Booboo's Magical Curse

Booboo's Problem

         Deep in the depths of a dark and foreboding forest, a busy little fly is hard at work. Much faster than a knight in shining armour dashing away from a damsel-with-bad-breath, and looking more like a pot-bellied pig with wings than a small flying insect, the excessively hairy fly hastily fluttered through the trees. Every so often he would return with a seemingly random forest object, and drop it into a small container at the base of a tree.

         To a passer-by, this odd performance could seem very peculiar, but this particular fly, Booboo, is no ordinary fly. On his final trip, Booboo returned with a large toadstool and added it to the bucket of crème de forest soup. Sitting on a nearby rock, and staring into the extremely nauseating mix in the bucket, Booboo tried to sigh, but couldn't; being a fly had its obvious and unfortunate drawbacks. However, he had much bigger problems to deal with than being unable to sigh.

         First he had to turn the ingredients in the bucket into a magic potion. To do that would require a magic wand. The only person nearby, with a magic wand, was his elven friend, Elkin. Getting the wand from him would be near impossible. Elkin had received the wand after saving the Queen, on a recent adventure, and hadn't let it out of his sight since.

         Booboo would have sighed again, but alas he still couldn't. He looked into the bucket again as if willing the ingredients to turn into the magic potion with just mind-power. Having a brain no bigger than a flea, didn't help. He was gazing into the bucket with such intensity, when suddenly, all of the hairs on his body stood on end, sending a small shiver down his thorax.

         If he could have frowned, he would have. So he had to make do with fluttering his wings. He tried again, this time with more intensity. He willed the bucket's ingredients to turn into the magic potion. The wind began to blow stronger. He willed some more. All of the hairs on his body stood on end, sending a small shiver down his thorax. The air began to taste coppery, mini whirlwinds began to rotate around the bucket. His whole body began to glow blue, he had no idea what was happening, then as suddenly as it happened everything stopped.

         Booboo looked up at the sky and would have screamed if he had vocal chords. He shook his body vigorously, as if drying himself after accidentally falling into a repulsively clean river. Then he stood still and turned to face the bucket. Gripping the side of the rock, he began to will the ingredients to transform into the potion. He began to shake violently. The leaves in the trees began to rustle like millions of angry insects. Whirlwinds began to rotate around the bucket of ingredients like a hungry pack of wolves. Booboo's hairs began to stand up on end, and his skin took on a blue glow. The glow brightened and cast an eerie blue light across the rock on which he was currently gripping. Then there was a huge pop, a thick cloud of yellow and glittering dust, and a gust of wind that sent Booboo flapping wildly into the bucket of goo.

         Coughing and spluttering, Booboo emerged from the magic potion. "Bloody hell," he coughed.
"Go me!" shouted Booboo. He stood up on his two hind legs, rotating his remaining arms and abdomen, in wild circular motions and started singing, "go me, go me."

         Cheeks glowing red after appearing a tiny bit embarrassed at his sudden mini-celebration, Booboo decided it was time to find Elkin, and ask for his help. Booboo stretched his legs, and fluttered his wings. Bending his legs and crouching close to the rock, he launched himself into the air. Flapping his wings madly, and hovering just above the rock, Booboo yelled at the top of his voice, "Yahoooooooooo!" And then hastily fluttered through the trees in search of Elkin.

         Elkin had been busy all day, practising magic with his wand. He was having so much trouble. The wand seemed to be hard-of-hearing. He was sat on a tree-stump, staring at the floor with his chin in his hands. His cheeks were squashed-up against his eyes, and his lips were sticking out from between his mountain of cheeks. A small and furry white rabbit was running around his feet.

         Many beginner wizards would be proud of pulling a bunny out of a magic hat. On the other hand, if they had asked for lots of money, they wouldn't have been quite as pleased. And sweet merchants don't usually accept small, furry, white bunnies as tender.

         At that moment, a small, fat fly came buzzing out of the trees. He hovered above Elkin and then dropped out of the air, landing next to Elkin with a thump.
         "Morning Booboo," said Elkin, with a sulk larger than an elephant's bottom.
         "Morning," buzzed Booboo. "Wassup?"
         "Oh, nothing," sighed Elkin. "Just that I can't get this wand to work....wait a minute!"
         He jumped up, spun around and looked at Booboo who was sitting, looking rather innocent, on the tree stump.
         "You can't talk!"
         "Why?"
         "Because you're a fly," wailed Elkin, waving his hands in the air. "You're Booboo."
         "Well if you'd just stop waving your arms in the air like a tree who just found out that termites had moved in, I'd tell you my story," buzzed Booboo.
         Looking rather sheepish, Elkin sidled over to the tree stump, and sat down next to Booboo.
         "This is weird," said Elkin, scratching his head.
         Booboo coughed, shuffled about on the stump as if trying to get comfortable, and then buzzed, "Ok, I shall begin."

         Many years ago, in a land very far to the east, two very powerful wizards were at war. The reasons for the war were long forgotten. Many lives had perished. Many cities and villages had been destroyed. The land had turned to waste. Trees had died and turned black.

         The only life that seemed existent in these now dark lands, were the black vultures. Once scavengers, they sit in the branches of the trees, waiting for barely living prey to wander past.

         Black smoke spiraled into the war stained brown sky. Two dark towers, separated by several miles of wasteland, are the only two buildings left standing after this dark and terrible war. In these towers live two very powerful wizards. It is they who have created this barren waste.

         Not seeing a point in fighting any longer, the two wizards arrange a meeting in the centre of the wastelands. The wizards were without trust, both had ulterior motives. When they met, a battle was unleashed like none had ever seen.

         Fire, ice, lightening bolts and flying rocks, all of the elements being called forth, each wizard trying to destroy the other. Both began to weaken, all of their mana had been expended. Resorting to fighting by staff and by sword, the two wizards lunged at one another.

         Both fell at the same time, too weak to lift another finger. Both breathing heavily, trying to regain their breath. One of the wizards had regained enough mana to cast a final death dealing blow. A crackle could be heard. A charge of electricity could be felt in the air. One last bolt of power flashed against the darkened skies. The other wizard tried to get up, his eyes widened in terror. He grimaced in pain as the bolt of magic slammed into him, knocking him down to the ground.

         Convulsing, strings of lightening flowed through his body, there was a final flash, and then he vanished. The other wizard turned away, his cloak flowing out behind him as he walked back toward his tower.

         A small maggot wriggled around on the floor in the place of the vanished wizard. It had to find cover before a bird found it, and tried to eat it. The wizard hadn't tried destroying the other wizard, he'd only turned him into a lesser life-form. As a maggot, he not should pose too much of a threat.

         A week had passed, the maggot had been in its pupa stage for nearly four days, before emerging as a not so beautiful fly. He had wandered the wastelands in search of something to turn him back into a wizard, without any success. As a fly he had the advantage of speed, but not of time.

         A few years had passed when he realised that the life-span of a fly hadn't transferred to this body. Obviously he still had his human life-span and also a human appetite considering how much he ate. He had since travelled far from the wastelands searching for a wizard to break the spell. He had travelled through lands of ice, over mountains, through great valleys. He'd zipped through cities governed by ogres and trolls, before he happened upon a dark and foreboding forest. Maybe in here he could find some rest, if not a wizard.

         He had been in the forest for only a few hours when he saw something moving through the trees. It was an elven boy playing near a dangerous, yet deliciously smelly swamp. It was then that he noticed his fly senses had started to take over his human senses.

         The boy seemed to be enjoying himself. He was swinging from tree branches and sniffing flowers. Everything seemed fine, until a monstrous, purple tentacle reached out of the swamp, wrapped itself around the boy and dragged him into the swamp.

         Two seconds later a gurgling sound drifted out of the swamp, then a huge sucking noise, before the boy was spat out of the swamp. A shower of swamp water splattered around the edge of the swamp and the boy landed with a soft thud.

         As if nothing had happened, the boy got up, dusted himself down, and skipped off into the woods. The fly decided to follow him and see where he went, besides, he smelled delicious.

         "So that's when you first found me?" asked Elkin.
         "Yes," buzzed Booboo in reply. "And it's also when you gave me my name."
         "So what's your real name?"
         "I don't know," Booboo replied, trying to hide his embarrassment. "I'm finding it more and more difficult to remember things the longer I remain a fly."
         "Oh," said Elkin standing up. "So how can you speak?"
         "Well," buzzed Booboo turning to look at Elkin, "on your last adventure you visited a wizard. While you were cleaning his chambers, I took the opportunity to look at some of his spells."
         "Ah," nodded Elkin. "Why didn't you just find a spell to turn back into a human?"
         "I tried, but the wizard you visited wasn't a very good wizard, unfortunately."

         Booboo jumped from the tree stump and landed on Elkin's shoulder. "Elkin, I need your help," buzzed Booboo, "before I become a fly forever."
         Elkin looked down at his fly friend sitting on his shoulder. "What do I need to do?" he asked.
         "Well, we need to find a spell, and then we will need to get ingredients," buzzed Booboo in reply. "It will be a very dangerous adventure."
         Elkin nodded. "I'm ready," he said.

         With that, Elkin and Booboo headed, once more, out of the dark and foreboding forest, toward their greatest adventure yet.

To be continued . . .