The Diary of Joy

Van

2. Peace, the year of the Phoenix

Dear Angel,

Today has been such an awesome day. My dad, Van, was in charge since mom had to go take care of Aunt Clementine, my mother's good friend, the mare, who wasn't feeling so well.
And guess what?!
Dad let us stay all night, and we were stargazing while he was telling us stories about him and mom while the twinkling stars were winking at us in the quiet night.

It was one of his and mom's stories that mom would have never told us because it wasn't exactly a story for children.
I am honestly not sure why not, but I guess you can judge for yourself when I tell you what he told us.

"Before your mother and I got married and had you guys, we had a few very unusual adventures.
Have I ever told you about the time we met an angry dwarf?" Dad asked us.
All of us moved our heads side to side to show that we have never heard the story before.
We all got excited to hear the story.
I was so exhilarated that I couldn't stand still.
Instead, I was flying around dad eager to hear what happened with the angry dwarf.
My brothers and sister were annoyed with me but dad didn't seem to mind.
He went on with his story.

"So one starry night, similar to this one, since I am a great romantic, I..." Dad said.
"What does romantic mean?" Mischief interrupted him.
"Mischief!!" My other siblings and I yelled in exasperation.
She always did that.
We told her so many times not to interrupt dad, but she keeps doing it.
I am not even sure if she doesn't actually understand some words or if she interrupts dad on purpose.
Sometimes my other siblings and I don't understand some of dad's words, but we never ask.
You see if we do ask he loses his train of thought and has to start from the beginning which can be challenging sometimes.
At least, this time, she asked at the beginning of the story so dad didn't have to repeat a lot of it.

"As I was saying, since I am a great romantic, one starry night, when there was a beautiful night rainbow on the sky, I took your mother out for a romantic walk through the woods.
The sky was clear and the rainbow was more colorful and brilliant than ever.
It had all the wonderful shades of red, pink and blue, and as you all know your mother simply adores all those colors, well, all colors.

Anyway, I took her by the hand and led her to our special spot where we could enjoy the sight in each other's embrace.
Your mother was so beautiful that night, with her hair freely floating in the wind and her eyes full of wonder that I simply had to kiss her." Dad said ignoring the sounds of disapproval of my brothers as well as 'aww' sounds that my sister and I were letting out.

"In that very moment, we heard a loud Bang! Bang!" Dad yelled loudly scaring all of us.
We didn't mind it since we loved the thrill of being scared.
"We could feel someone approaching us," Dad said as he started circling around us quietly and creepily.
"Of course I wasn't scared, but your mother grabbed my hand in fear and squeezed firmly," Dad said and went around squeezing our hands in the same way mom supposedly gripped his hand.
To be honest, it didn't sound like mom. She is too brave for that, but it makes for a better story like this, I guess, so we never contradict him even when we are pretty sure that was not how things happened.

"I reassuringly squeezed her hand back, and we scanned our surroundings to see where the sound was coming from." He said as he put his hand above his eyes scanning our surroundings as if looking for something.
"Suddenly, a creature that we quickly recognized as a dwarf jumped in front of us." He said suddenly jumping in front of us making us move with start.

"The dwarf seemed to be very angry.
His small stature didn't stop it from carrying more attitude than I had ever seen in any creature under this sun.
His big eyes lost under his huge bushy brows were red with anger, and we could feel pure rage emanating from every part of his body.
Even his hair seemed enraged by something because it didn't seem to be able to stand still, as well as his long black beard." Dad said as he lowered down and tried to make the angriest face he could master.

We all burst out laughing because he was so bad at making faces that it only looked as if he was trying to lift something really heavy.
That didn't discourage him as he went on with the story.

"He approached us in quick angry strides and looked me directly in the eyes. "Were you the one who put the flower bomb in my mine?" He asked us boiling with anger.
"A flower bomb?" Your mother asked surprised.
"Aren't you the crazy elf who married the flower fairy!?" The dwarf said completely ignoring your mother's presence.

As you can imagine, your mother really didn't like that.
She made one of those faces of hers, like the one she makes when you steal a cookie, Mischief." He said as he tried to imitate mom's face unsuccessfully.
Once again, we giggled happily at our father's bad acting as he went on.

""Yes, I am the crazy elf who married the most wonderful flower fairy there is why do you ask?"I told him.
"I bet it was your crazy wife who put that disgusting flower bomb in my beautiful mine." The dwarf said.
Well, no one calls your mom crazy and gets away with it.
She got that furious look in her eyes, the same one when you, Chatterbox, won't stop talking while eating and almost choke on the food you are eating. " Dad said and my brother turned bright red in embarrassment while the rest of us chuckled quietly.

"That was when your mother gave him a piece of her mind. "First of all, flowers are the most beautiful and precious plants in existence and I will not allow anyone to talk badly about them.
Secondly, I am not the crazy one who goes around accusing people of something with no proof or truth to the claims." My dear Lyna said fire coming out of her eyes but her tone as cold as that waterfall we sometimes visit in summer.

I think you, Peace, are familiar with that tone, the one she uses when you don't tell her when your brother plans to do something stupid, and she finds out you knew about it." Dad said as Peace kept looking at his feet uncomfortably.
"Honestly, I thought they would come to blows then and there, but the dwarf just started laughing heartily," Dad said and started laughing like a crazy person and it was so funny that we all started rolling around the ground from laughter.

"When the dwarf finally stopped laughing he offered her his hand to shake which she gladly took. I had no idea what was happening, but I sure was glad we didn't have to fight the dwarf since he seemed very strong.
"I like this one." The dwarf said shaking her hand vigorously.
"I am Rygan, by the way." He said still shaking your mother's hand.
"It's a pleasure to meet you." She said suddenly going to her pleasant self like she was never the angry fury we both saw.
Never tell her I said that." Dad said.

He always asked us not to tell mom when he said something he thought might make her angry, and we all laughed at him but never said anything to mom.
"As you might have guessed knowing your mother, she offered to help out, and we did by vanquishing a nest of nasty flower wielding fairies." He said.
"Dad!!" We all yelled at him exasperated because we knew that he started making things up.

"Okay, okay fine we didn't, but what really happened is boring. Some young fairies thought it would be fun to try out a flower bomb in what they thought was an abandoned mine.
They had no idea that it was one of the most productive mines in the dwarf society.
As you can imagine, your mother found them and made them clean up the flowers by careful uprooting them and planting them somewhere else.
Also, she made them repair the damage to the mine and promise never to do something like that again.
As for her and the angry dwarf, she is still friends with him.
It's actually your uncle Ry." Dad said.

"Uncle Ry is nothing like the dwarf you described, dad," I said because, it was obvious that dad was exaggerating, again.
"Well, that's what you think, my dear Joy.
Do you remember that one time when you got lost in the woods chasing butterflies? How did uncle Ry look?" He asked me.

Upon remembering the look on uncle's face I had to agree with some of dad's descriptions.
Oh, telling you this story has made me so sleepy. I guess it's time for bed.
Goodnight my friend, until tomorrow.
Love, Joy.