Hello, reader. I am The Narrator and I was created with one purpose and one alone, to tell the tales of those who were, in some cases, exceptional. While the majority of stories may have rather average characters and average storylines, sometimes you can stumble upon a rare jewel, a needle in a haystack of mediocrity. If you were looking for a jewel, this is not the story for you. However, if you are prepared for the most extreme of misunderstandings, things that are not as they seem, and magical adventures, I have nothing else to say but dive right in.

We begin our story with a dream. A dream of magic and splendor, with beautiful candy-colored trees and mushrooms the size of 30 story buildings! Everywhere you looked there was something. Elves playing poker, Fairies playing with objects that looked to be icy blue balls of light, Frogs in business suits holding briefcases talking about the weather, there was not a dull spot in this dream. You see a town vaguely outlined in the distance and decide to head towards it. Even though you know this is a dream you can’t help but feel as though there is a cool breeze that smelled of rain and wet dirt blowing in your direction.

You walk swiftly along a dirt path that looks as though it is well-traveled towards the distant town. Your feet kick up dust as you walk, covering your bare toes with a layer of dirt and rocks. Suddenly you hear the noise of rolling wheels and off-key singing.

“OOOOOHHHHHH, my sheep ran out o’ the baaaarrrrnnn, my sheep ran out o’ the baaarrrrnnnn,” you hear someone sing. You turn around to see a rather peculiar sight, a small, lizard-like being sitting atop a carriage that was being pulled by not horses, but giant rabbits!

As it got closer to you, you can see that this lizard has feathers and birdlike feet. What a strange being. The carriage rumbles forward at a steady pace, but you don’t notice because you are staring out towards the city making plans for what you will do when you get there.

“Woah!” You jolt to attention, “are you dumb? Why are you sitting in the middle of the road?” The small lizard with bird legs walked over to you. As it is now up close, you can see that it has beautiful iridescent scales and bright blue feathers, with eyes like big black jewels.

“Sorry, “ you say, “I was, lost in thought,” your eyes glaze over and you turn your head rather dramatically to look out at the forest. You feel a tiny poke on your cheek and return back to normal. “Ow!” you say.

“Well, maybe you shouldn’t be spacing out in the middle of the road.” the lizard creature says matter of factly.

“I don’t need a lecture on safety from a lizard!” you retaliate.

The lizard’s mouth opens in shock, showing row, upon row of pointy teeth that glistened like pearls, “I am not a lizard!” It spat out as if even the thought of lizards disgusted the creature, “I, am a Lird!” The 'Lird' puffed out its chest proudly and its feathers stood up on end.

“A Lird?” you say skeptically, “There’s no such thing as a Lird.” The 'Lird' looked taken aback by that comment and strutted towards you as if to appear menacing

“Well, I suppose you think giant rabbits and frogs in suits don’t exist as well?” the 'Lird' turned its head to the side so that all you could see of its face was one big black jewel eye.

“Yes. Giant rabbits aren’t real and neither are frogs in business suits! This is all a dream and when I wake up you and everything else in this world won’t exist!” You start to get confused because the 'Lird' started laughing. It grasped its sides with its twig arms and its whole body shook as it made little giggling noises.

“So,” the 'Lird' says after it gets its giggling under control, “You think that everything here is a figment of your imagination?” You nod but immediately regret your decision because the 'Lird' started growing. It grew and grew and grew until instead of a 20-inch tall reptile standing before you, it was a 50-foot tall reptile. Its foot was almost the same size as your whole body. 

“Is this a figment of your imagination?” the Lird asks in a big booming voice that shook the ground.

“N-no,” you say in fear.

“What did you say? I can’t hear you.” The Lird says.

“NO!” you shout out.

“What?” the Lird looks down at you in confusion.

“WHY DON’T YOU JUST SHR-” You start to shout.

“I think I’m just going to shrink back down.”

The Lird’s form slowly got smaller, hands the size of tires going back to the size of quarters, and eyes the size of giant beachballs being shrunk to the size of golf balls. It shakes out its tiny body and sits in a rather chicken-like manner, with bird legs tucked under its lizard body and arms resting on the ground.

“So, what did you say?” The Lird tilted his head  

“What did I say to what?” You say having forgotten the question.

“Is your memory truly that terrible?” the Lird asked, a smile percolating on its lizard lips.

“It took you like twenty minutes to shrink back down!” You say trying to defend yourself. It, in fact, had not been twenty minutes. You are just bad in both math and the memory department.

“It was five minutes, not twenty.” the Lird says matter of factly.

“Well, how do you know?” You reply, hoping to catch it in a lie.

“Because,” it says, “I, have a pocket watch.” the Lird pulls out a pocket watch from a pouch that until now had looked as though it was just another part of its belly.

“Well damn, I suppose I haven’t as good a memory as I thought I did.” You say defeated, “so, what was the question?” 

“Is this world a figment of your imagination?” the Lird says with exasperation.

“Oh, no. This world is one-hundred and ten percent real!” You say energetically before giving a thumbs up. The Lird seemed unimpressed by you show of enthusiasm but you press on hoping to get some answers out of it. “What is your name? Or am I to call you Lird from now on?” You ask.

“My name is Quet'ze although I assume you will forget it as soon as you turn to walk away,” it says before walking back towards the carriage.

“Wait!” you start to walk after it, “you didn’t ask for my name!”

Quet’ze doesn’t stop walking, “I don’t intend to.”

You walk faster to catch up with it. For such a small being Quet’ze moves remarkably fast, you think to yourself. “It’s Cori!”

It stops. “What is Cori?” it asks.

“My name!” you say

“Oh, really?” it asks, “I thought that since your memory was so bad you wouldn’t be able to remember your name,” Quet’ze laughed.

“Ha, ha, very funny.” you say dryly, “I swear I’m more competent than that!”

It nods slowly, “Yes, you definitely are.” Quet’ze stretches a hand towards the carriage, “Need a ride?”

You nod, “Yes that would be wonderful thank you.” you and the Lird walk towards the carriage.

“I’m dreadfully sorry but you’ll have to sit in the carriage while I drive since there is no room up front,” It says before hopping up onto the driver’s seat.

You head towards the back of the carriage and see a very ominous-looking door. It was made of iron bars that were rusty and looked as though they could collapse any minute.

“I don’t have all day Cori!” You hear Quet’ze shout.

“Sorry!” you shout back.

“Alright Cori, you can do this. Just enter the ominous-looking vehicle and you’ll be able to get to the city,” you whisper to yourself. You open the door and hop inside the carriage. If there is something or someone else in there, you’ll have to deal with it later. You feel a jolt and then the rumbling of wheels upon a dirt path. You are on your way to the city.

You lean back against what you think is a wall but it’s soft. It moves up and down as though it’s breathing. You turn around to see if you can find what is sitting there with you in the dim carriage and instead of finding a wall, you found a body. You turn your head to look up a bit and see that the body is attached to the head of a giant cat. It was sleeping but you didn’t know if or when it was going to wake up. You decide not to worry about it and lay back down onto the giant mound of fur.

You feel a cold breeze upon your face and then something sloppy and wet drips down onto your face. Your eyes open to see the face of the large cat no more than five inches above your face. You ready your voice to scream when the door to the carriage opens and Quet’ze stands in front of you.

“Ah, I see you’ve met Prima!” it says, “Come outside, we're here!” you stand up and walk out of the carriage. In the full light of day, you could now see Prima in all its glory. A shiny neon coat that looked like a tye-dye rainbow with leopard spots on top. Bright golden-colored eyes that shone like the sun. An elegant figure, long and muscular with a big bushy tail and ears so large that if you saw them you would wonder if Prima was part rabbit.

“Prima is such a beautiful kitty!” you say, “where did you find it?

“I found Prima while on a walk through the mushroom forest out in the east. It was only a small kitten and it wouldn’t stop following me. I knew that in Prima’s species, mothers abandon their children when they are younger than most so the fact that this little cat would be trailing me was not a surprise. I took Prima to my home and treated it just as I would any of my other creatures, teaching it to hunt and stalk and play just like a normal cat. But Prima isn’t a normal cat, isn’t that right sweetie?” Quet’ze petted Prima’s silky coat and nestled its face into the fur. For a couple of minutes, you just sat there in silence watching the tiny Lird and the big cat snuggle up with each other in a cozy little ball.

“Ummm,” you say after sitting in awkward silence for at least five minutes (or was it twenty), “why isn’t Prima a normal cat?” 

Quet’ze hopped straight out of its comfortable position in the center of a fluff vortex, “Oh, right,” Quet’ze slid down one of Prima’s sides and walks towards you, “Prima learned how to do normal cat things but it also learned how to interact with other entities! Since it doesn’t have the right vocal cord and mouth structure, Prima can’t say words like you and I do. But somehow, I can understand what it says when it looks at me! I have a telepathic cat!” the Little Lird jumped up and down excitedly as if this was the first time it had heard of this phenomenon.

Welp looks like I’m friends with a crazy Lizard. You think to yourself.

“Hey! That’s not nice! Calling people crazy is rude and I have already told you I’m NoT a LiZaRd!” Quet’ze’s feathers raised on end and it strutted around rather agitatedly.

“You heard that?” you ask in shock.

“Well of course! I already told you Prima is a telepathic cat!” It said excitedly, “do you believe me now?” Quet’ze sat down in the dirt.

“I mean, I guess I have to now,” you say nodding.

You look up and see Quet’ze laughing, “did you actually believe that? What if I was a con artist and I was telling you that you could buy this cat to see what your friends thought of your hair?”

“What?” you say now confused, “so this was all a joke and your cat is not telepathic?! Why did you trick me like that?” you say frustratedly.

“Oh, no. Prima is telepathic. I was testing you to see if it would be safe to bring you to the city.” Quet’ze said. 

You lay face down in the dirt hoping that maybe if you fall asleep there you’ll go back to your world. Whyyyyy. 

“Because the city is full of tricks.” It starts saying, “Since you’re with me you should be okay but just remember, never make a deal with a fae (they never hold up their end of the bargain and you almost always end up dead), never gamble with any kind of insect (dreadful cheaters they are), and most importantly, never ever make friends with a dog. They are not to be trusted!” Quet’ze said with conviction. 

“Dogs? Why dogs?” you ask. You have a dog at home and she had been nothing but trustworthy.

“I just don’t like ‘em. One time a dog looked at me funny and then four business frogs got stabbed through the head with a spear that just came out of nowhere!”

“Quet’ze, I hate to say this, but you sound rather mad,” you say trying to console the over-excited Lird.

“I’m not mad! You’re madder than anything I’ve seen here!” The Lird states indignantly.

“Are you sure?” you ask, “I believe that you might be the maddest creature in existence, I mean telepathic cats? I believe you but still,” you say 

“Very well then, shall we eat something before we enter the city?” It asks after you hear a rumble coming from its stomach.

“Yes, let’s,” you say excited to try some food from this strange dream world.

Out of Its pouch, Quet’ze pulls out a package. “I wasn’t expecting to have company so we’ll have to share this.” It opens the package and inside were two lumps of something that looked similar to rocks but also like giant bug larvae. When you grabbed it you were surprised to find that even though the gray mass looked wet and squishy, it was actually more like bread. Quet’ze broke open the mass that it took and pulled something else out of the pocket, it looked similar to honey in viscosity but was a bright purple color. When it looked up and saw you puzzling over the meal it said, “This is a type of sweet bread called M’ithri. It’s made using a special kind of grains that only grow in the water of the Ignea river. what I’m pouring over it is Thriae honey.”

“Ok, cool,” you pause waiting for more explanation. When none comes you then ask, “What exactly is a Thriae?”

“A Thriae is a creature that looks like a human woman on the top and a bee on the bottom. They are known for their delicious honey because it is made from the blossoms of the Robinia pseudoacacia, also known as the Black Locust. The purple comes from the special proteins and chemicals that the Thriae produce, giving the honey a more mild flavor because Black Locust honey is very sweet and almost completely clear.” Quet’ze hands you the bottle of honey.

“Cool!” you pour the honey onto the bread and take a big bite. The bread had a crunchy crust but the inside was warm and fluffy like marshmallows or clouds. It was sweet but not so sweet that you felt your teeth would fall out as soon as you swallowed it. The honey had soaked into the warm bread adding some subtle fruity flavors. You closed your eyes and let the warm sweetness wash over you. Never in your life had you had something as delicious as this. It was the type of food that if you ate it, it would remind you of your childhood.

“So,” says Quet’ze after you had both finished your meal, “Shall we go into the city?”

You stand up, “I suppose we should.”

A Human, a lird, and a rainbow cat walk into a city. This is not the beginning of a joke nor the end of a story, it is simply the end of chapter one.