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She awoke, startled by something, but looking about in the darkness, she saw nothing. Standing up and stretching, she wandered off into the night, unsure where she was going, as if something was guiding her.


Mushroom circle. She just realized it, she had slept in one. Her body was brimming with the power of the Forest, just waiting to unleash a transformation spell onto any deer that was close by. She looked around, surprised none were even sleeping around here.

There were fire flies in the distance, buzzing and flickering off and on. It was the only light she really saw out here aside from her pictogram and the stars above. The moon was dark tonight, it was why she had a hard time seeing.

She began to approach the fluttering bugs when a quiet whisper sounded, "Help me...please help me..."

The doe blinked and looked about. There was nobody close to her. But then she began to see something.

Between the roots of one large tree were several fireflies, flickering brighter around something else.

A dead spider.

The doe peeked down at them. The whisper came again. "Please help our friend, she has lost her life tonight, and wishes to become a firefly like us."

"How can I help?", Hälla asked.

"You carry the spell she needs. Please hurry, she does not have long...", another firefly whispered to her.

The doe tilted her head. She thought transformation spells only worked on anyone with a pictogram, not other creatures of the Forest. But her body began to glow, and concentrating on the spider's body, she cast the spell. The spider began to glow as well, and in a poof of magical vapor, she transformed into a firefly like the others.

The little bugs all fluttered around the doe, excited that their friend was alive and one of them.

"I do not understand, what is going on here?", Hälla asked them all.

The fireflies flew close to her, their flickering lights illuminating her fur as they whispered:

"We are the Darkest Lights and the Brightest Darkness...the fireflies guide the lost to safety in the night, and the spiders weave dreams for the sleeping. We are mutual protectors of the night, and when one of us dies, we pray that they get to experience the life of another. Spider becomes Firefly, and Firefly becomes Spider."

The doe nodded slowly. The Fireflies now flew away, and the doe watched as they became camouflaged in the stars above, dancing the night away as happily as they could now that their friend lived with them.

Hälla returned to her resting place, and closing her eyes, she had the most wondrous dream...

The End