Once upon a time...

there was a furry-faced gelfling, Esnow, and a hazel-eyed she gelfling, Oljato, who lived in disconnected gorges of Estonoah - the land of blue water between blue mountains. Esnow and Oljato began seeing eachother on summer journeys to the high balds of Estonoah. On the high balds Esnow and Oljato harvested summer savory, rosemary, and other wild herbs. Come early autumn Esnow and Oljato had become fast friends and began meeting to harvest the most delicious sweet potatoes ever. They shared a similar sense of adventure and a love for Estonoah’s wild places and wild creatures. For a short time they spent afternoons on the high balds doing any combination of the following: drinking sassafras tea, eating dagoba cacao, playing mancala with hickory nuts, discovering animal tracks, napping on hemlock boughs, and composing fairytales on spruce tablets. Following those beautiful afternoons Oljato would return restless to her gelfling family and feline clan but would immediately retire to her bed of owl down feathers and coyote skins to fall asleep and dream about Esnow. Esnow felt a stirring of his blood stronger than any imagining he had ever had for any other she gelfling. After knowing one another for less than four cycles of the moon, Oljato’s gelfling family relocated to a faraway gorge. Oljato’s new gorge was more than ten sleeps from Estonoah and Esnow feared he would never see his darling gelfling again. Esnow was beholden to noone but Oljato and he took off for the frontier beyond Estonoah to find her. He encountered noone and nothing except wild savages, wild beasts and untamed wilderness for two cycles of the moon. At the birth of the sun one day in late autumn Esnow scurried and stumbled over, under, and through the ridge and valley landscape until his body and psychological stamina were wasted. He was absolutely fatigued and even thoughts of Oljato’s rousing touch could no longer motivate him. As the mother sun died that night, the stars drew forth, and the moonlight shown on water to remind Esnow of Oljato’s soul. Esnow became reinvigorated. As he was reinvigorated, the stars burned brighter, and while the stars became brighter, his gelfling stride intensified. His stride grew so steadfast and jubilant that a night owl mistook Esnow for a panther’s shadow. When lady night owl realized the shadow was a gelfling instead, she feared Esnow was being pursued by a panther as she had never seen anything with two feet move so swiftly. Thus lady night owl vigorously snatched Esnow with her strong talons. She snatched him while remaining in flight; thrashing and beating, she drew him up and away to grant him safety. She escorted Esnow over numerous ridges and valleys, including the ones more than ten sleeps beyond Estonoah. He was weightless and overjoyed and he sensed blissful peace around the corner. He knew that lady night owl was going to bring him to Oljato. Lady night owl landed at the opening of a limestone grotto, one in which he was not familiar with. There, next to a cascade of sequin seafoam, a magnificent figure came into sight: the silhouette of a she gelfling reflecting in moonlight on water. Oljato. Esnow and Oljato were both happy to be reunited. They spent the moonlit night under the grotto cascade, resting in a nest of fluffy down feathers and fir limbs, and dining on hobblebush. It was a bitter cold and wintry night under the grotto cascade. By the birth of the sun the following day the cascade had frozen solid and gelflings Esnow and Oljato had disappeared. Please finish this story. I would like it to end with “and they all lived happily ever after”, but I am experiencing an unwanted tendency toward a morbid conclusion.