I Dreamed A Dream

He did his best to hide his concern but a small whine just barely managed to escape him before he covered it with a cough. He shifted again to lean closer to Cél, his tail draping over the smaller male’s in what he hoped was somewhat comforting to him.

“This is the tale of Sly Olin and Gobbleknoll.” He began, his voice calm and soothing just as his father’s had been when he put his children to sleep.

“Once upon a time in the land of Olenlona there was a hill that ate wolves named Gobbleknoll. Olin’s grandmother warned him and his twenty siblings that they must never hunt on Gobbleknoll or look for herbs, one day however Olin’s sister Veleda got carried away chasing a deer, and Gobbleknoll, sensing their approach parted the ferns over her lips and opened her mouth wide. The deer thinking it had found shelter in a grassy cave ran into Gobbleknoll’s mouth and Veleda followed after it. As Veleda’s last paw slipped past her lips Gobbleknoll shut her mouth and swallowed them both.”

He looked down on his companion and dismayed at how brittle and dull his coat looked compared to how sleek and vibrant it had been when they first met. He remembered how amazed Cél had been at the sight of him, and how avidly he had listened when he told him of his home land, his eyes trailed silently to look at his friend’s vacant eyes “Like uncut opals” He thought morosely, then looked away.

“Sly Olin heard that Gobbleknoll had eaten his sister and had run straight to the evil hill crying ”Gobbleknoll! Eat me too!” He said, pitching his voice deeper to sound more like the
fearless hero as he spoke, then continued. "But everyone, even Gobbleknoll knew of Sly Olin and his tricks and she kept her mouth shut. One day two hunters found themselves on Gobbleknoll looking for shelter from the rain and the hill opened up her mouth to eat them. As the two entered the warm and inviting cave however Olin ran in after them hoping she would not recognize him. Gobbleknoll however smelled him in her mouth and quickly spat him out before she swallowed the hunters whole. Olin needed a trick to fool the hill into eating him so he could rescue his sister, so he and his nineteen siblings gathered every single blackberry in Olenlona and Olin rolled in them until he was soaked through with the sweet juice. He went to Gobbleknoll and she found him far too delicious to pass up, so she opened her mouth but could not recognize his scent over all the blackberries and she swallowed him.”

He paused then to look down at Cél to see if he was still listening, daring to hope that the other male had been lulled into much needed sleep. Regardless he continued.

“Olin walked through the dark caves of Gobbleknoll, until he came to her stomach where all the bones of the eaten stood in a great pile, there he found his sister and the two hunters, still alive but weak from thirst and hunger. Olin continued to explore the caves until he found a great red heart. ”Why not eat this big juicy heart here?” he asked Gobbleknoll, and the hill said that she could not because it was her own. Olin then leapt up and tore her heart from its cradle, killing Gobbleknoll who screamed in pain and anger and let the souls of all the dead rise into the heavens. Olin, his sister and the two hunters escaped and all of Olenlona rejoiced and called Olin a hero. When the king of Olenlona asked Olin how he could repay him Olin simply asked to keep Gobbleknoll’s heart, which he brought to his grandmother and his twenty siblings who ate it all through winter and never hungered. “

He looked down at his friend again and was unable to help but smile, carried away by the whimsy of his own story
“And they all lived happily ever after. The end.”

Word Count: 682

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