Hey friend!
Welcome to the latest edition of the fun fantasy blog, The Diary of a Wizard. This time out, there’s a problem at the distant Purple Lagoon. I’m sure it’ll turn out to be something totally mundane and nothing much at all, but of course, in The Enchanted Woods, anything can and indeed, does happen.
***
I heard a voice upon the northwards wind early in the morning, just after dawn’s crack. There was a whisper that was as cold as ice. It was the haunting sound of the siren’s song carried over the mountains and valley and vast stretches of woodland, on a chilling breeze. This was a cry for help from the distant Purple Lagoon. I don’t generally like to deal with sirens lest they enchant me and all that jazz, but being one of stout heart and more importantly, noise cancelling headphones, I felt I should offer my services.
I called for my trusty magical steed, Horace the unicorn, and grabbing my sword, staff, and my bag of wizardy tricks, I mounted up and hit the dusty trail. Of course, this would be a long trek having to cross mountains and valleys and vast stretches of woodland and all.
We made it unscathed through the thickness of the trees until we reached the foot of the mountains. That was when a troll tried to extract a toll from us for crossing its ropey bridge.
I taught that blighter a lesson, let me tell you. I turned it into a gobbling bush turkey. I was aware it probably has a family and stuff, so I made sure that once it’s learned its lesson it’ll turn back into a toll troll again.
We scrabbled and climbed and jumped and sometimes ran, we also skipped, trotted, staggered and hopped to get to the top mountain. The icy wind is no good for my old knees, let me tell you.
From the magnificent peak we could see the lagoon far in the distance. I could tell it was the Purple Lagoon specifically due to the fact it was purple and also a lagoon. It isn’t just a clever name then.
Horace and I would still have to trot for another day to reach our destination. With the sirens haunting whisper on the wind, calling us towards them, when I wasn’t listening to 1930s Luisiana blues that is, we journeyed far across the mountains.
Eventually we grew weary, so we stopped and took a few winks to recuperate before we continued the long and arduous journey. We scrabbled and climbed and jumped and sometimes ran, we also skipped, trotted, staggered and hopped all the way down the mountain. Soon we were galloping across the the valley and as the sun gently set, we finally reached the lagoon. We made camp and would wait until the morrow to find the sirens and learn what shocking occurrences had been occurring.
We woke up early to sireny sounds. Luckily, I had put a nonenchanty spell on myself, and unicorns are immune to siren enchantments, bewitchings and entrapments so Horace was in the clear. We headed for the sounds.
The sirens were out on a rocky island jutting out the purple water in the distance. We waved for the ferryman to see if he would be kind enough to take us out there. He was most reluctant, being one who is suspectable to siren song, but he agreed after I offered him my noise cancelling headphones. So, while the ferryman sang ABBA’s greatest hits, we went out to the island to meet those that we sought.
As we disembarked, there they were upon the rocks, three sisters, triplets, in fact. They were beautiful and appeared as human women with elements of some kind of fishiness, I guess.
“Greetings,” I said. “It is I, the wizard and my trusty magical steed Horace. We wish to parlay with you about the troubles you are experiencing.”
“There is a dark creature of this here purple lagoon, Wizard,” they said all spookily hypnotic and in perfect unison. “It is most scary and weird.”
“There’s lots of scary and weird creatures here,” I pointed out. “Do you have a specific one in mind?”
“We have never witnessed this creature but a lot of the fish have swamed off, and the men we enchant have stopped coming out of fear, so we’re bored and somewhat restless.”
“We’d be happy to investigate for you,” I offered. “but we need a boat or something.”
“Oh, a boat? That’s super easy. We have hundreds of them left behind by unsuspecting sailors trying to do trade on the lagoon. Just go round the other side of the island and all the ones that didn’t sink are there and ready to go.”
The island was only small, so it didn’t take long to reach the other side. It was like a ship graveyard. There were dingys, tinnys, yachts, sloops, tugs, barges, galleons, tankers, and even a submarine, so we chose the rickety kayak to be our craft, naturally.
I love Horace and everything and he’s a wonderful steed, but he’s a very poor paddler so it looked like the onus was on me. I paddled around the lake for hours until I was puffed out. We kept a sharp eye on the wildlife, but we found nothing out of the ordinary. It is hard to be out of the ordinary in a place like The Enchanted Woods when there’s no such thing as ordinary in the first place, however.
Just as we were thinking of returning to the bank to make camp there was a big splosh. So, with heaving breaths and sweating buckets, I paddled quickly towards the disturbance while Horace just kinda sat there. I have no idea where he got the sunglasses and cocktail he was sipping from.
A looming shadow, huge and menacing emerged from the inky but slightly more purpley depths. It struck the side of the kayak with a thud causing it to rock violently from side to side. We gripped the sides desperately but with yet another ram the kayak flip-a-doodle-dooed and capsized. Both Horace and myself were tossed into the water. Now there was a chance we could drown, or even get eaten which is bad, but the worst thing of all, Horace lost his cocktail!
There we were, submerged to our necks and treading water. A dreaded fear came over us. At any moment the creature from the Purple Lagoon was surely going to consume us or drag us to a watery doom.
Something brushed against my kicking legs bringing a fairly pathetic scream and an enormous judder from me. Then there was a swirl on the surface. It was no more than a few metres beside me. In a bit of a panic, we swam as fast as we could and clung to upturned kayak. There we stared at each other, and contemplated what was now, sure to be the inevitable.
The shadowy creature circled us over and over. In front and then behind, splashing. It was so quick it seemed to be everywhere all at once. I was getting close to freaking out entirely.
It was then, finally, the creature, or more particularly creatures, made themselves known. Once I realised what they were, I felt rather silly for being so shakily scared like a cowardy custard if I’m honest.
It was a whole family of giant otters and not some scary monster after all. They were cuties and they didn’t want to eat us. These water puppies only wanted to play! We threw a puffed-up puffer fish for them and played fetch for a bit but being wily creatures they could tell we were in a little strife and a spot of bother too. They helped us flip-a-doodle-doo the kayak the right way up and I used my hat to bail out the water.
Soon we were shivering and soaked but safe upon our rickety little craft.
The otters being helpful sorts gave us a tow back to the rocky island. We landed and I presented them to the sirens, debunking the scary and weird allegations of the creature of the Purple Lagoon.
Before I could even react the otters rushed at the sirens licking their lippy things. They had seemed friendly a moment before but they started to munch the three sisters where they stood. There was blood and guts and screams but after a few minutes, they were nowt but bones. The howls of pain and anguish were quite terrible, let me tell you. Oh well, stuff happens. Those sirens did have fishy elements like I said, so I guess they’re on a giant otter’s menu, at least, they are now. I guess the sirens were proven right to be scared in the end then!
With that, we waved the ferryman back over and bade our newfound friends farewell. With the ferryman humming to 1920s gypsy jazz, we reached the far bank and took the long and arduous trek home.
***
As I sit now, in my comfy chair, reflecting on the adventure, it seems it was both a success and failure. We solved the mystery, which is great. Go us. We proved the sirens were right to be afraid. Awesome. We rock. Buuuuuuuut, they kinda got munched alive by a family of ravenous giant otters in a most grisly demise, which is admittedly, a slight failure. All up, I’ll give myself 16 out of 17 on this one.
I suppose on the upside, after spending decades luring men to their watery grave, it had to come back to bite those hypnotic sirens in the end.
I’m gonna go write cool stories for you now.
I’d like to thank you for your time and wish you love, light and laughter but mostly, peace.
See ya next time friend!
BB
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Dreamland Part 1 – The Fabric of Dreams
Dreamland Part 2 – The Masters of Light
Dreamland Part 3 – The Veil of Shadow
