One Word Prompts

Swing - An Honest Wish

A young girl squatted beside a flower, sketchbook balanced on her knees, a pencil clumsily sketching the flower's petal structure in her hand.

It was a misty morning in early spring. Her tutor had taken her and her sisters out to the forest, to a wide meadow overflowing with wildflowers. A hands-on lesson in botany and zoology, he had called it. He had given each of them a bug net and a sketchbook and turned them loose on the meadow.

She frowned as she looked between the flower in front of her and the sketch. It was a passing resemblance, she supposed. But her tutor would have done a much better job. She considered drawing it again from scratch, when a brightly colored butterfly floated by on the breeze.

She watched it flutter by above her, alighting on a flower a couple steps to her left.

She looked over her shoulder quickly. Her sisters were a good way away, the younger two pushing and pulling each other through the bushes, the older one hiding in a shady place under a tree at the edge of the meadow, undoubtedly a book in her lap. Her eyes fell on the blue winged butterfly again. No sign it was going to move just yet.

She shifted over slowly, edging closer step by step. If it had landed any further away, she wouldn't have had a chance. But as it was, she just needed a little more...

And she swung her net, the mesh encapsulating the fragile wings ever so gently.

She grinned, unable to wait to show her tutor. She'd never seen a butterfly like this at home. Was it only found in this forest? Or did its home end somewhere else between the forest's edge and her manor's garden?

"Let me go!" a small voice squeaked.

She froze, looking left and right for the speaker.

The net in her hand shook, the butterfly's wings fluttering in a panic.

"Let me out!"

It almost sounded like... She looked down. In the net was no butterfly.

A small boy sat cross legged at the bottom of the net, his arms crossed, a scowl on his face. His body was no bigger than the palm of her hand, and on his tiny back blue wings like a butterfly's fluttered.

"What?" She held the small, winged boy up to her face. "What are you?"

The boy's scowl didn't diminish. "None of your business."

"You can talk."

"Obviously."

She poked him through the net. Without a doubt he was real, whatever he was.

"Cut it out!" The boy pushed her finger away, or rather he tried to. His little hands pushing on her finger didn't have any more force than an ant's feet on her arm.

"Sorry," she said sheepishly, retracting her finger. "I've just never seen a...." She paused. Was it "a boy so small" or "a bug able to talk"?

"A fairy?" the boy finished for her. "Hmp, well now you have, so let me out."

"You're a fairy?" Her eyes grew wide, her grin returning to her face.

The fairy's scowl didn't waver.

"Then, do you grant wishes?"

The scowl remained.

She grinned at him expectantly, just waiting.

He sighed, shaking his head. "If I did, why would I grant one to some girl that put me in a net and won't let me out?"

"Oh." Her smile vanished. "Ah, maybe, if I let you out?"