Chapter 3 Of The Great Wish Movie Rewrite Is Up On AO3. Read Here: Link
Chapter 3 of The Great Wish Movie Rewrite is up on AO3. Read here: Link
The rewrite explores Magnifico as the protagonist with Asha and Amaya as villains, and Star Boy comes into the story later.
In this chapter, Magnifico holds an interview and meets Asha for the first time.
Blurb: It was noon the following day, and Amaya had promised to return within the hour with the most promising candidate she’d been able to find. Magnifico waited in his Wish Chamber, a hidden chamber inside his observatory that stored every wish he’d been given, but never yet granted.
He reached out so one of the wishes alighted on his finger. The wisp flickered, leaving a trail like sparks of hope in its wake. The king admired the aspiration, and the sense of longing it radiated made his heart ache, like a tune somebody used to know, then forgot, and heard once again in the distance. He let the wish, light as dandelion fluff, ascend into the swirling cloud of others above him, where they danced in a radiant sky-revel, with stardust pirouettes and leaps.
Magnifico knew from poetry that wishes weren’t always what people should want, but rather, what they did want. They were mysterious flower buds that would unfold and unfold, and might never stop unfolding, until the world was overrun with the complications of them, unless someone did something to stop their consequences.
His people needed to trust his wisdom, for he’d spent the last eighteen years studying the complexities of fate, and now recognised when the time was not right for a wish to unfold. The most challenging aspect of being a sorcerer was dealing with the unanswered wishes, because his subjects could fervently ask for something, believing it to be good and necessary, yet it was not always what was truly best for them. But why their wishes remained unanswered was a mystery to them.
“I opened Pandora’s box by learning sorcery to grant wishes, but now I have a key, and can lock it up again when I need to,” the king told himself, though he was never at peace despite the fact. “But soon,” he leaned against a windowsill, “I will have someone to assist me, should anything go wrong. . .”
Amaya had told him the candidate's name, and assured him that this time, she had complete confidence in her abilities. What had she said the candidate’s name was again?
Gently, Magnifico traced the brass filigree of an old armillary sphere, its interlocking rings representing the orbits of celestial bodies. He studied its familiar patterns, remembering his own days as an apprentice, guided by his mentor's steady hand, and he listened to the faint, melodic hum of the wishes’ hopeful song. It filled him with peace.
A jarring shriek pierced through their tune. Magnifico spun so fast his sphere toppled off its perch on the table.
“Someone is in my tower.”
Despite the horrific noise, the king made his expression calm, though a sinking sense of dread filled him as he feared for each delicate piece of equipment in his observatory. “I suppose this is the best candidate Amaya could find,” he thought sarcastically. “I should never have allowed our meeting to take place here. What was Amaya thinking? Well, I’ve got to give them a chance. . .”
But as Magnifico emerged from his Wish Chamber, the picture was worse than the one his imagination had leant him. A young woman had stumbled in with the grace of a toddler, and attempted to make contact with his book of forbidden magic, evident from enchanted wasps encircling her, which he’d conjured as a safety precaution, to materialise if anyone but him touched the glass case protecting the manuscript.
The girl swatted her arms like a wild monkey, continuing to shriek as the enchanted wasps buzzed in a menacing symphony around her, and Magnifico felt a wave of pity, because she thought they could sting when they were only meant to confuse and to scare. He’d almost raised his voice to yell, but the girl was turning pink, clearly embarrassed, and Amaya had thought her worthy of coming here. There could still be virtue underneath, in spite of this careless accident. He mustered patience.
“No, no,” he laughed, making his presence known as he reentered his observatory. “Asha, is it? That book is forbidden.” Though he hurried forward, he maintained a calm composure. “Now hold still. I’ve got it.” As he raised his hands to summon the swarm, he tried to make light of her mistake. “You can’t have known, but I put, ahem, a spell on the glass guarding this book. It is actually very, very dangerous.”
“Dangerous? Then why would you have it?” Asha, still waving her arms, sounded as if she was going to cry. “I only wanted to touch the etchings around the glass because they were pretty.”
She was so worked up she slipped, and almost kicked King Magnifico in the face just as he’d gathered all the wasps into his hands. Before they could force their way from his grasp, he called up all the magic he could, and shot them back at the case, which they melted into, becoming nothing but ornate carvings once again.
Magnifico sighed as he shut the case, then he rubbed his hands off on his robes. “A king must be prepared for everything. I hope there will never be a time this book needs to be used. Are you all right?”
“No,” said Asha, in what sounded like a whine.
Magnifico was going to overlook this, but then Asha ploughed on in a show-offish sort of ramble, “I mean yes. And I understand if you think I’m, like, totally weird and you want me to leave right now and never show my face again.”
“That would certainly be for the best,” thought Magnifico, but Amaya’s words made him curious whether Asha actually had some mysterious talent not obvious at first sight. “Let’s not over react,” he said instead. “You’re here; you’ve certainly got my attention.” He turned, and wriggled his fingers so a quill leapt into the air, ready to take notes on a bit of parchment he’d laid out on a desk.
“So go ahead; tell me why you think you should be my apprentice.” He waited with hope in his heart.
“Well,” said Asha, in the tone of someone telling a joke to their friends, “I care too much.” Then she paused, as if waiting for a laugh.
“Ookay,” said Magnifico, as hope packed its bags and took a one way trip from his heart. He waited for her to say something else, anything to imply she had some selfless intention, but she just continued staring, as if waiting for a reaction.
“That’s interesting,” said Magnifico finally.
“It’s my weakness,” she burst out, and looked so pleased with herself Magnifico thought she was going to laugh at her own incompetence.
“I see.”
“Figured I might as well get through all the bad stuff right up front,” she ruined her own joke by blabbering on too long. She was clearly used to being surrounded by a group of friends who laughed at everything she said, and was trying quite hard to be quirky.
“Fair enough.” Magnifico already couldn’t wait to send her away. This was not the way someone with common sense acted before the king. It reminded him far too much of eighteen years earlier, when no one had shown him any respect. But he would get through the rest of the interview for Amaya’s sake. He breathed out. “And your strengths? Do you have any?”
“Glad you asked, I have many.” Asha brushed her box braids behind her ear, then pulled a vellum book from her pocket. “I’m a hard worker, and I help well, and I’m young and malleable, and I like to draw.”
Magnifico grasped for something in all these cliches. “You like to draw?” he latched onto the most useful of these irrelevant skills. “And how long have you had this ability?”
At this, the first glimpse of sincerity appeared in Asha’s eyes, and she opened her book to detailed life gestures she’d sketched of goats and lambs. “A long time.” She flipped through more pages of life-like scribbles. “It’s something my father taught me,” she told the king with a proud smile.
When Asha said this, a distant, half forgotten memory stirred inside Magnifico, and he peered closer at the young woman's annoying face.
“I think I remember your father.”
“You do?”
“He was a philosopher, was he not? Had great magic running through his blood. Always warning people about the consequences of getting whatever your heart desires.”
Asha’s eyes glazed over at the last part, but she eagerly started talking about herself again. “Oh yeah. We used to climb that tree by the high ridge in the Hamlet, where I’m from, to look at the stars, and he said they were there to guide us.”
“Your father said a lot more than soft soap like that. He was a very wise man. Did you learn much about his philosophies?”
“Not really. After he got struck by lightning, he wasn’t able to take me out at night as much anymore. I used to want to make a wish that he would get better. But the electric shock left him with lots of burns, and his heart finally stopped one day.”
“I’m sorry. How old were you when he passed away?”
“I was twelve years old.”
Magnifico finally glimpsed something recognisable in Asha, so he attempted to dig a bit deeper.
“It’s not fair, is it?” he asked, taking a gamble as he searched her face for that sincerity again. “When I was young, I too suffered great loss.” He wasn't sure Asha would pay attention as the subject changed to something other than herself, but he went on, determined to finish, because whether she listened at this moment would decide everything.
“Years ago, my entire family was killed by selfish, greedy thieves, and our lands were reduced to ashes,” he told her. “The devastation was beyond imagining. The streets, once bustling with life, were strewn with the bodies of those I once loved. Though the village I’d roamed was silent, I could still hear sobbing of ghosts, of my mother and my father, my brothers and sisters, and my friends. Not a day passes without the haunting thought: if only I had known sorcery then. . .” The king shuddered as the faces of his lost kin grew clear in his memories. He looked hard into Asha’s eyes. "It is for this reason, Asha, that the very foundation of this kingdom is built upon the belief that no one should ever experience the agony of watching their dreams crumble before their eyes. I vowed to create a haven where everyone would be safe, where the horrors of my past would never befall another.”
Magnifico paused to see whether she was listening.
Asha had finally stopped rocking back and forth, and looked contemplative. When the king stopped talking, she blinked. “You’re right,” she managed. “No one should live their life feeling the pain of that loss everyday.”
The king nodded. “Yes. Exactly. And that is why I do what I do.”
Asha’s voice was serious when she replied, “And that’s why I want to work for you.”
Perhaps it was his imagination, or his own good heart deceiving him, but at that moment, Magnifico was overwhelmed, and his heart melted a little. “Come with me,” he said, and led Asha toward the tower’s back wall, where he raised an arm so the stones shifted and slid apart, and his Wish Chamber revealed itself.
“Wow,” said Asha as blue light poured over her, and the domed chamber shone upon her in all its heavenly glory.
“You’re one of the few I’ve ever invited in here.” Magnifico led her inside with sweeping strides. “But if I am to trust you, I need you to understand just how important the wishes of Rosas are.” He glanced at his guest, and was pleased to see her expression was properly impressed, her eyes wide, and her mouth shut. “You can feel them, can’t you?”
“I can,” she whispered. “They’re, uh, everything.”
“That’s exactly it. These wishes are everything.” Magnifico paused to let her take in the brilliance of them.
“I didn’t expect them to feel so alive.” Asha reached out toward the tangible essence of someone’s deepest aspiration: a woman cradling a violin in her arms inside the orb. She shivered as the woman created the beautiful music of someone who’d put in countless hours of practice, each pluck of a string evoking a yearning that transcended the material world around them.
Magnifico laughed a deep laugh at Asha’s first impression. “They fill you with so much longing, don’t they? But that one would do no good to grant. Ambition untempered by effort stifles the growth of character. Denying someone the trials and triumphs of their journey robs them of the refinement of their soul. To grow in virtue is to become something more beautiful than even the most vibrant vibrations of violin strings.”
Finish reading: Link
More Posts from Whatiwishfanfiction and Others
I can't wait to finish posting the Lorax Rewrite so we can start posting the Wish Rewrite. It's really close to being finished!
Out of curiosity how long do you prefer fanfictions to be? Are you more likely to read something with just a few chapters or do you like a long quality story?
Chapter 9 of The Great Wish Movie Rewrite is up on AO3!
Read it here! Link
Guys, only one more chapter to go after this one! It's been so much fun posting this rewrite! Thank you so much to everyone who's been reading! I can't wait to start the next movie rewrite soon!
In this chapter Magnifico gets sucked into his own black hole of misused magic, and goes through a change.
Excerpt: Magnifico was towed downward by the black hole’s current, the edges of his robes unraveling into threads. He felt himself stretching, as if time itself was taking him apart, strand by strand. Space had swapped places with time, and hurled him toward the void’s inevitable singularity. His head and feet pulled in opposite directions as intense gravity stretched him unthinkably thin.
As his torso elongated, his legs did not immediately catch up, and the pressure on his head intensified. His arms and legs became uselessly long threads. Horrifically, the magic in his blood denied him death until he became a smeared streak, when his soul was finally released, then he floated out of himself.
Magnifico, now immaterial, continued his descent, then, below, in the blackness from which no light could escape, he began to see dozens of embers. It turns out some light survives after passing through the event horizon’s boundary. As Magnifico sank deeper, time crawled slower and slower, and the lights, getting closer, grew brighter, revealing themselves to be dimming stars. Not alive like the one he’d met, but cold, colourless orbs.
Gravity no longer affected him, so Magnifico floated leisurely through their midst.
The stars’ surfaces were webbed with cracks that spilled streams of gold like blood. Some flickered weakly, while others were grey and lightless, perhaps dead, but they were all doomed to spin round together in the current. One floated through Magnifico, its edges curled inward as if it were devouring itself. They clustered in groups, grazing each other, shedding shards of brilliance like falling snow, while a few floated alone, then disappeared into the blackness beyond. Magnifico watched one brighter star shrink away from him as if it knew he were there.
He watched the creeping shadows where the star vanished, that were creating patterns around him: an endless staircase led downward, each step dripping with despair as it dissolved into nothingness, then the shadows became piercing shards that hurled themselves at him, and stabbed through him, though they only passed through him like smoke. These burst into fragments like pieces of glass from his terrible mirrors, and Magnifico finally saw his own reflection in them. The eyes of his shadow self were empty and sunken, and he did not recognise himself.
The darkness closed in, and laughter rang out from each of his reflections, then Magnifico realised they were one and the same with him. At this understanding the dark magic's grip loosened a tiny bit, and he knew that to reclaim his sanity, he would have to confront these distortions of himself.
As he drifted further down, a shadow formed into the shape of a man.
“Is that. . .?” Now Magnifico knew he was dead. “I think I remember you.” The words he’d said to Asha earlier, during her interview echoed through his mind: “He was a philosopher, was he not? Had great magic running through his blood. Always warning people about the consequences of getting whatever your heart desires. . .”
It was him. Asha’s father, the renowned philosopher. The tall man with a short beard and an eyepatch over his right eye, whose hair still stuck straight up after being killed by lightning, spoke. “Remember when magic was the pursuit of knowledge, not a weapon of tyranny?”
Magnifico studied the philosopher, then he nearly laughed. “I should have known you would appear here to mock me. You always were popping up at the most inconvenient of times. But save your laughter. You speak falsely. Magic is not knowledge, it is power. That is all it has ever been.” He found communicating intuitive despite no longer having a body, and could not explain how.
Time became so slow it was as if they no longer moved at all, and Magnifico could not look away from the man.
“Is that all the philosophy you have gained in one and sixty years?” The philosopher’s gaze pierced him. “Or have you forgotten yourself in the midst of wielding power so mindlessly?”
Finish reading here: Link
A lifechanging thing to point out
Just in case nobody realized this, you can download the Read Aloud app, and listen to fanfiction or stories while working on drawing. Or you can render text with Balabolka and put music in the background with a video editor, upload as a private video and enjoy it on a walk. Don't forget a speed up extension to get through things extra efficiently. You can even purchase a higher quality robot voice if you do this a lot. You're welcome. Remember, taking advantage of technology is a form of being more literate.
Chapter Five is up!
Preview:
It’s rare that a fantasy comes true just as you’re fantasizing about it, but that’s just what happened when Once-ler’s wagon rolled over the next hill. Not only did the scene happen to be extraordinary, but it came at such a coincidental time of desperate wishfulness that Once-ler was ripped straight from his daydreams and his eyes filled with tears immediately.
PEACE! FREEDOM! INSPIRATION! it screamed all at once.
Such a heavy feeling of serenity and joy descended upon his soul that he knew immediately he was where he was meant to be. It took less than a second to decide this was home, and he would never change his mind for the rest of his days. A smile spread across his face, the kind that was so big it hurt.
The valley he overlooked was a forest, but not like the forest at home. He’d never dreamed a forest could be so different. Where the one behind his farm was small, dry, and gray, the one below stretched beyond the horizon, filled with the brightest green grass and dark blue water full of lily pads, duckweed, and cattails.
Wispy trees and bushes bloomed with pink, yellow, and orange silken foliage that filled his nose with sugary sweetness. Instead of being empty and boring, as if animals would rather be anywhere less desolate, it buzzed with bees, butterflies, frogs, and fish he could see even from his vantage atop the highest hill. A sense of adventure and endless discovery pierced his heart as Once-ler's wagon rolled deeper down into Heaven.
So this was how forests were supposed to be. Every choice he’d made up to that point had been right after all, if it had led him to this. When the wagon reached the bottom of the hill, the yodels died on his lips, and he threw his guitar in the back. “Come on, Melvin,” he said, leading the mule along. The forest only became more interesting from there.
Ho-li-ah Ho-le-rah-hi-hi-ah Ho-le-rah-cuckoo Fol-de-rol, laddie right Toor-a-lie-addy
“Wait, who’s singing? Oh, wow!” Once-ler stood in awe as he watched a trio of fat yellow and orange fish dancing atop a rock, using their fins as legs. They held hands, spinning with their eyes closed, occasionally kicking out their fins or breaking away to do an Irish jig.
“Bizarre,” he said, checking over his shoulder just in case it was some kind of trick. “Does anyone else even know this exists?”
A yellow butterfly soared past with wings the size of book pages. The dark spots on its wings looked like a cow's. It landed on a flower where a frog strolled by on its hind legs and started milking it into an acorn cap.
"Oh my goodness!" Once-ler hopped up and down. "I think I just stumbled upon a completely undiscovered habitat!" After his life at home, he'd begun to think there was no such thing as anything new or exciting.
"Magnificent," he said, tears filling his eyes as a swarm of orange swans flew over his head under sun-tinted clouds. They soared, then dipped, taking a dive alongside a waterfall that roared ominously.
~*~
Follow me for the rest of the rewrite! (I'm going to post new chapters every week).
I can't wait to get to the part about the Lorax. I'm going to write him so much differently than the movie that made him a useless smart aleck. I always thought he should be more mysterious and fae-like. Gonna try to make it like something Tolkien or Holly Black would write. This story is really fun to write!
Fanfic recommendations
I'd like to start reading more fanfictions to support other writers. Does anyone have any recommendations? I'm looking for mainly wholesome, SFW stories with more structure than fluff--matters more if they're interesting than what fandom it is. (Although I like a lot of fantasy books and western animation). I don't prefer stories that focus on romance, but I know most fanfictions tend to focus on that, so can make an exception if it's done well (same for some other things).
THANK YOU
Thank you for 40 kudos on the Lorax Rewrite!!!!!!!!!!!
Also I didn't mention this, but I am an illustrator. Should I put any illustrations of our novelizations and are there any specific parts you'd like to see illustrated?
Chapter 11 is up!
IF YOU HAVEN'T STARTED READING NOW, IT'S JUST GETTING TO THE FUN PART!
Excerpt:
As the meetings became more frequent, the character he had invented started to take on a life of its own. It was no longer just a way to get through the day. He would slip into his green suit, the color of money, and with it, would transform into someone else entirely. His voice would change—louder, more charismatic, filled with a confidence that didn’t quite belong to him. His handshake would be firmer, his smile broader, his laugh just a bit too loud.
Brett, Chet, and Gizette, who had seen the transformation firsthand, started calling him “Greed-ler” behind his back. They found the whole thing hilarious, completely different from the brother they knew. Gizette doodled pictures of Greed-ler on scraps of paper, turning him into a cartoon character with exaggerated features and dollar signs in each eye.
It wasn’t long before Greed-ler became more than just a private joke. The image of the green-suited CEO with a maniacal grin spread throughout the company, and soon, it wasn’t just his siblings drawing cartoons of him. Employees began to share these drawings, and Greed-ler started popping up in more official places—on company newsletters, posters, even merchandise. What began as a role to get through the day turned into the official mascot of Thneeds Inc.
READ THE FULL CHAPTER ON AO3!
This chapter is a little longer because I want to take my time showing how Once-ler's personality devolves. I've also never seen any writing about what an average day at the company would be like. As I go through the whole movie, I want to thoroughly explore every last thing like this for once. There really is more than a novel's worth of potential in this story, if it's given its due.
Also, instead of always making Once-ler doubtful about his family's selfishness, I wanted it to be clear he was joining in with them and being an equally terrible or worse person. This is key to making the story work and have a more powerful lesson.
Chapter 8 of The Great Wish Movie Rewrite up on AO3!
Read here! Link
When Asha is appointed the people's new fairy godmother, she and Star Boy start a civil war. Magnifico confronts them, and dark magic corrupts him further.
Excerpt: Chapter Eight: Civil War
"What's your opinion of our fairy godmother?"
"Your what?"
"Our fairy godmother. She promised she’s going to give us literally whatever we want."
"And who--"
Just then, Asha flashed across his vision, robed in a flowing lavender cape with a hood, a big pink bow under her chin, the slim, white wand between her fingers, then she disappeared behind a tannery, and Magnifico swore he could hear the star's laugh not far behind her.
"Enough!" he yelled. "Enough. There are too many of you." And he pushed through the flock, then stormed back into his castle.
For the next week, Magnifico busied himself staring into his book, which hypnotised him more and more, and there were less moments when the green subsided from his vision. He barely noticed anything else, until one day when a commotion outside grew especially loud. Through a window, he glimpsed the silhouettes of Asha and Star Boy causing more chaos in the village. Deep furrows carved into his brow, and his eyes narrowed as his mouth turned down into a scowl. He had to do something about them, but his fascination with learning forbidden magic was a distraction.
Finally the noise became too loud to ignore, and Magnifico snapped his book shut, then crept down from his tower, and, keeping to the shadows, made his way to the town square where his enemies were fooling around. He pressed his back against a pillar, peering around its edge.
Asha twirled through the village with her wand, the sparkles coming out its end trailing in the breeze behind her. She looked determined to use it at every turn. Meanwhile Star Boy, perched nearby on an awning, revelled in the spectacle, egging Asha on with laughter as he clapped. “Go on Asha! Don’t be shy! Make it bigger, reach the sky!”
Asha basked in the attention, giggling as she made a baker’s oven grow to the size of a dragon. The oven roared and shot balls of magma from its chamber with startling rumbles.
“I only asked for a small upgrade.” Mr. Burphy watched with hands to his forehead as his bakery was caught up in flames.
“Oops! Sorry!” Asha tried fanning away the smoke with her wand, when someone tapped her on the shoulder so she turned.
“Can I have two hundred cupcakes for free?” the spoiled little boy who was now a man asked her.
“You totally can,” she said with her back to the catastrophe, and granted his wish as the bakery’s roof fell in behind her. From the tip of her wand, a poof of cupcakes materialised, each swirled with frosting in every shade of the rainbow, topped with glittering sprinkles. They multiplied rapidly, spilling out into the street, causing an old lady to slip. The young man clapped and cheered as the bakery’s fire was forgotten in the whirlwind of frosting and sprinkles.
Star Boy twirled around a lamppost he’d moved to. “Haha, Asha, what a scene! They’ll never be able to get this clean!”
Magnifico’s frown deepened. In the grip of dark magic, he could care less about the smoke billowing from Mr. Burphy’s bakery or flames licking the edges of market stalls. His focus was entirely on his rivals. Their antics were an affront to his carefully curated image of control. Each burst of confection seemed to mock his authority. Magnifico’s fingers tapped against the pillar as he plotted how he could kill Asha and Star Boy spectacularly in front of everyone.
Asha scampered towards the other side of town, where a young lass wished for a pet rhinoceros. Her wand waved, and out popped a massive, thick-skinned mammal with a sharp horn protruding from its snout. It promptly started chasing Star Boy, knocking over everything and sending townsfolk running in all directions. The star led it in circles, his chronic snickering encouraging it.
“Okay, not what I intended,” laughed Asha as a young man was almost paralyzed when he was kicked backwards into a wall. She produced a lasso made of sparkles she tried to corral the creature with, but it only entangled a couple peasants who became enchanted, then joined the creature in its dizzying dance.
Finally Star Boy shook the creature off, and floated up beside Asha to cheer, “Well well, look at them go! They are putting on quite a show!” He flew high above the fleeing peasants and ruined buildings, just in time to watch as the statue of King Magnifico got its head knocked off. It fell to the ground where it smashed into a thousand pieces. The once orderly kingdom was a wreck.
By now the entire village gathered to confront Asha, encircling her, all covered in many things from ashes to glitter to pie filling. Some were covered in blood.
“Okay, okay,” Asha shouted over the angry mob, her wand waving frantically to try and undo the mess she’d created. “I’ll fix everything. It’s not that big of a deal. Just give me a second.”
Magnifico, looking around the wall of a smouldering shoe shop, let his lips curl into a smirk. “The entire village gathered into one spot,” he thought. “How convenient.” His grasp tightened around his staff, and he imagined Asha and Star Boy, surrounded by the throng of disgruntled subjects, meeting their end in a climatic show before them all.
But before he stepped out to reveal himself, he watched curiously as the peasants slipped on frosting and the rhinoceros barreled past, then an even darker grin spread across his face. Why end this when he could plunge the town into even greater disarray, just for the joy of it? Perhaps Asha and Star Boy were on to something. His ungrateful subjects deserved a lesson, and granting wishes could indeed be great fun. With sudden, wicked inspiration, Magnifico decided to join them.
He walked out into plain view. "Ho, ho, ho!” he announced, his voice a booming parody of cheerfulness. “Who’s ready for a wish?”
The townsfolk, momentarily stunned by the sight of their feared king, hesitated, before their eyes lit up with hope, and typically, they immediately forgot he’d recently committed a murder. His subjects ran up to him with gleaming eyes. “I want a dragon!” one squealed. “I wish for a castle!” another called out.
Magnifico’s staff glowed with dark magic as he waved it theatrically. For each wish, he conjured grand manifestations in flashes of green. A dragon with ebony scales and evil eyes appeared, hissing as it coiled around the square, thrashing buildings to splinters with a barbed tail. A castle of shadowy spires rose from the ground, its piercing turrets sending subjects scattering out of their way.
Asha and Star Boy, hanging back, watching the king from the sidelines with open mouths, soon crept forward, their shocked, suspicious expressions melting into ones of excitement.
“Look at that!” Asha clapped her hands. “Magnifico’s really getting into the spirit!”
Star Boy hovered beside her, a smile splitting his face. “He’s making this a grand display! I’ve never seen wishes done this way!” He flew around the dragon, darting in and out of its coils as it crushed Farmer Finnegan’s garden.
Magnifico’s shoulders shook with laughter as he watched the unrest. Each time a wish was fulfilled, the kingdom was wrecked further. Galloping unicorns with stabbing horns, mountains of gold coins that squashed his subjects, and stupider suggestions still, all executed with poorest judgement.
“This is the best!” Asha turned to Magnifico. “See how sharing is caring? It’s so much fun to make dreams come true.”
Magnifico’s laughter rang louder. The more carnage he created, the more his sense of control returned. But as the evening wore on, his generosity revealed its true cost: a wish for endless sweets resulted in clogged streets, and when a drizzle started, it melted into sticky sugar that ruined everything it touched, so people’s demands turned into abstract contradictions. One woman, caught in the deluge of stickiness, wished loudly, “Only I should be able to make wishes!” at the same time as another man. These pleas warped materiality, so that every time either of them made a wish, their personal reality became disconnected from the rest of the kingdom, fulfilling their desires in isolated loops of their own making.
Matters were convoluted further when Mr. Burphy, desperate to reclaim his bakery, cried out, “All wishes should have good results!” The effect was that everyone began to disbelieve in magic, because things remained the same when no one could define good, let alone understand what was good for them. Subjective wishes couldn’t become objective realities, filling the people with doubt so they began fighting amongst themselves.
Another woman, driven by desperation, wished to transport herself to a future where she could escape the troubles, but didn't anticipate the consequences when the total matter of the universe, which needs to remain constant, was disturbed by her appearance, causing an anomaly that resulted in a catastrophic explosion when she arrived. Time travel, unlike producing things from thin air, does not simply relocate mass. The more Magnifico’s subjects tried to mend things, the more tangled everything became.
“I wish you’d go somewhere far away!” a disgruntled scrivener, shaking a fist, yelled at Magnifico, so the staff in his hand winked, and with a sputtering pop, the king vanished. Moments later, he reappeared, robes singed. Crystals clung to his hair and clothes and he collapsed to his knees. His vision had narrowed to a pinprick, and he had a feeling in his chest of being crushed that left him gasping for breath. He was scarred from briefly visiting a silicon dimension inhospitable to carbon atoms. “No more wishes!” he barked, slamming his staff into the ground to heal himself from the consequences of travelling there under High-G acceleration.
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Just two writers who like to rewrite stories either to make them better or for an experiment.
127 posts