4th of July STory Tot (Sorry for the Delay!)

Here is your story tot! _____________________________

A Wish Away _______________________________

Now, we have all heard the tale of Ari, the magic wish-granting swan. However not all wishes are as innocent as the first ones children granted. Now today we will explore another story about a wish...

Deep in the forests of England, there was a wishing well, lost to time. Now one day, a magician named Aledo, came upon it and decided it was the perfect place to build a house. And he did. Aledo needed to have a house in a forest for these were colonial times and no one believed in wizards any more, they were all about keeping the lands they found and the revolutionary war in the colonies. They would lock him up in some sort of asylum for lunatics if they knew him. So, deep in the forest, he lived. After a few years without visitors, Aledo resolved to find a pet to keep him company. Of course, being a wizard, it couldn't be just any normal animal, could it. HE JUST HAD TO HAVE A SPHINX. Now, if you don't know what that is you should go research. By that I mean, GO GOOGLE IT, IT HARDLY TAKES A MINUTE, HONESTLY YOU SHOULD KNOW WHAT WE ARE TALKING ABOUT FOR THIS WHOLE STORY. Ahem, so now to continue. So Aledo had a sphinx imported from sorcerer's in Egypt. He named it Trixie. One day, Aledo decided to go on a long hike in the wood, and left Trixie at home, because sphinxes aren't much for traveling. They prefer to stay home and trick innocent travelers with riddles. Trixie didn't do this. The traveler who came along was not at all innocent. He was a thief. Now this thief came along and spotted the wishing well and made a wish. Rather than a penny however, he threw in a piece a swan egg, just to be funny. He didn't know Ari was a swan. Also he did it because he was a greedy thief who didn't want to part with his pennies. Now when the Ari realized this, and it was a swan egg, and Ari was a swan, she was angry. She plotted revenge after rescuing the egg. Needless to say the thief's wish, to have a thousand pieces of gold was tracked down. With the wish that was granted she could track down the wisher. So now next time you wish for something be aware to never do anything to put Ari against you. Don't worry, it takes a lot to make her mad. Now when Ari flew to the house in the woods, she found the thief had ransacked it thrown the unsuspecting Trixie out and went to deep sleep on the wizard's bed. Now Trixie too wanted revenge, and she wanted the thief to go away before Aledo came back, for he would probably groan and sit on the well, wishing his magic was strong enough to repel thieves, or that he had a moat and a guard dragon. That was when she realized, that a dragon was the perfect idea. So she and Ari made a plan. Ari used her magic to conjure a magic lamp, and stuffed a random evil sorcerer in it, for those were always plentiful and turned the evil sorceror into an evil genie. The evil can't be helped. Then Ari poured 1 wish into the lamp and gave it to Trixie. Now Trixie flew into the house and woke the thief. "What are you winged creature-- and WHAT IS THAT!" the thief exclaimed seeing the lamp, which was pure silver. "A magic lamp, because you have done such a good job ransacking this house, it is a gift. But, could you answer this riddle?" Trixie said. "What will you turn into after you make your wish?" The thief was confused as it wasn't really a riddle, but shrugged and answered, "A RICH MAN!" then he grabbed the lamp. "Careful! It is a magic lamp and it will grant you one wish when you rub it." Trixie cried. He did, and out came the genie. The thief wished, again for gold, but this time for a million pounds of it! The genie granted the wish, and the house was full in gold, so that they were buried up to their necks in it, till Ari opened the door and let it all fall to the ground. The thief did not notice this. "Hurrah!" he cried. "Wait, but I am a Sphinx and you answered my riddle wrong, and the laws of magic allow me to punish you! "YOU TRICKED ME!" the thief cried, but it came out as a ROAR for he was now a dragon. He wasn't a rich man. He was a rich dragon. Just then Aledo came back, was told the story by Trixie and Ari, and they all sent the dragon up to a cave on a mountain that was conveniently nearby. Then all the gold, because a wish was a wish and it had to be granted. Nobody except the three of them would ever know. Suddenly Trixie had yet another idea. "Why don't we make the dragon guard us, and once it had guarded us a thousand times, we can turn it back into the thief. Surely otherwise if we do not give it a task to do and a reason to do it, it will terrorize the country and we will be back to medieval times! They don't even have knights anymore nowadays, it'll be the only way to guard the dragon!" Ari agreed with this plan and made it so that whenever they wished for the dragon to come guard the house, he would and after a thousand times, finally he could become human and leave. Of course then they arranged for the migrating geese to feed the dragon on their way. They wanted to make sure he'd live to serve them a thousand times. For good measure the made it so that every time the dragon left the cave he'd lose a gold coin, so that when he did turn human, he wouldn't be rich at all. He didn't deserve to be rich they thought, after his thievery, and ransacking the house, and dropping an innocent swan egg in a well. So, it was all taken care of. "You've really outdone yourself this time Trixie!" Aledo had admonished. After a few decades Aledo's children were there alone at home too with Trixie, and every time a tiger or some other danger came near the house by the wishing well, Trixie wished for the dragon to come protect them, and grudgingly the dragon did, and eventually after thousands of years, for danger didn't come by very often, the dragon finished all this, and decided against being a thief and found a job. So truly, they all lived, happily ever after.