Week Four: WoE Friends and a Heart Challenge

Write at the Merge this week gave us a picture of a brick-paved heart and my favorite quote from Groucho Marx:

"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying 'Damn, that was fun!'"

I return to the hijinks of Sticky and his friends and their quest for chocolate, the result of the last week's link up.

I offer the following in response: Operation: Chocolate

A full moon smiled from atop the midnight sky, and stars kept their silent vigil over the world below. Sticky pressed against the windowpane of the farmhouse he frequently visited. His friends mirrored him, eager faces squished to peer inside. “This is where I found the secret figerie pie,” he explained, his whisper fogging the glass. “The farmer lady is sure to have chocolate.”

“What’s a chocolate anyway?” Pocker asked as he wedged himself between Topple and Lily-fathri.

“The Seeress showed me," Sticky replied. "It’s brown and lumpy, or black and smooth, or even sometimes, it’s so scared it turns white.”

Topple peeled away from the window and crossed his arms. “Aw, I never get to see the Seeress use the Pearl. That’s not fair. You get in trouble all the time and yet you get to see her use the Pearl.”

Uh-oh. If he feels slighted, he’ll use all his flight energies on camouflage to be stubborn and he’ll get us caught. Sticky thought, exchanging glances with his sister.

Sellamina didn’t hesitate. “Topple, the Seeress thinks you’re far too important, keeping watch for balinogs.”

“Oh,” he said, relaxing. “That makes sense.”

“Let’s go find some chocolate.” Sticky focused his desire for the window to open, magic surging through his heart. When enough energy was collected, he tapped the glass and the window opened a crack.

They crawled across the sill, mindful to avoid anything that could snag their wings, leaving a trail of foot and hand prints in the fine layer of dust. A poof of magic escaped Lily, dampening her silvery shimmer, and all the dust and prints disappeared from the surface. “Well, it needed cleaning,” she stated when she caught their looks. “And we shouldn’t leave tracks behind anyway.”

“Yeah or the balinogs could find us.” Topple agreed, causing a tired sigh from Sellamina.

Sticky shrugged and pointed towards a jar at the far end of the room. “I think that’s where the chocolate is.”

They flew single-file through the airspace to the cold granite countertop. Bright, metallic bobbles glittered inside the jar. With a bit of convincing, Topple helped Sticky and Pocker pool their energies to open the lid. The hiss of a vacuum destroyed pushed a bloom of nutty sweetness into the air. Sticky understood in one sniff why the Seeress was so keen to have one. He salivated instantly, “Ooh, it’s edible.”

“They look like little bells. Do all chocolates look like little bells?” Lily breathed.

Pocker looked just as awestruck. “Are they called chocolate because they’re made of chalk?”

Topple frowned, “Chalk never smelled like that.”

Sticky attempted to haul a bell out by its white paper string, but halfway through the effort, the metallic wrapper unraveled and the chocolate fell to the countertop. “Chalk never looked like that,” he said.

Sellamina bit into the brown lump and glowed. No trace of balinog poisoning remained in her skin, and she shimmered brighter than Sticky remembered. “And chalk never tasted like that!”