Flash Fiction: Moth and the Woodchuck

Another story from the same universe this week, friends. Part III of The Bookseller will be finished (hopefully) next week, but I wanted to try my hand at a fable for you. Maybe next time, I'll tell you about the Three Sisters. Happy Sunday, friends! x Bea

In the beginning of everything, nothing existed, except in shapeless, formless power. After Efaiu and the Dragoness settled the Continents, and the beings had come to inhabit the land, and the streams and lakes and oceans defined that land, there once lived a moth named Moth.

She, being a simple creature, spent her days flying along, looking for the comfort of a warm light and protection from the summer floods. She followed the ocean, followed the stream, all the way up into the mountains.

One night, after a long day and an angry wind, Moth yearned for comfort and rest. There! Beyond a rocky cliff, bisected by a heavy curtain of water, a soft glowing light burned bright wintin a cave.

Moth flew towards the light, and instantly got caught in the current of the waterfall. She struggled, and tumbled, waterlogged and heavy, finding, after innumerable minutes, a small crevice upon which to crawl up and rest upon.

The fire burned some meters away, but Moth, angry and stubborn at the brutality of the water, stayed on her rock by the water's edge, long into the night, and never seemed quite able to shake the shivers from her colorful wings.

In the morning, the Woodchuck packed up his bedroll and extinguished the fire. He heard a fluttering nearby, and turned to find Moth, darting haphazardly for the coals by his feet.

"No, friend, you'll burn," the Woodchuck said, sticking his hand out to intercept the tiny body.

Moth screeched, darting to the left as the enormous Woodchuck reached out to snatch her.

"No! Do not capture me!"

The Woodchuck leaned down further, shooing the tiny bug away from the embers.

"An enemy keeps me from my comfort!" Moth hissed, "I will not be stopped. I waited all night, and now I will freeze without the warmth of the fire!" Moth ignored her own stubborn decision to stay away, blaming only the man in front of her for putting the fire out now.

"Friend," the Woodchuck muttered, "Let me help you." He glanced at his belongings, and at the angle of the light streaming into the cave. He turned only for a moment, and Moth darted close again. The Woodchuck shouted, reaching out his hand and capturing, in one swoop, Moth within his palm.

Moth screamed, kicked and flailed, bit and fluttered, but the hand would not release her. Surely, this was her end. The noise around her, the little she could hear, rose to a crescendo, like a thousand cries, and then grew quiet. She could hear the Woodchuck's voice, vibrating down his arm, but could not make out the words.

The Woodchuck opened his hands, and Moth closed her eyes, ready to be lunch, for her demise, as quick and as unsatisfying as she surely would be in the mouth of the Woodchuck. But the hand stayed open and still, and Moth stayed clutching to the Woodchuck's skin. Slowly, she opened her eyes, the bright morning sun warming her wings, the winds of the night before gone up the mountains to the East.

"See?" laughed the Woodchuck, a gruff and low sound, "I wasn't trying to hurt you, friend." He placed Moth near the halved peach he'd set upon the ground. "No way you could have gotten out of that cave by yourself, especially not by flinging yourself into that fire."

Moth flitted down to the fruit, investigating it cautiously. Moth realized, as the Woodchuck ate his half of the peach, that she had endangered herself more by not realizing the risk of being so narrowminded. Without his help, she surely would have died.

The Woodchuck laughed quietly, not used to a guest at mealtime, but ate his fruit gladly in the presence of Moth. She had nothing to give him, and saving her meant little to him, but he had done so, for they both were a part of Efaiu's land, all given the same life by the Dragoness.

In the end, they turned down different roads, the Woodchuck heading west towards Zurex, Moth to the north, knowing that, forever, their threads were connected in the tapestry of the Three Sisters.