Nina Enchanted
Little Nina was in a predicament, she did not know what to do. All the other fairies were leaving the forest and heading as they always did towards the bright sunlight of their well tended gardens.
“As much as I enjoy tending these beautiful gardens day after day, I would like one morning where things were, well, different”, thought Nina. When suddenly one little fairy departed from the group and veered left instead of right, heading down a path Nina had not noticed before. Far in the distance a tiny beacon glowed. Nina could not decide what to do, as she had always followed the rest of the troop, never once had she ventured off alone. Suddenly very curious, Nina wondered how different her day might be if she too were to travel down this new path instead.
After much contemplation Nina adventurously set out alone. Instead of turning right like the fairies have always done, she turned left, stepping onto a path much less traveled. Nina walked for what seemed like a very long time, going deeper into the forest, further than she had ever gone before. The trees seemed much taller here and it was darker; less sunlight and lots of toadstools, but Nina was not scared. After a while she found herself in a small clearing, the fairy she had been following was nowhere to be seen. Surrounding her were common woodland ferns and mosses, lichen and assorted mushrooms all muted in pale greens and grays; lots of shadowy places, not the brilliant colors of the gardens she generally tended. “Why this is not so special”, she thought, wishing she had taken the path to the gardens instead. Disappointed, she turned back toward where she had come from, when she noticed a tiny flickering orb of light.
Nina gazed at the bright little orb in wonder and the little light politely asked that she step closer, and so she did.
The little orb said, “Look deeper Nina, not a me, but at what lays before you.” And so Nina did look around herself into what she had thought was just an ordinary wooded glen.
And what she saw was very beautiful. While Nina had thought she was surrounded by common woodland ferns and mosses, upon closer inspection she discovered that they weren’t so common after all. They were extraordinary and tucked in among them were hundreds of tiny flowers of a soft blue hue, the likes of which Nina had never seen before. These flowers whispered softly to her,”Please take us with you so we may cast our seeds far and wide.”
Nina gathered these little blue flowers together, wrapping them with tender ferns and soft spongy mosses. As she did this the little flowers began to shimmer with happiness and the dark woodland glen became illuminated with a soft golden glow, a radiant light, created by the joy of flowers who have waited so long to be seen.
Nina hurried back to the garden of sunlight, eager to share her adventure with the fairy folk and as she left that secret hidden woodland glen, the little blue flowers whispered “forget me not, forget me not”.
