Today is Saturday! It is story day in the realm of Queen Arcadia.
Shhhh ……. the Queen is taking the Ancient Book out of the library. She walks over to the Opal Throne, its rainbow colours shimmering and dancing in the light. The Opal Throne is carved from a solid block of Australian opal. Can you imaging that?
All around her is the soft flicking of wings as the sprites and faeries gather round.
If you go into your garden and sit beside a particularly beautiful flower, and listen very very carefully, perhaps you may hear the soft flicking sound as your garden faeries fly among the flowers. If you are very very quiet ..... perhaps.
Shhhhh ……… listen, listen to them whispering to the Queen.
“Read us the story Queen Arcadia. Read us the story.”
Queen Arcadia smiles.
“Do you like to sit in your garden and look at the butterflies chasing the wind and playing among the flowers?”
The sprites and faeries all nod and laugh. Three fly over to sit on her shoulder, whispering to each other and pointing down to the ancient storybook. Another sprite hovers just above her right ear, he wants to be able to see all the illustrations as Queen Arcadia turns the pages.
The Queen begins to read the story.
“This is a story of two special butterflies. Princess Cethosia, a beautiful lacewing butterfly, and Papilio Ulysses, a handsome mountain-blue butterfly. Shall I read you the story?”
The sprites and faeries all clap their hands in excitement and gather round Queen Arcadia ……………
Shhh ……. perhaps we can listen too
Cethosia had just come out of her chrysalis and was stretching her wings for the very first time. It was so glorious to be out and about in the sunshine. It was so glorious to feel the breeze and see all the colours of the world.
Just then, a breath of wind toppled her off the branch.
She fell.
She fell and fell, down past the eucalypt flowers, down past the spiky banksia leaves and down to the running stream where catfish swam and waited for tasty morsels to land on the water.
“Beat your wings! Beat your wings!”
Cethosia tried to beat her wings but it only made her tumble more.
“Beat your wings and fly!”
Cethosia concentrated and concentrated and beat her wings. She began to fly! It was like when you flap your arms and pretend to fly, except that you DO go up in the air. Wouldn't that be good!
She was just in time.
She stopped falling and rather unsteadily began to fly, just like the butterflies you see in your garden: up, and uuuup, and across, and over, and across, and down. For an instant, her left wing touched the water just above the nose of a waiting catfish. The catfish stirred and opened its mouth, but Cethosia had flown away. She flew over to a wattle tree, its rich golden flowers bursting all around, and stepped lightly on to one of the silvery green leaves.
The grumpy catfish sank back into the stream.
The other butterfly flew over and settled next to her. She could see he was a very handsome butterfly with beautiful blue colours on his wings.
“Thank you for saving me,” said Cethosia, a little shyly.
“Oh, that's all right,” replied Papilio in a rather bored voice, as though he saved beautiful butterflies all the time.
