The Gift (short fiction for #freewrite prompt "wagging tail")

Inspired by Hive account@owasco, I tried to actually write this in 5 minutes. Like for real. But once the stopwatch started careening toward the five-minute mark, and my fingers (two pointers and occasionally a thumb) hit the keys running, I remembered that I can't type. I never learned, and my hunt-and-peck typing is terrible, and, as I discovered almost immediately, apparently much worse when I'm timing myself trying to type stream-of-consciousness. It seemed like every time I got two or three words down I had to go back and fix at least one of them, if not all. So I decided to give myself an extra five minutes, ten minutes total. Which, as it turned out, was also ambitious. It took me fifteen +, and then I spent a little while on editing. Still, waaaaay better time than my usual time. I'm going to keep trying!

"Wauk Wauk Wauk Wauk" Magpie chattered, wagging his tail feathers jauntily. He was thrilled. This was a terrific find. She was going to love it. It had everything. It was bright. It was shiny. It sparkled prettily in the morning sun. What female wouldn't?

He leaped into the sky, the pretty thing clasped firmly in his beak. He could see the roof of her house in the distance, through the tops of the trees. He imagined the joyful sounds she would make at seeing his gift. He couldn't wait.

She was outside, in the front of the house, planting strawberries in the cold spring ground, but felt him coming and turned, looking up in the sky to see him. She cooed happily, excited at his arrival, calling after him with the pet name that she always used. "Prince Charming". He didn't waste any time. He landed directly in front of her and dropped the trinket at her feet.

She looked down at it, surprised, and then delighted. Delighted by this beautiful, sparkling, magical thing that could never be as surprisingly beautiful as she was. "You've brought me another gift!" she exclaimed happily.

Yes! Yes he had! He was so excited by her words that he didn't stop to wonder why, or how, he could suddenly understand every word of her speech...

She picked up his gift and turned it over in her fingers. "It's a ring!" she exclaimed softly. "It's so beautiful..."

He watched, pleased, and fascinated (and, although he refused to admit it, even to himself, head-over-heels in love), as she slipped the sparkling trinket onto one of her fingers. Then her eyes rose to meet his eyes with a look he had never seen before, on her face, or any other. His stomach lurched, as if he'd abruptly lost the power of flight midway through clouds and wind and sunshine. And then...

She was gone.

In her place stood a magpie, the most beautiful magpie he'd ever seen, her eyes sparkling, clasping his gift in her gorgeous beak.

Written in response to the following prompt: @mariannewest/single-prompt-option-the-weekend-freewrite-242023

Image by Viola ' from Pixabay