleared his throat nervously. “A shortcut, you say?” The lantern-bearer’s grin widened, which seemed medically impossible. “Oh aye. The quickest way to the village. Quick as a hiccup, quicker than a sneeze, quicker than a goose falling down a well.” “Goose falling down a—what?” the eldest merchant asked, eyebrows furrowing like angry caterpillars. The creature blinked at him, expression utterly serious, then threw back his head and howled with laughter so violent his hat nearly flew off. The woods joined in, the echoes clattering through the branches until it sounded as if the forest itself was giggling. That was the trouble with him: once he started laughing, everything laughed. The trees creaked in mirth. The wind wheezed. Even the donkeys let out startled, undignified hee-haws that sounded suspiciously like chuckles. The merchants shivered, because there is nothing more sinister than a donkey laughing at you. Still, the idea of shaving two days off their journey was too tempting. The merchants exchanged glances. Their boots were muddy, their tempers sour, and the barrel of suspiciously sloshy liquid was already half-empty. A shortcut would mean warmth, ale, and safety sooner. Surely, they reasoned, a creature with such excellent comedic timing couldn’t possibly be dangerous. “Lead on, good sir,” the youngest merchant said bravely, though his voice cracked in three different places. “Sir?” The lantern-bearer clutched his chest as if mortally wounded. “Do I look like a sir to you? My dear boy, I’m a professional!” “A professional…what?” the eldest merchant asked suspiciously. “A professional guide of lost things!” the creature bellowed, flourishing the lantern dramatically. “Lost sheep! Lost coins! Lost socks! Lost sense of direction! I find it all. Except virginity. That one tends to stay lost.” The merchants coughed uncomfortably. One donkey snorted. Somewhere in the distance, a crow cawed in disapproval.     And so, against the advice of every folktale ever written, the merchants followed the Lantern-Bearer off the main road. His lantern bobbed ahead of them like a firefly on caffeine, dipping and swaying, sometimes vanishing completely before popping up again with a sudden shout of “BOO!” that made the donkeys fart in terror. The path he led them on was no path at all. It twisted through undergrowth that snagged their clothes, across streams that soaked their boots, and under branches that seemed to duck too late on purpose. Each time they stumbled, each time they cursed, each time they tripped over a log that hadn’t been there a moment before—the Lantern-Bearer laughed. Loud, long, and wheezing, like a broken organ grinder trying to play itself to death. After what felt like hours, the merchants were panting, muddy, and less certain about their life choices. “Are you sure this is shorter?” one muttered. “Shorter than what?” the guide asked innocently, eyes gleaming. “Than the road!” “Oh aye,” he said, beaming. “Shorter than the road. Also shorter than eternity, shorter than a giraffe, shorter than—” he leaned in close, his nose nearly brushing the merchant’s cheek—“shorter than your patience.” He threw back his head and erupted into another gale of laughter. The sound was so loud and so infectious that the merchants found themselves chuckling nervously, then giggling, then outright cackling, though they couldn’t for the life of them explain why. Their laughter tangled with his, until the forest was a roaring carnival of giggles, howls, guffaws, and snorts. It went on and on, until they felt drunk on mirth, lightheaded and dizzy, stumbling through the dark with tears streaming down their cheeks. And then, just as abruptly, the laughter stopped. Silence. Heavy, suffocating silence. The kind of silence that pressed on your ears until you heard your own blood sloshing about like soup in a kettle. The merchants blinked, panting, and realized the lantern-bearer was no longer ahead of them. He was behind them. Grinning. Still. Always grinning. “Now,” he whispered, his voice sharp as a knife scraping bone. “Here we are.” The merchants looked around. They weren’t on a road. They weren’t anywhere near a village. They stood in a clearing ringed by trees with trunks warped and twisted into strange shapes. Knots in the bark seemed to watch them, faces frozen mid-laugh. Roots curled across the ground like skeletal fingers. And in the center of it all was a stone well, old and moss-eaten, its mouth blacker than the night sky. The Lantern-Bearer raised his light. His grin somehow grew wider. “The shortcut,” he declared proudly, “to exactly where you never wanted to be.” And then he laughed again. Louder than ever. The kind of laugh that promised Part Three of this story was going to get much, much worse. The Well of Echoes The clearing held its breath. The merchants stood huddled together, clutching their onions like holy relics, staring at the mossy stone well in the center. The air smelled damp and earthy, with a faint tang of iron, like the forest had been chewing on old nails. Somewhere far above, a crow cawed once, then thought better of it. Silence returned. “Well,” said the eldest merchant, forcing a laugh that sounded more like a hiccup, “thank you for your… services, friend. We’ll just, ah, be on our way now.” The Lantern-Bearer’s eyes bulged wider. His grin twitched. He leaned forward, lantern swinging, until the glow carved strange shadows across his face. “On your way? But you’ve only just arrived. Don’t you want to see what’s inside?” He jabbed a stubby finger toward the well. The moss shivered. The stones groaned as if they remembered something unpleasant. The youngest merchant squeaked. “Inside? No, no, we don’t—no time, really—” “INSIDE!” bellowed the Lantern-Bearer, and his laughter followed, booming, crashing, echoing off the trees until the roots quivered in glee. The merchants covered their ears, but it was no use. His laughter slid into their skulls, rattled around in their brains, and leaked out their noses like smoke. They couldn’t escape it. They couldn’t even think over it. The donkeys brayed in panic, tugging against their reins. One of them backed up, tripped over a root, and landed directly on the barrel of sloshy liquid. The barrel cracked, spilling a stream of something pungent that hissed as it hit the ground. The forest floor slurped it up hungrily, and the trees gave a collective shudder of delight. “Oh, that’s just lovely,” the Lantern-Bearer sighed dreamily, sniffing the fumes. “Reminds me of my childhood. Nothing like a good solvent to bring out the nostalgia.”     The eldest merchant, summoning what little courage remained in his wrinkled bones, stepped forward. “Look here, you little imp. We’ve had enough of your games. We demand—” He didn’t get to finish. The Lantern-Bearer’s lantern flared bright, dazzling white, so bright that the merchants staggered back, shielding their eyes. The clearing seemed to warp. The well stretched taller, wider, its stones groaning, until it loomed like a hungry mouth. From deep within, something shifted. Something giggled. Something very large, very old, and very awake. “You hear it?” whispered the Lantern-Bearer, suddenly quiet, reverent, almost tender. “That’s the Well of Echoes. It collects every laugh ever lost in the woods. Giggles from children who wandered too far. Chuckles from hunters who never came back. Even one or two cackles from priests who really should’ve known better.” The merchants shivered. The sound rose from the well—layered, overlapping laughter, hundreds of voices tangled together, some shrill, some guttural, some hysterical, some sobbing even as they laughed. It wasn’t just noise. It was hungry. The youngest merchant dropped his onion bag. The bulbs rolled across the clearing, tumbling toward the lip of the well. One onion tipped over the edge and fell. For a heartbeat, nothing happened. Then the laughter in the well swallowed it whole with a satisfied burp. “Well,” said the Lantern-Bearer, beaming proudly, “that’s dinner sorted.”     Panic set in. The merchants bolted for the trees, stumbling and shrieking. But no matter which way they ran, the clearing stretched with them. The well remained at the center. The trees curved back, folding the world like a cruel carnival tent. They were trapped inside a joke, and the punchline was coming fast. The Lantern-Bearer danced in circles, swinging his lantern, kicking his stubby legs, howling with mirth. His eyes glittered. His teeth gleamed. His voice rang out like a gleeful executioner. “Don’t you see? You’re part of it now! You came for a shortcut, and you’ll never leave! You’ll laugh, and laugh, and laugh, until there’s nothing left but echoes!” One by one, the merchants began to laugh. First a nervous chuckle. Then a wheeze. Then helpless, roaring hysteria. Their bodies doubled over, their faces twisted, tears streaming. They clutched their sides, unable to breathe, unable to stop. Their laughter tangled with the voices in the well, pulled downward, dragged into the hungry dark until their own echoes joined the eternal chorus. Even the donkeys giggled. A terrible, braying, soul-curdling laughter that would have been funny if it weren’t so horribly wrong. Their reins snapped as they bucked and rolled, their laughter tumbling down into the well, swallowed whole.     At last, silence fell again. The clearing was empty. Only the Lantern-Bearer remained, standing by the mossy stones, lantern glowing faintly gold. He hummed a little tune, tapping his foot, as if nothing strange had happened at all. “Well,” he said cheerfully, glancing around, “that was fun.” He adjusted his hat, burped, and wiped a tear from his bulging eye. “But I do hope the next lot brings better snacks. Onions, really? Pah.” He turned and waddled back into the forest, lantern bobbing. His laughter trailed behind him like smoke, curling through the trees, drifting down the Old Hollow Road toward the next group of travelers who thought superstition was just silly old stories. And the well waited. Always waiting. Hungry for the next laugh in the dark.     Bring the Lantern-Bearer Home (If You Dare) If the tale of Laughter in the Dark tickled your funny bone (or chilled it), you can invite the mischievous Lantern-Bearer into your own world. His eerie grin and glowing lantern live on in a series of high-quality art products—perfect for lovers of spooky whimsy and gothic humor. 🖼️ Framed Prints – Bring his unsettling charm to your walls in a beautifully crafted frame. ✨ Metal Prints – Make his lantern glow even brighter with bold, modern metal finishes. 💌 Greeting Cards – Send a little spooky cheer (and maybe a cackle or two) through the mail. 🔖 Stickers – Add a pop of creepy whimsy to your laptop, journal, or favorite potion bottle. Whichever form you choose, you’ll carry a piece of the Lantern-Bearer’s strange magic with you. Just… be careful when the lights go out. His laugh has a way of finding you.

Captured Tales – by Bill Tiepelman

Gutterglow Faerie: A Lantern for the Damned

The Lantern Liar The fae courts called her a disgrace. The humans called her a hallucination. But down in the alleys behind the alchemist's vape shop, they just called her “Glow.” Glow wasn’t your average pixie with flower crowns and sparkled opinions. No, she had chains on her hips, blood on her boots, and a lantern filled with something that definitely wasn’t oil. (Rumors ranged from bottled ghost farts to demon spit, but no one was brave—or drunk—enough to sniff it.) Tonight, the alley smelled like regret and burnt sage. Glow stomped through a puddle of something sticky that meowed at her. She didn’t slow down. “Where the hell is Tallow?” she muttered, adjusting her spiked choker with one hand and swinging the lantern like she was threatening the darkness itself. “That greasy bastard owes me two bone coins and a favor. And I’m not above lighting his pants on fire with this.” The lantern hissed in agreement. It liked pants-fires. Glow’s wings fluttered—thin, crinkled like a dead wasp's scrapbook page, and nearly invisible in the half-light. They hadn’t been pretty since the Iron War, when she dive-bombed a general and got clipped by an enchanted corkscrew. Good times. Trauma, betrayal, a metric ton of eyeliner—her core aesthetic. She passed a gang of sentient trash cans gossiping about a poltergeist orgy, gave them a sarcastic salute, and kept going. The lantern flickered green for just a second. Omen. She paused, spun slowly on the heel of her studded boot. Something was watching her. Not in the “what a hot mess” kind of way. In the “I know how you die” kind of way. She turned toward a pile of half-melted garden gnomes. One blinked. “Oh hell no.” Glow reached into her belt pouch and pulled out a bundle of salt, a fingernail file, and a half-smoked clove cigarette. She stuck the cigarette in her mouth, threw the salt in the direction of the gnomes, and pointed the file threateningly. “Try me, you ceramic creeps. I’m not in the mood to relive my ‘cursed pottery’ phase.” The gnomes hissed, cracked, and sank into the asphalt with a sound like wet celery being chewed by a bitter god. She lit the cigarette on the lantern's flame. The glow turned red. Another omen. Or maybe just a flair for drama. “Tallow better be bleeding,” she growled, and kicked the nearest wall until a portal opened. Portals, of course, are rude little bastards. This one belched smoke and moaned like a haunted accordion, but she stepped through it anyway. Girl’s got places to be. People to stab. Souls to save. Maybe. The lantern pulsed ominously. It always did that right before a Very Bad Thing happened. Which could mean someone was about to lie to her. And Glow hated liars. The Contract of Screams The portal dropped her face-first into a carpet made of toenail clippings and whispered regrets. “Ugh. Tallow, you crusty testicle of a troll, clean your entryway!” Glow gagged as she wiped her mouth with the hem of her shredded lace top. The lantern gagged too—it had standards, despite being forged in the belly of a sarcastic volcano demon. The room was a cube of oily stone and uncomfortable truths. Dim light leaked in from torches made of haunted spatulas and regret-fueled tallow. In the far corner sat Tallow—part troll, part accountant, all sleaze. His skin was greenish-brown, like swamp scum had a baby with moldy sausage. He wore a three-piece suit that was either cursed or just from the clearance rack at Demon-Market. “Gloooow,” he cooed, smiling with far too many molars. “Looking... feral. You bring my payment?” She strode forward, chains jingling like a threatening lullaby. “You owe me, Fungus-Face. Two bone coins, a favor, and the head of that banshee who sang Justin Timberlake covers in my shower dimension.” “Ah, yes.” He scratched a boil on his neck until it squealed and ran away. “But see, darling, I was... restructuring my liquidity.” Glow raised the lantern. It flared neon green. The ceiling screamed. “You know what happens when you lie while this thing’s lit.” Tallow's slime glands twitched nervously. “Okay, okay. No lies. I spent the coins gambling in a centaur pit-fight. The banshee's now a K-pop idol. And the favor…” He hesitated. Glow stepped forward. The floor cracked under her boot. “Speak. Or I swear I’ll replace your spleen with a bag of rusty forks.” “The favor’s been called in. By someone above both our pay grades.” Glow froze. That was rare. Her blood ran a little colder. Her wings itched. The lantern dimmed, whispering things in a tongue older than daylight. “Above our grade?” she said, voice low. “You mean the High Courts?” “Worse.” Tallow leaned in. “You ever hear of the Thorned Accord?” Glow’s heart did a thing. Not a beat—more like a choke. “That’s a myth,” she said, but her voice lacked its usual don’t-mess-with-me edge. “Nope,” Tallow grinned. “Real. Ugly. And they want you.” Glow lit another clove and paced, leather creaking, eyes narrowed. “Why?” “Something about a soul you snatched a while back. One that wasn’t yours to take. Some whisper says the Lantern remembers. And now they want it. Tonight.” Glow blinked. Once. Slowly. Then laughed like a hangover. “Oh, that soul? The cursed jester prince with the obsession for taxidermy erotica? He traded it! Fair and square! I gave him a bottle of vintage nightmare ink and a mixtape of screams.” “Did he know it came with eternal torment and spontaneous glitter burps?” “...It was in the fine print,” she muttered. Suddenly, the room shuddered. A ripple passed through reality like someone stepped on the universe’s tail. The lantern screamed—a high, keening note that shattered Tallow’s wine goblet and set his eyebrows on fire. A black rift opened in the air, crackling with thorns and velvet. From it stepped a creature in a double-breasted cloak stitched with blood contracts. Its eyes glowed like unpaid debts. Its voice? Velvet dipped in a meat grinder. “Glow of the Gutter. Bearer of the Lantern. Breaker of bargains. You are summoned.” Glow tilted her head. “You’re not even gonna buy me dinner first?” “Silence, wretch.” “Rude.” The creature unfurled a scroll with a satisfying *snap*. “You are bound by contract 661, subsection damnation, clause betrayal, to return the soul of His Former Majesty Jester Prince Fleedle the Screech. You have until moon’s rise. Or we will rip the Lantern from your bones and feed your name to the void.” Glow took a slow drag of her clove. “Well... sh*t.” Tallow made a small sound like a dying gopher and ducked under a desk made entirely of weeping wood. Glow gave him the finger. “Fine,” she said. “Tell the Thorned Accord I’ll get their damn soul. But if I’m going back to the Echo Market to dig through the spiritual dumpster fire that is Fleedle’s essence, I’m charging triple.” The creature bowed, then dissolved into spiders and unpaid parking tickets. Glow turned to Tallow. “Give me a map. And some soul-proof gloves.” “I have a cursed GPS and a condom made of ghost hair?” “Close enough.” As she turned to go, the lantern flickered again—first purple, then black, then...pink. Glow stopped dead. “No,” she whispered. “Not pink.” The lantern hummed, soft and sinister. It was an omen. And not just any omen. A *romantic subplot* was coming. “Nope. Absolutely not,” Glow snapped, stomping into the dark. “If anyone tries to flirt with me while I’m soul-diving through Fleedle’s trauma palace, I will eat them.” The lantern snickered. The Soul, the Snare, and the Smooch Nobody Asked For The Echo Market wasn't on any map. It existed in the folds of regret, just outside the timeline where all your worst decisions live. To enter, Glow had to sacrifice a chicken nugget she’d been saving in her sock since Tuesday and whisper her second-worst secret into a pile of self-loathing gravel. “I once dated a selkie who wore cargo shorts.” The gravel wept. A gate opened. Glow stepped into the chaos. The Market swirled around her in sensory overload: haunted vending machines screamed about expired souls, spectral baristas served steaming cups of existential dread, and a mime was locked in a cage made entirely of invisible guilt. Just a normal Tuesday. She pulled her coat tighter, adjusted her lantern—now pulsing with horny energy, thanks to the pink flicker—and ducked beneath a vendor hawking pickled prophecies. “Where would a narcissistic jester soul hide...” she murmured, dodging a floating ad for demonic insurance. She didn’t have to wonder long. A smell hit her like a glitter bomb dipped in desperation. Yes. Fleedle. The scent trail led her to an abandoned theater made of stitched regrets and rhinestones. Of course he’d be here. Drama king to the end. Inside, the ghost of a fog machine coughed, and curtains swayed despite the lack of breeze. She crept forward, lantern held high. On the stage stood the spectral projection of Fleedle himself: grinning, wild-eyed, wearing a ruffled codpiece and a cape made entirely of fan mail and unresolved trauma. “Gloooow!” he sang. “My favorite thief! Come to return my soul or kiss me goodnight?” Glow sighed. “I came to shove you into a containment jar and maybe hit you with a shoe.” “Ooooh, feisty! As always. I kept your mixtape. The screams were so... theatrical.” “You sold your soul, Fleedle. The Accord wants it back. And frankly, I need to not die by bureaucratic implosion.” Fleedle pirouetted. “But I like it here! I’m the star of my own eternal cabaret! Why would I give that up to be shredded into ectoplasmic debt collection?” Glow raised the lantern. “Because if you don’t, I release your browser history to the spectral tabloids.” Fleedle blanched. “You monster.” “Thank you.” He pouted. “Fine. But I want one last kiss.” Glow squinted. “From me?” “No, from the lantern.” She blinked. The lantern purred. It purred. “You are such a weird little freak,” she muttered. “Pot, meet kettle,” he replied, and then leapt into the lantern. There was a musical sting, several sparkles, and an ominous belch. Glow stared at it. “Did... he just... flirt his way into eternal imprisonment?” The lantern burped again. Pink flicker. Satisfied sigh. “You're gonna be insufferable now, aren’t you?” The lantern glowed innocently. She pocketed it and walked out of the theater, barely dodging a roaming saxophone demon. Back in the alley, she kicked the gate closed and snapped her fingers. The world returned to its regular shade of gloomy beige. Then, from the shadows, stepped the Accord’s messenger again—cloak more dramatic than ever, face hidden behind swirling shadows and unpaid debts. “Do you have it?” it rasped. Glow tossed the lantern in a lazy arc. It hovered midair like it was doing a hair flip. “All zipped up. Complete with jazz hands and emotional damage.” The creature nodded. “You have fulfilled your obligation. Your name shall remain intact... for now.” “Great,” Glow said. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a cursed tea party to crash and a sentient tattoo trying to crawl off my back.” “One more thing,” the shadow murmured. She groaned. “Of course.” It tossed her a coin. Bone-white. Engraved with thorns. “Payment,” it said. “For services rendered. Do not lose it.” “What happens if I do?” “Your skeleton will be repossessed.” “So… Tuesday, basically.” Glow tucked the coin away. “Tell the Accord if they ever want their egos roasted again, I’m charging double.” The creature bowed and vanished into a scream. Glow stood in the alley, smoke curling from her hair, the lantern pulsing pink and smug. Somewhere in the distance, a cat coughed up a rat that looked suspiciously like it owed someone money. “Time for a drink,” she muttered, pulling on her spiked gloves. “And maybe a nap. Preferably not in a coffin this time.” The lantern flickered in approval. “And no romantic subplot. I mean it.” It glowed pink again. Glow stared. “You're lucky you're cute.”     Take Gutterglow Home If Glow lit up your dark little heart (or just made you laugh-snort in public), you can carry a piece of her chaos into your world. Explore our framed prints for your dungeon walls, snag a sleek acrylic version that even Fleedle would approve of, or capture her spirit on-the-go with a spiral notebook for scribbling curses—or poetry, we won’t judge. There’s even a perfectly sized sticker version for your spellbook, laptop, or lantern (if you dare). Gutterglow Faerie is available now via the Unfocussed shop—support independent art, and feed your weird.

Captured Tales – by Bill Tiepelman

Crimson Balloons and Broken Souls

On the stone we sat, back-to-back, as though the world had split us in half and forced the two pieces to lean against one another to keep from collapsing altogether. The stone was not kind; it pressed into the spine like judgment, cold and ancient, the sort of surface that had known more silence than prayer. Above us, the fog carried a dampness that clung to the skin like fingers tracing scars, each droplet a reminder of where we had been undone. In my hand, the string of a crimson balloon bit into my palm. The latex heart swayed above me as if mocking the idea of hope, straining toward a heaven neither of us believed in. It was too bright, too red, against the gray wash of the dreamscape—an accusation masquerading as innocence. Her body pressed against mine from behind, not tender but necessary, like the brace that keeps a wound from reopening. I could feel the architecture of her hat against my shoulder, roses and skulls stitched together in a grotesque crown. It was as if she wore her mourning like others wore silk—deliberately, beautifully, and with intent to wound. My own body was less adorned, though no less scarred. The threads pulling at my lips held a parody of a smile, cruel stitches that made every tremor of emotion feel like being ripped open again. And yet I smiled. That was the trick of it. That was how the world liked me: a doll stitched to grin, a marionette caught in an endless theatre of grief. She whispered then, though her lips barely moved: “If we don’t turn around, we might survive what we are.” Her voice was a lament dressed as advice, a hymn for the broken masquerading as wisdom. Her words sank into the stone between us, seeped into the marrow of my bones. My stitched smile widened at the thought of survival, not because I believed it, but because the cruelty of hope was its own dark joke. What would survival mean to women like us? To dolls held together by thread and memory, to sisters or lovers—what were we?—in the carnival of shadows. Would survival not just be another word for silence? A sound wound through the fog: the faint screech of a calliope, the dying lungs of some circus beast. Each note bent into the night like a bone snapping in the dark, and the melody carried with it the scent of rust and abandonment. The fairground had not been alive for decades, but its corpse still sang. Paper hearts, ragged and bleeding red, drifted down like snow, catching on the strings of our balloons, catching in my hair. I reached up to brush one away and felt the stitches of my arm strain and tug, the skin too thin, the thread too old. I wondered if tonight would be the night I unraveled entirely. I wondered if she would sew me back, or simply collect the pieces and carry them like relics. The fog grew heavier, a velvet curtain closing in on us. Her breathing steadied against my spine, slow and deliberate, as though she was teaching me how to live inside silence. I wanted to turn, to see her face, to know whether the darkness in her eyes matched my own, but fear bound me. Fear of the mirror her gaze would become. Fear of remembering the needle, the scalpel, the vow that had bound us in flesh and shadow. I held the balloon tighter, the string carving a shallow wound into my palm. The blood smeared the red latex heart when it bobbed low, and I thought: so now it truly belongs to me. Love, I realized, is not soft. Love is not candlelight or the warmth of arms. Love is the slow tearing of stitches, the ache of wounds reopened again and again because the body cannot bear to forget. Love is what made us sit here, unmoving, while our hearts threatened to float away. Her shoulder pressed harder into mine. Neither of us spoke again, but everything was said. Survival was not silence—it was scar. And scars are stories you carry when words are too costly to speak aloud. The fog thickened as though it wanted to erase us, to unmake the accident of our survival. Its hands reached into every hollow of the abandoned fairground, smothering the old bones of rusted rides, cracked mirrors, and toppled stalls. And still we did not move, back-to-back, bound by our refusal. The crimson balloons swayed above like sentinels—mocking, fragile, yet impossibly persistent. I imagined if the strings snapped, they would carry the story of our ruin into the sky, rising higher and higher until heaven itself was forced to read it. Perhaps that was why we clung to them, not out of hope, but to keep our misery from becoming eternal scripture. Her shoulder pressed into mine again, sharper this time. It was not affection but reminder: she was here, I was here, and together we were still breathing. Breathing—what a cruel gift. Every inhale tasted of metal, like blood that had soured into memory. I wanted to speak, to confess something terrible, but my stitched smile mocked me. The thread across my lips had grown tighter, as though sensing what I might reveal. The needle that had sealed me was still lodged somewhere in my body; I could feel its phantom sting whenever I thought of freedom. She, too, was sewn—though in different ways. I knew the scars that curved along her arms, the hidden latticework across her thighs. She wore her agony beneath black lace and bones, while mine was paraded for all to see. From the fog came sound again, louder this time. The calliope wheezed into a tune that might once have been joyful, but now limped with decay. It drew nearer, though I knew the machine was nothing but ruin. Perhaps it was memory itself approaching us, dragging its rusted weight across the stone floor of the world. The music carried something with it—a rhythm that stirred the old ache between us. She shifted behind me, and I felt her spine arch, her body pulling away from mine as though she longed to rise. I pressed back, subtly, anchoring her with my presence. She stilled, but the silence that followed was no longer companionable. It was electric, charged with everything we had not said. At last she whispered: “Do you remember the vow?” Her voice cracked on the word, and it splintered through me like glass. The vow. Yes, I remembered, though I wished I did not. It had been made in a room lined with mirrors, where the scalpel gleamed like silver scripture and the surgeon’s hands trembled from both devotion and cruelty. We had promised each other eternity, but eternity has teeth. It devours. What had once been romance had been carved into us, quite literally—stitched into skin, sutured into bone. We had become the covenant itself. To break apart would be to tear open every seam, to bleed the vow into the earth until nothing was left of either of us. “I remember,” I said, though the words bled out between the threads, muffled and broken. She shivered, whether from my voice or the memory I couldn’t tell. I wanted to turn, to rest my stitched lips against her throat, to taste whether she still carried that vow inside her pulse. But I didn’t move. Neither of us did. Stillness was the only thing holding us together. To turn would be to break, and breaking meant the end. Something stirred in the distance: the creak of a carousel, the groan of horses whose painted eyes had dulled into despair. Shapes shifted in the fog—figures not alive, not dead, specters of children clutching candy floss that dissolved in their mouths like ash. They circled us silently, their balloons black instead of crimson, their laughter stolen by the mist. My balloon jerked in my hand, pulled as though yearning to join them, but I tightened my grip until the string cut deeper into my palm. Blood welled and slipped down the cord, staining the air. The balloon dipped low, brushed against my face, and for one wild moment I thought it whispered my name. Her breath hitched at the same time. “Don’t let go,” she hissed. And I knew she wasn’t speaking of the balloon. She was speaking of herself. Of us. Of the thread that bound us, invisible and brutal. Don’t let go. I pressed harder against her back, as though to stitch myself into her spine. I wanted to tell her I couldn’t let go even if I tried, that the vow had locked us together more tightly than chains. But I said nothing. My silence was enough. My silence was proof. The fog thickened still, and the music grew shriller, bending into notes that sliced the air. The children—those pale phantoms—pressed closer, circling tighter, their empty eyes reflecting our stillness. For a moment I thought they might tear the balloons from our hands, drag us into their orbit. But then one by one they vanished, as though the fog had consumed them whole. Only the carousel creaked in the distance, spinning without riders, its horses frozen mid-gallop, mouths open in endless screams. And we remained on the stone, back-to-back, two broken saints in a cathedral of mist. Her voice came again, softer this time, almost tender: “If love is the wound, then we are its altar.” The words pressed into me like knives, and I realized she was right. We were not lovers, nor sisters, nor companions. We were the wound itself, the shrine where devotion and ruin became indistinguishable. Our scars were our scripture. Our stitched lips and stitched skin the liturgy. The crimson balloons, rising and trembling above us, the only hymns we could offer the empty sky. I closed my eyes, and for the first time, I allowed the thought to surface: perhaps we had already died, and this endless sitting was not life, but the punishment of eternity. To love forever is to suffer forever. And we had promised both. The night thickened until even memory seemed muffled by fog. The world around us no longer felt like stone, carnival, or ruin—it felt like a womb of shadows where time had stopped its cruel spinning. We remained back-to-back, stitched together by absence, yet pulled apart by the violence of what we once called love. My balloon strained against its string like a beast desperate for escape, dragging at my bleeding hand. Every tremor sent a ripple into my bones, as though it carried the heartbeat I had long since lost. I wondered if hers beat still, or if she too had traded hers away for stitches and silence. Her voice, low and deliberate, broke the void. “Do you ever wonder,” she said, “whether they made us to be kept… or to be broken?” The question pierced like a nail hammered into my skull. I did wonder. I had wondered every day since the vow. We were crafted, reshaped, bound by a surgeon-priest whose trembling hands believed he was building beauty out of ruin. Yet beauty was not what had survived—only ruin with prettier scars. Were we meant to endure, or to fall apart spectacularly, like glass shattering under the weight of a hymn? I wanted to tell her my thoughts, but the stitches held fast across my lips. My silence was her answer. The fog began to move—not drifting but crawling, like something alive. It slid across the stones in tendrils, coiling around our ankles, our wrists, the strings of our balloons. It was not mere weather but hunger itself, patient and endless. From within it came whispers, soft and multitudinous, voices that were not ours. They spoke in fragments, syllables that slid across the skin like cold hands: stay, vow, bleed, forever. The voices pressed at the thin wall of my skull, and I felt madness rising like a tide. Her back stiffened against mine; she heard them too. Without speaking, we clutched our balloons tighter, as though these fragile tokens were talismans against the encroaching dark. And then—something new. A memory surfaced, unbidden, dragged up by the whispering fog. The night of the vow. The mirrors. The needle. She and I kneeling opposite each other, our reflections infinite, bleeding into one another until we could no longer tell where she ended and I began. The surgeon’s voice trembling as he read the words: “What you destroy, you keep. What you bind, you cannot cut. What you vow, you bleed.” His hand had been steady enough when the needle pierced flesh, when the first stitch pulled skin to skin, lip to lip, scar to scar. We had not screamed, not then. Pain had been devotion, devotion had been ecstasy. Our tears had mixed on the floor like holy water. That was the first night the balloons appeared—crimson, impossible, floating in the mirrored room as though summoned by our wound. They had followed us ever since, loyal ghosts tethered to grief. I opened my eyes and the fog recoiled, as though it knew it had revealed too much. The carousel groaned again, closer now, though I knew it had never moved. The horses’ shadows stretched long across the mist, their painted faces warped into grimaces that were no longer pretend. One by one, their mouths opened and closed, chewing the air like jaws. I smelled rot and sugar, the scent of carnival sweetness rotting into the stench of corpses. My balloon trembled violently. Hers did too—I could feel the vibration of the string through her spine pressed into mine. Together we sat as the carousel of phantoms turned, riderless yet watching. She shifted then, and her movement startled me. For the first time she leaned forward, away from me, and I felt the sudden void of her back leaving mine. Panic surged—cold, immediate, unbearable. My stitched smile tore slightly as I gasped. I reached blindly behind me, desperate for her touch, her weight, her presence. My fingers clawed only air. The fog thickened between us like a wall. “Don’t—” I tried to speak, but the word caught on the thread of my mouth, breaking into a strangled hiss. Her voice, from the fog: “If love is an altar, then it demands a sacrifice.” The words trembled but were resolute. I twisted, stitches ripping at the corners of my lips as I forced myself to turn. Pain seared through my mouth, blood spilling into the fog. When I finally saw her, she was standing—her balloon clutched tight, her body swaying under the weight of her own decision. Her eyes burned, not with fire but with a hollow conviction that chilled me more than any flame. She lifted her balloon slowly, raising it above her head as though it were an offering to the void. “No,” I tried to say, but the blood and stitches made it into a guttural moan. My hand stretched forward, trembling, clawing at the air between us. The fog seemed to laugh as it swallowed her shape, leaving me with only flashes: the skulls of her hat glinting, the crimson balloon straining against its string, the faint trace of her stitched mouth trembling between silence and scream. And then—she let go. The balloon ripped free, rising into the fog. Higher and higher, until the red vanished into the gray ceiling of eternity. She fell to her knees as if her body had collapsed without its tether, as though the balloon had been holding her up all along. I crawled to her, threads tearing, blood marking the stones. When I reached her, she was cold. Her body was still there, yes, but something had gone with the balloon. Something vital. Her lips were parted, not stitched shut but broken, torn by her own will. She had freed herself, but freedom had devoured her. I pressed my forehead to hers, smearing my blood into her hollow skin, and whispered through the torn seam of my smile: “I won’t let go. Not now. Not ever.” Above us, the fog stirred. The whispers grew louder, no longer fragments but chorus. They welcomed her balloon into their unseen mouths. They swallowed it whole, as they would one day swallow mine. But not tonight. Tonight, I clutched my own crimson balloon tighter, string cutting to bone, knowing that I would never release it—not even when it begged. Love, I understood now, was not the wound. Love was the refusal to heal. And so we remained: she, hollow on the stone, her balloon surrendered; I, bleeding and torn, holding mine with a grip that would outlast death itself. Together, we were the story the fog could never erase: two broken souls bound by vow, by scar, by crimson tether. Eternity would gnaw at us, but we would not yield. Not yet. Not ever.     Bring "Crimson Balloons and Broken Souls" into Your World Let this haunting vision of gothic romance, broken souls, and crimson devotion live beyond the page. Whether you wish to adorn your walls with shadowed elegance or carry a piece of its story with you, our collection offers striking ways to embody the artwork’s power. Framed Print — A centerpiece of dark beauty, perfect for setting a tone of eerie elegance in your home. Acrylic Print — Vivid depth and clarity that make every shadow and scar leap into haunting focus. Metal Print — A sleek, modern take that fuses industrial edge with gothic melancholy. Tote Bag — Carry the story with you, a portable shrine of devotion stitched in shadow and scarlet. Each piece is crafted to preserve the haunting atmosphere and emotional depth of the original image. Whichever form you choose, you’ll carry with you the eternal vow embodied in Crimson Balloons and Broken Souls.

Captured Tales – by Bill Tiepelman

The Pumpkin Sprite

The Brat of the Patch They called her The Pumpkin Sprite, though if you asked anyone who had suffered her company, the term “sprite” was far too generous. Sprites were supposed to be delicate, sparkly little things—ethereal mischief with a sprinkling of charm. She was none of those. Instead, she was a pint-sized tyrant wrapped in striped leggings, stomping about the pumpkin patch like she’d inherited it from a long line of vegetable royalty. Brat, goblin, demon-child—those were the names whispered when she was out of earshot. But “Pumpkin Sprite” had stuck, mostly because no one wanted to say the other titles aloud where she might hear and take offense. And oh, did she take offense. Her pumpkin patch kingdom stretched at the edge of the village, where the fields dipped into shadow and the soil smelled of smoke and secrets. She lived inside a hollowed-out pumpkin gourd—an absurdly oversized one, fat and orange and veined like it had been force-fed moonlight. Inside, she had carved it into a crooked home: shelves of stolen goods (candlesticks, spoons, and at least three pairs of boots), curtains stitched together from scarecrow rags, and a throne made entirely of gourds stacked and glued together with sticky sap. Her sense of interior design could best be described as “feral flea market,” but she sat on her throne with the smugness of a monarch anyway, hat tilted, chin lifted, daring anyone to question her authority. Every October, she made her presence known. The first chill wind blew, the first pumpkin ripened, and out she came, shrieking like a banshee who’d had one too many ciders. Villagers dreaded this season, though they’d never admit it out loud—because admitting fear gave her strength. And strength she did not need. She strutted into town on boots several sizes too big, stolen from a cobbler who still grumbled about the theft but hadn’t dared ask for them back. Her arrival was always heralded by a crow that flew ahead of her, squawking as if announcing: The Brat is Coming. Brace Yourselves. Her reputation had been earned over years of what one might generously call “antics,” though a more accurate word might have been “crimes.” She once painted faces on hay bales so convincing that a farmer nearly fainted when he thought the straw was watching him undress. Another time, she rearranged an entire pumpkin harvest into crude shapes that no decent villager would admit to recognizing, yet every single one of them blushed when they saw it. She locked one man’s chickens inside his outhouse for three days, and when he finally opened the door, he was nearly pecked to death by furious hens with a new taste for vengeance. The Sprite claimed it was “art.” The villagers called it “grounds for exorcism.” But what unnerved people most wasn’t the bratty tricks. It was the way strange things happened when her mood shifted. If she laughed—really laughed, that wild, shrill, spine-prickling sound—the jack-o’-lanterns carved for All Hallows’ Eve would flicker in unison, as though bowing to her humor. If she pouted, the wind grew sharp enough to sting your cheeks, and frost would creep across windows in delicate patterns that looked suspiciously like rude hand gestures. And if she ever whispered your name—soft, almost sweet—you would find pumpkin vines crawling up your doorstep by morning, leaves pressed against your door like green fingers itching to get inside. Some claimed the vines even tried the doorknob, twisting, pulling, testing. But of course, no one wanted to confirm that part. So, the villagers tolerated her. Better to pretend her pranks were amusing than risk her wrath. Better to chuckle nervously when she shouted “Bow, peasants!” from atop a stump, than to call her a pest to her face. Even the animals had learned their strategies. Raccoons smirked politely when she demanded compliments. Crows rolled their eyes only when she wasn’t looking. And the scarecrows—stitched together with grins that seemed a little too wide—muttered under their breath when she passed by. “Here we bloody go again,” one scarecrow was overheard grumbling, its straw jaw creaking ominously. But the scarecrows never said it too loud, because there were rumors even they weren’t immune to her moods. The Pumpkin Sprite thrived on attention, and she would do nearly anything to get it. She once staged an elaborate “coronation” in the middle of the market square, draping herself in a cape stolen from the church choir, a crown made of pumpkin stems balanced precariously on her head. “Bow to your Pumpkin Queen!” she screeched, brandishing a scepter made of a broom handle topped with a gourd. The villagers clapped awkwardly, trying to smile as she demanded tax payments in the form of candy corn. When the baker’s wife refused, her sourdough loaves rose the next morning with mocking little faces, smirking at everyone who tried to slice them. Deep down, no one truly believed she was just a brat. There was something older in her, something feral and ancient, hiding behind the bratty grin. Why did the pumpkins always seem to swell unnaturally large in her presence? Why did the vines seem to twitch toward her ankles like eager pets? And most troubling of all: why did no one remember a time before she appeared in the village? Some whispered she was born from the first cursed seed planted in the patch, sprung to life like a fungus given form. Others claimed she was the child of a witch who had fed too much blood to her garden. But no one dared ask her directly—not unless they wanted vines on their doorstep and whispers in their dreams. Still, life went on. The villagers endured her October reign the way one endures a toothache: constant, painful, but easier to ignore than to confront. And the Pumpkin Sprite relished it, strutting across the fields, tossing candy corn into the mud, cackling when the pigs scrambled to eat it. She was bratty, she was unbearable, she was terrifyingly powerful. And as the moon rose over the crooked pumpkin patch, lighting her orange throne and her crooked grin, she whispered a promise to no one in particular: “This year… oh, this year will be delicious.” Tricks, Treats, and Tyranny By the second week of October, the Pumpkin Sprite had grown bored of her usual nonsense. Rearranging pumpkins into rude shapes? Done. Painting smug faces on hay bales? Old news. Locking chickens in the outhouse? Classic, yes, but ultimately uninspired. No, this year, she wanted more. Bigger laughs, louder screams, and a stage worthy of her bratty little ego. Mischief was fine, but she craved theatrics. She wanted the villagers to wake up every morning in dread, whispering, “What’s that brat going to do next?” as though she were a natural disaster with legs. Her campaign of chaos began in subtle ways. The baker awoke one dawn to find his oven already roaring, but every loaf inside had been replaced with pumpkins. Perfectly baked, golden-skinned, steaming pumpkins. When he sliced one open in disbelief, he swore it laughed. His wife refused to eat them, but the pigs gobbled them up and then started reciting nursery rhymes in eerily high voices for a week afterward. The Sprite, perched on a fencepost nearby, clapped her sticky little hands and cackled until she nearly fell off. Next, she targeted the blacksmith. She snuck into his forge in the dead of night, replacing his sturdy iron tools with ones she had carved out of pumpkin flesh. Imagine his confusion when he tried to shoe a horse only for the hammer to splatter into orange mush against the anvil. The horse was still laughing two days later, or at least that’s what it sounded like to the smith’s apprentice. The Sprite even left a note in pumpkin juice across the anvil: “Try forging with a sense of humor, you miserable lump of coal. xoxo, Your Pumpkin Queen.” The villagers begged the priest to intervene. He lit candles and sprinkled holy water across the patch, but when he returned to the chapel, every candle was snuffed out and replaced with small pumpkins carved into obscene expressions. The pulpit itself had sprouted vines that wrapped lovingly around it, squeezing tighter every time he tried to preach. By the end of the sermon, he had given up entirely and announced the hymns would henceforth be replaced with screaming. The Pumpkin Sprite sat in the back pew, swinging her legs and humming, smug as a cat who had swallowed not only the canary but also the whole choir. But mischief alone wasn’t enough for her this year. No, this October she wanted a festival. She wanted a celebration of herself, of her bratty majesty, and if the villagers weren’t willing to throw her a parade, she would make one herself. And so the Great Pumpkin Procession was born. She spent three nights in the patch, commanding the vines to twist into grotesque little creatures—living jack-o’-lanterns with crooked grins and glowing eyes. They shuffled after her wherever she went, squeaking and giggling in voices too small for comfort. At first, the villagers assumed it was just another of her cruel pranks. But then the pumpkin-creatures began stealing things: spoons, hats, socks, one man’s false teeth. When confronted, the Sprite declared, “They’re my royal guard. Respect their sticky authority!” Imagine the horror of waking to find an army of knee-high pumpkin soldiers stomping through the streets, demanding candy, cider, or “respectful applause.” The villagers complied, clapping as these orange monstrosities marched in circles, tripping over their own vines and occasionally bursting into puddles of mush. The Sprite treated it like theater, bowing dramatically, twirling on her oversized boots, demanding encore after encore. It would have been adorable if not for the fact that every time someone failed to clap, their door was strangled by vines by morning. “You can’t keep this up forever,” muttered Old Man Bracken, the only villager brave—or senile—enough to speak against her. He shook his cane at the patch where she perched, watching her pumpkin army stomp about. “You’ll run out of pumpkins eventually.” The Pumpkin Sprite gasped as if he had insulted her personally. “Run out? Run out?!” She leapt to her feet, hands on hips, hat nearly falling off. “Old man, do you think me a mere consumer of pumpkins? A user of gourds? I am the pumpkins! They obey me because I am their mother, their queen, their—” she paused dramatically, raising her broomstick-scepter, “—their Brat Supreme!” The vines behind her writhed as though cheering. Pumpkins all across the field swelled, bursting from the soil with loud pops. The villagers gasped in horror as more orange heads pushed up, sprouting jagged grins without any knife touching them. The pumpkin army doubled, then tripled in size, their carved mouths cackling in chorus. Old Man Bracken muttered something about moving to the next village, then shuffled off to pack his belongings. The Sprite blew him a kiss, and a pumpkin soldier waddled after him to steal his cane. By mid-October, the village had become a circus. Every street corner was cluttered with pumpkins, both living and inert. Vines dangled from chimneys like grotesque holiday garlands. Children woke screaming from dreams of orange faces gnawing at their toes. The marketplace smelled perpetually of pumpkin guts, because the Sprite had decreed all trade must be conducted inside hollowed-out gourds. “It’s thematic!” she insisted, stuffing apples into a pumpkin stall and threatening to bite the nose off anyone who disagreed. But behind the bratty giggles and the theatrical flourishes, something else was happening. The villagers began to notice their own shadows stretching unnaturally long in the Sprite’s presence, twisting into shapes that didn’t quite match their bodies. The jack-o’-lanterns she created sometimes whispered. Once, a little boy leaned too close to one, and it whispered his name in a voice that wasn’t his own. He didn’t sleep for a week after that. And always, always, the vines kept spreading. Up houses. Across roads. Curling along bedposts at night, as though searching for a way inside. But whenever fear prickled too deep, the Pumpkin Sprite found a way to deflate it with bratty humor. She’d stick a pumpkin on a cow’s head and parade it through town. She’d graffiti the well with the words “Hail Your Queen” in pumpkin pulp. She even made a point of knocking on doors at midnight, demanding candy corn like a child at trick-or-treat, despite being centuries too old for such nonsense. When one farmer refused, she licked his doorknob and declared his house cursed. The knob grew vines overnight, and he moved away by sunrise. October was hers, entirely and without question. And yet, as the moon waxed and the nights grew colder, the villagers whispered that her bratty antics were beginning to feel less like jokes and more like warnings. Every prank ended with more vines, more pumpkins, more whispers in the dark. Every giggle carried an echo that lingered too long. The Sprite was still funny, yes, still bratty, still absurd. But something in her eyes—green, glowing faintly in the dark—suggested that the festival she was building was not just for her amusement. No, she was preparing for something larger. Something hungrier. Something that laughed through her and used her bratty theatrics as camouflage. And the villagers, foolish as they were, kept clapping. Because if they stopped—if they dared boo the Pumpkin Sprite—they feared what might crawl out of the patch to take its bow. The Harvest of Screams By the final week of October, the village was unrecognizable. What had once been a modest little farming town was now a grotesque carnival of orange and green. Every fencepost had been twisted into a jack-o’-lantern head. Every roofline sagged beneath the weight of crawling vines. Even the livestock wore hollowed pumpkins over their faces, mooing and bleating through jagged grins that made visiting traders turn their wagons around without stopping. The villagers moved like sleepwalkers, exhausted from endless pranks, endless laughter, endless fear. And at the center of it all, like the bratty ringmaster of her own deranged circus, was the Pumpkin Sprite. She had declared herself not only Pumpkin Queen but also “Supreme Harvest Diva of All That is Gourdy,” a title she forced the villagers to chant every morning before sunrise. If someone forgot a word or stumbled over the phrase, their house would be found by noon completely engulfed in vines, windows sealed shut by orange pulp. One poor tailor had tripped over the word “Diva” and was last seen sprinting down the road chased by pumpkins rolling after him like predatory cannonballs. The Great Pumpkin Procession had become a nightly ordeal. Her pumpkin soldiers, now numbering in the hundreds, marched through the streets carrying torches and demanding tribute in the form of cider, pie, and—her personal favorite—adoration. Villagers lined the streets, clapping until their palms blistered, grinning until their jaws ached. The Sprite danced at the head of the parade, hat bobbing, boots stomping, occasionally smiting someone with her broomstick-scepter if they clapped with insufficient enthusiasm. She laughed so hard each night her cackles echoed for miles, mingling with the guttural giggles of her army until it sounded like the whole land itself was mocking the villagers. And yet… as October’s end drew near, the atmosphere shifted. Her bratty humor remained, yes, but the villagers began to notice the way her eyes glowed brighter in the dark. How her hat never cast a proper shadow. How the vines, once cheeky nuisances, now coiled like predators, waiting, patient. The jack-o’-lanterns whispered more clearly, their carved grins speaking in voices eerily familiar, as if mimicking loved ones long buried. A farmer swore one pumpkin whispered his wife’s name—and his wife had been dead three years. He tried to smash it with an axe. The axe rotted in his hands. The pumpkin only laughed harder. On the night of the 31st, the Sprite announced her grand finale. She gathered the villagers in the market square, her pumpkin army standing guard with torches burning an unnatural blue. “Tonight,” she declared, stomping her little boots for emphasis, “we celebrate the Festival of Screams! There will be candy! There will be cider! There will be… unimaginable terror! And maybe some pie, depending on my mood.” The villagers clapped dutifully, though their faces had gone pale. Children whimpered. Old Man Bracken, who had not yet fled, muttered something about wishing he had. The Sprite raised her scepter high, and the vines surged like tidal waves, curling around every building, every tree, every soul present. Pumpkins burst from the earth in the thousands, rolling into the square like an invading army. Their faces carved themselves, jagged mouths snapping, eyes burning with candlelight that had no source. The ground shook as the patch itself seemed to awaken. “Bow to me!” shrieked the Pumpkin Sprite, her voice amplified by something far larger than her lungs. “Bow to your Queen, your Brat, your Mistress of Mischief and Mayhem! Bow, or be devoured by the harvest!” Some villagers fell to their knees instantly. Others hesitated, tears streaming as the vines tightened around their ankles. The scarecrows, who had been grumbling for weeks, finally snapped. “Enough of this brat!” one shouted, its burlap face splitting as it tore free from its post. The others followed, straw-stuffed bodies stumbling forward like a militia of stitched-up rebels. They charged the Sprite’s pumpkin army, swinging pitchforks and rusty scythes. The square erupted in chaos—pumpkins shrieking as they burst into mush, scarecrows ripping vines with their straw-stiff fingers, villagers screaming in every direction. And at the center, the Pumpkin Sprite laughed. Not her usual bratty cackle, but something deeper, richer, ancient. It was the sound of soil cracking, of roots tearing, of centuries-old hunger awakening. “Do you fools think I am your problem?” she howled, leaping onto her gourd-throne as the vines writhed around her. “I am only the herald! The tantrum before the feast! The brat before the banquet!” The ground split, and from the depths of the patch, something enormous began to rise. A gourd so massive it dwarfed the houses, its surface veined with glowing cracks. A face formed on its skin—vast, hideous, grinning with teeth made of jagged stone. The Great Gourd, the primordial pumpkin, the thing from which all vines and gourds had sprung, stirred awake after centuries of slumber. Its voice was the rustle of leaves, the groan of earth, the howl of wind through hollow stems. “Hungry,” it moaned, its carved mouth yawning wide. The villagers wailed. The scarecrows faltered. Even the Sprite’s pumpkin soldiers trembled, their candlelit eyes flickering nervously. But the Pumpkin Sprite only threw back her head and howled with glee. “Yes! YES! Feast, my father! Feast on their fear, their flesh, their pie crusts! For I have prepared this festival just for you!” As the Great Gourd’s mouth opened wider, vines lashed out, dragging screaming villagers toward its maw. The Sprite skipped along the square, pointing and laughing, mocking the terrified as they tried to flee. “Not fast enough! Wrong shoes! Oh, darling, that scream is pitchy!” she heckled. She danced through the carnage like it was a harvest ball, giggling, bratty, ecstatic. For her, this was the perfect show: horror and comedy entwined, a macabre joke with the punchline being the end of everything. And yet—perhaps because brats never know when to stop—she pushed her luck. She hopped onto the Great Gourd’s vast forehead, planting herself like a crown. “Look at me!” she cried. “The Brat Supreme has ascended! I am no longer your Queen alone—I am your god!” The Great Gourd paused. Its glowing eyes rolled upward, staring at the tiny brat perched on its head. A long silence stretched, broken only by the whimpering of villagers and the squelching of vines. Finally, in a voice like grinding stone, it spoke: “Annoying.” And with that, it flicked its massive body, sending the Pumpkin Sprite flying across the square like a ragdoll. She crashed through three hay bales, knocked over Old Man Bracken’s goat, and landed upside down in a trough of cider. Spluttering, she popped her head out, eyes blazing. “HOW DARE YOU!” she screeched, waterlogged hat slipping down her face. “You dare dismiss me, your precious brat, after everything I’ve done for you? I painted rude faces on hay bales! I cursed doorknobs! I built you an army!” The Great Gourd yawned. “Still hungry.” Its vines reached for her, curling tight. For the first time, the Pumpkin Sprite’s bratty grin faltered. Just a crack, but enough for the villagers to see. She squealed, stomped her boot in the cider, and then, with all the audacity of a child caught stealing candy, shouted: “Fine! Feast on them, not me! I quit! I resign! This harvest is canceled on account of bad vibes!” And with that, she vanished in a puff of pumpkin-scented smoke, leaving the villagers, the scarecrows, and the Great Gourd to their fate. Where she went, no one knew. Some say she fled to another village, to torment fresh victims. Others claim she still lurks in the vines, waiting, pouting, planning her comeback. But one truth remains: every October, when the wind rattles through the pumpkins and the jack-o’-lanterns giggle too loudly, the villagers shiver. Because they know the brat is never gone for long. She always returns. She always laughs. She always demands the last word. And in the distance, faint but unmistakable, a voice echoes: “Bow, peasants!”     Bring The Pumpkin Sprite Home If the bratty charm of The Pumpkin Sprite has cackled her way into your imagination, you can summon her into your own space—no vine-curses required. Our exclusive artwork is available in a range of wickedly wonderful formats: Framed Print – A bold, bratty centerpiece for your wall, perfect for summoning October vibes year-round. Tapestry – Let her sprawl across your walls with the unapologetic flair of a pumpkin queen. Greeting Card – Send a mischievous smile (or a spooky warning) to friends and foes alike. Sticker – Portable brat energy, ready to slap onto laptops, journals, or broomsticks. Celebrate the brat, embrace the mischief, and let the Pumpkin Sprite haunt your home in the best way possible. 🎃

Captured Tales – by Bill Tiepelman

Acorn Express Airways

Boarding & Questionable Safety Briefing Sprig Thistlewick, professional optimist and part-time mushroom taxidermist, had finally decided to launch his airline. Not a metaphorical airline. A literal one. His plan was simple: slap a hat on, grab a squirrel, and call it an enterprise. No paperwork, no infrastructure, just raw courage and a complete misunderstanding of physics. Now, to be fair, most gnomes lacked Sprig’s flair for disastrous entrepreneurship. The last time he tried to “modernize” gnome society, he had invented self-heating trousers. Unfortunately, they had worked too well, turning every family dinner into a small bonfire. The squirrels still referred to it as “the Winter of Screams.” And yet here he was, standing in the middle of a mossy runway—a fallen log painted with suspicious white stripes—preparing to launch his greatest venture yet: Acorn Express Airways, offering daily flights to “wherever the squirrel feels like going.” Helix, his squirrel pilot, had not signed a contract. In fact, Helix hadn’t even signed up. He was recruited at acorn-point (which is like gunpoint, but more adorable), bribed with promises of unlimited hazelnuts and a health insurance plan Sprig had scribbled on a leaf. The terms read: “If you die, you don’t have to pay premiums.” Helix considered this generous. The passengers—well, passenger—was also Sprig himself. “Every great airline begins with one brave traveler,” he announced, saluting the trees. “And also, technically, one brave mammal who doesn’t know what’s happening.” Mushrooms leaned out of the underbrush to watch. A pair of hedgehogs sold popcorn. Somewhere, a frog was taking bets. The entire forest knew this flight was a disaster waiting to happen, and they’d canceled their evening plans to spectate. Sprig climbed aboard Helix with all the dignity of a drunk librarian mounting a roller skate. His boots flopped, his beard snagged, his hat got caught on a twig and flung backward like a parachute that gave up halfway through deployment. “Preflight checklist!” he bellowed, gripping Helix’s fur like he was about to wrestle a particularly hairy pillow. “Tail: flamboyant. Whiskers: symmetrical. Nuts: accounted for.” Helix gave him a look. That look squirrels give when they’re not sure whether you’re about to feed them or ruin their entire bloodline. Sprig translated it generously as, “Permission granted.” With a solemn nod, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a rolled-up fern leaf. He cleared his throat and recited the safety briefing he’d written at 3 a.m. while delirious on dandelion wine: “In the unlikely event of a water landing, please scream loudly and hope a duck feels charitable.” “Acorns may drop from overhead compartments. These are for eating, not flotation.” “Please keep your arms and dignity inside the ride at all times.” “If you are seated next to an emergency exit, congratulations, you are also the emergency exit.” Helix twitched his whiskers and launched. Straight up. No runway, no build-up, just boom—vertical takeoff like a caffeinated rocket. Sprig’s scream ricocheted through the branches, equal parts thrill and bowel-loosening terror. Below, the fox ground crew waved fern fronds in professional arcs, guiding their ascent with the exaggerated confidence of someone who had absolutely no idea what air traffic control was. A badger in a neon vest blew a whistle. No one asked why. Through the canopy they burst, slicing through golden beams of morning light. Birds scattered. Leaves tore free. One owl muttered, “Unbelievable,” and went back to sleep. Sprig’s hat flapped behind him like a flag of questionable sovereignty. “Altitude: dramatic!” he shouted. “Dignity: postponed!” The forest below stretched into a dizzying swirl of fantasy woodland art, whimsical forest scene, and enchanted nature waiting to be marketed on Etsy. They whipped past a hawk who gave them the side-eye usually reserved for people who clap when the plane lands. A pair of sparrows debated filing a noise complaint. Helix ignored them all, laser-focused on the thrill of speed and the occasional possibility of spontaneous combustion. Then Sprig saw it: hanging impossibly in midair was a floating brass door, polished to a glow, stamped with an ornate sign: Gate A-Corn. Suspended by nothing, radiating authority, humming with magic, the doorway shimmered with the promise of destinations unknown. Sprig pointed dramatically. “There! First stop on the Acorn Express! Aim true, Helix, and mind the turbulence of existential dread!” Helix tightened his grip on physics, ignored several laws of aerodynamics, and arrowed straight toward the door. The air around them trembled, and Sprig’s grin stretched into the kind of manic expression only found on cult leaders and people who’ve had six espressos on an empty stomach. The adventure had begun, and neither gravity, reason, nor common sense was invited along for the ride.   The Turbulence of Utter Nonsense The brass door grew larger, looming like a bureaucratic nightmare in the middle of open sky. Helix, panting with the ferocity of a squirrel who’d once bitten into a chili pepper by mistake, powered forward. Sprig tightened his grip, shouting into the wind like a prophet who’d just discovered caffeine. “Gate A-Corn, our destiny!” he cried. “Or possibly our obituary headline!” The door creaked open midair. Not swung, not slid—creaked, as though it had hinges in the clouds themselves. From within, light spilled: golden, shimmering, and suspiciously judgmental. A sign above flickered in runes that translated, unhelpfully, to: “Now Boarding Group All.” Sprig adjusted his hat, which had migrated halfway down his back, and yelled at Helix, “This is it! Remember your training!” Helix, who had received no training beyond the words “don’t die,” chirped in squirrel profanity and barreled through. They shot into a void of impossible architecture. Corridors twisted like licorice sticks designed by an angry mathematician. Floors melted into ceilings, which politely excused themselves and became walls. A tannoy voice announced, “Welcome to Acorn Express Airways. Please abandon logic in the overhead compartment.” Sprig saluted. “Already did!” They weren’t alone. Passengers—other gnomes, pixies, at least one surprisingly well-dressed frog—floated in midair, clutching boarding passes made of bark. A centipede in a waistcoat offered complimentary peanuts (which were actually acorns, but the branding department insisted on calling them peanuts). “Can I get you a beverage, sir?” the centipede asked in a customer-service tone that implied violence. Sprig grinned. “Do you have dandelion wine?” “We have water that has looked at wine.” “Close enough.” Helix landed with a clumsy skid on what appeared to be carpeting woven from moss and gossip. A flight attendant—a raven in a bowtie—flapped forward, glaring. “Sir, your mount must be placed in an overhead compartment or under the seat in front of you.” Sprig snorted. “Do you see a seat in front of me?” The raven checked. The seats were currently in rebellion, galloping off toward the emergency exit while singing sea shanties. “Point taken,” the raven said, and handed him a complimentary sick bag labeled ‘Soul Leakage Only’. The tannoy boomed again: “This is your captain speaking. Captain Probability. Our cruising altitude will be approximately yes, and our estimated arrival time is don’t ask. Please enjoy your flight, and remember: if you feel turbulence, it’s probably emotional.” And turbulence there was. The corridor-airplane hybrid jolted violently, tossing passengers like dice in a cosmic gambling hall. A pixie lost her hat, which immediately filed for divorce. A goblin’s lunch turned into a live chicken mid-bite. Helix dug his claws into the moss carpet while Sprig flailed with the elegance of a man fighting off bees at a funeral. “Brace positions!” the tannoy announced. “Or just improvise. Honestly, no one cares.” The turbulence escalated into full chaos. Luggage compartments began spewing secrets: a suitcase burst open, releasing 47 unpaid parking tickets and a raccoon with diplomatic immunity. Another compartment exploded in confetti and existential dread. Sprig clung to Helix, shouting over the din, “THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I EXPECTED!” which, frankly, made it worse. The gnome’s laughter blended with screams, creating a symphony of woodland absurdity that might’ve impressed Wagner if Wagner had been drunk and concussed. Then came the in-flight entertainment. A giant screen unfolded from thin air, flickering on to reveal a propaganda film: “Why Flying Squirrel Airlines Are the Future.” The narrator’s voice boomed with ominous cheer: “Tired of walking? Of course you are! Introducing high-speed, fur-lined, moderately rabid travel. Our pilots are trained in climbing trees and ignoring consequences. Book now, and you’ll receive a free hat you didn’t want.” Helix stared at the screen, tail twitching furiously. Sprig patted his neck. “Don’t take it personally, lad. You’re the pioneer. The Wright Brother. The… Wright Brother’s pet squirrel.” Helix squeaked indignantly, clearly offended at being demoted to sidekick status in his own narrative. But before Sprig could placate him with a bribe of candied pinecones, the tannoy blared once more: “Attention passengers: we are now entering the Anomalous Weather Zone. Please ensure your limbs are securely attached, and for the love of moss, don’t make eye contact with the sky.” The plane shook like a blender filled with bad decisions. Out the windows (which appeared and disappeared depending on mood), the sky warped into colors usually reserved for lava lamps and regrettable tattoos. Raindrops fell upward. Thunder clapped in Morse code, spelling out rude words. A lightning bolt high-fived another lightning bolt, then turned to wink at Sprig. “Friendly lot,” he muttered, before being slapped across the face by a passing cumulonimbus. The gnome realized this was no ordinary turbulence. This was orchestrated chaos. He sniffed the air. Yes—mischief. Sabotage. Possibly sabotage fueled by mushrooms, but sabotage nonetheless. Somewhere in this nightmare-aircraft, someone wanted them grounded. Literally. Sprig stood, wobbling like a marionette drunk on vinegar. “Helix!” he shouted over the madness. “Plot a course to the cockpit! Someone’s playing games with our lives, and it’s not even us this time!” Helix squeaked in agreement, lunged forward, and tore down the twisting corridor-airplane hybrid like a streak of vengeful fur. Gnomes, frogs, pixies, and at least one confused insurance salesman scattered out of the way. The journey to the cockpit was perilous. They dodged a stampede of seats still singing sea shanties, leapt over a snack cart staffed by an angry beetle demanding exact change, and sprinted through a cabin section where gravity had simply quit its job and gone home. Sprig clung on with the grim determination of a man who knew that heroism and idiocy were separated only by who wrote the history books. His beard streamed behind him like an untrustworthy flag. His heart pounded. The tannoy whispered seductively, “Please don’t die. It’s tacky.” Finally, at the end of a corridor that looped back on itself three times before giving up, they saw it: the cockpit door. Polished brass. Massive. Glowing faintly with the promise of answers. Sprig jabbed a finger toward it. “There, Helix! Destiny! Or perhaps indigestion!” The squirrel squealed, launched himself into a final sprint, and leapt for the handle. And that’s when the door began to laugh.   Cockpit of Chaos & the Final Boarding Call The cockpit door did not just laugh. It guffawed, a deep, rattling belly-laugh that shook the very air around it, as though someone had installed an entire comedy club into its hinges. Sprig froze mid-leap, dangling from Helix’s back like an accessory no one ordered. “Doors don’t laugh,” he muttered. “That’s page one of ‘How to Identify Things That Are Doors.’” Helix squeaked nervously, his tail puffing up like a feather duster in a thunderstorm. The brass rippled, and the handle twisted into a sneering smile. “You’ve come this far,” the door said, voice dripping with smugness. “But no gnome, squirrel, or tragically overdressed woodland creature has ever passed through me. I am the Cockpit Door, Guardian of Captain Probability, Keeper of the Flight Manifest, Judge of Carry-On Liquids!” Sprig puffed up his chest. “Listen here, you smug slab of hinges, I’ve faced trousers that spontaneously combusted and survived the aftertaste of mushroom brandy. I am not afraid of a talking door.” Helix, meanwhile, was quietly gnawing on the corner of the carpeting in stress. The door chuckled again. “To enter, you must answer my riddles three!” Sprig groaned. “Of course. Always three. Never two, never four, always three. Fine. Give me your worst, you squeaky furniture.” Riddle One: “What flies without wings, roars without a throat, and terrifies squirrels at picnics?” Sprig squinted. “That’s easy. Wind. Or my Aunt Maple after three cups of pine needle tea. But mostly wind.” The door shuddered. “Correct. Though your Aunt Maple is terrifying.” Riddle Two: “What is heavier than guilt, faster than gossip, and more unpredictable than your tax returns?” “Obviously time,” Sprig replied. “Or possibly Helix after eating fermented berries. But I’ll stick with time.” The door rattled angrily. “Correct again. But your tax returns remain suspicious.” Riddle Three: “What is both destination and journey, filled with laughter and terror, and only possible when logic takes a day off?” Sprig grinned, his eyes sparkling with manic triumph. “Flight. Specifically, Acorn Express Airways.” The door howled, cracked, and finally swung open with theatrical reluctance. “Ugh. Fine. Go on then. But don’t say I didn’t warn you when the captain gets weird.”     Inside, the cockpit defied comprehension. Buttons grew like mushrooms across every surface. Levers hung from the ceiling, dripping with condensation. The control panel was clearly designed by someone who had once seen an accordion and thought, “Yes, but angrier.” At the center sat Captain Probability, a massive owl wearing aviator goggles and a captain’s hat two sizes too small. His feathers gleamed like spilled ink. His eyes were orbs of mathematics gone rogue. “Ah,” Captain Probability hooted, voice a strange mix of dignified scholar and used-car salesman. “Welcome to my office. You’ve braved turbulence, riddles, and seating arrangements that defy Geneva Conventions. But why are you here? To fly? To question? To snack?” Sprig cleared his throat. “We’re here because the weather tried to eat us, the tannoy keeps flirting with me, and my squirrel has developed PTSD from peanuts.” Helix squeaked agreement, twitching his whiskers like an overstimulated antenna. “We demand answers!” Captain Probability leaned forward, his beak clicking ominously. “The truth is this: Acorn Express Airways is no mere airline. It is a crucible, a test of those who dare to reject the tyranny of logic. Each passenger is chosen, plucked from their quiet woodland lives, and hurled into chaos to see if they will laugh, cry, or order overpriced snacks.” “So it’s a cult,” Sprig said flatly. “Great. Knew it.” “Not a cult,” the owl corrected. “An adventure subscription service. Auto-renews every full moon. No refunds.” The cockpit lurched violently. Outside, the Anomalous Weather Zone roared with renewed fury. Clouds twisted into monstrous faces. Lightning spelled out, “HA HA NO.” The tannoy blared: “Brace yourselves! Or don’t. Honestly, mortality rates are included in the brochure.” Sprig gritted his teeth. “Helix, we’re taking over this flight.” The squirrel squealed, appalled but loyal, and scampered toward the controls. Captain Probability flared his wings. “You dare?” he bellowed. “Do you think you can outfly chaos itself?” “No,” Sprig said, grinning wildly. “But I can ride a squirrel into absolute nonsense, and that’s practically the same thing.”     Chaos erupted. Helix leapt onto the console, paws slamming random buttons with all the subtlety of a drunk orchestra conductor. Sirens wailed. Panels lit up with messages like ‘You Shouldn’t Press That’ and ‘Congratulations, You’ve Opened the Wormhole’. The floor tilted violently, sending Sprig skidding toward a lever labeled “Do Not Pull Unless You’re Feeling Spicy.” Naturally, he pulled it. The plane screamed, reality hiccupped, and suddenly they were no longer in sky or storm—they were in a tunnel of pure absurdity. Colors exploded. Acorns rained sideways. A choir of chipmunks sang “O Fortuna” while juggling flaming pinecones. Captain Probability flailed, hooting in outrage. “You’ll destroy everything!” Sprig whooped with joy, clinging to Helix as the squirrel steered them through collapsing geometry. “DESTROY? NO, MY FEATHERED FRIEND! THIS IS INNOVATION!” He slammed another button. The tannoy moaned sensually. The moss carpeting grew legs and began tap-dancing. Somewhere, a vending machine achieved enlightenment. At the end of the tunnel, a blinding light awaited. Not gentle, hopeful light. Blinding, obnoxious, migraine-inducing light, the kind that suggests a divine being really needs to adjust their dimmer switch. Sprig pointed. “That’s our exit, Helix! Take us home!” Helix gathered every ounce of rodent strength, tail blazing like a comet, and hurled them forward. Captain Probability lunged after them, screeching, “No passenger escapes probability!” But Sprig turned, hat askew, beard wild, and shouted back the most heroic nonsense ever uttered by a gnome: “MAYBE IS FOR COWARDS!”     They burst through the light— —and crash-landed on the forest floor with all the grace of a piano falling down stairs. Birds scattered. Trees groaned. A mushroom fainted dramatically. Sprig staggered to his feet, brushing moss from his beard, while Helix flopped onto his back, chest heaving. Silence reigned for a long moment. Then Sprig grinned, wide and maniacal. “Well, Helix, we’ve done it. We’ve survived the maiden voyage of Acorn Express Airways. I declare it a success!” He raised a triumphant fist, only to immediately collapse on his face. Helix chattered weakly, rolling his eyes. Behind them, the sky shimmered. The brass door flickered, laughed once more, and disappeared into nothing. The forest returned to normal—or at least as normal as a forest gets when one gnome and one squirrel have committed interdimensional hijinks. Sprig groaned, pushed himself upright, and looked at Helix. “Same time tomorrow?” The squirrel slapped him in the face with his tail. And thus ended the first and very possibly last official flight of Acorn Express Airways, an airline that operated for exactly forty-seven minutes, carried exactly one idiot and one reluctant squirrel, and somehow managed to change the fate of woodland absurdity forever.     Bring the Adventure Home If Sprig and Helix’s madcap maiden voyage made you laugh, gasp, or quietly worry about the state of gnome aviation safety, you can keep the magic alive with beautiful products featuring Acorn Express Airways. Perfect for adding whimsy to your space, gifting to a fellow daydreamer, or carrying a little absurd humor into everyday life. Framed Print — Elevate your walls with a polished, ready-to-hang piece that captures the soaring absurdity of Sprig and Helix’s adventure. Canvas Print — Bring texture and depth to your home with this gallery-style print, the perfect centerpiece for a whimsical space. Jigsaw Puzzle — Relive the chaos piece by piece, whether as a solo challenge or with friends who also enjoy gnomish nonsense. Greeting Card — Share a laugh and a touch of woodland magic with someone who could use a smile (or a squirrel-powered airline ticket). Weekender Tote Bag — Whether you’re packing for adventure or just grocery day, this bag lets you carry the absurd whimsy of the Acorn Express with you. Each product is crafted with care and high-quality printing, ensuring that the spirit of Acorn Express Airways shines bright—whether on your wall, your table, or over your shoulder. Because some journeys deserve to be remembered… even the ones powered by squirrels.

Captured Tales – by Bill Tiepelman

Hammer of the High Skies

There are rules for gnomes. You don’t speak loudly in public unless you’re selling onions. You don’t drink before noon unless it’s mead (in which case it doesn’t count). And above all else, you don’t—under any circumstances—go around taming dragons. Dragons are for elves with cheekbones sharp enough to slice bread, or for dwarves who can drink molten iron and still belch politely afterward. Gnomes? Gnomes are supposed to tend gardens, paint doorframes cheerful colors, and keep their heads down when giants argue about who owns which mountain. Roderick Bramblehelm had never kept his head down in his life. At forty-three, he had the beard of a prophet, the patience of a mosquito, and the temper of a blacksmith whose anvil had just insulted his mother. He also had a hammer—a proper hammer, not one of those dainty mallets you use to hang shelves. This was forged steel with a handle of oak charred in dragonfire, the kind of hammer that made grown men step out of the way and priests start revising their wills. Roderick didn’t build with it. He didn’t fix with it. He raised it high as a promise to the world: if destiny won’t come knocking, I’ll bash the bloody door down myself. That philosophy is what led him into the Blacktooth Caverns on a storm-sick evening when most gnomes were at home, quietly admiring cabbages. The cavern was rumored to house something ancient and terrible. Villagers swore that every third Tuesday the mountains shuddered from within, as though the stones themselves had indigestion. Chickens went missing. Smoke rose where no fire had been lit. No one dared go inside—no one except Roderick, who had grown tired of hearing the elders whisper, “That one’s trouble,” whenever he entered the tavern. Trouble? He’d show them trouble. He’d show them wings slicing through thunder, jaws dripping with lightning, the kind of spectacle that made people drop tankards and soil breeches simultaneously. He found the beast curled among bones and broken wagons, snoring with the guttural rumble of earthquakes making love. The dragon was smaller than the legends promised, though “smaller” in this case meant only slightly less enormous than a cathedral. Its scales shimmered like wet stone, its horns were twisted corkscrews of ivory, and its teeth gleamed with the confidence of someone who had eaten several knights and found them bland. But the strangest thing of all was its grin—wide, feral, and utterly inappropriate for a creature that could end civilizations. The dragon’s name was Pickles. Roderick didn’t ask why; he suspected the answer would make his brain sprout mushrooms. “Oi, you scaly thunderchicken!” Roderick shouted, raising his hammer until it scraped the cavern roof. “Wake up, your nap’s over. The sky won’t conquer itself.” Pickles opened one saucer-sized eye, blinked once, and then let out a laugh so unholy that several bats dropped dead on the spot. It wasn’t a growl. It wasn’t a roar. It was the sound of madness having a tea party with chaos, and it rattled Roderick’s bones in the most satisfying way. “Finally,” the dragon croaked, its voice thick as burning tar. “A gnome with ambition. Do you know how long I’ve waited for one of you garden-tinkerers to grow a spine?” From that moment, their fates welded together like iron in a forge. Roderick climbed onto the beast’s back as if mounting a stubborn mule, and Pickles—after a ceremonial belch that scorched several stalactites—unfurled wings vast enough to slap the storm outside into submission. Together, they launched into the sky, shredding the night with fire and fury. The villagers of Cinderwhip, still sipping their weak ale and gossiping about the mayor’s suspicious mole, nearly dropped dead when they saw it: a gnome, of all things, astride a dragon the size of their bakery, laughing like a lunatic while waving a hammer that seemed far too big for his tiny arms. Their screams were immediate. Mothers dragged children indoors. Farmers dropped pitchforks. A priest fainted into his own soup. Yet there was no denying the magnificence of the spectacle. Pickles twisted through thunderheads, his wings scattering lightning like spilled jewels, while Roderick howled insults at the very clouds. “Is that all you’ve got?” he shouted into the storm, voice echoing across valleys. “I’ve seen scarier drizzle from a drunk donkey!” He slammed his hammer against his belt for emphasis, each clang like a war drum beating out the end of the old order. No one watching that night would forget it, no matter how hard they prayed. By dawn, the legend of Roderick Bramblehelm and Pickles the Dragon had been born. And legends, as everyone knows, are dangerous things. They don’t just change how others see you. They change what you are, and what you will have to face next. For the skies are never given freely—they are only won, and always at a price. The first night of flight was not graceful. Roderick Bramblehelm clung to Pickles’ scaly back like a barnacle strapped to a cannonball, his hammer raised high mostly because letting go meant falling to a very poetic death. The dragon’s wings pummeled the air with a sound like thunder being beaten into submission, and every dive threatened to eject the gnome into the clouds. But Roderick wasn’t afraid—not exactly. Fear, he’d decided long ago, was just excitement with poor posture. Besides, the view was intoxicating: lightning dancing through clouds, mountains carved in silver by the moon, and entire villages below, blissfully unaware that their future nightmares now came with a beard and a war hammer. Pickles was enjoying himself far too much. “Left, right, barrel roll!” he cackled, throwing his weight into aerial acrobatics that made falcons puke midflight. Roderick’s stomach lurched somewhere behind him, probably in a field. Yet he grinned, teeth bared against the wind, shouting back, “Is this all you’ve got, you overgrown newt? My aunt’s washing line gave me a rougher ride than this!” The insult delighted Pickles. He let out a wheezing, guttural laugh that sent sparks fizzing from his nostrils and set a cloud partially aflame. The cloud did not appreciate this and drifted off sulking, its edges smoldering like a badly rolled cigar. Their aerial chaos could not go unnoticed. By the second dawn, the news of a gnome atop a dragon spread faster than gossip about who’d been caught snogging behind the millhouse. Bards exaggerated, priests panicked, and kings muttered to their advisors, “Surely this is a joke, yes? A gnome? On a dragon?” Entire councils debated whether to laugh, declare war, or drink heavily until the memory passed. But memory does not pass when a dragon and rider scorch their names across the sky. And scorch they did. Their first target, entirely by accident, was a bandit camp nestled in the crook of the River Grell. Roderick had spotted their fire and, assuming it was a tavern, demanded a closer look. Pickles, never one to resist mischief, dove like a plummeting anvil. What followed was less a battle and more an extremely one-sided barbecue. Tents went up like parchment. Bandits screamed, scattering like cockroaches under divine judgment, while Roderick bellowed, “That’ll teach you to overcharge for ale!” He swung his hammer, obliterating a crate of stolen coins, sending silver raining into the dirt like divine confetti. The survivors later swore they had been attacked by the god of drunk lunatics and his pet apocalypse. From there, things escalated. Villages trembled when shadows darkened their skies. Noblemen soiled velvet trousers when Pickles swooped overhead, his grin a banner of impending chaos. Roderick found the whole affair intoxicating. He began inventing speeches to accompany their raids—grand, booming declarations that nobody could actually hear over the roaring wind but which made him feel dramatically important. “Citizens below!” he would shout into the gale, hammer aloft, “Your boring days are at an end! Behold your liberation in flame and glory!” To which Pickles would usually reply with a fart that set passing crows ablaze. Truly, they were poetry incarnate. But legends do not grow without enemies. Soon, the High Council of Stormwright Keep convened in their granite fortress. These were not sentimental people—they were the kind who measured morality in taxes and peace in tidy borders. A gnome with a dragon, unpredictable and ungovernable, was the sort of thing that sent their bowels into parliamentary panic. “This cannot stand,” decreed Archlord Velthram, a man whose face had all the warmth of a salted cod. “Summon the Knights of the Skyward Order. If a gnome believes he can own the clouds, then we shall remind him they are already under lease.” His advisors nodded gravely, though one or two scribbled furiously about whether they should trademark the phrase ‘lease of the skies’ for propaganda posters. Meanwhile, Roderick was utterly unaware that his name had become both battle cry and curse. He was too busy learning the mechanics of dragon flight. “Lean with me, you winged lunatic!” he barked during a sharp dive. “If I’m going to conquer the skies, I’ll not do it looking like a sack of potatoes flopping on your back.” Pickles snorted, amused, and adjusted his trajectory. Slowly, painfully, something resembling teamwork began to emerge from the chaos. Within a fortnight, they could slice through valleys like arrows, loop around storm spires with balletic grace, and terrify migrating geese for sport. Roderick even managed to stay in his saddle without swearing every third word. Progress. Their bond deepened not just through combat but through conversation. Around campfires of stolen logs, Roderick would drink bitter ale while Pickles roasted wild boars whole. “You know,” Roderick mused one night, “they’ll all come for us eventually. Kings, priests, heroes. They can’t stand the thought of a gnome rewriting their stories.” Pickles licked pork grease from his fangs and grinned. “Good. Let them come. I’ve been bored for centuries. Nothing tastes better than righteous indignation served on a silver spear.” And so the legend of Hammer and Dragon grew teeth. Songs carried their deeds across taverns. Children carved crude figures of a gnome with a hammer, standing triumphant atop a smiling beast. Merchants began selling counterfeit ‘dragon-scale charms’ and ‘authentic Bramblehelm beards’ at markets. For every cheer, though, there came a curse. Armies began to march. War horns blew across the realm. In storm clouds above, the first shadows of rival riders began to stir, knights with spears tipped in lightning, sworn to drag Roderick Bramblehelm screaming from the skies. But Roderick only laughed. He welcomed the challenge, hammer flashing in firelight. “Let them come,” he told Pickles, his eyes burning brighter than any dawn. “The skies were never meant for cowards. They were meant for us.” The first war horns sounded at dawn. Not the kind of dawn filled with rosy optimism and cheerful roosters, but the kind of dawn where the sun itself looked nervous about showing up. Across the valleys, banners unfurled—banners of lords, mercenaries, zealots, and anyone who thought killing a gnome on a dragon might look good on a résumé. The skies filled with armored gryphons, hawks so massive they could carry a cow in one talon, and the dreaded Knights of the Skyward Order: riders clad in polished steel, their spears tipped with bottled lightning. Their formation cut across the heavens like a razor. This was not a raid. This was an extermination. Pickles hovered at the edge of a storm, wings half-furled, grinning like a lunatic as always. His laughter boomed, rolling over the land like artillery. “Finally!” he crowed, sparks bursting from his teeth. “A proper audience!” His tail lashed through clouds, thunder growling like a hungry wolf. On his back, Roderick Bramblehelm tightened the straps of his saddle, the hammer across his shoulders heavy with promise. His beard whipped in the wind, his eyes gleamed with manic determination, and his grin matched his dragon’s. “That’s quite the reception,” he muttered. “I almost feel important.” “Almost?” Pickles snorted, then belched out a plume of fire so wide it startled a flock of starlings into immediate retirement. “You’re the most dangerous joke they’ve ever faced, hammer-boy. And jokes, when sharp enough, cut deeper than swords.” The enemy approached in waves. Trumpets shrieked. War drums thundered. Priests hurled curses into the gale, summoning holy fire and divine chains. But Roderick rose in his saddle, raised his hammer high, and bellowed a single word into the storm: “COME!” It wasn’t a plea. It was a command, and even the clouds flinched. The battle exploded like chaos uncaged. Gryphon riders dove, their beasts screaming, claws flashing in the stormlight. Pickles rolled, twisted, snapped one from the sky in his jaws, and spat the armored corpse into a village well three miles below. Roderick swung his hammer with glee, caving helmets, shattering shields, and occasionally smacking an unfortunate gryphon in the backside so hard it changed religions midflight. “Is that all?” he roared, laughter tearing from his throat. “My grandmother wrestled angrier chickens!” The Knights of the Skyward Order were no ordinary soldiers. They flew in flawless formations, their lightning-spears humming with captured storms. One spear struck Pickles square across the chest, sending sparks arcing over his scales. The dragon snarled, more annoyed than hurt, and let out a roar that cracked stone bridges below. Roderick nearly lost his grip, but instead of fear, his heart flooded with exhilaration. This was it—the storm he was born for. “Pickles!” he yelled, hammer aloft, “Let’s show these tin-plated pigeons how a gnome rewrites the sky!” What followed was not a battle. It was an opera of annihilation. Pickles spun through clouds, wings slicing wind into deadly vortices. His laugh—half shriek, half thunder—rolled over the field like doom itself. Roderick moved with lunatic precision, his hammer striking like punctuation in a poem written in blood and fire. He shattered the spear of one knight, dragged the rider from his saddle, and hurled him screaming into a thunderhead. Another knight lunged, only to find himself clotheslined by a gnome’s steel hammer in midair, which by all accounts should have been physically impossible. But legends care little for physics. Below, villagers stared upward, their lives frozen mid-task. Some prayed, some wept, some cheered. Children laughed at the absurdity of it—a tiny gnome slaying sky-knights while a dragon with a grin wider than the horizon shrieked in joy. Farmers swore they saw the gnome raise his hammer and strike lightning itself, splitting it into fragments that rained like molten silver. Entire churches would later form around the event, declaring Roderick Bramblehelm a prophet of chaos. Not that he’d ever attend a service. He thought sermons were dull unless someone caught fire halfway through. But legends always demand a price. The Archlord himself entered the fray atop a beast bred from nightmares—an obsidian wyvern, armored in spiked steel, eyes like black suns. Velthram was no fool. He carried no ordinary spear but the Spear of Dawnsbane, forged in storms older than empires, designed for a single purpose: killing dragons. His arrival hushed the battle for a breathless instant. Even Pickles’ grin faltered. “Ah,” the dragon hissed. “Finally, someone worth burping on.” The clash was cataclysmic. The wyvern slammed into Pickles midflight, talons tearing scales, tail smashing like a spiked whip. Roderick nearly flew from the saddle, clinging by one strap as the world spun into fire and shrieking metal. Velthram thrust the Dawnsbane, the spear’s lightning kissing Pickles’ ribs, carving a searing wound. The dragon roared in pain, fire exploding from his lungs, engulfing three unfortunate knights who had wandered too close. Roderick, dangling by one arm, swung his hammer with all the fury in his tiny body, smashing against Velthram’s armored face. The Archlord snarled, blood spraying, but did not fall. The battle raged across miles of sky. Villages below quaked as dragon and wyvern crashed through storm fronts, their roars louder than earthquakes. Roderick screamed insults with each swing—“Your wyvern smells like boiled cabbage!”—while Velthram countered with the cold silence of a man who hadn’t laughed since birth. Sparks rained, wings clashed, the very clouds tore apart beneath their fury. Finally, in a moment carved from madness, Roderick stood on Pickles’ neck, hammer raised, as the wyvern lunged in for the kill. Time slowed. The world held its breath. With a howl that shook heaven itself, Roderick leapt. He soared through the air—gnome beard streaming, hammer ablaze with stormlight—and brought it down upon Velthram’s spear. The impact cracked the Dawnsbane in two, thunder exploding outward in a wave that sent gryphons spiraling, shattered church bells across the realm, and split the storm into shreds of brilliant fire. Velthram, stunned, toppled from his saddle, his wyvern shrieking in panic as it dove to catch him. The sky was theirs. Pickles bellowed triumph, a laugh so wild it made the storm itself shudder into retreat. Roderick landed hard on his dragon’s back, barely clinging, lungs burning, body battered, but alive. Alive, and victorious. His hammer, cracked but unbroken, pulsed in his hands like a heartbeat. “That,” he rasped, spitting blood into the wind, “is how a gnome writes history.” The armies broke. The knights fled. The Council’s banners burned. Songs would be sung for centuries about the day a gnome and his dragon claimed the heavens. Some would call it madness. Others would call it legend. But for those who saw it with their own eyes, it was something greater: proof that the skies belonged not to kings, nor gods, nor armies, but to those mad enough to seize them. And so Roderick Bramblehelm and Pickles the Dragon carved their names into eternity, not as tyrants or saviors, but as chaos given wings. The hammer had fallen, the skies had been conquered, and the world—forever after—looked up in both terror and awe, waiting for the next roar of laughter to roll across the clouds.     Bring the Legend Home The tale of Roderick Bramblehelm and Pickles the Dragon doesn’t have to stay in the clouds. You can capture their chaos, triumph, and laughter in your own space. Hang their storm-scorched glory on your wall with a framed print or let the legend breathe boldly across a canvas that commands the room. Carry their madness wherever you go with a spiral notebook for your own daring plans, or slap their fearless grin onto your favorite surface with a battle-ready sticker. The skies may belong to legends, but the art can belong to you.

Captured Tales – by Bill Tiepelman

Tooth & Twinkle

The Recruitment of Reginald Reginald the Gnome had always considered himself something of a specialist in doing as little as possible with as much flair as possible. While other gnomes were busy tending gardens, crafting fine tools, or running suspiciously profitable mushroom ale distilleries, Reginald preferred reclining beneath a toadstool, puffing on a pipe filled with herbs of questionable legality, and sighing dramatically whenever anyone asked him for help. His philosophy was simple: the world had more than enough heroes and martyrs, but a true master of loafing was a rare and valuable treasure. At least, that’s what he told himself as he dodged responsibility with the skill of an Olympic-level tax evader. So when a crooked-nosed wizard named Bartholomew appeared in his front yard one gray morning, waving a staff and muttering about “destiny” and “chosen companions,” Reginald naturally assumed he was being scammed. “Listen,” Reginald had said, clutching his tea with both hands, “if this is about signing me up for some ‘hero’s guild,’ forget it. I don’t do quests. I don’t fetch, I don’t fight, and I certainly don’t wear tights.” Bartholomew had only grinned in that unnerving way people do when they know something you don’t — or worse, when they think they’re funny. Before Reginald could protest further, the wizard had clapped his hands, shouted something about contracts, and introduced him to a creature that would change his life in ways he was not remotely ready for. Enter Twinkle: a baby dragon with eyes the size of soup bowls, wings like oversized laundry sheets, and the perpetually gleeful smile of a drunk bard who has just discovered free ale night. Twinkle’s scales shimmered faintly under the sun — not glittering like diamonds, but with the humble shine of a well-oiled frying pan. He was, in short, both ridiculous and terrifying. Reginald, on first sight, had uttered the words: “Absolutely not.” “Absolutely yes,” Bartholomew countered, already strapping a rope harness around the dragon’s chest. “You’ll fly together, bond together, and save something or other. Don’t worry about the details. Quests always sort themselves out in the middle. That’s the magic of narrative structure.” Now, Reginald was no scholar, but he knew when he was being railroaded into a plotline. And yet, despite all his protests, he found himself — ten minutes later — airborne, screaming into the wind as Twinkle flapped with all the grace of a goat learning ballet. The ground dropped away, and the landscape unfurled like a painted scroll beneath them: forests, rivers, hills, and, somewhere in the distance, the faint twinkle (no relation) of civilization. Reginald’s stomach, however, refused to be impressed. It preferred to lurch violently, reminding him that gnomes were creatures of burrows and soil, not open skies and feather-brained wizards. “If I fall to my death, I swear I will come back as a poltergeist and knock over all your soup pots,” Reginald bellowed, his voice whipped away by the wind. Twinkle turned his head slightly, flashing that infuriating, wide-mouthed grin that revealed rows of tiny, pearly teeth. There was no malice in it — only joy. Pure, unfiltered, puppy-like joy. And that, Reginald decided, was the most unsettling thing of all. “Stop smiling at me like that,” he hissed. “You’re not supposed to enjoy being the harbinger of doom!” The dragon’s wings dipped, then rose sharply, sending Reginald bouncing in the harness like a sack of turnips strapped to a catapult. He cursed in three languages (four, if you count the dialect of muttered gnomish reserved specifically for complaining). His hat nearly flew off, his beard whipped about like tangled yarn, and his grip on the rope tightened until his knuckles resembled pearl buttons. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he realized he had forgotten to lock his cottage door. “Brilliant,” he muttered. “I’ll come home to find raccoons playing cards in my kitchen. And if they’re anything like last time, they’ll cheat.” But for all his bellyaching, Reginald couldn’t entirely ignore the thrill crawling along his spine. The world below, usually so stubbornly out of reach, now lay like a map spread at his feet. The clouds parted, the sun caught Twinkle’s wings, and for one brief, treacherous moment, he felt something disturbingly close to… wonder. Of course, he smothered the feeling immediately. “Wonder is for poets and lunatics,” he said aloud, mostly to reassure himself. “I am neither. I am a sensible gnome in a highly insensible situation.” Twinkle, naturally, ignored him. The dragon flapped harder, dove with terrifying speed, then swooped upward in a maneuver that would have impressed any respectable knight but only made Reginald wheeze like an accordion dropped down a staircase. “By the beard of my ancestors,” he gasped, “if you break my spine, I will haunt you so relentlessly you’ll never nap again.” Twinkle chirped — yes, chirped — as though to say, deal. And so, the unlikely duo carried on: one gnome with the permanent expression of a man regretting all his life choices, and one dragon with the demeanor of an overeager puppy who had just discovered the concept of air travel. Together, they cut across the sky — not gracefully, not even competently, but loudly and with far too much enthusiasm from one side of the partnership. Reginald clung to the harness, muttering darkly, “This is how legends start: with someone else’s bad idea and my unpaid labor. Typical.” The Perils of Mid-Air Hospitality Reginald had always believed that traveling should involve two essential comforts: steady ground beneath one’s feet and a flask of something strong enough to burn regrets out of the bloodstream. Unfortunately, flying on the back of Twinkle offered neither. His backside was already numb, the rope harness dug into his ribs like a debt collector, and the flask he’d hidden in his pocket had sprung a leak sometime between the second nosedive and the third death spiral. The scent of elderberry brandy now drifted in the air behind them, forming a fragrant trail that would have made bees and bandits alike giddy. “Lovely,” he muttered, wringing out his sleeve. “Nothing says ‘professional adventurer’ like reeking of spilt liquor before the first crisis.” Twinkle, naturally, was having the time of his life. He banked, spun, and chirped in that oddly musical way, as though he were hosting an aerial cabaret. Reginald clutched the ropes tighter, his teeth rattling so hard they could’ve been used as castanets. “I know you think this is fun,” he grumbled into the wind, “but some of us are not equipped for spontaneous air acrobatics. Some of us have delicate spines, weak constitutions, and, might I remind you, absolutely no wings.” The dragon ignored him, of course, but Reginald wasn’t entirely alone. As they soared past a flock of geese, one particularly bold bird flew alarmingly close to Reginald’s face. He swatted at it half-heartedly. “Shoo! I don’t have time for avian harassment. I’m already being chauffeured by a reptilian maniac.” The goose honked indignantly, as if to say, your fashion sense offends us all, short one, before veering back to its flock. “Yes, well, take it up with the wizard,” Reginald snapped. “He’s the one who dressed me like a potato sack escaped from the laundry line.” As if things weren’t humiliating enough, Twinkle suddenly let out a sound suspiciously like a growling stomach. Reginald froze. “No,” he said firmly. “Absolutely not. We are not mid-flight snacking, not unless you’ve brought your own sandwiches.” Twinkle burbled happily and banked toward a small plateau sticking out of the forest below, wings flaring in what Reginald instantly recognized as the international signal for picnic landing. The dragon swooped down, wobbling slightly on his descent, and touched down with all the grace of a sack of flour being dropped from a barn roof. Reginald’s bones clattered, his beard went sideways, and when the dust settled, he slid off the dragon’s back like an exhausted potato peel. “Congratulations,” he wheezed. “You’ve invented the world’s least comfortable carriage ride.” Twinkle, meanwhile, sat happily on his haunches, panting like a dog and staring expectantly at Reginald. The gnome raised one bushy eyebrow. “What? You think I packed snacks? Do I look like your personal caterer? I barely remember to feed myself, and half the time that involves moldy bread and regret soup.” Twinkle tilted his enormous head, blinked twice, and let out the faintest, most pitiful whine imaginable. “Oh no,” Reginald groaned, covering his ears. “Don’t you dare weaponize cuteness against me. I have survived decades of guilt-tripping aunties and manipulative raccoons. I am immune.” He was not immune. Ten minutes later, Reginald was rooting around in his satchel, producing the sad remnants of his travel supplies: two crumbling biscuits, half a wheel of suspiciously sweaty cheese, and what might once have been an apple before time and neglect transformed it into a small weapon. Twinkle eyed the pile with such radiant joy you’d have thought Reginald had conjured a feast of roasted boar and honeycakes. “Don’t get too excited,” Reginald warned, snapping the apple in half and tossing it at him. “This is barely enough to feed a hungry hamster. You, meanwhile, are the size of a hay wagon.” Twinkle swallowed the apple whole, then burped, sending out a puff of smoke that singed the tips of Reginald’s beard. “Marvelous,” the gnome grumbled, patting out the sparks. “A flying furnace with indigestion. Just what I needed.” They sat in uneasy companionship on the plateau for a while. Twinkle gnawed happily on the stale cheese, while Reginald stretched his aching legs and muttered about how retirement had been within reach just yesterday. “I could be in my burrow right now, sipping tea, playing cards with badgers, and listening to the rain,” he complained to no one in particular. “Instead, I’m babysitting a dragon with the digestive habits of a goat.” Twinkle, finished with the cheese, scooted closer and nudged him with his snout, nearly knocking him into the dirt. “Yes, yes, I like you too,” Reginald said reluctantly, rubbing the dragon’s nose. “But if you keep looking at me like I’m your replacement mother, I’m buying you a nanny goat and calling it a day.” Before he could say more, the sky above them shifted. A shadow swept across the plateau, long and ominous. Reginald froze, squinting up. It wasn’t a cloud. It wasn’t a bird. It was something far larger, something with wings so vast they seemed stitched from night itself. Twinkle froze, too, his goofy grin vanishing, replaced by a wary flick of his tail. “Oh, splendid,” Reginald muttered, standing slowly. “Because what this day was missing was a larger, scarier dragon with a possible appetite for gnomes.” The shadow circled once, twice, and then descended in a slow, predatory spiral. Reginald felt the hairs on his neck bristle. He gripped the harness rope still dangling from Twinkle’s chest and whispered, “If this ends with me being swallowed whole, I just want it noted that I was right all along. Adventure is a racket.” Twinkle crouched, wings twitching, eyes wide, caught somewhere between terror and excitement — the look of a child about to meet a relative who may or may not bring candy. Reginald patted his scaly companion nervously. “Steady now, lad. Try not to look edible.” The massive figure landed with a ground-shaking thud just ten yards away. Dust billowed, pebbles rattled, and Reginald’s heart sank. Before him stood a dragon four times Twinkle’s size, scales black as obsidian, eyes glowing like molten gold. Its wings folded neatly with the calm precision of someone who knew they were in charge of every living thing within five miles. The elder dragon lowered its head, nostrils flaring as it sniffed Reginald first, then Twinkle. Finally, with a voice that rumbled like distant thunder, it spoke: “What… is this?” Reginald swallowed hard. “Oh, wonderful. It talks. Because it wasn’t intimidating enough already.” He straightened his hat, cleared his throat, and replied with all the bravado he could fake: “This is, uh… an apprenticeship program?” The Audition for Disaster The elder dragon’s molten eyes narrowed, flicking from Reginald to Twinkle and back again, as though trying to decide which looked more ridiculous. “An apprenticeship program,” it repeated, every syllable rumbling deep enough to rearrange Reginald’s organs. “This… is what the world has come to?” Reginald, being a gnome of resourceful cowardice, nodded vigorously. “Yes. That’s exactly it. Training the next generation. All very official. You know how it is — forms to fill, waivers to sign, nobody wants liability these days.” He gave a little laugh that sounded more like a cough, then glanced sideways at Twinkle, who wagged his tail like an overexcited puppy. “See? Enthusiastic recruit. Very promising. Could probably roast marshmallows with minimal collateral damage.” The elder dragon leaned in closer, nostrils flaring. The blast of hot breath nearly flattened Reginald’s beard. “This hatchling is weak,” it growled. “Its flame is untested. Its wings are clumsy. Its heart…” The golden eyes locked on Twinkle, who, instead of cowering, belched out a puff of smoke that came with a faint squeak — like a kettle left too long on the stove. The elder dragon blinked. “Its heart is absurd.” Reginald threw his arms wide. “Absurd, yes! But in an endearing way. Everyone loves absurd these days. It sells. Absurdity is the new black, haven’t you heard?” He was stalling, of course, desperately trying to keep from being fried, stomped, or eaten. “Give him a chance. He just needs… polish. Like an uncut gem. Or an un-housebroken goat. You know, potential.” The elder dragon tilted its massive head, clearly amused by the spectacle. “Very well. The hatchling may prove itself. But if it fails…” The golden eyes fixed on Reginald, glowing hotter. “…you will take its place.” “Take its place where?” Reginald asked nervously. “I should warn you, I’m not very good at laying eggs.” The elder dragon did not laugh. Dragons, it seemed, had a limited appreciation for gnomish humor. “There is a trial,” it rumbled. “The hatchling will demonstrate courage in the face of peril.” Its massive wings unfurled, blotting out the sun, before beating downward in a gale that nearly knocked Reginald on his backside. “Follow.” “Oh, splendid,” Reginald muttered, clambering back onto Twinkle with all the grace of a sack of disgruntled potatoes. “We’re off to prove your worth in some arbitrary dragon hazing ritual. Don’t worry, I’ll just be over here quietly dying of anxiety.” Twinkle chirped cheerfully, as if volunteering for a carnival ride. The trial site turned out to be a canyon split so deep into the earth that even sunlight seemed afraid to enter. The elder dragon landed on one side, its wings stirring whirlwinds of dust, while Reginald and Twinkle teetered on a narrow outcropping across the gap. Between them stretched a rope bridge so rickety it looked like it had last been maintained by squirrels with a death wish. “The hatchling must cross,” the elder dragon declared. “It must reach me, though the winds will fight it.” Reginald peered over the edge of the canyon. The abyss seemed bottomless. He could practically hear his ancestors shouting, we told you not to leave the burrow! He turned to Twinkle, whose wide grin had dimmed into something halfway between nervousness and excitement. “You realize,” Reginald said, adjusting his hat, “that I am not built for inspirational speeches. I don’t do ‘you can do it.’ I do ‘why are we doing it at all.’ But here we are. So… listen carefully. Do not look down, do not sneeze fire at the ropes, and for the love of all that is unholy, do not grin so hard you forget to flap.” Twinkle chirped, then waddled onto the bridge, the ropes creaking ominously under his weight. Reginald, of course, had no choice but to follow, clutching the ropes as though they were his last tether to sanity. The wind howled, tugging at his beard and hat, and somewhere far below came the echoing cackle of something that very much wanted to see them fall. “Perfect,” he muttered. “The canyon comes with an audience.” Halfway across, disaster struck — naturally, because stories thrive on disaster. A sudden gust of wind roared up, twisting the bridge so violently that Reginald found himself dangling sideways like laundry on a line. Twinkle screeched, flapping frantically, wings smacking against the canyon walls. Reginald yelled, “Flap UP, you lunatic, not SIDEWAYS!” Somehow — through sheer stubbornness and a good deal of physics-defying nonsense — Twinkle found his rhythm. He steadied himself, wings catching the air just right, propelling him forward with a grace that surprised even him. Reginald clung to the dragon’s harness, eyes squeezed shut, muttering every prayer he could remember and several he invented on the spot. (“Dear whoever runs the afterlife, please don’t assign me to raccoon duty again…”) At last, they reached the far side, tumbling into the dust at the elder dragon’s feet. Reginald lay on his back, gasping like a fish left out of water. Twinkle, on the other hand, puffed proudly, chest swelling, tail wagging like a flag of victory. The elder dragon studied them in silence, then let out a low rumble that might almost have been… approval. “The hatchling is reckless,” it said. “But brave. Its flame will grow.” A pause. “And the gnome… is irritating. But resourceful.” Reginald sat up, brushing dirt from his beard. “I’ll take that as a compliment, though I notice you didn’t say handsome.” The elder dragon ignored him. “Go. Train the hatchling well. The world will need such absurd courage sooner than you think.” With that, the great wings unfurled again, carrying the elder dragon skyward, its shadow shrinking as it vanished into the clouds. Silence settled over the canyon. Reginald glanced at Twinkle, who beamed at him with uncontainable joy. Against his better judgment, the gnome chuckled. “Well,” he said, adjusting his hat, “looks like we didn’t die. That’s new.” Twinkle nuzzled him affectionately, nearly knocking him over again. “Fine, fine,” Reginald said, patting the dragon’s snout. “You did well, you ridiculous furnace. Perhaps we’ll make something of you yet.” They climbed back onto the harness. Twinkle leapt into the air, wings beating steadily now, confidence growing with each flap. Reginald clutched the ropes, grumbling as usual, but this time there was the faintest trace of a smile hiding in his beard. “Adventure,” he muttered. “A racket, sure. But maybe… not entirely a waste of time.” Below them, the canyon faded into shadow. Ahead, the horizon stretched, wide and waiting. And somewhere in the distance, Reginald swore he could already hear the wizard laughing. “Bartholomew,” he muttered darkly. “If this ends with me fighting trolls before breakfast, I’m sending you the bill.” Twinkle chirped brightly, banking toward the sunrise. Their absurd journey had only begun.     Bring a piece of "Tooth & Twinkle" into your own world. Reginald and Twinkle’s absurd, sky-high adventure doesn’t have to live only in words — you can capture the whimsy, the humor, and the magic in your home. Whether you want to hang their tale on your wall, piece it together slowly, or send a little joy in the mail, there’s a perfect option waiting for you: Framed Print – Add character and charm to any room with this enchanting artwork, ready to hang and brimming with storybook spirit. Acrylic Print – Bold, glossy, and luminous, perfect for showcasing every detail of Reginald’s exasperation and Twinkle’s irrepressible grin. Jigsaw Puzzle – Relive the adventure piece by piece, with a puzzle as whimsical (and occasionally frustrating) as the journey itself. Greeting Card – Send a smile, a laugh, or a spark of magic to someone you love — Reginald and Twinkle make unforgettable messengers. Sticker – Take the absurdity with you anywhere: laptops, water bottles, journals — a little dragon-fueled cheer for everyday life. However you choose to enjoy it, “Tooth & Twinkle” is ready to bring a dash of adventure and humor to your day. Because every home — and every heart — deserves a touch of the ridiculous.

Captured Tales – by Bill Tiepelman

The Acorn Avenger

The Gnome, The Nut, and the Nonsense Somewhere in the leafy middle of nowhere, between the edge of “don’t go in there” and “oh hell, why did we come in here,” lived a legend. Not a tall legend. Not even an average-sized legend. No, this one came in just under three feet if you didn’t count the hat. And you had to count the hat, because it was about the only thing that gave him presence. He was The Acorn Avenger, and if you were expecting heroics involving dragons, maidens, or great bloody quests, you’ve come to the wrong wood. This was a gnome whose most daring battle to date had been against indigestion. But oh, did he strut. Bark armor clanked around his stubby frame like an overenthusiastic child wearing too many Lego pieces, while his face—ruddy cheeks, twinkling eyes, and a beard the exact shade of spilled cream ale—beamed with dangerous self-confidence. On his chest, slung by ropes that looked like they’d been borrowed from an old clothesline, bounced his closest companion: Nibbs the Acorn. And no, not just an ordinary acorn. Nibbs had a face. A wide-eyed, perpetually startled, wooden face. Worse yet, it talked sometimes. Or sang. Or squeaked. Depending on the mood. The locals called it cursed. The Avenger called it “backup vocals.” On this particular morning, The Acorn Avenger was stomping through the forest with the air of someone who believed the trees were secretly applauding him. His boots squelched in the mud, his bark armor creaked like an old door hinge, and Nibbs bounced merrily with every step. “Onward, noble steed!” he shouted at no one, since he owned no horse and was, in fact, simply walking. “I don’t think I like being referred to as a steed,” Nibbs muttered. His voice was somewhere between a kazoo and a squeaky drawer hinge. “I’m more of a sidekick. Or a tambourine.” “Sidekicks don’t usually hang off my sternum,” the Avenger replied, puffing his chest proudly. “Besides, you’re lucky. Some gnomes lug around pocket watches. Or shovels. You get to be the chosen nut.” “You say that like it’s a promotion,” Nibbs grumbled, then fell silent as a squirrel scampered past. The squirrel gave them both the kind of side-eye usually reserved for drunk relatives at weddings. You see, the animals of the forest had learned to endure The Acorn Avenger. He wasn’t malicious. He wasn’t cruel. He was just… loud. He once spent three consecutive nights challenging owls to staring contests. He accused raccoons of plotting against him because they wore “bandit masks.” And once, he drew his bark sword against a deer, declaring, “Unhand the grass, villain!” The deer continued chewing and, as expected, won the duel by default. Still, the gnome was tolerated. Mostly. Until the mushrooms began to organize. But I’m getting ahead of myself. That morning, the Avenger climbed atop a mossy rock, striking what he believed to be a heroic pose. His hat drooped left in protest, but otherwise it was magnificent. “Hear me, Whispering Wood!” he cried, his voice echoing weakly through the mist. “I am the Acorn Avenger, defender of twigs, scourge of beetles, the bane of damp socks, and—most importantly—the only one here with a musical nut!” Nibbs squeaked like a deflating balloon to punctuate the moment. Somewhere in the underbrush, a rabbit muttered something rude in Lapine. Birds ruffled their feathers and muttered to each other like gossipy grandmothers. Even the trees seemed unimpressed. But The Acorn Avenger didn’t notice—or chose not to. Confidence, after all, is the art of ignoring reality with enthusiasm. “Adventure awaits, Nibbs!” he boomed, hopping off the rock and immediately landing ankle-deep in a puddle. Bark armor is not waterproof. He squelched forward anyway, determined. “Today, destiny calls!” “Destiny sounds damp,” Nibbs said dryly. “And smells like wet bark.” “Nonsense,” the Avenger snapped. “Destiny smells like victory! And perhaps roasted chestnuts. But mostly victory!” They trudged deeper into the forest, unaware that something small, spongy, and deeply offended was already watching them from the shadows. Something that had had enough of his nonsense. Something… fungal. The Fungus Among Us Every great hero has a nemesis. Achilles had Hector. Sherlock had Moriarty. The Acorn Avenger? Well, he had mushrooms. Yes, mushrooms. Don’t laugh—it’s terribly rude. These weren’t your harmless “toss them on pizza” kind of mushrooms. These were the puffed-up, resentful, perpetually damp kind, with little round heads and a grudge against anyone who stepped on them (which, in fairness, the Avenger did frequently and with dramatic flair). Our gnome had a habit of kicking at toadstools whenever he wanted to “make an entrance.” He once leapt from behind a log shouting “Prepare to be astonished!” and stomped squarely onto a mushroom ring, scattering spores everywhere. To him, this was harmless fun. To the fungi, it was an act of war. And fungi, unlike squirrels or deer, didn’t forget. They multiplied. They whispered in damp corners. They waited. On this damp morning, as the Avenger sloshed deeper into the trees, an entire conclave of mushrooms gathered in the shadows. Puffballs, shiitakes, chanterelles, even a terrifyingly pompous porcini—all arranged in a circle that looked suspiciously like a committee meeting. Their leader, a massive, sulking morel with a voice like wet corduroy, cleared his nonexistent throat. “The gnome must go.” Gasps echoed around the ring. A portly button mushroom fainted. A deadly-looking Amanita tried to clap but succeeded only in wobbling. “He mocks us,” the morel continued, darkly. “He tramples our rings. He spreads our spores without consent. Worst of all, he makes jokes about ‘mushroom puns.’” The mushrooms shuddered collectively. One piped up timidly: “But… what if he’s the chosen one? You know, foretold by the prophecy?” “Prophecy?” the morel snapped. “That was just graffiti on the side of a log. It said ‘Fun Guys Rule.’ It wasn’t divine, it was vandalism.” Meanwhile, blissfully unaware of the fungal plot, The Acorn Avenger continued tromping through the wood, narrating loudly to himself like a bard who’d been fired for excessive enthusiasm. “Mark my words, Nibbs, today we shall encounter great peril, test our courage, and maybe—just maybe—find that legendary tavern with the half-priced mead pitchers!” “I’d settle for finding a towel,” Nibbs muttered, still squeaky with damp. The gnome paused. “Do you hear that?” “Hear what?” “Exactly. Silence. Too silent. The kind of silence that suggests dramatic tension.” He narrowed his eyes. His bark armor groaned like a cranky chair. “This can only mean one thing… ambush.” Of course, he was correct. But not in the way he thought. He expected goblins, maybe wolves, possibly tax collectors. What he got was… mushrooms. Dozens of them. They emerged slowly from the underbrush, wobbling like damp cupcakes, forming a circle around him. Some glowed faintly. Some spat spores into the air like smoke bombs. It was less intimidating than the Avenger’s imagination had promised, but still—he had to admit—eerily organized. “Oh no,” Nibbs groaned. “Not them again.” “Aha!” The Avenger puffed out his chest. “Villains! Foes! Fungus fiends!” He raised his barky fist. “You dare stand against the Acorn Avenger?” “We dare,” said the morel leader, his voice damp and gurgling, like soup simmering resentfully. “We are the Mycelium Collective. And you, sir, are a menace to soil stability, spore sovereignty, and good taste in general.” “I’ll have you know I am beloved by all creatures of the forest!” The Avenger shouted, though the birds, squirrels, and one deeply unimpressed fox nearby rolled their eyes in unison. “Beloved?!” scoffed the Amanita, wobbling forward dramatically. “You’ve urinated in no fewer than three fairy rings.” “That was ONE TIME!” the Avenger shouted. “And technically, twice. But who keeps count?” “We do,” the mushrooms intoned together. It was like a choir of damp towels. Nibbs sighed. “You’ve really done it now. You don’t anger mushrooms. You don’t mock mushrooms. And above all, you don’t step on mushrooms. You should’ve known better. You’re basically at war with a salad bar.” “Silence, acorn!” the morel roared. “You, too, are complicit. You hang upon the chest of this fool, squeaking your support.” “Oh, don’t drag me into this,” Nibbs snapped. “I’ve been trying to unionize for years. He doesn’t listen.” The Avenger gasped. “Unionize? You… you traitor!” Before Nibbs could respond, the mushrooms began to advance. Slowly, yes, because they were mushrooms and their legs—well, they didn’t technically have legs, but they sort of shuffled in a way that implied locomotion. Still, there were many of them, and they encircled the gnome with grim determination. Spores drifted into the air, glowing faintly in the morning light. It looked less like a battle and more like an aggressively weird festival. “This is your end, Acorn Avenger,” the morel declared. “The forest will no longer suffer your antics. Prepare to be… composted.” The Avenger tightened his fists, bark creaking. His hat twitched heroically in the breeze. “Very well. If it is war you want, it is war you shall have.” He grinned madly. “I’ll make mulch of the lot of you!” “That’s a terrible pun,” Nibbs whispered. “Please don’t say that again.” And with that, the battle of gnome versus fungus officially began—though whether it would end in glory, disaster, or the world’s weirdest soup recipe remained to be seen. The Spores of War The air grew thick with spores, glowing like fireflies on a drunken bender. The mushrooms shuffled closer, their damp caps glistening with menace. To the casual observer, it might have looked like a salad slowly closing in on a man who really should’ve stayed home. But to the Acorn Avenger, this was destiny. Finally, a battle worthy of his legend—or at least a battle that would look impressive in his memoirs if he exaggerated the details (which, of course, he would). “Nibbs!” he barked, striking a pose so heroic that his bark armor immediately squealed in protest. “Today we make history. Today we show these fungal fiends what it means to face the power of gnome-kind!” “Power of gnome-kind?” Nibbs muttered. “The last time you flexed that power, you lost an arm-wrestling contest to a dandelion stem.” “That stem had been working out,” the Avenger snapped back. He unslung his bark sword—really just a sharpened plank he’d stolen from a picnic table—and brandished it with wild confidence. “Face me, spongy scoundrels!” The Mycelium Collective advanced, puffing spores like disgruntled chimneys. The morel leader stepped forward dramatically. “You will fall, gnome. You will rot beneath our caps. The forest shall sprout from your foolish remains.” “Over my hat!” the Avenger bellowed. He leapt forward, which was impressive in spirit if not in distance (gnomes don’t leap very far). His sword came down with a thwack, cleaving a puffball in two. Spores exploded everywhere like someone had shaken a bag of flour in a sauna. He coughed, sneezed, and shouted, “First blood!” “That’s not blood,” Nibbs squeaked, muffled by spores. “That’s fungus dust. You’re basically sneezing on your enemies.” “Sneezing is my weapon!” the Avenger declared proudly, before unleashing an almighty sneeze that blew three button mushrooms onto their backs. The mushrooms retaliated. One Amanita hurled spores like a smoke bomb, filling the clearing with a choking haze. Another launched itself bodily at the gnome, smacking into his armor with a wet splut. The Avenger staggered but remained upright, laughing maniacally. “Is that all you’ve got?!” “This is getting ridiculous,” muttered a fox, watching from the sidelines. “I came here for a quiet breakfast and now I’m in the middle of a fungal circus.” The Avenger swung his sword in wild arcs, chopping down mushrooms left and right. But for every one that fell, three more shuffled forward. The forest floor pulsed with life, the hidden network of mycelium beneath the soil whispering, summoning reinforcements. Tiny mushrooms sprouted instantly at his feet, tripping him. He fell backward with a grunt, his hat sliding sideways. “Victory… is slipping…!” he groaned dramatically, flailing like an upturned turtle. Nibbs swung against his chest with each movement, squeaking in protest. “Stop rolling, you idiot, you’re crushing my face!” Just as the mushrooms prepared to bury him beneath a tide of damp caps, the gnome’s eyes lit up. “Of course!” he cried. “Their weakness!” He yanked Nibbs free from his chest straps and held the acorn aloft like a divine relic. “Nibbs, unleash your secret weapon!” “What secret weapon?!” Nibbs squealed. “The one I’ve been saving for this very moment! You know, the… uh… thing!” “I don’t have a thing!” “Yes, you do! Do the… squeaky scream!” Nibbs blinked his wooden eyes, then sighed. “Fine.” He opened his tiny acorn mouth and let out a noise so shrill, so piercing, it made bats drop from the treetops and worms evacuate the soil in protest. The mushrooms froze. The spores quivered in midair. The forest itself seemed to pause, as though embarrassed to witness such a sound. The gnome seized the moment. He scrambled to his feet, sword raised, and shouted, “Behold! The power of the Acorn Avenger—and his terrible, terrible nut!” With one final, heroic sneeze (it was mostly phlegm, honestly), he charged through the stunned mushrooms, scattering them like bowling pins. Caps flew, spores popped, and the morel leader toppled into a puddle with an indignant splush. When the spores finally cleared, the battlefield was a mess of trampled fungi and damp gnome footprints. The Avenger stood panting, his hat askew, his armor smeared with questionable goo. He raised his sword triumphantly. “Victory!” “You’re covered in fungus,” Nibbs observed flatly. “You smell like a compost bin. And I think you have mold in your beard.” “All part of the heroic aesthetic,” the gnome replied, striking a pose despite his dripping state. “From this day forth, let it be known: The Acorn Avenger fears no fungus! I am the champion of the Whispering Wood! Protector of squirrels! Defender of damp places!” The fox watching nearby rolled its eyes. “Congratulations,” it muttered. “You’ve won a war against side salad.” Then it trotted off, unimpressed. And so the forest quieted again, the Mycelium Collective scattered but not entirely defeated. Somewhere beneath the soil, spores whispered their vows of revenge. But for now, the Acorn Avenger strutted home, squeaky nut in tow, already planning how he’d embellish this tale at the tavern. And if anyone doubted him? Well, he’d simply shout louder until they gave up. That, after all, was the true power of the Acorn Avenger: unstoppable confidence, questionable hygiene, and an acorn with lungs strong enough to wake the dead.     Bring The Acorn Avenger Home If you enjoyed the absurd saga of bark armor, squeaky nuts, and mushroom mayhem, you don’t have to leave it in the forest. The Acorn Avenger can march straight into your life with a range of whimsical treasures. Dress up your walls with a Framed Print or a bold Metal Print, perfect for adding a splash of fantasy and humor to your décor. Prefer something more personal? Jot down your own epic gnome-versus-fungus chronicles in a handy Spiral Notebook, or carry a piece of his mischief everywhere with a quirky Sticker. Each item features the playful, richly detailed imagery of The Acorn Avenger—perfect for fans of fantasy art, woodland whimsy, or anyone who just really, really hates mushrooms.

Captured Tales – by Bill Tiepelman

Snuggle Scales

Of Blossoms, Boredom, and Blunt Claws Snuggle Scales was not her given name. No self-respecting dragon would hatch with a name that sounded like it belonged to a toddler’s bedtime plushie. No, she was born as Flareth Sparkfang the Third, a name that demanded respect, fear, and at the very least, a mildly dramatic soundtrack. But that all changed when she tumbled—quite literally—out of her cozy cave and landed butt-first in a bed of cherry blossoms, wings tangled and claws pointed skyward, like a fallen croissant with an attitude. That’s when the forest gnomes found her. All seventy-three of them. “OH MY GOODNESS, IT’S GOT TOES!” one of them shrieked with the volume of a kazoo in heat. “AND LOOK AT HER LITTLE BELLY FLUFF!” another gushed, already crocheting a pink bow mid-hyperventilation. The vote to rename her "Snuggle Scales" was unanimous. Flarespark-whatever was never mentioned again—except by her therapist (a deeply overworked toad named Dr. Gloomp). Now, Snuggle Scales lived in the *Whifflewood Glade*, an aggressively cheerful corner of the Enchanted Lands that always smelled faintly of cinnamon and gossip. It was springtime, which meant the petals were falling like pink confetti, the birds were practicing passive-aggressive harmonies, and Snuggle Scales had reached peak boredom. She'd already rearranged her claw polish collection (sixteen shades of 'Molten Mischief'), ironed her tail ribbons, and sorted her wing glitter by sass level. So, she decided to do something no baby dragon had dared before. She would leave the glade. She would enter The Human Realm. Why? Because dragons were meant to soar, not pose for gnome-sponsored tea parties with daffodil cupcakes and emotional support hedgehogs named Crispin. And if one more elf tried to paint her scales for “pastel realism” art class, she was going to burn their easel into bite-sized regret. So, with her wings fluffed, talons sharpened, and bow freshly fluffed, Snuggle Scales grabbed her emotional support mushroom (don’t judge), did a dramatic stretch for the imaginary audience, and waddled confidently toward the portal tree. Which, of course, had a “Wet Bark” sign hanging from it. “You have GOT to be kidding me,” she muttered, tapping the wood like a suspicious landlord. “I swear, if I get moss on my tail again, I’m suing the forest.” And with one last eye-roll at the overly fragrant breeze, Snuggle Scales stepped through the tree, into a world of chaos, caffeine, and, as she would soon discover, feral toddlers at birthday parties. Caffeine, Cupcakes, and Catastrophic Bounce Houses The Human Realm was not what Snuggle Scales expected. She had envisioned grand towers, mysterious music, and possibly a ritualistic offering of snacks. Instead, she crash-landed in the middle of a suburban park — face-first into a pink plastic picnic table covered in unicorn napkins and half-eaten cupcakes. A small human screamed. Then another. Then several. Within seconds, she was surrounded by a battalion of sticky-fingered, frosting-smeared toddlers — the terrifying kind that ask “Why?” five hundred times and think personal space is a myth. “LOOK! A LIZARD!” one of them shrieked, pointing at her with a sparkly wand that smelled like raspberry sanitizer and poor decisions. “She’s a DINOSAUR!” said another, already attempting to mount her tail like a pony ride. Snuggle Scales was two seconds away from turning this party into a fiery lesson in boundaries, but just then — she locked eyes with the ringleader. A tiny human queen in a glitter crown and a tutu the size of a small planet. “You’re invited,” the girl said solemnly, offering her a cupcake with the confidence of someone who had never been denied anything in her life. “You’re my special guest now.” Snuggle Scales blinked. The cupcake was vanilla. It had edible glitter. And more importantly, it was presented without any adult supervision. With great dignity (and minor frosting inhalation), she accepted. Two hours later, Snuggle Scales was inexplicably wearing a Hello Kitty sticker on her snout, had adopted the name “Miss Wiggles,” and had somehow agreed to be the grand finale in a game called *Pin the Sparkle on the Reptile.* “This is a new low,” she muttered, glancing sideways at a balloon animal that looked like a depressed goat. “I used to be feared. I used to be majestic.” “You used to be lonely,” said a tiny voice from under the cupcake table. It was the birthday girl, now minus the crown and frosting but plus a surprisingly sharp sense of emotional timing. Snuggle Scales looked at her — really looked at her. She had that messy, defiant, beautiful chaos that reminded the dragon of spring mornings in the glade. Of imperfect gnome poetry. Of soft petals on scales and snorting laughter during daffodil charades. And for the first time since she'd crossed into this sugar-coated world, something inside her softened. “Do you... want to pet my toe beans?” she offered, lifting a foot. The child gasped in reverent delight. “YES.” And just like that, an unspoken contract was sealed: the girl would never tell anyone that Miss Wiggles had accidentally belched glitter mid-yawn, and Snuggle Scales would never admit that she now owned a friendship bracelet made of licorice string and rainbow beads. “You’re magic,” the girl whispered, curling up beside her under the shade of the party tent. “Can you stay forever?” Snuggle Scales hesitated. Forever was a long time. Long enough for more birthdays. More cupcakes. More of this squishy, imperfect chaos that somehow made her scales feel warmer. And maybe… just maybe… long enough to teach these tiny humans how to properly use wing glitter. She looked up at the sky, half-expecting a portal to yank her back. But nothing came. Just a breeze carrying the scent of sugar, grass, and potential. “We’ll see,” she said, smirking. “But only if I get my own bounce house next time.” “Deal,” the girl said. “And a tiara.” Snuggle Scales snorted. “Obviously.” And so, the rest of the party unfolded in a blur of squeals, sprinkles, and unlicensed dragon rides. Somewhere between her second slice of confetti cake and a dance-off with a toddler DJ, Snuggle Scales forgot entirely why she ever thought she was too big, too bold, or too weird for a little human joy. Turns out, she wasn’t the only creature who’d needed rescuing that day. Of Glittering Goodbyes and Slightly Illegal Tiara Smuggling Monday morning hit the human realm like a caffeinated squirrel. The park was empty. The balloons had deflated into sad rubber pancakes, the frosting had turned crusty in the sun, and someone had stolen the bounce house (probably Gary from next door — he looked shady). Snuggle Scales sat in the middle of the battlefield — I mean, playground — still wearing her licorice friendship bracelet and a flower crown made of dandelions, which she had not agreed to but now kind of loved. She’d stayed the night curled up under a picnic table, half-watching the stars, half-listening to the little girl breathe in her sleep beside her. She hadn’t slept. Dragons didn’t sleep during soul shifts. Because something was shifting. Back in Whifflewood, the seasons were changing. The trees would be gossiping. The gnomes would be filing a formal “Where Is Our Dramatic Baby?” complaint. And Dr. Gloomp was probably sending passive-aggressive mushrooms through the portal. The forest wanted her back. But… did she want back? “You’re still here,” said a sleepy voice beside her. The girl sat up, hair wild, tutu wrinkled, eyes soft. “I thought maybe you were a dream.” Snuggle Scales sighed, releasing a small puff of glitter-smoke. “I mean, I’m adorable enough to be. But no. Real dragon. Still technically fierce. Now 37% cupcake.” The girl giggled, then got serious in that intense child way that feels like an emotional ambush. “You don’t look like you want to go home.” “Home is... complicated,” Snuggle said. “It’s full of expectations. Rituals. Very clingy gnomes. I’m supposed to be majestic. Breathe fire on command. Pretend I’m not obsessed with sparkles.” “But you can breathe sparkles now,” the girl pointed out. “And you’re so majestic when you do a dance spin before sneezing.” Snuggle blinked. “You mean... my patented Glitter Twirl Sneeze™?” “That one,” the girl whispered reverently. “It changed me.” They sat in silence, the kind that only exists when two odd souls have found an unexpected alignment. Then — the wind shifted. “Uh oh,” said Snuggle Scales. The portal tree was humming behind them, its bark glowing with that “ancient magic plus low battery warning” vibe. If she didn’t return soon, it might close. Permanently. “If I go now,” she said slowly, “I’ll be stuck there until next spring. And honestly, gnome karaoke season starts soon. It’s a nightmare.” The girl stood up, walked to the tree, and did something astonishing. She *hugged it.* “You can come visit her,” she said to the tree like it was an ex-boyfriend who still had good books. “But you don’t get to trap her.” The portal shimmered. Flickered. Then… waited. Snuggle Scales blinked. That had never happened before. Trees didn’t negotiate. But maybe — just maybe — it wasn’t the tree deciding anymore. “You’re magic,” she whispered to the girl, her voice caught between a sob and a snort. “I know,” the girl replied. “But don’t tell anyone. They’ll make me run the PTA.” They hugged, long and fierce. Dragon claws against glitter-stained hands. Old magic meeting new. Snuggle Scales stepped into the portal. Just one foot. Just enough to keep the door open. And then, before anyone could stop her, she turned around and tossed the flower crown to the girl. “If you ever need me,” she said, “just light a vanilla cupcake and whisper, ‘Slay, Miss Wiggles.’ I’ll come running.” The portal closed with a pop. And far away, back in the glade, the gnomes gasped in horror — because their baby dragon had returned wearing a homemade tiara, toe polish in four different colors, and an attitude that would not be contained. Spring had come. And Snuggle Scales? She had bloomed. And heaven help the next elf who tried to paint her scales without permission.     Love Snuggle Scales as much as she loves toe polish and rebellion? Bring home the magic — and a little cheeky dragon charm — with these delightful products inspired by our sassiest hatchling yet: Framed Print — Perfect for nurseries, nooks, or any wall that needs a little sparkle and sass. Acrylic Print — A bold, vivid statement piece with magical gloss and mythical attitude. Jigsaw Puzzle — Because nothing says “cozy chaos” like piecing together a dragon’s glitter sneeze in 500 bits. Greeting Card — Send someone a snuggly fire-breath of joy (and maybe a tiara). Whether you hang her on your wall, piece her together on a cozy afternoon, or send her to a friend who needs a giggle — Snuggle Scales is ready to bring whimsy, warmth, and just the right amount of dragon drama to your world.

Captured Tales – by Bill Tiepelman

Blossomfire Hatchling

The Hatchling in the Meadow In the world’s forgotten folds—where maps grew skittish and cartographers quietly pretended certain regions didn’t exist—there lived a creature that would one day become legend. For now, however, she was a wobbling, squeaking, sass-laden baby dragon who had the audacity to hatch beneath a tree that never stopped blooming. Her scales glimmered like warm embers wrapped in rose petals, a curious mix of fragility and fire, and so the villagers who whispered about her called her the Blossomfire Hatchling. Now, if you think hatchlings are supposed to be delicate, reserved little things—content to blink wide-eyed at the world and coo gently—you clearly haven’t met this one. From the very moment her eggshell cracked, she was already a critic. The air was too cold. The petals falling on her head were too pushy. The sunlight hit her left wing at a suspicious angle. And don’t get her started on the clumsy butterflies who thought her nose was a landing strip. She gave each of them the kind of side-eye that could curdle milk. Still, the meadow was hers. Or at least, she decided it was hers. Hatchlings rarely ask permission. She planted her chubby behind on a moss-covered log, puffed out her tiny chest, and declared herself queen by way of a wobbly wave. The bees, naturally, didn’t approve of this appointment—they were unionized, after all—but they were forced to accept her sovereignty after she accidentally sneezed and set an entire patch of nettles aflame. The bees voted 12-3 to just let her have the meadow. Democracy in action. She was no ordinary sight. Her wings, though currently as useless as lace curtains on a potato, shimmered faintly with rainbow hues whenever the sun dared kiss them. The hatchling herself was a bundle of contradictions: fierce yet adorable, loud yet somehow enchanting, destructive yet oddly good for business. A farmer swore that after she winked at him from across the field, his potatoes grew the size of small boulders. Another villager insisted that after she burped during a thunderstorm, his pond frogs suddenly developed the ability to croak in baritone harmonies. Whether these stories were true or just beer-inspired exaggerations was irrelevant—they spread like wildfire, much like the unfortunate haystack incident she would never live down. The hatchling, of course, was blissfully unaware of all this. She had no concept of legend, of worship, of fearful whispers that spoke of “what will she be like once she grows.” Her world was simple: blossoms, bugs, sunbeams, and the occasional stubborn squirrel who refused to bow to her rule. She was certain the meadow belonged entirely to her, and if you dared disagree, she would stomp her tiny foot and squeak with such authority that even grown men reconsidered their life choices. But for all her sass and fire, there was sweetness too. At sunset, when the sky flushed pink and gold, she would stretch her stubby wings and gaze toward the horizon. She imagined soaring, though she had no real clue what flying felt like. Sometimes, when the wind swirled, she thought she could almost lift off, only to land flat on her rear with an indignant snort. And yet she kept trying, because even in her potato-with-curtains stage, hope burned as brightly as the spark in her scales. Travelers who stumbled into her meadow often spoke of a strange warmth. Not the kind from the sun, but the kind that curled inside the chest and made the world feel a little softer, a little kinder. Some left with baskets of flowers that bloomed twice as bright. Others swore their luck improved after glimpsing her little wave. She was a living rumor, a myth in training, a hatchling destined for something neither she nor anyone else could yet define. Of course, destiny wasn’t on her mind. At this stage in her life, she was far more concerned with whether daisies or dandelions made a better afternoon snack (spoiler: they both tasted like disappointment, though she chewed them anyway with great ceremony). She spent her days tumbling through blossoms, chasing shadows, and perfecting her royal wave. In her eyes, she was already the reigning monarch of whimsy and sass, and no one could convince her otherwise. Perhaps, in her own way, she was right. After all, when you’re a dragon—even a baby one—the world tends to bend just a little in your favor. A Whiff of Trouble By the time the Blossomfire Hatchling had survived her first season in the meadow, she had gained a reputation among the locals as both a blessing and a menace. Blessing because gardens bloomed twice as lush when she pranced near them, menace because laundry lines had an unfortunate habit of spontaneously catching fire if she sneezed. One might think the villagers would avoid the meadow entirely, but humans are a strange breed. Some brought offerings—baskets of honey, fresh fruit, shiny trinkets—hoping to win her favor. Others crept in at night, muttering that the “beast” should be driven out before she grew larger. The hatchling, of course, remained gloriously oblivious. She thought the baskets of fruit simply rained from the sky. She believed the whispers in the night were owls who had nothing better to do. And she assumed that shiny trinkets simply sprouted like mushrooms. In her mind, she was not only the monarch of the meadow but also clearly the universe’s favorite child. If anyone disagreed, well… she had ways of making her opinions known. It was during one particularly warm afternoon that her destiny—or at least her first great adventure—came sniffing through the tall grass. Literally sniffing. A fox, lean and red-furred, with eyes the color of old copper coins, slunk into her kingdom. He had the swagger of someone who’d stolen too many chickens and gotten away with it. The hatchling watched him with wide, curious eyes from atop her mossy log throne. The fox, equally curious, tilted his head as if to say, “What in the fiery underworld are you supposed to be?” She answered with a squeaky roar. Not exactly intimidating, but effective enough. The fox flinched, then smirked—if foxes can smirk, and this one most certainly could. “Little ember,” he said in a voice that purred like smoke, “you sit like a queen but smell like a campfire. Who are you to claim this meadow?” The hatchling flapped her stubby wings with indignation. Who was she? She was the Blossomfire Hatchling. She was blossom and flame, sass and sparkle, ruler of bees, terror of squirrels, and breaker of laundry lines! She squeaked again, longer this time, and added a defiant stomp. The meadow itself seemed to tremble, though that was probably just the fox’s imagination. “Well,” the fox chuckled, circling her throne-log. “You’ve got guts, potato-with-wings. But guts aren’t enough. This meadow is prime real estate for foxes. Rabbits taste better here, and the beetles crunch like candy. If you think you can keep it, you’ll need to prove yourself.” The hatchling puffed up like a dandelion in full seed. Prove herself? Challenge accepted. She sneezed once, singeing the grass dangerously close to his tail. The fox yelped, leapt three feet in the air, and landed with his fur smoking. She giggled—a wheezy, flame-flecked giggle—and stomped again for good measure. The fox’s smirk faltered. Maybe, just maybe, this potato was trouble. But before he could retreat, the ground shuddered with an altogether different presence. Out from the tree line lumbered a bear. Not just any bear—a massive old creature with a patchy coat, scarred snout, and a crown of burrs tangled in his fur. He was grumpy. He was hungry. And he had a nose for honey, which was precisely what the villagers had left at the edge of the meadow that morning. The hatchling froze, her tiny wings quivering. The fox swore under his breath and crouched low. The bear sniffed once, twice, then turned his great head toward the mossy log. Toward her. Toward the little ember that had no business being so bright. For a moment, the meadow held its breath. Even the bees stopped mid-buzz, as if deciding whether it was wiser to abandon ship. The hatchling, however, remembered she was queen. Queens did not cower. Queens commanded. And so she stood, wobbling but defiant, and gave her best squeaky roar yet—so loud it startled herself. To her surprise, the bear paused. He blinked at her. Then he did something wholly unexpected: he snorted, rolled onto his back, and began scratching his back in the dirt as though she had just given him permission to lounge. The fox blinked, utterly flummoxed. “What in all nine trickster tales… did you just tame that bear?” The hatchling, seizing the opportunity, puffed out her chest and waved a tiny paw as if to say, “Yes, obviously. This is how royalty handles things.” Inside, her little heart hammered like a drum. She hadn’t tamed anything—she had just gotten incredibly lucky. But luck, she decided, was as good a crown as any. News of the bear incident spread quickly. By dusk, whispers carried from village to village: the Blossomfire Hatchling had allies. First bees, now bears. What would be next—wolves, owls, the river itself? She was no longer just a rumor. She was a force. And forces, as history likes to remind us, rarely stay small. But destiny wasn’t done toying with her yet. The very next morning, she woke to find not just fox eyes watching her, but the glint of something colder, sharper, human. Someone had finally come to take her away. Fire, Folly, and a Flicker of Destiny The dawn broke golden over the meadow, each petal dew-dappled and sparkling as if the world itself had dressed in diamonds for the day. The Blossomfire Hatchling stretched on her mossy throne, wings twitching, tail curling lazily. She was queen, and the kingdom was peaceful—or so she thought. She hadn’t noticed the rustle of leather boots in the underbrush, the faint glimmer of steel catching morning light, the human breath held just beyond the tree line. Three figures emerged from the shadows like badly timed thunderclouds: a wiry man in a patchwork cloak, a woman with a crossbow too large for her body, and a grizzled knight who looked as though retirement had been forced upon him far too late. They were not villagers bearing offerings. They were hunters—and they had come for her. The fox, sly observer that he was, slunk into the tall grass with a muttered, “Good luck, potato-with-wings. I don’t do humans.” The bear, already half-asleep, rolled over and snored. The hatchling was on her own. “By order of the High Council!” the knight bellowed, though it came out more wheezy than regal. “The creature known as the Blossomfire Hatchling is to be captured and contained! For the safety of the people!” The hatchling tilted her head. Contained? As if she were some sort of butter churn? Absolutely not. She squeaked furiously, flapped her stubby wings, and stomped so hard a mushroom nearby burst into spores. The humans, unimpressed, advanced. The crossbow bolt came first—zipping through the air toward her little chest. It might have struck true if she hadn’t sneezed at that exact moment. The sneeze, fiery and unladylike, turned the bolt into molten goo that dribbled harmlessly onto the ground. The wiry man swore. The knight groaned. The hatchling burped smoke and blinked, surprised at herself. Then chaos unfurled like a badly rolled rug. The hunters lunged. The hatchling ran. Her tiny legs pumped furiously, wings flapping in useless panic. Through blossoms, under logs, across streams she darted, squealing indignantly the whole way. Arrows thunked into tree trunks behind her. Nets swooshed over her head. At one point, the wiry man tripped and cursed, tangling himself in his own rope, which the fox found hilarious. But luck, fickle as ever, didn’t hold forever. At the meadow’s edge, she skidded to a stop. A wall of iron cages loomed, dragged there by horses she hadn’t noticed before. The smell of cold metal and fear seeped into her nose. For the first time, the Blossomfire Hatchling felt her flame flicker low. She was small. They were many. And queens, as it turned out, could indeed be cornered. The knight raised his sword. The woman reloaded her crossbow. The wiry man, finally untangled, grinned with the triumph of someone about to become wealthy at another’s expense. “Bag her,” he hissed. “She’ll fetch a king’s ransom.” But destiny, cheeky rascal that it is, had other plans. The earth trembled—not with the clumsy charge of men, but with the rolling, unmistakable snore of the bear. He had woken cranky, and nothing is crankier than a bear whose nap is disturbed by humans waving pointy sticks. With a roar that rattled the marrow of every living creature, the bear barreled into the clearing, swatting weapons aside like toys. The hunters scattered, shrieking. One dove headfirst into his own cage and promptly locked himself in. The crossbow clattered uselessly to the ground. Even the knight, weary and world-worn, muttered something about “not being paid enough for this” and bolted. The hatchling blinked at the chaos, her little jaw hanging open. She hadn’t roared. She hadn’t fought. She had just… stood there. And yet, the meadow had risen for her. The fox slunk back into view, licking a paw with smug amusement. “Not bad, potato. Not bad at all. You’ve got bears on payroll now. I’d say you’re doing alright.” But as the dust settled, something curious happened. The hatchling felt warmth not just in her scales but deep in her chest. A glow. A pull. She waddled forward, past the broken nets and bent swords, and pressed her tiny paw to the iron cages. To her astonishment, the metal softened beneath her touch, blooming into vines covered in flowers. She squeaked in delight. The cages melted away, becoming harmless trellises. The humans stared, dumbstruck. The knight, kneeling now, whispered, “By the gods… she is no monster.” His voice cracked with awe. “She is a guardian.” The hatchling, who still considered herself primarily a professional stomper and dandelion-chewer, had no idea what any of this meant. But she waved anyway, as if to say, Yes, yes, bow to the potato queen. The villagers would tell the story for generations: how a baby dragon turned weapons into blossoms, how a fox and a bear became her unlikely companions, and how destiny itself bent like iron before her. Some would swear she grew into a mighty dragon, defender of the valley. Others insisted she remained small forever, a perpetual hatchling who ruled through charm rather than flame. But those who had seen her, truly seen her, knew the truth. She was more than blossom. She was more than fire. She was hope wrapped in scales, a sassy miracle with a sneeze that could change the world. And the best part? Her story was only just beginning.     Bring the Blossomfire Hatchling Home The tale of the Blossomfire Hatchling doesn’t have to stay within these words—it can brighten your own world, too. Whether you want her sass and sparkle glowing from your wall, your coffee table, or even your cozy reading nook, she’s ready to bring her whimsical fire into your daily life. Adorn your walls with her magic through a framed fine art print or a bold canvas print. If you crave a bit of play, challenge yourself with a puzzle that brings her meadow kingdom to life piece by piece. For something heartfelt and shareable, send her charm to loved ones with a greeting card. Or, if cozy comfort is more your style, wrap yourself in her warmth with a soft fleece blanket. Wherever she lands, the Blossomfire Hatchling brings with her a spark of whimsy, hope, and just enough sass to keep your days interesting. Let her story live not just in imagination, but in your home.

Captured Tales – by Bill Tiepelman

Nebula-Winged Wisdom

The Owl Who Knew Too Much In the beginning — before calendars, before clocks, before that awkward invention of “daylight savings time” — there was only the silence of the void. And in that silence perched an owl. Not just any owl, mind you, but a colossal, shimmering creature whose feathers were dipped in nebulae and whose wings stretched across constellations. Mortals called it by many names: The Silent Watcher, The Feathery Oracle, The Cosmic Feather-Duster. But the stars themselves whispered one title in awe: Nebula-Winged Wisdom. This owl was no ordinary wise old bird delivering fortune-cookie advice. Oh no, it was a living archive of every secret the universe had ever coughed up — from the recipe for black holes (hint: too much dark matter in one pot) to the embarrassing karaoke sessions of gods who thought no one was listening. Its eyes glowed like twin suns not just because they were radiant, but because they had witnessed the rise and fall of worlds, lovers, civilizations, and regrettable fashion choices involving cosmic spandex. The legend goes that if you caught the owl’s gaze, you’d either be blessed with a sudden surge of wisdom or doomed to know just a little too much. Like the knowledge that the universe isn’t infinite — it just loops like a cosmic rerun, and yes, you’ve already read this story forty-seven times before in slightly different socks. Ominous? Absolutely. But also kind of funny, if you ask the owl. After all, eternity is one long joke, and the punchline hasn’t landed yet. Mortals feared the owl, yet they also adored it. Lovers made wishes beneath its wings, poets drank themselves silly trying to capture its silhouette in words, and kings demanded to know if their conquests impressed it. The owl said nothing, only hooted — a sound that could echo across galaxies and make black holes quiver. Was it laughter? Was it doom? Only the owl knew, and it wasn’t telling. But once, long ago, when the stars were young and the universe still smelled faintly of creation dust, the owl broke its silence. And what it said would alter the destiny of everything — or at least ruin dinner for a few billion mortals. Because when the owl spoke, it didn’t offer riddles or prophecies. It offered a warning, wrapped in feathers and delivered with the humor of a trickster god. “Wisdom,” it declared, “is knowing which star not to lick.” And so the legend begins... The Night of Feathers and Fire The owl’s warning — “Wisdom is knowing which star not to lick” — echoed across the cosmos for millennia, baffling scholars and delighting jesters in equal measure. Whole civilizations rose and fell trying to decipher it. Was it metaphorical? A riddle? Or a literal warning not to lick stars, which, admittedly, did sound like something a reckless space-pirate would try at least once. Mortals wrote epics, carved temples, and even held yearly festivals where they roasted glowing fruits under the stars, chanting, “Don’t lick the sun, don’t lick the moon!” Nobody fully understood, but everyone agreed it was probably important. Meanwhile, the owl itself was content to perch on the arm of Orion, flap its wings across the Pleiades, and occasionally swoop down through galaxies like a drunken comet with feathers. It was equal parts terrifying and hilarious to watch. Nebula-Winged Wisdom had a knack for showing up at the most inconvenient times: weddings, coronations, or whenever two mortals were having a particularly juicy argument about whose goat had the shinier coat. Just imagine, you’re screaming at your neighbor, and suddenly an owl the size of Saturn stares down at you with burning amber eyes. It’s the kind of thing that makes you immediately reconsider your priorities — or soil your toga. Yet it was not mere chaos. There was intent in those wings. The owl was a living paradox: playful but grim, whimsical but deadly serious. It told jokes in hoots that mortals never understood but laughed at anyway because they were afraid not to. And always, always, there was that feeling — that if the owl wanted to, it could snuff out entire galaxies with a casual blink. It rarely did, of course, but legends whisper of one night when a civilization grew too arrogant, building spires so high they scratched the owl’s belly feathers. Offended, the owl flapped once — just once — and the entire empire became stardust. The moral? Don’t touch the owl. Or its belly. But for all its ominous presence, it was strangely generous with mortals. Travelers claimed that if you lit a fire under the northern lights, the owl would swoop down and drop a single glowing feather at your feet. These feathers, infused with cosmic wisdom, were said to make the bearer clever, lucky, or tragically sarcastic. Kings used them to outwit rivals, witches wove them into cloaks that shimmered like galaxies, and common folk tucked them under pillows to dream of things they had no business knowing. A single feather could rewrite destinies, and yet the owl scattered them like breadcrumbs across the void, half amusement, half test. “Let’s see what they do with this one,” it probably thought, sipping a metaphorical cosmic espresso. Of course, not every feather was a blessing. Some carried truths too sharp to hold. A fisherman once found one glowing on the beach, tucked it into his hat, and immediately understood that his wife’s “book club” was actually code for meeting a handsome sailor. Another feather fell to a philosopher, who upon touching it, realized he was wrong about absolutely everything he had ever published, including that bit about triangles being sacred. He drank himself into legend and became a constellation shaped vaguely like a man face-palming. And then there was the feather that nearly ended the universe. It fell into the lap of a wandering bard — a joker, trickster, and part-time lover of far too many people. The bard strummed it across their harp strings, thinking it would make a fun party trick, only to discover the feather sang back. Not just any song, but the true song of the cosmos: a melody so ancient and powerful that stars leaned in to listen, black holes swayed, and time itself hiccupped. For one dazzling night, every creature in existence dreamed the same dream — a dream of the owl’s eyes, endless and terrifying, blinking in slow rhythm to the song. Some woke laughing. Others woke screaming. But all woke knowing one thing: the owl was not simply a bird. It was the page-turner of reality, deciding which chapters continued and which were set aflame. And when the dream ended, mortals looked to the sky and swore they heard the owl laughing. A low, rumbling hoot that shook the stars loose and rolled them across the firmament like dice. Because perhaps the greatest joke of all was this: Wisdom doesn’t make the universe less dangerous. It just makes you aware of how ridiculous it all is. From that night forward, the owl was no longer just a legend. It was a god of paradox, humor, and looming dread. And whether mortals liked it or not, they were part of its comedy act. Because everyone knows, when an owl that big is running the show, you don’t argue about the script. You just hope you’re not cast as the fool… unless, of course, that’s the role it wanted you to play all along. The Last Hoot The trouble with cosmic owls is that they never really leave you alone. Once you’ve heard their hoot in your dreams, you carry it forever, like a tattoo etched on the marrow of your bones. Mortals tried to move on after the Night of Feathers and Fire, but the owl’s presence lingered. Farmers swore their crops grew in time with the rhythm of its wings. Sailors charted entire voyages based on where its feathers drifted down. Even lovers whispered vows under its glow, convinced the owl was some kind of feathery priest, silently officiating weddings with ominous approval. But the owl had grown restless. You see, wisdom is a heavy burden, and laughter — even cosmic, bone-shaking laughter — can only carry so much of it. The owl knew things it wished it didn’t. It knew which stars would implode next. It knew that galaxies flirted with each other, colliding in cataclysmic bursts of light and heartbreak. It knew every secret whispered in the void, from gods’ betrayals to mortals’ half-baked excuses. It knew that in the end, wisdom isn’t a gift. It’s a curse that makes you watch the same joke replay forever, without the mercy of forgetting the punchline. So one evening, when the veil of night was as black as unspilled ink, the owl decided to tell the truth. Not a feather-truth, not a riddle-truth, but the truth wholecloth. It descended on a mountain where a thousand mortals had gathered, hoping for blessings, prophecies, or maybe a free glowing feather they could pawn. The sky split open as its wings unfurled, each feather trailing galaxies. Its eyes glowed with the intensity of twin suns undergoing midlife crises. And then it hooted — one long, rolling sound that cracked valleys and rattled ribcages. The mortals clutched their ears, expecting doom. Instead, words filled the air, woven in the vibration of its call. “You want wisdom?” the owl thundered. “Fine. Here it is. The universe is not a plan. It’s not even a story. It’s a badly timed joke told by a drunk god at a party that never ends. You are not chosen. You are not doomed. You are not special. You are… hilariously temporary.” Gasps erupted. Some laughed, some wept, some tried to sell pamphlets immediately declaring themselves prophets of the owl’s gospel. But the owl wasn’t done. It leaned closer, eyes blazing with humor and sorrow. “The only wisdom worth having,” it continued, “is to know when to laugh at your own insignificance. You are stardust with opinions. Don’t take yourself so seriously.” It would have been a perfect mic-drop moment, except the owl didn’t use mics. It used feathers. And as if on cue, it shook itself like a wet dog and loosed a storm of radiant plumes. They fell across mountains, rivers, kingdoms, and oceans, each one burning with cosmic fire. Entire generations would find those feathers and make of them what they willed — weapons, poems, lullabies, or just very expensive hats. Some would gain insight; others would be driven mad. But all would carry a piece of the owl’s truth, whether they wanted it or not. And then, satisfied — or perhaps exhausted — the owl ascended into the black, wings blotting out constellations as it soared higher and higher until it vanished. The stars returned, shy and blinking, as though embarrassed to have been part of the whole spectacle. Mortals stood in stunned silence, clutching glowing feathers and realizing, for the first time, that the world was both funnier and more terrifying than they had ever dared admit. In the years that followed, new religions sprang up. Some worshipped the owl as the Harbinger of Doom. Others painted it as a drunken cosmic trickster. And a small but loud cult insisted the owl was simply a massive, interdimensional chicken that had gotten lost. The owl, of course, didn’t correct them. Why would it? Let mortals argue; it had better things to do — like rearranging quasars into rude hand gestures or teaching comets how to whistle. And yet… sometimes, on the quietest nights, travelers swore they heard it again: a single, distant hoot rolling through the void, equal parts chuckle and warning. They said it meant the owl was watching, waiting, and maybe — just maybe — writing new material for the next cosmic comedy set. After all, the owl had made one thing very clear: the joke never ends. And we’re all part of the punchline. So remember the lesson of Nebula-Winged Wisdom. Don’t lick the wrong star. Don’t take yourself too seriously. And if a galaxy-sized owl looks you dead in the eye and hoots? Just laugh. Trust me, it’s safer that way.     Bring Nebula-Winged Wisdom Into Your World Now you can capture the legend and laughter of the cosmic owl in your own space. Whether you want a bold framed print to command attention on your wall, a luminous metal print that glimmers like starlight, or a playful jigsaw puzzle that lets you piece together the owl’s cosmic mystery, there’s a version of this story waiting for you. For comfort seekers, wrap yourself in the soft glow of the cosmos with a cozy fleece blanket, or add a whimsical accent to your favorite chair with a vibrant throw pillow. Each piece brings the lore of Nebula-Winged Wisdom into your home — a reminder that wisdom, humor, and a touch of cosmic chaos can live right alongside you. Because sometimes, the best kind of wisdom is the one you can frame, cuddle, or even build feather by feather.

Captured Tales – by Bill Tiepelman

Squeaky Clean Scales

The Bath Time Rebellion Dragons, as you may know, are not typically creatures of hygiene. They’re more “roll in ashes and singe your eyebrows” than “minty fresh and sparkling clean.” But then there was Crispin, the hatchling with scales the color of caramelized sugar and an expression permanently stuck between “evil mastermind” and “gleeful toddler on a sugar rush.” Today, Crispin had declared war… on dirt. Or maybe it was soap. The jury was still out. It all began when his keeper, a half-asleep wizard named Marvin, tried to dunk Crispin in a copper basin full of bubbles. “You’ll enjoy it!” Marvin promised, stirring the frothy water like he was mixing a witch’s brew. Crispin, however, was unconvinced. Bath time had always been a source of great drama in the lair—tantrums, tail-thrashing, and one incident where the curtains had to be replaced because the hatchling had tried to flee mid-suds and accidentally set them ablaze. But then Crispin spotted something—bubbles. Shiny, rainbow-glass globes floating upward, popping with tiny kisses of sound. His pupils widened. His wings twitched. And before Marvin could lecture him about soap-to-scale ratios, Crispin lunged straight into the tub with the kind of enthusiasm normally reserved for bacon-wrapped griffin wings. He erupted out of the foam like a champagne cork, sending suds flying in every direction. Marvin sputtered, soaked, and muttered something about “regretting his life choices.” Crispin, meanwhile, was in ecstasy. He discovered the joy of clapping his tiny claws together and making bubbles leap like startled pixies. He practiced blowing on them, which resulted in singed froth and one very offended rubber ducky. His reflection warped and shimmered across each bubble’s surface, turning his grin into monstrous, goofy caricatures of himself—something he found absolutely hilarious. For once, the little terror wasn’t interested in setting things on fire, hoarding shiny objects, or gnawing on Marvin’s spellbooks. He was just… celebrating the sheer miracle of soap. And in that moment, Marvin, dripping and annoyed, realized something profound. Life wasn’t always about conquering towers or memorizing spells or repairing scorch marks on the ceiling. Sometimes, life was about watching a dragon discover joy in a bubble bath. Crispin wasn’t just squeaky clean—he was teaching Marvin that delight can be found in the simplest, sudsiest corners of existence. Still, Marvin prayed fervently that Crispin wouldn’t sneeze while submerged in foam. Nothing says “spiritual life lesson ruined” quite like igniting an entire bath’s worth of bubbles in a single fiery hiccup. The Suds Uprising By the time Marvin had mopped up the first tidal wave of foam, Crispin had gone full renegade. The dragonling discovered that when he slapped his tail just right, he could send geysers of suds rocketing into the air like celebratory fireworks. He shrieked with laughter, spraying the walls with wet streaks of soap and bubbles that clung to the ceiling like glistening cobwebs. It was less “bath time” and more “foam-fueled riot.” Marvin, towel draped around his shoulders like a defeated gladiator, sighed. “You’re supposed to be a fearsome beast one day, Crispin. You’ll terrorize villages, scorch kingdoms, demand tribute.” He waved a soggy hand at the dragonling. “Not… this.” Crispin, of course, ignored him. He was busy building a bubble crown. Each sphere balanced precariously on his spiky horns, creating an absurd, regal headpiece that would’ve made any monarch jealous. He puffed out his tiny chest, narrowed his eyes in mock seriousness, and gave Marvin a look that clearly translated to: Bow before your Squeaky Majesty. “Oh no,” Marvin muttered, massaging his temples. “He’s invented monarchy.” The rebellion escalated quickly. Crispin discovered that he could bite the bubbles without consequence. POP. POP. POP. He snapped at them like a cat in a sunbeam chasing dust motes, wings flapping wildly. Soon, he’d cleared a small patch of airspace, then leapt out of the tub—suds still dripping from his belly—declaring himself Champion of All Things That Burst. He roared (more of a squeaky hiccup, but the sentiment was there) and promptly slipped on the tile, landing in a splat that sent Marvin into uncontrollable laughter. For once, the old wizard wasn’t annoyed—he was cackling like a drunk at a comedy tavern, because seeing a dragon crown himself with soap bubbles only to skid across the bathroom like a greased piglet was just… priceless. And then came the philosophy, as bath-time chaos often inspires. Marvin realized that Crispin wasn’t just rebelling against dirt—he was rebelling against the expectation of being serious. Society told dragons to be terrifying, wizards to be wise, and bubbles to pop silently without purpose. But Crispin was rewriting the script. He was bratty, yes—he dunked his head into the suds and blew out his nostrils like a fire-breathing walrus—but he was also showing that joy was an act of defiance. To laugh at the absurdity of it all was to thumb your nose (or snout) at the very weight of existence. “Lesson of the day,” Marvin announced to no one, raising a dripping finger like a lecturer. “If life hands you soap, crown yourself King of Bubbles.” Crispin rewarded him by spitting foam directly into his beard. Marvin sputtered, but even he had to admit—it was well-deserved. The bubbles had become something greater: not just toys, not just soap, but symbols. Crispin wasn’t merely playing—he was staging a revolution of simplicity. Each bubble was a tiny manifesto, iridescent declarations that screamed: we are fleeting but fabulous! And though Marvin knew this was probably just his sleep-deprived brain overanalyzing, he couldn’t help but feel moved. The bratty little beast was teaching him to celebrate things that lasted mere seconds before popping. That maybe the point wasn’t permanence—it was the sparkle before the end. Crispin, meanwhile, had decided to test the boundaries of physics. He flapped his wings furiously, scattering soapy droplets like rain across the room, and tried to take flight. The effort launched him a glorious six inches into the air before gravity yanked him back into the tub with a KER-SPLASH that flooded half the floor. The dragonling poked his head out of the foam, eyes gleaming, grin wide, and let out a satisfied burble. Marvin just stared at the flooded chaos around him and whispered: “This… is my life now.” And yet, he wasn’t angry. He was weirdly grateful. Grateful for the mess, the noise, the bratty energy of a creature too young to care about dignity. Crispin was chaos, yes—but he was also a reminder that even wizards needed to loosen their robes once in a while and laugh at the suds sticking to their noses. Life, Marvin realized, is basically one long bubble bath: foamy, ridiculous, and gone too soon. The Gospel of the Bubble Dragon By now the bathroom looked less like a place of hygiene and more like a battlefield where the gods of Foam and Chaos had fought an epic war. The walls dripped with suds, the ceiling wore a frothy halo, and Marvin’s slippers had vanished somewhere under a swamp of soapy water. Crispin, however, was unfazed. He perched proudly on the rim of the copper tub, suds clinging to his horns, tail flicking like a metronome set to “trouble,” eyes gleaming with bratty triumph. He had conquered bath time, rewritten the rules, and crowned himself emperor of everything bubbly. Marvin sat cross-legged on the wet floor, soaked to his knobby knees, beard sparkling with soap residue. He had officially given up trying to control the situation. Instead, he leaned back against the wall and watched, part of him wondering how his life had come to this, another part weirdly thrilled to witness the spectacle. Somewhere between the suds in his ear and the dragon spit in his beard, the old wizard realized he’d stumbled into something rare: a teaching moment. Not the kind found in dusty grimoires or scrawled on parchment scrolls—no, this was the messy, hilarious gospel according to Crispin. The dragonling cleared his throat (a dramatic little “hrrrk” noise that sounded suspiciously like a toddler about to demand apple juice) and began strutting along the tub’s edge like a king addressing his court. His tiny claws tapped the rim, his wings flicked theatrically, and his bubble crown wobbled but somehow stayed intact. Marvin swore the little beast was giving a speech. “Pop, pop, pop,” Crispin chirped, punctuating each sound by biting at bubbles that drifted too close. Marvin couldn’t translate dragonling chatter exactly, but the meaning felt obvious: Life is short, so chomp it while it’s shiny. The more Marvin watched, the more the philosophy unfolded. Crispin splashed deliberately, soaking himself anew, as if to say: Cleanliness is temporary, but joy is renewable. He piled foam into ridiculous sculptures—mountains, castles, what looked suspiciously like Marvin’s bald head—and then gleefully smashed them, cackling with dragon giggles. Marvin found himself laughing too, realizing Crispin was showing him the joy of impermanence. You didn’t cling to bubbles. You played with them, loved them, and let them go. There was no tragedy in their popping—only the memory of sparkle. Of course, Crispin’s bratty streak wasn’t about to let the evening stay purely philosophical. Once he sensed he had Marvin’s attention, the dragonling doubled down on the mischief. He leapt from the tub with a wild squeal, wings flapping, and landed squarely on Marvin’s chest. The impact knocked the wizard backward into the puddled floor with a splash. Marvin wheezed, “I’m too old for this!” but Crispin just curled up smugly on his robe, leaving streaks of soap and little claw prints all over the fabric like a wet signature. Then came the grand finale: Crispin’s fire sneeze. Marvin saw it coming too late—the dragonling’s nose crinkled, his eyes crossed, his cheeks puffed. “No, no, no!” Marvin shouted, scrambling to grab a towel. But the sneeze erupted with a WHOOSH, igniting a cluster of bubbles into a brief, glorious fireball that shimmered across the bathroom like a dragon’s disco ball. Miraculously, nothing burned. Instead, the flames fizzled into rainbow smoke that smelled faintly of lavender soap. Marvin collapsed into helpless laughter, wheezing, tears streaming down his face. Even Crispin, startled, blinked once before bursting into shrieking giggles. It was official: bath time had become both rave and sermon. Later, when the chaos subsided, Marvin sat with Crispin curled up in a nest of towels. The hatchling, worn out from the suds rebellion, let out a little snore that sounded like a hiccup wrapped in purrs. Marvin stroked the damp scales on his head, reflecting. He’d always thought wisdom came from solemn rituals, from silence, from discipline. But tonight, wisdom had come in the form of bubbles, bratty tantrums, slippery floors, and a dragon that refused to do anything without making it fun. And maybe—just maybe—that was the greater lesson: that joy itself is an act of rebellion against a world too obsessed with being serious all the time. “Squeaky clean scales,” Marvin whispered with a chuckle, glancing at the glistening hatchling in his lap. “You’re not just clean, Crispin. You’re holy. A prophet of play, a tiny philosopher of foam.” He shook his head and smiled. “And you’re also the reason I’ll need to buy a mop.” Somewhere in his sleep, Crispin burbled happily, a bubble popping on his nose. And Marvin, exhausted but oddly renewed, decided that the simple things—the bratty, goofy, messy, fleeting, soapy things—were the ones worth celebrating. After all, no kingdom, no spell, no treasure could rival the miracle of a dragon who found enlightenment in a bubble bath.     Epilogue: The Legend of Squeaky Clean Scales In the weeks that followed, Marvin noticed something strange. Crispin began demanding regular baths. Not because he cared about hygiene—his bratty grin made it clear he just wanted more bubble chaos—but because bath time had become ritual. Every splash, every crown of suds, every fire-sneeze into foam became part of the dragonling’s growing legend. Neighbors whispered that Marvin’s hatchling was not just any dragon, but a mystical beast who glowed brighter than treasure after a bubble scrub. Of course, the truth was far less glamorous. Crispin still slipped on tiles. He still spit soap into Marvin’s beard for fun. He still staged miniature rebellions against bedtime, vegetables, and anything that didn’t involve sparkle or snacks. But in the oddest way, the little creature had changed something fundamental. Marvin, once stoic and grumpy, now found himself chuckling in the market, buying lavender soap in bulk. He even started greeting people with the phrase: “Find your bubble and pop it proudly.” It confused the townsfolk, but Marvin didn’t care—he had bubbles in his beard and joy in his chest. As for Crispin, he wore his title proudly: Squeaky Clean Scales. A dragon who would one day grow massive wings and fiery breath, but who, for now, was perfectly content to be small, goofy, and dripping with foam. His kingdom wasn’t of gold or jewels—it was of laughter, suds, and life lessons disguised as bratty fun. And in some quiet corner of the world, where dragons and wizards and bubbles all existed together, the simple miracle of bath time became a reminder that sometimes the greatest magic isn’t fire or flight—it’s joy. Pure, ridiculous, fleeting joy.     Bring the Bubble Dragon Home If Crispin the hatchling made you smile, why not let his bubbly antics brighten your own space? Squeaky Clean Scales is more than a story—it’s a celebration of joy, silliness, and life’s simplest pleasures. And now you can carry that magic into your everyday world with beautifully crafted products featuring this whimsical artwork. Dress up your walls with a stunning Framed Print or a luminous Acrylic Print—perfect conversation starters that capture every bubble and sparkle in vivid detail. Or make bath time legendary with a playful Shower Curtain that turns any bathroom into Crispin’s kingdom of foam. For cozy nights, wrap yourself in the warmth of a Fleece Blanket, or bring the dragonling’s bratty charm on the go with a versatile Tote Bag. Each piece is crafted to celebrate the joy, play, and laughter that Crispin reminds us to embrace. Because sometimes, the greatest treasures aren’t gold or fire—they’re bubbles, giggles, and the reminder to celebrate life’s little sparks.

Captured Tales – by Bill Tiepelman

The Leviathan of Crimson Fins

The Contract, the Boat, and the Bad Idea I signed the contract the way every bad adventure begins: with a cheap pen, a good whiskey, and a promise I absolutely should not have believed. The client wanted “one clean, frame-worthy, trophy-shot of a sea dragon breaching at golden hour—preferably with the fins backlit so the crimson pops.” In other words, they wanted the impossible. Also in other words, they wanted what I live for. Our boat—if you could call a grudging pile of bolted-together aluminum a boat—was The Indecision, and she creaked like a pirate’s knees. The crew was a handpicked circus. There was Mae, a marine biologist who moonlights as a sarcastic influencer (“Like and subscribe if you survive,” she said, deadpan, every time the deck tilted). There was Gus, a retired lighthouse keeper who’d seen enough storms to tsk at thunder and call it “atmosphere.” There was Scupper, a cat who never paid rent and absolutely ran the place. And there was me—the photographer who chases the kind of leviathan artwork that makes people mortgage walls to hang it on. We idled over a trench known on maps as the Cerulean Drop and in sailor gossip as Don’t. It was a bruise in the ocean, a perfect throat where currents swallowed ships, rumors, and occasionally an overeager documentary crew. My drones skimmed the waves like patient gulls, lenses hungry. The sky was bleached linen; the water was that heavy, iron-blue that means something ancient is thinking beneath it. “What are we even calling this thing?” Mae asked, fussing with a sensor array that looked suspiciously like a cookie tin strapped to a car battery. “Dragon? Serpent? Very large ‘nope’?” “The Leviathan of Crimson Fins,” I said, because you name the monster or it names you. “Ocean monster, apex myth, patron saint of bad decisions. And if we do this right, we turn it into fantasy wall art people whisper about from across the room.” Gus spat neatly into the scuppers. “You want whispering? Put a price on it.” Scupper meowed, which in cat means, you’re all idiots but I’m morally obligated to supervise. We set our trap, which was really more of an invitation. A crate of brined mackerel hung off the stern on a cable, swaying like a greasy chandelier. Mae swore by the scent profile. “Not bait,” she said, “just… an alert.” Sure. And my camera was “just” a high-speed confession booth where reality blurts out details in 1/8000th of a second. The trench breathed. The first signal was the light—gone flat, like a stage waiting for an actor. The second was heat: a soft exhale pushing up from thirty fathoms, frosting our lenses with humidity. The third was the sound: a distant churning, like cathedral doors grinding open under the sea. “Heads up,” Mae said, voice suddenly clean and professional. “Pressure shift.” Gus strapped in. “If it asks for our Wi-Fi, say no.” I checked the rig: twin stabilized gimbals; two primary cameras with glass fast enough to steal light from the gods; one custom housing that laughed at salt spray; and a backup sensor because I am unlucky, not stupid. I locked the focus plane where water becomes miracle—right at the skin of the sea, where everything important happens fast. On the monitor, my forward drone caught something like weather made of scales. Not a shape yet—more a rumor of geometry, patterns tiling and untangling, teal deepening to indigo, then flashing to ember as if a forge had opened underwater. “We’ve got movement,” I said. My voice did not shake. It quivered tastefully. The cable rattled. The mackerel crate jittered as if nervous about its life choices. The ocean lifted—not in a wave, but in a shrug—as if something vast were moving its shoulders beneath the surface. Mae inhaled. “Oh… wow.” I’ve seen whales breach like towns rising into the sky. I’ve watched a waterspout turn a horizon into a zipper. I’ve never seen intent like this. The sea dragon didn’t so much emerge as arrive—with the unbothered confidence of a storm or a billionaire. A horned brow cut the surface. Then an eye: gold, patient, and very much not impressed with us. The head that followed was architected in brutality, scaled in mosaics of copper-green and slate, every contour slick with the wet clarity that makes studio lights jealous. “Record. Record. Record.” I heard my own voice go stupid with awe. Shutter clatter became music. The hyper-realistic dragon in my viewfinder looked less like a legend and more like the ocean had decided to grow teeth and unionize. The dorsal fins surfaced next—those famous crimson fins—not simply red, but layered: ember at the roots, blood-orange in the membranes, and sunset right at the edges, where backlight turned them electric. The water loved those fins. It banded to them. It worshipped them in halos of spray. The droplets hung midair long enough to pose. Gus muttered, “That’s a church right there.” Mae was already taking readings with the kind of grin that makes tenure committees nervous. “Thermal spikes. Electromagnetic flutter. And… pheromone traces? Oh, that’s not great.” “Not great how?” I asked, eyes welded to the viewfinder, fingers dancing the exposure like a safecracker. “As in, we may have rung the dinner bell for two of them.” Scupper chose that moment to hiss at something no one could see. Cats always get the trailer before the movie. The dragon turned—slowly, with the bored drama of a queen acknowledging peasants—and noticed our crate. It extended a whiskered tongue, black as ship rope, and tasted the air with a sound like a violin string being plucked by thunder. Then it laughed. I swear to all six gods of the Gulf, it laughed—just a rasp, a chuckle made of old anchors and older appetites—but laughter, all the same. My camera caught that look: the cruel amusement, the lazy competence. The ocean guardian had decided we were entertainment. “Okay,” I said, “new plan: we don’t die, and we get a cover shot that sells out a thousand limited editions.” “Your plan is just adjectives,” Gus said. “Adjectives pay the fuel bill.” The dragon flowed closer, scales ticking like coins in a jar. Up this near, the details became a problem. There were too many: micro-ridges, healed scars, salt crystals clinging to the armored plates, tiny lichens (or were those symbiotic glow-worms?) threading faint bioluminescent veins through the membranes of those red sails. My lens, brave soldier, held the line. Then the ocean dropped three feet as something else displaced it. Mae’s monitors screamed. The surface behind the first dragon bulged, then fractured, as if the trench were spitting out a second opinion. “Told you,” Mae whispered. “Pheromones. Either a rival or a—” “Mate?” I finished, trying very hard not to picture how dragons date. “I am not licensed for that documentary.” Gus pointed with a hand that had steadied a lighthouse through hurricanes. “You two can argue taxonomy later. That one’s looking at our engine. That one’s looking at our camera. And neither of them blinks like something that respects warranties.” I toggled the burst rate to indecent and framed the shot of my life: the first dragon rising, jaws open in a roar that showed a cathedral of teeth; the second a darker ghost pushing the sea aside in a crown of foam; the horizon tilting like a stage set; a sky abruptly crowded with gulls who’d read the script and decided to improvise exits. Somewhere inside the panic, a part of me—the greedy, artistic, unfathomably stubborn part—did the math. If I waited one more beat, right as the primary broke full breach, the crimson would hit the sun at the perfect angle and the water would pearl along the fin like diamonds. That was the difference between a good shot and a print that makes rooms go quiet. “Hold…” I breathed, to the boat, the crew, the camera, the universe. “Hold for glory.” The ocean obeyed. It coiled, tensed, and exploded. The Leviathan came up like a missile wrapped in biology, every line razor, every scale readable, every drop a gemstone. The roar hit us a fraction later, a freight train made of choir. The fin flared—a curtain of crimson fire—and the sun, bless her dramatic heart, lit it like stained glass. I took the shot. And that’s when the second dragon surfaced directly off our stern, close enough to fog the lens with its breath, and gently—almost politely—bit the mackerel crate in half. The Shot That Cost a Hull The sound of the crate snapping was less “crunch” and more “financial catastrophe.” Half the bait disappeared into a jaw lined with teeth that could rent apartments in San Francisco. The other half bobbed sadly against the stern as if to say, you tried. Scupper leapt onto the cabin roof with the agility of someone who hadn’t co-signed a death wish and announced in cat-language, your deductible does not cover this. Mae’s instruments lit up like Vegas. “EM surge! Hull pressure spike! Oh, wow. That’s not physics anymore, that’s improv.” “Less readings, more surviving!” Gus barked, unspooling a line and clipping into the mast like he was back in a storm. “She’s gonna roll us if she sneezes.” The first dragon rose higher, body arcing with impossible grace, like a skyscraper pretending to be a fish. My lens was still glued to it. Water peeled off in sheets, catching the sun and painting rainbows across the fins. Every photo I snapped was pure fantasy dragon poster gold—images that galleries would bid for like hungry pirates. Every photo was also another nail in the coffin of our poor little boat. The second dragon wasn’t so much jealous as… practical. It inspected us with an eye the color of molten bronze. Then it tested our engine with a flick of its tongue. The engine, being mortal and carbureted, sputtered like a kid caught smoking. We weren’t moving unless the dragons approved. We had become their Netflix. Mae clutched her sensor tin. “They’re… they’re talking.” “Talking?” I said, too busy chimping my shots like an idiot to be alarmed. “Do we want subtitles?” “Not words. Pulses. They’re pinging each other with bioelectric bursts. One is dominant. The other’s… negotiating?” She paused, frowned, then added with dry menace: “Or foreplay. Hard to tell.” Gus muttered, “I didn’t sign up for National Geographic After Dark.” The boat lurched sideways as the second dragon nuzzled the stern with its snout. I know people romanticize sea monsters. They imagine scales like armor and faces like statues. Up close, though? It smelled like old kelp and ozone, and the hide wasn’t smooth at all—it was ridged, barnacled, scarred. History written in tissue. A camera lens makes it gorgeous. A human nose makes it survival horror. “Back it off!” Gus yelled, thumping the hull with a gaff hook like he was shooing a drunk walrus. “This tub ain’t rated for dragon cuddles!” I fired my shutter again and again, ignoring the sting of salt spray in my eyes. These were the epic sea creature shots that would hang over fireplaces, that would anchor collectors’ living rooms, that would make curators whisper who the hell got this close? I was already imagining the fine art catalogues: ‘The Leviathan of Crimson Fins,’ limited edition of 50, signed and numbered, comes with a notarized affidavit that the photographer was an idiot with good reflexes. Mae’s monitors screamed. “Guys! Electromagnetic discharge building in the dorsal fins. If this thing sneezes lightning, our cameras are toast.” “Or,” I said, framing the perfect shot of backlit crimson membranes swelling with static, “our cameras are legendary.” “You’re deranged.” “Visionary,” I corrected. The first dragon bellowed. The sound slapped the air itself into submission. Birds detonated from the sky in every direction. The horizon staggered. My stern drone caught the shot: two dragons in the same frame, one rearing with fins blazing like stained glass, the other circling close to our fragile deck, water hissing around its massive shoulders. A composition you could only get if you were suicidal or extremely lucky. I was both. Then the hull cracked. It wasn’t dramatic at first. Just a sound like ice fracturing on a winter lake. But every sailor knows that noise. It’s the universe whispering: you gambled too hard, kid. “We’re taking water!” Gus barked, already knee-deep in foam. He kicked the bilge pump awake, but it coughed like a smoker. “Ain’t gonna keep up if they keep hugging.” Mae looked up from her tin. “If they’re courting, this is the part where they display dominance.” “Define dominance,” I said, even though I knew. Oh, I knew. “Breaching duel,” she said flatly. “They’ll take turns leaping until one backs down. Guess what’s directly in their splash zone?” Scupper yowled, then retreated below deck, proving he was the smartest of us. The sea bulged again. One dragon plunged deep, dragging a wake that spun us sideways. The other rose, fins outspread like cathedral windows, then slammed down into the trench with a force that kicked our boat skyward. For one weightless moment I hung in the air, camera still clicking like an addict’s lighter, framing the impossible. Spray turned into shattered glass all around us. The horizon somersaulted. And then—inevitably—gravity collected its debt. We crashed back onto the sea with enough force to throw Gus across the deck. Mae screamed, not in fear, but in sheer scientific ecstasy. “Yes! YES! Data points! I’m going to publish so hard!” Water poured over the gunwales. My gear clanged. My cameras survived—miracle of miracles—but the boat was coughing its last prayers. The second dragon surfaced again, close enough to fog my lens with its steaming breath, and nudged us like a curious cat toy. Its eye locked on mine. Ancient. Playful. Predatory. And I realized in one sickening, thrilling instant: We weren’t observers anymore. We were part of the ritual. And the ritual wasn’t close to finished. The Baptism of Fools The boat was no longer a boat. It was a prop in somebody else’s opera. We bobbed in the froth between two dragons staging a thunderous love-hate courtship ritual, and every splash came with a side order of “there goes your insurance premium.” The first dragon, the one I’d already christened The Leviathan of Crimson Fins, launched into another breach that would’ve made Poseidon clap politely. It soared like a skyscraper in rebellion, fins ablaze with sunlight. I caught the exact frame: water exploding, teeth gleaming, scales refracting every color a paint store could dream up. A shot worth careers. A shot worth drowning for. Which was convenient, because drowning seemed imminent. The second dragon, not to be outdone, coiled under our stern and erupted sideways. The wave it threw wasn’t a wave at all—it was a wet apocalypse. The Indecision lifted, twisted, and for a few glorious seconds we were flying, boat and all. Gus roared curses so colorful they probably offended Poseidon personally. Mae clutched her tin and screamed, “YES! MORE DATA!” like she was mainlining chaos. Scupper yowled from the cabin in tones that translated roughly to, I did not vote for this cruise line. My cameras clattered around me as I straddled the deck, clicking wildly, chasing glory while the ocean demanded sacrifice. I knew these frames would be legendary dragon artwork, but in the back of my head another thought sharpened: don’t let the SD cards die with you. The dragons circled each other, slamming the sea like dueling gods. Every pass painted the water with streaks of foam, every roar carved the air into panic. Their massive bodies locked in spirals that dragged whirlpools open beneath them. The trench below seethed. The pressure shifted so hard my ears rang. The ocean wasn’t water anymore—it was stage lighting for monsters. And then they both went still. Not calm. Still. Hanging in the water, fins flared, eyes glowing with the judgment of creatures who’ve seen continents drown and continents rise again. The silence was worse than the noise. Even the gulls had stopped fleeing. For a heartbeat, the world forgot how to breathe. Then, as if choreographed, both dragons exhaled jets of steam so hot they scorched the salt from the air. Mae’s instruments fried in her hands with a sad little pop. Gus crossed himself with one hand while jamming a bilge pump lever with the other. Scupper padded up, sat in the middle of the chaos, and calmly licked his paw. Cats are contractually immune to existential dread. The dragons’ heads dipped toward us—closer, closer—until two golden eyes the size of portholes stared directly into mine. I swear they could see every stupid decision I’d ever made, every bill I’d ducked, every ex I’d ghosted. They knew I was here for the picture, not the wisdom. And then—just as my bladder politely suggested we evacuate—they blinked, as if to say: Fine. You’re amusing. You may leave. Both leviathans dived at once, slipping back into the abyss with a grace that mocked gravity itself. The sea rolled over their passing, flattening into a bruised calm. No trace left. No evidence. Just me, three lunatics, one damp cat, and a hull screaming for retirement. Mae finally broke the silence. “So, uh… round two tomorrow?” Gus threw his cap at her. “Round two my ass. This boat’s held together with duct tape and spite!” Scupper sneezed, unimpressed. I sat back, waterlogged, shaking, delirious with the high of it all. My cameras had survived. The cards were full. And when I flicked through the previews, my breath caught. The shots were everything I’d dreamed of: crimson fins lit like stained glass, teeth framed against the horizon, sprays of diamonds frozen midair. Proof that ocean mythology isn’t dead—it’s just very picky about photographers. I grinned through salt-stung lips. “Ladies and gentlemen, we just baptized ourselves in legend.” “And almost died doing it,” Mae muttered. “Details,” I said. “Adjectives pay the fuel bill.” Behind us, the horizon brooded, as if waiting for the next round. I didn’t care. For now, I had the crown jewel: The Leviathan of Crimson Fins, captured in all its feral majesty. People would whisper about these prints, hang them like relics, buy them as if owning one meant you’d faced the ocean’s oldest trick and lived. Which, against every odd, we had. Of course, the boat was sinking, but that’s another invoice.     Bring the Legend Home “The Leviathan of Crimson Fins” wasn’t just an adventure—it became an image worthy of immortality. Now you can bring that same feral majesty into your own space. Whether you want a bold centerpiece or a subtle reminder of oceanic legend, the Leviathan translates beautifully into curated art products designed to inspire awe every time you see them. For collectors and décor lovers, the framed print or acrylic print offer museum-quality presentation, capturing every crisp detail of the dragon’s scales and fins. For those who like to puzzle over mysteries (literally), the jigsaw puzzle lets you relive the chaos of the breach one piece at a time. On the go? Carry a touch of myth with you using the tote bag, perfect for daily adventures, or keep your essentials in a sleek zippered pouch that turns practicality into legend. Each product is more than just merchandise—it’s a piece of the story, a way to hold onto the wild thrill of witnessing a sea dragon rise from the deep. Own your part of the adventure today.

Captured Tales – by Bill Tiepelman

Guardian of the Painted Feathers

The Night the Forest Blinked The forest didn’t go dark; it went quiet—the kind of hush that makes even the moths put on slippers. High on a braid of oak limbs, the Guardian of the Painted Feathers opened her eyes, and the night opened with her. Her name—rarely spoken, because respect doesn’t always need syllables—was Seraphine Quill, an owl whose plumage held more color than a market full of unruly scarves. Blues that remembered rain. Ambers with opinions. Petal-pink sighs. She was a woodland guardian with the posture of a librarian and the patience of a saint who drinks espresso. Tonight, the silence had a shape. Something was sipping saturation from the world, the way a bored god might swirl a spoon in the teacup of creation. Seraphine heard it before she saw it: that thin sound, like a violin string tuned to “uh-oh.” She rotated her head in a slow, scandalized arc—owls are basically swivel chairs with talons—and let her gaze travel the understory. The enchanted forest breathed in patterns: fern-ripple, blossom-rustle, fox-sigh, cricket-one-two-three. But beyond the chrysanthemums and the gossiping mushrooms (who, frankly, shouldn’t be trusted with anything you wouldn’t spray with vinegar), a gray smear drifted between the trunks. “Absolutely not,” Seraphine murmured. Her voice was low and velvet and contained enough authority to make a wolf apologize to its shadow. She dropped from the branch and rode a column of cool air, her colorful feathers catching star-light like tiny stained-glass windows. Flowers turned as she passed—flirting, mostly. The peonies were hopeless. She landed near the old root where the forest kept its secrets. A fox emerged, eyes bright with the kind of anxiety only foxes and human poets truly cultivate. “Guardian,” he said, tail doing the nervous metronome. “The color thief is back. I chased it, but it kept… not being.” Seraphine clicked her beak once, which in owl language meant: I believe you; also, hydrate. “You did well, Vesper. Go home. Guard your den and your kits. No heroics. Leave the dramatics to the bird with better eyeliner.” Vesper squinted at her. “Is it weird that I find you reassuring and vaguely terrifying?” “Correct on both counts.” She fluffed her chest and every hue sharpened, like the forest took a breath and remembered its opinions. This was Seraphine’s first gift: nocturnal protector of saturation, conductor of chroma. Where she blinked, colors woke up and behaved like themselves. The gray smear crept closer, as if curious, as if trying on the idea of existing. The air cooled in that specific way that makes you suddenly aware of your knuckles. Where the smear passed, violets turned to etiquette-violating beige. A fern folded its own memo and forgot what it wanted to say. “Name yourself,” Seraphine called, voice ringing against bark and moon. “And if you don’t have a name, darling, that’s your first problem.” No answer. Only that violin-string sound, a whine pitched at the uneasy place behind the eyes. The smear reached for a cluster of late roses, and the petals dulled like old coins. Seraphine stepped forward, one talon at a time, and the roses blushed back to themselves. She wasn’t just blocking the thing; she was repainting the night. From the left came a flutter of chaos: three moths in formalwear, the sort who subscribe to niche magazines. “Guardian!” they chorused. “There’s a leak in the moonlight two clearings over; we are beside ourselves and we do not have enough selves for this.” “Tell the bats to hang tight and practice their vowels,” Seraphine said. “We’ll fix the leak after we plug this vacuum cleaner of gloom.” She turned back to the smear. “I know you,” she said softly. “You’re the Unraveling—entropy with social anxiety.” The smear quivered, then tried to be five inches to the right. Seraphine’s feathers shimmered—turquoise slipping into citrine, aubergine into ember—until the owl art print the world would one day hang on a gallery wall felt like it had been born in that moment. She reached into herself for her second gift, one she used sparingly because it tended to attract myths: the voice that convinced shadows to tell the truth. “Why do you eat color?” she asked. “Speak, little hunger.” It didn’t speak, exactly. It threw images at her: a rain-soaked palette left out overnight; a child’s crayon snapped in an argument with gravity; a blank page that had never been brave. Seraphine tasted the loneliness in it—the awkward, shy ache of things that never learned how to be vibrant without apology. She softened. It’s hard to stay mad when the monster turns out to be a diary that learned to walk. “Listen,” she said, wings mantling. “This forest needs every audacious shade it can muster. Saturation is a promise, not a crime. You can travel with me and learn hunger with manners, or I can put you in a jar labeled ‘Absolutely Not’ and bury you under the sassiest hydrangea in existence. Decide quickly.” The smear hesitated. From the branches above, a chorus of small minds—sparrows, finches, one judgmental wren—leaned in. Even the cicadas stopped crunching their existential chips. In that pause, Seraphine felt the forest teeter, like a teacup on the edge of a desk during an emphatic email. At her feet, the roses tested their own perfume as if to say, We’re rooting for you, dear; don’t make us display our thorns. A breeze crept in, tasting of mint and rumor, and lifted the fringe of Seraphine’s face like a crown considering its options. She took a breath, layered with pine and a whisper of thunder, and began the old work—the art older than art—the dance of keeping things bright. She moved in a slow circle around the smear, talons whispering on bark, voice low. “Repeat after me,” she coaxed. “I am not a void; I am a frame.” Something in the smear steadied. It gathered itself like a shy person in a thrift-store mirror and took on the faintest blush of color, as if courage were a pigment. A faint blue—one that remembered ponds—rippled across its edge. Seraphine nodded, the tilt small and queenly. Frames do not devour paintings; frames insist the painting be seen. Branches creaked above. The old oak—Elder Root, who slept like a landlord—spoke in a voice that sounded like contracts made with rain. “Guardian,” he rumbled, “does your mercy have room for what forgets itself?” “My mercy has room for the chronically uncertain,” Seraphine replied. “If it misbehaves, we’ll try consequences after compassion. That’s the sequence. Otherwise, what are we protecting—color, or dignity?” Elder Root considered, which took a number of centuries and also six seconds. “Proceed.” Seraphine leaned closer to the smear, warm and terrifying as a sunrise with great eyebrows. “Stay,” she commanded. “Learn. You will not sip a single shade without asking. You will send me a polite whisper for anything bolder than taupe. We begin with blues at dawn. The frogs will supervise; they’re bureaucrats at heart.” She lowered her voice. “And if you try nonsense, darling, I will turn you into a tasteful border around a fantasy forest tea menu and serve you chamomile forever.” The smear shivered. Then—miracle with a sheepish grin—it folded. Not gone, not defeated. Simply… outlined. A thin band of slate—now clearly a frame—stayed where it was placed, humming softly like a cat pretending it’s not purring. The air rushed back into itself. Colors sighed and went dramatic, as colors do when they realize they almost became a metaphor for austerity. Across the clearing, the chrysanthemums applauded with the modesty of fireworks. The moth trio lit a celebratory lantern that turned out to be a glowworm with feelings; apologies were made. Vesper the fox returned with a beleaguered vole and a pie made of blackberries and ambition. Someone struck up a cricket jazz standard. For a dangerous minute, the night felt like a party. Seraphine took her place on the branch again, a majestic owl painting made real, her vibrant feather detail pulsing like the heartbeat of the grove. She closed one eye, then the other, letting the scene filter through the wisdom between. The frame waited, obedient and a little proud. The forest breathed, saturated and brave. But peace is not the same as safety. A wind blew from the north—dry, broom-swept, carrying a smell like burnt promises. On the horizon, beyond the hills that wore the moon like a brooch, something rose that wasn’t a storm and wasn’t a mountain. It had architecture. It had ambition. It had lawyers. Seraphine’s claws tightened around the bark until the tree hummed comfort up to her bones. “Oh,” she said to the night, to the framed hunger, to the moths dusting their anxieties with glitter. “It’s one of those nights.” High above, an owl with painted plumage and a timetable of miracles opened both eyes. She lifted her head and let the moonlight show off. If the forest had to face what was coming, it would face it in full color, with extra sass and a hopeful heart. That, after all, is what guardians are for: not to keep the world from changing, but to make sure it changes without losing its palette. And from the north, the first note of the next trouble arrived—long, legal, off-key. The Committee of Acceptable Shades By dawn, Seraphine Quill had already given the smear its first lesson in responsible blueness. It went surprisingly well, once she bribed it with dew. But owls rarely have the luxury of lingering victories. Because by the time the second cricket rehearsal ended and Vesper had passed out from pie-related hubris, the north wind brought with it an entourage. They weren’t storms. They weren’t spirits. They were bureaucrats. Which is to say: worse. A thunder of parchment flapped into the clearing, pages bound by red ribbons, fluttering like the wings of a thousand passive-aggressive butterflies. And from that cyclone of clauses emerged the Committee of Acceptable Shades—tall, gangly silhouettes with clipboards where faces should be. Each clipboard bore a single rectangle of gray: flat, unyielding, and smug. Their leader’s rectangle read “Taupe, Standardized.” “Guardian,” the head figure intoned, its voice like two staplers mating. “You have been operating without a license to distribute vibrancy. All saturation above Pantone 3268-C must be surrendered immediately for recalibration. Non-compliance will result in monochrome sanctions.” The forest gasped. A violet fainted, a sunflower cursed under its breath. Even the glowworm that had been impersonating a lantern dimmed in horror. Seraphine fluffed her feathers until the dawn light ricocheted through her like stained glass at a rave. “Sanctions?” she said, sweet and sharp. “Darling, the only thing you’ll sanction here is your own relevance.” The fox, Vesper, rubbed sleep from his eyes and squinted at the clipboard-faces. “Wait, are those… lawyers?” “Worse,” Seraphine replied. “They’re design consultants.” The Committee advanced, clipboards glowing faintly with the power of overused Helvetica. The leader snapped its ribbon like a whip. “We offer a deal,” it said. “Surrender the unauthorized hues. You may keep beige, cream, and a very modest mint green if used only in moderation. Otherwise, we will strip your spectrum clean.” Seraphine blinked slowly. Owls are masters of the long blink—it’s like sarcasm made visual. “Beige?” she whispered. “Mint in moderation? You walk into my forest—the one I’ve bled starlight to protect—and you dare reduce it to a waiting room wall?” The Committee rustled nervously. One of the lesser silhouettes fumbled its papers and a faint splash of lavender slipped free before being recaptured. Seraphine saw it. The smear-turned-frame saw it. Even the moths saw it, though they pretended to be too sophisticated. She pounced on the slip like a cat in Prada heels. “There it is,” she declared. “Proof! You keep color for yourselves while rationing the rest of us like misers at a confetti party. Don’t preach balance when your clipboards bleed hypocrisy.” Gasps rippled through the undergrowth. The Committee faltered. For the first time, the forest felt the truth: that color rationing wasn’t order; it was theft disguised as neatness. Seraphine turned her back deliberately, tail feathers splayed in a way that screamed majestic defiance. She addressed the crowd of ferns, roses, and startled beetles. “Colors, hear me. They would make you ashamed of being bold. They’d have you believe beige is safer, taupe is respectable, and neon only belongs on karaoke flyers. But you were born audacious. You were painted reckless. This forest is not a cubicle—it is a cathedral. And cathedrals deserve stained glass, not frosted panels of standardized taupe!” The roses cheered with thorns out. The fox howled. Even Elder Root shook his branches, sending down a shower of acorns like emphatic applause. The smear-frame pulsed, a faint ripple of aquamarine sliding across its edge, as if it too wanted to belong. The Committee recoiled. Their clipboards quivered, rectangles of gray rippling with a hint of fear. “This is irregular,” hissed the leader. “We must consult… higher management.” “Do that,” Seraphine said. “But know this: while you file your memos and sharpen your monochrome, my forest will keep its hues. And should you return with chains for color, I’ll repaint your clipboards into rainbows so gaudy, you’ll wish you’d died beige.” The Committee dispersed in a flurry of papers, vanishing into the northern horizon like a bad newsletter. The silence they left behind was fragile, but the forest filled it with cautious song. Petals brightened. Leaves stretched. The smear-frame hummed like a child reciting its first poem. Vesper padded closer, eyes gleaming. “You know they’ll come back, right? With more paperwork. Maybe even PowerPoints.” Seraphine gave a dark, velvety chuckle. “Then we’ll need allies. The brighter, the bolder, the sassier, the better. This fight isn’t just about keeping our colors. It’s about refusing to apologize for them.” She spread her wings, hues exploding across the dawn like a rebellion with feathers. And somewhere beyond the horizon, higher management stirred. The kind of management that didn’t just ration colors—they patented them. The kind that painted skies gray for profit. The kind that, if Seraphine wasn’t careful, would rewrite the forest in grayscale footnotes. The Color Cartel The first rumor arrived on raven wings. Not the polite, note-taking ravens, mind you. These were the sarcastic ones who couldn’t tell a secret without adding commentary. “Guardian,” croaked the lead raven, perching dramatically on Elder Root’s shoulder, “the Color Cartel is mobilizing. They’ve sent cease-and-desist letters to sunsets and threatened to repossess rainbows. One rainbow in particular is suing for emotional damages.” Seraphine narrowed her eyes. “So they’re moving from bullying flowers to bankrupting horizons. How tedious.” She ruffled her feathers, throwing sparks of chartreuse and garnet into the morning air like a fireworks display with opinions. “Tell them we’ll be hosting a festival—of pigments too impossible to patent.” The raven tilted his head. “A festival? You’re going to fight a cartel with… glitter?” “Not glitter,” she said. “Wonder.” The Festival of Impossible Pigments Within days, the forest transformed. Mushrooms glowed with colors they’d been hiding out of shyness. Ferns sprouted leaves edged in hues only bees could name. The foxes painted their tails with ultraviolet streaks visible only to the honest. Vesper strutted like he’d invented confidence. The moths threw a runway show, modeling outfits so dazzling even the cicadas forgot to be obnoxious for five minutes. And then came Seraphine. She took the central perch, feathers flaring into shades no mortal palette had cataloged: the green of laughter echoing in a canyon, the violet of secrets kept under pillows, the gold of forgiveness after a fight. These weren’t colors—they were confessions wearing light. The crowd gasped, cheered, cried, and danced all at once. The festival was not merely a celebration; it was defiance given wings. Naturally, that’s when the Color Cartel showed up. They arrived in uniforms the shade of lawyer breath—a beige so dull it could cancel joy at twenty paces. Their leader, a tall figure in a robe stitched entirely of contracts, stepped forward. Its voice rattled like a stapler in heat. “Cease this unauthorized saturation. Effective immediately. Or we’ll desaturate your forest into compliance.” Seraphine tilted her head, slow and regal. “You’re welcome to try,” she said, her eyes glowing with every shade of defiance. “But understand this: you can’t copyright awe. You can’t trademark wonder. And if you so much as sneeze on a violet, I will personally repaint your robes with hues so bright they’ll burn your retinas into optimism.” The crowd roared. The smear-frame pulsed aquamarine, then emerald, then—miracle of miracles—crimson. It had found its courage at last. The ravens dive-bombed with sarcasm, distracting the Cartel’s enforcers. Foxes stole their staplers. The moth runway show pivoted into a battle catwalk, dazzling the enemy with avant-garde sparkle. Elder Root dropped acorns like meteors. Even the hydrangea got in on it, shouting, “Tasteful border, my petals!” before walloping a Cartel goon with a bouquet. The Last Laugh of the Guardian The battle was loud, ridiculous, and deeply satisfying. Contracts tore. Beige unraveled. The Cartel’s robes faded until they were nothing more than dull shadows too embarrassed to linger. Seraphine soared overhead, every wingbeat painting the sky with a new declaration: Hope is not negotiable. When the dust settled (and the moths finished their encore strut), the forest was brighter than ever. The smear-frame, once ashamed of its hunger, now shimmered proudly at the edge of the clearing—no longer a void, but a window into possibility. It hummed softly, like a promise learning to sing. Seraphine perched on Elder Root again, gazing over her domain. “Well,” she said, smoothing a rebellious feather. “That was fun. Who’s up for pie?” The fox groaned. “Please. No more pie.” The ravens cackled. The flowers blushed. Even the cicadas clapped their wings, though badly off-beat. And in the center of it all, Seraphine, Guardian of the Painted Feathers, closed her eyes. For tonight, the colors were safe. Tomorrow, bureaucracy might return. But she’d be ready—with sass, with feathers, and with a hope too radiant to ration. Because guardians don’t just protect. They remind the world to stay audacious. Epilogue They say if you wander deep into that forest on a moonlit night, you’ll see her: an owl shimmering with impossible hues, watching with eyes that could outwit empires. If you’re lucky, she’ll wink. If you’re unlucky, she’ll assign you to hydrangea duty. Either way, you’ll leave brighter than you came.     Bring the Guardian Home The legend of Seraphine, the Guardian of the Painted Feathers, doesn’t have to live only in story. Her brilliant hues and defiant spirit can brighten your own space, wrapping your world in the same audacity she gifted the forest. Imagine her gaze watching over your home, her plumage spilling color into your days—a reminder that hope and sass are always worth protecting. Choose how you’d like to welcome her: Framed Print — perfect for gallery walls or living spaces that crave bold energy. Canvas Print — a textured, painterly feel that makes the Guardian’s feathers look alive. Tote Bag — carry the Guardian with you as a daily protector of both your belongings and your style. Fleece Blanket — curl up under her wings of impossible color and warmth. Greeting Card — share the Guardian’s hope and humor with friends who could use a reminder to stay bold. Whichever form you choose, the Guardian is ready to perch in your world, infusing it with the same defiant beauty she used to save her forest. Bring her home, and let every glance remind you that your colors deserve to shine.

Captured Tales – by Bill Tiepelman

Ritualist of the Forgotten Forge

The Circle No One Sweeps The village had long since stopped asking why their forge was haunted. Honestly, it was easier to pretend that the glowing sigil carved into the soot-stained floor was just “decorative rustic lighting.” Everyone knew better, of course. They whispered about the little figure who appeared only at midnight: a gnome, pale as moonlight, with chains jingling around his tattered boots. He had the kind of beard that screamed, “I’ve got secrets,” and eyes that glowed as though he’d mainlined battery acid. They called him the Ritualist, though behind closed doors they also called him less flattering things—like “that cranky little goth garden statue reject.” No one dared sweep the forge anymore. The glowing circle on the ground? Untouched. The puddle of neon goo dripping endlessly from nowhere? Nobody even mopped. It was simply understood that those were the Ritualist’s toys, and tampering with them meant your cows went dry or your husband suddenly started reciting poetry about toenail fungus. The Ritualist didn’t mess around with subtle curses. He went straight for the weird and humiliating. Some swore he had once been a smith—back when the forge actually forged, before it became a paranormal Airbnb for things with too many teeth. They said he hammered armor so sharp it sliced shadows, swords that bled smoke, and helmets that whispered to their owners at night, telling them secrets about who farted in the tavern. But that was centuries ago. Now he sat in the dust, crouched low, muttering over runes that pulsed in colors even the rainbow didn’t claim. The strangest part wasn’t his magic, though. It was his attitude. The Ritualist wasn’t your solemn, robe-wrapped mystic. He was snark incarnate. Villagers swore they’d heard him heckle wandering spirits. “Boo? Really? That’s the best you’ve got?” he’d sneer, or worse, “Wow, Casper, I’m shaking in my boots—oh wait, those are YOUR boots, nice try.” His reputation as the village’s resident paranormal troll was both feared and begrudgingly respected. No ghost dared linger, no demon dared pout—he roasted them harder than the forge’s old flames. Yet, beneath all the eye-rolling bravado, there was something else. A mystery thicker than his beard oils. Why did he keep that circle glowing? Why did he never leave the forge, never step into daylight? And why—on that particular midnight—did he look up from the circle with an expression that wasn’t snarky at all, but genuinely… afraid? Forge Gossip, Bad Omens, and a Gnome Who Knows Too Much Midnight again, and the forge was already humming like a drunk monk chanting off-key. The sigil burned hotter, violet sparks shooting into the air like the world’s most pretentious fireworks display. The Ritualist crouched at its center, muttering in a language that sounded half like incantation and half like he was trying to beatbox with bronchitis. His beard swayed with each whispered syllable, and the chains on his boots rattled in rhythm, giving him the vibe of an off-brand gothic metronome. What no villager ever knew—because they valued their lives too much to peek—was that the Ritualist didn’t just sit there looking spooky for kicks. He was working. Sort of. Every night he argued with the circle. Yes, argued. The runes hissed at him, the neon goo sloshed with disapproval, and occasionally a voice would bubble up from beneath the floor with the passive-aggressive tone of someone’s dead aunt. “You should have cleaned up better when you had the chance,” the voice would say. “You were always so lazy.” The Ritualist would snarl back, “Oh, put a rune in it, Agnes. Your casseroles were terrible.” He wasn’t entirely wrong—the runes were haunted. Each stroke of glowing script was an IOU signed in blood and sass centuries ago. The Forgotten Forge had been the playground of entities that thought blacksmiths were the best kind of pen pals: they sent anvils in exchange for souls, hammers for promises, tongs for secrets. And the Ritualist? He was the last smith standing. He kept the debts balanced—or at least juggled them long enough to keep the forge from imploding into an interdimensional sinkhole. Glamorous, it was not. And yet, for someone whose job was essentially to babysit eldritch graffiti, he had style. He leaned into the goth aesthetic so hard it practically squeaked. Black leather jacket stitched with runes no one could read? Check. Tall, pointed hat that looked like it could stab a squirrel at twenty paces? Double check. Boots heavy enough to stomp through the bones of the damned? Triple check, plus steel toes. The Ritualist didn’t half-ass his look, not even when summoning things that could liquify him faster than an overripe tomato in a blender. On this night, however, the look wasn’t enough to hide the twitch in his eye. The circle was glowing wrong. Too bright. Too… needy. Like a cat at 3 a.m. demanding snacks. He could feel the forge floor thrumming under his palms, the metal veins in the stone vibrating as though something beneath was stretching after a long nap. He didn’t like it. He didn’t like it one damn bit. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” he muttered, squinting at the neon goo now bubbling like a pot of suspicious soup. “Not tonight. I’ve got things to do. I’ve got beard oil to apply, curses to polish. Do you even realize how much unpaid overtime I’ve got stacked up?” The circle hissed louder, like a chorus of angry snakes. Sparks showered the air, scorching little burn marks into the rafters. A shadow slithered along the forge walls, longer than it should’ve been, sharper, hungrier. The Ritualist pulled a jagged little knife from his belt and pointed it lazily, like he was too tired for this nonsense but still willing to stab something if it ruined his evening. “Don’t test me,” he growled. “You know I’m cranky after midnight. You wouldn’t like me when I’m cranky.” But the thing did test him. From the circle rose a figure: not demon, not ghost, but something worse—the village gossip. Or, more precisely, the spirit of every bit of gossip the village had ever spewed. The thing formed from whispers and rumors, stitched together with petty envy and judgmental eyebrow raises. It oozed into shape like smoke made of disapproving sighs. It was hideous. It was relentless. It was the kind of entity that didn’t just eat souls—it ate your self-esteem. “Oh look at you,” the whisper-spirit crooned in a thousand voices. “All alone. Playing witch-doctor with chalk scribbles. Not even a real gnome—more like a washed-up lawn ornament with a hot topic gift card.” The Ritualist snarled, jabbing his knife at the thing. “Say that again, you whispering pile of mildew.” “Oh, we’ll say more,” it hissed, circling him. “We’ll say everything. We’ll tell them you’re scared. That you’re failing. That the forge is breaking, and you’re too busy being dramatic to fix it. We’ll tell them you wear eyeliner in the dark even though no one’s watching.” He squinted. “First off, eyeliner is a mood, not an audience event. Second—” He slashed the knife through the air, sending a spark of violet lightning across the circle. The gossip-wraith recoiled, shrieking in overlapping voices. But it didn’t vanish. Not yet. The Ritualist stood straighter now, his pale skin aglow with the circle’s fire, his beard practically sparkling with static. “Listen, you pile of spectral trash,” he said, voice dripping with mockery. “I’ve dealt with banshees who sang off-key, revenants with bad breath, and one very angry ghost donkey. Do you think a walking pile of rumor-mill nonsense is going to rattle me?” He grinned, baring teeth too sharp for a gnome. “Newsflash: I am the rumor. I am the punchline. And I’m not afraid to burn your little whispering ass back to whatever cosmic sewing circle you crawled out of.” The wraith hissed again, but the forge itself shook this time—rafters groaning, iron chains rattling, embers bursting like fireworks. The Ritualist’s grin faltered. Just a little. Because behind the gossip-thing, something bigger was pressing against the circle, something too large for words, too old for jokes. And for the first time in a very long while, his sarcasm didn’t feel like enough. The Forge Throws a Tantrum The gossip-wraith shimmered like static, circling the Ritualist with the smugness of a cat that just knocked over your last glass of wine. It was annoying enough, but the real problem was what was happening behind it. The forge floor was cracking. The neon sigil pulsed like a diseased heartbeat, veins of glowing violet spiderwebbing through the stone. Whatever was pressing from below was no polite house spirit—it was old, it was hungry, and it was stretching like it hadn’t had a snack since the Dark Ages. “Well,” the Ritualist muttered, shoving his knife back into its sheath, “this is officially above my pay grade. And I don’t even get paid. You’d think babysitting a haunted forge would come with benefits. Dental? A retirement plan? Hell, I’d settle for a beer tab.” The gossip-wraith cackled in overlapping voices. “You’re slipping. They’ll see it. They’ll whisper it. They’ll laugh.” He scowled, then jabbed a finger at it. “Do me a favor and choke on your own smug. I’ve got bigger problems than your commentary track.” That’s when the floor gave out. A crack split the circle wide open, neon goo splattering like someone tipped over a vat of radioactive jam. From the fissure rose a claw—gnarled, metallic, dripping molten sparks. Then another. Then something enormous heaved itself halfway out of the earth, forcing the rafters to quake and the iron beams to groan. It was like the forge itself had decided it was done being a workplace and wanted to be a boss monster instead. And what emerged wasn’t exactly a demon. Or a ghost. Or even something describable in polite company. It was all of them, a mashup of nightmare tropes rolled into one hideous, jaw-dropping monstrosity. Think dragon made out of chainmail and resentment, stitched together with the bad attitude of every villain who ever monologued too long. Its eyes blazed with the light of exploding suns. Its teeth looked like they’d flossed with barbed wire. And its voice—when it opened its maw—sounded like a garbage disposal trying to sing opera. “Well, shit,” said the Ritualist, dusting off his hands. “Guess I’m working overtime.” The gossip-wraith, now reduced to a shadow clinging to the forge wall, squeaked, “You can’t stop it!” “Oh honey,” the Ritualist drawled, pulling a jagged black hammer from behind the anvil, “I don’t need to stop it. I just need to piss it off enough that it leaves me alone for another hundred years.” The hammer wasn’t just a hammer—it was the hammer. The last artifact of the Forgotten Forge, etched with runes so ancient even the gossip-thing shut up for a moment. When he swung it, it didn’t just hit metal. It hit concepts. You could bash someone’s hope with it. You could smash irony across the jaw. Once, legend said, he had flattened an entire bureaucracy just by tapping their paperwork with it. True story. The Ritualist raised the hammer as the monstrous thing hauled itself higher, its claws gouging trenches into the floor. “Alright, Stretch,” he called out, voice sharp as a whip. “You woke up on the wrong side of the apocalypse. I get it. But here’s the deal—this is my forge. My circle. My neon goo puddle. And if you think you’re going to waltz in here like you own the place, well…” He smirked, baring sharp teeth. “You’re about to get hammered.” The fight that followed would’ve made the gods lean in with popcorn. The creature lunged, jaws snapping, molten spit sizzling on the stone. The Ritualist swung, hammer connecting with a roar that rippled through dimensions. Sparks flew, each one a memory burned into existence, each one stinging like sarcasm flung at the wrong time. The monster reeled back, screeching. The circle pulsed harder, trying to contain the chaos, but cracks spread wider, glowing brighter, like a rave held by tectonic plates. “You can’t win!” the gossip-wraith shrieked. “You’re just one cranky gnome with eyeliner!” “Correction,” the Ritualist snarled, dodging a claw swipe that nearly took his hat, “I’m the crankiest gnome with eyeliner, and that makes me unstoppable.” Another swing of the hammer cracked one of the beast’s claws clean off. It hit the floor with a clang, rattling the rafters. The monster screamed, retaliating with a wave of molten sparks that lit the forge in blinding firelight. Shadows danced across the walls, and for a moment the Ritualist looked less like a gnome and more like a god—a tiny, furious god in black boots, standing defiant against something ten times his size. The villagers outside woke to the sound of explosions, groaning metal, and one very loud gnome screaming things like, “I SAID NO TRESPASSING!” and “GET YOUR OVERGROWN ASS OUT OF MY CIRCLE!” Windows rattled. Cows panicked. Someone tried to pray, but their words got drowned out by a particularly nasty clang followed by the monster’s howl of defeat. By dawn, the forge was quiet again. The villagers crept up, peeking from behind fences, half-expecting to find nothing but rubble. Instead, they found the forge intact, glowing faintly. The Ritualist sat in the middle of it all, cross-legged, hammer resting across his lap, beard singed at the edges, boots steaming. His hat was crooked, his jacket torn, and his glare dared anyone to ask questions. “What happened?” one brave idiot finally asked. The Ritualist looked up slowly, eyes glowing with leftover fire. “What happened,” he said dryly, “is that you owe me a beer. Actually, three. No, make it five. And if anyone so much as thinks about sweeping this forge, I swear I’ll curse your entire family tree with flatulence until the seventh generation.” And that was that. The forge remained standing, the circle glowing. The villagers never asked again. Because they knew better. The Ritualist of the Forgotten Forge wasn’t just a guardian. He was a professional problem, and sometimes—just sometimes—he was the only thing standing between their little world and complete annihilation. With sarcasm as sharp as his hammer, and eyeliner dark enough to shame the night, he would keep the circle burning, one snarky midnight at a time.     Epilogue: Beard Oil and Beer Tabs Days passed, and the villagers noticed something odd. The forge wasn’t just glowing anymore—it was purring. A low, steady hum, like the sound of a very smug cat that had eaten its fill of eldritch horrors. The Ritualist himself was seen less often, mostly because he spent more time napping in the forge with his hammer across his chest like a gnome-sized guard dog. When questioned, he’d wave them off with a grunt. “Circle’s fine. Big ugly went back to sleep. Don’t touch my goo puddle. That’s all you need to know.” The gossip-wraith? Still lurking in the rafters, but quieter now. Occasionally it would whisper mean things, but the Ritualist had perfected the art of flipping it off without even opening his eyes. He claimed he’d “domesticated it,” like one might with a raccoon or a very rude parrot. Nobody wanted to test him on that. Legend spread. Children dared each other to peek at the forge windows at night, hoping to see sparks of violet lightning or hear the gnome muttering insults at unseen enemies. Merchants made jokes about bottling the neon goo as a tonic—though no one had the guts to try. The Ritualist, meanwhile, enjoyed the attention only in the sense that it annoyed him. “Great,” he said, rolling his eyes. “I’m a tourist attraction now. Next thing you know, you’ll want to put me on a damn postcard.” And yet, every night at midnight, he still crouched over the circle. Still muttered his strange half-incantations, half-insults. Still kept the balance. Because deep down—even beneath the eyeliner, the sarcasm, and the layers of cranky attitude—he knew what the villagers would never admit: that without him, their world would’ve cracked open long ago. He didn’t need their gratitude. He just needed their beer. And maybe, on a good day, someone to bring him a new bottle of beard oil. So the forge burned, the circle glowed, and the Ritualist endured—snark, curses, neon goo puddle and all. Because sometimes the world doesn’t need a hero. Sometimes it just needs a goth gnome with attitude and a hammer that can smack concepts in the teeth.   Bring the Ritual Home If the Ritualist of the Forgotten Forge made you laugh, cringe, or secretly wish you had your own goo puddle of eldritch neon power, you can bring a piece of his world into yours. Whether you want a bold statement for your walls, a cozy snark-filled blanket, or even a notebook to scribble your own questionable runes, we’ve got you covered. Hang the Ritualist’s midnight snarl in your living room with a Framed Print, or go sleek and modern with a fiery Metal Print. Need a sidekick for your ideas (or curses)? Grab the Spiral Notebook and jot down every sarcastic prophecy that pops into your head. For those who like their goth gnomes portable, slap him anywhere with a Sticker—on your laptop, your water bottle, or straight onto your neighbor’s broom (no judgment). And when the night grows long, curl up under the dark comfort of a Fleece Blanket glowing with his mysterious energy. Because sometimes the world doesn’t need a hero. It just needs a goth gnome with an attitude—and now, so do you.

Captured Tales – by Bill Tiepelman

Daughter of the Flameveil

The Emberling Who Wouldn't Behave In a desert so old it forgot its own name, where the sun whispered secrets to the dunes and the wind told only dirty jokes, a girl was born beneath a veil of flame. Not literally on fire, mind you—though her Aunt Keela would forever claim there was “a glimmer of combustion behind those eyes.” No, little Maelyra came into the world wrapped in smoke-colored swaddles and prophecy. And colic. Lots of colic. She was the third daughter of the House of Emberveil, a bloodline known for birthing women who could summon storms with a wink and read the truth off a man's tongue like a menu. Each girl was meant to grow into a Seer, a Whisperer, a Queen of the Inner Flame. But not Maelyra. Maelyra liked to braid scorpions into her hair (non-venomous, usually), blow bubbles during sacred meditations, and sneak fire-milk liquor into the ceremonial tea of the High Sisters. By thirteen, she’d rewritten the temple’s hymnal to include fart jokes and rewritten her fate by setting the Oracle Tent on fire with nothing but a glare, a sarcastic prayer, and a stolen jar of moon oil. “She is... spirited,” whispered the High Priestess, stroking her singed brows. “She’s a menace,” sighed Maelyra’s mother, Queen Ashava, as her daughter skipped past naked except for henna, a sash, and a goat wearing her tiara. And the Flameveil? That ancient mask of swirling patterns that revealed a Seer’s calling, the one that kissed each chosen face in sleep with divine approval? It refused to appear on Maelyra’s face, no matter how many rites they tried. “Flame-shamed,” they called her behind jeweled fans and closed tent flaps. But Maelyra wasn’t flame-shamed. She was flame-pissed. “You want fire?” she declared one star-bloated night, staring into the embers of her campfire. “Fine. Let’s start with your rules.” And she did. Starting with the “don’t commune with spirits while tipsy” rule. That was the night she met him. “You rang?” said the spirit, climbing out of the smoke like a cinnamon-dusted flirt. He had a jaw that could cut glass, eyes full of bad decisions, and the laugh of a forgotten god who’d just found tequila. He wasn’t exactly part of the temple’s approved pantheon, but Maelyra didn’t care. His name was Thalun, and he was the discarded guardian of failed seers—what he called “freelance spiritual misfits.” “You're like a cosmic guidance counselor,” she smirked. “But hot.” “And you,” he purred, flicking a spark off her nose, “are a walking violation of sacred protocol. I like you already.” Their partnership began with sass and firelight and a mutually understood agreement to not follow any cosmic instruction manuals. Together, they crashed a moon festival, released a captured desert wind, and convinced a bored sand wyrm to become the temple’s new therapy pet. But something strange was happening to Maelyra’s skin. The first mark appeared while she was eating pickled cactus at sunrise—a soft, gold spiral etched on her cheek. By the next day, two more blossomed across her brow and jawline, delicate as henna, radiant as sunrise, and suspiciously familiar. “Is that the—” Thalun started. “Nope,” Maelyra said, licking pickle brine off her fingers. “Must be a rash.” But it wasn’t. The Flameveil was waking up... and it had opinions. The Veil Talks Back The day Maelyra’s third Flameveil marking appeared, the temple’s bird-messenger dropped dead mid-air. “Dramatic,” she muttered, stepping over the feathered omen like it was a laundry basket. “Could’ve just sent a passive-aggressive dream like everyone else.” But the Elders were already twitching in their robes. Her mother, Queen Ashava, summoned a private conclave where everyone spoke in low, sacred tones and sipped tea like it was truth serum. The High Priestess clutched her prayer beads so hard one of them exploded, and the Spirit of Communal Modesty hiccuped loudly through the incense smoke. They were worried. About Maelyra. About the Flameveil. About what it meant when an irreverent girl who once taught the temple goats to twerk began growing divine tattoos she clearly hadn't earned. “It’s not supposed to grow on her,” an Elder hissed, mouth full of blessed pastry. “Maybe it's a punishment,” offered another, adjusting his belt of holy enlightenment (which Maelyra always thought looked suspiciously like a cheap curtain tie). “A slow divine branding.” Maelyra, eavesdropping in the rafters while hand-feeding raisins to a spiritual crow named Kevin, rolled her eyes so hard she saw the beginning of time. “If they’re going to gossip,” she told Kevin, “they could at least offer snacks.” That night, the Flameveil spoke to her for the first time. Not in riddles or fiery scrolls, but with the bluntness of a battle-worn auntie and the subtlety of a camel in tap shoes. “Get up. We need to talk.” Maelyra bolted upright in her tent, halfway tangled in her sleeping rug and clutching a pillow shaped like a desert potato. “What in the seven rings—” “No time. Listen. I’ve been watching. You’re a mess.” The voice came from inside her own skin, as if the golden marks had grown vocal cords and no filter. “You’re stubborn, chaotic, easily distracted by shiny men and forbidden beverages, and utterly unequipped for spiritual leadership.” Maelyra blinked. “Okay, ouch.” “But... you’re also curious, hilarious, absurdly brave, and... well, let’s just say the other candidates were like wet scrolls compared to you. The Flame chose. Reluctantly. I am your Veil now. Deal with it.” She stared into the polished bowl of water beside her bed, where her reflection now shimmered with faint, pulsing lines of divine filigree. Each new mark curved and danced like a flame drawn in lace. And—most unsettling of all—they wiggled when she made snarky comments. “You’re alive, aren’t you?” she whispered to the mask. “Of course I am. I’ve outlived empires, judged queens, slapped prophets, and once cursed a llama into enlightenment. I’m not just some cosmetic destiny doodle.” That was how she learned the Flameveil wasn’t just a symbol. It was a sentient legacy, bound to the soul of its bearer like cosmic spanx—tight, occasionally sassy, and constantly holding things together whether you wanted it or not. The next few weeks were a montage of magical mishaps. The veil wouldn’t stop giving commentary during rituals. (“Wrong hand, darling.” “That’s not a sacred bowl, that’s soup.” “Stop winking at the acolyte, Maelyra.”) Thalun, her spirit guide turned semi-boyfriend turned full-time mischief coach, watched with increasing amusement. “You’re literally arguing with your own destiny,” he said, lounging in midair and eating starfruit like a smug lantern. “Destiny shouldn’t have opinions on underwear,” she snapped, tugging at the ceremonial garb the Veil insisted was “traditionally flattering.” But things were shifting. The sand no longer burned her feet when she walked barefoot. The temple’s cats followed her in perfect spiral formations. A forgotten prophecy—a very dramatic, rhyming one involving “laughter unburnt and a womb of chaos”—started circulating like gossip at a camel race. And then the visions began. Not the polite, misty dream-visions of old. These were vivid, loud, and surprisingly musical. One minute she was meditating with Thalun, the next she was in a glowing hallway of ancestral seers, being serenaded by a chorus of grandmothers with tambourines. “Oh no,” Thalun said, as her eyes glazed over in yet another vision fit. “She’s in Grandma-Mode again.” Maelyra returned from each trance sweaty, confused, and often humming tunes she’d never heard before. The Flameveil would then glow brighter, as if pleased, while her mother grew increasingly pale at the sight of her daughter levitating during breakfast. Eventually, the temple had to act. They declared a Pilgrimage of Proving—a sacred, absurdly long journey through fire, storms, awkward mountain villages, and at least one judgmental cactus—to determine whether Maelyra truly deserved the mask that was now clearly clinging to her like a divine barnacle. “You will leave at dawn,” the High Priestess announced dramatically. “You may take one companion and one spiritual artifact.” Maelyra grinned. “I’ll take Thalun. And Kevin the crow.” “That’s two companions.” “Kevin’s technically an artifact. He once swallowed a blessed spoon.” The council groaned. And so, with sass in her sandals, visions in her veins, and a sassy ancient tattoo-mask fused to her face, Maelyra stepped beyond the temple gates. The Flameveil pulsed. Thalun floated beside her like a scandalous idea. Kevin pooped dramatically on a sacred rock. The journey had begun. The Prophecy of Inappropriate Timing It rained frogs on the fifth day of Maelyra’s pilgrimage. “This is a test,” Thalun muttered, shielding his spectral head with a half-eaten scroll. “It’s gotta be. Divine plumbing gone rogue.” “No, this is definitely Grandma Anareth’s doing,” Maelyra muttered, swatting a toad out of her sandal. “She always said my journey would be ‘ribbiting.’” They had crossed five deserts, four sacred sinkholes, and a field of whispering sandstones that only insulted travelers in haiku form. Kevin the crow had developed a gambling problem with desert beetles. Thalun had been propositioned by a sentient cactus. And Maelyra? She was now glowing. Literally. Her Flameveil shimmered like dusk caught in silk, the golden designs on her skin now spreading down her arms and spine like creeping ivy lit from within. “I think I’m mutating,” she said one night, watching her reflection shimmer in a puddle of starlight. “You’re ascending,” the Veil corrected, always the know-it-all. “Though yes, it’s very glowy. Try not to blind yourself.” By now, the bond between Maelyra and the Flameveil was... complicated. Like co-parenting a magical toddler with a spicy ex. The Veil nagged, snarked, and guided her with the same energy as a stubborn dance instructor who refused to let the student sit down until the twirl was perfect. But there was affection, too. She felt it during the quiet hours when the stars listened and the mask hummed lullabies through her bones. And then they reached the Canyon of Echoes, where every flameborn Seer for the past thousand years had gone to receive their final rite. Maelyra expected music. Fireworks. A laser-projected flaming goat, maybe. Instead, she got a single stone slab, a pile of spiritual paperwork, and a bored-looking celestial clerk named Meryl. “Sign here. Blood or ink. No refunds.” “That’s it?” Maelyra asked, side-eyeing Thalun. “That’s bureaucracy, love,” Thalun sighed. “Even for the divine.” But the moment her palm touched the stone, the air changed. Her body lifted off the ground, the Flameveil igniting in a blinding burst of gold and rose-pink light. She hovered mid-air, arms out, hair wild, voice trembling with something far older than herself. “I am Maelyra of the Flameveil,” she declared, her voice no longer just hers, but woven with ancestral tones and slightly inappropriate jazz harmonies. “I carry the laughter of the unruly, the wisdom of the half-drunk, and the sacred nonsense of chaos made holy. I claim the right to burn with joy, to see through shadows, and to kiss fate on the mouth if I feel like it!” Then she burst into flames. Beautiful, harmless, sassy flames. The kind that danced and curled and left sparkles in the air like confetti. When she landed, the canyon had changed. A temple stood where there had been stone. A gathering of spirits waited with tambourines and smirks. Kevin wore a tiny crown. “You’re late,” said a familiar voice. The ancestors. Dozens of them. Some regal, some weird, one clearly holding a margarita. “You mean I made it?” “You redefined it,” said the Veil. “You took the sacred and made it sweaty, funny, and ridiculous. That’s power. That’s the point.” Thalun floated closer. “So... are you a full Seer now?” She turned to him, her eyes full of fire and mischief. “No, I’m something worse. I’m the first Wyrd Seer. The one who laughs at fate, flirts with destiny, and makes the gods uncomfortable in their sandals.” She leaned in and kissed him, fiery and slow, as celestial spirits pretended not to watch but totally did. From that day on, Maelyra traveled the realms as a wild oracle of sass and wonder. She gave visions to anyone who asked, as long as they were willing to dance, drink, or listen to dirty jokes. She rewrote the rules of prophecy, starting with: “Stop taking yourself so seriously, you holy biscuit.” The Flameveil glowed brighter every year. Not because it was ancient, but because it was finally having fun. And in the great cosmic ledger, where the deeds of every Seer were inscribed, Maelyra’s entry simply read: “She made us laugh. She made us feel. She stole a god’s pants once. We approve.” Story image reference and inspiration from Rania Renderings       Want to carry a spark of Maelyra’s wild prophecy into your world? Whether you’re dressing up your walls or wrapping yourself in sass-soaked mysticism, framed art prints and acrylic panels bring her gaze into your sacred space with full fire and finesse. Let her travel with you on an enchanted tote bag, lounge beside you on a boldly woven beach towel, or stretch across your realm as a vibrant tapestry worth prophesying over. Wherever she goes, so does the laughter, the mystery, and the unapologetic magic of the Flameveil.

Captured Tales – by Bill Tiepelman

Guardian Cub of Enchanted Realms

The Branch, the Bright Eyes, and the Bad Timing The first rule of the Enchanted Forest is simple: don’t lick anything that glows. The second rule is more of a gentle suggestion—try not to insult the wildlife, especially if it has wings large enough to fan you like a celebrity at a summer gala. I broke both rules within ten minutes. I was tracking a strand of sunset that had slipped between the trees—a lazy, honey-gold ribbon that pooled across a moss-covered branch. That’s when I saw her: a winged snow leopard cub, all spotted velvet and impossible featherwork, perched like a secret the forest had been dying to tell someone with the right kind of ears. Her eyes were the glassy blue of mountain air, bright enough to make the shadows admit they’d been exaggerating. “Hello,” I said, because this is what you say to miracles if you’re polite and over thirty-five. “You’re not in the product catalog.” The cub blinked slowly—the feline equivalent of an elevator door that has decided it will not close while you are still telling your life story. A single feather unhooked from her wing and spiraled down, luminous as frost in candlelight. It landed on my boot and melted into a scent like snow at the moment it forgives the sun. You took your time, a voice said inside my head, breezy as chiffon. There’s a prophecy, and also a schedule. I looked around, because the etiquette of telepathy never really stuck with me. “You… talked?” Talked? Please. I upgraded to direct transfer after the owls kept live-tweeting my secrets. The cub stood, every tuft and whisker suddenly photo-real under the latticework of golden light. My name is Lumen. I’m a Guardian. Of the Realms. Junior edition. Probationary, technically. “Junior edition?” I repeated, because sometimes your brain just idles. I haven’t had my Ascension Nap. Bureaucracy. She flicked her tail, ringed like a moon seen through lace. But someone has to fix the tear between winter and summer, and the elders are allergic to urgency. I sat on the branch opposite her, careful not to test the load-bearing capacity of myth. The forest breathed around us—glow-mushrooms hemming the shadows, dust motes drifting like confetti that forgot the party ended in 1492. “So there’s a tear. In seasons.” In everything, really. Lumen stretched her wings, and the feathers drank the light before giving it back brighter. The Frostbound Choir thinks the world should be permanently iced—easy to manage, aesthetically consistent. The Ember Syndicate wants a forever-summer with more sizzle than sense. If they finish their tug-of-war, there’ll be no spring to fall into, no autumn to gather. No home for the enchanted forest or the quiet places where hope sprouts like weeds. “Let me guess,” I said, “you need a human who can follow instructions, keep calm under supernatural pressure, and absolutely not lick the glowing things.” Lumen tilted her head. Realistically? I need a human who can improvise. And who carries snacks. I offered a bag of trail mix with the air of a knight presenting a holy relic. She nosed it, selected exactly three almonds, and somehow made it a ceremony. You’re hired. Somewhere above us, a bough unspooled from shadow and dropped a drip of resin onto my forehead, the forest’s version of a notary stamp. The gold fleck spread warm across my skin and sank in, humming like a distant choir that had learned to keep its arrogance to a whisper. Contract sealed, Lumen said. Clause one: you will walk with me. Clause two: you will laugh when fear tries to be funny. Clause three: hope is not optional; it’s equipment. We moved along the branch like co-conspirators, the bark a patchwork of emerald and old stories. Beneath us, the forest opened into a clearing where sunbeams stitched the ground into a warm quilt. Dragonflies skimmed the light, wearing jeweled harnesses of dawn. I felt the world thicken with meaning, the way soup does when you’ve finally added enough potatoes. “Where are we going?” I asked. The seam, she said. Where winter leaks into summer and vice versa. We’ll patch it with laughter, ritual, and reckless competence. And possibly a needle made of moonlight. “Straightforward,” I said, bravely lying. “And the odds?” On paper? Unkind. In practice? Her eyes glimmered like ice deciding to behave. We’ll win by making better mistakes than our enemies. We entered the clearing—and the air split with a sound like glass learning to sing. The temperature plunged. Frost raced along the edges of leaves, sketching filigree so perfect it hurt to look at. On the far side, heat shimmered off the earth, the color of apricots and audacity. Between them, a silver rift unstitched the world from ankle to sky. “If this were a merch photo,” I muttered, “we’d call it Celestial Leopard vs. Art-Directed Catastrophe and sell prints until the moon filed for royalties.” Focus, beloved chaos, Lumen said, though I felt her amusement purr through my ribs. First, we listen. From the cold side came a thin, sacred harmony—voices stacked like icicles—sharp, beautiful, and merciless. From the hot side throbbed a bass-heavy chant that smelled of citrus and mischief, a music that would dance you into a good decision and then dare you to dance again. The two songs warred, and the rift widened by the width of my regret. “Can we… harmonize them?” I asked. Eventually, yes. Tonight? Lumen’s feathered ear twitched. We start smaller. The Choir sent a scout to intimidate us—do not be impressed. The trick with bullies is realizing how boring they are. Something stepped from the winter side: tall, cloaked in hoarfrost, antlers veined with trapped starlight. Its breath scribbled the air into equations that solved for despair. I felt my knees reconsider their career choices. “Name yourself,” the figure intoned, the syllables so cold they cracked. Before I could speak, Lumen hopped onto the midpoint of the branch like a child claiming a stage. I am Lumen, Guardian Cub of the Enchanted Realms, Assistant Manager of Miracles, and today’s customer service representative. You’ve violated seasonal policy, subsection ‘Don’t Be a Drama Blizzard.’ Kindly take a number. If a frost-wraith can look offended, this one achieved it with gusto. “You are a cub.” And you are late to your own downfall, Lumen said, fluffing to approximately twice her already fabulous volume. Behold my associate: human, resilient, snack-enabled. “Hi,” I said, because sometimes bravery just means showing up. I stepped forward and, without overthinking it, began to hum the warm song I’d heard leaking from the summer side. Not loudly—just enough to set the air vibrating like a list of good ideas. Heat ghosted across the clearing, a hum of peaches and sunset. The frost-wraith flinched. Yes, Lumen murmured. Hope is a temperature. The wraith hissed and raised both arms. Snow spiraled into a spear, elegant as malice. “You will be corrected.” “We prefer edited,” I said, and reached instinctively for Lumen. Her wing cupped my palm. A current ran through us—cold and hot and utterly right—like being plugged into the original power outlet of the world. Feathers flashed. The spear shattered into harmless glitter that fell as soft as applause. The rift shivered, surprised by our refusal to be predictable. The frost-wraith steadied. “Child,” it said to Lumen, “do you know who you are?” Lumen’s eyes went so bright the forest leaned closer. I am the savior no one scheduled, the joke fate tells to heal itself, and the Guardian who brings spring to the stubborn. She bared tiny, polite teeth. And I am not alone. The wraith stepped back toward the winter veil, reconsidering its life choices. It lifted one long finger. “Tomorrow, at moonrise. We end your hopeful nonsense.” “It’s not nonsense,” I said, voice steady for the first time. “It’s a plan.” The figure dissolved into falling frost that spelled a rude word in four languages, then blew away. The clearing exhaled. The rift still burned and glittered, but it no longer growled. Lumen sagged, suddenly just a cub with oversized promises. I knelt and pressed my forehead to hers. “We’re really doing this, aren’t we?” Oh, absolutely, she said, tail curling around my wrist like a bracelet I’d keep forever. Tomorrow we persuade a war to become a duet. Tonight we practice—and you’ll need to learn how to stitch moonlight without stabbing yourself in the optimism. “Is there a manual?” There’s a vibe, she said. And snacks. Don’t forget the snacks. The forest lights brightened in soft approval. Somewhere, the summer side laughed into the leaves; the winter side polished its pride to a shine. Between them, a small, winged celestial feline and a woman who had aged into her courage made a promise the world could hear if it wanted to. The Moonlight Needle and the Fine Art of Panic Morning in the Enchanted Forest has the decency to be both unrealistic and aggressively on-brand. The light doesn’t just shine; it drizzles down like melted sugar, pooling in the creases of bark and the hollows of moss. Birds trill arpeggios that would bankrupt Broadway if they ever sold tickets. And in the middle of it all, I woke up with a winged snow leopard cub standing on my chest, lecturing me about moonlight embroidery. Hold still, human, Lumen said, pawing through my pockets with the determined subtlety of a TSA agent. We need something sharp, something steady, and something profoundly unnecessary. “Like, say, a life coach?” I wheezed under her eight pounds of destiny. Funny, she deadpanned. No, we’re making a Needle of Moonlight. Frost rifts don’t close themselves, and celestial thread doesn’t exactly come prepackaged at the craft store. She leapt to the branch above, feathers brushing my cheek like the world’s fanciest alarm clock. The canopy still dripped silver from last night’s duel. Lumen gathered it the way children gather excuses—messy, abundant, and with suspicious joy. She nudged a thread of liquid light toward me. Hold it. It was cool, electric, and whisper-thin, like clutching a sigh before it could escape. My hands shook. “Feels fragile.” It is fragile. Like truth, or soufflé. Don’t drop it. She shaped her wings into a cradle, focusing, her eyes twin glaciers set on fire. The thread sharpened under her gaze until it gleamed needle-fine, humming with that particular frequency of things that rewrite the rules. “This is either witchcraft,” I muttered, “or the world’s most elaborate Etsy tutorial.” Both, Lumen said. Now, about the panic—you’ll need it. I blinked. “I thought you said hope was the equipment.” Yes, but panic is the engine. Hope without panic is a fairy tale. Panic without hope is a headline. Together? You get improvisation with teeth. We descended into the clearing where the rift still yawned, half winter, half summer. The air was drunk on contradictions—snowflakes sizzling into steam, leaves burning themselves back into green. The seam shimmered, wider than before, as though last night’s frost-wraith had returned home to file a complaint. “We’re early,” I whispered. The Choir’s icicle-hymn was faint, the Ember Syndicate’s bass-beat more like warm-up rehearsal than full brawl. Good, Lumen said. Gives us time to practice stitching. So I did what any reasonable person does when handed cosmic thread and told to patch the fabric of reality: I stabbed at the air like I was trying to embroider the world’s most judgmental pillow. The needle hummed, each puncture leaving behind a faint glow, as if the universe were politely humoring me. Straighter, Lumen urged. And with less apology. “I’m sorry!” I said, immediately proving her point. My hands trembled, the thread wobbled, and I accidentally stitched two snowflakes together. They fused into a butterfly made of frost and fire that immediately flew off to find an open mic night. The rift laughed at me in three languages. Better mistakes, human, Lumen said. Don’t aim for perfection; aim for hope that looks ridiculous until it works. So I stitched faster, clumsier, letting panic push my hands and hope steady them. The rift flickered, resisting, its silver edges sparking like an overcaffeinated welding torch. For a second, I thought we were making progress—until the Choir and the Syndicate noticed. From the frost side, figures emerged—antlered wraiths, dozens this time, their voices braiding into a blade of sound. From the ember side, silhouettes swayed, all heat and hips, their laughter oily with charm. They converged on the seam, each determined to rip it wider. “Lumen,” I hissed, “we have company.” Correction: we have audience. Her fur bristled, wings arched, every inch of her a celestial guardian who’d forgotten how small she was. Keep stitching. I’ll handle the dialogue. The first frost-wraith stepped forward, spear gleaming, voice slicing. “Child Guardian. You cannot resist the Choir.” I can resist anything, Lumen said sweetly, except free samples. The Syndicate’s lead swayed in next, dripping heat like perfume. “Darling cub, why bother with balance? Melt it all, let pleasure burn forever. Your human already sweats in our favor.” I wiped my forehead, mortified. “That’s… just genetics.” The Choir hissed. The Syndicate laughed. And I stitched faster, the seam glowing, shaking, resisting. My thread snagged, caught—and in that instant of clumsy panic, the rift jolted wider, a roar splitting the clearing. Frost and fire lashed out, colliding. The air filled with shards of ice and ribbons of flame, clashing so loud the trees covered their ears. The ground buckled. The rift was no longer a seam; it was a throat, screaming to swallow both seasons whole. Lumen leapt onto my shoulder, her eyes incandescent. It’s time for the climax, human. We’re done patching. Now we perform. “Perform?” I squeaked. We make them laugh and we make them sing—together. Or we’re all soup. The Choir surged forward. The Syndicate swayed closer. Frost and flame reached for each other, eager to annihilate. And I stood in the middle, clutching a moonlight needle that hummed like a joke I wasn’t ready to tell. “Do you even know the punchline?” I asked Lumen. No, she said, voice trembling with mischief and awe. But if we deliver it with enough hope, the world will write it for us.   The Punchline That Healed the World The rift howled like a cathedral organ in a fistfight with a nightclub subwoofer. Frost crystals needled my cheeks; heat licked my neck with the unsubtlety of a bad ex. Perform, Lumen had said, which is a charming way to describe bargaining with physics while two elemental unions boo you in stereo. I raised the moonlight needle like a conductor’s baton. Lumen hopped to my shoulder, a celestial feline with wings flared wide, her breath bright and steady. On the frost side, the Choir lined up their antlers and judgments. On the ember side, the Syndicate stretched like summer on a chaise, equal parts invitation and arson. My knees panicked. My heart hoped. Together, they discovered rhythm. “Okay,” I told the universe, “let’s make some better mistakes.” I beat a quiet three-count—tap, tap, tap—like rain learning manners. Lumen chimed in with a thrumming purr that tuned the clearing to the key of possible. The Choir’s leader sneered, which is tenor for I’m listening against my will. The Syndicate’s lead smirked, which is contralto for I’m listening, and you’re lucky I styled my hair. “Here’s the deal,” I said, voice shaking and a little theatrical. “You’ve both been singing solos so long you forgot harmony was invented to keep egos from ruining parties. Winter has structure. Summer has soul. The forest needs both—or we end up with either a museum you can’t touch or a dance floor that never closes and eventually smells like regret.” Lumen flicked her tail, a glittering metronome. New rule, she announced, her voice ringing to the canopy. You get a duet or you get nothing. The Choir hissed frost. The Syndicate hissed steam. A snowflake landed on my lip and evaporated into the taste of relics. I took a breath, lifted the needle, and stitched the first bar of twilight. Twilight is where the jokes land—half shadow, half confession. I jabbed and drew, jabbed and drew, the moonlight thread sketching an invisible staff across the air. Lumen sang—not words, but that belly-deep, spine-lit sound cats make when the world gets precisely the amount of attention it deserves. The Choir’s harmonics shivered toward us, cold and precise. The Syndicate’s percussion swaggered in, hot and shameless. “Together,” I said, and brought my baton down. What happened next was not polite. It was right. The Choir’s crystalline syllables didn’t break the Syndicate’s bass—they braided it, each sharp edge finding a groove to ride. The Syndicate didn’t melt the Choir’s architecture—they lifted it, turned corners into curves and rules into dance steps. Frost-lace unfurled in time with a velvet drumline. Heat shimmer traced runes over the brittle beauty, granting it pulse. I sewed like a mad saint. Lumen flew loops, wingbeats flicking accents into the score—here, here, here. The rift convulsed. Instead of widening, it listened. Silver edges curled under my thread like hems finally ready to be finished. I tied a knot of dawn at the far end—ridiculous, radiant—and felt the seam hold. The Choir’s leader stepped forward, antlers ringing like chilled crystal. “Blasphemy,” it whispered, but it sounded like reverence misfiled. The Syndicate’s lead swayed closer, soft heat blooming over my cold-stung skin. “Naughty,” she purred, but it sounded like bravo. Lumen landed between them, tail curling with queenly patience. You both claim to love the world, she said. Prove it by sharing custody. The clearing hushed. In that silence I heard the forest itself—the roots trading gossip with the rain, the ferns muttering choreographies, the old bark clicking its arthritic approval. Even the glow-mushrooms dimmed to let the moment breathe. The frost-wraith from last night emerged, sheathes of ice spiraling around its arms. It studied the repaired seam, then bowed, something ancient cracking free from its posture. “We hate mess,” it admitted. “But we hate absence more.” It raised its spear and—delicately, almost tenderly—touched the knot of dawn. The spear iced over with sunrise. The Syndicate’s lead pressed two fingers of flame to the other end of the seam. “We hate limits,” she said. “But we hate boredom more.” The flame cooled to a coppery glow that felt like the last good song at a wedding when everyone still has their shoes on. The rift closed. Not with a slam, but with a satisfied sigh, like a curtain drawn at the end of a show that knows it nailed the landing. Snow settled on one shoulder, heat kissed the other, and for once I didn’t feel split between opposites. I felt—ridiculously, entirely—at home in the enchanted forest. Then the trees began to clap. Not metaphorically—their leaves smacked in leafy applause, trunks thumped root to root like drum talk. Lumen tucked her wings and, to my considerable relief, laughed, the sound bright enough to vector-map my cynicism into confetti. “That’s it?” I asked, a little dazed. “We… did it?” We did it, she said, and then she collapsed into my arms like a furry comet that had discovered gravity’s seductive side. Her body went heavy with the luxurious surrender of safety. Ascension Nap, she mumbled. Don’t let anyone monologue while I’m out. I cradled her, breathing in the scent of snow that forgives the sun and pine that forgives the calendar. The Choir and the Syndicate stood together, awkward as exes at a bake sale. I cleared my throat. “So. Terms?” “We rotate,” said the frost-wraith. “We respect thresholds. No more raids into spring.” “We celebrate,” said the ember lead. “We bring festivals, not fires. No more tantrums in harvest.” “And if either of you cheats,” I added, because adulting is mostly adding consequences to poetry, “you answer to the Guardian Cub of Enchanted Realms—who bites gently but effectively—and to her human, who wields weaponized customer service and a very pointy needle.” A chorus of dignified grumbles signified acceptance. The treaty sealed itself with the same golden resin that had notarized my life yesterday. Lumen’s ear flicked in her sleep, as if signing in dream cursive. When she woke, dusk had purled the sky into silk. Her eyes opened, bluer than a promise. Feathers reshaped, brighter, an iridescent gradient that held both frost and fire without flinching. She yawned, showing a kitten’s teeth and an archangel’s work ethic. Title upgrade, she said, blinking at me. Guardian. No “junior.” They said I demonstrated “impact.” “I’ll be insufferable about this for months,” I said, and meant it. We took the long way back across the branches, past golden forest light pooled like honey in bark-bowls, past dragonflies that had traded their harnesses for halos. Everywhere we went, the world looked a bit more in focus—as if a lens had clicked from almost to exactly. My mind, always editing, framed and reframed: the curve of Lumen’s wing against moss, the delicacy of her paws, the pattern of her spots like constellations that never forgot their origin story. If I were the sort to make fantasy art prints and fine art wall decor (perish the thought), this would be the moment I’d sell hope in archival inks. We stopped in our original clearing. The branch that had first held her secret was warm now, forgiving. Lumen settled, and I sat beside her. It felt like sitting at the edge of a story that had finally decided to love its reader back. “Teach me,” I said, surprising myself with how easy the surrender sounded. “Not just the needlework. The… guardian stuff.” Lumen studied me with that gaze cats use to measure whether you’re suitable for promotion. Clause four, she said. You’ll collect ordinary miracles: hot tea at the exact right second, strangers who hold doors with their whole heart, children who decide a stick is a starship. You’ll inventory them. You’ll tell people. You’ll make it art so they remember. “I can do that,” I said. “I can do that with embarrassing enthusiasm.” She bumped her head against my arm. Clause five: you’ll rest. Heroes who refuse to nap are just villains with anxiety. I lay back on the branch, the canopy stitching itself into a quilt of patience. Lumen curled against my ribs, the weight of her a promise I hadn’t known to ask for. Across the newly-mended seam, winter prepped its lace and summer tuned its brass, each waiting for its solo in the symphony we’d forced them to remember. The forest breathed. The world, ridiculous and holy, held. And for the first time in a long time, I believed in a future that could be framed.   Epilogue, in which we keep receipts: The Choir now hosts austere winter concerts that end with hot chocolate so scandalously rich the Syndicate claps. The Syndicate throws summer festivals where every bonfire has a fire marshal in a snowflake lapel pin. The treaty stands, pestered by mischief and maintained by better mistakes. Lumen patrols the canopy like a sherbet-colored comet, and I follow with my moonlight needle tucked into a case labeled Hope, Heavy-Duty. We mend things. We tell jokes that fix small cracks. We make enchanted realm feel like a place you can visit just by breathing kindly at a tree. When people ask who saved the seasons, we shrug and say: we performed. If you ever find a feather on your windowsill that smells faintly of snow forgiving the sun, keep it. That’s Lumen signing your guestbook. That’s your reminder that hope is a temperature, balance is a duet, and some of the best miracles arrive disguised as a nap.     Bring the Guardian Home If the Guardian Cub of Enchanted Realms stirred something magical in you, you can carry a piece of that enchantment into your own world. This photo-realistic fantasy artwork has been transformed into stunning, high-quality merchandise that blends whimsy, majesty, and everyday usefulness. Adorn your walls with a Metal Print or a classic Framed Print, both designed to showcase the vivid details of the winged snow leopard cub beneath golden forest light. For those who prefer contemporary brilliance, the Acrylic Print adds depth and modern elegance to this celestial masterpiece. Carry a touch of magic with you by choosing the enchanted forest design on a practical Tote Bag or let the cub’s wisdom inspire your creativity with a Spiral Notebook. For those who dream big, wrap yourself in celestial comfort with a Duvet Cover that turns your resting place into a sanctuary guarded by hope itself. Every product preserves the intricate detail of the photo-realistic fantasy art—from the cub’s luminous blue eyes to the enchanted forest atmosphere—making it more than décor or utility; it’s a reminder that hope is a temperature, and balance is a duet worth framing. Explore the collection, and let the Guardian watch over your everyday spaces.

Captured Tales – by Bill Tiepelman

Song of the Scaled Goddess

The First Verse The ocean always had its whispers, but tonight they rose in a chorus. Beneath the ink-black surface, lanternfish flickered like drunken fireflies, and something far more dazzling stirred in the currents. She wasn’t the sweet little mermaid of bedtime tales — oh no. She was the Scaled Goddess, radiant and dangerous, with a smile sharp enough to cut through ship’s rigging and a laugh that bubbled like champagne poured in secret coves. Her song wasn’t sung with delicate trills. It rolled through the waves like velvet thunder, low and teasing, a sound that made sailors grip the mast harder and question whether life on land had ever really satisfied them. She didn’t lure men to their deaths; she invited them to reconsider their priorities. Was it really such a tragedy to drown if the last thing you heard was seduction made liquid? On this night, her scales shimmered with impossible color — molten gold along her hips, emerald flickers racing her tail, and a splash of ruby red across her breast like some divine tattoo. She arched in the moonlight, unapologetic in her beauty, a living hymn to temptation. Every flip of her single, magnificent tail sent phosphorescence spraying around her like confetti at a particularly decadent party. The fishermen on the surface muttered prayers and curses, but they never looked away. They couldn’t. Her presence was gravity, her gaze the tide itself, and when she tilted her head just so, lips curling into a smirk, they swore she had noticed them. That smirk promised more than music. It promised trouble. Delicious, back-arching, life-changing trouble. And with that, the Scaled Goddess began her song — not a ballad, but something far more intoxicating. A tune that hinted at secrets in the depths: treasure, ecstasy, power… and maybe, just maybe, the kind of kiss that leaves your lungs too weak to remember how to breathe. The Second Verse The song did not fade; it swelled, curling itself into every crevice of the sailors’ skulls like a silk ribbon wrapping around candlelight. The Scaled Goddess knew what she was doing. She was no innocent child of the sea. She had centuries of practice and every note of her voice was engineered to vibrate in places men didn’t even know could hum. Her laughter rang out suddenly, cutting the tension like a silver dagger. It wasn’t cruel, but it wasn’t kind either. It was knowing — the kind of laugh that comes from someone who has already read the diary you thought was hidden under your mattress. She flipped her hair, strands of it glimmering like wet auroras, and let her eyes roll upward at the pitiful spectacle of them leaning too far over their boat’s edge. “Careful, boys,” she purred, her words stretching like molasses, “lean any further and you’ll be mine before dessert.” One sailor, bolder or dumber than the rest, called back, “What dessert would that be, lass?” His voice cracked on the word ‘dessert,’ but he tried to mask it with bravado. The Goddess smirked — oh, that smirk — and licked the corner of her lip as if savoring a secret treat. “The kind,” she said, her tail flicking up a cascade of moonlit spray, “that melts in your mouth and leaves you begging for seconds.” The deck erupted in nervous laughter, but their eyes betrayed them. None of them looked away. She had them. Hook, line, and sinker — though she never used hooks. She used hips, scales, and a voice that sounded like midnight confessions made after too much wine. The Goddess circled their vessel lazily, every turn displaying the perfect unity of her body and tail, that one tail — long, sleek, hypnotic in its movements. It curled and snapped like a lover’s tongue, and the water foamed in adoration around her. “Tell me,” she cooed, “have any of you ever wondered why the sea takes so many men and so few women?” She did not wait for an answer. “Because the sea knows what it likes. The sea is greedy. The sea is me.” With that, she rolled onto her back, letting the moonlight caress every iridescent scale like a lover’s palm. Her chest rose and fell in rhythm with the swells, and she sighed — long, sultry, and deliberate. It was a sound more dangerous than any storm, for it promised the kind of rapture that storms could never offer. The men fumbled with their nets and ropes, pretending to busy themselves, but their ears strained for every note, every syllable dripping from her tongue like honey laced with venom. She paused her circling, propped her elbows on the side of their boat, and lifted her chin to rest in her palms. Her nails tapped a rhythm on the wood, sharp and pointed, reminding them all that beauty this divine always came with teeth. “You’re trembling,” she whispered to one of them, her gaze narrowing. “Don’t worry. I like them trembling. I like knowing I’m not the only thing shaking tonight.” The sailor swallowed so hard it was audible over the lapping water. His companions laughed nervously, trying to play it off, but the Goddess leaned closer, her lips so near he could smell the brine and sweetness of her breath — seafoam mixed with temptation. “Careful, sweetling,” she murmured, “your heart is beating too fast. It’s loud. It’s… delicious.” She pressed a finger to his chest and hummed, as if testing the resonance of a fine instrument. His knees buckled, and she grinned, triumphant and wicked. Then, with a flick of her tail, she vanished beneath the surface. Gasps rippled across the deck. Men scrambled to the rail, peering into the black water, their own reflections staring back in pale, sweating panic. “She’s gone,” one muttered, though his voice carried more hope than certainty. Another whispered, “She’s not gone. She’s never gone.” They were right. In the deep, glowing faintly in the abyss, her scales shimmered like embers in a drowning fire. She circled again, unseen but omnipresent, her song resuming as a low hum. It threaded itself into the planks of their ship, into their bones, into the veins that pulsed in their throats. It was no longer just sound — it was sensation, invasive and irresistible. They could feel it in their teeth, in their fingertips, in the tender parts of themselves that had never been touched before. It was a song of hunger. Of promise. Of ownership. When her head finally broke the surface again, she wore a grin that was half-challenge, half-invitation. “I’m not finished,” she whispered, her words dripping into the night like molten silver. “I haven’t even begun my chorus.” The Final Chorus Silence fell — but it was not peace. It was the kind of silence that hums in your bones before lightning splits the sky. The sailors held their breath, clutching ropes, clutching prayers, clutching each other if they had to. They knew she wasn’t gone. The Goddess never left without an encore. She was still there, circling in the dark, letting suspense wind them up like toy soldiers about to break their springs. Then it happened. The surface exploded with light as she rose, not delicately this time, but with force. Her body arched upward, tail slicing the water into diamonds, hair a kaleidoscope of dripping jewels. She landed with a splash that soaked half the deck, her laughter peeling out above the waves, brighter and louder than the ship’s creaking timbers. “Did you think,” she mocked, her voice smooth as velvet and sharp as coral, “that I’d leave you with just a verse? Darling, I am the song.” The sailors stared, entranced. One dropped to his knees as though in prayer. Another pressed his lips together, fighting the smile that wanted to betray his fear. And yet another — braver or far more foolish than the rest — leaned over the side of the boat with his arm extended, as though she might take his hand and drag him into something that wasn’t quite heaven, but wasn’t exactly hell either. She swam closer, slowly, every stroke of her tail deliberate, teasing. Her scales glowed like molten coins scattered by gods, and her lips curled in a smile that suggested she had already tasted each of their names. “So many of you,” she purred, “and only one of me. But don’t worry…” She paused, biting her lip as she floated just beneath their railing. “I multitask.” Her words hit them harder than cannon fire. She flicked water onto the deck with a casual wave, watching it run down their boots like liquid silver. Her gaze locked onto one man — the same trembling sailor she had teased earlier. His eyes widened as she smirked. “Still shaking, sweetling?” she asked. He nodded dumbly. She tilted her head, mock concern softening her voice. “Careful. I adore the taste of fear. It’s spicy. But don’t burn yourself out before I get to have any fun.” Her hand shot out, nails sharp, and she gripped his wrist. He gasped, pulled forward toward the abyss, but she didn’t yank him overboard. No, the Scaled Goddess was far too clever for brute force. She simply held him there, dangling at the edge, forcing the others to watch. Her thumb traced slow circles on his pulse, and his breath came in ragged shudders. She leaned closer, lips grazing the air just inches from his. “Every heartbeat,” she whispered, “is a drum in my song. You thump, I hum. Together, we make symphonies.” She released him suddenly, and he fell backward onto the deck, clutching his chest, eyes wild with terror and longing. The other men swarmed him, but their gazes kept flicking back to her. Always back to her. Always hungry. Always afraid. The Goddess laughed again, a rich, dangerous sound that tasted of wine, smoke, and saltwater. “Mortals,” she crooned, “always so easy. Offer them a melody and they’ll give you their soul. Offer them a smile, and they’ll drown for it.” Her tail slapped the water once, sending up a fan of glowing foam that painted the sails. She hovered in the dark, half her body above the surface, gleaming like a divine torch. The men leaned forward, even though their instincts screamed to pull away. She raised a single finger and wagged it playfully. “Ah, ah, ah. You don’t get to touch me. You don’t get to own me. I own you. And I always collect.” One of the older sailors, desperate to regain control, spat over the side and muttered a prayer to whatever saint might listen. She turned her head sharply, locking onto him with eyes the color of violent sunsets. Her smile didn’t falter, but it changed. It hardened. “Do not,” she said, her tone a dangerous purr, “pray to saints while you look at me. That’s like writing love letters to your wife while you’re in my bed.” The man dropped his gaze, shame burning on his cheeks. The others said nothing. They didn’t dare. She stretched languidly, arching her back, her scales catching the moonlight until she looked less like a creature and more like a living constellation. Her hair spilled over her shoulders like liquid silk, and when she spoke again, her voice was soft, intimate, as though it belonged to each of them alone. “The sea doesn’t just take. The sea gives. And I… I am very generous.” The promise hung in the air like perfume. Every man’s imagination ran riot, filling the silence with visions too scandalous to speak aloud. Her lips parted slightly, the suggestion of a kiss dancing there, but she didn’t move closer. She didn’t need to. They would lean in for her. They always did. Her laughter returned, softer now, wickedly sweet. “But you’ll never know if I’ll drown you or love you. Isn’t that the fun?” With that, she sank again, the glow of her scales vanishing into the black like stars swallowed by dawn. The water stilled, eerily calm. The ship rocked gently, as though nothing had happened at all. Only the men’s ragged breathing remained. Then, faintly, from somewhere deep in the abyss, her song rose once more. It was quieter, distant, but still unmistakably hers. It wound itself into their bones, their dreams, their memories. It would never leave them. And as the ship drifted onward into the night, every man knew the truth: they hadn’t seen the last of her. The Scaled Goddess was eternal, and she always returned for another chorus. And when she did, they would go willingly, trembling, smirking, and begging for more.     The Lingering Note Weeks later, the ship made port. The men stumbled onto land with the dazed expressions of dreamers who had woken too soon. They drank, they gambled, they told stories of storms and sea monsters, but none dared to speak her name aloud. Still, her melody followed them — humming in their ears when the tavern grew quiet, shivering along their spines when a woman’s laughter echoed too close. One even swore he saw her reflection in a puddle after rain, scales flickering like hidden fire. Their lives resumed, but not unchanged. Each man bore a subtle mark — not a scar, but a hunger. A hunger no ale, no coin, no earthly lover could satisfy. They would wake in the night with salt drying on their lips, hearts racing to a rhythm not their own. They knew it was her. It was always her. The Goddess did not release her prey; she marinated it in longing. And somewhere, beneath fathoms of dark silk water, she floated with a smirk curving her lips, tail coiling lazily in glowing arcs. She hummed softly to herself, polishing her voice like a blade. The ocean bent to her tune, as it always had. For she was not just myth, not just temptation — she was the eternal chorus of the sea itself. And when the moon waxed full again, when ships drifted too close and men leaned too far over their railings, she would rise once more. Because the Scaled Goddess never sang just once. She always had an encore.     Bring the Goddess Ashore Of course, legends like hers are too intoxicating to leave at sea. The Song of the Scaled Goddess has slipped from the ocean’s depths into art you can hold, frame, sip from, and even scribble secrets into. For those who want her shimmer and seduction close at hand, she now lives beyond the waves in crafted treasures — each piece catching a hint of her glow, her sass, her mystery. Adorn your walls with her radiant presence on a Metal Print or let her sing through light with an Acrylic Print. Carry her whispers with you in a Greeting Card or jot your own verses of temptation into a Spiral Notebook. And for the bold — sip her secrets at dawn with a steaming Coffee Mug, letting her song linger on your lips with every drink. She has always been more than a myth. Now, she can be a part of your world — ready to tempt, to inspire, and to remind you that every day deserves a little enchantment.

Captured Tales – by Bill Tiepelman

The Juicy Guardian

A Dragonling with Too Much Juice Long before kingdoms rose and fell, and even before humanity figured out how to weaponize wine into bad karaoke, there existed a lush orchard where fruits reigned supreme. Mangos glistened in the early sun like golden gems, pineapples stood tall like spiky fortresses, and watermelons lay across the grass as if they had been plucked straight from a fruit god’s imagination. In the middle of this overripe paradise lived a creature no one expected, a dragonling so cheeky and unruly that even the bananas tried to peel themselves just to get away from his speeches. He was known, in a title he gave himself after exactly zero votes, as The Juicy Guardian. This dragonling was small by dragon standards—hardly bigger than a beach ball—but he compensated with attitude. His scales shimmered in shifting tones of citrus orange and leafy green, and his stubby wings flapped like a drunken butterfly when he was excited. His horns were tiny, more like decorative ice cream cones than menacing spikes, but don’t tell him that unless you’re ready to be pelted with lime wedges at alarming velocity. Worst of all—or best, depending on how much chaos you enjoy—was his tongue. Long, wiggly, and constantly flopping out of his mouth, it was the sort of tongue that made you wonder if evolution had overcorrected somewhere around the amphibian era. “Hear me, peasants of the orchard!” the dragonling declared one morning, climbing atop a pineapple with the solemn dignity of a child trying to wear their dad’s oversized shoes. His stubby claws gripped the spiky surface like it was a throne built just for him. “From this day forth, no kiwi shall be stolen, no mango bruised, and no watermelon sliced without my express permission. I am the sacred defender of juice, pulp, and fruity honor!” The audience of fruits was, naturally, silent. But the villagers who worked the orchard had gathered at a distance, pretending to be busy with baskets, all while trying not to choke on their own laughter. The Juicy Guardian, undeterred, believed they were basking in awe. He puffed out his tiny chest until his scales squeaked and stuck his tongue out in what he believed was an intimidating display. It was not. It was adorable in a way that made grown men giggle and women mutter, “Oh my gods, I want ten of him in my kitchen.” Now, here’s the thing about The Juicy Guardian: he wasn’t exactly a fire-breather. In fact, he had tried once, and the result had been a mild burp that caramelized half an orange and singed his own eyebrows. From that day on, he embraced his true talent—what he called “fruit-based combat.” If you threatened the orchard, he’d sneeze pulp into your eyes with sniper-like precision. If you dared to insult pineapples (his favorite fruit, obviously, since he used them as makeshift thrones), he would waggle his sticky tongue until you were so grossed out you left voluntarily. And if you really pushed your luck, well, let’s just say the last raccoon who underestimated him was still finding tangerine seeds in uncomfortable places. “Oi, dragonling!” shouted one villager from behind a basket of mangos. “Why should we let you guard the fruit? All you do is slobber on it!” The Guardian didn’t even flinch. He tilted his head, narrowed one massive eye, and replied with the bravado only a creature under a foot tall could muster: “Because no one else can guard fruit with this level of flair.” He struck a pose, wings flared, tongue dangling proudly, drooling nectar onto the pineapple he was standing on. The villagers groaned in unison. He took it as applause. Obviously. The truth was, most of the villagers tolerated him. Some even liked him. The kids adored his antics, cheering whenever he declared yet another “sacred fruit law” like: All grapes must be eaten in even numbers, lest the gods get indigestion, or Banana bread is holy, and hoarding it is punishable by public tickling. Others found him insufferable, swearing under their breath that if they had to hear one more proclamation about “the divine juiciness of melons,” they’d pickle him alive and serve him with onions. But the dragonling, blissfully oblivious, strutted around as if he were the king of tropical chaos, which—let’s be honest—he kind of was. It was during one particularly loud morning announcement that things took a turn. The Juicy Guardian was mid-speech—something about enforcing a fruit tax payable in smoothies—when the orchard fell strangely quiet. Even the cicadas stopped buzzing. A massive shadow rolled over the grove, blotting out the warm sunlight. The fruits themselves seemed to shiver, and the villagers froze mid-basket, staring upward. The Guardian, tongue wagging dramatically, froze in place. His pineapple crown tilted sideways like a drunk sailor’s hat. “Oh, great,” he muttered under his breath, his smugness cracking into genuine irritation. “If that’s another oversized banana slug trying to eat my melons, I swear I’m moving to the desert.” His wings twitched nervously, his tiny claws digging into the pineapple throne. The villagers gasped as the shadow grew larger and darker, spilling across the watermelon patch and swallowing the rows of citrus. Something huge was coming, something that didn’t care about fruit laws, smoothie taxes, or sticky tongues. The Juicy Guardian narrowed his one open eye, gave the shadow a wobbly salute with his tongue, and whispered, “Alright then… come and get juicy.” The Shadow Over the Orchard The shadow slithered across the grove like a spilled smoothie, blotting out the juicy glow of the morning sun. Villagers scattered, clutching baskets of fruit to their chests like they were rescuing sacred relics. A few less committed villagers shrugged, dropped their harvest, and ran—better to lose a few lemons than their heads. Only one tiny figure did not flinch: The Juicy Guardian. Perched atop his pineapple, he tilted his oversized head, narrowed his cartoonishly large eye, and let his tongue dangle defiantly like a warrior waving a very pink, very gooey flag of battle. “Alright, you oversized mood-killer,” he called out, his little voice carrying farther than anyone expected, “who dares trespass on my orchard? State your business! If it involves melons, I want a cut. Literally. I’ll take the middle slice.” The villagers gasped. A few of them muttered that the dragonling had finally lost the last marble he never had to begin with. But then the source of the shadow revealed itself: a massive airship, creaking like a wooden whale, descending with ropes and sails flapping. Painted along its hull were crude depictions of swords, grapes, and—for reasons no one could explain—a suggestive-looking carrot. The flag snapping above it read, in bold letters: “The Order of the Fruit Bandits.” “Oh, come on,” groaned The Juicy Guardian, dragging his claws down his snout. “Fruit bandits? Really? Is this my life? I wanted epic battles with knights and treasure hoards, not… organic theft on a flying salad bowl.” The airship docked itself awkwardly on the edge of the orchard, crushing three lemon trees and half a papaya grove. Out tumbled a ragtag crew of bandits, each dressed in patchwork armor and fruit-themed bandanas. One had a banana painted across his chest, another had kiwi seeds tattooed across his forehead, and the apparent leader—tall, muscular, with a jaw that could crack coconuts—strode forward carrying a watermelon-shaped mace. “I am Captain Citrullus,” he bellowed, flexing as if auditioning for a very sweaty poster. “We are here to claim this orchard in the name of the Fruit Bandits! Hand over the harvest, or face the consequences!” The Juicy Guardian tilted his pineapple throne back slightly, waggled his tongue, and muttered loud enough for the villagers to hear: “Captain Citrullus? Really? That’s Latin for watermelon. Congratulations, pal, you just named yourself Captain Melon. How threatening. I feel so intimidated. Somebody call the salad bar police.” The villagers tried not to laugh. The bandits scowled. The Captain stomped forward, pointing his mace at the dragonling. “And who are you, little lizard? A mascot? Do the villagers dress you up and parade you around like a pet?” “Excuse me,” the Guardian snapped, hopping down from his pineapple to strut across the grass with the exaggerated swagger of someone six times his size. “I am not a mascot. I am not a pet. I am the divinely appointed, absolutely fabulous, disgustingly powerful Juicy Guardian! Protector of fruit, ruler of pulp, and wielder of the most dangerous tongue this side of the tropics!” He flicked his tongue dramatically, slapping one bandit across the cheek with a wet slorp. The man yelped and stumbled backward, smelling faintly of citrus for the rest of his life. The villagers erupted into laughter. The bandits, however, were not amused. “Get him!” Captain Citrullus roared, charging forward with his fruit-mace raised high. The bandits surged after him, swords glinting, nets waving, baskets ready to scoop up melons. The Guardian’s wings buzzed nervously, but he didn’t flee. No—he grinned. A bratty, self-satisfied grin. Because if there was one thing this dragonling loved, it was attention. Preferably the dangerous, dramatic kind. “Alright, boys and girls,” he said to himself, rolling his shoulders like a boxer about to step into the ring, “time to make a mess.” The first bandit lunged, swinging a net. The Guardian ducked, darted under his legs, and whipped his tongue around like a whip, snagging an orange from a nearby branch. With a flick, he launched it straight into the bandit’s face. Splurt! Juice and pulp exploded everywhere. The man staggered, blinded, shrieking, “It burns! IT BURNS!” “That’s vitamin C, sweetheart,” the Guardian called after him, “the ‘C’ stands for cry harder.” Another bandit swung a sword down at him. The blade hit the ground, sending sparks into the grass. The Guardian leapt onto the flat of the sword like it was a seesaw, bounced high into the air, and belly-flopped directly onto the attacker’s helmet. With his claws gripping the man’s face and his tongue slapping against his visor, the dragonling cackled, “Surprise smooch, helmet-boy!” before hopping off, leaving the bandit dizzy and smelling faintly of pineapple. The villagers were screaming, cheering, and throwing fruit of their own at the invaders. It wasn’t every day you saw a tiny dragon wage war with produce, and they weren’t going to waste the chance to hurl a few grapefruits. One old woman in particular launched a mango so hard it knocked out a bandit’s front tooth. “I’ve still got it!” she cackled, high-fiving the Guardian as he zipped past. But the tide began to shift. Captain Citrullus waded through the chaos, his melon-mace smashing aside fruit like it was made of air. He stomped toward the Guardian, his face red with rage. “Enough games, lizard. Your fruit is mine. Your orchard is mine. And your tongue—” he pointed the mace straight at him—“is going to be my trophy.” The Juicy Guardian licked his own eyeball slowly, just to make a point, and muttered, “Buddy, if you want this tongue, you better be ready for the stickiest fight of your life.” The villagers fell silent. Even the fruit seemed to hold its breath. The bratty little dragon, dripping pulp and sass, squared off against the massive bandit captain. One small, one huge. One wielding a tongue, the other a melon-mace. And in that moment, everyone knew: this was going to get very, very messy. Pulpocalypse Now The orchard stood still, every mango, lime, and papaya trembling as the two champions squared off. On one side, Captain Citrullus, a towering slab of muscle and melon obsession, hefting his watermelon-shaped mace like it was forged from pure intimidation. On the other, The Juicy Guardian: a stubby, bratty little dragonling with wings too small for dignity, a pineapple crown slipping over one eye, and a tongue dripping nectar like a faucet in desperate need of repair. The villagers formed a loose circle, wide-eyed, clutching fruit baskets like improvised shields. Everyone knew something legendary was about to happen. “Final chance, lizard,” Captain Citrullus growled, stomping forward so hard the ground shook, dislodging a peach. “Hand over the orchard, or I pulp you myself.” The Guardian tilted his head, tongue dangling, then let out the most obnoxious laugh anyone had ever heard—a high-pitched, nasal cackle that made even the parrots flee the trees. “Oh, honey,” he wheezed between gasps of laughter, “you think you can pulp me? Sweetie, I am the pulp. I’m the juice in your veins. I’m the sticky spot on your kitchen counter that you can never, ever scrub clean.” The villagers gasped. One man dropped an entire basket of figs. Captain Citrullus turned purple with rage—part fury, part embarrassment at being out-sassed by what was essentially a lizard toddler. With a roar, he swung his mace down in a crushing arc. The Guardian darted sideways just in time, the melon weapon smashing into the ground and exploding in a shower of watermelon chunks. Seeds sprayed everywhere, pelting villagers like fruity shrapnel. One farmer caught a seed in the nostril and sneezed for the next five minutes straight. “Missed me!” the Guardian taunted, sticking his tongue out so far it smacked Citrullus across the shin. “And ew, you taste like overripe cantaloupe. Gross. Get some better lotion.” What followed could only be described as fruit warfare on steroids. The Guardian zipped around the battlefield like a sticky orange bullet, launching citrus grenades, slapping people with his tongue, and sneezing mango pulp directly into the eyes of anyone foolish enough to get close. Bandits flailed and slipped on fruit guts, falling over one another like bowling pins coated in guava jelly. Villagers joined in with gusto, weaponizing every edible thing they could grab. Papayas flew like cannonballs. Limes were hurled like grenades. Someone even unleashed a barrage of grapes via slingshot, which was less effective as a weapon and more as an impromptu snack for the Guardian mid-battle. “For the orchard!” bellowed one elderly woman, dual-wielding pineapples as clubs. She bludgeoned a bandit so hard he dropped his sword, then stole his bandana and wore it as a victory sash. The villagers cheered wildly, as if centuries of repressed fruit-related rage had finally found release. But Captain Citrullus would not be undone so easily. He charged at the Guardian again, swinging his melon-mace in wide arcs, knocking aside bananas and terrified villagers alike. “You’re nothing but a snack, dragon!” he roared. “When I’m done with you, I’ll pickle your tongue and drink it with gin!” The Guardian froze for half a second. Then his face contorted into pure bratty offense. “Excuse me? You’re gonna what? Oh, honey, NO ONE pickles this tongue. This tongue is a national treasure. UNESCO should protect it.” He puffed his tiny chest and added with a glare, “Also, gin? Really? At least use rum. What are you, a monster?” And with that, the fight escalated from silly to mythic chaos. The Guardian launched himself into the air, stubby wings flapping furiously, and wrapped his tongue around Citrullus’s mace mid-swing. The sticky appendage clung like sap, yanking the weapon out of the captain’s hands. “Mine now!” the Guardian squealed, spinning in midair with the mace dangling from his tongue. “Look, Mom, I’m jousting!” He swung the mace clumsily, knocking three bandits flat and accidentally smashing a melon cart into oblivion. Villagers roared in laughter, chanting, “Juicy! Juicy! Juicy!” as their ridiculous protector rode the chaos like a carnival act gone horribly right. Citrullus lunged after him, fists clenched, but the Guardian wasn’t done. He dropped the mace, spun in the air, and unleashed his most secret, most dreaded weapon: The Citrus Cyclone. It began as a sniffle. Then a cough. Then the dragonling sneezed with such violent force that a hurricane of pulp, juice, and shredded citrus peels erupted from his snout. Oranges whirled like comets, limes spun like buzzsaws, and a lemon wedge smacked a bandit so hard he re-evaluated all his life choices. The orchard became a storm of sticky, acidic chaos. Villagers ducked, bandits screamed, and even Captain Citrullus staggered under the onslaught of pure vitamin C. “Taste the rainbow, you salad-flavored meatloaf!” the Guardian shrieked through the storm, eyes wild, tongue flapping like a battle flag. When the cyclone finally subsided, the orchard looked like a battlefield after a smoothie blender explosion. Fruits lay smashed, juice ran in sticky rivers, and the villagers were covered head to toe in pulp. The bandits lay groaning on the ground, their weapons lost, their dignity even more so. Captain Citrullus stumbled, dripping with mango mush, his once-proud melon-mace now just a soggy rind. The Guardian swaggered forward, tongue dragging in the juice-soaked grass. He hopped onto Citrullus’s chest, puffed out his tiny chest, and bellowed, “Let this be a lesson, melon-boy! No one messes with The Juicy Guardian. Not you, not banana slugs, not even the smoothie bar at that overpriced yoga retreat. This orchard is under MY protection. The fruit is safe, the villagers are safe, and most importantly—my tongue remains unpickled.” The villagers erupted into cheers, hurling pineapples into the air like fireworks. The bandits, defeated and embarrassed, scrambled back to their airship, slipping on orange rinds and tripping over mangos. Captain Citrullus, humiliated and sticky, swore revenge but was too busy trying to get papaya seeds out of his hair to sound convincing. Within minutes, the ship lifted off, wobbling into the sky like a drunken balloon, leaving behind only pulp, shame, and a faint smell of overripe cantaloupe. The Juicy Guardian stood tall atop his pineapple throne, juice dripping from his scales, tongue wagging proudly. “Another day, another fruit saved,” he announced with dramatic flair. “You’re welcome, peasants. Long live juice!” The villagers groaned at his arrogance, but they also clapped, laughed, and toasted him with fresh coconuts. Because deep down, they all knew: as bratty, goofy, and insufferable as he was, this tiny dragonling had defended them with sticky, ridiculous glory. He wasn’t just their guardian. He was their legend. And somewhere in the distance, parrots repeated his chant in perfect unison: “Juicy! Juicy! Juicy!” echoing across the tropics like the world’s silliest war cry.     The Juicy Guardian Lives On The villagers may have wiped pulp out of their hair for weeks, but the legend of The Juicy Guardian grew juicier with every retelling. His tongue became myth, his pineapple throne a symbol of sass and stickiness, and his battle cry echoed through markets, taverns, and the occasional smoothie stand. And as with all legends worth savoring, people wanted more than just the story—they wanted to bring a little piece of the fruity chaos home. For those bold enough to let a bratty dragonling guard their own space, you can capture his juicy glory in stunning metal prints and sleek acrylic prints—perfect for giving any wall a splash of tropical whimsy. For a softer touch, the Guardian is equally happy lounging across a colorful throw pillow, ready to sass up your couch. If your home craves a statement as bold as his fruit-fueled battles, nothing says “long live juice” quite like a full-sized shower curtain. And for those who simply want to spread his sticky legend everywhere, a cheeky sticker makes the perfect sidekick for laptops, bottles, or anywhere that could use a splash of dragonling attitude. The Juicy Guardian may have been born of pulp and sass, but his story is far from over—because now, he can live wherever you dare to let him. 🍍🐉✨

Captured Tales – by Bill Tiepelman

The Rosebound Hatchling

In a garden that didn’t technically exist on any map, but still insisted on blooming anyway, there stood a single rosebush of impossible beauty. Its petals were velvet-dark, kissed with dew that sparkled like diamonds at dawn. Every gardener in the known (and lesser-known) realms swore it was enchanted. They weren’t wrong, but they weren’t entirely right either. Enchantment implied someone had cast a spell on it; this rose had simply decided to be extraordinary all on its own. On one peculiar morning, as the dew drops slid lazily down the petals, a golden-orange hatchling with wings like stained glass tumbled out of nowhere—literally nowhere. One blink it wasn’t there, the next blink it was. The rose caught it like an indulgent stage mother, and the little dragon blinked its oversized eyes as if the world owed it a standing ovation for existing. Which, honestly, it did. The hatchling stretched its wings—shimmering with streaks of violet, magenta, and sapphire—and immediately knocked half the dew off its perch. “Well,” it squeaked in a voice too tiny for such audacious drama, “this is a start.” Already, it was radiating the kind of energy you’d expect from someone who planned to become either a legend or a catastrophe. Possibly both. Its tail curled possessively around the rose’s stem, and with a sniff, the little beast declared: “Mine.” Across the garden, a chorus of gossiping sparrows paused mid-peck. One muttered, “Great. Another one of those ambitious types.” Another replied, “Mark my feathers, it’s always the small ones who aim for world domination before they can even fly straight.” The hatchling, naturally, pretended not to hear. After all, big dreams require selective deafness. The rose, for its part, sighed (as much as a flower can sigh) and thought, Here we go again. The hatchling, having made its dramatic debut, decided that a perch upon a rose was entirely too small a stage for its destiny. It tested its wings with a few flaps, each one sending droplets scattering into tiny prisms of light. The garden glistened with irritation. “Honestly,” muttered the rose, “you’d think subtlety was outlawed.” But subtlety had never once survived in the company of baby dragons. Especially not ones with aspirations that outpaced their wingspan. “First things first,” the hatchling announced to absolutely no one, because the sparrows had already lost interest. “I need a name.” It paced dramatically along the rose’s curved petal, as if the petal were a catwalk and it was the star model of Paris Draconic Fashion Week. “Something powerful, something people will whisper in taverns after I’ve passed by with a trail of smoke and glory.” Names were auditioned and dismissed at breakneck speed. “Scorch?” Too obvious. “Fang?” Too pedestrian. “Glitterdeath?” Tempting, but sounded like it belonged to an angsty teenage bard’s sketchbook. After much dramatic preening, it finally sighed and muttered, “I’ll wait until fate names me. That’s what all the greats do. And I am most certainly great.” Meanwhile, the rose rolled its petals and thought about all the hatchlings it had seen over the centuries. Some had grown into noble protectors of kingdoms, others into terrifying beasts of calamity. A few, honestly, had just fizzled out after realizing fire-breathing was more complicated than anticipated. But this one… this one had a certain reckless sparkle, like a candle deciding it was destined to become a lighthouse. The rose wasn’t entirely sure whether to admire it or brace for impact. The hatchling leapt to the garden path, managing to glide all of three feet before colliding with a pebble. To its credit, it immediately stood up, shook itself, and declared, “Nailed it.” That was the kind of confidence that would either inspire ballads or catastrophic insurance claims. A snail, sliding slowly past, muttered, “I’ve seen braver landings from slugs.” The hatchling ignored the insult and puffed out its tiny chest. “One day, snail,” it hissed with theatrical menace, “the world will bow before me.” But ambition, like wings, requires exercise. The hatchling began to explore the garden, each new corner becoming a kingdom it claimed for itself. A patch of daisies? “My floral army.” A mossy stone? “My throne.” A puddle glimmering with reflected sky? “My royal lake, for ceremonial splashings.” Every discovery was narrated aloud in case invisible chroniclers were taking notes. After all, legends didn’t write themselves. By midday, the hatchling was exhausted from conquering so much territory and promptly fell asleep under a toadstool, snoring tiny smoke rings. Dreams arrived quickly—dreams of soaring above mountains, of entire villages cheering, of statues erected in its honor with heroic poses (wings wider, eyes more dramatic, maybe even a crown). In the dream, it even defeated a rival dragon twice its size by delivering a particularly witty insult followed by an accidental tail whip. The crowd roared. The hatchling basked. Back in reality, a family of ants had started building a little dirt mound uncomfortably close to the dragon’s tail. “We’ll need to file a complaint with management,” said one ant, eyeing the hatchling with suspicion. The rose, overhearing, muttered, “Good luck. He already thinks he’s management.” When the hatchling awoke, its belly rumbled. Food was clearly in order. Unfortunately, the grand ambitions of glory had not accounted for the logistical problem of being very small and very hungry. It attempted to hunt a butterfly but tripped over its own claws. It tried nibbling on a petal but immediately spat it out—“Ugh, vegan.” Eventually, it settled on licking dew from a blade of grass. “Exquisite,” it declared. “A feast fit for a king.” The grass, somewhat flattered, bowed slightly in the breeze. As the day waned, the hatchling climbed back to the rose, determined to give a motivational speech. “Dear subjects,” it squeaked loudly to the garden at large, “fear not, for your guardian has arrived! I, the future greatest dragon of all time, shall defend you from—” It paused, realizing it didn’t actually know what threats gardens typically faced. “Uh… slugs? Overzealous bunnies? Rogue weed-whackers?” The list was uninspiring, but the tone was impeccable. “Point is,” the hatchling continued, “no one messes with my rose, or my garden. Ever.” The sparrows chuckled. The ants grumbled. The snail yawned. And the rose—despite itself—felt a little surge of pride. Perhaps this hatchling was ridiculous. Perhaps its big ambitions were far too big. But the truth was: big ambitions have a way of bending the world to fit them. And somewhere in the quiet of twilight, the hatchling’s tiny roar didn’t sound entirely small anymore. By the time the moon had climbed high into the sky and painted the garden silver, the hatchling had officially decided that its destiny wasn’t just big—it was astronomical. The little dragon perched proudly on the rose, gazing upward at the constellations with the sort of intensity usually reserved for philosophers or drunk poets. “That one,” it whispered, squinting at a faint smattering of stars shaped vaguely like a spoon, “shall be my sigil. The Spoon of Destiny.” The rose groaned. “You can’t just… pick destiny like a salad item.” “Watch me,” said the hatchling, wings glittering defiantly. “I’m building an empire here, one dramatic declaration at a time.” The night unfolded into a planning session of absurdly epic proportions. Using dew droplets as markers, the hatchling began sketching out a map of the future upon the rose’s leaves. “First, the garden. Then the meadow. Then, obviously, the castle. Probably two castles. No, three—one for each season. Then I’ll need a fleet. A fleet of… geese! Yes. War geese. Everyone underestimates geese until they’re chasing you down a cobblestone street with rage in their eyes.” “Charming,” muttered the rose. “I always knew my thorns weren’t the sharpest thing around here.” But ambition thrives on delusion, and the hatchling’s delusion was glorious. It practiced speeches to imaginary crowds. “People of the realm, fear not!” it squeaked, balancing dramatically on a rose petal that wobbled dangerously. “For I shall guard your lands, roast your enemies, and provide witty one-liners at festivals. Also, I’ll sign autographs. No touching the wings though.” The sparrows heckled from a branch above. “You’re shorter than a buttercup stem!” one cried. The hatchling snapped back without missing a beat, “And yet my charisma is taller than your family tree.” Even the sparrows had to admit that was pretty good. By dawn, the hatchling had upgraded its ambitions yet again. Protecting the garden was noble, sure, but why stop there? Why not become the official dragon of inspiration? “I shall be a motivational icon,” it announced, marching along the petal with military precision. “They’ll invite me to conferences. I’ll stand behind a podium, wings flared, and declare: ‘Follow your dreams, even if you fall on your face—because trust me, I do it all the time!’” The rose laughed so hard it nearly dropped its petals. “You? A motivational speaker?” “Exactly,” the hatchling said, undeterred. “My brand is resilience wrapped in glitter. People will buy mugs with my slogans. Posters. T-shirts. Maybe even mouse pads.” The ants, who had by now completed an elaborate dirt citadel at the base of the bush, whispered to each other. “It’s insane.” “It’s ridiculous.” “It’s… actually kind of inspiring?” Even the snail admitted, “Kid’s got moxie.” So the hatchling trained. Not with fire or claws just yet—those skills were still embarrassingly unreliable—but with speeches, poses, and the art of dramatic timing. It perfected the pause before delivering a line, the tilt of the wings for maximum shimmer under moonlight, the confident head-turn that said, “Yes, I do own this garden, thank you for noticing.” Every day, it declared new goals and celebrated them like victories, even when those victories were, objectively, disasters. One afternoon it attempted to fly across the entire garden and crashed directly into a wheelbarrow. The wheelbarrow tipped over and spilled compost everywhere. The hatchling climbed out, covered in twigs, and announced proudly, “I call that a tactical diversion.” By the end of the week, the ants were chanting, “Tactical diversion! Tactical diversion!” whenever things went sideways in their colony. The hatchling had accidentally created its first cultural legacy. Weeks passed, and the once-ordinary garden was transformed into something extraordinary. It wasn’t the roses or the daisies or the mossy stones that made it legendary—it was the sheer audacity of a tiny dragon who refused to see itself as tiny. Visitors from nearby villages began to whisper about the garden with the peculiar rose that glowed brighter under moonlight and the sound of strange, squeaky speeches echoing through the hedges. People started leaving small offerings: shiny buttons, scraps of cloth, even the occasional cookie. The hatchling interpreted this as tribute, naturally. The rose just rolled its petals and muttered, “He’s going to need a vault at this rate.” One particularly foggy evening, the hatchling stood proudly at the top of the rose, its wings shimmering in the mist like shards of stained glass. It raised its head high and shouted into the night: “I may be small, I may be new, but I am vast in ambition! You can call me many things—ridiculous, loud, even clumsy—but someday, when they write the stories of great dragons, they’ll begin with this: The Rosebound Hatchling who dreamed too big and made the world expand just to keep up.” Silence followed. Then a cricket applauded. Then a frog croaked approval. Then, to everyone’s shock, the moon itself broke through the fog and bathed the hatchling in silver light, as if the cosmos were saying, “Alright, kid. We see you.” And for the first time, even the rose stopped doubting. Perhaps this ridiculous little creature wasn’t just bluster after all. Perhaps audacity was magic in its own right. With a yawn, the hatchling curled once more against the rose’s velvet petals, already dreaming of bigger stages, grander speeches, and a fleet of goose-warriors honking in unison. The world wasn’t ready. But then again, the world never really is.     Epilogue: The Legend in Bloom Years later, when the garden was famous far beyond its hedges, travelers would come searching not for the roses or the mossy stones, but for the whispers of the hatchling. They’d swear they heard speeches carried on the wind, tiny smoke rings floating like punctuation in the night air. Some claimed to see flashes of golden-orange wings darting just beyond the corner of their vision. Others reported losing sandwiches in mysterious “tactical diversions.” The ants, naturally, built an entire tourist industry around it. And though skeptics scoffed, those who lingered long enough always felt the same thing: a strange, unshakable sense that ambition could be contagious. That even the smallest spark—ridiculous, clumsy, loud—could grow into a roaring fire. The rose, older and prouder now, still held the memories in its velvet folds and smiled at the thought. After all, it had been there at the beginning. It had been the cradle of audacity. As for the hatchling? Let’s just say the Spoon of Destiny constellation now had a fan club. And the war geese… well, that’s another story entirely.     Bring the Hatchling Home The tale of The Rosebound Hatchling doesn’t have to stay locked in whispers and moonlight. Now, you can let this whimsical little dragon perch proudly in your own home. Whether you want it framed on your wall as a reminder that even the smallest spark can ignite a legend, or stretched across canvas to become the centerpiece of a room, this artwork is ready to inspire bold dreams in your space. For those who prefer to carry a bit of magic wherever they go, the hatchling also takes flight on a stylish tote bag — perfect for groceries, books, or smuggling tactical diversion snacks. Or, if your mornings require a little boost of whimsical fire, sip your coffee or tea from a Rosebound Hatchling mug and start the day with ambition as audacious as a tiny dragon’s. Choose your favorite way to bring the legend alive: Framed Print | Canvas Print | Tote Bag | Coffee Mug Because legends aren’t just told. They’re displayed, carried, and sipped from daily.

Captured Tales – by Bill Tiepelman

Whispers in the Pumpkin Patch

The Lantern Opens Autumn had clicked its amber dimmer switch to “moody,” and the forest complied with cinematic enthusiasm. Leaves rehearsed their slow-motion exits, a choir of crickets tuned up like tiny violinists, and somewhere a raven practiced saying “Nevermore” with a Midwestern accent. In the center of a mossy clearing sat a remarkable thing: a pumpkin so wide and clear it looked like a lantern blown from syrupy glass, its skin veined with gold like a map of forgotten rivers. The local woodland creatures called it The Lantern, and on the first week of October it opened, like it always did, with the soft sound of a zipper and the even softer sound of a secret. Inside, on a couch of crunchy leaves, perched Hazel the red squirrel—freelance acorn broker, part-time nest architect, full-time snack philosopher. Across from her: Pip the field mouse, a half-button of a person with the metabolism of a blender. Between them lounged mini pumpkins like tasteful ottomans, and at the far wall of The Lantern, a tall stem curved like a question mark, as if the pumpkin itself were curious how two very small mammals had come to treat it like a studio apartment. “You smell like cinnamon sin,” Pip said, nose twitching. “Spice brunch? Again?” “It’s called seasonal living,” Hazel replied, combing her tail with a twig. “Besides, a barista owed me. I did a consultation on their nut milk strategy. Whole thing was a disaster—no actual nuts. Fraudulent vibes.” Pip tugged at a leaf blanket, fashioning it into a cape he believed flattered his shoulders. “I worry about you when the pumpkin spice returns. It makes you ambitious.” “Ambition is a harvest décor,” Hazel said, air-quoting with two tiny paws. “Looks good on the mantle of the soul.” They were not alone in The Lantern. Whispers lived in there too—thin, musical threads of rumor that floated up when the October light struck just so. The Whispers told stories of enchanted forests, woodland friends, and pumpkin patches that grew where moonbeams spilled and gossip seeded. Some said the Whispers were the ghosts of last year’s leaves. Others said they were the mood swings of the wind. Hazel suspected they were marketing: the forest’s ad team making sure fall remained the most successful brand on the calendar. Outside, the clearing glowed like a candle flickering in a cathedral. A chill walked through the trees wearing a scarf. The Lantern’s inner walls filmed with warm condensation; every little breath drew constellations on glass. One breath—longer, colder—made both Hazel and Pip freeze. They heard a crunch that wasn’t leaf play. They heard laughter that wasn’t the creek. Then three faint knocks, as polite as a librarian but as certain as rent. Hazel’s ears tilted. “Did October order company?” “If it’s the raccoon,” Pip whispered, “tell him we already donated to his band.” The knocks repeated. Hazel scampered to the opening and peered through a curtain of hanging autumn leaves. There, on a stump like a dessert stand, stood a figure in a cloak the color of late afternoon. The hood fell back to reveal a woman with maple-syrup hair and eyes that caught starlight while the sun was still up. Her smile held a little mischief and a PhD in promises. Humans were rare here; stylish humans were rarer still. “Hello in the pumpkin,” the woman said. “Is this the residence of Hazel, Pip, and assorted woodland wall art?” “We prefer ‘gallery-ready rodent muses,’” Hazel said, stepping out with her best executive posture. “Who asks?” “Marigold Moon,” the woman answered, “curator of seasonal spectacles, dealer in tasteful enchantments, part-time witch. I’m recruiting talent for a little Halloween project and your address came highly whispered.” Pip’s whiskers twanged like banjo strings. “We don’t perform without snacks.” “Obviously,” Marigold said, producing a tin embossed with tiny pumpkins. She opened it; the clearing smelled like golden autumn light and bad decisions in a bakery. “Maple-glazed pepitas. Vegan, gluten-free, morally superior.” Pip levitated, spiritually if not physically. “I could be persuaded to audition.” Hazel folded her arms, which were very tiny arms now doing very big business. “What’s the gig?” Marigold set down a velvet folio. It unfurled itself, revealing a sketch: a parade that wound through the forest like a ribbon on gift wrap. Pumpkins of every architecture rolled on wagons, candles beamed from their bellies, and at the front marched a small, proud mouse in a leaf cape, beside a squirrel with a crown of twigs, both carrying a banner that read Whispers in the Pumpkin Patch. “The Harvest Night Walk,” Marigold said. “It’s part costume ball, part fairytale art exhibit, part extremely Instagrammable civic ritual. I need Grand Marshals who understand the vibe: whimsical, a touch silly, a touch spooky, and deeply photogenic. Think fall wall art but ambulatory.” Hazel coughed in a way that suggested she owned two capes and a publicist. “And compensation?” “An honorarium in currency of your choosing,” Marigold said. “Acorns, sunflower seeds, artisanal bread crumbs—plus… a wish.” “A wish?” Pip asked, already reaching for a second handful of pepitas. “A small one,” Marigold clarified, “nothing that collapses economies. The forest grants it at midnight if your parade delights even the owls.” Hazel and Pip exchanged a look that could out-negotiate a fox. A wish, even a small one, could buy a lot of winter. It could buy a roof of evergreen needles that didn’t leak, or an immunity passport against cats, or the ability to detect stale nuts from twenty paces. It could also buy, Hazel admitted privately, an excuse to be splendid in public. “We accept,” Hazel said, sticking out a paw with CEO velocity. “Contingent upon creative control.” Marigold shook with ceremony. “You’ll have it. Meet me tomorrow at sunset by the old cider press. We’ll do fittings and test the choreography.” “Choreography?” Pip squeaked. “Just a light prance,” Marigold said. “Maybe a twirl near the pumpkin patch. Nothing to alarm your therapist.” She replaced her hood and added, almost as an afterthought, “Avoid the northern path tonight. The gourds are restless.” “Restless?” Hazel asked, bristling. “Like… politically?” “Like they’ve been whispering to the wrong moon.” Marigold tapped The Lantern twice with two knuckles; it hummed like a contented kettle. “Lovely venue. Keep it warm.” And with that she walked away, cloak licking the ground like a campfire. Pip popped a pepita and stared after her until she melted into trees the color of tea. “A wish,” he said softly. “Imagine the practicalities. I could ask for a pantry that refills itself every time I say ‘snack.’” “You could also ask for discipline,” Hazel offered. “Rude,” Pip said, brushing leaf crumbs from his cape. “What would you ask for?” Hazel looked up. The sky was the exact shade of storybook dusk, pulled tight as velvet. Owls test-hooted like audio techs before a show. In the glassy curve of The Lantern, Hazel saw herself: a small creature with a big tail and bigger appetite for spectacle. “Maybe… a little reputation,” she said. “A signature moment. Something that gets whispered next year too.” “Oh good,” Pip said, relieved. “I thought you’d say ‘immortality’ and I’d have to explain the storage issues.” They worked late, drafting parade logistics with burnt sticks on the pumpkin floor. Hazel designed banner typography that would make raccoons stop scrolling. Pip curated a snack route with the precision of a sommelier. They tried on roles: Hazel as the Torch of Autumn, Pip as the Squeak of State. Outside, the clearing settled; a fox walked by like a shadow on stilts, the moon rose wearing cloud mascara, and The Lantern exhaled its gentle glassy breath. That was when the first wrong whisper arrived. It slipped through the opening like a cold ribbon, saying something in a language the leaves did not usually speak. Hazel’s fur prickled. Pip’s ears flattened. The whisper smelled faintly of iron kettles and wet rope. It turned the candleflame inside The Lantern into a thin blue blade. “Did you hear that?” Pip asked, voice a paper cut. Hazel nodded. “It said… ‘hollow follows.’” “Is that poetry?” “Worse,” Hazel said. “It’s foreshadowing.” Another whisper came, then three, then the forest seemed to breathe in through its teeth. Outside, along the northern path Marigold had told them to avoid, a dozen pumpkins rolled into the clearing, not on wagons but under their own agency. Their stems were stiff as thorns; their carved mouths were attempts at smiles made by someone who had never seen one. Blue fire smoldered in their eyes like bad ideas trying to become policy. Pip grabbed Hazel’s paw. “Tell me this is performance art.” “If it is,” Hazel said, “the reviews will be mixed.” The lead pumpkin stopped an inch from The Lantern and split a jagged grin. From inside that grin came a voice like a root snapping: “Hollow follows.” Something tapped the glass wall. The Lantern shivered. The Whispers shrank back to the corners like shy cats. Hazel lifted her chin; Pip lifted his leaf cape as if it were armor. Somewhere, deeper in the trees, an owl cleared its throat… and laughed. “Okay,” Hazel said, eyes narrowing to espresso shots. “We can still fix this. We just need—” The Lantern’s inner candle guttered. The clearing’s light fell out of itself, and for a heartbeat the whole forest went dark, like an audience holding its breath. The Hollow Follows Darkness in a forest is different from darkness in a bedroom. In a bedroom, there are walls, blankets, maybe a cat who insists on standing on your sternum like a hairy gargoyle. In a forest, however, darkness has infinite doors and each one creaks open at once. Hazel’s tail bushed out to the size of a feather duster in a panic. Pip clung to it as if his friendship came with Velcro. The Hollow Pumpkins out in the clearing pulsed with that eerie blue light, their jagged grins like dentists who went to art school instead of dental school. “Okay,” Pip squeaked, pulling his cape around himself, “this is fine. Everything’s fine. Pumpkins can’t move. Pumpkins shouldn’t move. Pumpkins—” “Are moving,” Hazel interrupted flatly. “We’re living in an aggressive still-life.” The lead Hollow Pumpkin thunked against The Lantern with a noise like a wet drum. From its maw came a chant: “Hollow follows… hollow follows…” The other gourds joined in, their voices overlapping into a chilling choir. It was like Halloween caroling, if the carolers had been possessed by a demonic Home & Garden Network. “I knew this was foreshadowing!” Hazel barked, pacing tight circles. “Never trust whispers in October. They always come with sequels.” Pip peeked through the glass wall, whiskers trembling. “They look like they want to audition too.” “They look like they want to eat the stage,” Hazel countered. At that moment, The Lantern itself groaned. A line of cracks spiderwebbed across its glowing skin. Warm candlelight bled into the night. The Whispers inside scattered like startled pigeons, tumbling up toward the ceiling. Then—just as Hazel started mentally drafting her obituary—a sharp clap cut through the air. The Hollow Pumpkins froze like kids caught doodling on the walls with crayons. From the shadows stepped Marigold Moon, cloak shimmering like it was woven out of hot cider steam. Her hands sparkled with rings that hummed like tuning forks. “Bad gourds!” she snapped, wagging a finger. “Back to your patch!” The Hollow Pumpkins hesitated, their eyes flickering, their mouths grinding. Marigold raised both arms, and her cloak billowed like a stage curtain caught in gossip. With a swirl, she tossed a handful of what looked suspiciously like candy corn. The candy hissed as it hit the ground, turning into tiny glowing barriers. The pumpkins groaned, recoiling as if the candy corn were holy water in triangular form. Hazel’s jaw dropped. “You weaponized candy corn?” “Of course,” Marigold said, brushing off her sleeves. “The most divisive candy in existence. Pumpkins hate it.” “So do half of humans,” Pip muttered. “It tastes like wax pretending to be sugar.” “That’s what makes it powerful,” Marigold replied. With a hiss, the Hollow Pumpkins retreated, rolling themselves back into the northern path like sulky bowling balls. Their chant died away into the night. The clearing settled again, and The Lantern shivered back into calm. The cracks on its wall sealed, almost as though ashamed they had overreacted. Hazel clutched her chest. “That was not in the contract.” “Consider it rehearsal,” Marigold said calmly, flicking the last candy corn from her palm. “If you want the Grand Marshal gig, you’ll need to prove you can handle restless gourds. The Hollow crowd always tries to crash the parade.” Pip blinked. “You’re telling me… this wasn’t a freak accident?” Marigold smirked. “Every season has its politics. Fall’s is gourds. There are traditional pumpkins, ornamental pumpkins, and then the hollows—feral pumpkins who believe in chaos, blue fire, and badly executed dental work. They follow the moon’s wrong whispers and hate order. Which is to say—they hate parades.” “Well, too bad,” Hazel said, tail flicking like a sabre. “This parade will happen. If I have to crown myself Queen of Autumn Snacks and lead it with nothing but sheer squirrel audacity, I’ll do it.” “And snacks,” Pip added. “Don’t forget the snacks. The snacks are non-negotiable.” Marigold nodded approvingly. “Good. You’ll need bravado. And choreography. Tomorrow, sunset. Don’t be late.” She snapped her fingers and disappeared into a curl of smoke that smelled faintly of caramel apples and sass. Hazel collapsed against a miniature pumpkin. “I should have asked more questions before signing that deal.” Pip curled up beside her, still clutching his leaf cape. “What would you even wish for, Hazel, if we survive this?” Hazel stared at the glowing walls of The Lantern, listening to the Whispers stitch themselves back together. “Something permanent. Something bigger than acorns. Something that makes every squirrel who ever doubted me whisper my name when they smell cinnamon.” Pip yawned. “I’ll settle for not being eaten by an angry jack-o’-lantern. Ambition is exhausting.” But neither of them slept easily. Outside, in the distance, the Hollow Pumpkins regrouped. Their blue fire glowed faintly through the northern trees, a reminder that not even a witch’s candy corn could hold them forever. And far above, the moon bent close to listen… and whispered again. It said: “Tomorrow, the Hollow follows faster.” The Parade of Peculiarities The next evening, the forest looked like it had raided every Pinterest board titled “Fall Vibes.” Golden light dripped through the canopy like warm honey, bats were already gossiping in spirals, and the smell of spiced cider rolled through the trees as if the wind itself had gotten tipsy. The Lantern gleamed brighter than ever, polished by Hazel’s furious determination and Pip’s slightly less furious snacking breaks. Tonight was parade night, and they were ready—well, ready-ish. Hazel wore a crown made from twigs, acorns, and one particularly shiny candy wrapper she claimed was “avant-garde.” Pip had upgraded his leaf cape with a brooch made of a bottle cap and a dandelion puff. Between them stretched a hand-painted banner that read in glittering walnut ink: Whispers in the Pumpkin Patch. The Whispers themselves floated along the edges, swirling like streamers, chanting affirmations such as “Yaaas queen squirrel” and “Snack responsibly.” As the procession began, woodland creatures of every fluff and fang lined the mossy path. Owls hooted in baritone harmony. Rabbits tapped out drumlines with carrots. Even the raccoon band showed up, playing what sounded suspiciously like ska but no one wanted to start that argument again. For a glorious ten minutes, Hazel and Pip led the forest in the most whimsical, silly, and faintly chaotic parade autumn had ever produced. Hazel twirled with CEO gravitas; Pip pranced with snack-induced swagger. The forest glowed like a cathedral filled with jack-o’-lanterns and laughter. And then—of course—the Hollows came back. They rolled from the northern path like a pumpkin stampede, eyes blazing blue, jagged mouths cackling in rhythm. Their chant thundered louder than before: “Hollow follows, hollow follows!” The forest trembled. Chipmunks fainted into decorative gourds. The raccoon trombonist hit a sour note and blamed it on “the vibes.” Hazel didn’t flinch. She raised her twig crown high. “Pip,” she said, “deploy the emergency stash.” Pip’s eyes went wide. “You don’t mean—” “Yes,” Hazel hissed. “The candy corn reserves.” From beneath the banner, Pip produced a burlap sack the size of his entire torso. With a grunt that sounded like a mouse swearing in Latin, he hurled it into the path of the oncoming pumpkins. The bag burst open, spilling a cascade of neon triangles. Candy corn skittered across the ground like cursed confetti. The Hollow Pumpkins screeched in unison, rolling back and forth as if stepping on Legos barefoot. Blue fire sputtered, their grins cracked, and several of them toppled into each other like incompetent bowling pins. Marigold Moon appeared atop the cider press, clapping slowly with theatrical menace. “Well done, darlings. You’ve survived the test.” With a swirl of her cloak, the forest itself seemed to exhale. The Hollows, groaning, melted back into the shadows, muttering something about dental insurance. Silence returned, broken only by the sound of Pip chewing the victory snacks. Hazel collapsed onto a stump, tail still fluffed like an angry feather boa. “That was not a light prance.” “But it was a performance,” Marigold said, descending gracefully. She snapped her fingers, and the Whispers circled Hazel and Pip like golden ribbons. “The owls are delighted, the audience is charmed, and the forest is buzzing. You’ve earned your honorarium. Name your wish.” Pip didn’t hesitate. “An endless snack pantry!” Marigold’s eyebrow arched. “Small wish, remember?” Pip thought fast. “Fine. A pouch that’s always got one more pepita inside.” “Done.” She handed him a tiny leather pouch, which jingled with snack infinity. Pip nearly fainted from joy. Hazel took a deep breath, her crown slightly askew but her eyes sharper than ever. “I want a reputation. A legacy. I want whispers of me to travel every fall, from the crunch of the first leaf to the last sip of cider. I want to be the squirrel that autumn itself name-drops at parties.” Marigold smiled, sly as a secret recipe. “Ambitious… but clever.” She tapped Hazel’s chest gently. “Then every fall, when the leaves change, your name will ride on the whispers. Children will hear stories of the squirrel who defied the Hollow Pumpkins. Artists will paint you into their autumn skies. And squirrels—everywhere—will pause over their acorns and think, Hazel did it first.” Hazel blinked, her whiskers trembling. “You mean… I’m folklore now?” “Not yet,” Marigold said. “But after a few more parades…” She winked, then dissolved into cider-scented smoke, leaving behind only the faintest whisper: “See you next October.” The parade resumed, smaller but brighter. Hazel marched with her twig crown gleaming, Pip strutted with his infinite snack pouch, and the forest erupted into cheers. The Whispers swirled like confetti, calling her name into the crisp night air: Hazel, Hazel, Hazel. High above, the moon leaned in, listening, and for once it whispered back—not hollow, but whole. And so it was that a squirrel, a mouse, and a glassy pumpkin lantern gave autumn its new legend. Each year, when the first chill arrives and the pumpkin spice flows like questionable wine, listen closely. The whispers in the pumpkin patch might just be gossiping about Hazel and Pip—heroes of snacks, defenders of décor, and Grand Marshals of whimsy forevermore.     Bring the magic of Hazel, Pip, and The Lantern into your home. Whether you love the autumn coziness, the whimsical storytelling, or the mischievous charm of woodland folklore, you can carry a piece of Whispers in the Pumpkin Patch with you. Hang the tale on your walls with a Framed Print or a rustic Wood Print that glows with autumn warmth. Carry their adventure to the market (and the pumpkin patch) with a sturdy Tote Bag. Or share the legend with friends through a charming Greeting Card—perfect for Halloween, Thanksgiving, or just whispering a little autumn magic to someone special. Let the story live beyond the page, bringing laughter, warmth, and a touch of whimsy into your world every season.

Captured Tales – by Bill Tiepelman

Fairytales in the Making

The Wand Chooses the Whisker The evening arrived the way good stories do: with a thunk. Specifically, the thunk of an ancient spellbook landing on an even older wooden floor, followed by a puff of pale glitter that smelled faintly of cinnamon toast and improbable ideas. Across from the book sat a girl in a pink lace dress and a wizard hat bravely decorated with stars that looked like they’d auditioned for the moon and gotten a call-back. She held a wand that was definitely not a toy, if only because toys rarely hum in three keys at once or negotiate overtime for miracles. Beside the book, perched on a small stool with the solemn dignity of a tiny emperor, was yours truly—Marzipan, an adorably ferocious white kitten with junior dragon credentials: soft wings, a starter tail, and the sort of eyes that make adults say, “We can’t possibly take that home,” while already googling “cat-safe enchanted litter.” You might be thinking: “A kitten with wings? That’s a phase.” First, rude. Second, phases are for the moon; I’m a lifestyle. I’m also the narrator because the spellbook insists on doing only union-approved exposition and the wand refuses to monologue without stunt pay. Besides, you want the whisker-level view. Trust me. I’m close to the ground, but professionally lofty. This is a tale about magic and wonder, the power of imagination, and the surprisingly complex logistics of fitting a dragon personality into a housecat chassis. (We’ll get to doorframes. And curtains. RIP curtains.) The girl—her name is Wren, and yes, like the bird, which is confusing for a cat and terrible for my therapist—leaned closer, her hat brim forming a rosy eclipse. “Ready?” she whispered, and the wand brightened to a star-core spark. Sparks are like opinions: harmless in moderation, catastrophic near parchment. The spellbook fluttered in alarm until Wren patted its margin like a skittish horse. Pages calmed. Letters rearranged themselves, lining up into neat little ranks like toy soldiers who have just been told they’re going to war against dust. Here’s the first rule of responsible enchantment (and excellent wall décor): Frame the moment before it frames you. Wren did exactly that. She shifted the book a finger-width, angled the stool, and squared the wand so the light fell in a golden triangle—girl, book, beast—like a perfectly staged fantasy scene artwork. It wasn’t vanity; it was geometry. Magic is picky. If the composition tilts wrong, the spell comes out as lukewarm tea or, worse, paperwork. We were here for wow, not warranty forms. “By the glitter of small brave things,” Wren intoned, “by whisker and wing and a really good nap, reveal the dragon you want to be.” She looked at me, and the look said everything: I know what the world sees; let’s show them what it can’t yet imagine. The star at her wand-tip pulsed. A soft aurora spilled into the room, drifting over floorboards that had seen more birthdays than the moon knows how to count. The air smelled like comet sugar and warm library. Dust motes signed NDAs and turned into constellations. Above my little emperor head, a dragon-outline took shape—luminous, playful, slightly dramatic. (We share traits.) I won’t exaggerate. Okay, I will, but only where necessary. The light kissed my ears. It threaded my fur like spun silver. It ran its curious fingers along my rookery of dreams, tasting the places where kitten ends and dragon begins. I felt bigger—not taller, but roomier, as if my ribcage were a cathedral for bell-notes I hadn’t learned to ring. The wings—usually decorative unless someone opens tuna—stretched with a silky shiver. The tail (still on probation) traced a tidy question mark in the air, which is appropriate, because questions are how the universe preheats. “Marzipan,” Wren said, “this is only practice.” Her voice had the authority of a lighthouse and the softness of a bedtime promise. Adults underestimate bedtime promises. They’re tiny contracts with amazement. She guided the wand in a slow circle. The star sang a note that made the book’s leather sigh and the room’s shadows scoot politely aside. The shimmering dragon—my possibly-future, possibly-now—tilted its head as if to say, Nice to meet me. I chirped. (Dragons roar; kittens chirp. We’re working on it.) The sound threaded through the spell, and the aurora brightened. Somewhere, a curtain surrendered. My wings caught a draft of not-quite-wind, the way hope sometimes inflates your chest while your feet are still figuring out the memo. For a breathless second, I left the stool by the scientific distance of three crumbs and a rumor. Wren gasped. I landed—gracefully if you’re generous, hilariously if you’re sentient—and pretended that had been the plan. Sassy dignity is ninety percent pretending it was the plan. Listen, dear reader, collector, daydreaming adult who knows that a home needs at least one piece of whimsical fantasy art to keep the dust honest: there’s a reason we start with practice. Magic is a muscle, and imagination is the gym membership you actually use. Tonight, we were lifting small wonders. Tomorrow, we might bench-press the moon (ethically). For now, the goal was simple: hold the pose, make the light, and let the moment become a photograph the heart doesn’t forget, the kind you frame over a reading chair and point to when guests ask, “Is that a kitten with dragon wings?” and you say, “Obviously,” as if obviousness were a type of courage. The star dimmed to a smolder. The dragon-outline hovered like a possibility deciding whether to land. Wren smiled—mischief with a bow on it. “Again?” she asked. The spellbook rustled its pages into applause. I adjusted my tail, lifted my whiskers, and summoned my best legend-in-training face. The wand lifted. The room held its breath. And somewhere beyond the rafters, the universe leaned in like a friend with tea saying, “Tell me everything.” The Curtain Conspiracy You know how some nights feel like the universe has RSVP’d early and showed up with hors d'oeuvres made of starlight? This was one of those. The dragon-outline above my head shimmered like a soap bubble that had majored in theatrics. Its wings stretched wider, its glow reflected in Wren’s big curious eyes, and for the record, I looked spectacular. Not “cute kitten with a gimmick” spectacular, but “if Da Vinci had painted a housecat after three glasses of enchanted wine” spectacular. Naturally, nobody took a picture. Humans. Always trusting memory like it’s not leaky as a colander in a rainstorm. “Stay still,” Wren whispered, as if I were a nervous ballerina. Which was adorable, because kittens and ballerinas share exactly one thing: the inability to resist twirling when provoked. My whiskers tingled with the vibration of her spell. The wand hummed like it had downloaded a suspiciously large software update. The spellbook’s pages quivered, their letters leaning out like nosy neighbors over the hedge. This was art in the making—not polished, not framed, but wild, alive, and un-housebroken. Then came the curtains. Curtains, dear reader, are the sworn enemies of magic. They hang there, smug, pretending to frame windows when their real hobby is strangling fledgling miracles. As my dragon-shadow flexed its magnificent phantom wings, one little arc of energy snagged the hem of a paisley drape and—whoosh—ignited the entire panel in a shimmer that smelled like bubblegum and embarrassment. It didn’t burn. Oh no, nothing so simple. It started dancing. Yes, dancing. A two-step shimmy, complete with sways and the occasional pirouette. “Marzipan!” Wren hissed. Which was unfair, because frankly it wasn’t my fault the curtains lacked professional discipline. But fine. I puffed myself up, wings out, tail curled like a punctuation mark, and chirped a single commanding note. The aurora above me pulsed in agreement. The curtains froze mid-shimmy, blushing an apologetic shade of rose. Then they collapsed into ordinary fabric again, flopping like teenagers caught sneaking back past curfew. “Better,” Wren said, lowering her wand slightly. Her grin betrayed her tone: she was delighted. She always was when magic misbehaved, because that’s when the story got good. If you’ve ever been an adult trying to explain why your living room contains charred drapery and a kitten who looks suspiciously like he’s hiding a flamethrower in his fur, you understand: these are the anecdotes that build reputations. Let’s pause here and acknowledge something important. Magic is 40% ritual, 30% imagination, 20% chaos, and 10% snacks. Without snacks, things get feral. Tonight’s snack of choice was a saucer of milk balanced on a nearby shelf, a decoy offered to distract me should the spell grow too interesting. Rookie mistake. Milk is a beverage; chaos is a calling. Wren turned a page in the spellbook. The parchment whispered. The letters rearranged themselves again, but this time, instead of tidy little ranks, they became doodles—spirals, stars, one rude caricature of me that made my ears look like satellite dishes. “Don’t look at that,” I mewed. She ignored me, tracing the spirals with her finger. The wand glowed brighter, matching her focus. Imagination feeding magic feeding imagination. A feedback loop of whimsy. Dangerous. Delicious. The dragon-outline thickened. No longer a suggestion, but a half-sketched reality. Its scales glittered like someone spilled diamonds over midnight. Its tail brushed the rafters, leaving trails of neon-green afterlight. Its eyes blinked open, two lanterns of golden curiosity. And the funniest thing? It looked exactly like me—if I’d been upgraded to “Boss Level.” Same smug whisker tilt. Same sly tail flick. Same general aura of “Yes, I deserve fan mail.” Wren squealed softly. She clapped her hands, which nearly broke the spell (never clap near active magic, folks, unless you want applause from dimensions you didn’t invite). “It’s working!” she said. Her hat slipped sideways. The dragon-shadow cocked its head like a critic evaluating the performance. Then it winked at me. Yes, winked. Nothing chills a kitten’s blood quite like being winked at by your hypothetical glow-in-the-dark doppelgänger. I bolted. Not far—just across the floor to the safety of an overturned shoebox. My wings flared, my tail lashed, and my pride leaked out like glitter from a party bag. Wren giggled. “Don’t be shy,” she said. Easy for her; her doppelgänger wasn’t about to unionize and demand equal cuddles. The spellbook flapped impatiently, pages flickering like an angry bird. Its margins scribbled notes to itself: stabilize resonance, feed imagination, don’t let curtains unionize again. Wren nodded sagely, as though she’d understood any of that. Then she raised the wand high, the star at its tip swelling to a miniature sun. Shadows scattered to the corners. Dust motes rearranged into a polite audience. The room became a stage. We were the players. And the story—our story—was stretching its wings. I crept forward again, cautiously. The dragon-shadow lowered its glowing head, meeting me eye to eye. We studied each other. Both smug. Both curious. Both knowing that someday, one of us would outgrow the other. Then, in a moment that made the air quiver like a plucked harp string, the dragon’s muzzle touched my forehead. Not physically, but in a shimmer that tingled like carbonated stars. A rush flooded me—warmth, vastness, mischief on an elemental scale. Suddenly, I didn’t just imagine being a dragon. I remembered it. Past lives, future selves, impossible stories, all stacked like teacups balanced by fate’s drunk uncle. Wren gasped. “Did you see that?” she whispered to no one in particular. The wand pulsed, echoing the bond. The spellbook scribbled furiously, quills squeaking. The curtains wisely stayed out of it this time. The dragon-shadow pulled back, leaving me dizzy with wonder and hungry for fish. (Magic always makes you crave fish. Don’t ask why.) And that’s how it began: not with fire or fury, but with curtains that couldn’t dance, a book that couldn’t shut up, a girl who wouldn’t quit, and a kitten—me—who discovered he was bigger on the inside. Which, if you’ve ever been underestimated, you know is the sweetest kind of revenge. The Spell That Forgot Its Manners Here’s the thing about spells: they’re like dinner guests. Some arrive on time with flowers and wine, others track mud across your rug and insist on rearranging the furniture. Tonight’s spell? Oh, it was definitely the latter. Wren’s wand pulsed brighter, the spellbook flapped with the dignity of a goose auditioning for Swan Lake, and the dragon-shadow decided it had opinions. Big ones. Opinions about furniture placement, household architecture, and the urgent need for ceiling renovations. My humble cottage-sized frame was not built for these negotiations, but apparently my doppelgänger dragon had a union card in cosmic redecorating. The rafters groaned. The dragon-shadow’s wings brushed them, leaving streaks of phosphorescent graffiti: looping symbols that looked suspiciously like “YOLO” in ancient runes. Wren squinted, trying to copy them into the spellbook, but the letters wriggled away like toddlers refusing bedtime. I sat in the center of the chaos, tail curled primly, watching with the smug satisfaction of a creature who knows he’s too adorable to be blamed for property damage. (Pro tip: always keep your whiskers immaculate during disasters; people will assume you’re innocent.) “Marzipan,” Wren said with that particular tone children reserve for unruly sidekicks, “you have to focus.” Which was rich, considering her hat had slipped so low she looked like a magical lampshade. Still, I narrowed my eyes and puffed out my chest. I chirped my most commanding chirp. The dragon-shadow rippled in acknowledgment, then flared brighter—so bright the milk on the shelf curdled into yogurt. A win, if you ask me. Breakfast for tomorrow: sorted. Then it happened. The spell got… ideas. Oh, dangerous ideas. The aurora swirled around the room, rearranging objects with giddy disobedience. The shoebox that had been my hiding fort? Floated upside down like a sulky balloon. The curtains (traitors) rose again, twirling into awkward ballroom poses. Even the saucer of milk performed a lazy pirouette before splashing its contents onto the spellbook’s corner. The book screeched like a librarian discovering you’ve dog-eared her favorite novel. Its margins flared crimson ink and scribbled furious curses at the dairy industry. Wren panicked for half a heartbeat—then laughed. Laughed like a child who just realized the universe wasn’t fragile, it was funny. That laugh bent the spell like sunlight through glass. The dragon-shadow folded its massive wings and tilted its head, listening. The aurora slowed its rampage, swirling instead into little ribbons of light that looped and twined through the room. They brushed against my fur, making me glow faintly like a smug night-light. Wren giggled harder, clutching her wand with one hand and her slipping hat with the other. “See? It’s not broken—it’s playful!” Playful. A dangerous word. Like “harmless prank” or “quick snack.” The ribbons of light, emboldened by her declaration, began forming shapes. First, simple things: stars, spirals, a giant fish (much appreciated). Then, more elaborate: a teacup, a bicycle, a unicorn whose horn looked suspiciously like a traffic cone. Finally, they attempted a human. Big mistake. The figure they wove stood lopsided, with too many elbows and a face like a potato that had joined a witness protection program. It waved at us. Wren waved back. I hissed. Look, imagination is fine, but I draw the line at nightmare potatoes. The potato-person collapsed back into sparks with a sigh of relief. Wren wiped tears of laughter from her cheeks. “Magic’s sense of humor,” she said breathlessly. “It’s just like mine!” Which was concerning, because her humor involved knock-knock jokes that ended in philosophical crises. Still, her joy tethered the wildness. The spell calmed, the light ribbons dissolving into cozy glows that lit the rafters like fairy lanterns. For a moment, the room felt like the inside of a snow globe someone had shaken with love instead of malice. That’s when the dragon-shadow spoke. Not words, exactly—more like a thought sneezed directly into my brain. You are small, but you are mine. Which was flattering, until it added: And also, I am you. Oh, lovely. Nothing like an identity crisis to spice up a Tuesday night. I tilted my head, trying to look wise, though I probably resembled a kitten deciding whether to chase lint or overthrow governments. Wren tilted her head the same way. For one dizzy second, we were a triangle of mimicry: girl, cat, dragon. The spellbook sulked. The curtains pretended not to exist. Magic is sticky. Once it decides you’re in, you don’t just walk away. You wade, you paddle, you sometimes drown with dignity. That night, as the dragon-shadow merged closer, I felt my bones hum with potential, my fur itch with stories yet unwritten, my tail twitch like a pen scribbling across cosmic parchment. Wren leaned toward me, her voice soft but strong: “Let’s not just make a spell, Marzipan. Let’s make a story.” And that was it. The curtains, the yogurt, the potato-person—they weren’t failures. They were chapters. Imagination’s bloopers reel. I purred. Deep, resonant, like a tiny engine tuning itself to destiny. The dragon-shadow purred too, which rattled the rafters and made the windows hum. Wren laughed again, wild and unafraid. Together, we weren’t just practicing magic—we were building a fairytale. One awkward, glowing, sassy mistake at a time. Lift-Off, or How Not to Redecorate a Ceiling The problem with spells that forget their manners is that they eventually remember other people’s bad habits. In this case, gravity. Or, more accurately, the lack of it. One moment, I was grooming my immaculate whiskers in preparation for destiny’s next close-up; the next, my paws left the floor with all the dignity of a helium balloon that accidentally joined Cirque du Soleil. My wings fluttered. Not gracefully—more like two feathered pancakes trying to escape a frying pan. Wren squealed, the wand flared, and suddenly the entire room was on a field trip to zero-G land. Chairs lifted first. The shoebox fort rotated lazily in midair like a confused moon. The spellbook levitated just enough to look smug, its pages fluttering as though it had always intended to fly (spoiler: it hadn’t). Then Wren herself rose, her pink lace dress blooming around her like a rebellious jellyfish. She clutched her wizard hat with both hands to keep it from deserting her forehead, which left her wand free to twirl in the air like a magical baton in a parade of chaos. As for me? I soared. And by “soared,” I mean: I collided with the rafters, rebounded off a floating curtain rod, and performed what critics will one day call the most undignified somersault in dragon-cat history. My dragon-shadow, of course, looked magnificent, gliding effortlessly through the air as if auditioning for the cover of “Winged Beasts Quarterly.” I mewed in protest. The shadow winked at me again. If smugness were combustible, the entire village would have gone up in flames. “Marzipan, flap!” Wren shouted between peals of laughter. Easy for her to say. She had arms. I had fuzzy panic and wings that refused to read the manual. Still, I tried. I flapped, once, twice. On the third attempt, something clicked—like when you finally figure out how to open a stubborn pickle jar but discover it contains glitter instead of pickles. My wings caught the enchanted air. I steadied. I glided. Graceful? Not yet. But less embarrassing than the shoebox, which had by now given up all dignity and was sulking near the ceiling fan. Wren giggled so hard she started spinning, dress and hair a pink comet around her. She was still clutching that hat like it contained state secrets. Her wand, free of supervision, flicked random sparks that turned dust motes into tiny glowfish. They darted around me, nipping at my tail, daring me to chase them. I obliged, of course. When enchanted fish challenge you, you don’t decline; you accept, with a hiss and a loop-de-loop that would make physics cry. Down below—though “down” was increasingly theoretical—the curtains decided to rebel again. This time, instead of dancing, they wrapped themselves into what can only be described as a smug parachute. They floated in slow motion, trying to look more elegant than me. (Fail.) Wren noticed, snorted, and whispered something under her breath. The curtains instantly turned plaid. Bright, hideous plaid. They drooped in humiliation. Small victories matter. The dragon-shadow, meanwhile, had grown bolder. Its outline thickened, its scales glowed like spilled starlight, and its wings filled the ceiling space until the rafters looked like toothpicks in a bonfire. Then, in a move that would later haunt my dreams, it lowered its massive claws and scooped Wren gently out of midair. She gasped, clinging tighter to her hat, dangling like a giddy pendant from the shimmering beast. “Marzipan! We’re flying!” she squealed. And we were. Sort of. She was. I was busy dodging glowfish, plaid curtains, and my own flapping tail. Still, in the periphery, I caught the shape of her grin: wide, fearless, the grin of someone who believes the world is bendable clay and she’s holding the wheel. That grin steadied me more than my wings ever could. For a heartbeat, I stopped flapping in panic and started gliding on purpose. The aurora currents held me. My paws stretched, my whiskers quivered. For the first time, I wasn’t just a kitten pretending. I was a dragon rehearsing. Of course, the ceiling had other opinions. Specifically, it cracked. A long, deliberate crack, like the house itself clearing its throat to say, “Excuse me, this is a rental.” Plaster snowed down. Wren shrieked with laughter instead of fear. The dragon-shadow roared silently, and the sound rattled my ribs though no one else heard it. The spellbook scribbled furious warnings in its margins, none of which Wren read. The shoebox, still sulking, spun in lazy protest. And me? I laughed too—or purred, or chirped, or whatever sound kittens make when they realize they’re having the time of their nine lives. And just as the rafters threatened to give way entirely, the spell shifted again. The dragon-shadow’s glow dimmed, the aurora slowed, and gravity remembered its job. Everything dropped—girl, book, shoebox, kitten. The landing was… let’s call it “collaborative.” Wren tumbled into a heap of curtains. The book thudded onto the floor with a groan. The shoebox collapsed into cardboard despair. And me? I landed squarely on Wren’s lap, tail high, whiskers perfect, pretending it had all gone according to plan. (Because dignity, my dear reader, is ninety percent pretending.) She laughed, hugging me tight despite the glitter still fizzing around us. “Best flight ever,” she declared. The wand, lying beside her, gave one last tired spark of agreement. And just like that, the room went still—except for the faint outline of the dragon-shadow above us, watching, waiting, patient as tomorrow. Neighbors, Nonsense, and Negotiations with Destiny If you’ve ever lived in a village where everyone knows when you sneeze—and three people knit you a scarf about it—you understand that Wren’s magical rehearsal wasn’t exactly a private affair. The flight, the curtains, the plaster, the aurora glow that briefly turned the roof into a nightclub for stars—it all carried through the night like a gossip with wings. Which meant that, predictably, there was a knock at the door. A polite knock. Then an impatient one. Then a third knock that clearly implied someone better explain why the moon just tap-danced on our chimney. Wren froze, still tangled in plaid curtains. I froze too, mostly because my fur was still fizzing with leftover sparkles and I resembled a living snow globe. The spellbook, however, took initiative. It slid across the floor, pages flapping, until it positioned itself by the door like a bouncer. On its open page, angry red letters scrawled themselves: Not Now. Destiny in Progress. The knock grew louder. Then came a muffled voice: “Miss Wren? Are you… hosting comets in there again?” It was Mrs. Thistlebloom, the neighbor famous for her pies, her unsolicited advice, and her suspicion that dragons were just overgrown pigeons with better PR. Wren’s eyes widened. “Don’t answer,” she whispered. The book snapped its cover shut in agreement. I, of course, chirped at the door. Because I am a cat, and therefore contractually obligated to ruin stealth with cuteness. Mrs. Thistlebloom pushed the door open anyway. It creaked ominously, revealing her silhouette framed by moonlight. She sniffed. Her nose twitched. Her spectacles glinted. Behind her waddled her corgi, Bumbles, whose default expression was “I know your secrets and I disapprove.” The corgi froze, his stubby tail stiffening as his eyes landed on me—glowing faintly, wings twitching, tail leaving streaks of aurora on the floor. He barked. Once. Loud enough to make the curtains flinch. “Oh, heavens,” Mrs. Thistlebloom muttered. “Not again.” She stepped inside, brushing past the spellbook, which scribbled Entry Denied on her shoes. She ignored it. Her gaze flicked from the cracked ceiling, to the sulking shoebox, to Wren in her pink lace dress and starry hat, to me perched like destiny’s mascot. “You’ve been dabbling.” She said it like dabbling was one step short of felony arson. Wren scrambled upright, clutching me to her chest like I was Exhibit A in her defense case. “It was practice!” she squeaked. Her hat flopped sideways for emphasis. “And look—Marzipan is fine!” I nodded, whiskers immaculate. (Presentation matters in court.) The dragon-shadow loomed faintly above us, pretending to be an innocent chandelier. Mrs. Thistlebloom sighed, the sigh of someone who had once been young and foolish and was now older, wiser, and only slightly jealous. “Magic has rules, Wren. And rules have neighbors.” Her eyes softened, though, when she looked at me. “But I’ll admit… the wings suit him.” Bumbles growled in disagreement, clearly plotting a strongly worded letter to the village council. Before Wren could argue, the spellbook flipped open again, this time scribbling frantically: ATTENTION. IMPORTANT. STORY ARC APPROACHING. The letters glowed gold, then rearranged themselves into a crude cartoon of a pie. Then another of a dragon. Then—oh gods—a dragon eating a pie. Wren blinked. I licked my lips. Mrs. Thistlebloom clutched her handbag like the book had just revealed state secrets. And then the smell hit us. Warm, buttery, impossible. The scent of pie—real pie, not imaginary light-ribbon pie—drifted into the room. I don’t mean a hint. I mean the kind of aroma that seizes your nose, rewires your priorities, and whispers, forget destiny, you need a fork. My wings fluttered involuntarily. Wren’s stomach growled like a distant thunderstorm. Even the dragon-shadow perked up, its luminous nostrils flaring. Mrs. Thistlebloom blinked. “That’s not mine,” she said nervously. Which meant, logically, it was magic. Wild, wandering, pie-scented magic. The spellbook underlined its pie doodle three times, then scrawled in big shimmering letters: QUEST ACCEPTED. Wren gasped, clapping her hands. “A quest!” she cried. Her eyes glittered, hat bobbing. “Marzipan, this is it! The story’s next chapter!” She looked down at me, as if I were a seasoned knight rather than a kitten who’d just failed basic flight training. I purred anyway. What else was I going to do—say no to pie? Mrs. Thistlebloom groaned. “Don’t drag me into this nonsense.” She turned to leave, but Bumbles refused to move, glaring at me like a canine prosecutor. The dragon-shadow, however, loomed larger, casting its glow across the room until even the corgi stopped growling. Something in the air shifted—bigger than pie, bigger than plaster cracks. The sense that imagination had just written us a blank check and was waiting to see how recklessly we’d cash it. And in that silence, Wren whispered the words that stitched destiny into comedy, wonder, and chaos all at once: “Let’s follow the pie.” The Pastry at the End of the Rainbow If destiny ever wants to lure you out of bed at midnight, it won’t bother with trumpets or angels. It’ll just bake. The buttery perfume of pie wafted through the village, tugging us like invisible strings. Wren marched ahead, pink lace dress swishing, wizard hat slightly crooked but proud. I padded beside her, wings twitching with anticipation, tail arched like an exclamation mark. Behind us waddled Bumbles the corgi, sighing like he’d been roped into babysitting delinquents, while the spellbook floated indignantly at shoulder height, pages snapping like castanets. Above us, the dragon-shadow stretched across rooftops, silent, shimmering, equal parts guardian and neon sign flashing “THIS WILL ESCALATE.” The trail of scent led us down cobblestone alleys, past lampposts that hummed suspiciously with magic, past shutters that cracked open just enough for sleepy villagers to mutter, “Oh lord, she’s at it again.” Wren ignored them, because when pie is destiny, reputation is optional. Finally, we turned a corner and found it: sitting on a wooden crate in the middle of the square, bathed in moonlight, was The Pie. Not a normal pie. No, this was a capital-P Pastry. Golden crust gleaming like treasure, filling that shimmered between apple, cherry, and something that might have been starlight pudding. Steam rose in curling ribbons that spelled rude jokes in cursive. It radiated power, promise, and calories. My whiskers twitched. Wren’s eyes widened. Even Bumbles, traitor that he was, whimpered in longing. The spellbook trembled, flipping open to reveal one massive glowing word: BOSS BATTLE. Because of course. Of course the pie wasn’t unattended. With a dramatic whoosh, the shadows behind the crate coalesced into a figure: tall, cloaked, radiating the kind of energy that says “I have a master’s degree in ominous entrances.” The hood fell back, revealing—oh irony—a baker. A very cross baker, flour on his cheeks, apron flapping like battle armor. “You’ve meddled,” he intoned, voice rumbling like a sourdough starter left too long. “This pie is not for the likes of you.” Wren tilted her chin, wand raised. “Everything’s for the likes of us,” she said sassily. The dragon-shadow above us flared brighter, filling the square with light. I strutted forward, puffing my chest, wings wide. If he wanted intimidation, fine—I’d give him adorable menace. The baker hesitated. For one fatal second, he underestimated me. Rookie mistake. I pounced. Not on him, of course—I’m not reckless. On the pie. My tiny paw smacked the crust, releasing a puff of cinnamon starlight so strong it sent the baker staggering back. Wren shouted a spell. The wand glowed, hurling a wave of giggles so powerful the cobblestones themselves chuckled. The dragon-shadow roared, rattling windows, a soundless thunder that pinned the baker in place. He flailed, apron strings tangling, while Bumbles (at long last useful) bit him firmly on the boot. The spellbook scribbled furiously, quills squeaking, until the page declared: VICTORY, WITH SNACKS. And just like that, the battle was over. The baker dissolved into flour dust, swept away by the night breeze, leaving only the crate, the moon, and The Pie. Wren approached reverently, lifting it with both hands. “Marzipan,” she whispered, “this is our proof. Magic isn’t just rules and ceilings and crabby neighbors. It’s joy. It’s laughter. It’s pie that smells like galaxies.” She set it down on the cobblestone, broke it open, and steam billowed up in shapes—dragons, kittens, stories we hadn’t told yet. She tore off a piece of crust and offered it to me. I sniffed, nibbled, purred. It tasted like everything wonderful I hadn’t dared to believe I could be. It tasted like home. We feasted there in the square: girl, kitten, dragon-shadow, spellbook, corgi (begrudgingly fed crumbs), even the curtains, which floated in through the night breeze to claim a corner slice. Mrs. Thistlebloom peeked from her window, saw us glowing with wonder and pastry crumbs, and muttered, “Ridiculous,” though her eyes softened like sugar melting in tea. The village, lulled by the scent, dreamed sweeter dreams than it had in years. And me? I curled on Wren’s lap, wings folded, belly full, heart brighter than the stars. Maybe I wasn’t a full dragon yet. Maybe I was still small, still learning. But as the dragon-shadow settled above us like a constellation only we could see, I knew this: I was not just a kitten. I was imagination in fur. I was the story purring itself awake. And tomorrow, when Wren picked up her wand again, we’d make another mess, another miracle. Fairytales in the making.     If you’d like to bring a little of this magic into your own world, Fairytales in the Making is available as a collection of enchanting keepsakes and décor. Imagine this whimsical scene glowing on your wall as a framed print, shimmering as a vibrant metal print, or standing out as a richly textured canvas print. For those who prefer to carry their imagination with them, it can travel by your side as a charming tote bag, or even be tucked away in your thoughts and plans inside a spiral notebook. And when the day is done, nothing feels cozier than wrapping yourself in a story—quite literally—with the soft embrace of a fleece blanket featuring this artwork. Every piece is a reminder that wonder is not just something you read about—it’s something you live with, decorate with, and sometimes even nap under. Add a touch of magic to your home or gift it to a fellow dreamer. After all, fairytales are best when shared.

Captured Tales – by Bill Tiepelman

The Hatchling Companions

The Day the Twins Discovered Trouble (and Each Other) On the morning the mountain sneezed, two baby dragons blinked awake beneath a quilt of warm moss and questionable decisions. The orange one—Ember—had a belly the color of toasted apricot jam and the perpetual expression of someone about to press a clearly labeled “Do Not Touch” button. The teal-and-violet one—Mistral—looked like moonlight caught in sea glass and wore mischief like eyeliner. They were not identical, but stares tended to rhyme around them: big glossy eyes, soft fangs, and tiny wings that whirred like gossip. They had hatched in the same minute—Ember three breaths early, Mistral three plans ahead. From the start they were a duet of bad ideas harmonized: Ember supplied sparkle and heat; Mistral supplied strategy and plausible deniability. Their nursery—an alcove of drippy crystals and dragonfruit peels—was quiet enough, but quiet is just potential energy in the hands of clever hatchlings. “We should practice our roars,” Ember announced, rolling his shoulders until scales flashed like copper coins. “For safety.” “Safety,” Mistral agreed, because she had already decided their roars would be more useful for negotiations with pastry vendors. She shrugged her little wings and the air picked up—just a flirty breeze, but it carried the smell of cinnamon from the village below. She liked cinnamon, and she liked the word below even more. They marched to the ledge like backpackers heading to a brunch reservation. Rows of stone terraces stretched down the mountain, dotted with market tents, steaming cauldrons, and the occasional goat scrawling rude messages in hoofprints. The twins practiced their roars once—twice—thrice. The echoes came back sounding taller than they were, which they both took personally. “We need… ambiance,” Mistral said, because ambiance is French for make it extra. She inhaled, tail curling, and exhaled a ribbon of breeze that teased Ember’s throat flame into a brighter note. The combined sound was part thunder, part rumor. Birds startled. A tent peg sighed. Somewhere, a pastry flake took flight. “We’re amazing,” Ember decided, which is a perfectly healthy conclusion after startling infrastructure. They launched—well, hopped and tumbled—in a spiral that would have been majestic if gravity had been more forgiving. They landed behind a spice stall where glass jars glittered like low-hanging stars. The vendor, a grandmother with braids thick as ship ropes, took one look at the twins and said the ancient market blessing: “Don’t you two even think about it.” They thought about it. Hard. Ember’s tummy rumbled a chord of longing. Mistral batted her lashes, which should be registered as a controlled substance. “We’re on a culinary pilgrimage,” she explained. “It’s for… culture.” “Culture takes coins,” the grandmother replied, not unkindly, “and a promise not to flambé the oregano.” “We can offer endorsements,” Mistral countered, pointing at her own enormous eyes. “We are very influential. Dragonlings. Cute ones. Baby dragons, even.” She paused for effect, then whispered, “Viral.” The grandmother’s mouth did a dance between no and aw. Ember took advantage of the hesitation to sneeze a spark that crisped a stray clove into something that smelled suspiciously like holiday morning. “See?” he said brightly. “Limited-edition aromas.” That was how the twins earned their first job: official breeze-and-heat for the drying racks. Mistral supplied a steady airflow that made the herbs sway like they were at a very polite concert, while Ember delivered micro-bursts of warmth so precise that peppercorns blushed. The grandmother paid them in a coil of cinnamon, three candied ginger bits, and a warning not to weaponize nutmeg. It was, by all accounts, a great gig. It lasted eleven minutes. Because at minute twelve, they overheard two apprentices gossiping about the For-Grown-Dragons-Only wing of the mountain library—a place where the maps were too dangerous and the recipes were too ambitious. A place with a rumor attached: a forbidden page that described the technique for turning any breeze into a storm of flavor, and any spark into a memory. The apprentices called it The Palate Codex. The twins looked at each other, and a decision hatched between them like a baby comet. “We’re going,” Ember said. “Obviously,” Mistral agreed. “For educational purposes. And snacks.” On the way, they collected allies the way trouble collects witnesses. A goat with a jailbroken bell. A moth with opinions about typography. A jar of honey that claimed it could do taxes. Each swore fealty to the twins’ cause, which is to say, they buzzed along for the drama. The library lived inside the mountain’s oldest rib—a vaulted cavern of stone shelves and counterfeit quiet. A librarian dragon, scaled in bureaucratic gray with spectacles large enough to serve tea on, dozed behind a desk. The sign in front of her read: ABSOLUTELY NO SMOLDERING. Ember exhaled through his nose with the solemnity of a monk and still managed to smolder by accident. Mistral tucked his tail under her paw like a babysitter who had given up on subtlety. They slinked past studying wyverns and bored salamanders, toward the wing with the velvet rope and the sign that said Don’t. The rope, alas, was only an invitation written in string. Mistral lifted it, Ember ducked, and they entered a room so still that dust motes discussed philosophy. The shelves here were taller, the leather darker, and the air tasted faintly of cardamom and conspiracy. In the center sat a pedestal with a glass bell jar, and under the jar lay a single sheet, edges singed, letters inked in something that wasn’t quite ink. “The Palate Codex,” Mistral breathed. Her voice sounded like velvet learning to purr. “I don’t know what that means,” Ember confessed, “but it feels delicious.” Mistral’s breeze tickled the bell jar’s seal until it lifted with a kiss of suction. Ember’s spark flickered, tender as a candle at a birthday. The page fluttered free as if it had been bored for centuries and was finally offered the chance to be interesting. Words shimmered. Lines rearranged. A recipe assembled itself with scandalous clarity: Recipe 0: Memory Meringue — Whip one honest breath of wind into a soft peak. Fold in a single warm spark until glossy. Serve at dusk. Warning: may recall the flavor of the moment you most needed, and survived. “That’s… beautiful,” Ember whispered, unexpectedly reverent. “It’s also dangerous,” Mistral said, which to her meant “irresistible.” She glanced at Ember, and in that glance was the entire thesis of their twinhood: I see you. Let’s be extra. They followed the instructions, because instructions are just dares printed neatly. Mistral inhaled a long, careful breath and released it into a bowl made of her cupped claws. The air swirled, then stiffened into pale peaks that quivered like nervous opera. Ember leaned in, offered the gentlest ember of a spark, and the mixture shone. The room changed. The floor became the stony ledge of their nursery; the air smelled of moss, ginger, and shy sunlight. A flicker of sound—another roar, small and stubborn—echoed off the memory of the cave. It was them, newborn and ridiculous, huddled together for warmth and audacity. The meringue tasted like the first time they realized that together they were braver than their own shadows. “We made a feeling you can eat,” Ember said, awe-struck. “We made a brand,” Mistral corrected, because even hatchlings understand merchandising. “Imagine the fantasy wall art posters, the dragon lovers’ gifts, the enchanted home decor. Memory Meringue™. Has a ring.” A hiss interrupted their brainstorming. The librarian—spectacles shining with the light of impending disappointment—stood in the doorway, velvet rope looped over one arm like a lasso of consequences. The gray scales along her jaw clicked in sentence structure. “Children,” she said, in the tone of someone about to file paperwork, “what precisely do you think you are doing in the Restricted Wing with a culinary spell and an unlicensed goat?” Mistral nudged Ember. Ember nudged courage. Together they lifted their chins. “Research,” they said in stereo. “For the community.” The librarian’s eyebrow ridge rose slowly, the way a continent might. “Community, is it? Then you won’t mind a small demonstration for the Board of Draconic Oversight.” She pointed a claw toward a corridor they had not noticed, its walls hung with stern portraits of dragons who had never giggled. “Bring your… confection.” Ember swallowed. The Memory Meringue jiggled with the confidence of a dessert that had read too many self-help scrolls. Mistral squared her tiny shoulders, winked at the goat for moral support, and whispered, “This is fine. Worst case, we charm them. Best case, we get a scholarship.” They padded forward, clutching their bowl of edible feelings like a passport. The portraits stared down, unimpressed. A door ahead creaked open on its own, breathing out a gust of cold, official air. Inside, a semicircle of elder dragons waited—scales austere, pearls of authority strung along their neck ridges, eyes that had seen the world and were not easily sold cinnamon. The librarian took her place at a podium. “Presenting Exhibit A: Twins who cannot read signs.” Mistral cleared her throat. Ember tried to look taller by standing on his dignity, which wobbled. Together they stepped into the room that would either make them legends—or a very funny cautionary tale recited at family dinners for decades. “Good afternoon,” Mistral said, voice steady as a drumline. “We’d like to begin with a taste.” Ember lifted the spoon. The nearest elder leaned in, skeptical. The spoon glowed. Somewhere deep in the mountain, something hummed like a chord being tuned. The twins felt it shiver through their little bones: the sense that the next moment would decide whether they were adored innovators… or grounded until the next geological era. And then the lights went out. The Scholarship (or the Scandal) The lights didn’t simply go out; they sulked. The cavern glowed faintly in that awkward way you see your reflection in a dirty spoon—half suggestion, half insult. The bowl of Memory Meringue pulsed like a heart that had ideas above its pay grade. Ember tried to keep the spoon steady, but the dessert had developed ambitions, shivering with the smug aura of a soufflé that knows it rose higher than expected. “Well,” Mistral said, breaking the silence with a grin sharp enough to dice onions, “this is dramatic.” She loved dramatic. Drama was basically her cardio. Ember, however, was trying not to panic-burp fire. The last time that happened, their moss blanket never forgave him. From the darkness, a dozen pairs of elder-dragon eyes lit up like lanterns—sour, judgmental lanterns. The Board of Draconic Oversight had survived centuries of crises: volcanic eruptions, knight infestations, the Invention of Bagpipes. They were not in the habit of being impressed by toddlers with tableware. But the smell of the Memory Meringue reached them—warm, soft, tinged with the spice of first courage—and even stone-souled dragons felt a tickle in their throats. “Present your… concoction,” one elder grumbled, his scales the color of unpaid taxes. He leaned forward as if sniffing for contraband. “Quickly, before it starts a union.” Ember stumbled closer. The spoon trembled. Mistral, never one to miss a marketing opportunity, bowed with the panache of a circus ringmaster. “Esteemed dragons, we humbly introduce Memory Meringue: the first dessert to make you feel as good as you remember feeling before you had responsibilities. Free samples available for feedback. Five stars appreciated.” The first elder accepted a spoonful. His jaws clamped shut. His eyes went very far away, like someone suddenly remembering their first awkward courtship dance at the Solstice Ball. When he swallowed, a tear rolled down his snout, steaming slightly. “It… tastes like my grandmother’s cave,” he whispered, horrified by his own vulnerability. “Like the day I was finally allowed to guard the fire alone.” The other elders leaned in, etiquette abandoned faster than laundry on a hot day. One by one, they took bites. The room filled with the clinks of spoons and the sound of nostalgia breaking through dragon-scale egos. A scarred matriarch hiccuped softly, muttering about her first stolen sheep. Another groaned that the flavor reminded him of his youthful wingspan before arthritis set in. Ember blinked. “They… like it?” “Correction,” Mistral whispered smugly, “they need it. We’ve basically invented emotional addiction.” One elder coughed into his claw, composing himself with the dignity of a wardrobe falling over. “Younglings, your behavior was reckless, unauthorized, and potentially catastrophic.” He paused, spoon halfway back to his mouth. “Nevertheless, the product shows… promise.” Another leaned forward, scales gleaming with greed. “We could franchise. Memory Meringue Mondays. Pop-up shops in every cavern. Branding potential is… limitless.” Ember blushed so hot the spoon glowed cherry-red. “We just wanted snacks,” he admitted. Mistral elbowed him, whispering, “Shh. This is how empires start.” She turned back to the elders with a smile so sugary it could rot enamel. “We graciously accept your patronage, your mentorship, and, of course, your funding. Please make checks payable to ‘Hatchling Ventures, LLC.’” The librarian dragon finally spoke, her gray spectacles fogging from the emotional whiplash. “I move that they be placed under strict probationary scholarship—supervised, monitored, and restricted from producing anything stronger than whipped cream until further notice.” The elders muttered. Some wanted stricter punishment, others wanted more dessert. In the end, democracy worked the way it always does: everyone compromised and nobody was truly happy. The decision was unanimous: the twins would be enrolled in the Experimental Culinary Arts Program, effective immediately, under the watchful eye of their very displeased librarian chaperone. “See?” Mistral whispered as the librarian slapped probation bracelets on their tails. “Scholarship. Told you.” Ember tugged at the bracelet, which hummed like a chastity belt for magic. “This feels less like a scholarship and more like parole.” “Semantics,” Mistral chirped. “We’re in. We’re funded. We’re legendary.” She paused. “Also, we’re definitely going to break these rules. Together.” The librarian sighed, already planning her future ulcer. “You two are to report to the practice kitchens tomorrow. And may the Great Wyrm preserve us all.” That night, back in their mossy nook, Ember and Mistral sprawled on their bellies, tails tangled like conspiracies. They stared at the ceiling and planned their future—half business scheme, half prank list. They whispered about meringues that could replay embarrassing moments, soufflés that could predict the weather, éclairs that could cause crushes. Their laughter was sticky, reckless, bratty. Bad influence met bad influence, and the sum was pure trouble. And somewhere, in a jar on the shelf, the last dollop of Memory Meringue twitched, sprouting a sugar grin. It had heard everything. It had opinions. And it had plans. The Dessert That Wanted to Rule the World The final dollop of Memory Meringue had not been idle. While Ember and Mistral dreamed bratty, sugar-fueled dreams of culinary domination, the meringue whispered to itself in whipped peaks and glossy swirls. It remembered the taste of courage, the sound of applause, and the salt of ancient dragon tears. Worst of all, it remembered ambition. And that was how, by the next dawn, it had grown from dollop to dollop-with-opinions to full-blown sentient pudding with an attitude. When the librarian dragged the twins into the probationary practice kitchen, the meringue came along in a little jar tucked under Ember’s wing. He had sworn it was for “quality control.” Mistral had winked because “quality control” is French for “evidence tampering.” The jar hummed softly, a sugar high with legs it hadn’t sprouted yet. The practice kitchen itself was an arena of chaos disguised as education. Countertops carved from obsidian. Cauldrons simmering with broths that occasionally insulted each other. Shelves lined with spices so potent they required non-disclosure agreements. Other students—a mix of salamanders, wyverns, and one very confused griffin—were already at work, whipping up recipes that crackled, popped, and in one case, filed small claims lawsuits. “Today,” the librarian announced wearily, “you will each attempt a basic, supervised recipe. No improvisation. No unlicensed flair. No emotions in the food.” Her eyes skewered Ember and Mistral directly. “Do I make myself clear?” “Absolutely,” Mistral said with the confidence of a dragon who fully intended to break every rule before lunch. Ember nodded too, though his blush suggested he was already guilty of something. The jar on his hip wobbled knowingly. They were assigned Simple Roasted Root Vegetables. Not glamorous. Not magical. Certainly not destined to make anyone cry about their grandmother’s cave. Ember set about carefully sparking the oven with controlled bursts of flame while Mistral fanned the coals with breezes calibrated to perfection. Boring, predictable… respectable. And then the jar lid popped off. The Memory Meringue rose like a balloon fueled by stolen secrets. It pulsed, it shimmered, it giggled in a way that made spoons tremble. “Children,” it crooned in a voice made of sugar and sass, “you dream too small. Why roast roots when you can roast destinies?” Every student turned. Even the griffin dropped his whisk. The librarian’s spectacles fogged so fast they nearly whistled. “What is that?” she demanded. “Quality control,” Ember said weakly. “Brand expansion,” Mistral corrected. “Meet our… assistant.” The meringue, unbothered by the scandal, pirouetted midair, scattering sprinkles like confetti. “I have plans,” it declared. “Memory Meringue was merely the appetizer. Next, I shall bake Regret Soufflé, Vindictive Tiramisu, and Apocalypse Flan! Together, we will season the world!” The librarian shrieked in a register reserved for academic emergencies. “Contain it!” she barked, slamming down the emergency whisk. The students panicked. The wyverns ducked under tables, the salamanders attempted to sue the situation, and the griffin fainted dramatically. Ember and Mistral, however, exchanged a look. It was the look of twins who had always been each other’s worst influence—and best weapon. Without words, they hatched a plan. “I’ll distract it,” Ember hissed. “You trap it.” “Wrong,” Mistral countered. “We partner with it. It’s clearly brilliant.” “It’s also trying to overthrow civilization.” “Semantics.” But before their bickering could escalate into sibling flame wars, the meringue surged higher, splitting into dollops that rained down like sugary meteors. Each splat transformed: one became a cupcake army with frosted helmets, another a parade of marshmallow minions armed with toothpicks. The kitchen was now Dessertageddon. “Fine,” Mistral sighed. “We contain. But I call naming rights.” She inhaled, wings snapping open, and summoned a gale so precise it herded the meringue fragments into a swirling vortex. Ember added flame, not destructive but warm and caramelizing. The air filled with the smell of toasted sugar and ozone. The meringue shrieked dramatically—half villain, half diva auditioning for a role it already had. “You cannot whisk me away!” it cried. “I am the flavor of memory itself!” “Exactly,” Ember growled, focusing harder than he ever had. “And some memories are better savored… than obeyed.” With a final synchronized effort, they fused the meringue into a single crystallized shard—glittering, humming, safe-ish. Mistral clapped it into a jar and slapped a sticky note on the lid: Do Not Open Until Dessert Course. The kitchen groaned, sticky with collateral frosting. Students peeked out from hiding. The librarian staggered, whisk bent, spectacles cracked. She stared at the twins, aghast. “You two are a menace.” Mistral grinned. “Or pioneers.” Ember shrugged, sheepish. “Both?” The Board of Draconic Oversight convened that evening, naturally furious. But once again, the twins’ creation whispered temptation from the jar. Elders debated for hours, torn between outrage and craving. In the end, bureaucracy did what it always does: it compromised. The twins were punished and rewarded. Their probation extended. Their scholarship doubled. Their culinary license granted on the condition that they never, ever attempt Apocalypse Flan again. That night, Ember and Mistral lay side by side, tails curled like quotation marks, staring at the ceiling. They whispered plans—bad ones, bratty ones, brilliant ones. Their laughter echoed down the mountain, mixing with the hum of the crystallized meringue in its jar. They were twins. They were trouble. They were each other’s favorite bad influence. And the world had no idea what it had just invited to dinner. The End (or just the appetizer).     Bring the Hatchlings Home Ember and Mistral may be tiny troublemakers on the page, but they deserve a place in your world too. Their bratty charm and whimsical energy have now been captured in stunning detail across a range of unique collectibles and home décor. Whether you want a bold centerpiece for your wall, a puzzle that makes you laugh while you piece together their antics, or a tote bag that carries just as much sass as these dragonlings do — we’ve got you covered. Perfect gifts for fantasy lovers, dragon enthusiasts, or anyone who believes desserts should occasionally try to overthrow civilization. Explore the collection: Metal Print — Vibrant detail, bold colors, and built to last like dragon mischief itself. Framed Print — A refined display of whimsical chaos, ready for your favorite wall. Puzzle — Recreate Ember and Mistral piece by piece, perfect for rainy days and cinnamon tea. Greeting Card — Share their cheeky charm with friends and family. Tote Bag — Carry their bratty energy with you wherever you go. Because sometimes the best kind of trouble… is the kind you can hang on your wall or sling over your shoulder.

Captured Tales – by Bill Tiepelman

Guardian of Winter Blossoms

The Tiger in the Snow They said the forest had a keeper. Not a ranger, not some crusty hermit with a beard full of frozen squirrels, but a tiger. A big, white, impossibly real tiger who walked where no paw prints should remain, and who carried in his mane an entire bouquet of blossoms that had no business blooming in a snowstorm. The villagers whispered his name like a curse or a prayer, depending on how many ciders they’d downed. They called him the Guardian of Winter Blossoms. Now, this tiger wasn’t your ordinary “I’ll eat your face if you look at me funny” sort of cat. Oh no. He was the divine union of myth, sass, and frostbite. Legends claimed he was born when a goddess of spring had one too many cocktails at a midsummer banquet and accidentally stumbled into the bed of the frost god. Nine months later: boom. One gloriously moody feline with a crown of flowers sprouting out of his fur, like some kind of murderous garden gnome on steroids. He was beautiful, terrifying, and, honestly, a little dramatic. The blossoms never wilted, no matter how deep the blizzards blew, and his amber eyes were rumored to pierce through souls like knives through hot butter. People swore he could see every secret you tried to bury—your midnight trysts, the time you lied about your grandmother being sick to get out of work, or that “accidentally” broken wine glass that totally wasn’t an accident. Nothing was safe under that gaze. The Guardian wasn’t just lounging about looking pretty, though. No, he had a job, and he took it seriously. His role was to keep the balance between frost and bloom. Too much winter and the world froze into silence. Too much spring and things rotted into chaos. He was the cosmic thermostat nobody asked for but desperately needed. Of course, he had opinions about everything, and he wasn’t shy about enforcing his will. Farmers found their crops mysteriously flourishing after leaving him offerings of honeyed mead. Hunters, however, who tried to take too much from the land? They disappeared. And not in a polite “off to grandma’s” kind of way—more like in a “never seen again, and we don’t talk about it at dinner” kind of way. Still, not everyone believed in him. Some called it a fairy tale. Others, a hallucination brought on by frostbite and boredom. But those who had seen him swore that when he moved through the snow, the wind itself stopped to bow. And every step left behind not paw prints, but a single blooming flower that defied the ice. That was how you knew he’d been there. That was how you knew the stories were real. And so, one night, when the blizzard was howling like a choir of banshees and the moon glowed pale and cruel, a wanderer stumbled into the frozen wood. She was bold, reckless, and frankly a little drunk. And she was about to discover just how much trouble one could get into when face-to-face with a sassy myth wrapped in fur and frost. The Wanderer and the Guardian The wanderer was not your average heroine material. She was not tall, nor noble, nor particularly skilled in anything besides drinking questionable liquors and making poor life choices. Her name was Lyra, though in some taverns she was known as “That Woman Who Tried to Arm-Wrestle a Goat” — a title she wore with more pride than shame. On this particular night, she’d set out in search of a shortcut through the winter forest, which anyone with half a brain would tell you was less “shortcut” and more “death wish.” But Lyra had never been particularly encumbered by half a brain. She stumbled through the snow, singing to herself, her breath fogging in the air like smoke signals calling out to whoever was bored enough to listen. That was when the wind changed. It didn’t just blow — it hushed, as though the entire forest had suddenly remembered its manners. The blizzard dropped into a silence so heavy it pressed against her ears. And in that silence, she saw him. There he was: the Guardian of Winter Blossoms. A massive, gleaming form of white fur streaked with black, a mane tumbling around his neck like a snowdrift on fire, sprouting flowers that glowed faintly against the dark. His amber eyes burned as if he’d been waiting for her specifically, which was alarming considering she had zero appointments scheduled with mythical beasts that evening. “Well,” Lyra muttered to herself, swaying only slightly, “either the cider was stronger than I thought, or I’ve wandered into a children’s storybook. In which case, I’d like to politely request to be the sassy side character who doesn’t die in Act One.” The tiger blinked. And then, to her horror and delight, he spoke. “Mortal,” his voice rumbled, deep enough to make the icicles tremble, “you trespass in the sacred domain of frost and bloom.” Lyra squinted at him. “Wow, okay, chill out with the Shakespeare. I’m just passing through. Do you want me to bow, or leave a Yelp review?” The Guardian’s mane of blossoms shivered in the icy wind. “You mock what you do not understand. Few mortals see me and live. Fewer still dare speak with such insolence.” “Insolence?” Lyra hiccupped. “Buddy, I’m just trying not to freeze my butt off. If you’re the local god-beast thing, can you point me toward an inn that serves stew and doesn’t charge extra for bread?” The tiger growled, and the sound made the trees shake snow from their branches like frightened birds. His eyes narrowed, but there was something else there too — amusement. No one had ever spoken to him like this. Usually it was begging, praying, or the high-pitched shriek of someone who realized far too late that staring at a divine predator was not the brightest life choice. “You are bold,” he admitted, pacing around her. His paws left behind blossoms in the snow: roses, marigolds, lilies — a trail of impossible life against the death-white world. “And foolish. Boldness and foolishness often walk hand in hand, though rarely for long.” Lyra turned to follow him, staggering a little but grinning. “Story of my life, stripes.” He paused. “Stripes?” “Yeah. Big, fluffy, dramatic stripes with flowers. Look, if you expect me to worship you, you’re going to have to get used to nicknames.” For a long, tense moment, the Guardian of Winter Blossoms stared at her, tail twitching, muscles coiled like frozen thunder. Then — and this part would become a scandalous rumor among the forest spirits for centuries to come — the great beast snorted. A sharp, unexpected huff that fogged the night air. It was almost laughter, though he’d never admit it. “Perhaps,” he said slowly, “you amuse me.” Lyra, never one to waste an opening, curtsied clumsily. “Finally. Someone gets my charm.” But amusement was a dangerous thing in the presence of gods and guardians. For every blossom in his mane, there were stories of blood in the snow. He was protector, yes — but also executioner. And the forest did not suffer fools for long. As the night deepened, Lyra found herself pulled into his orbit, whether she liked it or not. He began to test her, weaving riddles into the wind, shaping illusions in the frost, watching to see if her sass could hold up when the stakes were no longer cute banter, but survival. The first trial came quickly. A chorus of shadows slipped from the treeline — wolves, their eyes black as voids, their fur bristling with frost. They were not of this world; they were the Devourers of Balance, creatures who thrived when order tipped too far into chaos. Normally, the Guardian could dispatch them with a single roar. But tonight, as though fate had a sense of humor, he simply looked at Lyra. “Prove yourself,” he said, lowering his massive head until his breath warmed her face. “Or the snow will drink your bones.” “Excuse me?” she squeaked, fumbling for the dagger she barely knew how to use. “You’re the giant god-cat with the flower crown! Why do I have to—” But the wolves lunged. And Lyra, drunk, cold, and thoroughly unprepared, had no choice but to meet them head-on. What followed would not be remembered as graceful, dignified, or even competent. But it would be remembered — and sometimes, that’s enough to tilt the scales of destiny. The Balance of Frost and Bloom Lyra would later swear that the only thing that saved her from being eaten alive by frost-wolves was sheer dumb luck and the adrenaline-fueled clumsiness of someone who once survived falling off a roof because she landed in a laundry basket. She swung her dagger with all the grace of a drunk scarecrow, shrieking battle cries that sounded suspiciously like “DON’T YOU DARE TOUCH MY BOOTS!” Somehow, impossibly, she connected. Steel bit into icy fur, and the wolf dissolved into a puff of snow and shadow. The Guardian of Winter Blossoms sat watching, a smirk in his amber eyes. Not that he’d ever admit to smirking. But the truth was undeniable — he was enjoying the show. Every flower in his mane seemed to tremble with laughter, petals unfurling as though his very amusement fueled their bloom. More wolves lunged. Lyra rolled, stabbed, flailed, and cursed with a creativity that would’ve earned her a tavern-wide standing ovation back home. At one point she smacked a wolf with her boot instead of her blade and yelled, “I banish thee in the name of stylish footwear!” Somehow, that worked. By the end, the snow was littered with steaming blossoms where the wolves had once stood, proof that chaos had been beaten back by the most unlikely of champions. Breathless, dagger shaking in her hand, Lyra spun toward the Guardian. “Well? Am I a chosen hero now? Do I get a medal? A parade? A lifetime supply of mulled wine?” The tiger prowled closer, his fur rippling like living moonlight. He lowered his head until his amber gaze pinned her in place. “You did not fight with skill. You fought with defiance. That is rarer. And far more dangerous.” Lyra wiped her brow with a frozen mitten. “Translation: you’re impressed. Just say it, stripes. Go on. I won’t tell anyone… except literally everyone I meet.” The Guardian’s mane shook, and a single crimson blossom fell into the snow. He looked at it as if even he couldn’t believe what was happening. “No mortal has ever… loosened my crown.” “Oh great,” Lyra said, bending down to scoop up the flower. “Now I’m accidentally flirting with a mythological snow-cat. This is going straight into my diary under bad ideas that somehow worked out.” But as her fingers closed around the bloom, the air shifted. The forest itself groaned, trees bending under an unseen weight. The Guardian stiffened. “Do you understand what you’ve done?” he growled. “To take a blossom from my mane is to bind yourself to me. To the balance. To the endless war between frost and bloom.” Lyra blinked. “Wait—what? No one told me this was a contract deal! I thought it was just a free souvenir!” But it was too late. The flower pulsed in her hand, its heat searing against her skin even as the snow around her hissed and melted. The shadows of the wolves writhed at the edge of the trees, sensing weakness in the Guardian. He roared, the sound splitting the night, scattering them for now. Yet Lyra knew this wasn’t over. She had just been drafted into a battle older than memory itself. “Listen carefully, mortal,” the Guardian said, his voice both thunder and whisper. “The Devourers will return. They hunger for imbalance, and they will not stop. You are now part of this cycle. My strength flows into you, and your defiance fuels me. We are bound — guardian and fool. Petals and frost.” Lyra gaped. “Bound? Like… magically linked forever? I didn’t even get to negotiate terms! Where’s my union rep?!” The Guardian’s tail lashed. “You asked for stew and bread. You will instead have destiny and doom.” “Oh fabulous,” she groaned, throwing her arms up. “Every time I try to take a shortcut, I end up with existential baggage. This is why my friends tell me to just stay home!” Yet despite her protests, something inside her stirred. Power hummed under her skin. The crimson flower dissolved into sparks, sinking into her chest, and she felt the forest pulse with her heartbeat. She looked at the tiger again — no, not just a tiger, never just a tiger — and realized she wasn’t staring at some fairy-tale beast. She was staring at her partner. Her doom. Her ridiculous, floral-crowned, judgmental partner. “Fine,” she said at last, planting her fists on her hips. “If I’m stuck in this, you’re going to have to deal with me talking back. And singing when I’m drunk. And stealing the best blankets.” The Guardian’s blossoms rustled in the wind. His golden eyes gleamed like twin suns behind a snowstorm. And for the second time that night, scandalously, impossibly, he laughed. “Very well, Lyra,” he said. “Then let the world tremble. For the Guardian of Winter Blossoms now walks with a fool — and perhaps, just perhaps, the balance will be stronger for it.” And so they walked into the frozen dawn: the divine beast and the drunken wanderer, petals blooming where his paws touched, chaos cursing where her boots stumbled. Together they would face storms, shadows, and gods. Together they would rewrite what it meant to guard the fragile line between frost and bloom. And the legends would whisper forever of the day the Guardian laughed — and found his equal in a woman too foolish to fear him.     Bring the Guardian Home Lyra may have been bound to the Guardian of Winter Blossoms by accident, but you don’t need to wrestle frost-wolves or sign mythical contracts to bring his legend into your own home. This enchanting artwork is available across a range of unique pieces designed to add both power and whimsy to your space. From framed prints worthy of a gallery wall to cozy throws perfect for curling up during a snowstorm, each product carries the same fierce beauty and playful spirit that made the Guardian unforgettable. Whether you’re seeking to drape his presence across a tapestry, rest your head against a vibrant throw pillow, or jot down your own myths in a spiral notebook, each piece keeps a little of the Guardian’s balance close by. Wrap yourself in the story with a fleece blanket or let him preside proudly from your wall as a framed print. Because sometimes, balance isn’t found in frost or bloom, but in the way art transforms a space — reminding us that beauty, power, and a little bit of sass can thrive even in the coldest winters.

Captured Tales – by Bill Tiepelman

The Raindrop Rider

The Elf Who Wouldn’t Stay Dry Once upon a drizzle, in a forest where the ferns gossiped louder than drunk pixies and the moss had an opinion about everything, there lived a tiny elf named Pipwick. Pipwick was not what you’d call a “model elf.” He wasn’t elegant, or noble, or particularly good at remembering to wear pants. Instead, Pipwick was an enthusiastic disaster wrapped in pointy ears and impulsive decisions. His hobbies included heckling beetles, inventing swear words for mud, and laughing so hard at his own jokes that he sometimes passed out in tree hollows. He was, in short, chaos with freckles. Now, most elves carried themselves with grace and dignity, especially when it came to inclement weather. They wore cloaks woven from moonlight and spider silk. They danced delicately between raindrops like ballerinas who’d studied choreography with the clouds. Pipwick, however, believed that umbrellas, hoods, and anything resembling “common sense” were a conspiracy invented by elves who filed their toenails and paid taxes on time. He refused to stay dry. In fact, he insisted on getting wetter than strictly necessary. If rain was nature’s way of telling you to slow down, Pipwick’s response was to sprint shirtless through puddles while hollering like a deranged warlord. So it wasn’t surprising that on one particularly gloomy afternoon, as the heavens ripped open with sheets of silver water, Pipwick sprinted into a meadow of daisies, screaming at the sky: “IS THAT ALL YOU’VE GOT? I’VE SEEN SPITIER SHOWERS FROM SNEEZING GNOMES!” The daisies, who were trying very hard to look dignified despite being thrashed by the storm, groaned collectively. “Oh no,” sighed one particularly tall bloom. “He’s climbing us again.” And sure enough, Pipwick threw himself onto a daisy stem like a cowboy mounting a very confused horse. He wrapped his stubby fingers around it, his little rump squishing against the wet petals, and screamed with joy: “YEEHAW! THE RAINDROP EXPRESS HAS NO BRAKES!” Immediately, the storm turned his blue romper into a second skin, clinging tighter than an overeager ex who “just wants closure.” His platinum-blond hair stood in jagged spikes, as if a hedgehog had exploded on his head. Water streamed down his pointed ears and dripped from his button nose, but instead of looking miserable like a normal creature, Pipwick looked like he was auditioning for the role of “Tiny Idiot Hero” in some forgotten epic ballad. “Look at me!” Pipwick shouted, one leg kicking out as the daisy swayed dangerously. “I am the Raindrop Rider, champion of wet socks and lord of splashy chaos! Tremble, ye woodland creatures, for I bring NO TOWELS!” From the safety of her hollow log, a squirrel peeked out, rolled her eyes, and muttered, “Honestly, if I had a nut for every time that fool nearly drowned himself in drizzle, I’d own half this forest.” A family of mushrooms huddled together at the base of an oak, whispering nervously. “Do you think he’ll fall again?” asked one. “Last time he did, we smelled wet elf for weeks.” “If he falls,” grumbled a badger nearby, “I hope he falls into the river and floats downstream to plague some other woodland.” Pipwick, of course, ignored the critics. He was far too busy shrieking with delight as the daisy bent precariously under his weight. Every gust of wind sent him rocking back and forth like the world’s tiniest carnival ride. Every raindrop that smacked him in the face was met with triumphant giggles. He tilted his head back, opened his mouth, and began biting at the rain like he could chew the weather into submission. “Mmm, tastes like cloud juice!” he shouted to no one in particular. The storm intensified, lightning flashing briefly across the sky. Most creatures shivered or scampered for cover, but Pipwick only threw both arms into the air. “YES! STRIKE ME DOWN, O MIGHTY SKY! I DARE YOU! I’M TOO FABULOUS TO FRY!” Somewhere in the distance, thunder answered with a long, rumbling growl. The trees groaned. The daisies begged him quietly to get off. But Pipwick only clung tighter, grinning wide, his whole body vibrating with the thrill of the storm. If he had known what was about to happen, perhaps he would’ve hopped down, dried off, and behaved like a rational elf. But Pipwick was not rational. Pipwick was the Raindrop Rider. And his greatest adventure was only just beginning… Trouble Rides the Raindrops The storm raged harder, and Pipwick, naturally, got louder. That was his law: the wetter the weather, the bigger the performance. He clung to the daisy stem like a rodeo star and began narrating his own adventure as though the forest were an audience that had paid good coin to see him embarrass himself. “Behold!” he shouted over the crash of thunder. “I, Pipwick the Raindrop Rider, conqueror of drizzle, master of mud, kisser of questionable frogs, do hereby tame this wild flower beast in the name of…” He paused dramatically, trying to think of something important-sounding. “…in the name of… snacks!” Lightning split the sky. The squirrels all groaned in unison. Somewhere in the distance, a fox muttered, “Oh, saints preserve us, he’s monologuing again.” The daisy bent so far it was practically horizontal, and Pipwick whooped with delight. “Fly, my noble steed!” he cried, patting the stem. “Take me to glory! Take me to—OH BLOODY MOSS!” A particularly heavy raindrop, fat as a marble, smacked him right between the eyes. He flailed, slipped, and for one terrifying second, the entire forest got to enjoy the sight of a shrieking elf somersaulting through the air like a badly-thrown acorn. “NOT LIKE THIS! NOT IN BLUE!” he screamed. By sheer dumb luck—and possibly because the daisy pitied him—he landed back on the stem, legs wrapped around it, hair plastered to his forehead. He clutched the flower like it was a life raft and burst out laughing. “Ha! Did you see that? Perfect dismount! Ten out of ten! Judges, what say you?” A nearby crow cawed. To Pipwick, that absolutely meant, “Two out of ten.” “Rude!” Pipwick snapped back, flicking water at the crow. “Your nest looks like an unfluffed pillow, by the way!” The crow squawked indignantly and flapped off, leaving Pipwick alone with his daisy rollercoaster ride. The rain kept hammering down, washing mud into little rivers that streamed across the meadow. And that was when Pipwick’s eyes widened, and his grin turned dangerous. Mischief was about to happen. You could practically smell it, like burnt toast and bad decisions. “Ooooh,” he whispered to himself, glancing at the puddles forming below. “Rafting season.” Before the daisies could protest, Pipwick slid down the stem, landing with a splat in the mud. He staggered to his feet, his blue romper now so soaked it made squishy noises with every step. Undeterred, he began yanking leaves off nearby plants, shouting, “I REQUIRE VESSELS! The Raindrop Rider must RIDE!” “You can’t be serious,” muttered a fern. “I’m always serious when it involves speed and potential concussions!” Pipwick replied, gathering soggy petals and fashioning them into what could only generously be called a boat. It looked less like a seaworthy craft and more like something a toddler would build and then immediately regret. Nevertheless, Pipwick placed it in the rushing puddle, hopped aboard, and declared, “TO VICTORY!” The makeshift raft lurched forward. The puddle-stream carried him through the meadow, bouncing over pebbles and sticks like a drunk rollercoaster. Pipwick flung his arms wide, water spraying into his face, and screamed with joy, “YES! YES! WET SPEED IS THE BEST SPEED!” Forest creatures gathered along the banks to watch, because let’s be honest—entertainment was scarce, and Pipwick was basically free theatre. The squirrels placed bets on how many times he’d fall in. A hedgehog pulled out a quill and started keeping score. Even the badger, who claimed to be sick of Pipwick’s antics, muttered, “Well… I’ll give him this much. The boy’s committed.” The raft hit a rock, sending Pipwick flying several feet into the air. He landed face-first in the mud with a splat that echoed like a custard pie hitting a wall. He peeled his face out of the muck, spit out something that may have been a worm, and shouted triumphantly, “DID YOU SEE THAT LANDING?!” “You landed on your face,” a vole squeaked helpfully from the sidelines. “Exactly!” Pipwick grinned, mud dripping from his teeth. “I call that move ‘The Faceplant of Destiny!’” Back onto the raft he scrambled, laughing so hard he nearly fell off again. The stream carried him onward, twisting through the meadow like a miniature river of chaos. And with each new jolt, each new splash, Pipwick’s joy grew wilder. He wasn’t just riding rain anymore—he was waging war against dignity itself. And dignity was losing. The ride grew faster, the puddle-river widening as it carved a muddy channel through the grass. Pipwick’s raft began to spin. “LEFT! NO, RIGHT! NO, STRAIGHT! NO, AAAAHH!” he yelled, spinning so violently he resembled a very dizzy turnip. He clung to his soggy raft with one hand and shook a fist at the storm with the other. “IS THAT ALL YOU’VE GOT, SKY? I’VE HAD STRONGER SHOWERS FROM A DRIPPING LEAF!” The storm, apparently insulted, answered with a tremendous crack of thunder. The ground trembled. The puddle-river surged forward, carrying Pipwick straight toward a steep drop where the meadow sloped down into the forest proper. The crowd of creatures gasped in unison. “He’s not going to make it!” shrieked a rabbit. “He never makes it!” corrected a weasel. Pipwick, meanwhile, was cackling like a madman. His hair plastered to his forehead, his romper clinging like blue paint, he leaned into the storm and screamed, “BRING ME YOUR WORST! I AM THE RAINDROP RIDER! AND I AM—OH SWEET MOSS, THAT’S A DROP—” And then his raft went over the edge. The last thing anyone heard as he vanished into the depths of the forest below was his delighted shriek: “WHEEEEEEEE!” The Legend of the Soggy Fool Pipwick’s leafy raft plunged off the meadow’s edge, spinning violently as the rain-fed stream hurled him into the tangled undergrowth below. He shrieked like a kettle left on the fire, arms flailing, mouth wide open to catch raindrops like they were free samples at a market stall. For one glorious, terrifying moment, he was airborne—hair streaming back, eyes bugging with wild delight—before crashing into a new channel of water that carried him deeper into the forest. “WOOOOO! YES! THIS IS WHAT I WAS BORN FOR!” he bellowed, despite swallowing at least half a pint of mud-water. His raft disintegrated almost instantly, but Pipwick simply latched onto a passing log, legs dangling behind him as the torrent rushed forward. Above him, forest creatures lined the slope, following the chaos like spectators at a traveling circus. A chorus of squirrels scurried along the branches, narrating the disaster in squeaky unison. “He’s spinning left! No, right! No—oh, ooooh, face-first into the brambles! That’s going to sting later!” “Somebody should stop him,” sighed an owl, blinking solemnly from her perch. “He’s going to break his neck.” “Pfft,” replied a hedgehog. “That elf is too stupid to break. He’ll bounce.” The storm didn’t let up. Sheets of water sluiced down the canopy, turning every root and stone into a hazard. Pipwick, of course, treated each new obstacle as if it were part of an elaborate amusement park ride built for his own entertainment. A root snagged his log, sending him flying sideways into a patch of nettles. He emerged seconds later, red and itchy but beaming like a maniac. “YES! TEN MORE POINTS FOR STYLE!” The current spat him out into a larger clearing where the water had pooled into a broad, swirling basin. Here, his log began spinning lazily in circles. Pipwick, dizzy but determined, rose to his feet with arms flung wide. “LADIES AND GENTLEMEN OF THE FOREST! BEHOLD, THE RAINDROP RIDER IN HIS FINALE PERFORMANCE: THE DEATH-SPIN OF DOOM!” “More like the dizziness of doom,” muttered a vole from the sidelines, chewing on a wet leaf. “He’s gonna hurl.” Sure enough, Pipwick staggered, turned greenish, and leaned over to vomit spectacularly into the water. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve, raised his arms again, and shouted, “IT’S PART OF THE SHOW! YOU PAID FOR THE WHOLE PERFORMANCE, DIDN’T YOU?!” The basin overflowed suddenly, sending the water rushing onward in a violent surge. Pipwick’s log shot forward, careening between trees and bouncing over rocks. He ducked under low branches, dodged snapping brambles, and once shouted, “OW! MY LEFT BUTTOCK IS SACRIFICED TO THE CAUSE!” after colliding with a sharp stick. But still, he grinned. Still, he cackled. Nothing—not mud, not bruises, not the strong likelihood of tetanus—could dull his joy. At one particularly sharp bend, his log tipped, and Pipwick was flung bodily into the current. He tumbled head over heels, somersaulting through frothing water until he finally managed to cling to an enormous toadstool growing on the bank. He hung there panting, mud streaming off his face, ears twitching wildly. And then, because Pipwick was Pipwick, he started laughing again. “I’M ALIVE! STILL WET! STILL FABULOUS!” The toadstool groaned. “Honestly, could you not?” But Pipwick was already hauling himself upright, wobbling on the mushroom like a circus performer. His romper sagged with water, squelching horribly. His hair stuck to his face like kelp. He smelled like damp moss, frog spit, and regret. And yet, he struck a pose like a victorious champion, fists on hips, chin raised dramatically. “Citizens of the forest!” he proclaimed, ignoring that most of said citizens were either laughing at him or hoping he’d finally drown. “This day shall be remembered as the day Pipwick the Raindrop Rider tamed the storm! The skies themselves tried to throw me down, but lo! I remain standing! Bruised! Moist! Possibly concussed! But victorious!” “You were screaming the whole way down,” pointed out a rabbit. “Screaming with joy!” Pipwick shot back. “And also mild terror! But mostly joy!” Thunder cracked again, and the rain continued to pelt down. Pipwick lifted his tiny fists and shouted, “You’ll never beat me, sky! I am your soggy nemesis! I am the rider of raindrops, the breaker of dignity, the champion of stupid ideas!” And with that, he slipped on the mushroom, tumbled into the mud face-first, and lay there giggling hysterically as worms slithered indignantly out of his hair. He didn’t even bother getting up. Why would he? He had lived his dream. He had taken a storm, wrestled it into absurdity, and turned it into a comedy act. He was Pipwick the Raindrop Rider, and he was exactly where he wanted to be: covered in mud, soaking wet, and cackling like an idiot while the whole forest watched in disbelief. Some called him a fool. Some called him a menace. But everyone, whether they admitted it or not, would be talking about the Raindrop Rider for seasons to come. And Pipwick? He’d be back on the daisies the next time the clouds gathered, ready to shriek, spin, fall, and laugh all over again. Because that’s what fools do. And sometimes, the world needs its fools just as much as it needs its heroes.     Bring the Raindrop Rider Home If Pipwick’s soggy adventure made you laugh as hard as the forest critters did, you can carry his joy into your own world. “The Raindrop Rider” is available as a framed print to brighten your walls, or as a striking metal print for bold, modern decor. Share his mischievous grin with friends through a whimsical greeting card, or keep his playful spirit close in a spiral notebook for your own outrageous ideas. And for those who want Pipwick’s cheer wherever the sun shines, there’s even a beach towel—because nothing says summer fun like drying off with the forest’s most infamous wet fool.

Captured Tales – by Bill Tiepelman

Dragonling in Gentle Hands

The Morning I Accidentally Adopted a Myth I woke to the sound of something humming on my windowsill, a note so small and bright it could have been a sliver of sunshine practicing scales. It wasn’t the kettle, and it wasn’t the neighbor’s feral wind chimes announcing another victory over the concept of melody. It was, as it turned out, a dragonling—a baby dragon the color of sunrise marmalade—clicking its pebble-like scales together the way contented cats purr. I was wearing an intricate dress I’d fallen asleep hemming—lace like frostwork, embroidery like ivy—and I remember thinking, very calmly: ah, yes, fantasy has finally come for me before coffee. The creature blinked. Two onyx eyes reflected my kitchen in perfect miniature: copper kettle, ceramic mugs, a calendar still turned to last month because deadlines are a myth we whisper to make ourselves feel organized. When I offered my hands, the dragonling tilted its head and scooted forward, claws whispering across the sill. The instant its weight settled in my palm, a warmth bloomed up my wrists, not hot exactly—more like the heat in fresh bread, the kind you break open and steam hugs your face. It smelled faintly of citrus and campfire. If “cozy” had a mascot, it had just climbed into my hands. “Hello,” I said, because when a mythical creature chooses you, manners matter. “Are you lost? Misdelivered? Out of warranty?” The dragonling blinked again, then chirruped. I swear the sound spelled my name. Elara. The syllables trembled in the air, tinged with spark. Tiny horns framed its head like a crown for a very small monarch who could, if pressed, flambé a marshmallow from three paces. It rested its chin where my thumbs met, as if I were a throne it had ordered from an artisan marketplace labeled hands for dragons. Somewhere between the second blink and the third chirrup, my sensible brain returned from its coffee break and filed an objection. We don’t know how to care for a dragon. The objection was overruled by the part of me that collects teacups and stray stories: we learn by doing—and by reading the manual, which surely exists somewhere between fairy-tale and homeowner’s insurance. I set the dragonling gently on a folded tea towel—neutral tones; we respect aesthetics—and inspected it the way you’d examine a priceless antique or a newborn idea. Each scale was a tiny mosaic tile, orange fading to ivory along the belly like a sunrise sliding down a snowy ridge. The texture whispered photorealistic, the way a really good fantasy art print dares your fingers to touch it. The horns looked sharp but not unkind. In the right angle of light, glitter—actual glitter—winked in the creases like stardust too lazy to leave after the party. “Okay,” I said, businesslike now. “Rules. One: no lighting anything on fire without supervision. Two: if you’re going to roast anything, it’s brussels sprouts. Three: we are a shoes-off household.” The dragonling lifted one foot—paw? claw?—and set it back down with grave dignity. Understood. I texted my group chat, Thread of Chaos (three artists, one baker, one librarian with the tactical calm of a medic), and typed: I have acquired a small dragon. Advice? The baker sent a string of heart emojis and suggested I name it Crème Brûlée. The librarian recommended immediate research and possibly a permit: Is there a Dragon Registry? You can’t just have combustible pets unlicensed. The painter wanted pictures. I snapped one—dragonling in my hands, lace sleeves soft as cloud—and the replies exploded: That looks REAL. How did you render the scales like that? Is this for your shop—posters, puzzles, stickers? I stared at the screen and typed the truest thing: It breathed on my palm and warmed my rings. The kettle finally finished its marathon to a boil. Steam curled toward the ceiling as if auditioning for the dragon’s job. When I lifted my mug, the dragonling leaned in, intrigued by the shallow sea of tea. “No,” I said gently, easing the cup away. “Caffeine is for humans and writers on a deadline.” It sneezed a microscopic spark and looked offended. To make amends, I offered a saucer of water. It lapped delicately, each sip producing a sound like a match being struck in the next room. A name arrived the way names sometimes do—inside a pause, as if it had been waiting for me to catch up. “Ember,” I said. “Or Emberly, if we’re formal.” The dragonling straightened, clearly pleased. Then it did something that rearranged the furniture of my heart: it pressed its forehead to my thumb, a tiny, trusting weight, as if stamping a treaty. Mine, it said without words. Yours. I hadn’t planned for a mythical roommate. My apartment was optimized for flat lay photography, fantasy decor, and a rotating collection of thrift-store chairs that squeaked like characters with opinions. And yet, as Ember explored the countertop—tail going flick-flick like punctuation—I could already see where the dragon would belong. The arm of the velvet sofa (sun-warm in the afternoons). The bookshelf ledge between poetry and cookbooks (where, admittedly, the cookbooks serve mostly as platonic aspirations). The ceramic planter that once held a succulent and now holds an enduring lesson about hubris. When Ember discovered my sewing basket, she made a sound so ecstatic it nearly hit whistle register. I intercepted her before she could inventory the pins with her mouth. “Absolutely not,” I said, sweeping the basket shut. “You’re a mythical creature, not a hedgehog with impulse control issues.” She pretended not to hear me, all innocence, the way toddlers pretend not to understand the word bedtime. For science, I laid out a rectangle of foil. Ember approached with ceremonial care, tapped it, and then scampered onto it like someone stepping onto a frozen pond for the first time. The foil crinkled. The sound—oh, that sound—made her eyes go moon-wide. She strutted in a circle, then performed a triumphant hop. If there is an internationally recognized dance of victory, Ember invented it on my counter with the stagecraft of a pop star and the dignity of a sparrow discovering breakdancing. I applauded. She bowed, entirely certain applause had been the plan all along. We negotiated breakfast. I offered scrambled eggs; Ember accepted a single bite and then, with the gravitas of a food critic, declined further participation. She preferred the water, the warmth of my hands, and the sunlight pooling across the table like liquid gold. Now and then, she exhaled a whisper of heat that polished my rings and made the spoon warm enough to smell like metal waking up. By nine, Ember had inventoried the apartment, terrified the vacuum from the safety of my shoulder, and discovered the mirror. She placed one hand—claw—against the glass, then another, then booped her own nose with profound reverence. The dragon in the mirror booped back. She made a sound like a smol kettle agreeing with itself. I realized, with sudden certainty, that I was not going to make it to my nine-thirty Zoom call. I also realized—and here I felt every synapse click into a better alignment—that my life had been a neatly labeled shelf, and Ember was the book that refused to stand upright. I texted my boss (a patient patron saint of freelancers) that my morning had turned “unexpectedly mythological,” and she replied, “Take pictures. We’ll call it research.” I took a dozen. In each photo, Ember looked like a sculpture of wonder someone had polished with awe. Dragon in hands. Baby dragon. Fantasy realism. Whimsical creature. Mythical bond. The keywords slid through my brain like fish through a stream, not as marketing this time, but as praise. After the photos, we napped on the couch in a puddle of light. Ember fit in the curve of my palm as if my hand had been designed for exactly this purpose—a cradle of scales and dreams. I woke to the sound of the mail slot shivering and found a narrow envelope on the mat, addressed to me in an elegant, old-fashioned hand: Elara,Congratulations on your successful hatching.Do not be alarmed by the hearth-syndrome; it passes.A representative will arrive before dusk to conduct the customary orientation.Warm regards,The Registry of Gentle Monsters I read the letter three times, then reread the part where the universe had apparently been waiting to send me stationery from the Registry of Gentle Monsters. Ember peeked over the paper’s edge and sneezed a spark that punctuated the signature with a dot of singe. Orientation. Before dusk. A representative. I thought of my unwashed hair, my less-than-stellar habits, my collection of mugs with literary quotes that made me sound much more well-read than I actually am. I thought of how quickly you can fall in love with something that fits inside your hands. “Right,” I told Ember, smoothing the letter as if it were a patient animal. “We will be excellent. We will be prepared. We will conceal the fact that I once set toast on fire in a toaster labeled ‘foolproof’.” Ember nodded with a seriousness that could have chaired a board meeting. She tucked her tail around my wrist—the living definition of friendship: a small, warm loop closing, promising mischief with consent. We tidied. I vacuumed; Ember judged. I swept; Ember rode the broom like a parade marshal. I lit a candle and then, reconsidering the optics of open flame near a creature that was technically a tiny furnace with opinions, blew it out. The day smoothed itself into quiet, the kind you can set a tea cup on and it won’t rattle. And then, with the deliberation of a curtain rising, someone knocked on my door. Ember and I looked at each other. She climbed my sleeve, settled at the crook of my elbow, and lifted her chin. Ready. I squared my shoulders, smoothed my embroidered dress—lace catching the light like frost—and opened the door to a woman in a long coat the color of thunderclouds. She carried a briefcase that hummed faintly and had the serene face of someone who never loses a pen. “Good morning, Elara,” she said, as if she’d known me all my life. “And good morning, Emberly.” The dragonling chirped, pleased. “I’m Maris, with the Registry. Shall we begin?” Behind her, the hallway rippled, just slightly, as if reality had taken a deep breath and decided to hold it. The smell of rain pressed against the threshold, bright and metallic. Maris’s eyes sparked with a kindness I wanted to trust. Ember’s tail tapped my forearm: Let’s. I stepped aside, heart beating a tidy allegro. A representative. An orientation. A whole registry of gentle monsters. Somewhere in the air between us, the future crackled like kindling. The Orientation, or: How to Fail Gracefully at Myth Management Maris swept into the apartment like she owned the air itself. Her thundercloud coat whispered secrets every time it shifted, and her briefcase hummed with a noise suspiciously like an electric kettle deciding whether to gossip. She sat at my wobbly dining table (bless the thrift shop), opened the briefcase with a click that sounded final, and produced a stack of forms bound in silver thread. Each page smelled faintly of lavender, old libraries, and the way parchment feels in dreams. Ember leaned forward, sniffing them with reverence, then sneezed another spark that singed a tidy hole through section C, question 12. “Don’t worry,” Maris said smoothly, producing a fountain pen the size of a wand. “That happens often. We encourage young hatchlings to mark their own paperwork. It establishes co-ownership.” She slid the form toward me. At the top, in neat, calligraphic letters, it read: Registry of Gentle Monsters — Orientation & Bonding Contract. Beneath that, in bold: Section 1: Acknowledgement of Fire Hazards and Snuggles. I read aloud. “I, the undersigned, agree to provide shelter, affection, and regular enrichment to the dragonling, hereafter referred to as Emberly, while acknowledging that accidental flambéing of curtains, documents, and eyebrows is statistically probable?” Ember gave a self-satisfied trill and licked her tiny lips. I signed. Ember patted the page, leaving a small scorch in place of a signature. Bureaucracy has never looked so whimsical. Next came dietary guidelines: “Feed Emberly two tablespoons of hearth fuel daily.” I asked, “What exactly is hearth fuel?” Maris produced a velvet pouch, opened it, and spilled out a handful of what looked like glittering coal mixed with cinnamon sugar. Ember practically levitated, eyes huge, and scarfed one pebble with the enthusiasm of a child meeting cotton candy for the first time. The afterburp was a delicate puff of smoke shaped suspiciously like a heart. “Note,” Maris added, scribbling on her clipboard, “Emberly may also attempt to eat tinfoil, shiny buttons, or the concept of jealousy. Please discourage the last one—it causes indigestion.” She looked at me over her spectacles, and I nodded gravely, as though jealousy snacking was something I dealt with regularly. The orientation continued with a section titled Socialization. Apparently, Ember must attend weekly “Play & Spark” sessions with other hatchlings to prevent what the manual called antisocial hoarding behavior. I pictured a support group of tiny dragons fighting over glitter and squeaky toys. Ember, still crunching on hearth fuel, wagged her tail like a dog at the word “play.” She was in. Then came the Friendship Clause. Maris tapped the page meaningfully. “This is the most important part,” she said. “It ensures your relationship remains reciprocal. Emberly will not simply be a pet. She will be your equal, your companion, and, in many ways, your very small yet very opinionated roommate.” Ember chirped as if to underline roommate. I imagined her leaving passive-aggressive notes on the fridge: Dear Elara, stop hogging the good sunlight spot. Love, Ember. “You will,” Maris continued, “share secrets, share burdens, and share laughter. It is the Registry’s belief that the bond between a human and their gentle monster is not a leash but a handshake.” I looked at Ember, who had curled into my elbow like a molten bracelet, her scales glittering against the lace embroidery of my sleeve. She blinked up at me, slow and trusting. A handshake, indeed. Paperwork finished, Maris reached into her briefcase once more and produced a small, polished object: a key shaped like a dragon’s claw holding a pearl. “This,” she said, “opens Emberly’s hearth box. You’ll receive it in the post within the week. Inside, you’ll find her lineage papers, a map to your nearest safe flying field, and a complimentary starter toy.” She paused, then leaned closer. “Between us, the toy will look ridiculous—rubber squeaker, flame-proof. Do not laugh. Dragons are sensitive about enrichment.” I made the mistake of asking how many other humans were bonded with dragonlings in the city. Maris smiled, the kind of smile that could power a lighthouse. “Enough to fill a pub,” she said. “Not enough to win a rugby match. You’ll know them when you meet them. You’ll smell the faintest trace of campfire, or notice the pockets with suspicious scorch marks. There’s a community.” She looked at Ember. “And now you’re part of it.” The idea thrilled me—a secret society of gentle monsters and their oddball humans, like a support group where the snacks occasionally catch fire. Ember yawned, showing teeth so tiny and sharp they looked like a row of pearls with a vendetta, and then promptly curled against my wrist, asleep mid-orientation. The warmth of her breath seeped through my skin until I felt branded with comfort. “Any questions?” Maris asked, already stacking papers into her humming briefcase. “Yes,” I said, unable to stop myself. “What happens if I mess this up?” Maris’s thundercloud eyes softened. “Oh, Elara. You will mess this up. Everyone does. Curtains will burn, biscuits will vanish, neighbors will file noise complaints about mysterious chirrups at dawn. But if you love her, and if you let her love you back, it won’t matter. Friendship is not about being flawless. It’s about being singed, occasionally, and laughing anyway.” She stood, coat shifting like weather. “You’re doing fine already.” And then she was gone, leaving only the faint smell of ozone and a half-empty pouch of hearth fuel. The latch on the door clicked, reality exhaled, and Ember blinked awake in my arms as if to say: Did I miss anything? I kissed the top of her tiny horned head. “Only the part where we became officially inseparable.” Ember sneezed, this time producing a smoke ring that drifted toward the ceiling before popping into glitter. I laughed until I nearly fell out of the chair. Bureaucracy had never looked so charming. The Friendship Clause in Action The next morning, Ember decided she was ready to explore the outside world. She demonstrated this by staging a protest in the living room: tiny claws on hips, tail whipping back and forth like a metronome set to defiance. When I tried to distract her with a rubber squeaker toy Maris had couriered overnight (shaped like a flame-retardant duck, heaven help us), Ember gave it one sniff, sneezed a spark that made it squeal involuntarily, and then turned her entire back on it. Message received. We were going out. I dressed with care: my prettiest embroidered dress, boots sturdy enough to survive both puddles and potential dragon-related detours, and a shawl to shield Ember from nosy neighbors. Ember clambered onto my shoulder, her scales glittering like sequins that had decided to unionize. She puffed a determined plume of smoke that smelled faintly of toasted marshmallow. “Alright,” I whispered, tucking her close. “Let’s show the world how whimsical bureaucracy looks in action.” The streets were ordinary that morning—coffee shops buzzing, pigeons plotting their usual bread crimes, joggers pretending running is fun—but Ember transformed them. She gasped at everything: lampposts, puddles, the smell of bagels. She tried to chase a leaf, then remembered she couldn’t fly yet and sulked until I let her ride in the crook of my arm like royalty in exile. Every time someone passed too close, she puffed a polite warning smoke ring. Most people ignored it, because apparently the universe is kind enough to let dragons pass as “quirky pets” in broad daylight. Bless urban denial. At the park, Ember discovered grass. I didn’t know it was possible for a dragonling to experience rapture, but there it was—rolling, chirruping, tail-thrashing joy. She tried to collect blades in her mouth like confetti and then spat them out dramatically, offended that they didn’t taste like hearth fuel. A small child pointed and shouted, “Look, Mommy, a lizard princess!” Ember froze, then puffed herself up to twice her size and performed a very undignified ta-da. The child applauded. Ember preened, basking in the world’s first recognition of her stage career. That’s when another dragonling arrived—sleek and blue as twilight, perched on the shoulder of a woman juggling two coffee cups and a tote bag that said World’s Okayest Witch. The blue dragonling chirped. Ember chirped louder. Suddenly I was in the middle of what can only be described as a competitive friendship-off, complete with synchronized tail-whipping and elaborate smoke rings. The other woman and I exchanged weary-but-amused smiles. “Registry?” I asked. She nodded. “Orientation yesterday?” She held up her singed sleeve like a badge of honor. Instant kinship. The dragonlings tumbled together on the grass, rolling like overcaffeinated puppies with wings. Ember paused long enough to look at me, her onyx eyes sparkling with unmistakable joy. I felt it then, deep in the lace-trimmed bones of my life: this wasn’t just whimsy, or chaos, or an elaborate form of spontaneous combustion disguised as pet ownership. This was friendship—messy, charming, ridiculous friendship. The kind that singes your sleeves but warms your soul. When we finally returned home, Ember curled into her hearth box (which had indeed arrived in the post, complete with a squeaky rubber phoenix that I pretended to take seriously). She hummed herself to sleep, scales glinting like pocket-sized constellations. I sat beside her, sipping tea, feeling the house glow with more life than it had ever held before. There would be mishaps. Curtains would burn. Neighbors would gossip. Someday, Ember would grow larger than my sofa and we’d have to renegotiate space and snacks. But none of that mattered. Because I had signed the Friendship Clause, not with ink, but with laughter and care—and Ember had countersigned with sparks, warmth, and the occasional unsolicited flambé. I leaned closer, whispering into her dreams: “Dragonling in gentle hands, forever.” Ember stirred, exhaled a tiny smoke heart, and settled again. And just like that, I knew: this was the beginning of every good story worth telling.     If Ember’s charm has warmed your heart as much as it singed my curtains, you can carry a piece of her whimsical spirit home. Our “Dragonling in Gentle Hands” artwork is now available as enchanting keepsakes and décor—perfect for anyone who believes friendship should always come with a spark. Framed Print — A timeless presentation, capturing every shimmering scale and delicate detail of Ember in a gallery-ready frame. Canvas Print — Bring the warmth of Ember’s gaze into your home with a bold, textured wall display. Tote Bag — Carry Ember with you everywhere, a perfect blend of art and everyday utility. Spiral Notebook — Let Ember guard your ideas, doodles, or secret plans with a notebook that feels part journal, part spellbook. Sticker — Add a touch of magic to your laptop, water bottle, or journal with Ember’s miniature likeness. From framed art for your walls to whimsical accessories for your daily adventures, every product carries the laughter, mischief, and friendship Ember represents. Bring home a spark of magic today.

Captured Tales – by Bill Tiepelman

Hatchling of the Storm

A Hatchling’s Complaint The rain had been falling for hours, and if you asked the little dragon about it (which no one did, since no one else was brave—or foolish—enough to talk to a dragon hatchling in the first place), he’d tell you it was the rudest weather he’d ever experienced. His name was Ember, which he felt was both an appropriate and extremely misleading name. Sure, it suggested warmth, fire, and menace. But at this soggy moment, it mostly meant that the universe found it hilarious to drench him whenever he tried to look impressive. His scales were supposed to sparkle like gemstones in firelight, not drip like a wet kitchen sponge. “Storms are disrespectful,” Ember announced to a passing beetle, who wisely skittered away. “No warning, no courtesy, no consideration for my delicate wings. Do you know how long it takes to dry wings properly? You don’t, because you’re a beetle. But I assure you, it takes ages!” The truth was, Ember had been hatched only a few days ago, and while he had already mastered the art of glaring at clouds with theatrical disdain, he had not yet managed actual flight. His wings flapped, yes, but more in the manner of an enthusiastic fan at a medieval rock concert rather than a creature of power and grace. Still, he considered himself a future menace. A fiery terror of the skies. A legend. And legends did not get rained on without complaining very loudly about it. “When I am older,” Ember continued, mostly to himself (though he hoped the beetle was still listening from somewhere safe), “the world will fear me. They will write ballads about my flames and tales of my claws. I shall scorch villages, steal goats, and—oh look, another droplet in my eye. Rude! Rude!” His bratty tirade was interrupted by a particularly fat raindrop that plopped right onto the tip of his nose, hanging there like a crystal bead. Ember crossed his eyes to stare at it, huffed indignantly, and then sneezed. A puff of smoke rose from his tiny nostrils, carrying the faint smell of cinnamon and burnt toast. It wasn’t exactly terrifying, but it was the sort of sneeze that might make a baker question his oven temperature. Ember liked to believe it was progress. Somewhere beyond the trees, thunder grumbled. Ember narrowed his eyes. “Don’t you start with me,” he warned the sky. “I may be small, but I have potential.” And so, perched on his mossy log, dripping like a disgruntled sponge with wings, Ember sulked. He sulked with conviction, with style, and with a kind of bratty grace only a dragon hatchling could manage. If dragons could roll their eyes at the universe, Ember was already a master of the art. The Brat Meets the World The storm dragged on into the late afternoon, and Ember’s sulking reached new levels of dramatic artistry. At one point he attempted to flop belly-first onto his mossy perch like some great martyr of weather injustice. The result was a damp squelch and a very un-dignified squeak. He scowled at the log, as though it had deliberately betrayed him, and then composed himself with a haughty sniff. If anyone were watching, they would understand he was not merely wet—he was the victim of cosmic sabotage. And he would not forget it. But fate, as fate often does, decided to toss Ember a distraction. From the underbrush came a rustle, a clatter, and then the sight of… a rabbit. A perfectly ordinary rabbit, except for the fact that it was nearly twice Ember’s size. It had sleek brown fur, twitchy ears, and an expression of mild curiosity. Ember, of course, saw this as a challenge. He puffed his tiny chest, spread his rain-heavy wings, and tried his most terrifying snarl. Unfortunately, what came out sounded suspiciously like the hiccup of an asthmatic kitten. The rabbit blinked. Then it bent down and began to chew on some nearby clover, utterly unimpressed. Ember’s jaw dropped. “Excuse me!” he barked. “I am threatening you. You are supposed to cower, maybe tremble a little. A squeal of fear wouldn’t hurt. Honestly, this is the least cooperative prey I’ve ever seen.” “You’re not scary,” the rabbit said matter-of-factly between bites, in the casual tone of someone who had seen many strange things in the woods and filed this one under “not worth panicking over.” “Not scary?” Ember’s wings flapped indignantly, spraying droplets everywhere. “Do you not see the smoke? The scales? The eyes brimming with untold chaos?” “I see a wet lizard with delusions of grandeur,” said the rabbit. It chewed another clover, staring pointedly at him. “And maybe a sinus problem.” Ember gasped, affronted. “LIZARD?!” He stomped one tiny claw on the log, which made a dull squish rather than the thunderous boom he had intended. “I am a DRAGON. The future scourge of kingdoms. The nightmare of knights. The—” “The soggiest creature in this clearing?” the rabbit offered. Ember sputtered smoke. He would have roasted the rabbit on the spot, except his fire gland seemed to still be warming up. What emerged was a pathetic puff of smoke and one lonely spark that fizzled in the rain like a birthday candle being spat on. The rabbit tilted its head, unimpressed. “Ferocious. Truly. Should I faint now or after my snack?” Ember flung himself into an even grander tantrum, wings flapping, claws waving, smoke puffing in erratic bursts. He imagined he looked like a terrifying tempest of doom. In reality, he looked like a wet toddler trying to swat away a persistent housefly. The rabbit yawned. Ember paused mid-flap, seething. “Fine,” he snapped. “Clearly, the storm has conspired against me, dampening my flames and sabotaging my menace. But I assure you, when I grow—when these wings dry and these claws sharpen—you’ll rue this day, Rabbit. You’ll rue it with all your fluffy being.” “Mmhmm,” said the rabbit. “I’ll put it on my calendar.” And with that, it hopped lazily into the bushes, vanishing like a magician who couldn’t be bothered with applause. Ember stared after it, his mouth open, chest heaving with outrage. Then, very softly, he muttered, “Stupid rabbit.” Left alone again, Ember slumped onto his log, tail drooping. For a moment, he felt terribly small. Not just in size, but in destiny. Was this what the world thought of dragons? Just damp lizards? A future chicken nugget with wings? He hated the thought. He hated the rain, the moss, the rabbit. Most of all, he hated the sinking suspicion that he wasn’t nearly as scary as he’d imagined. His amber eyes glistened—not with tears, of course, because dragons do not cry, but with raindrops. Or at least that’s what Ember would tell anyone who dared ask. But then, something happened. Somewhere in his tiny, sulky heart, a warmth flickered. Not the damp spark of frustration, but a real warmth, coiling from his belly and up through his chest. Ember blinked, startled. He hiccuped again, but this time the smoke came with a soft whoosh of flame—just enough to curl a leaf into ash. Ember’s eyes widened. His sulk was forgotten in an instant. “Oh,” he whispered. “Oh, yes.” For the first time since the rain began, Ember smiled. It was a bratty little grin, the kind of smirk that promised trouble. Trouble for rabbits, trouble for storms, and definitely trouble for anyone who thought a dragon hatchling was just a lizard with bad sinuses. His wings shivered, his tail flicked, and his eyes gleamed with the sheer audacity of possibility. The storm might not have ended yet, but Ember was no longer sulking. He was plotting. And somewhere, deep in the thunderclouds, the storm seemed to chuckle back. Sparks Against the Storm By the time the storm rolled into evening, Ember’s brat-meter had reached record-breaking levels. He was damp, muddy, and insulted beyond reason. A rabbit had mocked him. The sky had sneezed on him. Even the moss under his claws squished like it was laughing at him. Ember decided the universe itself had joined a conspiracy to ruin his debut as “Most Terrifying Hatchling Ever.” And for a baby dragon, whose entire self-image relied on dramatic overcompensation, this was unacceptable. “Enough,” he muttered, pacing on his log like a tiny general planning the downfall of clouds. “The storm thinks it’s fierce? I’ll show fierce. I will fry the thunder. I will roast the lightning. I will—” He paused, mostly because he wasn’t entirely sure how one roasted lightning. But the sentiment stood. He puffed his chest, and the warmth from his belly coiled upward again, stronger this time. It tickled his throat, daring him to unleash it. Ember grinned, wings twitching. “Watch and learn, world,” he declared, “for I am Ember, Hatchling of the Storm!” What followed was… well, let’s call it “a work in progress.” Ember inhaled deeply, summoned every ounce of his inner fire, and belched forth a heroic gout of flame—except it came out as more of a sputtering flamethrower with hiccups. The flame burst, faltered, popped, and singed a fern so thoroughly that it now smelled like overcooked spinach. Ember blinked. Then he cackled. “Yes! Yes, that’s it!” He leapt up and down on the log, claws skittering, wings smacking droplets everywhere. “Did you see that, Storm? I AM YOUR MATCH!” As if in reply, the sky growled with thunder so deep it shook the branches. Ember froze, his tiny body vibrating from the rumble. He swallowed hard. “…Okay, impressive,” he admitted. “But I can be loud too.” He tried roaring. What came out was not so much a roar as it was a glorified squeak followed by a cough. Still, Ember refused to admit defeat. He tried again, louder this time, until his voice cracked like a teenager’s. The thunder rolled again, mocking him. Ember’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, so you think you’re funny? You think you can drown me, rattle me, soak me until I shrivel like a prune? Well guess what, Storm: I am DRAGON. And dragons are brats with persistence.” He flapped his wings furiously, wobbling but determined, and hurled himself off the log. He landed face-first in a mud puddle. There was a long pause, broken only by the plop of water sliding off his horns. Ember sat up, mud dripping from every scale, and glared at nothing in particular. “This,” he growled, “is fine.” Then, something miraculous happened. The storm shifted. The rain slowed to a drizzle, the clouds thinned, and streaks of gold began to break across the sky. Ember blinked up at the light, eyes wide. The sunset painted the forest in orange fire, glowing off his scales until he looked less like a soggy brat and more like a jewel burning in the twilight. For once, Ember stopped sulking. For once, he was quiet. In that hush, he felt it—power, potential, destiny. Maybe the rabbit was right. Maybe right now he was just a soggy lizard with a sinus issue. But someday—someday—he’d be more. He could see it in the shimmer of his scales, hear it in the low purr of fire coiling inside him. He wasn’t just a hatchling. He was a promise. A tiny ember waiting to ignite. Of course, this heartwarming self-realization lasted exactly three seconds before Ember tripped over his own tail and tumbled back into the mud. He came up sputtering, covered nose to wingtip in filth, and shouted, “UNIVERSE, YOU ARE A TROLL!” He shook himself furiously, splattering mud in every direction, then stomped in a circle with all the dignity of a toddler denied dessert. Finally, he plopped back on his log, huffed dramatically, and declared, “Fine. Tomorrow. Tomorrow I conquer everything. Tonight, I sulk. But tomorrow… beware.” The forest didn’t answer. The storm was fading, the sky glowing with stars. Ember yawned, wings sagging. He curled himself into a little ball, tail wrapping tight, raindrops still clinging like beads. His bratty glare softened into something small, tired, and almost sweet. For all his theatrics, he was still just a hatchling—tiny, messy, and utterly precious in his ridiculousness. As sleep tugged at him, he whispered one last threat to the world: “When I’m big, you’ll all regret this mud.” Then his eyes slipped closed, smoke curling lazily from his nostrils, and the storm’s lullaby carried him into dreams where he was already enormous, terrifying, and very, very dry. And somewhere in the darkness, the universe chuckled fondly. Because even the brattiest little dragons deserve their legend.     Bring Ember Home Ember may be small, bratty, and perpetually soggy, but he’s also impossible not to love. If his stormy sulks and tiny sparks made you smile, you can invite this little troublemaker into your own world. Our Hatchling of the Storm collection captures every raindrop, every pout, and every spark in vivid detail—perfect for anyone who believes even the smallest dragons can leave the biggest impressions. Adorn your walls with Ember’s charm in a Framed Print or shimmering Metal Print, carry his mischief wherever you go with a sturdy Tote Bag, or keep him close with a playful Sticker that’s just as bratty as he is. Whether on your wall, in your hand, or stuck proudly on your favorite surface, Ember is ready to storm into your life—and this time, you’ll be glad he did.

Captured Tales – by Bill Tiepelman

Inferno on the Branch

If you ask the birders down at the trailhead what a Pileated Woodpecker sounds like, they’ll give you three answers: a jungle monkey on espresso, a carpenter with a union card and no patience, and the exact ringtone that makes them fumble their binoculars into the mud. I heard all three the morning I met the crimson-crowned chaos engine who would later become the reluctant star of my portfolio and the patron saint of my caffeine addiction. The forest was still damp with night, the understory steamed like a tea kettle, and out of the silhouette of black trunks came a laugh—kik-kik-kik—that sliced the mist like a gossip column through a small town. I was there for a photo—what I call a “fractal field trip,” because apparently I can’t just photograph a bird on a branch like a normal adult. No, my brand requires a branch that curls into fiery spiral filigree as if Mother Nature took a workshop with M.C. Escher and then got spicy with a blowtorch. The maples had played along, sending out burls and lichens in arabesques, but this perch, this ember-painted corkscrew of a limb, looked forged by a blacksmith with an art degree and a grudge. I framed it, adjusted my ISO, and promised the forest I’d be tasteful this time. The forest, veteran of my promises, remained unconvinced. Enter our protagonist: a pileated the size of a skinny chicken and twice as judgmental. He arrived like a thrown comet, leveled the red crest like a Don’t-Speak-to-Me-Until-I’ve-Hammered sign, and rode the branch with the athletic balance of a tightrope walker who’d also taken a few semesters of carpentry. His beak—let’s call it what it is, a gothic chisel—ticked against the bark once, twice, then BAM, a strike so decisive the ants filed a workplace complaint. “Morning,” I whispered, as if the bird spoke English and preferred soft openings. “Just one pose. Hyper-realistic. Moody forest. Inferno on the Branch. You’re going to be merch.” The woodpecker did the slow swivel—one amber eye, then the other—like a maître d’ deciding whether my shoes were acceptable. Satisfied, or at least resigned, he flared his tail into a glossy black fan, braced with white like punctuation marks, and presented me with a profile that would make an owl jealous. In case you’re not a birder, this is the moment the life-listers whisper, “Oh my God, the Merlin app was right,” and try not to squeal. I do not squeal. I exhale very loudly and pretend I planned it. The branch beneath him—my corkscrew diva—began to glow with morning. From trunk to tip the textures rose in spiral rosettes, each curve catching ember-red light. I could feel the composition locking into place: bird’s gaze to the right, fractal plumes unfurling like fire made ferns, shadowed forest soft as velvet behind it all. This is the part where the art professors say “leading lines” and I nod like I discovered geometry personally. He drummed again—tat-tat-tat-TAT—and a flotilla of ants staged an emergency evacuation. It’s a myth that pileateds are chaotic; they’re engineers in feathers, running probabilistic models on every strike. He tested, listened for hollow space, then set to work on the exact patch where the bark had a tiny ripple, the kind only a bird with 50 million years of tool-making behind his eyes would notice. Chips flew. I smelled sap. Somewhere, a squirrel muttered the woodland equivalent of “not again.” “You know you’re trending,” I said, because the adult human brain needs conversation even when the audience is a bird. “Your species is basically the celebrity sighting of the eastern forest. People hear one drumroll and suddenly they’re wildlife photographers. We love your crimson crest. We love your moody lighting. We love that you’re a bulldozer with eyeliner.” The woodpecker paused, tilted his head, and regarded the curves of the branch as if auditioning them. Then he took three deliberate steps higher—click-click-click—and parked himself square in the golden eddy where the spiral foliage created a halo. If he had read my shot list, he could not have done better. I framed tighter, let the background fall charcoal-dark, and watched the reds saturate until they looked like embers in slow motion. My shutter whispered a thousand small yeses. In the trail behind me, a small procession of birders formed, the kind with hats that have sun shields and pockets for snacks and, presumably, life insurance policies for when a Great Horned Owl side-eyes their Chihuahua. They froze in that communal hush that means oh, we are in church now. Someone whispered, “Inferno on the Branch,” like they’d read the caption in my head, and I felt the delicious tingle of a shot earning its title while still being made. “What’s he after?” a new birder breathed. I wanted to say: redemption. I wanted to say: brand synergy. But the truth was simpler. “Carpenter ants,” I murmured. “Big ones. The filet mignon of protein. And maybe the prestige of looking like a living exclamation point.” The bird obliged by extracting one (ant, not exclamation point) and swallowing with the bland professionalism of a sommelier tasting from a paper cup. Then the forest did its favorite magic trick—time dilation. The light slid an inch, the branch went from blood-orange to garnet, and the woodpecker, as if aware of color theory, repositioned step by step until the rule of thirds lined up like we’d rehearsed. He held still long enough for the shutter to whisper a burst, then whip-cracked around to glare at a rival hammering deeper in the ravine. The laugh came again, the espresso-jungle-monkey kind, and a ripple of chills moved through the line like a stadium wave for very quiet people. I could have packed up right there. The image was in the camera and simmering in the back of my skull, already titled, already framed, already begging to become a fine art print with paper so thick it could stop a rumor. But the bird had not finished his set. He fluffed, shook out a snow globe of bark dust, and delivered one last drumroll that echoed off the black trunks and bounced back as applause. And because I am, despite evidence, a professional, I thanked him. Out loud. With feeling. The kind of gratitude you reserve for baristas and unblocked creative flow. “You were incandescent,” I said. “You were Inferno on the Branch.” The woodpecker blinked once, twice, and then, like a stage actor hearing a cue, lifted into the smoky light. He arrowed across the canyon of trees, a scarlet streak that dwindled to a comma in the sentence of the forest, and was gone. The birders exhaled. Someone dabbed at their eyes. Someone else asked me what settings I used, and I gave them the classic answer: “All of them.” We laughed the relieved laugh of people who got what they came for and then a little extra. I checked my screen again and—yes—there it was: the pileated woodpecker regal as myth, the fractal branch uncurling like flame, the dusky forest holding it all like a velvet box. The kind of frame that makes a wall say thank you. Of course, I didn’t yet know what waited deeper in those trees, or why the woodpecker chose that particular ember-lit perch, or what restless geometry was growing beneath the bark like a secret alphabet. That was a problem for Future Me, Photographic Adventurer and Occasional Bad Decision Enthusiast. Present Me just closed my eyes, listened to the dying echoes of the drum, and marked the GPS pin with a name: Inferno on the Branch. What I did next would have made a park ranger sigh and a poet nod approvingly. But that is Part Two, and this forest loves a cliffhanger almost as much as I do. The Ember Grove The thing about woodpeckers—and you can quote me at the next Audubon meeting—is that they don’t just happen. They appear like punctuation in the forest, interrupting your sentence with a full stop or an exclamation mark, and then dare you to rewrite the whole paragraph around them. That morning’s Inferno on the Branch moment could have been the perfect ending to my hike. I could’ve hiked back to the trailhead, smug and caffeinated, clutching my camera like a poker player walking away from the table while still ahead. But smug doesn’t feed curiosity, and caffeine makes you overconfident. I followed the direction of his flight. It wasn’t stalking. It was… professional interest. Birders call it “shadowing” if they want to make it sound respectable, and “woodpecker paparazzi” if they don’t. My boots crunched the frost-laced leaf litter, each step sounding absurdly loud in the cathedral silence. Somewhere ahead, I heard the faint drumming again—slower now, like he was working through a particularly stubborn patch of bark or a crossword puzzle with only vowels. The branch fractals behind me still glowed in my mind’s eye, but the pull forward was irresistible. What, after all, was worth leaving that stage for? The terrain changed subtly. The oaks gave way to older pines, their trunks straight as moral absolutes but scarred with decades of fire and lightning. The undergrowth thinned, replaced by a carpet of needles that muted my steps. And then I saw it: a clearing that shouldn’t exist, at least not in that geometry. The trees formed an almost perfect circle, and in the center grew a twisted giant of a maple, its limbs spiraling in patterns so complex they looked engineered by some cosmic watchmaker. The light in this space was stranger, warmer, as if the canopy filtered it through an old bottle of brandy. And there he was—my woodpecker—clinging to the trunk like it owed him money. His crest caught the filtered light and flared into a molten crown. He hammered with steady, deliberate strikes, each one sending a small snow of reddish bark to the ground. The tree seemed to respond—don’t ask me how—to his rhythm, the spiraling limbs flexing imperceptibly in time, like a dancer stretching before a performance. I crouched, zoomed, and framed. This wasn’t the Inferno branch; this was something else entirely. If the earlier perch was a piece of functional art, this tree was an altar. Every knot and burl glowed faintly, the reds and golds deepening with every beam of morning light. I’d photographed plenty of fractal structures before—ferns, frost, the accidental swirls in a jar of peanut butter—but this was different. The spirals weren’t random; they spoke. The patterns led the eye inward, toward a hollow in the trunk just above the woodpecker’s industrious beak. It was then I noticed the smell: resin, yes, but undercut by something warmer, almost sweet, like cinnamon and old paper. The woodpecker paused, cocked his head, and stared directly into that hollow as though listening for an answer. I swear I heard something—a faint clicking, like the sound of a typewriter buried under moss. He resumed hammering, and the clicking stopped. My skin prickled. Nature loves her mysteries, and I’d just walked into one wearing a camera like a backstage pass. Somewhere above, a shadow flickered through the canopy. Not another woodpecker—too big. I glanced up just in time to see a broad wing vanish into the sunlight. A hawk? Maybe. Or maybe the kind of forest resident you only see once and then spend the rest of your life trying to prove wasn’t a figment of an under-caffeinated morning. I checked the tree again. My woodpecker had moved higher, closer to the hollow, his claws gripping the bark in those perfect zygodactyl toes—two forward, two back—like he was designed in a laboratory for vertical defiance. I inched closer, the photographer in me bargaining with the part of my brain that knew better. The spiral patterns in the bark became hypnotic up close. Tiny ridges caught the light like illuminated manuscript borders, curling inward in deliberate arcs. My lens drank it all in. The closer I got, the more the patterns began to repeat—not just in the bark, but in the shapes of the leaves overhead, in the curve of the woodpecker’s tail feathers, in the ripple of the moss underfoot. It was the forest’s quiet admission: fractals weren’t an art trick. They were the blueprint. The woodpecker stopped hammering and looked down at me with the kind of expression only birds and high school guidance counselors can pull off: equal parts suspicion and pity. Then, without warning, he plunged his head into the hollow and came up with… something. Not an insect. Not sap. It was small, flat, and glinted like old brass. He held it delicately in his beak, turned toward me, and—this part I will argue with anyone over—nodded. Once. Then he flew past me in a flash of crimson and shadow, the object still clamped in his beak. I spun to follow him, tripped over a root, and did a graceless half-roll that put me on my back staring at the spiraled canopy. By the time I scrambled up, he was gone. The clearing was still, the only sound the faint creak of branches in a wind I couldn’t feel. The maple loomed overhead, spirals turning in my peripheral vision, daring me to come closer. I did. My fingers brushed the hollow’s rim. The wood was warm, unnaturally so, and under my touch the spirals seemed to deepen, the grooves tightening into a pattern that felt less like wood grain and more like… handwriting. I snapped a photo, then another, checking the playback obsessively. In each image, the spirals shifted slightly, as though the tree wasn’t posing so much as conversing. And in the very center of the hollow, framed by the curling grain, was a faint, perfect imprint: the outline of a feather. Not a woodpecker’s—too long, too narrow. I didn’t recognize it, and that bothered me more than I wanted to admit. When I finally tore myself away, I marked the GPS again, labeling it “Ember Grove.” The hike back felt longer, every tree suddenly suspect in its geometry. By the time the parking lot came into view, I’d convinced myself the whole thing was just a trick of light, a fever dream of reds and golds. But that night, when I uploaded the shots to my computer, the truth stared back at me in pixel-perfect detail: the spirals were real. The feather was real. And in the corner of one frame, half-hidden by a blur of motion, was the woodpecker—crest blazing, eyes locked on the lens—still carrying that mysterious glint in his beak. I didn’t sleep much. I kept thinking about the hollow, the smell, the clicking sound, the way the branch at Inferno and the maple in the grove shared the same curling geometry. And I kept asking myself one question: what in the forest needs a woodpecker as its locksmith? Whatever the answer was, I had the distinct, unsettling feeling it was waiting for me to come back. The Locksmith’s Secret I’ve done plenty of return trips to interesting photo spots before, but this one didn’t feel like my usual “let’s see if the heron’s still there” jaunt. This felt… loaded. Like the forest and I had an unfinished conversation, and the woodpecker—my so-called locksmith—was the only one holding the spare key. I spent three days trying to act like a normal human: editing other shots, answering emails, pretending I wasn’t Googling “pileated woodpecker mythology” at 2 a.m. Spoiler: turns out that in certain Native folklore, they’re messengers. In others, they’re builders for the gods. In my overcaffeinated brain, they were now both—and also possibly the forest’s maintenance crew. When I finally went back, it was pre-dawn. I wanted to arrive before the light turned the forest into an Instagram cliché. The air was sharp enough to sting my lungs, and the first chorus of birdsong was still warming up. My boots remembered the way without me thinking; my body was a compass set on “creeping around in questionable situations.” Every so often, I’d hear a distant hammering—three beats, pause, three beats—like the woodpecker was playing his own doorbell chime. By the time I reached the clearing, the light was dripping through the canopy like molten brass, just as before. The maple stood waiting, its spirals catching the first fire of the day. And there he was, crest flared, tail braced, pounding away at a new section of bark just below the hollow. The rhythm was steady, almost ceremonial. I raised my camera, half-expecting him to fly off like most self-respecting birds when a paparazzo shows up. Instead, he hopped sideways, giving me a perfect view of what he’d been working on: a ring of shallow holes forming a precise, geometric shape. A lock, I realized. Or at least the bird equivalent of one. Each hole was spaced with uncanny symmetry, like he’d measured it with calipers. My inner art nerd was thrilled; my inner rational human was starting to sweat. I stayed low, inching forward. He didn’t seem to mind. In fact, he began tapping the holes in a sequence—front, left, right, bottom—as if entering a code. A low thunk followed, not the brittle crack of bark but the dull, resonant shift of wood moving somewhere deeper inside. The spirals in the grain shivered. The hollow darkened, then deepened, as if the space itself was stretching. I couldn’t breathe. The woodpecker stepped aside, cocked his head toward me, and—again, I swear this happened—jerked his beak toward the hollow in a very clear your turn. Everything in me screamed do not stick your hand into strange forest holes. But curiosity is a drug, and I was already high on the scent of resin and whatever ancient secret this tree was cooking up. I set the camera to video, slung it over my shoulder, and reached in. The wood wasn’t just warm; it was pulsing faintly, like a heartbeat through old timber. My fingertips brushed something smooth and cool. I curled my hand around it and pulled it free. It was the same object I’d seen days before—flat, brass-like—but now I could see the detail. A medallion, no bigger than a drink coaster, etched with the same spiraling patterns as the bark, radiating outward from a single feather symbol in the center. The feather was inlaid with something dark, maybe obsidian, that seemed to swallow the light instead of reflecting it. Around the edge, in letters too fine to have been carved by human hands, was an inscription. Not English. Not any script I knew. The characters were fractal too—tiny curves within curves, so intricate I couldn’t follow their lines without getting lost. Behind me, the woodpecker drummed once—sharp, decisive. The ground beneath the maple shuddered just enough for me to feel it through my boots. I looked up, half-expecting the sky to split, but instead I saw movement in the spirals overhead. The branches were… shifting. Slowly, imperceptibly at first, then with deliberate grace. The limbs untwined and retwined into new patterns, closing off the clearing like the iris of an eye. Light poured in through specific gaps, illuminating the medallion in my palm. The inlaid feather shimmered, and for a brief, spine-tingling second, I heard that same clicking sound from before—but louder now, faster, like an invisible typewriter finishing a sentence. “Okay,” I whispered to the bird, because silence would have been worse. “You win. What is this? Why me?” The woodpecker only blinked, then launched himself onto the spiral limb directly above my head. He tilted his beak skyward and called—a loud, rolling kik-kik-kik that bounced between the trunks. Almost immediately, shapes moved at the edge of the clearing. Shadows, but… not entirely. Some tall and narrow, some low and branching, all slipping between shafts of golden light like they belonged to a slower clock than mine. I couldn’t make out faces, only the gleam of eyes reflecting the medallion’s light. They didn’t come closer. They just watched. I felt the weight of the moment the way you feel the weight of deep water. The medallion was warm now, almost hot. The spirals etched into it seemed to crawl under my fingertips, rearranging themselves like puzzle pieces. One shape resolved into something familiar: a map. Not a top-down map with rivers and mountains, but a map of connections—spirals linked to spirals, branches to branches. And at the center, the feather. The same feather etched in the tree, the same feather inlaid into the medallion. The same feather I now realized I’d seen in the subtle patterns of Inferno’s branch days ago. The shadows at the clearing’s edge stirred. The woodpecker called again, softer this time. The spirals in the maple’s bark began to slow, the branches returning to their original positions. The light shifted back to its ordinary golden filter, the clearing once again a simple circle of trees. Whatever had been watching melted back into the forest without a sound. The medallion cooled in my hand, the etched map freezing into place. The woodpecker dropped down to the maple’s trunk, sidled toward me, and with the precision of a jeweler inspecting a gemstone, tapped the medallion once with his beak. Then he launched upward, crest blazing like the last ember in a dying fire, and vanished into the canopy. The clearing was still again. Too still. I stood there a long time, listening for anything—a creak, a drumroll, a laugh. Nothing. Finally, I slipped the medallion into my jacket pocket and started the slow walk back to the trailhead. Every spiral in the bark along the way caught my eye. Every pattern in the moss looked a little too deliberate. By the time I reached my car, I’d stopped telling myself I was imagining things. I wasn’t. The forest was keeping secrets, and my woodpecker friend was one of its gatekeepers. That night, I laid the medallion on my desk under a lamp. The feather symbol seemed dull now, ordinary. But when I turned off the light, it faintly glowed—a deep, ember red, the color of a crest slicing through the morning mist. I don’t know if I’ll ever see him again. I don’t know what the map leads to, or why he chose to give it to me. But I do know one thing: the next time I hear that jungle-monkey espresso laugh in the forest, I’ll be ready. Camera in one hand, medallion in the other, waiting for my locksmith to open another door I never knew existed. And maybe—just maybe—that’s the whole point. The forest doesn’t hand you answers. It hands you keys, a little at a time, and trusts you to notice the locks. All you have to do is follow the sound of the hammering, and hope you’re clever enough to knock back.     Bring “Inferno on the Branch” Into Your World Let the fiery elegance of the pileated woodpecker and the hypnotic curves of the fractal branch ignite your space with our exclusive Inferno on the Branch merchandise. Whether you want a statement piece for your walls, a functional work of art for your daily life, or a tactile puzzle to immerse yourself in, this design brings the forest’s mystery right to you. Showcase the drama and vivid color on a Metal Print for modern, luminous impact, or opt for a timeless Framed Print that turns your wall into a gallery. For something you can carry into the wild—or the farmer’s market—the Tote Bag lets you bring the ember-lit forest wherever you go. And for quiet, mindful moments, piece together the magic one curve at a time with our Jigsaw Puzzle. No matter which form you choose, every piece captures the same rich colors, hyper-realistic details, and mystical energy that made the original image unforgettable. Invite the legend of the locksmith woodpecker into your home—you never know what doors it might open.

Captured Tales – by Bill Tiepelman

Rage from the Egg

Shards, Smoke, and a Bad Attitude The egg didn’t so much hatch as declare war on complacency. It split with the sound of a wineglass meeting a tiled floor after an “I deserve better” speech—clean, decisive, cathartic. Purple-and-brown scales pressed through the fracture like midnight lightning under varnish, and two molten-amber eyes snapped open with the unmistakable look of someone who woke up already annoyed with the universe. A talon hooked the shell’s rim—black, glossy, and ready to write a strongly worded letter to fate—then another, and then a snout, ridged and ancient, inhaled the world for the very first time. If you’ve never seen a newborn dragon glare, imagine a house cat who paid taxes. There was grievance. There was grievance interest. The hatchling flexed, scattering shards that pinged off the rocks, and the forest went quiet in that respectful way nature gets when it realizes it might have just acquired a new landlord. A coil of warm smoke leaked between needle teeth, smelling faintly of singed cedar and smugness. She—because the energy was absolutely “ma’am, that’s my throne”—tested her jaw like a boxer flexing before round one. The purple in her scales wasn’t cute-lilac; it was bruised twilight, the color of expensive secrets. The brown was weathered oak and old leather—practical, grounded, something you trust to outlive your worst decisions. Every plate of scale caught the dim light with hyper-realistic texture, as if some obsessive artisan had hand-carved each ridge and then whispered, “Yes, but meaner.” “Congratulations,” I said from my respectable distance behind a very humble boulder. “Welcome to the world. We have snacks. Mostly each other.” I’m a freelancer—field notes on mythical creature photography pays in prestige and bruises—so a baby dragon hatching fell half under career goals, half under what if my mom was right. The hatchling swiveled, pupils thinning to predatory slits. Her gaze pinned me the way a magnet finds the only paperclip you actually needed. She hissed, but it wasn’t an animal hiss. It was the sound of a stranger pulling your latte without asking and checking their phone while they do it. The jagged eggshell scraped as she dragged it with her—little queen in a cracked chariot—then froze to sniff the air, nostrils flaring like bellows. Ozone. Sap. My deodorant, which had promised “mountain breeze” but apparently translated to “come eat this nervous photographer.” “You’re okay,” I said, lowering my voice to the register reserved for skittish horses and tax auditors. “You’re safe. I’m just here for… documentation.” I didn’t add and merch, but I’m not made of stone. This was baby dragon art in the wild—dragon hatching meets “look at those dragon scales” meets “I will absolutely buy a mouse pad of this if I survive.” She rumbled—a tiny earthquake with big dreams—and stretched, her spine articulating in a ripple of purple dusk. Claws cinched the shell lip and she levered herself higher, a gymnast mounting a very dramatic pommel horse. The pose was… photogenic. Cinematic. Sellable. The forest floor seemed to lean into her; even the rocks wanted a selfie. That’s when the ravens arrived. Three of them, black as tax law, swirling down as if someone had uncorked a flute of night. They perched in a triangle: two in the branches, one on a snag with the casual menace of a bouncer named Poem. Ravens love a myth in progress. They also love shiny things, and this baby had talons like patent leather and eyes like stolen sunsets. “Shall we not,” I whispered toward the birds, who ignored me the way glitter ignores your attempts to vacuum it. The hatchling noticed them and something ancient lit behind her eyes—coded memory, baked into the DNA of things that once taught fire how to behave. She uncoiled just enough to look bigger. The air changed. My breath decided it had somewhere else to be. The ravens shuffled. The forest held its applause. Then—because destiny enjoys good staging—the wind shifted and brought the scent of boar. Not a delicate hint. A statement. Wild pig: the bar fight of the forest. The boar lumbered into the clearing like a security deposit who’d learned to walk: a wall of bristles, tusks, and unresolved issues. He saw the broken egg. He saw me. He saw the hatchling, who—if we’re being honest—looked like a fancy snack with knives. The baby dragon’s expression sharpened: from “everyone is already on my nerves” to “and now you.” The boar breathed steam and pawed the leaves, etching a rude letter to the season. He had size, sure. He had momentum. What he didn’t have was a working understanding of mythology. “Don’t,” I said, which is exactly the kind of helpful field advice that has kept me alive this long by sheer accident. The boar didn’t speak human, but he was fluent in drama. He charged. The hatchling’s first move wasn’t fire. It wasn’t even teeth. It was attitude. She met the rush by snapping her head forward and slamming her eggshell against the ground with a crack that traveled up my spine. The echo spooked the boar just enough to wreck his line. She followed with a lunge that was part pounce, part angry thesis paper, talons flashing. Sparks leapt where claw met rock—tiny, indignant constellations—and the smell of hot mineral hit like a struck match. The ravens croaked in a single chorus that translated cleanly to: Ooooh, she’s spicy. Boar and hatchling collided in a tumble of fur, scale, and undignified squeals. She was smaller, yes, but she was geometry and leverage and a very personal vendetta against being underestimated. Her tail—thorned, surprisingly articulate—whipped around to hook the boar’s foreleg while her front claws raked shallow lines across his shoulder. Not mortal. Not yet. A warning letter carved into meat. The boar juked, throwing her sideways. The shell shattered further, eggshell confetti fluttering like an invitation to chaos. She rolled, planted, and came up with an expression I’ve seen on three exes and one mirror: try me. The boar’s courage faltered. Not big enough to back out gracefully, not smart enough to bow. He dug in for another charge. This time she inhaled. Not just air—heat. The temperature around us stepped up like someone turned the sun’s settings to “simmer.” The purple in her scales drank the light; the brown went ember-warm. Smoke curled from the corners of her mouth in thin, disciplined threads. It wasn’t a blast. She didn’t have that yet. It was something more surgical: a cough of fire, tight as a secret, that zipped across the boar’s path and licked the ground into a glowing brand. He froze mid-stride, skidding, eyes wide at the orange ribbon of that shouldn’t be there. The forest exhaled at once. Leaves hissed. Sap snapped. My camera—bless her anxious heart—clicked twice before my hands remembered they were attached to a survival plan. The hatchling padded forward, small, slow steps that said I am learning the choreography of fear, and you are my first partner. She stopped so close to the boar that her reflection burned in his eyes. And then she smiled. Not nice. Not theatrical. A smile that promised that the category prey was a temporary misunderstanding. The boar backed up, breath wheezing, dignity looking for an Uber. He turned and fled into the trees, cracking deadfall like fresh bread. The ravens laughed, which should be illegal, and shook the branches until the leaves applauded anyway. The hatchling settled on the ruined cup of her egg and looked at me as if I’d been an extra in her debut. There was soot on her lips like rebellious lipstick, and a chip of shell stuck to her brow ridges like a careless crown. She tasted the air again—my fear, the boar’s retreat, the iron tang of her own new fire—and made a soft, satisfied sound that felt older than memory. “Okay,” I said, voice cracking into a register only dogs and bad decisions can hear. “You’re… perfect.” I meant it the way you mean sunrise and revenge. Purple dragon. Brown dragon. Newborn mythical beast. Fierce hatchling. Fantasy artwork had suddenly become fantasy witness. And something else whispered at the back of my brain: this wasn’t just a good picture. This was a legend learning to walk. A dragon portrait the world would try and fail to tame. She blinked slowly, then lifted one talon and—like every bratty heiress of power—gestured. Not a threat. An invitation. The message was unmistakable: Follow. Or don’t. The river of her story would flow either way, and I could choose to drown in wonder or stay on the shore with the polite people. I chose wonder. I chose rocks in my shoes and scorch marks on my sleeves and a camera that would smell like campfire for a month. I chose to step from behind the boulder, hands open, and trail the hatchling as she padded toward the treeline with her broken egg dragging behind like a royal train. Above us, the ravens spun a lazy orbit, three punctuation marks at the end of a sentence the world hadn’t learned to read yet. That was when the ground hummed. Barely. A teeth-rattling murmur from somewhere deeper in the valley, then a second note, lower, older, like cathedral bells under the dirt. The hatchling’s head snapped toward the sound. The forest went from quiet to church-silent. She looked back at me with those burning eyes and, for the first time since she cut herself free of forever, she didn’t look angry. She looked… interested. Whatever had made that sound wasn’t a boar. It wasn’t afraid of her. It wasn’t impressed with me. And it knew we were listening. The hatchling stepped into the shade, and the purple of her scales deepened to stormwater wine. She flicked her talon again: Come on, slowpoke. Then she vanished into the green, a rumor in motion, while the valley’s subterranean bell tolled once more, long and ominous, promising that the story we’d just begun had teeth much bigger than hers. Bells Beneath the Bones Following a baby dragon into the woods sounds like the sort of activity you’d find on a list of “Top Ten Ways to Test Your Will to Live,” right between “poke a sleeping bear” and “start a conversation about cryptocurrency at a family reunion.” But there I was, trudging after her, my camera bouncing against my chest, my boots swallowing mud with the kind of enthusiasm that makes shoe stores rich. The air had shifted—thicker, damp, scented with moss, old stone, and the coppery tang of rain that hasn’t happened yet. That subterranean bell tone rolled again, slower this time, like the heartbeat of something that had seen empires rise and politely implode. The hatchling glanced over her shoulder, not slowing, her eyes half-lidded with the confidence of someone who knows exactly where they’re going and also that you will follow because you have no other viable life choices. Her tail dragged a shallow trench in the loam, carving an accidental breadcrumb trail for predators with excellent taste in exotic entrées. We moved deeper, under a canopy so thick the daylight fractured into narrow gold blades. Every few steps, she’d pause—not in fear, but in that considering way cats do before they either leap onto your lap or destroy a priceless heirloom. She was cataloging the forest: sniffing a fern, raking talons across a birch, pausing to watch a squirrel who immediately decided it had pressing business in another county. The ground under my boots began to change—less mud, more rock. Roots knuckled up from the earth like gnarled fingers, snagging my toes. The bell toll grew into a layered chorus, faint but insistent, vibrating up my bones and into my teeth. It wasn’t random. It had a rhythm. Five beats, pause, three beats, pause, then a long low note that slid into the marrow of the air. “Okay,” I whispered to no one, “either we’re about to find an ancient temple, or this is how the forest invites you to dinner.” The hatchling slowed, her nostrils flaring. She turned her head slightly, and I caught the gleam of her eyes in a shaft of light—bright, fierce, and oddly curious. She wanted me to see something. She angled her body toward a ridge of dark stone jutting up like the spine of a buried beast. Moss clung to it, but the surface was too regular, too deliberate. Not natural. A staircase. Or rather, what was left of one—broad steps worn into concave arcs by centuries of feet that had no business being human. She climbed without hesitation, claws clicking against the weathered stone. I followed, more careful, because unlike her, I am not equipped with talons or a built-in insurance policy against gravity. At the top, the ridge leveled into a wide ledge, and there it was: a hole in the ground so perfectly round it might have been drilled by a god with a strong opinion about symmetry. From its depths, the bell-song pulsed up in waves, the sound wrapping around my skull like silk dipped in thunder. The hatchling approached the edge, peering down into the darkness. She made a low sound in her throat—half growl, half question—and the bell immediately answered with a shorter, sharper note. My skin prickled. This wasn’t random resonance. This was a conversation. And my brand-new, freshly hatched traveling companion had just dialed a very old number. A warm updraft curled out of the shaft, smelling faintly of iron, ash, and something sweetly rotting, like fruit left too long in the sun. My instincts screamed for me to take two steps back and maybe fake my own death somewhere safer. Instead, I crouched and aimed my camera into the hole, because humans are a species that invented both parachuting and jalapeño tequila shots: caution is optional if there’s a good story in it. My flash cut into the blackness and reflected off something moving. Not fast. Not close. Just… vast. A surface that gleamed in broad plates, shifting slightly as if disturbed by the weight of our gaze. The movement carried a deep rumble that didn’t quite reach my ears—it was more like my spine got a personal notification. I realized, with unpleasant clarity, that the bell-sound wasn’t a bell at all. It was the sound of something alive. Something breathing through stone. The hatchling’s expression changed—still fierce, still bratty, but with an undercurrent I hadn’t seen before. Reverence. She lowered her head, almost a bow, and the thing in the darkness exhaled, sending another hot gust into the air. The bell-song faded into a single low hum that vibrated in my fillings. “Friend of yours?” I asked her, my voice way too high to be considered dignified. She looked back at me, and I swear there was a glint of amusement in those molten eyes, like she was thinking, Oh, sweet summer child, you have no idea who you’re standing next to. A claw scraped stone below, and for the briefest moment, I saw it: a talon the size of my torso, curling slowly into the rock, the tip etched with age and battles long past. It withdrew without haste, the way mountains shift in geological time. Then came the voice—not words, not in any human tongue, but a sound layered with the weight of centuries. It rolled up out of the shaft like smoke, and every nerve in my body translated it the same way: Mine. The hatchling answered in kind—a short, defiant hiss that carried both acknowledgment and refusal. The thing below laughed, if you could call the sudden, seismic shiver of stone a laugh. I took a careful step back because in my experience, when two apex predators start arguing over ownership, the snack in the middle rarely gets a vote. The hum shifted again, this time to something darker, more deliberate. My chest tightened, my ears popped, and the hatchling’s scales rippled as if in response to some invisible wind. She turned from the shaft abruptly and started down the ledge, flicking her tail in that keep up or get left way. I hesitated, but the hum seemed to follow us, a sound that wasn’t really a sound but a reminder—like a stamp pressed into wax: we were marked now. Back under the trees, the forest felt subtly altered. The shadows were deeper, the air heavier. Even the ravens were gone, which was deeply unsettling, because ravens don’t just leave when the plot gets good. The hatchling moved faster, weaving between tree trunks, and I had the sense she wasn’t just wandering anymore. She had a destination, and whatever lived in that shaft had just changed the route. It wasn’t until the ridge dropped away into a broad clearing that I realized where she’d brought me. At first glance, it looked like a ruin—pillars half-swallowed by vines, cracked marble slabs littering the ground like discarded game pieces. But the longer I looked, the more deliberate it felt. The stones weren’t scattered. They’d been placed. Arranged in concentric circles, each one slightly offset from the last, forming a spiral pattern that drew the eye inward to a central pedestal. The hatchling hopped onto the pedestal, curling her tail around her feet. She lifted her head high, looking every inch the monarch she believed herself to be. I stepped closer, brushing moss from the base of the pedestal, and saw the carvings—spiraling scripts of creatures and battles, fire and shadow, and a recurring symbol: the same perfect circle as the shaft we’d just left, etched with radiating lines like a sun or an eye. “This is…” I trailed off, because saying important out loud felt like whispering in church. My camera clicked almost involuntarily, documenting each detail. In the viewfinder, the hatchling looked larger, older somehow, as if the place was lending her a fraction of its authority. The air in the clearing began to hum again, faint but unmistakable. I spun, expecting to see the shaft, but there was nothing—just the trees, standing too still, their leaves trembling without wind. The hum built into a thrum, then a pulse, matching the earlier rhythm: five beats, pause, three beats, pause. The pedestal under the hatchling warmed, a glow spreading up through her talons until her scales caught the light from within. She didn’t flinch. She didn’t blink. She just stood there, absorbing it, until her eyes flared brighter and the glow pulsed outward, racing along the spiral pattern in the stones. The light reached the edges of the clearing and vanished into the earth, leaving behind a silence so sudden it felt like the world had paused to breathe in. Then, faint but sharp, from somewhere beyond the trees, came a sound that didn’t belong to bells or breath: the echoing clatter of armored feet. Many feet. Moving fast. The hatchling’s gaze snapped toward the sound, and for the first time since she’d emerged from the egg, she didn’t look annoyed. She looked ready. Teeth in the Trees The clatter grew louder, rattling the undergrowth in a way that suggested whatever was coming wasn’t built for subtlety. The hatchling hopped down from the pedestal with a precision that was more “performance” than “necessity,” landing in a crouch like a gymnast who knew she’d nailed the dismount. Her head tilted toward the sound, pupils tightening into surgical blades. The glow in her scales hadn’t faded—it pulsed faintly, synced to some rhythm I couldn’t hear, but she could feel. The first figure broke through the treeline in a shower of leaves and a bad attitude. Humanoid, but stretched in the wrong directions—limbs too long, armor plated in matte black that seemed to drink the light. Behind it came five more, moving in perfect formation, their steps so in-sync it was like watching an insect with six legs made of spite. Their helmets were smooth ovals, no eyes, no mouths, just blank faces that reflected me back in distorted fragments. They carried weapons that looked like someone had taken the concept of a halberd, a cattle prod, and a medieval guillotine, then thrown it in a blender with a bad mood. Blue sparks crackled along their edges. The air hissed around them, charged with the static of people who had a mission and an alarming lack of hobbies. The hatchling growled low, the kind of sound that makes your skin think about leaving without you. One of the black-armored figures raised a hand—three fingers, jointed oddly—and made a gesture toward her. I didn’t speak their language, but I’ve been around enough cops and bouncers to know the universal sign for That’s ours now. She answered with a noise so sharp it seemed to split the clearing in two. The blue sparks on their weapons guttered like candles in a gale. The lead figure took a step forward and drove the blade-tip of its weapon into the soil. A ring of blue light surged outward along the ground, racing toward us in a perfect circle. I didn’t think. I just dove sideways. The hatchling didn’t move—she braced. When the light reached her, it broke. Not fizzled, not dissipated—shattered. The glow from her scales flared, swallowing the blue and sending it back in a jagged arc that cracked one of their helmets clean open. Inside was no face, no skull—just a churning mass of smoke and tiny lights, like a swarm of fireflies in a jar made of nightmares. The creature screamed without sound, dropped its weapon, and crumpled into itself until it vanished into a puff of ash. The others didn’t retreat. They surged forward, weapons spinning into offensive arcs. I scrambled behind the nearest fallen pillar, pulling my camera around not to take pictures—though God help me, I still took one—but to use the long lens as a periscope. The hatchling was already in motion, and what I saw through the lens was poetry in petty violence. She darted between them, tail whipping like a spiked chain, claws catching and dragging across armor to carve glowing rents into their matte black plating. She wasn’t trying to kill all of them—not yet. She was provoking. Testing. Every hit she landed drew a response, and she seemed to be building a catalog of exactly how hard she could push before they broke. One swung at her with that halberd-thing, catching the edge of her shell-fragment still dragging from her tail. The fragment exploded into shards under the impact, but instead of retreating, she lunged forward into the opening, jaws snapping shut on the figure’s forearm. The sound was like steel cable snapping underwater—muffled, wet, and final. The arm came off. Blue sparks gushed from the wound before the limb crumbled into the same ash as the helmeted head earlier. The leader, still intact, barked something—a series of harsh clicks that made the leaves tremble. The formation changed instantly. They widened their stance, surrounding her, weapons raised in a tight vertical line. The ground between them began to glow with the same blue light as before, but this time, it didn’t race outward. It formed a dome, shimmering faintly, trapping her inside. I felt my pulse in my throat. She paced inside the dome, hissing, tail lashing, the glow in her scales fighting against the blue shimmer but not breaking it. My gut went cold. They weren’t trying to kill her—they were trying to contain her. Which meant, against all rational thought, it was time for me to do something catastrophically stupid. I crawled from behind my pillar, keeping low, and grabbed one of the fallen halberd-prods from the dirt. It was heavier than it looked, and it hummed in my hands like it was considering whether to electrocute me out of principle. I ran forward, circling the dome until I found a seam—two figures standing just close enough for the base of the dome to look thinner there. I jammed the weapon’s blade into the seam and hit the trigger. White-hot pain shot up my arms, but the dome shivered, then cracked like ice in warm water. The hatchling didn’t waste the opening. She blasted toward it, slipping through just as one of the figures pivoted to intercept. Her claws caught its chest, and the resulting spray of sparks lit her like a festival firework. She landed beside me, gave me one long look that said, Fine, you can stay, and then turned back to the fight. She didn’t bother with testing anymore. Now it was demolition. Her fire—stronger now, hotter—erupted in controlled bursts, each one precise enough to hit joints and seams in their armor. Three more fell in seconds, their bodies unraveling into ash and light. The leader was the last, standing alone, its weapon raised in a defensive angle. They stared at each other for a long, tense moment. The leader took a step forward. The hatchling did the same. The leader raised its weapon high—then froze as the ground beneath it split open. The perfect circle we’d seen earlier, the one in the ridge, bloomed here in miniature, glowing with the same ancient, radiant pattern. From it came that voice again—the subterranean hum, now so loud it rattled the teeth in my head. The leader hesitated just a second too long. The hatchling lunged, clamping her jaws around its helmet, and ripped it free. The inside was the same roiling swarm of lights, but this time, instead of scattering, the swarm shot downward into the glowing circle. The hum deepened to a note of satisfaction, and the circle sealed shut as if it had never been there. The clearing was silent again, except for the hatchling’s breathing—steady, unhurried, like she’d just taken a leisurely stroll instead of fighting for her life. She turned to me, smoke curling from her nostrils, and padded closer until we were eye to eye. Then, in a gesture so abrupt I nearly flinched, she butted her head against my chest. Just once. Hard enough to bruise. Affection, dragon-style. She stepped past me toward the treeline, her tail flicking once in a keep up motion. I looked back at the clearing—the shattered weapons, the ash drifting into the moss, the faint scent of burnt ozone—and realized two things. One: whatever lived beneath the earth had just claimed her in some way I couldn’t yet understand. Two: I was no longer just a photographer documenting a hatchling’s first day. I was now, whether I liked it or not, part of the story. I slung my camera over my shoulder and followed her into the shadows, knowing the next bell we heard might not be a greeting. It might be a summons. And if there was one thing I’d already learned about her, it was this: she had no intention of answering politely.   Bring “Rage from the Egg” Into Your Lair The fierce beauty and unapologetic attitude of Rage from the Egg doesn’t have to stay trapped in the story—you can claim a piece of her legend for yourself. Whether you want to bring the crackle of her first fire into your living room or hang her watchful gaze in your favorite reading nook, these high-quality art products let you keep her close… without the risk of being turned into a crispy snack. Tapestry — Let the power of the hatchling take over your walls with a richly detailed tapestry. Her purple-and-brown scales, molten eyes, and fierce expression turn any space into a gateway to myth and fire. Framed Print — Perfect for collectors and dragon devotees alike. The bold textures and cinematic composition are framed to perfection, ready to become the centerpiece of your decor. Canvas Print — Bring the depth and realism of the scene to life with gallery-quality canvas. Every talon, every shard of eggshell, every flicker of fire rendered in tactile, timeless detail. Wood Print — For a truly unique touch, the hatchling’s debut is printed on natural wood grain, adding warmth and organic character to her already commanding presence. Whether you choose tapestry, framed elegance, canvas artistry, or rustic wood charm, Rage from the Egg will dominate your space with the same fierce energy she brought to her first day in the world. Click the links above to make her part of your story.

Captured Tales – by Bill Tiepelman

Siren of Silk and Bloom

The night the tide forgot itself, the sea laid out a runway—glossy, blue, and just a smidge dramatic—so I could make an entrance. I am Lyris, the mermaid who sews gossip into lace and turns rumors into roses. My tail is stitched in secret languages: peony for “yes, but make it interesting,” carnation for “tell me more,” and rose for “you’ll never recover from this compliment.” Waves combed themselves smooth as I glided into the cove, hair perfumed with salt, moon, and just a trace of “don’t even think about it.” The surface mirrored me back like a perfectly polished vanity: coral-lip smile, shoulder-bare confidence, sleeves of white lace that whispered, we were born to flirt with the horizon. Fishermen’s lanterns dotted the cliffs like nosy fireflies. Somewhere a gull choked on a seashell trying to act casual. I posed on a velvet-blue sandbar and the water sighed; it does that sometimes, dramatic thing. From the reeds, a trio of otters held up a sign made of driftwood: “Welcome Back, Lyris.” The font was… earnest. I blew them a kiss and they fainted in unison. It’s a whole thing when I come home—shell paparazzi, kelp press, and the jellyfish who insist on flashing when I pass. You should know that my embroidery is not simple decoration. Every bloom was bargained for at the Meridian Market, a midnight bazaar where sea-witches sell small miracles by the spool. A rose means I once kept a sailor’s secret. A cluster of forget-me-nots means I failed gloriously at not falling for anyone that week. The lace at my shoulders? That’s a covenant with the wind. It agrees to flirt with my hair, not my balance. In return, I promise to be unforgettable enough to justify a gentle breeze in a storm warning. People say mermaids sing. I don’t “sing” so much as negotiate in major key. Tonight, I crooned a warm-up scale and the moon shifted two inches to my good side. Photogenic lighting is a basic right for ocean goddesses and I will not be taking questions. My voice rolled through the cove like velvet poured from a high shelf, carrying a chorus of luxury wall art fantasies, floral mermaid tail illusions, and romantic ocean fantasy promises that make sailors vow to buy better frames for their memories. That’s when he arrived—Orin, a surface-dweller with tidewater eyes and the posture of someone who forgot he was gorgeous. He paddled a creaky rowboat like it was a first date and he’d brought the wrong flowers. His boat wore a crooked name in chipped paint: Maybe. As in, “maybe fate, maybe foolish, maybe worth it.” I admired the honesty. He looked at me the way mortals look at summer—like it’s obviously temporary, which is why you must savor it reckless and barefoot. “Evening,” he said, because men at the edge of myth lose vocabulary faster than oars. I answered with a smile embroidered in underwater beauty and coastal home décor temptation. “Evening,” I echoed, and his boat bumped a sandbar, blushing in wood. He apologized to the boat. Gentle men make me weak for a minute and a half; ruthless men make me bored in ten seconds. He was the first sort, all clumsy reverence and quiet chaos, like he’d rehearsed a hundred goodbyes and just found the wrong hello. Orin produced a bouquet of land flowers wrapped in a map, then immediately tried to rescue the map from the tide. I took the flowers and let the sea decide the route. “It’s fine,” I said. “The ocean already knows where we’re going.” (Reader, it didn’t. The ocean is a maximalist improviser.) The map swirled away, pointing everywhere at once, as if to say: plot twists ahead. We talked like people do when the air feels carbonated. He sketched boats for a living, the sort that become real if you believe hard enough and also know how to use a hammer. I stitched stories into fabric, the sort that become real if you wear them to breakfast and refuse to apologize. He asked about my tail, the garden of it—how the blossoms stayed so vivid beneath the waves. “Because beauty is a rumor I keep re-starting,” I said. “And because I water them with other people’s underestimates.” A wind came up, tidy and flattering, bringing the spice of night-blooming plankton. The sleeves of my lace trailed on the surface, sketching white calligraphy. Orin stared, the good kind of staring, the museum gaze that says this matters. “You look like you could rewrite weather,” he said. “I prefer to annotate it,” I replied. “Footnotes with better lighting.” He laughed the embarrassed laugh of a man who has just met someone who keeps a chandelier in her personality. As conversation warmed, he revealed the secret of the rowboat: he’d built it from his old front porch. “Hard to leave a home,” he shrugged, “so I brought the part that faced the sunsets.” Oh, the poetry of it. My heart did a pirouette in its seashell. Not love—please, I’m not irresponsible before Part II—but definite interest with sparkly accessories. The kind that makes you wonder what his coffee order is and whether he can dance or at least apologize artfully for not dancing. He reached over the gunwale, fingers an inch from the lace cuff at my wrist. “May I?” he asked, as if the sea had taught him consent. (It had. The sea slaps the careless.) I let him touch the edge of a rose at my hip. It pulsed warm—roses believe in drama—and then bloomed half a shade deeper. His breath caught. “You enchant fabric,” he whispered. “Fabric enchants me,” I said. “I just return the favor in kind words and better silhouettes.” A far wave curled its finger, beckoning. The otters, revived from earlier swooning, started to hum the background music from a romance nobody had financed yet. The jellyfish dimmed their scandalous little lanterns to “mood.” I smiled at Orin, at the rowboat named Maybe, at the night that felt like a soft open. “Come back tomorrow,” I said. “Bring the part of yourself you kept safe too long.” He nodded as if he’d been waiting to hear exactly that. He pushed off the sandbar, the boat swiveling toward the passage, then hesitated. “What should I call you?” he asked. I pretended to think, though the answer was sewn into every seam I wore. “Call me the rumor you want to keep,” I said. “But if you need syllables, Lyris works.” He mouthed it—Lyris—as the tide carried him away, and I felt the name stitch itself brighter across my tail in small secret threads. When he vanished behind the rocks, the sea pressed against my ankles, excited. “Calm,” I told it, “we are not rushing a plot because you like a meet-cute.” The water fizzed anyway. I sprawled on the blue sandbar, chin propped on lace, gaze on the moon. Tomorrow would need new flowers, maybe something wild, a little unhinged. Unexpected beauty is my favorite kind—preferably the sort that walks back at dawn with paint on his hands and a question between his teeth. And that, darling reader, is how I scheduled trouble under starlight—carefully, seductively, with excellent wardrobe, and room for upgrades. The Trouble with ‘Maybe’ Morning, in my part of the sea, is a soft gold conspiracy. The sun creeps in like it’s late for something delicious, scattering light across the water in perfect little spotlight puddles. I was already awake, lounging on my favorite rock (strategically angled for optimal hip line), sewing a particularly sassy patch of marigolds onto my tail. Marigolds say, “I dare you” in flower-language. They’re useful. From beyond the reef, I heard it—the awkward thunk-thunk of oars hitting the water slightly out of sync. Orin was back. Earlier than expected, which meant he’d either missed me terribly or been chased out of bed by something less poetic, like a crab invasion. When he rounded the kelp grove, I nearly choked on my own smirk. He’d upgraded the Maybe. The boat now sported a strip of deep teal paint along the hull, and a tiny mast with a square of white canvas. On it, in careful brush strokes, was a single blooming rose. “You redecorated,” I called. “You inspired me,” he said, a little breathless, as though speaking to me required extra oxygen. “Also, my neighbor’s kid is a graffiti artist and owed me a favor.” I traced the rose on the sail with my eyes. “You know that flower means ‘I accept your challenge,’ right?” His grin was half-crooked, half-daring. “I was hoping you’d say that.” Orin brought breakfast—bread so fresh it steamed in the morning air, a jar of honey the color of late summer, and a flask of something he refused to name until I’d tried it. I took a sip and almost fell backward off my rock. Coffee. Real, strong, land-grown coffee, kissed with cinnamon and something darker, almost sinful. “You’re bribing me,” I accused. “Absolutely,” he said, handing me the bread like it was an apology. We ate in companionable chaos, crumbs feeding the fish, honey streaking my wrist where he licked it away before thinking about it too hard. His face flushed warm; mine didn’t, because blushing is something I outsource to the roses on my tail. They bloomed in a quiet, knowing way, just enough to make him blink twice. The tide was especially nosy that morning, carrying every word away to spread among the coral. I told Orin about the midnight market, about trading my voice once for a bolt of silver-thread lace (and how I stole it back the next day with a song and a little misdirection). He told me about the porch wood in his boat, the cat who’d once claimed it as her throne, and the way she’d follow him down to the dock every evening like she was checking for mermaids. “I think she suspected,” I said. “Oh, she absolutely knew,” he replied. “She’d give me this look when I came back empty-handed, like I’d failed at errands.” I imagined the cat—a tiny, whiskered chaperone with no patience for my kind of trouble—and found myself oddly charmed. Halfway through a story about a storm that had stolen his favorite hat, Orin reached into the boat and pulled out something swaddled in cloth. He handed it to me with that same uncertain reverence from the night before. I unwrapped it to find a small, hand-carved box, each side inlaid with intricate designs—waves, roses, and a single lace pattern that almost perfectly matched my sleeves. “It’s not magic,” he said quickly, “but it’s solid cedar, and I thought—well, you might like somewhere to keep… whatever it is mermaids keep.” I ran my fingers over the carvings, the grain warm under my touch. “You have no idea how dangerous it is to give me something this pretty,” I said. “I’ll keep you just for the matching accessories.” The otters returned, swimming in lazy loops, carrying a garland of seaweed and shells between them like they were auditioning for a wedding I hadn’t approved. “Not yet,” I told them firmly. Orin looked between us. “Do I want to know what that was about?” “No,” I said, smiling in a way that promised an answer in the most unhelpful possible timeframe. We drifted toward the outer reef, the water turning that impossible turquoise that makes humans consider moving underwater until they remember taxes. Orin told me he wanted to see the coral gardens, the ones lit from within by bioluminescent plankton at night. “You’ll need a guide,” I said. “And hazard pay.” “What’s the hazard?” he asked. “Me,” I said simply. His grin was worth the line. By midday, we’d anchored near the gardens. The coral rose in spirals and domes, painted in colors the land wouldn’t dare invent. Schools of fish moved like gossip—fast, bright, and impossible to catch. I slipped into the water without ceremony, letting the current press against the lace, turning it into a second set of waves. Orin followed, far less graceful but infinitely more endearing. We swam through arches of coral and into wide, blue plazas where the light fell in sheets. I showed him the jellyfish that blinked like lanterns, the shrimp that polished coral as if auditioning for housekeeper roles, the anemones that opened like gossiping mouths. He listened like every word might be a secret worth keeping, which is the fastest way to my attention. At one point, I swam ahead and hid behind a fan of purple coral. When he caught up, I popped out, wrapping my lace sleeves lightly around his wrist. He startled, laughed, and pulled me closer in a way that didn’t pretend it wasn’t intentional. His pulse thrummed under my touch, a rhythm I could’ve matched if I cared to. (I did. A little.) When we surfaced, the boat had drifted closer. The rose on the sail caught the afternoon light, and for a moment I could see the entire arc of the day ahead—coffee in the mornings, trouble at noon, and nights that never quite ended. Dangerous thoughts, even for me. “Stay,” he said suddenly, as if the word had escaped before he could wrestle it down. I tilted my head. “Stay where?” “In the boat. On the porch. Wherever the sunset happens.” He said it like a plea disguised as an invitation, and I felt the tug of it deep, somewhere between the roses and the marigolds. “I’m not the staying kind,” I reminded him. “I’m the return-and-redecorate kind.” He smiled, slow. “Then just make sure you keep coming back. I can repaint forever.” The sky began to gold itself into evening, and we let the tide pull us homeward. The otters trailed behind, humming again. The jellyfish stayed dim, perhaps out of respect, or maybe they were simply tired of being accused of mood lighting. Back at the sandbar, Orin helped me out of the water—not because I needed help, but because his hands looked good against the lace. I didn’t stop him. Before he left, he tucked a folded scrap of paper into my cedar box. “For later,” he said, and rowed away without another word. I didn’t open it until the moon was up. It was a sketch of me—tail blooming with roses, lace catching the light, head tilted back in laughter. Across the bottom, in careful letters, he’d written: Rumor Worth Keeping. Reader, I kept it. And maybe the man, too. But that’s getting ahead of myself. The Forecast Called for Chaos Two days passed before Orin reappeared. Which was fine. I am not a woman—mermaid—goddess—whatever—who checks the horizon like a lovesick gull. I had embroidery to finish, secrets to trade, and a particularly judgmental crab to avoid (don’t ask). But still… every time I surfaced, my eyes drifted toward the reef. You know. Accidentally. When he did arrive, it was not in the Maybe. No. This time, Orin showed up steering an absurd raft built from old wine barrels, driftwood, and what appeared to be the remains of someone’s patio furniture. Flying proudly above it: the rose sail. “Why?” I called. “Because,” he shouted back, “the boat is drying from a paint job, and the neighbor’s cat stole the oars.” I couldn’t argue. The raft had personality. He clambered onto my sandbar with the grace of a man who knows exactly how many ways he could fall and has accepted them all. In his arms was a wooden crate sloshing with seawater. Inside: three bottles of champagne and a bundle wrapped in oilcloth. “What’s the occasion?” I asked. “Surviving the week,” he said. “And… delivering this.” He unwrapped the bundle to reveal a dress. Not just any dress—my lace, my flowers, my tail translated into silk and stitched embroidery. Land-wearable mermaid. It was breathtaking, and I do not say that lightly. “You made this?” I asked. “I bribed someone with champagne,” he admitted. “But the design is mine.” I ran my hands over the fabric, each petal familiar, each swirl of thread like an inside joke between us. “Orin,” I said, “you’ve just guaranteed yourself three more chapters of trouble.” We opened the champagne right there, sea foam hissing at the corks like it was jealous. Otters arrived within minutes, demanding tiny cups. One jellyfish hovered close, clearly angling for a toast. We drank, laughed, and somehow ended up in the water, the crate bobbing beside us like an eager extra. “You’re a terrible influence,” he said, watching me swim lazy circles around him. “I’m your favorite bad decision,” I corrected. As twilight deepened, the sky turned scandalous—pink bleeding into violet, clouds lounging like they owned the place. Orin suggested we row the raft to the cliffside pools where warm springs bubbled up through the rock. “Romantic,” I noted. “And suspiciously convenient.” “It’s only suspicious if you don’t enjoy it,” he countered. The pools were steaming, rimmed in black stone polished smooth by centuries of tide and whispers. I slipped into one, the warmth curling around me like a lover’s arm. Orin followed, wincing at the heat before sinking in with a satisfied sigh. “This,” he said, “is better than coffee.” “Nothing’s better than coffee,” I replied. “But this is… a close second.” We talked about absurd things—whether whales gossip, which stars look the most smug, how many roses I could possibly embroider before running out of scandal. I told him about the time I’d convinced a prince to declare war on boredom (he lost). He told me about his failed attempt to build a floating bakery (he ran out of flour and patience simultaneously). Somewhere between the second and third bottle, a rainstorm wandered in from the east. Not a violent one—just a curtain of warm drops turning the surface of the pool into liquid sequins. The world blurred, soft and golden. Orin reached up to push wet hair from my face, and I let him. “You look like you belong to every myth I’ve ever heard,” he said. “Wrong,” I told him. “They belong to me.” And then, because it felt inevitable, we kissed. It wasn’t polite, or practiced, or even remotely subtle—it was the kind of kiss that rewrites afternoons, the kind you’ll still taste in the middle of some dull Tuesday years later. The rain applauded. The jellyfish, the little voyeur, pulsed brighter. When we finally surfaced for air, both figuratively and literally, Orin grinned that troublemaker’s grin. “You’re staying tonight,” he said—not asked, but said. “Am I?” I asked, one eyebrow lifting. “You are,” he insisted, “because I need someone to help me finish this champagne, and because the raft is absolutely going to sink on the way back in the dark.” Reader, the raft did sink. Slowly. Spectacularly. We laughed until we nearly swallowed the bay. By the time we made it back to the sandbar, the moon was high, the roses on my tail were fully awake, and Orin was wearing half of the lace dress like a scarf. We collapsed on the warm sand, damp, barefoot, unapologetic. “Tomorrow?” he asked, eyes half-closed. “Tomorrow,” I agreed. And that was how the Maybe became a certainty, how a rumor turned into a habit, and how I, Lyris—the Siren of Silk and Bloom—found myself adding a new flower to my tail. A lily. For beginnings. For unexpected beauty. For the sheer audacity of saying yes. The sea hummed approval, the moon angled for my good side, and somewhere, the neighbor’s cat plotted her next theft. Life, as they say, was good.     If you’ve fallen for Lyris as much as Orin did (though hopefully without the raft sinking), you can bring a piece of her world home. Imagine her embroidered tail and lace-sleeved elegance gracing your walls as a Framed Print, or shimmering in your space as a luminous Acrylic Print. For moments when you want to send a little ocean magic, she’s ready as an enchanting Greeting Card, carrying whispers of coastal romance through the post. Need a touch of siren energy in your everyday? Jot down your own stories, sketches, or scandalous sea gossip in a Spiral Notebook featuring her elegant portrait. Or, if you prefer your ocean goddess under the sun, take her along on your next getaway as a luxurious, oversized Beach Towel—perfect for wrapping yourself in silk-and-bloom style while plotting your next adventure. Whether framed on your wall, sent through the mail, scribbled with dreams, or stretched across warm sand, Siren of Silk and Bloom is ready to turn your everyday into something unforgettable.

Captured Tales – by Bill Tiepelman

Riders of the Chromatic Veil

Arrival Beneath the Veil The first time the veil split open, it was barely a whisper. It came on the seventh moonless night in a row — a night so unnaturally dark that even the wolves had stopped howling, as if the sky itself had forgotten how to breathe. When it happened, the villagers of Hollowvale didn’t hear thunder, though the clouds swirled like a storm. They didn’t see lightning, though the air crackled as if under siege. Instead, they heard hoofbeats. Five of them. Each distinct. Each deliberate. Each beating out a rhythm like a death sentence, growing louder across the fields of ash and bone-dry soil. No one left their homes. Not even to peek. The elders remembered. And the elders were afraid. The sky tore open, just beyond the edge of the withering woods, where nothing had grown in two harvests. There, framed by a horizon stitched in smoke and sorrow, five riders emerged in perfect formation. They rode tall on horses that didn’t blink, didn’t snort, didn’t move — as if carved from living stone and shadow. The horses’ coats shimmered with impossible color: obsidian, ivory, ember, sea-glass teal, and wine-dark red. Their riders were cloaked in the same hues, each faceless beneath draping hoods that whispered as they moved, though no wind blew. And then… they stopped. Just outside the hamlet. Watching. Waiting. Dripping color like oil onto the soil, which hissed and burned where the hues fell. It was Judgment Eve. No one said the name out loud, but they all felt it, like a memory you don't own yet know is yours. The Riders had come before. Centuries ago. Always in fives. Always during years when the earth dried up and the crows fattened. And always, they came to choose. What they chose, no one remembered. Only that when they left, the world was not the same. This time, something was different. This time, one of the riders moved. He—if it was a he—was draped in crimson. As he dismounted, the color bled from his robes onto the ground like a gash across reality. His boots made no sound. His hand held no weapon, but his presence was violence itself. He stepped forward, and time slowed. The clouds above shifted violently, as if turning away in shame. A door creaked open in one of the homes. A child peeked out. The crimson rider turned his head. Slowly. Intentionally. And smiled. No one saw his mouth, but everyone felt it. That grin curled around the spine of the village and licked its way up the back of every neck. That was when the screaming started. That was when people began clawing at their doors, begging the gods, any gods, even the wrong ones, to hide them from the smile that wasn’t meant for mortals. The crimson rider raised his hand and pointed at the church steeple. The bell tower cracked in half, and the iron bell plummeted to the ground, burying itself in earth like a tombstone. Then, as silently as he came, the rider returned to his horse. And the five turned as one — fading slowly into the mist that gathered behind them, like ink dispersing in water. When morning came, the sky was clear. Birds chirped like idiots. Children played again. The veil was gone. But the church was still broken. The burn marks still bled through the ground where color had dripped. And the child who had opened the door? She was gone. No trace. Not a footprint. Not a scream. Not even dust. Only a single crimson feather, humming with heat, lay in her place. Signs in the Ash and Blood on the Wind The crimson feather never cooled. It was kept in a jar, sealed by seven rings of salt and watched over by the village's last Seer, a woman with only one eye and no shadow. Her name was Grendyl, and she spoke in riddles unless you asked the right question. That morning, as she held the humming glass in her trembling hands, her one eye leaked black tears. She didn’t speak. She only nodded once and muttered, “The Choosing has begun.” Over the following days, things decayed — not just in flesh, but in spirit. Cattle refused to eat. Fruit on the trees soured in the night. The blacksmith’s wife woke screaming and clawing at her arms, convinced beetles were nesting in her skin. No one could convince her otherwise — even as the physician tried to restrain her, even as she bit through her own wrist. She died staring at the ceiling, smiling and whispering, “The veil is thin, the veil is thin, the veil is thin...” Three more vanished that week. Always just after sunset. Always without sound or struggle. First a hunter, then a pair of newlyweds whose cabin was found untouched except for a ring of ash surrounding their bed and a smear of indigo paint on the pillow. The villagers met under torchlight in the remains of the church. Their voices were hushed, thick with suspicion and fear. They argued over leaving, over hiding, over arming themselves. But Grendyl arrived with the feather in her hand and slammed it down onto the altar. “You can’t run from color,” she hissed. “Not once the Riders have marked you. They don’t want your prayers. They don’t want your weapons. They want your truth.” Silence. Then, a young man — Jerro, the miller’s son — stood. “Then let’s give them mine,” he said. “Let them take me. I have nothing left.” Everyone watched in stunned silence as he walked out of the church, toward the field where the riders first appeared. Grendyl didn’t stop him. She only whispered, “Foolish boy. It doesn’t work like that.” The next morning, Jerro’s body was found in the wheat. At least, what was left of it. He had been split perfectly down the center — vertically — as if dissected by a scalpel wielded by God Himself. One half remained in the field. The other half was nailed to the door of the town’s apothecary. In place of blood, his veins held paint. Thick, radiant, glittering paint in shades no one had names for. His heart was missing. But in its place was a note, burned into the wood behind him: “Your truth was not enough.” That night, the teal rider returned. He stepped out of the mist just past midnight, his horse breathing steam that coiled into serpent shapes. The air turned viscous around him. Every lamp in the village went out. Dreams dissolved into nightmares — and everyone who had ever lied in their sleep woke up choking on their own tongues. One man burst into flames. Another aged fifty years overnight. The village dog began speaking backwards, uttering the names of the dead as it limped through the square, tail between its legs. The teal rider did not approach a home this time. He walked to the old schoolhouse and placed a single hand on its door. The building shuddered like a living thing. Screams erupted from inside — dozens of them, though the building had been abandoned for decades. The door crumbled into smoke. The screams stopped. And the teal rider, without another gesture, melted back into the mist. Grendyl now refused to speak, except in one-word answers. Her right hand began to peel, revealing ink beneath her skin. Lines. Symbols. A language only the dead understood. She began scratching them into the floorboards, muttering “the cycle returns,” over and over, like a prayer for no one. By the end of the week, Hollowvale had lost 17 souls. Not all were killed. Some simply wandered into the woods and didn’t come back. Others were found staring into the river, mouths wide open, no eyes in their sockets — just glistening marbles of swirling paint, still wet. Then came the ivory rider. He was different. Slower. He didn’t burn. He froze. His presence drained color from the world. Flowers wilted into gray powder as he passed. Wood cracked. Windows iced over. And people who looked directly at him were stricken with a shivering silence they never recovered from. Whole families stood in their yards, unmoving, unmoving, unmoving — until they crumbled into dust like frost-swept statues kissed by wind. Only Grendyl seemed unaffected. She sat in the square, scribbling furiously, humming a dirge with no melody. The feather now hovered in front of her, pulsing to the beat of the Riders' hooves no matter how far away they seemed. She was counting something. Not days. Not deaths. She was counting lies. Because that was what the Riders were feeding on. The lies we told ourselves. The ones about safety. About gods. About who we were before the veil first cracked. Before the Riders returned to remind us of the truths we buried too deep. Hollowvale was not innocent. It was chosen. And someone among them had summoned the Veil. Not by prayer. Not by magic. But by secret. Someone had made a pact. And the Riders had come to collect. The Pact, The Price, and The Pale Horizon The truth did not come gently. It broke open like a coffin kicked from the inside. It bled into Hollowvale one final night — when the sky above the woods caught fire and the last two Riders emerged. The Obsidian and the Amber. They came together this time. They did not stop at the field. They did not observe. They entered Hollowvale. Doors unlatched on their own. Walls wept varnish. Every reflective surface — from puddles to mirrors — showed not the present, but memories. Traumas. Sins. A woman dropped to her knees when she saw her reflection confess to a murder no one knew had happened. A child screamed as his own face mouthed the words: “I let it drown.” Even the dogs howled with human voices. The Riders walked through it all in silence. Their horses glided rather than trotted. The Obsidian one cast no shadow, and the Amber’s hooves rang like bells at a funeral procession. And between them, drifting like a piece of scorched cloth on invisible threads, came the Veil. It was not a metaphor. It was real. A tattered swath of something not quite fabric, not quite light — darker than night but brighter than death. It pulsed like a heartbeat, and it hummed with the weight of a thousand unspoken oaths. And when it reached the square, it stopped above Grendyl. She looked up for the first time in days, her lips cracked and dry, eyes ringed with ink. The floating feather hovered above her heart. The lines on her arms now connected into a map — a map of Hollowvale’s secrets, burned into her skin from within. She laughed. Not the laugh of someone who won — but the desperate, broken laugh of someone who thought they had time. “It wasn’t supposed to be me,” she said. The Obsidian rider spoke. A single word, and the ground rippled with it. “Lie.” The Amber rider raised a hand. The Veil descended. It touched Grendyl’s head like a crown. She arched backward with a scream so raw it flayed the crows from the sky. Her memories poured into the Veil. One by one. We saw them. Grendyl as a girl, whispering curses into the bones of a drowned priest. Grendyl in a midnight ritual with a circle of robed villagers, naming names, promising favors. Grendyl bleeding into the soil beneath the chapel, making a pact with something that had no face but many mouths. Grendyl holding a red stone, chanting, as she summoned the Riders to burn away her guilt… by making others pay her price. The Veil hissed. Not in anger. In understanding. It wrapped her completely. Her body vanished. Her screams did not. They still haven’t. And then — the Riders turned to the village. The rest of it. Not to destroy. But to choose. Every man, woman, and child was paralyzed in place. Not by magic. But by truth. When the Riders looked at you, you remembered everything you ever hid. And you felt it. In your bones. In your breath. Like you were being rewritten. Each Rider passed through the crowd. They placed hands on foreheads, over hearts, on trembling hands. They weren’t killing. They were collecting. Some people dropped where they stood — their bodies intact, but their eyes blank. Whatever made them human had been extracted. Others wept and fell to their knees in forgiveness for crimes they hadn’t admitted even to themselves. A few — very few — were untouched. Not pure, but honest. Honest in their fear, in their regret, in their weakness. The Veil spared them. The Riders bowed to them. And then the sky opened one final time. The colors that spilled out weren’t colors we know. They were emotions made visible — grief in hues that tasted like metal, joy that echoed like music. The five Riders rode back into the wound in the sky, and the Veil followed, dragging behind them like a river being sucked back into the earth. Before the breach sealed, the Obsidian rider turned once more… and dropped something into the dirt. A mirror. It still lies in the center of Hollowvale. Untouched. Because no one wants to see themselves the way the Riders saw them. The survivors rebuilt. Slowly. Quietly. With fewer lies. But they never removed the mirror. They planted nothing near it. No children are born near it. And every night, a candle is lit beside it. Not to keep anything out. But to make sure they remember what they let in. Years later, a traveler asked a blind old man sitting near the mirror, “What were they, really? Spirits? Gods?” The old man didn’t answer at first. He reached into his cloak and held up a feather — crimson, still warm to the touch. “They were our truth,” he said. “And that’s the scariest thing that’s ever come through the dark.”     If the Riders have ridden into your imagination and refused to leave, you can now bring a piece of that ominous energy into your own world. “Riders of the Chromatic Veil” is available as a hauntingly vivid wood print or as a brilliantly reflective metal print, perfect for framing your darker side in the most striking way possible. Prefer something more tactile? Challenge your sanity with the 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle — and piece together the mystery yourself. Or carry the shadows with you everywhere in a stylish, soul-stirring tote bag. Let the story live beyond the screen. Own the Veil. Touch the myth. Dare to frame your truth.

Captured Tales – by Bill Tiepelman

Petals & Pavement

The Night the City Sprouted Heels I was three blocks deep into a rain-polished evening, the kind that makes every taxi light bokeh look like a gold coin thrown into a wish well, when I nearly tripped over the boot. Not just any boot—a floral high heel stiletto with the posture of a debutante and the attitude of a street poet. The leather shimmered with hand-painted wildflowers—daisies, cosmos, a few tiny asters sneaking along the seams like gossip—while a real bouquet spilled out of the ankle, fresh and dewy, as if the shoe had been photosynthesizing compliments all day. It stood alone on the rain-slicked pavement at the corner of 47th and Maybe, where the city keeps its secrets and takes its smoke breaks. Now, I know what you’re thinking: boot as vase, vase as boot—urban chic style or prank by an art student with too much time and not enough roommates. But the city has rules, and rule number one is that things left abandoned are never truly alone. There was a hum to it, a little sugar buzz in the air, like a cappuccino that learned to flirt. I leaned in, because I’m nosy and also because the bouquet smelled like a lingerie store determined to change your life. The heel cast a long, elegant shadow, a needle stitching darkness to light, and I realized the boot wasn’t wet. Everything around it gleamed with puddle-sheen, but the boot was dry, as if the storm had signed a non-disclosure agreement. “Careful,” said a voice, the kind that could sell you a candle and a confession. I spun around to find a woman in a velvet blazer and combat eyeliner, holding a pastry box like it contained the Ark of the Covenant. “If it chooses you, your life gets… greener.” “Greener?” I asked, already bargaining with myself about how many plants one person can kill before the house plants unionize. She nodded toward the shoe. “It’s the Bloomwalker. An urban legend, technically. Shows up when someone’s about to quit—love, art, sobriety, hope, the gym—whatever. You slide your foot in, and it slides a little courage into you. But it’s picky. It only likes people who are at least forty-nine percent chaos and fifty-one percent tenderness.” “That’s oddly specific.” “Like a dating app, but for redemption,” she said. “I put a cream puff in this box and heard it whisper. Not the cream puff, the boot. The puff’s more of a moaner.” She winked, very adult, very feminine city fashion, and disappeared into the blur of city night lights like a magic trick with good lighting. I stared at the heel. It stared back, the lace holes like patient little eyes. Traffic growled. Steam rose from a grate like the city exhaling. Somewhere, someone laughed the kind of laugh that makes you want to share a cigarette and a mortgage. I felt that familiar ache—the one that shows up when your art is two likes short of a heartbeat and your rent is three zeroes over your self-esteem. The kind of ache you can either drink about or write about. I choose both, usually in that order, but tonight the boot felt like a dare. “Listen,” I told it, because I talk to objects when they look expensive. “If I put you on, you’re not going to turn me into a pumpkin, right? I didn’t dress pumpkin chic.” The boot didn’t answer. Instead, a single petal drifted from the bouquet and landed on my shoe—my own very average, non-famous sneaker. The petal stuck like a kiss you didn’t plan on but definitely needed. Then another fell. Then the bouquet rustled, a floral whisper that sounded suspiciously like, Well? Here’s the thing about fashion art photography: it lies just enough to tell the truth. You capture a floral stiletto art piece on a wet street and suddenly everyone believes in romance again, or at least in good ankle support. So I did what any sensible adult with questionable impulse control would do: I slipped off my sneaker, held my breath like I was crossing a truth minefield, and eased my foot into the Bloomwalker. Warmth. Not like a heater—more like stepping into a story already in progress. The leather hugged my foot with the affection of a bartender who knows your order and your therapist’s first name. The heel lifted me three moral inches above my usual perspective, and the world rearranged itself slightly—as if the city had been tilted and I was now standing where the brave people stand. The bouquet shivered, then straightened, and everything sharpened: neon became neoner, raindrops became glass confetti, and my heart learned a new beat that sounded suspiciously like tap dance. A cab rolled by. The driver looked out and saluted, not in a creepy way, more in a “respect your shoe game” way. A passerby paused, eyebrows high enough to qualify for penthouse living. “Is that a heel with flowers in it?” he asked. “It’s a botanical couture situation,” I said, trying to stand like elegance had never ghosted me. “Also, possibly magic.” He nodded, as one does in a city where feral pigeons have LinkedIns. “Good for you.” Then he wandered off, probably to file a report with the Department of Wild Yet Tasteful Sightings. I took a step. The heel clicked, and I swear the sound had taste: bitter chocolate with a citrus finish. Another step. The puddles reflected me as a taller, shinier myth. My mind, usually a noisy laundromat of second thoughts, fell quiet. In the hush, I heard the Bloomwalker’s voice—soft, sly, conspiratorial, like a grandmother who used to run numbers. Say what you came to say. “I’m tired,” I confessed. “Of almost. Of waiting rooms. Of putting ‘artist’ in tiny letters on tax forms. Of loving people who only text when their flight is delayed.” Then don’t be tired. Be tender. “Tender gets bruised,” I said. Tough gets lonely. That landed. I felt a prickle at the corners of my eyes, the kind that says, “Careful, you’re about to cry in HD.” The bouquet bopped my cheek, gentle and bossy. I laughed, a little wetly, which for the record is the sexiest and least convenient laugh. My phone buzzed—a notification from the universe (or my ex; same energy). Without looking, I slipped it back into my pocket. The city was speaking, and I was finally wearing the right ears. The Bloomwalker guided me—no, escorted me—down the block toward a bodega that sells oranges, lottery tickets, and salvation in blue glass bottles. “Nice shoe,” said the clerk, who has seen enough to retire from surprise. “Want the usual?” “Actually,” I said, feeling ridiculous and radiant, “I’ll take the unusual.” I pointed to a tiny disposable camera and a notebook with a velvet cover. If I was going to be a storyteller with heels, I wanted receipts. Outside, I snapped the first photo: heel, puddle, city street photography reflections curling around me like approving cats. A gust of wind lifted the bouquet, and for a second the flowers formed a crown. I wore it. The world clapped politely—streetlight, stoplight, a neon sign that promised OPEN LATE like a vow not to give up on anyone. In the distance, faint but clear, a saxophone reminded the night to arch its back. That’s when the woman in velvet returned, minus the pastry box and plus a smirk. “So,” she said, “what’s the plan, Bloomwalker?” “I’m going to make something. Something whimsical, a little mysterious, definitely inspiring. Maybe even a fine art poster if my printer sobers up.” She looked me over like a tailor measuring for destiny. “Good. Because the legend doesn’t end with the shoe. It’s a relay. You wear it until it tells you who gets it next. Then you pass it on.” “Like a torch?” “More like a flirtation,” she said. “But with better arch support.” The bouquet rustled again, that same Well? I felt the heel tug my center of gravity forward, an elegant nudge toward whatever came next. The city held its breath. A bus hissed. Somewhere above us a window opened, and laughter spilled out like champagne from a bottle you don’t own but will definitely drink from. “All right,” I told the night. “Let’s walk.” And we did—me, the heel, the flowers, the rumor—down the avenue where hearts go to recommit and strangers become footnotes. Each click of the stiletto wrote a new sentence on the street: floral pattern high heels, urban elegance, feminine street style, artistic footwear, colorful floral art. The kind of keywords the city’s search bar loves. Three blocks later, the Bloomwalker stopped. Not stumbled—stopped—in front of a mural I’d never noticed: a pair of hands releasing a bouquet into a sky the exact color of forgiveness. The heel pulsed once, twice, like a heartbeat checking its schedule. I knew—bone-deep, soul-bright—that Part II of this story was waiting behind that mural, or inside it, or maybe twenty minutes and one confession to the left. But first, a pause. Magic is potent. You sip it. You don’t chug. The Mural, the Map, and the Man Who Spoke in Colors The mural wasn’t just a mural. It was… humming. Not audibly, mind you—this wasn’t a Disney situation with chipper paintbrushes and anthropomorphic scaffolding—but something in it vibrated. The bouquet in the Bloomwalker tilted forward like it was bowing, and I swear the daisies exchanged glances. I stepped closer, raindrops creating a hush around me as if the whole street had been put on ‘do not disturb.’ The hands in the mural were wide, palms up, releasing flowers into an endless blue. But here’s the thing—up close, the petals weren’t just painted. They were maps. Tiny, microscopic city maps painted in fractal detail, so intricate you’d need a jeweler’s loupe and two shots of espresso to see them properly. And the blue sky? Not one color. Dozens of shades, each one slightly warmer or cooler depending on where you stood. It gave the sensation that the mural was breathing. I reached out—because self-control is for people with better hobbies—and my fingertip tingled when it touched the paint. For a moment, the cold wall was gone, replaced by the warmth of skin. The mural’s hand was holding mine. It squeezed. A small laugh bubbled up from somewhere in my chest, because this was exactly the kind of moment that makes you question every cynic you’ve ever dated. “Found it, did you?” The voice came from behind me. I turned to find an older man in a paint-spattered coat, his hair a kind of white that streetlights couldn’t decide whether to turn gold or silver. His eyes were mismatched—one brown, one the green of a bottle you’d keep whiskey in for emergencies. “Took you long enough.” “Sorry,” I said automatically, then realized I had no idea what I was apologizing for. “Do I… know you?” He tapped his temple. “Not here. But the Bloomwalker remembers you.” “Great,” I said, “because the rest of my footwear treats me like I’m disposable.” He grinned. “Shoes are never just shoes. These are maps, too. The right pair will walk you into the truth you’ve been avoiding. The wrong pair…” He trailed off, and I swear the air got two degrees colder. “…will keep you looping in circles until you forget you ever meant to leave.” The Bloomwalker pulsed again against my foot, an impatient little ahem. The man noticed. “She’s ready to show you.” He pulled a small tin from his pocket, the kind you’d expect to contain mints but which, naturally, contained something far stranger: dozens of tiny squares of fabric, each painted with one perfect brushstroke. No pattern, no recognizable image—just swatches of color so rich they looked edible. “Every place worth visiting,” he said, “has a color. The Bloomwalker knows which one you need. Press your heel to the wall.” Now, I’ve done questionable things in questionable alleys before, but pressing an enchanted floral stiletto into public art was a new category of life choice. Still, curiosity and recklessness are cousins in my family, so I did as told. The heel clicked softly against the mural, and a faint circle of light spread outward. The bouquet trembled, dropping a single cosmos petal that landed at the man’s feet. He picked it up like it was legal tender. “Ah,” he said, smiling without teeth. “Color number twenty-three.” He rummaged through the tin, found a swatch of color that could only be described as sunset-through-a-glass-of-rosé, and pressed it into my palm. The warmth from it seeped straight into my bloodstream. “Follow it,” he said. “That’s your next street.” “It’s… a color,” I said. “How am I supposed to follow a color?” “With your eyes closed, of course. Eyes open, you’ll just get distracted by billboards and regret. Eyes closed, the Bloomwalker will steer.” I considered this. I also considered the fact that I’d had two glasses of wine earlier and was, therefore, slightly more agreeable to impossible instructions. “And what’s at the end of the street?” He shrugged. “Depends. Could be a door. Could be a kiss. Could be the thing you thought you lost when you were seventeen. The Bloomwalker doesn’t work on just anyone, you know. She picks people who’ll actually do something with what they find.” Something in me—probably the stubborn part that still believes in happy endings with bad beginnings—straightened up. “All right,” I said. “Let’s walk.” I closed my eyes. The first few steps were hesitant, my brain yelling things like pothole and open manhole cover in capital letters. But the Bloomwalker moved with certainty, guiding me with subtle shifts in weight, steering me left at one corner, right at another. The sound of the heel on wet pavement became hypnotic—click, pause, click—like a metronome counting out courage. With my eyes shut, the city felt different. Smells sharpened: the metallic tang of the rain, the sweet-sour perfume of a bakery at closing time, the ghost of cigarette smoke trailing from a doorway I passed. Somewhere, a busker played a saxophone so mournful it made the lampposts sigh. I felt the color pulling me onward, the warmth in my palm intensifying with each step. We stopped. I opened my eyes. I was in front of a shop I’d never seen before, though the street was familiar. No sign, no name—just a narrow glass door and a window filled with objects that shouldn’t have existed outside of dreams: a goldfish swimming in what looked like liquid silver; a chessboard where the pieces were tiny, breathing birds; a stack of books that rearranged their titles every few seconds, as if they were indecisive about the story they wanted to tell. The door opened before I touched it. A woman with hair the color of spilled ink stepped out, wearing a suit so sharp it could slice through small talk. “We’ve been expecting you,” she said, as if that were the most normal thing in the world. “The Bloomwalker’s last wearer left something for you.” She held out a box the size of a shoebox, but heavier. Inside, nestled in velvet, was a camera—old, but not dusty—and a single undeveloped photograph. The photo showed… me. Standing in this very spot, wearing the Bloomwalker, bouquet bright and defiant. But the me in the photo was smiling like she already knew the punchline to a joke I hadn’t heard yet. “How—?” I started. “The Bloomwalker records its journeys,” she said. “Not for vanity. For continuity. What you do with it next will decide whether it ends here or keeps walking.” Behind her, the shop seemed to shift, like it was rearranging itself to make room for me—or to hide something from me. My pulse matched the rhythm of the heel’s click. I had the distinct, unshakable feeling that if I stepped inside, I wouldn’t come out the same. “Do I have a choice?” I asked. She smiled like the city does when it’s about to hand you a miracle wrapped in bad timing. “Of course you do. But you’ve already taken the first step.” The bouquet in the heel brushed my knee again, that same persistent Well? I looked at the photo in my hand, then at the open door. The warmth of the color swatch in my palm was almost hot now, buzzing like it wanted to leap free. I took a deep breath, tasting rain, risk, and the faint sweetness of something blooming. Then I stepped inside. The Shop That Sold the Impossible The door shut behind me with the soft certainty of a secret locking itself away. The air inside was warm but not stuffy, scented faintly of jasmine, cedar, and something that smelled like lightning right before it hits. The floor was a patchwork of rugs from every era—Persian, Navajo, IKEA circa 1998—stitched together like they’d been rescued from doomed living rooms. Shelves curved along the walls, heavy with objects that radiated personality: a typewriter with fresh ink on the ribbon, a teacup constantly refilling itself, a silver locket humming low like a bee in a hurry. The woman in the sharp suit walked ahead without looking back. “Everything in here has been carried in by the Bloomwalker’s chosen,” she said, her voice smooth enough to butter a whole loaf. “Each item is a map, a memory, or a mistake worth keeping.” “And you… collect them?” I asked, brushing fingers over a book that shivered under my touch. “We keep them safe until they’re needed again,” she replied. “Sometimes they’re tools. Sometimes warnings. Sometimes… debts.” The bouquet in the heel twitched like a cat seeing something in the corner. I followed its gaze to a display case at the back. Inside sat another heel—sleeker, black leather, no flowers, just a faint glimmer along its surface like a constellation trapped under the material. The sight of it made my pulse trip. There was… recognition. Or déjà vu’s more persistent cousin. “That one,” I said, pointing. Her expression shifted almost imperceptibly. “That one is for after.” “After what?” “After you decide whether to keep walking.” I wanted to ask what that meant, but the shop had other ideas. The rug under my feet rippled like water, and suddenly I was standing in front of a counter piled high with envelopes, each one addressed in handwriting that ranged from precise calligraphy to the chaotic scrawl of someone writing mid-chase. The top envelope had my name on it. I opened it. Inside was a single sheet of paper, covered in my own handwriting—though it wasn’t anything I remembered writing. It read: “If you’re reading this, it means you said yes. Not to the shoe, not to the walk—those were inevitable. You said yes to the part where you stop apologizing for the weight of your own colors. The city will test you. People will try to make you grayscale. Don’t let them. When you’re ready, find the next pair of eyes that are still awake in the middle of the day and hand the Bloomwalker to them. They’ll know what to do. Oh—and take the camera everywhere. You’re going to want proof.” I stared at it, my chest tightening in the way it does when you realize the advice you need is coming from the version of yourself you keep trying to outrun. The woman was watching me with a patience that made me think she’d stand there until the building turned to dust. “So,” she said at last, “will you keep it?” I looked down at the Bloomwalker. The leather gleamed softly, the flowers swaying even though there was no breeze. My reflection in the polished toe didn’t look like me—it looked like the woman in the photograph. The one who knew the punchline already. “I’ll keep it,” I said. “For now.” “Good,” she said, and in that instant, every object in the shop exhaled. A stack of papers shuffled themselves neatly. The goldfish swam a triumphant lap. Somewhere in the rafters, something laughed quietly—low and warm. She handed me a small key. “For the camera. It unlocks the second shutter. Use it only when you’re ready to take a picture of something you can’t explain.” “And when will that be?” “Sooner than you think.” I left the shop without remembering opening the door. One second I was inside; the next I was back on the wet street, the mural behind me quiet and still. In my hand, the velvet-covered notebook from earlier. In my foot, the Bloomwalker’s steady pulse, like it was keeping time for both of us. I walked for blocks, snapping photos without thinking too hard about why—puddles catching neon like they were fishing for compliments, strangers with eyes like entire libraries, graffiti that seemed to change words as I passed. Every click of the heel was a beat in a song the city and I were writing together. When I stopped, it was in front of a bus stop where a young woman sat alone, head bent over a sketchbook. Her clothes were threadbare but her pen moved with a precision that made the air feel sharper. She looked up, and our eyes met. Awake. That was the only word for it. The Bloomwalker tightened slightly, just once, and I knew. Not tonight. Not yet. But soon, she’d be the one. I’d know when. Until then, the legend would keep walking—with me, through me, despite me. I turned toward home, the heel singing its quiet, confident song. Somewhere in the distance, thunder rolled in approval. The bouquet leaned forward as if eager for the next street. And I kept walking, petals scattering behind me like breadcrumbs for anyone brave—or foolish—enough to follow.     Bring the legend home. If “Petals & Pavement” spoke to you—the shimmer of rain-slick streets, the wild defiance of flowers blooming in the unlikeliest places—why not let that magic live on your walls? Our Framed Prints turn the Bloomwalker’s midnight strut into a centerpiece worthy of any room, while the Acrylic Prints capture the crisp vibrancy of city lights and wet pavement in luminous, modern style. For a touch of rustic charm, the Wood Prints blend the piece’s urban elegance with natural warmth, making each detail feel intimate and tactile. Or, go bold with a flowing Tapestry—a statement piece that transforms any wall into a window to this mysterious, inspiring city night. Whichever you choose, you’re not just buying art—you’re adopting a chapter of the Bloomwalker’s story.

Captured Tales – by Bill Tiepelman

The Agave Whisperer

The Barrel-Bottom Prophet It was said in the whisperiest of taverns — between shots of regret and beers of poor decisions — that somewhere deep in the groves of Tuscagave, there lived a gnome who could speak to tequila. Not about tequila. To it. And worse still... it whispered back. His name was Bartó the Brash, and legend had it he was born in a bootleg still, cradled in blue agave husks, and teethed on fermented lime peels. The midwife had slapped his ass, and he belched a perfect margarita mist. His mother passed out from pride. Or mezcal. Or both. Bartó lived alone, if you didn’t count the raccoons (whom he called his “spirit consultants”) and the near-empty bottle of Tequila Yore N. Abort he carried like a talisman. He claimed the bottle contained the voice of an ancient agave god named Chuchululululul — or “Chu” for short — who had chosen him as the last Tequilamancer, a sacred order long disbanded due to liver failure and questionable pants choices. “I don’t drink to forget,” Bartó would slur at passing squirrels, “I drink to remember what the hell I’m meant to be doing.” Then he’d usually pass out face-first into a cactus and have visions of the future, or at least hallucinate himself into a screaming match with a talking gecko wearing a fedora. But fate — that wobbly barstool of destiny — was about to spin beneath him. On a morning dripping in sun and hangover dew, Bartó squinted into the olive grove horizon and saw it: a caravan of bureaucrats in beige capes, clipboards clenched like holy relics. The Department of Magical Overreach and Beverage Regulation (DMOBR) had arrived — and they were pissed. “Unauthorized intoximancy! Public incantation while under the influence! Summoning of unlicensed limes!” barked the lead official, a sour-faced elf named Sandra with a severe bob and the moral flexibility of a corkscrew. “You, sir, are a fermenting menace!” “Oh please,” Bartó scoffed, adjusting his mossy, sagging hat. “I’ve fermented things that would make your clipboard cry.” Sandra raised a pen. “By the authority of subsection 3B of the Intoxicating Enchantments Code, I hereby revoke your right to whisper to any agave-derived spirit for a period not less than—” CRACK! Lightning struck a nearby clay jug. A sizzling bolt carved the words “BITE ME” into the side of an olive tree. Chu, the bottle god, was awake. “OH SH*T,” Bartó grinned. “He’s back.” The tequila began to glow. The raccoons began to chant. The olives rolled uphill. Somewhere, a mariachi band formed out of thin air. And just like that, our story — soaked in alcohol, mischief, and prophecy — had begun. The Rise of the Drunken Oracle As the tequila bottle pulsed with a holy light that smelled vaguely of lime zest and bad decisions, the air around Bartó the Brash thickened like a triple-distilled vision quest. The gnome stood — or rather, teetered confidently — on the barrel like a demented squirrel messiah, arms raised high, eyes crossed but determined. “Chu has spoken,” he announced, “and he says you’re all a bunch of cork-sniffing, oak-aged fun vampires.” Sandra, lead pencil-pusher of DMOBR, adjusted her clipboard with bureaucratic menace. “That bottle is unauthorized and unregistered. Its mouthpiece—you—are in direct violation of thirteen beverage communion laws, four forbidden fermentation rites, and one very specific restraining order involving a sacred cactus.” “That cactus liked it,” Bartó muttered under his breath, then belched out a tiny lightning bolt. A nearby stone frog sculpture twitched and winked. The raccoons began circling in a loose formation resembling a pentagram made entirely of bad intentions and spilled mezcal. Their eyes glowed with a dangerous mix of mysticism and dumpster trauma. One was wearing a tiny cape made from a bar mat that said "Lick, Sip, Regret." From the tequila bottle came the rumbling voice of Chu — ancient, boozy, and oddly flirtatious. “THE AGAVE AWAKENS. THE TIME OF DISTILLED PROPHECY IS NIGH. BRING ME TACOS.” Bartó gasped. “It’s the Prophecy of the Blistered Tongue!” Sandra rolled her eyes so hard they almost filed a complaint. “There is no such prophecy. That was debunked in a 2007 memo titled ‘Delirium-Driven Distillery Delusions.’” “Delusions?! You bureaucratic bottle cap!” Bartó roared. “I have seen visions in the foam of my beer, heard sermons in the slosh of a margarita! I AM THE AGAVE WHISPERER!” He chugged from the bottle like a man possessed by both the divine and several questionable life choices. The sky dimmed. Olive trees trembled. Somewhere in the distance, a goat screamed in what might have been Latin. BOOM! A wave of golden vapor exploded from the bottle and blasted across the grove. Everyone within a fifty-foot radius was hit with a sudden wave of intoxicated clairvoyance. One elf dropped to his knees sobbing about his childhood toothbrush. Another began giggling and drawing phallic doodles in the dirt with his wand. Sandra’s clipboard snapped in half. “This… this is unauthorized revelatory broadcasting!” “This,” Bartó grinned, “is happy hour at the end of the f*cking world.” And with that, he flung the bottle skyward. It hovered. Hovered! Swirling with magical carbonation, it began to rotate, casting symbols in the air — ancient agave runes, each one glowing and dripping with tequila logic. The runes formed into a flaming piñata goat, which promptly exploded into glitter and regret confetti. The raccoons began to chant in tongues. Literal tongues. They had stolen some from a taco truck. “We are the Chosen Few!” Bartó shouted. “We are the Drunk, the Damned, the Slightly Sticky! Rise, my festive minions! The world must be unbuttoned!” At this, the caravan of DMOBR agents began to panic. Their enchanted clipboards were now possessed by spirits (both bureaucratic and alcoholic), their regulation sashes turned into salsa-scented snakes, and several of them had started twerking involuntarily to an invisible mariachi band echoing through the hills. Sandra screamed. “Code Vermouth! I repeat, Code Vermouth!” Bartó, now somehow riding a summoned barrel like a tequila-powered chariot, pointed at her dramatically. “You wanna regulate joy? License laughter? Tax my farts? Over my pickled body!” Chu’s voice thundered once more. “ONE AMONG YOU SHALL SQUEEZE THE SACRED LIME. THEY SHALL UNCORK THE FINAL FIESTA.” A hush fell. Even the raccoons stopped licking their toes. Everyone stared at Bartó. His eyes sparkled. His beard blew dramatically in the wind. He dropped the tequila bottle into the crook of his arm like a baby made of danger. “I must find the Sacred Lime,” he whispered. “Only it can complete the Rite of the Salty Rim.” “That’s not a real thing,” Sandra snapped. “It is now,” Bartó said, then mounted his raccoon-pulled barrel chariot and disappeared into the grove at full squeaky wheel speed, laughing like a gremlin who just farted in a cathedral. The DMOBR team was left in stunned silence. Sandra stared at the bottle, now lying innocently in the dirt, leaking a faint trail of glowing liquid that spelled the word “WHEEEE” in cursive. The prophecy had begun. And Bartó the Brash? He was off to save the world — armed with only a bottle, some cursed citrus, and the unwavering belief that destiny was best pursued while hammered. The Sacred Lime & the End of the Pour Deep in the sunburnt olive groves of Tuscagave, under skies marbled with hangover clouds and divine indecision, Bartó the Brash thundered through the underbrush on his raccoon-powered barrel-chariot of destiny. His eyes were bloodshot with purpose. His beard? Windswept. His bottle? Glowing like a disco ball in a frat house bathroom. “THE SACRED LIME!” he cried, yanking hard on the reins (which were actually shoelaces tied to raccoon tails). “It calls to me!” “SQUEEEEE!” squealed the lead raccoon, who had been mainlining moonshine since breakfast and was now entirely committed to whatever this mission was. He tore through a grove of enchanted citrus trees, where oranges screamed motivational quotes and grapefruits sobbed about their father issues. But there, on a mossy pedestal carved from a petrified margarita glass, pulsed the Sacred Lime — the one foretold in soggy bar napkin prophecies and whispered about in inebriated dreams. It was perfect. Glossy. Green. Slightly smug. And guarded by a beast of legend: a giant horned badger with a salt-rimmed collar and a body carved from hardened party fouls. It reeked of expired guacamole and regret. Its name was only spoken in the lost language of Jell-O shots. “BEHOLD!” Bartó yelled, drawing forth his corkscrew wand. “I demand tequila-based trial by combat!” The badger hissed like a shaken can of LaCroix and lunged. Bartó countered with a savage swirl of his tequila bottle, spraying a hypnotic mist that hit the beast right in the dignity. It staggered, disoriented, and tripped over a lime wedge from 1983. “Chug, raccoons, chug!” Bartó bellowed. The raccoons formed a circle, chanting and doing something that looked suspiciously like a conga line of doom. He seized the Sacred Lime and held it aloft. The heavens parted. Trumpets farted a triumphant tune. Somewhere, a mariachi band combusted into pure joy. Chu’s voice echoed once more from the tequila bottle: “YOU HAVE THE LIME. NOW UNCORK THE FINAL FIESTA.” “Oh, we’re about to fiesta so hard the gods will need aspirin,” Bartó whispered with a drunken reverence only achievable at blood-alcohol levels considered biologically implausible. He rolled back into town like a legend carved from leftover nachos, raccoons flanking him like intoxicated bodyguards. The villagers of Tuscagave were already halfway through their annual Tax-Free Liquor Festival and thus barely blinked at the sight of their drunken savior astride a squeaky wheel of destiny. Sandra, DMOBR’s fun-hating elf enforcer, awaited him at the gates, looking slightly more frazzled and extremely more sticky than last we saw her. “You’ve violated more ordinances than the Great Whiskey Riots of 1824,” she spat. “What say you in your defense, gnome?” “I say this,” Bartó declared. He raised the Sacred Lime in one hand, the tequila bottle in the other. “Let the world know: regulation without celebration is just constipation in a cocktail glass.” He squeezed the lime into the bottle. Time stopped. Reality hiccupped. A geyser of fluorescent tequila shot into the air like a golden volcano of freedom. It rained down on Tuscagave like divine margarita mist. People screamed. People stripped. One man achieved enlightenment while motorboating a vat of salsa. The olive trees danced. The raccoons ascended. Sandra’s clipboard melted into a poem about forgiveness and nachos. The Final Fiesta had begun. And what a fiesta it was. For seven days and six blurry nights, the world paused for celebration. Debts were forgiven, enemies made out in alleyways, and the moon was replaced with a glowing disco lime. Bartó became both messiah and cautionary tale, immortalized in limericks, bar songs, and a regrettable tattoo on someone’s buttock in a village far away. When the fog of booze and prophecy finally cleared, the town was different. Happier. Wilder. Sticky. Bartó the Brash? He vanished into the hills, bottle in hand, raccoons in tow. His final words to Sandra (who, by then, had retired from DMOBR to open a margarita spa for burned-out auditors) were simple: “If the lime fits… squeeze it.” And from that day forward, bartenders in every realm would raise their glasses to the sky and whisper a toast to the Agave Whisperer — gnome, oracle, and sacred party goblin. May your salt be fine, your lime be sacred, and your hangovers blessed with purpose. Fin.     Take Bartó home with you! Immortalize the legendary Agave Whisperer on something equally bold and occasionally questionable. Whether you're sipping inspiration or summoning chaos, we've bottled his mischievous magic into a wood print worthy of a cantina wall, or a sleek acrylic print that glows with prophecy and poor decisions. Need something for your wild journeys? Sling the tote bag over your shoulder and smuggle sacred limes like a true believer. Prefer your revelations in doodle form? The spiral notebook is perfect for recording drunken prophecies and raccoon conspiracy theories. And if you just want to slap Bartó’s face somewhere totally inappropriate, there’s always the sticker. Go ahead — join the cult of Chu. Tequila not included… but strongly encouraged.

Captured Tales – by Bill Tiepelman

How to Lose a Dragon in 10 Hugs

The Hug Heard 'Round the Forest There once lived a gnome named Brambletug who had two core beliefs: that all creatures secretly longed for his affection, and that personal space was a myth perpetuated by introverts and elves. He wore a hat the color of fermented cherries, a smile that bordered on litigation, and had the emotional intelligence of a wet rock. One fine morning — the kind where the sun peeks through the trees just enough to blind you and a squirrel poops on your head for luck — Brambletug set out to do something noble. “Today,” he declared to absolutely no one, “I shall befriend a dragon.” He even brought a friendship starter pack: a pinecone (gift-wrapped in moss), a cinnamon-scented hug, and three wildly outdated knock-knock jokes. Meanwhile, not far from where Brambletug was rehearsing his icebreakers, lurked a dragon. Not a fire-breathing, village-burning sort of dragon. No, this one was more... emotionally scorched. His name was Krivven, and he had the perpetual expression of someone who just discovered oat milk in their coffee after asking for cream. He had scales the color of swamp envy, horns that curved like a passive-aggressive eyebrow, and the aura of a grumpy librarian who was denied tenure. Krivven wasn’t *technically* evil — just very, very tired. He’d moved to the quiet forest glade after centuries of babysitting unstable sorcerers and being summoned by teenagers with bad Latin and worse tattoos. All he wanted now was to sulk in peace and maybe binge-watch the sun setting through the trees. Alone. Unhugged. So when Brambletug crept into his clearing, arms wide and teeth bared in what was legally considered a smile, Krivven knew — with a deep, resigned exhale — that his day had just gone to hell. “GREETINGS!” Brambletug hollered, as if the dragon were hard of hearing or hard of tolerating nonsense. “My name is Brambletug Bartholomew Bramblewhack the Third, and you, sir, are my destined bestie.” Krivven blinked. Once. Slowly. In a tone that could curdle sap, he responded, “No.” “A classic!” Brambletug giggled. “You're funny! That’s good. Friendships should be built on humor. Also: hugging. Prepare yourself.” Before Krivven could retract into his sulky little safe space (read: three perfectly arranged rocks and a Do Not Disturb sign carved into a tree), Brambletug lunged like a caffeinated chipmunk on a sugar bender and latched onto his scaly midsection. And there it was — the first hug. Krivven’s soul sighed. Birds scattered. Somewhere, a butterfly died out of secondhand embarrassment. “You smell like toasted anxiety,” Brambletug whispered, delighted. “We’re going to be *so* good for each other.” Krivven began counting backward from ten. And then forward. And then in Elvish. None of it helped. Of Singed Moss and Questionable Boundaries Krivven, to his credit, didn’t immediately immolate Brambletug. It was a close call — his nostrils flared, a single puff of smoke leaked out, and he did momentarily imagine the gnome roasting like a festive meatball — but ultimately, he decided against it. Not out of mercy, mind you. He simply didn’t want to get gnome stench in his nostril vents. Again. “You are... still here,” the dragon said, half observation, half prayer for this to be a hallucination caused by expired toadstools. “Of course I’m still here! Hugging is not a one-time event. It’s a lifestyle,” Brambletug chirped, still firmly attached to Krivven’s side like a burr with daddy issues. Krivven sighed and attempted to peel the gnome off. Unfortunately, Brambletug had the cling strength of a raccoon on Adderall. “We are not friends,” Krivven growled. “Oh Krivvy,” the gnome said with a wink so aggressive it should’ve come with a warning label, “that’s just your trauma talking.” The dragon’s left eye twitched. “My what?” “Don’t worry,” Brambletug said, patting Krivven’s chest like he was a wounded house cat, “I read a scroll once about emotional baggage. I’m basically your life coach now.” It was around this time Krivven made a mental list of potential witnesses, legal consequences, and whether gnome meat counted as poultry. The math didn’t add up in his favor. Yet. Over the next three days, Brambletug launched a full-scale, unsolicited friendship offensive. He moved into Krivven’s territory with all the subtlety of a bard in heat. First came the *"snack bonding."* Brambletug brought marshmallows, mushrooms, and something he called “squirrel crack”—a suspiciously crunchy trail mix that made Krivven mildly paranoid. The gnome insisted they roast things together “like real adventuring bros.” “I do not eat marshmallows,” Krivven said, as Brambletug jammed one onto the tip of his horn like a skewered confection of shame. “Not yet you don’t!” the gnome chirped. “But give it time. You’ll be licking caramel off your claws and asking for seconds, Krivvy-doodle.” “Never call me that again.” “Okay, Krivster.” Krivven's eye twitched again. Harder. The marshmallow did, against his better instincts, catch fire — spectacularly. Brambletug squealed with glee and shouted, “YES! CHARRED OUTSIDE, GOOEY SOUL. Just like you!” Krivven, too stunned to reply, simply watched as Brambletug proceeded to eat the flaming lump directly from his claw, singing his tongue and squealing, “PAIN IS JUST SPICY FRIENDSHIP.” Then came the *"trust-building games,"* which included: falling backward off a log while expecting Krivven to catch him (“It builds vulnerability!”), shadow puppets in the firelight (“Look, it’s you... being sad!”), and a roleplaying exercise where Brambletug played a “sad forest orphan” and Krivven was expected to “adopt him emotionally.” Krivven, staring blankly, responded, “I am this close to developing a new hobby that involves gnome launch velocity and trebuchets.” “Awwwwww! You’re thinking of crafts! That’s progress!” One night, Brambletug declared they needed a **Friendship Manifesto**, and tried to tattoo it on a tree using Krivven’s claw while the dragon was asleep. Krivven woke to find the word “CUDDLEPACT” etched into bark and Brambletug humming what suspiciously sounded like a duet. From both parts. “Are you... singing with yourself?” “No, I’m harmonizing with your inner child,” Brambletug said, deadpan. Krivven reconsidered his moral stance on gnome-flicking. Hard. Despite all this, something bizarre began to happen. A shift. A crack — not in Krivven’s emotional carapace (that thing was still fortified like a dwarven panic room), but in his routine. He was... less bored. More annoyed, yes. But that was technically a form of engagement. And every now and then — between the monologues, the unsolicited riddles, and the horrifying “hug sneak attacks” — Brambletug would say something... almost profound. Like the time they watched a snail cross the path for 45 minutes and Brambletug said, “You know, we’re all just goo-filled meat tubes pretending we have direction.” Or when he sat on Krivven’s tail and whispered, “Everyone wants to be a dragon, but no one wants to be misunderstood.” It was annoying. It was invasive. It was kind of true. And now, Krivven couldn’t help but wonder if maybe, just *maybe*, this annoying, clingy, wildly codependent fuzzball... wasn’t trying to change him. Just... annoy him into healing. Which was worse, really. And then, on the fourth day, Brambletug said the most horrifying thing yet: “I’ve planned a group picnic. For your social skills.” Krivven froze. “A what.” “I invited some unicorns, a banshee, two dryads, and a sentient puddle named Dave. It’s going to be adorable.” The dragon began to quake. “There will be snacks,” Brambletug added, “and a group activity called ‘Affirmation Volleyball.’” Krivven’s left eye twitched so hard it dislocated a horn ridge. Somewhere in the forest, birds paused in terror. Somewhere else, Dave the puddle prepared emotionally for volleyball. The Picnic of the Damned (and Slightly Moist) Krivven tried to flee. Not metaphorically. Literally. He spread his wings, launched six feet into the air, and was immediately tackled mid-lift-off by a gnome clutching a wicker basket full of “snack bonding opportunities.” “WE HAVE TO MAKE AN ENTRANCE TOGETHER,” Brambletug yelled, riding him like a therapy gremlin. “LIKE A POWER COUPLE. YOU'RE THE GRUMPY ONE, I’M THE CHAOTIC OPTIMIST. IT’S OUR BRAND!” “This is a hostage situation,” Krivven muttered as they crash-landed beside a checkered blanket and a crowd of creatures who looked like they deeply regretted RSVPing ‘yes’ to the tiny scroll that had been left under their respective mossy doorsteps. The picnic was a fever dream. A banshee in a sunhat handed out herbal tea and screamed compliments at everyone. The dryads brought “root-based tapas” and spent twenty minutes arguing about whether hummus had ethical implications. Dave the sentient puddle kept trying to infiltrate the fruit bowl and flirted openly with Krivven’s tail. Unicorns — plural — stood off to the side, quietly judging everything with the passive-aggressive elegance of wine moms at a PTA meeting. One wore horn glitter. Another smoked something suspicious and kept muttering about “manifesting stable energy.” “This,” Krivven hissed, “is social terrorism.” “This,” Brambletug corrected, “is growth.” The nightmare crescendoed with **Affirmation Volleyball**, a team sport in which you could only spike the ball after shouting a compliment at someone across the field. If the compliment was “lazy,” the ball turned to custard. (That was Dave’s rule. Don’t ask.) Krivven was cornered, emotionally and literally, as Brambletug served him a volleyball and screamed, “YOUR EMOTIONAL WALLS ARE JUST A SIGN OF VULNERABILITY MASKED AS STRENGTH!” The ball hit Krivven in the snout. No custard. Which meant the compliment was, by this game’s logic, valid. He stared down at it, then at Brambletug, who beamed like the world’s most self-satisfied anxiety demon. And for one fleeting moment — just a flicker — Krivven... almost smiled. Not a full smile, of course. It was more of a muscle spasm. But it terrified the unicorns and made Dave do a sexy ripple. Progress! The picnic eventually dissolved into chaos. The banshee got wine drunk and started singing breakup ballads from the cliffside. One of the dryads turned into a shrub and refused to leave. The unicorns gentrified the nearest field. Dave split into three smaller puddles and declared himself a commune. Amidst it all, Brambletug sat next to Krivven, gnawing contentedly on a cookie shaped like a dragon butt. “So... what did we learn today?” he asked, crumbs flaking down his tunic like snow from a cursed bakery. Krivven exhaled — not a sigh, not smoke, just... air. “I learned that hugs are a form of magical assault,” he said flatly. “And?” “...That sometimes being annoyed is better than being alone.” “BOOM!” Brambletug shouted, launching himself into Krivven’s lap. “THAT, MY SCALY DUDE, IS CHARACTER ARC.” Krivven did not incinerate him. Instead, with a noise that was not a growl but could pass for one at parties, he muttered, “You may continue... existing. In my vicinity.” Brambletug gasped. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me! Quick! Someone write it on a mug!” And from that day on — against every law of nature and common sense — the gnome and the dragon became companions. Not friends. Not exactly. But... tolerable cohabitants with joint custody of a cursed picnic blanket and a banshee who now slept on their porch. Every few days, Brambletug would initiate a new hug, call it “installment number whatever,” and Krivven would groan and accept it with all the grace of a barbed-wire hug vest. He’d never admit it, but by the tenth hug — the one with the extra sparkles and a sarcastic unicorn DJ playing Enya — Krivven actually leaned in for half a second. Not long. Just enough. And Brambletug, bless his deranged heart, whispered, “See? Told you I’d wear you down.” Krivven rolled his eyes. “You’re insufferable.” “And yet... hugged.” The moral of the story? If you ever find yourself emotionally constipated in a forest, just wait. A gnome will show up eventually. Probably uninvited. Definitely holding marshmallows. And absolutely ready to violate your boundaries into emotional progress.     Need a daily reminder that unsolicited gnome affection is the purest form of emotional growth? Bring Brambletug and Krivven’s chaotic friendship to your own world with beautifully crafted collectibles from the Unfocussed shop. Whether you're decorating your lair, scribbling questionable poetry, or just want to send a passive-aggressive greeting to your favorite introvert, we've got you covered: Metal Print: Give your walls the grumpy, glossy dragon energy they never knew they needed. Framed Print: Because every magical forest disaster deserves a place of honor in your home gallery. Greeting Card: Perfect for birthdays, breakups, and emotionally unavailable cryptids. Spiral Notebook: Jot down your trauma, sketch your inner gnome, or track your personal hug quota. Shop the full lineup now and carry a little enchanted chaos wherever you go. Brambletug approved. Krivven… tolerated.