🦋✨ Luma and the Great Mischief of Crystal Cove ✨🦋<chapter4>

If we're telling a story about Luma, then there is only one rule:

Nothing goes according to plan.

It began on what should have been a perfectly ordinary morning.

The waterfalls sparkled.

The crystal caves glowed.

Velcara was supervising breakfast.

Dadrian was polishing crystals.

Lunashade was meditating.

The Littles, L and M, were still asleep.

And Cyddie was enjoying the rarest thing in all of Crystal Cove...

A peaceful cup of tea.

Unfortunately...

Luma was awake.

That was the first warning sign.

The second warning sign was that she was being unusually quiet.

The third warning sign was that nobody knew where she was.

"Oh no," muttered Velcara.

"Oh no," agreed Dadrian.

"Oh no," whispered Starwhisker.

Everybody knew what happened when Luma became quiet.

Mischief.

Lots and lots of mischief.

Meanwhile...

deep inside the Crystal Caves...

Luma was standing before an ancient crystal pedestal.

Upon it rested a glowing blue gem.

A gem known as:

The Echo Crystal

The crystal had one magical property.

It copied things.

Luma looked at it.

The crystal looked at Luma.

"This seems like an excellent idea."

It was not.

Luma poked the crystal.

PING!

Suddenly...

there were two Lumas.

The two Lumas looked at each other.

"Oh no."

"Oh YES."

And together they touched the crystal again.

PING!

Four Lumas.

Again.

Eight.

Again.

Sixteen.

Again.

Nobody knows exactly how many Lumas there were after that.

Mostly because nobody survived counting them.

Across Crystal Cove chaos erupted.

One Luma was hiding dice.

One was replacing crystal signs.

One was teaching fish how to play hide-and-seek.

One had convinced Emberling that invisible sandwiches existed.

Three Lumas were riding Nova.

Five were decorating Dadrian's tail with flowers.

And one had somehow become mayor.

Nobody knows how.

By lunchtime Crystal Cove had descended into complete nonsense.

L and M finally woke up.

They opened their bedroom door.

Twenty-three tiny Lumas were waiting outside.

"GOOD MORNING!"

The Littles screamed.

The Lumas screamed.

Everybody screamed.

Cyddie eventually found the source of the problem.

Deep within the caves she discovered the Echo Crystal.

Beside it sat Original Luma.

Eating berries.

"Did you do this?"

asked Cyddie.

Luma thought very carefully.

"Technically..."

"Yes."

Cyddie sighed.

The sigh echoed through three cave systems.

Even the dragons heard it.

Then Cyddie smiled.

Because she had an idea.

"If you made all these Lumas..."

she said.

"...you can clean up all the mess."

Every Luma froze.

"What?"

"Every prank."

"Oh no."

"Every misplaced dice."

"Oh dear."

"Every stolen shiny thing."

The Lumas groaned.

But they got to work.

Suddenly dozens of tiny orange creatures raced through Crystal Cove.

Dice reappeared.

Flowers were removed from dragons.

Signs were fixed.

The fish were informed they were not actually hiding.

And poor Emberling finally learned invisible sandwiches were not real.

By sunset Crystal Cove was back to normal.

The Echo Crystal glowed one final time.

PING!

Every copy vanished.

Leaving only one very tired Luma.

She climbed onto Cyddie's shoulder.

"Did you learn anything today?"

asked Cyddie.

Luma nodded.

"Good."

"What did you learn?"

Luma thought for a moment.

Then grinned.

"That thirty-seven Lumas is probably the perfect number."

Cyddie groaned.

Velcara groaned.

The dragons groaned.

And somewhere deep in the cave...

the Echo Crystal began glowing again.

The End. 🦋💙✨

Author's note: Three crystal dice remain missing. Luma has declined to comment on an ongoing investigation. 🎲😇🦋💎