Faun, The Fawn
Everyone has a weakness… some are easy to avoid such as not going into caves if you don’t like small enclosed spaces. That's an easy one unless you are a troll and live in one. Then that same little weakness can turn into a big problem. It was the same type of ‘little’ problem that was causing a lot of hard thinking for Faun. It wasn’t like a cave nor a spider (in fact one of her best friends was a spider who was teaching her how to knit). It was a flower! Faun had a sweet tooth and the only flowers that satisfied it were daisies. Her problem was especially challenging as everyday when she went to school, she would have to walk past the biggest daisy patch in the entire realm. “Ohhh, just one little one,” she thought as she gave the beauties a loving glaze as she went by.
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Each day she would pass by, it took all of her willpower to not just jump into the patch and gorge herself. " Just think how wonderful it would be to roll around and munch all those delicious daisies," Faun dreamily thought. She would find herself walking closer and closer to the flowers as if in a trance until she heard the other fawns laughing and teasing her. “Look! Faun is going for the daisies,” one would usually tell the others. "Can't she read the sign?" and then they would all laugh. Faun usually tried to act like nothing had happened. Sometimes she would say things like ‘I thought I saw a strange bug and wanted a closer look’ or ‘I just wanted to smell them’. She stopped saying those things when the other fawns just started laughing harder.
As Spring continued to warm into Summer, making the daisies smell stronger each day, it only got worse! Finally those flowers were the only thing she could think about. “I must have at least one of those flowers or I will go crazy!” she told herself. “But how?” |
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It was during her knitting session with her friend the spider that an idea came to her. As the spider was telling her that she could also use twigs and branches to weave things like baskets and hats instead of using wool, a picture formed in her mind. “What if we used stems, like from flowers? Would that work?” she asked the spider. “I don’t see why not. They are strong and actually would probably be easier to weave in and out than a stick would be,” her spider friend replied. Slowly a smile formed on Faun’s lips as well as a plan.
The very next day, Faun approached the keeper of the daisy patch with a request. The next time some of the daisies were pruned, could she have a bundle of the stems to make a basket. The keeper thought for a moment and shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t see why not,” the keeper answered. “It’s not like we have any use for them. Sure, I will be thinning a part of the patch later this week. Come see me in three days and I will give you a pile of stems for your basket making.” |
Faun thanked the keeper but all of the time inside she was silently moaning… “Three more days… It’s going to take forever to get one of those sweet daisies.”
Three days passed in a slow agony to Faun. Always the taste of the daisies was not far from her thoughts. She could see the lovely vision of how she would slowly pick each petal and slip it into her mouth. She might not even chew, but sucking on each tasty morsel until she could hold out no longer. Then quickly chew and swallow it to make room for the next one. “I can just about taste them already,” she hungrily thought. When classes were finished for the day, Faun went directly to the daisy patch to find the keeper. When she arrived the first thing she saw (after looking at all of the tasty daisies of course) was the pile of stems. “How bare and lonely they look,” she thought. “Not a single flower on any of them. Just a pile of greens and who eats greens? Yuck.”
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It did not take long but the flower stems were soon relocated to where the spider taught Faun how to knit and weave. Faun quickly picked up the process after only a few mistakes. “Now if you keep at it, your basket should start to take shape and will probably be ready by the end of your lesson period,” the spider told her. “You seem to really be enjoying doing this more than the knitting.” Faun just smiled since she had told no one why she wanted the baskets as it was her little secret and a way to get those delectable daisies.
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It actually took three weaving sessions before Faun had a couple of stem baskets weaved large enough to do what she wanted. The first two baskets she gave to the keeper of the daisies for giving her the stems. Impressed was the keeper as she found out quickly how useful they were when she had to collect the daisy petals. “Faun, this is a great idea. I can hold more daisies in a basket than when I just carried them in my hands after picking. I thank you for the two baskets, but what are you going to do with the third one?” asked the keeper.
Now was the moment Faun had hoped for as she knew that even though she wanted the daisies more than anything else, she knew that she could not just steal them. That was not right and they would not taste as sweet knowing she would always have to look over her shoulder to make sure she was not caught or discovered. “I made the third basket in the hopes that I can help you gather the daisies. They are my most favorite treat and in helping you gather more of them, then hopefully more will be available for me to eat,” Faun shyly answered looking down at her feet.
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The keeper smiled. “Of course you can help me pick them,” she answered. The look of joy that filled Faun’s smile made the keeper smile even more. As Faun picked up her basket, the keeper moved a little closer and whispered into her ear. “I love to eat the daisies too, and one of the benefits of being the one who picks them is that we also have to nibble one or two to make sure they are ripe and ready for picking.” Hearing that, Faun’s eyes lite up a little brighter and quickly she moved off to ‘sample’ the daisies making sure they were ripe for picking.
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