critterlord
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This one is for you, ticklish_faerie. Hope you like it.
The Feather Wood
Kali was a fairy. Before we can continue, there are some things you must know about fairies. The first thing is they are small. Barely taller than you finger is long. All fairies look like young girls, about 16 to 17 years old. They never age. They have large wings like butterflies. Fairies where cloths of silk that they weave themselves. There are no male fairies. How is this, you ask? Fairies are not born like humans. Fairies are born from true love’s first kiss. Since our story takes place in a fairy-tale, where princes are rescuing damsels in distress every couple of days, you can imagine that there are a lot of fairies floating about.
Fairies have very special magic. They have a natural understanding of nature and control over the creatures and plants of nature. They can make any humans as small as themselves, and can make themselves invisible to the human eye. Fairies also produce a magic enhancing fairy dust when they laugh. Fairies like to laugh. But, because of the powerful fairy dust, they are constantly sought after by magic-users. That is how this story can to take place.
Kali’s group of fairies, numbering at a mere 34, was looking for a small forest to live in. They traveled for miles, until they felt like their wings would fall off. Then, suddenly Kali spotted the perfect grove. It was small, just fairy size. It was about a mile away from a small human village. Since fairies love spying on humans, but hate being spied upon, the location of the village was ideal. The forest itself was quite interesting.
The trees were very tall and had strange leaves that looked like feathers. They seemed to whisper as Kali and her friends were entering the forest. They quickly found a tree with a large bowel-shaped-hollow in its upper trunk and the fairy group fell asleep. Kali woke up early. She was far too curious about this strange forest to sleep too long. She woke up her best friend Taki.
Taki yawned, “What’s up?”
Kali smiled, “Lets go exploring.”
“Yeah,” said Taki, now wide-awake.
The two flew off towards the center of the forest. The trees seemed to whisper as they passed. When Kali and Taki reached the exact center of the forest, they found a small clearing. In the exact center of the clearing was a weird-looking plant, with a huge amount of vines. It rested on the ground, with the vines limp. At the end of each vine was a strange feathery leaf. It had a single bulb sticking straight up in the air. It looked like the mouth of a Venus flytrap, except it was red with white spots. The lips of the bulb seemed to smile.
Kali immediately wanted to investigate, but Taki stopped her.
“Let me get the rest of the gang,” said Taki, and she flew off towards the group’s hiding place.
It took every inch of willpower not to immediately fly down there and inspect the odd plant, but she waited for her friends.
It was only a few seconds before Taki arrived with the rest of the gang. Nothing moves faster than a fairy with something curious to find.
Kali and the rest didn’t even wait a moment. They all flew at the odd plant at once. The plant moved like lightning! Kali suddenly saw the vines spring to life. The vines wrapped themselves around Kali’s ankles and wrists. They gently pulled outward until her body was in a spread-eagle position. She glanced around and saw every single one of her friends was trapped in the same position. She struggled a bit, but found it useless. The plant was too strong. She instead tried to force the plant to let her with her nature magic. It had no effect! The plant was completely resistant to her magic. She tried to struggle again. She pulled at the vines at her wrists. She kicked her petite little bare feet, for fairies never wore shoes. She didn’t even budge the vines.
Something moving caught her eye. She stopped struggling. She looked over and saw one of the vines advancing on her left foot. It seemed to wave its feather-tipped end. The feather tip brushed her foot.
Kali giggled. The vine had tickled her.
She had once heard of plants that tickled travelers, but she thought that if she every encountered one, she would be able to make it stop with her magic. She hadn’t counted on they plants being resistant to her magic. Her tiny heart beat faster. The feather tip tickled her left foot again. This time it didn’t stop.
“HEEHEHEHEH HEY Cut-t-t tha-h-hh-ah-aha-t out! Tha-ha-ha-ha-ha-tickles! HEHEHEHEEHEE Oh, NO!” she giggled, as she saw another feather tip advancing on her right foot. Other feather tips were advancing on her armpits and sides. The cloths all fairies where completely leave their armpits and sides open.
“HEHEHEEHEHHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEE,” giggled Kali, no longer able to speak. Through tear filled eyes she saw that all the rest of her friends were getting the exact same treatment. She saw that all her friends were leaking huge amounts of fairy dust. She realized that she herself was leaking more fairy dust than ever before. It was because she had never been tickled so hard before. As the plant absorbed the fairy dust, it seemed to grow larger and stronger. The feeling on Kali’s ticklish feet and sensitive sides definitely intensified.
Speaking of the plant, Kali realized that through the tickling she was hearing the plant’s thoughts in her head. Being in contact with the feather tips enabled this. Unfortunately, the thoughts weren’t very comforting.
-He He Fun Fun Lots of playthings, lots of friends, lots of tickles. Heh, Heh. Ticklish friends. Small tickish friends. We play lots. Tickle, tickle, tickle.-
-What is this thing,- Kali thought, even as she was laughing her socks off.
To her total surprise she was answered by a thought that sounded a lot like Taki’s voice. The tickling and laughing didn’t appear to garble her thought sending at all.
-It’s some sort of tickling plant and it’s feeding off of our fairy dust.- thought Taki.
Kali did a mental smile, as her actual lips were already smiling.
-Thanks for the obvious. So what else is news-
Another thought answered her. It was another one of her friends Halo.
-You, know, this is kind of fun.-
Kali had to think about that for a second. All fairies liked to laugh, and she was no exception. And she had most certainly never laughed this hard or this long before. And with the rest of her friends here and everybody able to talk to one another, it was like a party. What would have been terrifying, one on one, was fun in a group. Kali finally admitted to what she had been secretly thinking.
-This is fun,- she thought. Just then, she felt all the feather tips stop tickling her. Even as she gasped, she felt angry and thought to the plant, -Hey, that’s no fair! They are all still being tickled. Tickle me too.-
The plants bulb grinned even wider and it thought to Kali, - I like you. Like more. You wait. We play funner game now.-
The vines holding on to her slowly began to pull her towards the bulb. Kali knew that plant would never hurt her, but she was still terrified just the same, although it was a delightful terror. This indiead sounded like a “funner” game.
As she arrived directly in front of the plant’s bulb, the smiling bulb opened to reveal a huge mouth of teeth, and a long, snake like tongue. The tongue stretched out and the tip stroke Kali’s left bare foot.
The tongue was surprisingly dry and covered with thousands of tiny stiff bristles. It tickled more than Kali thought possible. She flung her head back and broke out in silent laughter, expelling fairy dust in huge waves. The tickling was so intense that Kali felt the most euphoric sensation fill her body. It was if her entire body had just been filled to the brim with joy.
Such huge emotions were not meant to be felt for long, and after 20 minutes of the tongue’s terribly tickly assault on her bare, defenseless feet, she passed out.
She awoke to the feeling of the tongue still tickling her foot. She came wide-awake in an instant and started giggling afresh. She managed to see all of her friends just waking up from their tickling-induced naps to the sensation of the feather tips stroking every available surface of their bodies. –Here we go again,- thought Kali as she started to silent laugh. At least it was fun.
Suddenly, Taki thought up with some disturbing news.
-I’m hungry.- Soon the rest of the group started to offer their own complaints of hunger. After all, being tickled until passing out gives one an appetite. Kali was certain that she had seen some type of red berries in the feather-leaf trees. The favorite food of fairies is berries.
Halo addressed the main problem. –I don’t think the tickle plant will let us go.-
They all discussed it, even as they were practically howling with laughter. It was Taki who came up with an unusual suggestion.
“Maybe we can ask the plant to let us go. It seems to have a mind of its own. Maybe it can be reasoned with.-
Kali thought about it and agreed. –It seems to like me best, so I’ll talk to it.- She directed her thoughts now at the plant. –Excuse, tickling plant?-
The plant answered in its usual peculiar fashion.
-What? Ticklish favorite girl ask? Ask what? Talk talk talkidy talk.-
-Can you please let us go.-
-Nope Nope Nope. You stay here. All stay here. Have fun. Play lots. Fun Fun Fun Fun Fun.
-But, we’re hungry. We need to go and eat.-
-Nope Nope. You stay and play. I tickle lots. You like. Promise. Wait. What you eat? You need eat what? Talk Talk Talk Talk.
-We just want to eat the berries in the feather trees. We will be gone only for a short while. We’ll be back soon to play. I promise.-
-Eat feather berries? That fine. You eat. I wait. Be back soon. We play lots. I tickle. Ticklish feet. Oh boy. Tickle tickle tickle tickle.-
With that, the vines let all of the fairies go. The group thanked Kali and headed off towards the trees near by to eat the feather berries. Kali discovered the berries were delicious. They tasted like raspberries, blueberries, and strawberries all rolled up into one. It was undoubtedly the best thing Kali had eaten in her 200 years of life. She wanted to keep eating, but she new that if she ate too many berries, she would be to heavy to fly. She had a promise to keep and a fairy always keeps her promise.
As Kali and the rest rejoined the plant, and the tongue started to tickle Kali’s tender sole again (this time the right foot), Kali could swear she was a little more ticklish than before.
The weeks seemed to fly by. A routine was developed. The fairies would wake up in the morning and have a little berry breakfast. Then they would go and half a good hard tickle. They would be tickled until night fell, and the fairies would eat some more berries and go to sleep in the hollows that the fairies convinced the trees near the clearing to form.
Kali and the rest started to teach the tickle plant how to tickle better. They told it that if the plant would slow down tickling just before the fairies passed out, they would stay awake and still be tickle. Kali, tired of being the only one to feel the wonderful tickling of the tongue, taught the plant to really use its tongue. If the plant held all the fairies in several rows with their feet pointing in the same direction, it could run its tongue in a straight line back and forth, and tickle every fairy at once. At first, the other fairies pretended to be made that Kali had found a way to subject all the fairies to her torture, but after the first trial run, all the fairies were so grateful, that they threw her a huge tickling party, for the fairies had learned how to tickle each other. The rest of the group decided to make their own suggestions as to the best way to tickle. They taught the plant to find anybody’s worst spot (Kali’s worst spot was that tiny space right between her toes, just big enough for the tip of the tongue to reach.) The fairies taught the plant to tickle just to the point of passing out, then lighten up to just gentle tickling on the feet, just enough to keep the fairies giggling and making fairy dust. It could keep that up for days if it wanted to. The huge amount of dust caused the tickle plant to grow until it filled the clearing with its bulk. Then one day, something strange happened.
The morning started as usual. The fairies flew down to the plant and it grabbed them in the all tongue formation first. Kali realized something was wrong. The plant’s usual thought prattle was absent and the bulb seemed a little full. The plant didn’t open its mouth, but it pushed its tongue out and tickled all of their feet at once. Then something new happened. Its feather tips started to attack every inch of the fairies exposed skin, hitting the armpits, bellies, ribss, sides, arms, legs, and faces of every fairy. Combined with the tongue, it was such a huge tickling fest. Everybody could barely take it, but they felt sad in knowing that it could not go on for very long. But, it did. The tickling continued at the same breakneck speed and it wasn’t long before everyone passed out. They were promptly awakened by the exact same feeling that had made them pass out. The plant hadn’t let up the powerful tickling for a single instant. The whole group passed out three times and were awakened the same way nine times before the sun had reach the top of the sky that morning. Just when Kali and her friends were getting hungry, the plant reached up towards the feather trees (it had grown quite a bit and was now able to reach the edge of the clearing) and grabbed a bunch of berries, still tickling the fairies all the while. It let up enough to let each fairy eat one berry, and then went right back to the tickling. It kept this up for three days, not even letting the fairies sleep. Through the constant feeling of joy and tickling, Kali was able to notice the bulb was slowly getting larger and larger. But Kali was too wrapped up in the tickling feeling that was covering every inch of her super-ticklish skin to figure out what it meant. On the morning of the forth day, something happened that every fairy in the clearing thought impossible. The tickling increased. The tongue moved so fast it was nothing more than a tickly blur. Every single feather tip, even the ones holding the fairies, was focused on the fairies ticklish skin. The entire grove shook with the roaring laughter. The tongue suddenly stopped tickling and was replaced with hundreds of new feather tips that had grown that very instant. The bulb lifted up and seemed to explode into the air. The blast drowned out the fairies laughter. The explosion set up a cloud of golden little dots. Immediately the plant stopped tickling. The fairies laughed for a full half hour afterwards before they were able to talk, but the feather tips still rested on their bodies, so they could thought talk.
-What was that all about?- wondered Taki.
-I’ll ask the tickling plant.-answered Kali, who had totally enjoyed the whole episode, but was confused as to what had happened. She turned to where the bulb would have been, had Kali not just seen it explode. To her surprise, the bulb was still there, its grin looking just a little droopy. Kali immediately bombarded it with questions. The tickling plants thoughts rang out loud and clear to every fairy.
-Fun. All my seeds. Flutter about. Stay here in wood. Grow strong. Be friends. So happy. So tired. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.-
Kali realized that the tickle fest been just as taxing on the plant as on them. She hadn’t even known that plants could sleep. -But the had the right idea- she thought, as she untangled herself from the limp vines and returned to her nest. She was so tired, she felt like she could sleep for a week.
Well, Kali certainly didn’t sleep for a week. But, the plant did. During that time, the fairies waited. They began to grow listless and depressed. It took them awhile to figure out what was going on. They were going through tickling withdrawal. They started tickling each other to pass the time. It was fun, and some of them got very good at it (especially little Halo, who had a hidden mean streak that made her a merciless tickler), but it just wasn’t the same as the tickling plants way of play. Kali started to dream about the plants tongue caressing her soles.
The grove seemed to under go some changes as well. The feather trees started popping up like weeds all around the grove. The grove’s size doubled, then double again, then doubled again, and so on. The grove turned into a full-fledged forest in a matter of days.
Then, one day, the tickling plant woke up. It raised its bulb and wiggled its vines. All the fairies rushed down and waited to be grabbed. But, the plant simply touched each of them with the feather tips, just enough to think to all the fairies.
Kali, the spokesfairy, asked the plant if it planned to tickle them. They all heard the plants reply.
-Yes. Tickle. Fun Fun Fun Fun. But only you. Not others. Others find seeds. Find clearing. Find friends. They play. Have fun. We have fun here. Tickle tickle tickle.
With that, he grabbed Kali and started tickling her with its tongue and feather tips, its long nap seeming to have completely refreshed it back into its old enthusiasm.
The other fairies were let go and they decided to explore the forest again. They found 33 more clearings, exactly like the first, enough for each fairy left. And in each clearing was a tiny tickle plant, each with a different colored and patterned bulb. Each had eight little feather tipped vines, just strong enough to hold a fairy and a tiny little tongue, covered with bristle fuzz. All the fairies were enchanted by them and quickly picked out their favorites to play with. Even though they were small, all the new tickle plants seemed to be just as efficient ticklers. They quickly learned that what one tickle plant learned or felt, they all learned and felt. Thus, each speck of fairy dust counted as a speck of fairy dust for every tickle plant. They fairies also learned that a fairy being tickled by one plant could thought talk to a fairy being tickled by a completely different plant on another side of the forest. This gave the fairies the ability of long distance communication.
Kali was a little jealous of the rest, because they got new plants. But she had the original, with thousands of feather tips. Something else happened. It seemed every time a tickle plant made seeds, it grew another tongue. So her tickle plant had two tongues while everybody else just had one.
Many days passed, and the tickling and fun continued. The new tickle plants matured inside of a month and were just as big as the original had been. Then, one day, everybody’s plants shut up and tickled each fairy with reckless abandon. Every fairy of course knew what was happening and just went along for the fun. The process took much less time, because all the fairy dust counted so many times over and the tickle plants recovered in a single day. And when the seeds were air born and the new clearings formed, there were 167 new clearings. This troubled Kali. She knew that to grow to maturity, a tickling plant had to have the full ticklish attention of a fairy. There simply wasn’t enough fairies to go around.
She broached the question to her tickle plant. His answer was untroubled.
-You no worry. Is fun. Is fine. You be happy. You laugh. TickleTickleTickle.- Then the plant launched a vicious tickling attack with a tongue going between her ticklish toes. This drove any other thought out of her mind for awhile.
The plant was right; she shouldn’t have worried. Just as the new seedling were poking up from the ground, a herd of new fairies arrived. They had heard from a veiled woman that their was a forest where fairies laughed all day long. And the number of fairies? 167. Somehow the tickling plants had known exactly the number and the date of new arriving fairies. Kali took them to the original plant and it initiated them all. By the time the new tickle plants were ready for fairies, the new arrivals were only too willing to adopt them.
The fairies still had a lot to learn about the tickle plants. One particular occurrence demonstrated this. By some form of chance, two tickle plants had grown in the same clearing, leaving one clearing open. The two fairies left over to take the two plants were very different. One fairy was super-hyper-ticklish and the other was barely ticklish at all. The two tickle plants fought over that got the ticklish one for about a day. Finally, one grabbed the un-ticklish one, uprooted itself and marched off for the unused clearing. It them rooted itself right next to a large feather tree. It seemed to push something intangible into the feather tree, and the feather tree literally burst into bloom with thousands of new feather berries. The tickle plant force-fed the un-ticklish fairy until she couldn’t hold any more. Then the tickle plant tickled her with all its might. The fairy suddenly realized that she was a hundred times more ticklish than she used to be. The entire forest (several miles in width) was filled with the laughter of the formerly un-ticklish fairy. This taught the fairies many things. They hadn’t known that the tickle plants could uproot and move around. They hadn’t known that the tickle plants could control the feather trees. And they now had proof that the feather berries indeed made the eater more ticklish.
The pattern of new plants, new arrivals occurred many, many more times over the years. The forest became absolutely huge. It began to encroach upon the human village, but it never actually reached it. The forest seemed to sense the boundaries the humans set up. The villagers for a while tried to harvest wood from the forest. They soon found out that the trees repelled all axe swings and seemed to whisper threatenly in the presence of an axe. So, the humans left the forest alone and the forest left the humans alone.
Then, one new plant, new arrival pattern happened, and after the new fairies had all chosen plants, there was still one left over. Kali decided to ask her plant about it.
-Why is there an extra plant left over in the clearing nearest to the humans.-
Her plant answered in a slightly sad thought.
-You take it. I rest. I wait. You go play. Have fun fun fun fun. I sleep. Bye bye. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.-
Then the plant drifted into a deep slumber. Kali tried to wake it, but it just wouldn’t wake up. Kali cried for a little while. She felt like she had lost her best friend. Then she remembered what the plant had said and she flew off to go see her new plant.
It was very unusual. While every new tickle plant had it’s own unique bulb, up until know, the bulbs had just been striped or spotted. This one was totally different. It had little pictures of red feathers set on a background of blue. Kali lost no time in getting acquainted with it. It, of course, knew her most ticklish spot was her ticklish toes. She named it Tickletoe, as it was the second best toe tickling plant she had ever known.
Tickletoe grew up fast, and it and Kali had great times together. One day, Kali was getting a particularly good tickling from Tickletoe’s tongue when she realized that Ticketoe seemed unusually energetic.
-Why are you so hyper,- asked Kali.
Tickletoe thought talked like every tickle plant.
-Fun Fun Fun Fun. New plaything in forest. Cute girl thing. No wings. Big Big Big Big Big. Human. Wonder if she wants to play? Wonder if she tickish? Oh, boy, tickle tickle tickle.-
Kali decided to investigate. After finding out where the new girl was, Kali flew off to see for herself. The first thing she noticed as she reached the edge of the forest was that a new clearing had formed with no tickle plant. And a clear path had formed from the clearing to the human’s village. Kali was just wondering why the forest had done this, when she spotted the girl. It was a human, about 16 years old, and she was lying down in the center of the clearing, in a big patch of sunlight. She was barefoot and sunning her toes. Her shoes and stockings where in a pile next to her. She was wearing a cute little homespun dress. She had a piece of grass in her mouth, eyes closed and was humming a sweet little song to herself. Kali looked at her for a moment, then a wicked idea came to her mind. She grinned mischievously.
This was going to be fun.
TO BE CONTINUED...
The Feather Wood
Kali was a fairy. Before we can continue, there are some things you must know about fairies. The first thing is they are small. Barely taller than you finger is long. All fairies look like young girls, about 16 to 17 years old. They never age. They have large wings like butterflies. Fairies where cloths of silk that they weave themselves. There are no male fairies. How is this, you ask? Fairies are not born like humans. Fairies are born from true love’s first kiss. Since our story takes place in a fairy-tale, where princes are rescuing damsels in distress every couple of days, you can imagine that there are a lot of fairies floating about.
Fairies have very special magic. They have a natural understanding of nature and control over the creatures and plants of nature. They can make any humans as small as themselves, and can make themselves invisible to the human eye. Fairies also produce a magic enhancing fairy dust when they laugh. Fairies like to laugh. But, because of the powerful fairy dust, they are constantly sought after by magic-users. That is how this story can to take place.
Kali’s group of fairies, numbering at a mere 34, was looking for a small forest to live in. They traveled for miles, until they felt like their wings would fall off. Then, suddenly Kali spotted the perfect grove. It was small, just fairy size. It was about a mile away from a small human village. Since fairies love spying on humans, but hate being spied upon, the location of the village was ideal. The forest itself was quite interesting.
The trees were very tall and had strange leaves that looked like feathers. They seemed to whisper as Kali and her friends were entering the forest. They quickly found a tree with a large bowel-shaped-hollow in its upper trunk and the fairy group fell asleep. Kali woke up early. She was far too curious about this strange forest to sleep too long. She woke up her best friend Taki.
Taki yawned, “What’s up?”
Kali smiled, “Lets go exploring.”
“Yeah,” said Taki, now wide-awake.
The two flew off towards the center of the forest. The trees seemed to whisper as they passed. When Kali and Taki reached the exact center of the forest, they found a small clearing. In the exact center of the clearing was a weird-looking plant, with a huge amount of vines. It rested on the ground, with the vines limp. At the end of each vine was a strange feathery leaf. It had a single bulb sticking straight up in the air. It looked like the mouth of a Venus flytrap, except it was red with white spots. The lips of the bulb seemed to smile.
Kali immediately wanted to investigate, but Taki stopped her.
“Let me get the rest of the gang,” said Taki, and she flew off towards the group’s hiding place.
It took every inch of willpower not to immediately fly down there and inspect the odd plant, but she waited for her friends.
It was only a few seconds before Taki arrived with the rest of the gang. Nothing moves faster than a fairy with something curious to find.
Kali and the rest didn’t even wait a moment. They all flew at the odd plant at once. The plant moved like lightning! Kali suddenly saw the vines spring to life. The vines wrapped themselves around Kali’s ankles and wrists. They gently pulled outward until her body was in a spread-eagle position. She glanced around and saw every single one of her friends was trapped in the same position. She struggled a bit, but found it useless. The plant was too strong. She instead tried to force the plant to let her with her nature magic. It had no effect! The plant was completely resistant to her magic. She tried to struggle again. She pulled at the vines at her wrists. She kicked her petite little bare feet, for fairies never wore shoes. She didn’t even budge the vines.
Something moving caught her eye. She stopped struggling. She looked over and saw one of the vines advancing on her left foot. It seemed to wave its feather-tipped end. The feather tip brushed her foot.
Kali giggled. The vine had tickled her.
She had once heard of plants that tickled travelers, but she thought that if she every encountered one, she would be able to make it stop with her magic. She hadn’t counted on they plants being resistant to her magic. Her tiny heart beat faster. The feather tip tickled her left foot again. This time it didn’t stop.
“HEEHEHEHEH HEY Cut-t-t tha-h-hh-ah-aha-t out! Tha-ha-ha-ha-ha-tickles! HEHEHEHEEHEE Oh, NO!” she giggled, as she saw another feather tip advancing on her right foot. Other feather tips were advancing on her armpits and sides. The cloths all fairies where completely leave their armpits and sides open.
“HEHEHEEHEHHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEE,” giggled Kali, no longer able to speak. Through tear filled eyes she saw that all the rest of her friends were getting the exact same treatment. She saw that all her friends were leaking huge amounts of fairy dust. She realized that she herself was leaking more fairy dust than ever before. It was because she had never been tickled so hard before. As the plant absorbed the fairy dust, it seemed to grow larger and stronger. The feeling on Kali’s ticklish feet and sensitive sides definitely intensified.
Speaking of the plant, Kali realized that through the tickling she was hearing the plant’s thoughts in her head. Being in contact with the feather tips enabled this. Unfortunately, the thoughts weren’t very comforting.
-He He Fun Fun Lots of playthings, lots of friends, lots of tickles. Heh, Heh. Ticklish friends. Small tickish friends. We play lots. Tickle, tickle, tickle.-
-What is this thing,- Kali thought, even as she was laughing her socks off.
To her total surprise she was answered by a thought that sounded a lot like Taki’s voice. The tickling and laughing didn’t appear to garble her thought sending at all.
-It’s some sort of tickling plant and it’s feeding off of our fairy dust.- thought Taki.
Kali did a mental smile, as her actual lips were already smiling.
-Thanks for the obvious. So what else is news-
Another thought answered her. It was another one of her friends Halo.
-You, know, this is kind of fun.-
Kali had to think about that for a second. All fairies liked to laugh, and she was no exception. And she had most certainly never laughed this hard or this long before. And with the rest of her friends here and everybody able to talk to one another, it was like a party. What would have been terrifying, one on one, was fun in a group. Kali finally admitted to what she had been secretly thinking.
-This is fun,- she thought. Just then, she felt all the feather tips stop tickling her. Even as she gasped, she felt angry and thought to the plant, -Hey, that’s no fair! They are all still being tickled. Tickle me too.-
The plants bulb grinned even wider and it thought to Kali, - I like you. Like more. You wait. We play funner game now.-
The vines holding on to her slowly began to pull her towards the bulb. Kali knew that plant would never hurt her, but she was still terrified just the same, although it was a delightful terror. This indiead sounded like a “funner” game.
As she arrived directly in front of the plant’s bulb, the smiling bulb opened to reveal a huge mouth of teeth, and a long, snake like tongue. The tongue stretched out and the tip stroke Kali’s left bare foot.
The tongue was surprisingly dry and covered with thousands of tiny stiff bristles. It tickled more than Kali thought possible. She flung her head back and broke out in silent laughter, expelling fairy dust in huge waves. The tickling was so intense that Kali felt the most euphoric sensation fill her body. It was if her entire body had just been filled to the brim with joy.
Such huge emotions were not meant to be felt for long, and after 20 minutes of the tongue’s terribly tickly assault on her bare, defenseless feet, she passed out.
She awoke to the feeling of the tongue still tickling her foot. She came wide-awake in an instant and started giggling afresh. She managed to see all of her friends just waking up from their tickling-induced naps to the sensation of the feather tips stroking every available surface of their bodies. –Here we go again,- thought Kali as she started to silent laugh. At least it was fun.
Suddenly, Taki thought up with some disturbing news.
-I’m hungry.- Soon the rest of the group started to offer their own complaints of hunger. After all, being tickled until passing out gives one an appetite. Kali was certain that she had seen some type of red berries in the feather-leaf trees. The favorite food of fairies is berries.
Halo addressed the main problem. –I don’t think the tickle plant will let us go.-
They all discussed it, even as they were practically howling with laughter. It was Taki who came up with an unusual suggestion.
“Maybe we can ask the plant to let us go. It seems to have a mind of its own. Maybe it can be reasoned with.-
Kali thought about it and agreed. –It seems to like me best, so I’ll talk to it.- She directed her thoughts now at the plant. –Excuse, tickling plant?-
The plant answered in its usual peculiar fashion.
-What? Ticklish favorite girl ask? Ask what? Talk talk talkidy talk.-
-Can you please let us go.-
-Nope Nope Nope. You stay here. All stay here. Have fun. Play lots. Fun Fun Fun Fun Fun.
-But, we’re hungry. We need to go and eat.-
-Nope Nope. You stay and play. I tickle lots. You like. Promise. Wait. What you eat? You need eat what? Talk Talk Talk Talk.
-We just want to eat the berries in the feather trees. We will be gone only for a short while. We’ll be back soon to play. I promise.-
-Eat feather berries? That fine. You eat. I wait. Be back soon. We play lots. I tickle. Ticklish feet. Oh boy. Tickle tickle tickle tickle.-
With that, the vines let all of the fairies go. The group thanked Kali and headed off towards the trees near by to eat the feather berries. Kali discovered the berries were delicious. They tasted like raspberries, blueberries, and strawberries all rolled up into one. It was undoubtedly the best thing Kali had eaten in her 200 years of life. She wanted to keep eating, but she new that if she ate too many berries, she would be to heavy to fly. She had a promise to keep and a fairy always keeps her promise.
As Kali and the rest rejoined the plant, and the tongue started to tickle Kali’s tender sole again (this time the right foot), Kali could swear she was a little more ticklish than before.
The weeks seemed to fly by. A routine was developed. The fairies would wake up in the morning and have a little berry breakfast. Then they would go and half a good hard tickle. They would be tickled until night fell, and the fairies would eat some more berries and go to sleep in the hollows that the fairies convinced the trees near the clearing to form.
Kali and the rest started to teach the tickle plant how to tickle better. They told it that if the plant would slow down tickling just before the fairies passed out, they would stay awake and still be tickle. Kali, tired of being the only one to feel the wonderful tickling of the tongue, taught the plant to really use its tongue. If the plant held all the fairies in several rows with their feet pointing in the same direction, it could run its tongue in a straight line back and forth, and tickle every fairy at once. At first, the other fairies pretended to be made that Kali had found a way to subject all the fairies to her torture, but after the first trial run, all the fairies were so grateful, that they threw her a huge tickling party, for the fairies had learned how to tickle each other. The rest of the group decided to make their own suggestions as to the best way to tickle. They taught the plant to find anybody’s worst spot (Kali’s worst spot was that tiny space right between her toes, just big enough for the tip of the tongue to reach.) The fairies taught the plant to tickle just to the point of passing out, then lighten up to just gentle tickling on the feet, just enough to keep the fairies giggling and making fairy dust. It could keep that up for days if it wanted to. The huge amount of dust caused the tickle plant to grow until it filled the clearing with its bulk. Then one day, something strange happened.
The morning started as usual. The fairies flew down to the plant and it grabbed them in the all tongue formation first. Kali realized something was wrong. The plant’s usual thought prattle was absent and the bulb seemed a little full. The plant didn’t open its mouth, but it pushed its tongue out and tickled all of their feet at once. Then something new happened. Its feather tips started to attack every inch of the fairies exposed skin, hitting the armpits, bellies, ribss, sides, arms, legs, and faces of every fairy. Combined with the tongue, it was such a huge tickling fest. Everybody could barely take it, but they felt sad in knowing that it could not go on for very long. But, it did. The tickling continued at the same breakneck speed and it wasn’t long before everyone passed out. They were promptly awakened by the exact same feeling that had made them pass out. The plant hadn’t let up the powerful tickling for a single instant. The whole group passed out three times and were awakened the same way nine times before the sun had reach the top of the sky that morning. Just when Kali and her friends were getting hungry, the plant reached up towards the feather trees (it had grown quite a bit and was now able to reach the edge of the clearing) and grabbed a bunch of berries, still tickling the fairies all the while. It let up enough to let each fairy eat one berry, and then went right back to the tickling. It kept this up for three days, not even letting the fairies sleep. Through the constant feeling of joy and tickling, Kali was able to notice the bulb was slowly getting larger and larger. But Kali was too wrapped up in the tickling feeling that was covering every inch of her super-ticklish skin to figure out what it meant. On the morning of the forth day, something happened that every fairy in the clearing thought impossible. The tickling increased. The tongue moved so fast it was nothing more than a tickly blur. Every single feather tip, even the ones holding the fairies, was focused on the fairies ticklish skin. The entire grove shook with the roaring laughter. The tongue suddenly stopped tickling and was replaced with hundreds of new feather tips that had grown that very instant. The bulb lifted up and seemed to explode into the air. The blast drowned out the fairies laughter. The explosion set up a cloud of golden little dots. Immediately the plant stopped tickling. The fairies laughed for a full half hour afterwards before they were able to talk, but the feather tips still rested on their bodies, so they could thought talk.
-What was that all about?- wondered Taki.
-I’ll ask the tickling plant.-answered Kali, who had totally enjoyed the whole episode, but was confused as to what had happened. She turned to where the bulb would have been, had Kali not just seen it explode. To her surprise, the bulb was still there, its grin looking just a little droopy. Kali immediately bombarded it with questions. The tickling plants thoughts rang out loud and clear to every fairy.
-Fun. All my seeds. Flutter about. Stay here in wood. Grow strong. Be friends. So happy. So tired. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.-
Kali realized that the tickle fest been just as taxing on the plant as on them. She hadn’t even known that plants could sleep. -But the had the right idea- she thought, as she untangled herself from the limp vines and returned to her nest. She was so tired, she felt like she could sleep for a week.
Well, Kali certainly didn’t sleep for a week. But, the plant did. During that time, the fairies waited. They began to grow listless and depressed. It took them awhile to figure out what was going on. They were going through tickling withdrawal. They started tickling each other to pass the time. It was fun, and some of them got very good at it (especially little Halo, who had a hidden mean streak that made her a merciless tickler), but it just wasn’t the same as the tickling plants way of play. Kali started to dream about the plants tongue caressing her soles.
The grove seemed to under go some changes as well. The feather trees started popping up like weeds all around the grove. The grove’s size doubled, then double again, then doubled again, and so on. The grove turned into a full-fledged forest in a matter of days.
Then, one day, the tickling plant woke up. It raised its bulb and wiggled its vines. All the fairies rushed down and waited to be grabbed. But, the plant simply touched each of them with the feather tips, just enough to think to all the fairies.
Kali, the spokesfairy, asked the plant if it planned to tickle them. They all heard the plants reply.
-Yes. Tickle. Fun Fun Fun Fun. But only you. Not others. Others find seeds. Find clearing. Find friends. They play. Have fun. We have fun here. Tickle tickle tickle.
With that, he grabbed Kali and started tickling her with its tongue and feather tips, its long nap seeming to have completely refreshed it back into its old enthusiasm.
The other fairies were let go and they decided to explore the forest again. They found 33 more clearings, exactly like the first, enough for each fairy left. And in each clearing was a tiny tickle plant, each with a different colored and patterned bulb. Each had eight little feather tipped vines, just strong enough to hold a fairy and a tiny little tongue, covered with bristle fuzz. All the fairies were enchanted by them and quickly picked out their favorites to play with. Even though they were small, all the new tickle plants seemed to be just as efficient ticklers. They quickly learned that what one tickle plant learned or felt, they all learned and felt. Thus, each speck of fairy dust counted as a speck of fairy dust for every tickle plant. They fairies also learned that a fairy being tickled by one plant could thought talk to a fairy being tickled by a completely different plant on another side of the forest. This gave the fairies the ability of long distance communication.
Kali was a little jealous of the rest, because they got new plants. But she had the original, with thousands of feather tips. Something else happened. It seemed every time a tickle plant made seeds, it grew another tongue. So her tickle plant had two tongues while everybody else just had one.
Many days passed, and the tickling and fun continued. The new tickle plants matured inside of a month and were just as big as the original had been. Then, one day, everybody’s plants shut up and tickled each fairy with reckless abandon. Every fairy of course knew what was happening and just went along for the fun. The process took much less time, because all the fairy dust counted so many times over and the tickle plants recovered in a single day. And when the seeds were air born and the new clearings formed, there were 167 new clearings. This troubled Kali. She knew that to grow to maturity, a tickling plant had to have the full ticklish attention of a fairy. There simply wasn’t enough fairies to go around.
She broached the question to her tickle plant. His answer was untroubled.
-You no worry. Is fun. Is fine. You be happy. You laugh. TickleTickleTickle.- Then the plant launched a vicious tickling attack with a tongue going between her ticklish toes. This drove any other thought out of her mind for awhile.
The plant was right; she shouldn’t have worried. Just as the new seedling were poking up from the ground, a herd of new fairies arrived. They had heard from a veiled woman that their was a forest where fairies laughed all day long. And the number of fairies? 167. Somehow the tickling plants had known exactly the number and the date of new arriving fairies. Kali took them to the original plant and it initiated them all. By the time the new tickle plants were ready for fairies, the new arrivals were only too willing to adopt them.
The fairies still had a lot to learn about the tickle plants. One particular occurrence demonstrated this. By some form of chance, two tickle plants had grown in the same clearing, leaving one clearing open. The two fairies left over to take the two plants were very different. One fairy was super-hyper-ticklish and the other was barely ticklish at all. The two tickle plants fought over that got the ticklish one for about a day. Finally, one grabbed the un-ticklish one, uprooted itself and marched off for the unused clearing. It them rooted itself right next to a large feather tree. It seemed to push something intangible into the feather tree, and the feather tree literally burst into bloom with thousands of new feather berries. The tickle plant force-fed the un-ticklish fairy until she couldn’t hold any more. Then the tickle plant tickled her with all its might. The fairy suddenly realized that she was a hundred times more ticklish than she used to be. The entire forest (several miles in width) was filled with the laughter of the formerly un-ticklish fairy. This taught the fairies many things. They hadn’t known that the tickle plants could uproot and move around. They hadn’t known that the tickle plants could control the feather trees. And they now had proof that the feather berries indeed made the eater more ticklish.
The pattern of new plants, new arrivals occurred many, many more times over the years. The forest became absolutely huge. It began to encroach upon the human village, but it never actually reached it. The forest seemed to sense the boundaries the humans set up. The villagers for a while tried to harvest wood from the forest. They soon found out that the trees repelled all axe swings and seemed to whisper threatenly in the presence of an axe. So, the humans left the forest alone and the forest left the humans alone.
Then, one new plant, new arrival pattern happened, and after the new fairies had all chosen plants, there was still one left over. Kali decided to ask her plant about it.
-Why is there an extra plant left over in the clearing nearest to the humans.-
Her plant answered in a slightly sad thought.
-You take it. I rest. I wait. You go play. Have fun fun fun fun. I sleep. Bye bye. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.-
Then the plant drifted into a deep slumber. Kali tried to wake it, but it just wouldn’t wake up. Kali cried for a little while. She felt like she had lost her best friend. Then she remembered what the plant had said and she flew off to go see her new plant.
It was very unusual. While every new tickle plant had it’s own unique bulb, up until know, the bulbs had just been striped or spotted. This one was totally different. It had little pictures of red feathers set on a background of blue. Kali lost no time in getting acquainted with it. It, of course, knew her most ticklish spot was her ticklish toes. She named it Tickletoe, as it was the second best toe tickling plant she had ever known.
Tickletoe grew up fast, and it and Kali had great times together. One day, Kali was getting a particularly good tickling from Tickletoe’s tongue when she realized that Ticketoe seemed unusually energetic.
-Why are you so hyper,- asked Kali.
Tickletoe thought talked like every tickle plant.
-Fun Fun Fun Fun. New plaything in forest. Cute girl thing. No wings. Big Big Big Big Big. Human. Wonder if she wants to play? Wonder if she tickish? Oh, boy, tickle tickle tickle.-
Kali decided to investigate. After finding out where the new girl was, Kali flew off to see for herself. The first thing she noticed as she reached the edge of the forest was that a new clearing had formed with no tickle plant. And a clear path had formed from the clearing to the human’s village. Kali was just wondering why the forest had done this, when she spotted the girl. It was a human, about 16 years old, and she was lying down in the center of the clearing, in a big patch of sunlight. She was barefoot and sunning her toes. Her shoes and stockings where in a pile next to her. She was wearing a cute little homespun dress. She had a piece of grass in her mouth, eyes closed and was humming a sweet little song to herself. Kali looked at her for a moment, then a wicked idea came to her mind. She grinned mischievously.
This was going to be fun.
TO BE CONTINUED...
Tank yoo!
