The Quest Of The Mythical Creatures

• Avery Dunn, Grade 3, St Declan's Primary School
• Short Story
• 2022

Excellence Award in the 'National Treasures 2022' competition

I was running through the foggy forest, my eight tails behind me. My purple fur was blowing in the wind then all of a sudden, I tripped and rolled and landed on my belly... Then I looked up and saw two goliath bird feet, they were grey with orange claws on them. I looked up even more and saw a fiery phoenix with red orange and yellow blended feathers. I was shocked because I’ve rarely seen a phoenix.
“Oh hello, I haven’t seen one of you before,” said the phoenix.
I got up shook my fur and responded, “I’m a kitsune aka a nine tailed fox but I only have eight tails.”
The phoenix nodded and said slowly, “Okay...okay anything else?” The phoenix was happy to see another creature. He coughed and a small puff of fire came out of his mouth and faded away.
He said, “Oh my goodness I am so sorry.”
I replied, “Oh don’t worry about it. Are you sick?”
“No, but I did lose a wing” he answered
“Oh my, how?” I asked
“I don’t want to talk about it,” the phoenix said sadly. Then he raised everyone’s spirit and asked... “By the way, what is your name?”
I gasped and said “No one has ever asked me that before... My name is Legend.”
“That’s a nice name, my name is Flight.”
I asked Flight, “Do you know somewhere I can hide? Someone is chasing me, because I have something valuable.”
“Sure I do, come on.”
Flight led me to a deep dark trench and I said, “That looks...dangerous.” And then Flight replied, “That’s the point, so people don’t come here.”
I pulled out my crystal, it was yellow and shiny emerald shaped. Flight nodded as if to say, I understand what you need to do. We jumped into the trench, we were safe there.
“This is valuable to me because it can solve problems...but only once,” I said worriedly. “I am using this so I can get an extra tail, so I have nine like any other kitsune but it looks like...”
Flight was at the edge of the cliff in the trench, but it was unstable and he slipped and fell to certain death. I turned as fast as I could and let my tails down, he grabbed them but I couldn’t lift him. There was only one thing I had to do. I threw down the crystal and said the magic words.
“Crystal, Crystal fix this problem, give this Phoenix one more wing” and it worked.
Dust formed around Flight’s side and a wing formed. He looked at his two wings and asked in a gentle and thankful voice “You saved me, but why?”
“Well, your name is Flight and a phoenix needs two wings to do what it does best but a kitsune doesn’t need nine tails to do what we do best”
Flight flew over as fast as a bullet and hugged me. My quest was over. It turns out my real quest was to find a friend.