Freiyon Fables A Tail To Remember

“ROAR!!!” The Launam bellowed. Every creature stopped and stared at the strange monster, who was on the shore looking angry and ready for attack.

The Launam snarled again and swum into the water, intending to distract the other sea creatures from attacking Micklang and Harriet while they escaped.

“Quickly, Harriet. That creature is giving us our chance.” Micklang said.

Harriet climbed up the rope and into the long boat, where her children were waiting, then Micklang followed quickly.

“Alright, pull the long boat back up!” Abrigail ordered, while Micklang was still on the rope.

A few fish and small sharks tried to jump up at Micklang, but he slashed at them with his sword and held on with his other hand.

When the long boat reached the deck, Micklang climbed the rest of the way up and joined Harriet and everyone else on board.

“Good to see you’re still alive, Micklang my friend.” Abrigail said.

Micklang shook his hand, and then gave the mouse captain a friendly hug.

“I feel so wonderful having you as a friend, Abrigail. You’ve taught me a lot, and most important of all, you saved my life. You and your crew will always be in my heart because of that.”

“Where to, Master Micklang?” Frebil asked, excitedly.

Micklang told Abrigail to sail the ship back to Freiyon so that King Karel and Lord Libertas, along with Tursorl’s clan, could depart safely. Most of the helpers that were bigger than Micklang, Harriet, Abrigail and some of the other animals on the ship departed from the ship, which as it turned out was just big enough to hold them all on it. The Launam appeared at the beach-side, bloodied and exhausted and almost wiped out. Lord Libertas saw this and went to him. “Micklang informed me of what you did for his friends, therefore I will do what I can to bring your real form to you.” The Launam looked at Lord Libertas with shock. “I… I would be honoured if you could! Thank you!” Micklang and Abrigail exchanged glances with each other, smiling with relief. This was a good moment.

Micklang and his other small animal friends got back onto the ship and started to sail away as Lord Libertas, King Karel, Tursorl and his clan and the Launam were busy sorting their wounds out. They barely even noticed that the ship had departed, and Micklang turned to Abrigail after a few moments with a smile. “Do we have something that could make my voice louder?” Micklang asked.

Libertas knew in his heart that this was Micklang’s last trip to see him, but he was the only one that knew, so it wasn’t much a surprise for him when he heard Micklang’s voice echoing across the ocean from the Sea-shark.

“Change of plans, I’m afraid. I would love to see you again, but adventure waits for us. It’s possible we might not see each other again, but none the less, I will rememwould uyober you always in my heart and I thank you for all the help you’ve given to me. Libertas, Karel, I hope you two can put aside your differences and work together to become partners, who knows, you might even build a kingdom together. Tursorl, teach your new tree friends well and try to teach Dightorp how to speak to birds OTHER than pigeons. And Dillon, I’m sorry you couldn’t come with us, I would have liked that very much, but you need to stay on land where you belong. Find more hyenas to be your pupils’ maybe. I do hope I see you all again, and if I don’t I just hope you’ll remember the great adventure we had and above all: Never Lose Faith! Over and out!” Micklang explained.

“How is he doing that?” Dillon asked King Karel.

Karel shrugged and looked at Libertas.

“Oh, and one more thing, nice twisted ear, Lord Libertas.”

Libertas chuckled to himself in secret as he thought.

‘Why that little scamp, he’s discovered my secret. I wonder what tipped him off.’

Ignoring the pleas from the other animals about what Micklang was talking about; Lord Libertas waved at the Sea-shark as it left the beach and headed for open sea.

“Until we meet again, Micklang.” Tursorl said, waving as well.

What none of them knew was that a smallish figure crawled onto the ship in secret, managing to sneak into a hiding place to wait for the right moment to strike.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Now that they were back on board the Sea-Shark after five hours of travelling south west, Micklang and Harriet found that they were rather comfortable with sailing and Micklang got every chance he could to find out about every-thing on the ship.

While he was doing that, Harriet had her hands full trying to keep the kids out of trouble. Now that they had a rest after being rescued, they were full of beans again and were running around madly.

Frebil chuckled as he turned the wheel south.

Ahead, they heard the soft rumble of thunder and the newly appointed watch-guard could see a fog heading towards them.

“Looks like another storm a-brewing.” The watch-guard called down.

Micklang looked up from the steering wheel and saw the fog.

“That’s not like any fog I’ve seen before.” He said.

Lightning streaked through the sky, but there was something odd about the colour of the lightning.

Micklang stared at the oncoming storm, wondering what was wrong with the scene he was seeing.

Lightning streaked down again, and then Micklang realised what was wrong.

The lightning was GREEN!

“Steer away, get away from that storm!” Micklang warned.

“What’s wrong?” Harriet asked.

At that moment, the lightning struck some water right next to the ship, making every creature jump in surprise.

Then, strangely enough, the ship hit something hard and bounced a bit.

“Steer away, for crying out loud, or we’ll be caught right in that storm.”

Harriet stared at where the lightning had struck and saw what happened; somehow it had turned some of the water into solid ground!

Abrigail took his telescope out of his pocket and stared out at the fog ahead.

Micklang held onto the side of the ship as Frebil tried to steer away from the storm, but ended up zigzagging through the water.

“There’s land up ahead, maybe you can steer towards it and we can wait there until the storm passes.” Harriet announced.

Frebil shook his head as he steered to the left.

“We’ve got to get as far away from the storm as possible, that lightning is gonna hit us if we’re not careful.”

Micklang looked around and saw another lightning strike hit the water, and then saw what Harriet had seen.

“Head West! Steer well away from that lightning!” Micklang shouted to Frebil.

“What do you think I’m trying to do?”

Just then, another lightning strike came out of the sky and struck the top of one of the masts, sending an electric ring downwards towards the deck.

Micklang stared in horror as the whole mast shattered into pieces and fell into the sea.

Frebil steered starboard again, just as another lightning strike came down and struck the ship’s deck.

“Abandon ship!” Micklang shouted.

Harriet and Micklang grabbed each other and stared as the whole ship was ripped apart slowly before their eyes.

Abrigail and his crew jumped off the deck, just in time, as the ship began to sink.

Micklang and Harriet gathered the kids together and they jumped off the ship as well.

The mysterious figure that had crawled onto the ship waited, not even remotely concerned about drowning in the ship.

They begun to swim away and Micklang watched the ship sink into the sea, realising that the lightning had somehow made it turn into sand.

“Swim towards the land!” Abrigail commanded.

Another lightning strike came down from the sky and struck the last thing anyone expected:

Micklang!

The warrior image of Micklang appeared in his mind again when he was knocked out unconscious. He didn’t know that a bit of time had passed during his unconscious state.

‘Micklang, a new island waits for you, there is something there you have to see. Your friends are already there, you must wake up now.’ The warrior told Micklang gently. Before Micklang could respond, the vision faded away.

Micklang opened his eyes and looked around. He was on land where he could see a few trees and some grass mixed with sand. The first thought that came to him was that he was back where he had tried to escape the Zoo-keeper in the human world and wondered if everything that had happened was just a dream.

‘That’s silly, how on earth would I be able to remember it all if it was a dream?’ He thought to himself.

Then he saw the strange shapes of the trees and noticed that, unlike Tursorl, these trees weren’t moving at all, not even when the wind came through.

Micklang noticed that he couldn’t see any of his friends anywhere nearby and hoped that they were ok.

“Dang, that’s gotta be the THIRD time that I’ve lost Harriet, and the second time I’ve lost Abrigail and his crew. Boy, I’m not having very much luck lately.” Micklang said out loud.

Then he noticed a small bush move not far from where he was.

Without making too much noise, he crawled over to the bush and got ready to pull at it when a voice called out from the bush.

“Hey! There’s no need to try and sneak up on me, Micklang, I knew you were coming.” The voice said.

“Huh?” Micklang wondered, pulling the bush away.

There in front of him was a wolf cub with fur the same colour as him, staring up at him with a smile.

“How do you know my name?” Micklang asked the cub.

“You see my tail? It’s the same shape as yours; we’re both lightning-tails. Welcome, Micklang, to Lightning-tail Island!”

“Welcome, brother Micklang!!” A group of voices called.

From out of the bushes and trees came a whole crowd of various animals, big and small, which surrounded Micklang, celebrating and dancing.

They picked Micklang up and carried him through the bush, jumping and cheering as they went.

Micklang wondered where they were taking him and also wondered why he didn’t know about the animals.

“Come along, now, bring the guest here. I would like to see the real Micklang up close.” A loud voice commanded.

The animals stopped and placed Micklang gently on the ground.

As soon as Micklang turned back around, he came face-to-face with a fully-grown, feral pig.

“Holy Crabs!!” Micklang exclaimed.

“So, you are the legendary Micklang Lightning-tail, huh? I’d love to meet your friends, but we can’t seem to find them anywhere. We DID, however, find a charming squirrel-lady who is a bit upset.” The feral pig explained.

“Harriet?”

“Surprisingly not.”

“What?”

Micklang turned and saw the squirrel ran up to him and hugged him, crying happily.

“Dad, it’s so good to see you are alive!” The squirrel said.

Micklang looked at the squirrel, wondering if he had seen her before.

“Dad?”

“It’s me, Melody, remember?”

“Melody? But you’ve got a lightning-tail, and different fur, how did that happen?”

Before she could reply, the feral pig interrupted and smiled at Micklang.

“It’s this island, we’re not sure what causes it or why it’s doing so, but any animal that comes onto this island turns into a lightning tail like us, only they can’t tell some of the future like we can. We’re the original inhabitants here, but we know what happens when visitors come here, they experience the storm, and then they abandon their ship, thinking the storm will destroy them. When the lightning strikes them, though, they get lightning-tails and different fur to what they should. Unlike you, though Micklang. When the lightning hit you, something else happened, something that I’ve only seen happen once before.” The pig explained.

“What?” Micklang asked.

“A connection,”

Micklang chuckled a little, thinking the pig was joking.

But then he saw he was serious.

“You’re serious? You think I have a connection with the storm somehow, now?” Micklang asked.

“When the lightning struck you, you were already a lightning tail, so what was there to put in? A connection between you and the storm.”

“What? You mean I can control the weather? You MUST be joking; otherwise it would be sunny right now, because I’m happy to see Melody.”

Before everyone’s eyes, the storm lifted and went away, and it was a sunny sky, with a beautiful rainbow showing off in the sky.

The pig eyed Micklang cheekily.

“That was just a coincidence; the storm was bound to pass sooner or later.” Micklang said, crossing his arms and blowing in exasperation.

A soft wind blew from the North, behind Micklang.

The pig raised his eye at Micklang.

“I still don’t believe you; it gets windy all the time.” Micklang yawned a bit because he was tired.

The moon came out of nowhere, surprising no-one except Micklang and Melody.

“Now do you believe me?” The pig asked.

Micklang stared at the moon in surprise, and then looked at the pig.

“There must be some other way of explaining this.” Micklang said.

“Typical weather, always jumpy moods like animals, eh? You see, it acts to your moods. When you fell unconscious in the sea, it was night, yet as soon as you woke up again, the sun burst out of nowhere. But it was still cloudy; because you were sad you lost your friends.”

“But it can’t be magic, right?”

“That’s what you have to find out.”

“Me? Why me?”

“You want to find a way to get Abrigail’s ship back, and your friends too, right? The storm holds a secret, even we don’t know about it, but we know there’s something wrong going on, and now it appears we were right after all. Some evil creature, whether alive or not, is controlling the storm to capture other creatures on this island and make them disappear from the earth completely! If you don’t find out what it is soon, we’ll all be sucked into the evil plot.”

“But how will I know where to start? Like most of you lightning tails, I can only tell some of the future, I wouldn’t know where the main cause of the storm is REALLY coming from.”

The pig turned his body and pointed towards a huge mountain.

“You see that? We call that the Lighting mountain and you can see why, can’t you? That’s where the storms started, and where the last visitors were seen heading. You can start searching there, but be warned, whoever, or whatever, is in there may already know you are coming.”

Melody shivered as she stared at the mountain.

“Dad, don’t go, something isn’t right about that mountain. We’ve got to find mum and the others.”

“This is the only way I can assure their safety, Melody, I have to do it. Wish me luck, and try to look for the others while I’m gone.”

Melody watched sadly as Micklang wondered off towards the mountain.

A single tear came from her eyes, as it did from Micklang, who didn’t want to go to the mountain either.

Rain softly pelted down, and everyone there heard Micklang shout at the sky.

“Oh, quit it! I’m not THAT upset!”

This, of course, just made things worse as he had become angry and made a big storm happen, which followed him until the animals couldn’t see him anymore.

After a while, Micklang managed to clear his mind and think of happy thoughts, which made it sunny again.

Melody turned to the feral pig and sighed.

“Well, thanks for saving me, but I should go and find my mum, like dad said. He wouldn’t be happy if he knew I didn’t do anything while he was gone.” Melody said to the gang of animals.

“We could help you, Melody.”

“Don’t worry yourself too much; I can take care of myself when I want to. I’ll probably meet up with you again, but for now it’s my turn to leave. Take care of yourself … I don’t believe I got your name.” Melody realized.

The feral pig laughed, along with the other animals, but Melody couldn’t see what was so funny.

“We don’t have singular names, Melody; we’re all called the same thing.”

“And what’s that?”

“The Lightning tails! Hahahaha!”

Micklang, even though he was already twelve miles away, heard the laughter and wondered what had caused it.

“Probably just that pig’s gang laughing at something; weird creatures, they were. Weird; but very helpful and understandable.” Micklang thought to himself as he walked along.

Finally, after five more miles of walking, Micklang came to the bottom of the mountain and sighed.

“I knew I would have to climb, I was just hoping there would be more footholds. Even a squirrel could fall down something like this.” He murmured to himself.

“EEERAKKK!” a screech suddenly echoed through the sky.

Micklang looked up to see the last thing he wanted to see.

A huge eagle!

Pulling out his sword, he readied himself to strike at the bird if it attacked.

The eagle swooped down and hovered over Micklang.

That’s when Micklang saw the tail of the eagle.

“You’re … you’re a lightning-tail!” He exclaimed in surprise.

“EEERAKKK! Micky lightning-tail, me Yadi the eagle, come to help.” The eagle screeched.

“How do I know you will help me? You’re a bird of prey! You would eat creatures like me!!”

“RRAAAKK! Micky be right to fear bird of prey, but Micky also know that Lightning tail animals never hurt any beast it know will be helpful later on.”

“True, but even Lightning-tails can be surprised about certain things. I was surprised when I saw you.”

“RRRAAAAKKK! You speak true, Micky, but you trust Yadi, I fly you up to top of mountain in no time. You trust me then?”

“What is your part of the bargain? You wouldn’t be doing this for nothing, I know that.” Micklang crossed his arms after putting his sword back in its sheath.

“Me wanna sail seas with you when you leave island, Micky, that all I want.”

Micklang sighed and looked up the mountain again.

“Well, ok, but I don’t want any tricks from you, alright?”

“Me no tricky, I lead you up mountain carefully,”

So, being extra careful, Micklang climbed onto Yadi’s back and held onto whatever he could.

Yadi took off into the sky, circling around and around, until he was above the clouds.

“You like fly?”

“Yes, I do, this is a wonderful experience. I bet you feel glad to be a bird, eh?”

“Me like being bird very much, Micky. Would Micky like to do loop-loop?”

“Um, ok. What’s loop-loop?”

“Yadi show you,”

Yadi flipped upside-down and then did several circles, with Micklang holding on for dear life.

Once Yadi was satisfied after his spin, he turned around again and continued flying normally.

“Was fun?”

Micklang couldn’t speak; he was still trying to catch his breath.

Yadi understood perfectly and continued flying towards the mountain top.

Melody was continuously looked around the forest as she walked, not wanting to bump into anything awful, or to come face-to-face with the Lightning-tailed gang much.

To be quite honest, Melody was creeped out by the feral pig leader, especially after his laugh when he told her the group’s name.

It didn’t take her long to realize that she was heading towards the mountain as well, but from a different direction.

“Perfect! That’s the LAST place I want to go. Somehow, I don’t think mum or my siblings would go near that mountain, unless they knew Dad was going there as well, which I know they don’t.” Melody told herself.

But no matter how hard she tried to walk away from the mountain, she somehow kept coming back to it.

‘Oh, great! I’m going around in circles!’ She thought.

“Told you we should have helped you.” A familiar voice said, from out of nowhere.

“Are you following me?” Melody looked around for the feral pig.

“No. In fact, we’re still at our camp. We can hear your thoughts, Melody.”

“But how can I hear you if you’re still at your camp?”

“You can read our thoughts as well.”

“I’d rather not, thank you. I have to find my mum, and I don’t think YOUR thoughts will help me.”

When the pig didn’t reply, Melody knew exactly what to do. She had to head back to the beach, but via a different route.

So, once again, but this time following what remained of the sun, Melody battled through the bush, realizing that she had made the right choice.

Yadi dropped down silently on some snowy ground, near the very top of the mountain, and Micklang hopped off Yadi’s back.

“Entrance to cave is just ahead, Yadi wish to could come with you, but entrance too small for me. Hope you find what you want, Micky Lightning-tail.” Yadi said, bowing to the squirrel.

“Thank you, Yadi; you are a true friend. If I survive whatever is in store in there, then I promise you that you can come with me on my adventures.”

Yadi nodded and bowed again.

“Thank ye, Micky, you good-friend to Yadi.”

Micklang turned to the mountain and walked to the cave entrance, realizing that Yadi was right: it was too small for any big beast.

As he entered the cave, the coldness disappeared completely and Micklang was surrounded by darkness. None the less, he worked his way forward, crawling over rocks and under twigs as he went.

The cave went deep into the heart of the mountain, twisting and turning every minute.

Finally, after what seemed like a whole day of walking in darkness, Micklang noticed that there was a faint, but distinguishable, light up ahead, which made it easier for him to see in the cave.

Slipping out of the tunnel he had been in, Micklang found he was staring at the strangest sight he had ever seen, even weirder than the Launam.

Melody found herself staring out at the beach, glad that she had gone the right way for a change. The first idea she had was to walk up the beach and see if she could find any sign of her mum, siblings or Abrigail’s crew, but then she realized she hadn’t had a thing to eat for ages and knew she should.

So, gathering a few nuts and building a small bowl out of twigs and large leaves for water, she sat down on the sand and looked out at the ocean.

“You know, I think I could get used to this. It’s a fine place to relax after a long time of scary things and big adventures. I just wonder what dad is up to right now.” Melody said to herself.

After a few minutes, Melody fell to sleep on the soft sand, unaware that unfamiliar eyes were watching her, and that she was soon to find her goal, but not in the way she expected.

Without knowing it, Micklang had stumbled across a prison inside the cave. The prisoners, as he expected, had all been turned into lightning-tails. They were all asleep, and surprisingly didn’t hear him come in.

Micklang studied each creature, seeing that they were all a variety of animals, but all small and severely scratched.

Mice, rats, squirrels, cats, dogs, koalas, pigs, bandicoots, every small animal that you could think of was in some sort of small cage.

“Fascinating, isn’t it?” A voice called in the darkness somewhere.

Micklang turned towards the speaker, but couldn’t see anything.

“Who are you and why are you doing this to these creatures?” Micklang asked.

“I am called the Master-mind, and these animals are part of my perfect plan. One which you have got yourself involved in as well, young squirrel.”

“You don’t know who I am, do you? That would mean you aren’t a lightning-tail like these creatures.”

“Indeed, I am not a lightning-tailed creature, but one doesn’t need a lightning-tail to tell the future, young squirrel.”

“True, but you can’t tell the future, because you would know my name and what I was doing on this island in the first place.”

The creature went silent for a few minutes, but Micklang could hear …flapping noises? A fire torch was lit and Micklang saw the figure for what it was. It was the largest bat he had ever seen. It was even slightly bigger than him!

“So, we meet at last, Micklang Lightning-tail. I’ve been told so much about who you are and will become! I should introduce myself properly. I am Medraut, the mastermind bat. It’s an honour to meet you at last Micklang, and it’ll be a pleasure in killing you!” Micklang heard the suave, smart way in which Medraut spoke and knew, instantly, that this creature was very intelligent and most likely a good fighter.

Taking his sword out and preparing himself, Micklang darted behind a cage just as Medraut lunged at him.

Micklang swung his sword at the top of a cage, bringing the cage smashing to the ground.

Medraut avoided the falling cage and tried to attack again, but Micklang jumped up on a cage and Medraut smashed into the cave wall.

The large bat sneered in pain and flew at Micklang again with bearing fangs, but it was too late, Micklang had already jumped to another cage, waiting for Medraut to strike again.

The cage Micklang had been on couldn’t take his weight and fell to the ground, smashing open the cage door in the progress. Thankfully, the occupants inside it were unharmed as they fled to a safe section of the cave.

Medraut stopped for a moment, going oddly quiet. “How much do you know about bats, warrior? Did you know, for instance, that bats emit sounds that bounce off of objects in their path, sending echoes back to us, allowing us to determine everything to know about that particular object, all within seconds?” Micklang looked confused. Why was Medraut telling him this? Before Micklang could react, though, Medraut let out an alarming screech that almost deafened Micklang. Micklang fell to his knees and covered his ears, allowing Medraut to fly over and strike at Micklang’s revealed back. The gash caused was severe, however Micklang took some stones and put them in his ears before striking at the villainous bat quickly. “You’re NOT going to get at me!” He grimaced as his sword pushed against the claws of Medraut. Medraut hissed a threat at Micklang and tried to bite at him, when something miraculous happened. The prisoners that had escaped from the broken cage had gathered enough courage from Micklang’s battle to help him during the battle, in which case they had taken some hard rocks and started throwing them at the monstrous bat. “Get away from him, you beast!” A lady Sloth grouched, as one rock hit Medraut’s face, distracting the bat and allowing Micklang to push away and strike at Medraut’s left wing. Medraut snarled and licked his sharp teeth as he took another swipe at Micklang, only this time Micklang managed to chop Medraut’s right ‘hand’ completely off.

“You’ve reached another dead-end, Medraut, soon those few prisoners will get a chance to release the other prisoners, and when they do you will be over-powered.” Micklang said, stepping back as Medraut held his bloodied stump remains of his hand.

“You forget, Micklang, it is I that control them. You are only helping me by cutting them loose, and I will command them to go against you. There is only one thing that can get them out of their trance. The right sentence which only I know.” Medraut went to command the escaped prisoners to attack Micklang, but Micklandg’s warrior self appeared in Micklang’s thoughts just in time and told him the right words.

“Lightning-tails and fuzzy whales.”

Medraut’s eyes shot open in shock when he heard Micklang say the sentence.

All the remaining prisoners shook their heads and woke up from their trance.

Micklang nodded to the ones that escaped and they took their chance, helping all the other prisoners to get out and gang up on the bat quickly.

Micklang watched as the bat backed away, heading for the area where Micklang had come in.

Micklang dashed towards the entrance and reached it first, placing his sword at Medraut’s neck.

“Now do you think you have won?” Micklang asked.

Medraut thought carefully. The prisoners had escaped, Micklang was most likely going to win, however the bad still had one last trick up his ‘sleeve’.

“Let’s see you try and figure out a way out of this!” Medraut sneered, clicking his fingers and pointing toward the cave ceiling.

Micklang looked up and saw another cage door, but it was a bigger, wider door which spread out along the top of the cave.

Micklang could see that the small cages which the animals had been in acted as a weight for the door, and now that all the cages had been emptied, it was slowly starting to open.

“You see what’s inside it, that’s a special type of liquid which can turn anything into solid stone with a single touch, you may have seen that in the storm you experienced before you came here. Well, it’s a little something of mine, and with it I will assure my victory.”

“But you’ll be stuck in here too, which means you won’t win.”

Medraut struck Micklang in the face and flew out the exit.

“Who said I was staying? Enjoy your time being stuck, Micklang. Hahahahahaaaa!” Medraut said, and before anyone could stop him, he rolled a boulder in front of the entrance and ran off cackling evilly.

One of the animals, a mouse-wife, tried to revive Micklang by giving him some water while the other animals tried to work together to push the boulder open.

Medraut flew until he came out of the tunnel. Looking back, he sniggered to himself and knew he was triumphant for once.

Then he saw the huge eagle staring at him angrily and gulped in fright.

“You kill Micky Lightning-tail! You pay for that, Yadi will make sure of that!” The eagle said. Then, before Medraut could do anything, the eagle grasped him in its claws and flew EXTREMLY high into the sky. Making sure it ripped Medraut’s wings apart to the point of complete uselessness, Yadi than positioned himself far above the forest, where there was no chance of survival.

Then the eagle dropped him.

At a height like that, not even bat like Medraut could survive.

Or could it?