#im SO PECKING BAD AT POETRY BUT MY ONE DUMB BRAINCELL WAS LIKE NO WAIT I HAVE AN IDEA

[ahatintimepieces]

Maybe something with tardigrade song or the moss ,by Cosmo sheldrake? All his songs are pretty whimsical

Many feelings right now, post-writing, and 1) Never heard this music before this morning and now The Moss is forever embroidered into my being, 2) This got way outta hand and finally 3) THANK YOU FOR REQUESTING THIS I surely hope I captured the whimsy at least a little! Please enjoy!

“Legend has it that the moss grows on the north side of the trees,” Hattie reminded herself as she looked out at the columns of frosted stone, perched on top a giant, frozen wishing well. Or maybe just a well. It was too frozen to tell if golden wishes fell into this well. And it was too frozen to see if there was moss on the crystalline trees.

“Well, legend has it when the rain comes down, all the worms come up to breathe,” a squeaky voice of a dozing, floating raccoon bequeathed.

Hattie looked up, spotting the crown pon on the cap of the raccoon clinging to its pillow. The rift was overrun by these sleeping fellows who whispered in their dreams of fables and things.

“Well, legend has it when the sunbeams come, all the plants, they eat them with their leaves.” Hattie readied herself and leapt forward. The stone column cracked beneath her and began to sink. With a jolt of fear, she immediately jumped to the next one, flying beneath the raccoon who dropped to squash her. She wacked it with her umbrella and pilfered the pon before jumping to a cluster of cold leaves before the stone column crumbled beneath her.

The raccoon fell with the stone and Hattie panted, before catching the shine of the parchment below.

Careful, she descended the stairs of slippery leaves. Her boots scuffed the icy blue branches before she stooped down and gathered the page that was one piece of one puzzle of a forest of spirits and souls and sleepy spiders and dwellers. Swiftly, she tucked the page away and ascended the stairs and stone.

Paying pons in exchange for escaping the ice and moss-less trees, Hattie jumped into the pipe and dropped into a new level, finding shadows trapped in glass vessels.

“Well, legend has it that the world spins round on an axis of 23 degrees,” Hattie breathed. She examined the scene before her with confusion and barely jumped back before an inky-black octopus with waving tentacles emitted a ring of combustion.

“But have you heard the story of the rabbit in the moon?” A smaller shadow asked in a raspy voice as she incapacitated the octopuses and raccoons. “Or the cow that hopped the planets while straddling a spoon?”

Hattie shoved the crown pons into her pocket as the other smaller shadow chimed in, its form looking like a carnivorous plant in one moment before wavering into the form of a dragon with a pointed beak just as its twin.

“Or she, who leapt up mountains while whistling up a tune and swapped her songs with swallows while riding on a broom?” The dragon bloom cooed.

Hattie shook her head, the movement causing her to spy a space in the wall with an opened door. She wandered over to find wooden planks leading down into the center of the structure perched in a murky moor. She jumped down and came to a dark room sparse save for a handful of shelves stacked with books. Another parchment puzzle piece shone but its shine was swallowed by the surrounding shadowy nook. She swiped the storybook page and retreated from the dark, jumping up the steps with calculated arcs.

Before she could reach the final pipe opening with hissing smoke, the middle shadow shaped like a sea serpent with spiraling tail and spiked shadows and short snout spoke.

“Well, we can all learn things, both many and a-few from that old hunched-up woman who lived inside a shoe,” the shadow whispered with a scarlet star blinking where its eyes usually sat black as tar.

Hattie paused, waiting for further explanation but the serpent seemed as petrified as a mask, the shadows shifting behind the curved glass. She dove through the final pipe and came to a raft, adrift in a sea of murky mist with distant trees shivering as if caught in a draft.

Focusing on her task to reclaim her time pieces, she cracked open the violet rift and it shattered along creases with collective whispers of the subconscious forest, asking if she could learn something from the puzzle pieces. Or…

Or the girl that sang by day and by night she ate tear soup,

Or the man who drank too much and he got the brewers’ droop?

The whispers begged her to understand, but the hatted child grabbed her hourglass and disappeared before knowledge could land.

Hattie returned to the forest and gingerly tucked the time piece away. Curious, she took out the pages of the storybook crafted by memories in the rift and went about her day.

Following the cobblestone path, she scanned the title page with a claw mark through a broken heart. A gaggle of subconites trotted over to her, following and asking if she wanted to join them in their game of sharing stories and art. One lifted his mitten hand to his chest, his light glowing as he pressed.

“Come listen, all ye fair maids, to how the moral goes,” he declared dramatically as Hattie mostly ignored him to scan the next page of a prince and a princess holding hands with hearts round their golden crowns, looking proper and prim.

“Nobody knew and nobody knows,” another subconite chimed in while the next chapter showed the princess in her crown meet the children in town covered with masks and hoods standing in rows.

Hattie glanced towards the hooded figures around her, dread welling up as they casually continued their recounting of characters.

“How the Pobble was robbed of his twice five toes, or how the Dong came to own a luminous nose,” the first subconite said while they walked. Meanwhile, the princess saw her prince’s palm clasped with a maiden of strawberry-rose locks.

“Or how the Jumblies went to sea in a sieve that they rowed,” a quiet third subconite sounded like they were smiling as Hattie stared, wide-eyed at the page of the princess’ heart shattering and her tears freezing, all framed by her golden hair.

“And came to shore by the Chankly Bore where the Bong-trees grow.” The girl with the rose-colored braid held up her hand, revealing a coin that might have once fell into a well made for wishing while the prince turned to see his princess fleeing.

“Where the Jabberwocky’s small green tentacles do flow, and the Quangle Wangle plays in the rain and the snow,” a noose dripping blue called from above in a haunting tone, causing the subconites to scatter with child-like screams and leaving Hattie alone.

Hattie stopped walking, steps faltering. Shadow tentacles rose around the green-garbed princess in droves while the prince tried to reach out, desperate to dismiss the princess’ doubt.

Pondering the woods, Hattie trembled, finding the story too terrible to continue. The shadow dragon blooms, the sleeping raccoons, the subconites and the cold, endless night that clung with the clefted moon. The young pilot charted stars, not stories withstanding; how was she to make sense of this pictured misunderstanding?

As if hearing her distress, a shadow appeared with a clasped claws and Cheshire grin. He twisted around her, wondering what was causing the child such chagrin.

Pressing the storybook to her chest, concealing the tale, she appeased, “Legend has it that the moss grows on the north side of the trees.” But nothing grew in the phantom forest. Crinkling her nose, she continued her pleas, “Well, legend has it when the rain comes down, all the worms come up to breathe.”

But the shadow reminded her for breath the dead have no need.

“Well, legend has it when the sunbeams come—”

There was no need in the forest of spirits for the light of the sun.

“—all the plants, they eat them with their leaves…” Hattie trailed off in grief. In a final plea, she said, “Well, legend has it that the world spins round on an axis of 23 degrees.”

The soul Snatcher widened his smile and began to beguile her scientific theses.

“But have you heard the story of the rabbit in the moon?” He dove into the trees and puppeted shadows in a haphazard cartoon. The rabbit looked more like a man sewing cow plushies in a crescent room. “Or the cow that hopped the planets while straddling a spoon?”

Snatcher popped out of the trees and snatched Hattie’s hat, disappearing up in the leaves and forcing her to pursue with grappling hook threaded through the noose.

“Or she, who leapt up mountains, while whistling up a tune,” Snatcher continued, twirling her hat on his finger in an animated loop. “And swapped her songs with swallows while riding on a broom.” He winked, tossing her hat back and summoning her contract to remind her of her tasks.

Hattie furrowed her brows and held out the storybook with memories cruel and true.

“Well, we can all learn things, both many and a-few,” she repeated the morals whispered in the rift as she mused, “from that old hunched-up woman who lived inside a shoe.” She turned the page to reveal the final clue, “Or the girl that sang by day and by night she ate tear soup.”

The phantom froze and the girl gripped the page, both staring at the shadow depicted in his cage. Crown discarded; tears pooled in the eyes of the prince fooled into thinking love over sorrow could rule.

Hattie turned to the ending, the final picture that explained the strictures of the woman in the manor.

Petrified by the page, the phantom swallowed thickly as he added bitterly, explaining the story of jealousy’s cold coup, “Or the man who drank too much and he got the brewer’s droop.”

“Snatcher.” Hattie reached out but the ghost of the prince fled in one fell swoop.