The explosion came on the worst possible day for the Mage. He had been looking forward to testing out a new spell in his workshop, but that was the least important thing now. There might not even be a workshop anymore!
When he first sensed something amiss, he was high up in an old cedar tree in the woods by the castle, clinging like a koala to a splintery branch that looked and felt like old, fraying rope. There were special flowers at the end of the branch, bright orange and mocking. The Mage needed them, and he was determined to get them. It was the last potion ingredient he needed, and actually one of the easier ones to attain. As he reached out, carefully, stretching every bit of his arm and neck and back along the branch to grasp the first flower, he felt something nagging at him. It tap-tap-tapped at his head like an extremely annoying bird poking at his head and neck. He tried to shake it off, forcing himself not to think about it. When you’re upside down in a tree, forty feet off the ground, you have more important things to think about. His fist closed around the second flower, and he grappled around the branch to get the last flower. Right as he touched it, felt it, plucked it, there was a sound of an explosion, muffled but still managing to include some incredible degree of noise. The Mage tilted his head back and saw little bits of smoke rising in the sky.
Green and blue.
A strange smell of pistachios.
A murky thickness in the air.
Coming from the castle.
The Mage faintly recognized this smoke, this smell, from somewhere. But where? He had no idea. But the idea of something happening at the castle beyond frightened him. This was not normal smoke, nor a normal explosion. This was magic.
The Mage scrambled down from the tree as fast as he could, skipping the last branch and landing on his face on the ground. With a groan, he heaved himself up and snatched up his basket of ingredients on the dirt. He started to run towards the path through the woods that would lead to the castle. As he crashed through the branches, stumbling over roots, he began to wonder why this had happened. Was one of the apprentices messing with his stuff again? Did the Dushess’s daughter try to brew another potion to turn her into a capybara? Was this intentional, or not, or something else entirely?
The woods dashed out of his sight, as if seeing that they were powerless to stop him from getting through this time, or that they didn’t quite want to interfere for whatever reason. There was no trouble, despite the Mage’s speeding frenzy having the obvious, stumbling consequences. That in of itself was eerie enough. But the real shock came when the woods ended, and the castle cried out to him across the hills. It rushed at him, taking up the whole of his vision, burning in teal and crumbling from the towers. It was a wounded bird collapsing to the ground in beautiful, terrible, ugly cerulean flames. Its feathers, the flags fluttering from the turrets, caught fire and blazed to ashes withing seconds.
The Mage was momentarily paralyzed with horror. This was no one’s accident. He had seen plenty of magical accidents in his time, but a fire that engulfed an entire castle?! Unheard of! This was intentional. The Mage was struck with a thought that hit him with more force than a battering ram. I should have been there. He took off running across the cut-grass field towards the castle. He ripped out his wand as he ran. “Membekukan!” He screamed, pointing it at the castle. A blast of icy blue spurt out and hit the castle. Where it hit, the flames stopped. “Membekukan!” He yelled at the castle door. Hopefully, if he could stop the exits from burning, everyone could make it out safely. He hurled a few more blasts as he ran, eventually reaching the castle. People poured out of it as the castle began to crumble inwards, like a bounce house deflating at a birthday party. It was sickening.
The freezing spell seemed to work well on the strange fires. In each area of impact, the flames dissolved in steam and left the stone untouched (it was, by the way, very strange that the stones were burning. Stones don’t burn). But it was too late. The castle, although not completely destroyed, was coming down before his eyes. Single bricks fell out of place, charred and misshapen. There was no spell that could repair this. The Mage watched in dismay. He bowed his head low, as if searching for a spot on the ground that wouldn’t have been destroyed. Murmurs found his ears, peeking from behind and tentatively prodding at his ears. Slowly, he turned around to face a large crowd behind him. Everyone seemed to have kept their distance from the worn-out wizard, and formed a wide semi circle around him. They stood, their faces ashen and ash-covered, whispering to each other while watching the Mage and their castle with wide eyes, their countenances frightened but mingled with curiosity. The king and queen were standing there as well, not surrounded by servants like they usually were. Their crowns askew and their robes tattered, they may as well have just been other plebians in the crowd. The Mage may as well have been the king! However, they were all treating him like he was about to explode. The Mage realized that he must look pretty scruffy right now, noticing the ash and dirt on his tunic. His hair was falling into his eyes, and he suspected that he was still sporting his “warface.” But he didn’t care. It looked as if everyone had made it out okay, and that was all that-
Wait.
The shoes.
The magic shoes.
The Mage’s eyes went wide as if he had just been shot and he went pale. He ran. Around the castle walls, as people started, stunned, they leapt out of his way until he came to a window on the side of the castle. Raising his wand, he brought the blunt end down like a hammer through the glass. It shattered, the reflections and shine transforming instantly into a spiderweb and then sprinkling across the ground like confetti. He leapt through the window, using his hands to support him on the broken glass. It cut jagged gashes into his palms, slicing as he went, but he hardly even felt it through the adrenaline. He more noticed a sensation than felt pain. The room that he landed in was some sort of old multi-opurpose room, with a few maps on one wall and a table in the middle. A bookshelf on the other wall held a couple of medium-sized ledgers. Directly across fom him was a wooden door, apparently unharmed. He rushed at it, seizing the handle and throwing the door open. The outside of the door was charred and black, and although not completely burned, it appeared to have at least been teased by the fires. The hallways, once uniform cobblestone, were now as black as midnight. Black covered every surface, floor to curved ceiling, like thick paint. In the darkness of the windowless hall, without the texture of the walls, it was nearly impossible to tell when the wall began. The Mage reached out and stepped forward quickly until his hands hit the brittle ash. It was the texture of chalk. He turned down the hall, knowing which way would lead to the towers, and felt along the walls as he ran. At one point, a minute or so down the corridor, a brick had splintered towards the outside, a few rays of evening light searching for a way into the castle. It was lucky for the Mage taht these rays allowed him to catch sight of one step; he would have tripped and falled up the stairs if he hadn’t seen it.
Now knowing what to expect, the Mage zoomed up the spiraling steps, taking them two or three at a time until he reached a wooden door. This tower, obviously, had not falen, although the black char had covered every surface up until this point. The stability of the tower had evidently not crossed his mind, as he threw the door open with frenzy and burst into his workshop.
Unlike the rest of the castle, burned and disheveled, his workshop was as neat as a pin, except not quite as pointy as one (except for the sorcerer’s hat which he had received last Christmas as a gift from his mother). The workshop was large-ish and circular, with a large arched window at the far end. To the right of the door was a workbench desk of sorts, a fish tank sitting on a shelf to the side of it. To the Mage’s relief, Independence and Claus were safely swimming around their little castle. At least that one’s not on fire, he thought glumly. But no time for that. He looked to the left of the room, with his pots and shelves of plants. A cauldron sat next to the window. A bunsen burner sat on a square, oak table in the middle of the room, which was on a red rug. The Mage shoved the table aside, but it obstinately upturned as the legs caught on the rug. Rude. It scrunched itself up, as if making a face at him.
Excuse you, it seemed to say.
“Shut up,” the Mage muttered under his breath. He threw the rug to the side to reveal a very small trapdoor where one of the table legs would have sat. There was a small gold key in the Mage’s trouser pocket, and he fumbled with it, pulling it out and jamming it into the keyhole. He turned the key. The door popped open. And there was nothing inside.The Mage stood up and roared with fury and horror. The shoes were gone! These weren’t any old pair of running shoes. These were extremely special, both to him and to the kingdom. The citizens didn’t actually know about it, but if they did, then they would agree that they were extremely special.
The Mage had a secret. He had made his entire life as a wizard up. He had never been born in a small mountain town, as he told the king. He had never discovered a talent for magic when he slipped out of a tree but fell up (yes, he had made that up on the spot at an interview). He hadn’t been taught sorcery by the old, dead, crazy cat lady nextdoor (he made that up on the spot too). He wasn’t even human. In reality, he was 289 years old. He had made sure to come up with a new age when he came to the castle: one year older than the queen, and one younger than the king, to boost their egos. In reality, he was hatched on the moon. He knew magic because everyone knew magic. If he was to go up to your parents as a fledgling and do a spell, they would say, “Have you brushed your teeth yet?” whereas human parents would leap out of their skins. Also, it may be important to mention that he was a dragon. A dragon taking human form for part of its long life, simply to expand his studies and learn the ways of the humans which fascinated him.
Only the king and queen knew his secret, as he had come clean eventually (their reaction when he revealed himself as an enormous, pale green dragon was actually quite anticlimactic). The Mage - his real name being Ailanthus - was seeking a solution to end the kingdom’s conflict with the neighboring griffin kingdom. A magical rivalry had been going on for ages, beginning as squabbles between the people and growing into a magical-war conflict that left them on the brink of mutual assured destruction for both parties. Being at least semi-neutral, and having the most magic out of all the kingdoms (being directly connected to the moon), he had proposed to the king and queen that he would store all of the magic of both kingdoms into a vessel, locked away so that, until tensions had ceased, no one was going to blow the continent to smithereens. As you may have guessed, that vessel was a pair of shoes. They had been the Mage’s favorite running shoes for human feet until he ripped a hole in the toe of the left sneaker. So boring. So unsuspecting. Who would ever guess that they were the most powerful, most dangerous objects in the entire kingdom?
You guessed it: someone! The Mage could hear only his heart pounding through his head, in his ears, throughout every fiber of his being as he stared around the workshop in shock. Someone had broken into his workshop and made out with the most dangerous pair of shoes ever. The castle being on fire seemed trivial in comparison, although it did go to highlight that whoever this was was up to no good, and had no problem with hurting innocent people if it meant that they got what they wanted. Furthermore, the Mage needed to wear them for a few minutes every The Mage had to get those shoes back. There was no time to hesitate. He had to go, get them back, go find them, look for clues… it occurred to him that maybe clues should come first.
Right. Clues. A plan. The thought of having a plan made him feel a little less sick. He looked up to the window. The sky was a pale, clear, bright blue. It waved at him, going about its day. Nothing was bothering the sky, and while just that thought would normally have made him annoyed (jealous of the sky, of all things!), the blue seemed to soothe him today. He got up, and took a deep breath. Then he turned around to find a ton of teenage kids standing on the steps, watching him from the stairs. “Hey!” He yelled to the apprentices. “What are you doing up here? The castle is burned, you shouldn’t be here!”
“Technically, then, neither should you.” Piped up one from the back. The Mage couldn’t tell which.
“We saw you come running up here like a chicken with its head cut off!” Said a girl in front. “Why ARE you up here?
Another girl pointed at the window. “What’s that handkerchief doing there?”
The Mage turned his head. Barely visible, clinging to the outside of the window, he could make out a tattered corner of white cloth. The Mage didn’t own any white handkerchiefs.
He rushed to the window and took the cloth gently, being careful not to snag it and tear it or to touch anywhere besides the corner, in case it had been used. On the corner was an embroidered, lime-green G. Lime was the color of the Griffin flag. G. The Griffin had stolen the shoes! Of course! It made sense. But how did they discover his secret and break in? How did they have the magic to set the castle ablaze? Or did they do that after they stole the shoes? After all, there was no more magic permitted anywhere, except for a few select mages and apprentices across both kingdoms. Even in the Griffin kingdom, their existence and trade was kept a secret. Neither were permitted, in any case, to cross into the other kingdom, with the war having just ended. The secret of the shoes was also only known to the Mage. The king and queen did not know of them, nor where they were hidden. Neither did the apprentices. Someone must have known, and known what they were doing as well, to break in and take the one thing so easily.
“Griffins,” he breathed.
“Pardon?” Said an apprentice.
“I said Griffins!” He cried, turning to face them. “Griffins have infiltrated the castle and stolen the most precious item in existence. It is crucial to the survival of not only us, but the entire world, that we retrieve it immediately.” No pressure, of course. The Mage sometimes joked about things like this, or used hyperbole when they butchered a spell, but since the castle was on fire not five minutes ago, this seemed more serious than normal. Some apprentices- there were about 20 in total- turned pale, while some others just gave him strange looks. The Mage stared hard, giving them a look that he hoped said “I mean business!” They were silent. He hoped that he had got the message across. He would need their help, as the kingdom’s magic was divided between only them, and he would need their help to rescue the shoes.

“What?” said one of them. Ugh. 
The Mage sighed. “Okay, gather some of your things. We need to set off for the Griffin kingdom as soon as possible.”
One raised his hand. “Um, Master Mage, we have no more things. It’s all fried to a crisp.”
“Oh, right. Ok. Well, that just means we can leave faster.” he grabbed some random things from around the room and threw them into a pile. The apprentices just watched.
“What is he doing?” Whispered one girl.

The girl next to her shrugged. “I’d say he’s gone bonkers if we hadn’t seen the castle on fire.” The Mage now was standing over a pile of assorted folders, rugs, flowerpots, candelabras, etc. He whisked out his wand and waved it over the objects, muttering under his breath. As if opening a jar within the wand, glitter sprinkled down over the objects, drifting like snowflakes until they hit the objects, and then the glitter suddenly sparked like a fire popping. The objects glowed faintly, and then faded. They looked like ordinary household objects once more.
The Mage grabbed a folder and set it on the floor with a sound like a “plap.” He then stood on it, and noticing that the apprentices were looking at him with raised brows that insinuated that they were more than a bit weirded out, he said, “Get one and come on out the window!” He realized once he was done that that made no more sense than the rest of the situation. Their brows only raised even higher.
“Well?” Said one of the apprentices with an impatient air in her voice. “You heard the man. Get a… a… a thing… and get out the window!” She put a candelabra on the floor and balanced on it precariously. The other apprentices gave her an incredulous look, but slowly and surely, student by student, each person found the nerve to come up and stand on an item. They then looked at the Mage expectantly for clues on how, exactly, to “get out the window.” The Mage was a bit flattered by the blind trust. He jumped up, tucking his knees as he leapt like a frog, and the folder flew up to meet his feet. The apprentice’s mouths dropped in awe. The Mage waved to them, unable to suppress a small smile. Although he disliked doing magic for show, it was gratifying to see a slack-jawed audience, stupefied by his magic.
“Come on!” He called, and as if he were skateboarding, the Mage piloted the magic folder out the window. He narrowly avoided bonking his head on the way, trying to look cool. One by one, again, the apprentices followed. The first time, a boy on a succulent flowerpot came barreling through the window and nearly knocked himself and the Mage out of the sky.
“Be careful! Those things are dangerous!” Blurted the Mage with a yelp as he careened past.
Some 20 meters or so away, the boy called, “Sorry!” with a tone that suggested that he was not at all sorry. The Mage decided to let it go for now. After all, the castle had just burned down, and they were riding magical decorations out of tower windows.
The girl on the candelabra came next, spinning in circles while bending down, gripping its arms for dear life. Another girl came out on two staplers, standing like they were roller skates. “WHEEE!!!!” She screamed as she zoomed out the window, whooping and nearly crashing into literally everything. She got the hang of it pretty quickly, and was clearly devastated by the theft and arson that had been committed. Two sets of apprentices, two girls and two boys, came out sharing seats on rugs or crammed onto a folder. They clung to each other for dear life, especially the ones on that tiny binder, their feet locked together and arms around each other as if to mold into one stable form. The rest of the apprentices filed out in the same manner until everyone was in the sky outside of the castle. When the apprentice finally looked down, he noticed that the crowd was still there. They were also making a lot of noise, which he was surprised that he hadn’t noticed before. Something was happening involving fainting mothers, some shouted nonsense about the safety of their children, and a queen with a megahorn shouting something over the crowd.
“MAGE AMBROSE!” She bellowed into it, resulting in an echoey, scratchy sound. “WHATEVER BY THE AZALEAS OF PLATINUM HORN YOU BELIEVE THAT YOU ARE DOING, IT IS CLEAR THAT YOU HAVE GONE MAD. BY MY ROYAL DECREE, GET YOUR WIZARDING REAR DOWN HERE, AND BRING THE CHILDREN WITH YOU!”
The Mage looked down to face her. He cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled back, “SORRY, I CAN’T DO THAT IF YOU WANT TO LIVE!”
It occurred to him that that may have been the wrong way to phrase that. “ IS THAT A THREAT?!” The queen shrieked, sending steel-on-steel screeching into the megaphone, a train squealing its brakes through the sky. Some of the passed-out parents in the crowd actually shifted in their unconsciousness, covered their ears, and one or two woke up! Literally loud enough to wake the dead.
“NO!” The Mage shouted, covering his ears. “I’M JUST SAYING YOU’LL ALL DIE!” The Queen turned red with anger. This had been a long enough day without a death threat from a wise-guy wizard. She opened her mouth wide like a frog to scream something back, and the crowd backed away in a collective flinch. But before a sound was heard, the Mage quickly said, “UH-OH, LOOK AT THE TIME! I GOTTA SAVE THE WORLD! TIME FLIES, YOUR MAJESTY, GOODBYE!” Then, turning to the apprentices, “Get out of here! Follow me as fast as you can!” he hissed urgently. They didn’t need any more motivation than that. As fast as they could, the kids sped off behind the Mage as he bent his knees and zoomed off, surfing the blue sky until the queen’s bellows were far behind him.
The gang of one disheveled sorcerer and twenty perplexed children soon got the hang of flying folders and pots. Stapler-girl had to be reminded to slow down and not go upside-down once or twice. Folder-boys eventually relaxed their white-knuckled grips on each other and found themselves people with larger objects to hitch a ride with. Some girl on a rug had offered to take turns switching seats with the girl on the candelabra which, in fact, is not very comfortable to sit on. They chased the sun, which was beginning to tilt toward the west in the late afternoon air. About fifteen minutes in, they switched their course to travel slightly north. By this time, they had crosses about half of the distance between the Castle of Selm and the border of the Griffin Kingdom, marked by a forest stretching from the border all the way to the myriad of mountains which characterized the kingdom. They were making very good time (it turns out that the ugliest houseplant pots go the fastest), their hope being to follow the single road that led to the checkpoint at the border and intercept this audacious griffin thief, airborne or on foot, as or before they attempted to cross over into the Griffin Kingdom. The Mage kept his eyes down below him. So far, only a few people with horses had been sighted along the road. They flew low enough to scope out the whole road thouroughly, but high enough not to crash into anything. The road was treeless. There was nowhere to hide. All the Mage could hope for was that he was fast enough, and that he hadn’t been tricked into going in the wrong direction.
As the sun began to set, setting the distant mountain ridges ablaze with pale gold and violet, they approached the border. A perfect line was drawn to border the two kingdoms: The forest began and ended exactly at the border. The trees were tall, thick, and dark. Impossible to miss. In a strange way, the landscape was like a layered cake. The grass below them was a yellow, flat savanna, making up the bottom of the cake. The road was a slice made by some giant, using a gargantuan knife. The forest ahead was the icing between, thick and sweet and dark. It was such a dark green that, from a distance, the trees seemed nearly black. They had a blue tinge to them. The mountains were another layer, badly done for a dessert but beautiful all the same. They were purple as they met the trees, fading to a lighter hue as they jutted into the sky and faded to orange and a light yellow with the rays of the sun. The lightening, scarlet-and-orange-turning sky caressed the mountain and the sun, which sat like a blinding cherry atop it all. It was one of the most beautiful things the Mage had ever had the privilege to witness, and his viewpoint in the air only made it more magnificent. The wind tousled his hair, and he didn’t care how messy it was. When the cool wind hit his face and the sun’s rays surrounded him in a glowing white light, he felt more alive than he had ever been. Citrus stund his nose, coming from supposedly nowhere. He sighed in contentment.
Suddenly, a terrifying thought struck him. What if the reason we haven’t encountered the thief is that they already have crossed the border??? The thought, he realized, had been tickling at the back of his mind for a while, but like a cauldron beginning to boil, the anxieties burst to his mind and consumed the tranquil beauty. Of course, humans were not allowed to cross the border. They couldn’t pursue the thief. What then? Well, obviously, the griffins would have the magic. They would be much more than angry, surely, for it being stolen from them. They would want revenge on the Selm Kingdom, and would show no mercy. That’s not an option, the Mage told himself, trying not to be crushed by the anxiety and guilt. We have to beat them. We HAVE to, we HAVE to.
Just then, Candleabra girl and Stapler girl came flying up next to the Mage. “Just so you know,” said Candleabra girl matter-of-factly, “we’re coming up on the border. I do hope that you have a plan of action?”
“What exactly are we here for?” asked Stapler-skater with her voice low. “It may help if we know what we are searching for. Also, it is getting dark, and although we all believe that this is serious, I speak for all of us,” she motioned behind her, “when I say that we’re concerned for our families in our absence.”
The Mage took a deep breath. “Don’t go shouting about it, because I fear that the others may not keep a secret very well, but we are searching for a very important pair of sneakers.”
The girls turned to each other and raised their eyebrows and shared a skeptical glance. “Sneakers?” questioned Stapler girl slowly, carefully.
Candleabra girl asked patiently, “Would you mind explaining the importance of these sneakers?”
“The sneakers,” he replied, “are a vessel containing all of the magic in the two kingdoms, as a sort of… er… confiscation in the hopes of ending the imminent threat between the Griffins and the Selms. Only a few mages and apprentices across the kingdoms were allowed to keep their power.
“However, only I, the king and queen, and whoever stole them knew of their existence. I am certain that it was the griffins, as us here in this castle are the only ones in our kingdom capable of such advanced magic as that fire. There are griffins who are capable of that as well. Plus, the handkerchief clearly belonged to one of them.”
“Actually, griffins-” the Stapler girl began to say, but was cut off by a voice from the rapidly approaching border.
“HALT!” It called with a proud, boastful strong tone to the voice. The Mage looked forward to see a very large griffin. Its wings, spread wide and flapping towards them were almost the size of the diameter of his workshop tower and were a color of shining cream. Its skarp beak and claws glistened in the twilight, and the shadow behind him made his gigantic lion muscled stand out in a dramatic way. Glorious and terrifying, the griffin guard loomed in front of them. Border patrol. “State your names and business!”
“Pardon me, good sir,” said the Mage, trying not to look overcome with awe or terrified in the slightest, “I am Mage Ambrose of the Selms-”
“Obviously.”
“-and these are my apprentices,” he continued. “ We have had something valuable stolen from us back at the castle, and we are urgently searching for the thief. We have reason to believe that the thief was of griffin blood, although we are not suggesting that you had anything to do with this heinous act.” Worth a shot, he thought.
The guard shook his magnificent eagle head. “You are mistaken. We have not had a single citizen or ambassador cross in at least a week. No one is permitted to cross the border from either direction, so I must send you back to your castle.”
“Sir,” the Mage insisted desperately, “We MUST cross this border. It is crucial that we apprehend the felon!”
The guard stiffened and scrunched his brow- or, at least, the spot on his forehead where a brow would be on another creature. “This is the law. You must return to where you came from at once, or I may have to resort to for-”
“CHARGE!!!” Someone yelled. The Mage heard the familiar voice, and felt a familiar body and a familiar plastic folder blasting past the guard through the air. Then he realized that the voice and body belonged to him. The apprentices charged after him, rushing the guard, who gave an indignant squawk/roar. It was a very odd sound. As the Mage and the kids rushed into the canopy of trees, he caught a glimpse of other griffin guards taking to the sky at the sound of their comrade’s “sqwoar.” They rushed after them with incredible speed, and it occurred to the Mage that this was the definition of a Very Bad Idea. Suddenly, he heard a human scream. He whipped his head around as he crashed into the trees, just in time to see a griffin guard rip a boy off of an enchanted lampshade with sharp claws and fury in her eyes. He crashed into the trees, leaves and branches snapping and crackling like breakfast cereal. He thought he even heard a “pop” as the folder was skewered by a glisteningly sharp branch. Then, he plunged into the darkness of a dusk forest, and could see nothing.
The Mage was on the floor of the forest. The soil was cool and damp on his face. The second time in one day that he had fallen from a tree. The second time lost in a maze of darkness. His third time, actually, having ever crashed while riding a flying orange plastic folder. But never, never, had he let down his apprentices. They had never let him down, and he was not about to leave one of them. When he tried to stand up, however, he found himself in a cagelike knot of branches and vines! In the dank, dark green forest which seemed like it must be trapped in a perpetual night, he was helpless to work his way out. Time was running out. There was no time to think of a solution, but what could he do? I think, I do it wrong. I don’t think, I do it wrong. What can I do? A dark part of him whispered. He sank to his knees and gripped the “bars.” It’s all my fault that this happened.
NO. He snapped his head up and looked around (not that he could see anything), looking for the source of the noise before realizing that it had come from within him. The voice was bold. It was brave. It was his own. You had the courage to come this far, it said, to brave homesickness and take on human form. You gave these children a future, and saved two kingdoms from destruction. Now, those children and kingdoms are getting their rears kicked! You are the last thing that needs beating up. You are the reason that anything is right, not the reason why one thing went wrong. “That’s right!” He cried. He leapt up with confidence. The branch above him reminded him that it wouldn’t be forgotten that easily, and bonked him on the head again. “Ow!” That was going to bruise. But the voice was right, he knew. He had become so overwhelmed with guilt that he had forgotten the reason that those mistakes had been made: he gave himself and others room to make them. Room that they needed to learn and to create impossible solutions to impossible problems. Flying succulents, for flying- er, crying- out loud! He had done the right thing, even when it seemed illogical to some, and had come closer than any would have thought possible to saving the kingdoms. It was to his credit that anyone was standing!
“And it’ll be to my credit when I do it again,” he mumbled. He was full of pride that he had not felt in a very long time. He could save the world! He would fix everythin-
Another shout sounded through the canopy. Oh. Right. Battle. Griffin. Cage. He needed to get out of here! First things first, how to get out of the cage? He tugged at the branches. They were brittle, but thick, and broke easily but slowly. Too slowly. He needed to break them all at once, and find a way to save the apprentices above. He tried casting a spell, but it didn’t work. The magic I share with the apprentices must have been the only thing keeping us in the air. My magic must be depleted without having worn the shoes in so long! He needed strength and power, but some other way. He needed size. That was when it hit him.
Overtop of the canopy, the battle raged on. The apprentices shouted only random spells in their panic, but their training kept them from being annihilated by the winged beasts. However, they were still clearly losing. They were puny in comparison to the griffins, vastly outnumbered, and as their ranks began to fall, even their magic could not hold the advancing guards off. Candelabra Girl threw a spell of springtime flowers, meant to cause sneezing spells, into the furious face of a guard. However, instead of sneezing, the griffin dusted off the pollen and kept advancing. It looked for a moment like she would be caught in the griffin’s talons, but just in the nick of time, it was hit by a freezing spell from behind. “Membekukan!” Shouted Stapler girl.
“Thank you!” Candelabra girl breathed a sigh of relief. “My spell didn’t work!”
“That’s because griffins can’t sneeze!” Said Stapler Girl with exasperation. “That was what I was trying to say earlier. I don’t think that handkerchief belonged to the griffins!”
“What?!”
Suddenly, the forest trembled as a great, green, growling shape burst out of the trees. Trunks topples and branches splintered as a dragon, absolutely gigantic and glowing with magic, burst from the shattered maze of foliage. Ailanthus, the Mage, the dragon of the Moon, raised his snout to the sky and roared, deep and loud and rumbling. Miles away, birds took to the skies. The griffins were paralyzed with fear, and the battle froze. Ailanthus lunged at a griffin. The resulting sound was no squawk-roar, but a “squeak” like that of a mouse. In one giant talon, Ailanthus grabbed all of the attacking griffins. He held them close to his face and growled. Smoke rose from his snout to his furious black eyes, encircling his horns.
“We surrender!?” Screamed a griffin in hysterics. “We’ll do whatever you want?! HELP!!! I mean, please put us down?!”
“Let my apprentices GO.” He released the griffins slowly from his crushing grip. The griffins cautiously flew to the ground of the Selm side of the border and set the apprentices down, never taking their wide eyes off of Ailanthus. “Now, give me my shoes.”
The griffins looked at each other in disbelief. None dared say anything. Standing in a circle, huddled like penguins, they fidgeted silently. Finally, after five long minutes, one said, “Mr. Dragon, Sir, I regret to inform you that we are griffins. We do not have shoes. There is not one pair of shoes in the whole kingdom!”
“LIAR!!!” Roared Ailanthus, hoping to scare them into submission. They MUST have had the shoes somewhere. If the thief was hiding in the forest, they would be shocked out by the noise pretty soon. He made sure to be extra loud. “GIVE ME MY SHOES!!!”
“Mr. Dragon, calm down!” Called a human voice from the ground. It was one of the apprentices, the one who rode a succulent pot. He did not know, of course, that this dragon was the Mage. He also did not know that the solution was underneath his nose, but he offered it anyways. “I do not know what pair of shoes you are looking for, but I have a pair of shoes. I just found them earlier at the castle in Selm. You may have them if they please you!” He pulled up the end of his robes to reveal the magic shoes.
Everyone stared, mostly because Ailanthus did. He nearly fainted. He wanted to ask questions, a million questions, but all he could say was, “Sh- sh- sh- the- sh- sh- t- bwuwuwbush…” and other things of that sort. He pointed a long, pale green claw at his feet. The apprentice was on the threshold of confusion and terror, not knowing if showing his shoes was a good idea or not. After all, a dragon stammering like a choking cricket at your footwear isn’t exactly a normal occurrence.
“Quick question: where did you find those?” Whispered Candleabra Girl to him.
“On the ground by the castle, after the fire. They were just sitting there on the ground, and I’d forgot mine at home.” He shrugged. “Besides, they looked cool!” The shoes were, indeed, cool. Bright lime green with fluorescent orange and blue stripes and white soles stained with grass, they were perfect and bright except for one hole in the left toe.
“Oh, by Constellation and Comet,” swore Stapler Girl. Candelabra girl buried her face in her hands and groaned.
“By Constellation and Comet is right, my child. I am in no position to correct your language at the moment.” A calm, smooth, deep voice said from the Selm side. Everyone turned to see the king, still covered in ash and soot. The queen marched behind him, her skirts hitched up to her knees with the megaphone in one hand, and a countenance that looked as if it had been soaked in pure liquid rage and then wrung out one time too many; soggy and exhausted and livid. “Ailanthus,” breathed the king, “I have never been more sorry.”
Within an hour, a camp was made on the border. The griffins stayed at their posts, except for one, who sent a message back to their Duke. The king sat down to give the bedraggled Mage/dragon, queen, and apprentices a much needed explanation. “It is quite foolish,” he said, fidgeting, “But I was always fascinated with magic. I have a wand of my own, and used to practice spells in my free time. I was quite good at charms, actually!” He said proudly. He looked to see only glares coming at him from around the fire where they were sitting on log benches (from the trees Ailanthus had obliterated). “Ahem.. yes.” He continued with wounded remorse. “Anyways, when you cast that spell to remove magic from the kingdoms, it took away the magic in my wand. I thought, quite embarrassingly, that if I could just tap it to your shoes I would have enough magic to continue my secret sorcery. That is why I broke into your tower. That handkerchief?” He pointed to the handkerchief in Ailanthus’ hand. “It belongs to me. ‘G’ is for my first name, Graham. I set it on the window because the dust in your room always makes me sneeze. You really need to clean in there. But when I located the shoes and tapped my wand to them, there was an explosion that seemed to affect everythinge except my immediate area: the tower. I put the table back and ran to examine the damage to the castle, not realizing that the shoes had propelled themselves out the window in the blast.
“That, my boy, is where I assume you found them.” He pointed to the kid with the magic shoes still on his feet.
That poor window has had so many things go through it today! Justice for the window… thought the drowsy dragon Ailanthus, who was battling to keep his scaled eyelids open. Now that the mystery had been solved, the adrenaline rush was over. He was not used to being in his dragon form after so long, but didn’t have the energy to change back. Not tonight.
“I apologize again. I doubt I will ever be able to apologize enough.” Said the king. He stood up and stretched, his crown sliding from his bedraggled head. “But this has made one thing clear: my solution for wiping out magic was a bad one. It was right in the moment to prevent destruction, but cannot last. Starting tomorrow, I will make peace with the griffins. And I will do it the right way. I promise and owe it to you.”
“Mmm… it’s all good… zzzzzz.” Ailanthus fell asleep by the fire.

EPILOGUE
One morning later, a dragon opened his eyes.
Two days later, a king left for the griffin kingdom.
Three days later, peace talks began.
Two months later, peace talks ceased.
Three months later, borders were reopened.
Four months later, peace was restored.
Six months later, the Mage went home. He took to the skies as Ailanthus, having saved two kingdoms and possibly the planet. But more than that, he had given the young apprentices the greatest gift of all: unconditional love. The ability to make mistakes. The ability to threaten the queen and still come home to a victory parade. The ability to blow up a castle and be forgiven by your people. The ability to say the wrong thing or do the wrong thing, and have the opportunity to make up for it.
Ailanthus left for the moon, a pale green star in the sky above the castle. The apprentices watched from the tower as he left, the rest of the kingdom below. Ailanthus would return when they needed him. But for now, he had been brave. He had done his share. And the moon, in all its glory, awaited his return.

		
				THE END

“If you believe someone deserves the world, create one for them.”