Once upon a time, in a small elven village on the Mississipi River, there lived a small elven boy named Meox. Meox was your average elf boy, except he thought he was right at everything- and by everything, I mean everything. When he disagreed with someone, he would always get in a huge argument, even if it was something as little as favorite colors or ice cream flavors. He always had to be right; after all, as far as he was concerned, he knew everything.
One day, Meox and his classmates were on a field trip. It was miles and miles away from the village, in an area nobody had ever seen before; the beach. But before everyone could go play, the teacher called upon the class and silenced them all.
"You may do as you like," she said, "but remember this: if you go too far out, you may never return. You might drown, or get eaten by some sea creature. This isn't the Mississipi. This is the Atlantic Ocean."
The children nodded. They understood. Well, most of them did. All except Meox.
I'm going to prove our stupid teacher wrong this time, Meox thought. The Ocean doesn't scare me. I can swim just fine in the river back at home; what could hurt me out here? She's wrong, as she always is. Today, I'm going to prove it, and everyone'll know I'm right.
"HEY EVERYONE!!!" Meox called. "WATCH THIS!!! THERE'S NOTHING DANGEROUS ABOUT THE OCEAN!!!"
All the children turned to watch as Meox ran straight into the ocean and jumped in, unafraid of the cold, murky waters.
Now, unfortunately for Meox, more beings heard him than his elven classmates. Deep in the ocean, the sharks and the fish and the whales heard him too, and the clams and the otters and everything else in the sea. And, as it turns out, they didn't like stubborn little children any more than we humans and elves do.
But also, there was more to it. As the fish swimming down the Mississipi heard Meox fighting with his classmates, they remembered it. Then, when they reached the ocean, they told all the fish there about it, and those fish told the other fish, and so on and so on until the entire ocean had heard of stubborn little Meox. And that ocean, of course, included the fish and sharks that saw him dive in.
"Hey, look! It's that stubborn kid we keep hearing about!" a shyish salmon noted, swimming over to its friends.
"What, you mean Meox?" another salmon said. "Oh, yeah. I traveled all the way from central America to get rid of that kid, dude. Looks like he followed me here."
"I think it's about time he learned his lesson. Did you hear what he just said about the ocean?"
The smaller fish turned to face a larger shark, who was looking at Meox with an expression of hatred. They nodded in agreement, and started chanting "DO IT!! DO IT!! DO IT!!!" Soon that whole patch of the ocean was counting on that shark to teach Meox that he was indeed wrong.
Now, Meox had no idea what was happening. Of all the things he thought he could do, he knew for sure he couldn't speak fish. He couldn't even see the fish, for his eyes were closed to keep out the salty ocean water. But had he opened them, he would have been greeted with the vision of a huge shark coming to bite his stomach.
"GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Of course, it's pointless screaming underwater, even for a stubborn elf child. All his classmates saw was a slight ripple of the water, then a bunch of bubbles and a blossom of red forming in the water. In an instant, the teacher was there, pulling Meox out of the water and magically healing the huge bite marks that stretched across his chest, stomach and back. The shark slipped easily back into the water, satisfied with the damage it had done.
Now, the magic healed the cuts, but the scars still last forever. And for the rest of Meox's life, he would look at those scars and remember the first time in his life he had been wrong. It was a reminder that people, even elves, are sometimes- maybe even often- wrong. Nobody is always right, and nobody knows everything, not even Meox.
