The Open Field

Laura Beegle

Zannie zoomed along over the grasses. He amused himself by dipping and diving among the fat seed heads of the grasses and the vibrant colors of the flowers, careful to give the bees and butterflies a close pass. He laughed at their annoyance at his passing, racing off into further hot, dry areas of field. The cicadas droned and the grasshoppers buzzed, making the summer seem all the more perfect to Zannie. He loved the sun and the sweet smell of dried grass in these hot months.

Pixies like Zannie were seldom seen outside of the cool forests of his home. Its cool shading boughs were protective and safe. There were wood nymphs and forest fairies all within earshot there and they would usually come to the aid of a wayward pixie that ventured too far from home.

But out here, Zannie was completely on his own, just as he liked it. There were no rules and no nymphs or tree gnomes or other pixies to tell on him. Not that Zannie did anything bad, he just didn’t like being watched all the time. Today, however, he was on a mission: he wanted to see the great Painted Birds.

Zannie had been trained since childhood to fear and respect birds, a respect he mostly observed, as he would fear and respect an adult pixie of his patch. But, the respect of birds went only as far as he thought them capable of actually eating him, as the elders warned was possible. Small birds were worthy of his jesting, though. The bright yellow birds, gathering at a puddle's edge he zoomed past at alarming speed. Since he was almost as large as these birds, he didn't think he had much to fear from them.

Twisting away from such a close encounter Zannie laughed and did a flip as he vaulted the decaying wooden fence separating the next bit of field from him. He was so busy enjoying the freedom of the fields that he didn't see the massive bird headed towards him, beak open.

Zannie zipped along, his wings humming and scattering dried seed pods as he passed, unaware that the grasshopper buzz had stopped all around him. He came too close to a thistle and veered away, just in time to see the bird snap at the space where he had just been. He tumbled to a stop amid the long grasses, his heart racing and his eyes scanning the sky for that massive bird.

His eyes darted around the sky, his wings ready to carry him away at a moment's notice. Seconds passed, then half a minute, then a minute and Zannie began to relax enough to see what he was holding onto. The grass was simple enough, long strands of dry, tough material, enough to hold a pixie's weight. A few inches above him, the heavy seed heads drooped in the hot sun.

Below Zannie was something he never expected. The air was cooler and moist, almost like the forest of his home. It was darker, too, but still kept that sweet smell of grass and had none of the wet, earthy smell of the forest floor. Intrigued, Zannie let himself slide down the grasses aways, fluttering his wings gently to keep from falling too quickly.

As he neared the bottom, he noticed that the sounds he always associated with the field were muffled, nearly inaudible here in the lower field. The grasshopper buzz was just a background and the cicada drone was gone. Here, the sound was deeper, more primal somehow. Zannie could hear grasshoppers and caterpillars munching and, just barely, the sounds of earthworms and grubs moving beneath the earth. The sound, or lack of sound, was so strange that Zannie paused in his descent to listen. It was very different from the quiet he was used to near the forest floor, so warm and alive, but silent to his ears.

That's when the voice interrupted his thoughts.

"You don't look like a dragonfly," said the voice.

Zannie lost his grip on the grasses and tumbled a few inches towards the ground before catching himself. He looked around for the source of the voice. He didn't see anything.

“Your wings kind of look like a dragonfly, but your body’s all wrong,” the voice said again.

“It is not wrong,” said Zannie defiantly, in no particular direction. He still scanned the grass stems for the source of the voice. “I’m a pixie.”

A small insect floated into view in front of Zannie, its dark body held almost vertically as its wings fluttered into a blur behind him. Its small eyes took in Zannie and its tiny head seemed to nod. “Cool,” said the bug. “I’m a firefly,” he said, “or a lightning bug, whichever you think sounds more impressive.”

“Firefly?” said Zannie, trying out the word and searching his memory for anything he might have learned in school about such a creature.

“Yeah,” said the bug, “on account of I can do this.” Suddenly, a bright light filled the area, emanating from the bug’s lower body. Zannie shut his eyes and slid a few inches down the grass stems to which he was clinging in surprise.

“Don’t do that!” shouted Zannie.

The bug just giggled and said, “my name is Dickie. What’s yours?”

“Your name is Dickie?” asked Zannie incredulously. Who gave bugs names?

“Well,” said Dickie, “it’s Frederick Von Feuer, but nobody calls me all that, not even my teacher, or my parents where they’re mad at me. Everyone calls me Dickie.”

Zannie blinked. It didn’t occur to him that bugs had families and teachers, too, just like him. He wondered if earthworms and grubs had teachers. What must their lessons be like? “Don’t eat that root, it will make you sick!” Sounded just as boring as some of his lessons.

“My name is Zannie,” he said finally. “I only have one name.”

“Cool,” said Dickie again. “Do you want to see something awesome?”

“Sure,” said Zannie, “I came out here to see something awesome.”

“Oh yeah,” said Dickie, fearing that Zannie already knew what he had to share. “What did you come to see?”

“The great Painted Birds,” said Zannie proudly. No one at home had ever seen the painted birds because they lived too far away from the comfortable, cool world of the forest. They were birds of the open plain, of the field and that was much too far and much too dangerous for any pixies to go and see.

Dickie alighted on one of the grass stems nearest him and looked around it at Zannie. “You’re joking, right,” he said after a moment.

Zannie got annoyed by this. “No. Why should I joke about that? They are greatly feared back home, the stuff of legend and mystery. No one has gone looking for the painted birds and lived to tell the tale.” That wasn’t completely true. If no one had lived to tell the tale, there would be no tales, but Zannie thought it sounded better that way.

Dickie tried to keep a straight face as he asked, “and what do these birds look like?”

“Blue,” said Zannie immediately, lest Dickie think he was making it up right then, “with a dusty red breast.”

At this, Dickie burst out laughing and visibly clutched at his perch, wrapping his tiny legs around the grass stem. The sound reminded Zannie of a high pitched grasshopper buzz or someone rubbing two dry sticks together very quickly. But, as interesting as Zannie found the noise, he didn’t like being laughed at.

“What’s so funny?” he demanded.

After a moment, the bug regained his composure enough to sputter, “what do you think just tried to eat you?” Dickie followed this with another outburst of laughter.

Zannie thought back. He had been so intent on his flying that he hadn’t noticed the bird until it was nearly too late. What color had it been? He had been in such a panic, Zannie couldn’t be sure he remembered anything correctly. He decided to err on the side of disbelief, in case this was some further joke the bug was playing on him.

“You’re lying,” said Zannie.

Dickie recovered from his laughing fit. Zannie was sure that if the bug had pixie eyes, they would have been filled with tears of amusement by now. As it was, the bug chuckled a few times more then said, “I’ll prove it to you.”

He led Zannie up to the tops of the grasses, but not above them. “Stay down here,” Dickie said seriously, “then it’s easy to drop down and avoid the birds.”

“Won’t the birds just come down into the grass after you?” asked Zannie.

Dickie made a motion that Zannie assumed was shaking his head. “Nah, they’ll poke a beak down, if they think you haven’t dropped far enough, but they won’t fly into the grasses too deep. They’ll get tangled if they do that and lose their momentum.”

Zannie nodded. He didn’t know what momentum was, but he knew the feeling of getting caught in something and how that could drastically slow down his flight.

They flew along for a while, darting around the grasses, rather than zooming past above them as Zannie had done before. Dickie wasn’t a great flyer by Zannie’s standards, but the little firefly was small compared to the pixie, so Zannie didn’t say anything about it and just followed patiently where Dickie led. Eventually they stopped and Dickie landed at the base of a fat grass seed head. Zannie grabbed that grass stalk and the one next to it, bracing his feet against it.

“That’s it,” said Dickie with appropriate reverence at something so dangerous. “That’s where the painted birds live.”

Zannie fluttered his wings to lift his head above the grasses for a moment and see what Dickie was talking about. It didn’t look like much, just an old fence post where the horizontal bar had long ago decayed and fallen away from the post. Zannie let himself fall back down a few inches to talk to Dickie.

“That’s just an old fence post,” said Zannie, not wanting to be the butt of any more of Dickie’s jokes. “Birds don’t live in posts.”

Dickie nodded and said, “these ones do. They’re not ground birds like grouse, but they like the open grasslands, so they nest in posts or dead trees where woodpeckers used to live.”

Zannie was pretty sure Dickie wasn’t making this up, so he just nodded. “Where are they now? I didn’t see any at the post.”

Dickie looked up at the sky, judging the amount of daylight. “They’re probably out eating now,” he said.

“How long do we have to wait before they come back?” asked Zannie. He didn’t want to wait until dark just to see the birds. His parents would be mad if he came home too much after dark, even with his tales of seeing the painted birds. Actually, Zannie wasn’t sure they would believe him and intended to use the birds as a last resort.

The firefly moved on the seedhead a little nervously. “Probably not long,” he said. “They usually return to the nest in late afternoon or early evening.”

Zannie nodded. Evening came later out here in the open than it did in the deep forest where Zannie lived, but he knew it wouldn’t be too long. “Let’s wait for the birds,” he said. Dickie nodded after the briefest hesitation.

Less than an hour later, the sound of beating wings interrupted the game Zannie and Dickie had been playing and they peered through the grasses, looking for the source. A blur of blue and dusty red that looked gray in the dying light came gliding towards the post. At the last minute, the painted bird beat its wings in a furious backwards motion to slow it down. The bird landed lightly on the edge of the hole in the fence post. Out of the hole, the head of another painted bird emerged.

Zannie lightly tapped Dickie on his hard overwings and pointed. “There’s two!” he whispered in awe. Dickie fluttered his wings and moved back and forth on the seedhead, whether in excitement or fear, Zannie couldn’t tell. The second bird backed into the hole and allowed the first bird to enter.

They waited for a while to see if either bird would reemerge from the hole, but neither did. Satisfied, and tired of waiting, Zannie whispered, “let’s go.” Dickie nodded a little too quickly and fluttered his way back the way they had come.

Once they were safely out of hearing distance of the birds, Zannie said, “that was amazing!” He did a small barrel roll above the level of the grass in his excitement. “Seeing the painted birds, not one, but two of them!”

“Don’t forget nearly being devoured by one,” said Dickie, a laugh in his voice.

Zannie stuck out his tongue at the bug. “I’m going to leave that part out when I tell people about this.” He looked at the dying light in the sky and knew he should be heading home. “I should go,” he said.

“Wait!” said Dickie. “You didn’t to see the awesome thing I wanted to show you.”

“What awesome thing?”

Dickie sighed. “When we first met, I wanted to show you something, but we went after the painted birds instead. Do you still want to see it?”

“What is it?” asked Zannie. He had heard legends of most things worth seeing. Some of them, like the singing crystals, he had already seen. He didn’t know what this small insect could show him that was more awesome than the painted birds.

“It’s a secret,” said Dickie. “Even I’m not supposed to know that tonight is the night. But, my dad works for the Monarch and I heard him talking to my mom about the arrangements.”

“Even better!” agreed Zannie. Seeing something awesome was one thing, but seeing it without being seen yourself was even more fun. This time, Dickie was the one to do a loop of joy in his flight.

Dickie led them towards the edge of the grasslands, where they became shaded by the trees and crowded out by the stream’s plants. There were a lot of fireflies gathered around the base of a tree. Dickie paused and pointed at the tree.

“That’s where we’re going, but we can’t let anyone see us, so we’re going the long way around to the side, okay?”

Zannie nodded solemnly. He was not about to screw up something so fun. They made their way around to the stream, stopping near the water’s edge to look for other fireflies. Dickie motioned and they crossed the stream, darting quickly to an small thorn bush to hide.

“What are we here to see?” asked Zannie, hoping that it wasn’t some boring firefly ceremony that only other fireflies would think was interesting.

“It’s the presentation of the Luna Moth by the Monarch,” said Dickie with reverence.

Zannie tried to hide his disappointment. “That sounds boring,” he said.

Dickie shook his head. “Have you seen a Luna Moth?” he asked. Zannie had to admit that he had not. “Legend says that they’re huge winged creatures, about as big as you, but differently shaped, with a big fuzzy body and broad pale green wings. They only live a short time, so seeing one is a sign of good luck.”

“How do you know there will be one of these creatures here tonight?” asked Zannie.

Dickie said, “the creature hatched this morning, but now he’ll be ready for flight. I heard my father talking about it.”

They moved a little closer to the tree base while staying out of sight. More and more fireflies were gathering here, clinging to the side of the tree, to the grasses, and lining the edges of the presentation area. In the ambient yellow-green light they provided, Zannie could see more different kinds of insects than he had ever seen at one place at a time. There were dainty little yellow butterflies, and white ones, and black ones with blue spots. There were large moths with large dusty orange and gray bodies with wings to match. There were spindly iridescent blue wasps, mostly keeping to themselves in a corner and trying not to look threatening. A few honeybees, bumblebees, and a few large flies filled out the back rows of the lighted area.

Zannie couldn’t help but be impressed. Just when he thought he had seen all the attendees, a few earthworms and grubs stuck their heads up from the earth and cicadas hung from nearby tree branches to see the goings-on. “This is amazing,” he whispered to Dickie in awe.

Dickie smiled and said, “wait until you you see the Monarch.”

A few seconds later, the cicadas sounded in unison, just a single swooping drone. The buzz of conversation died down and a group of fireflies, flying in formation, illuminated the Monarch. He spread his wings wide as he beamed at the collected crowd. Zannie was a little taken aback. “Your monarch is a butterfly?”

Dickie rolled his eyes. “He’s not just our monarch, he’s the Monarch. Sure, there are others of his species, but this one is ours.”

Zannie looked at the butterfly. He was impressive, to be sure, with orange and black striped wings and white on black spots along the edges. The Monarch was large, too, by firefly standards, but Zannie noticed that this butterfly had more than just size on his side. He had a presence. Zannie couldn’t put his finger on it, but something made him pay attention to the Monarch, more than just the firefly light that was focused on him.

“My fellow denizens of Fairfield,” the Monarch began. “This is an auspicious night. A night of great fortune and of great potential.” A low buzz went through the crowd that Zannie supposed was agreement. “Tonight,” continued the Monarch, “we welcome the newest member of our community. He will not be with us for long.” A sadder buzz rippled through the crowd. The Monarch made placating gestures. “Though his time with us is necessarily short, we will give him the warmest welcome, the most sincere admiration, and the most loving embrace we can give!” A loud buzz went through the crowd, cheering.

Dickie fluttered his wings in excitement. “Here it comes,” he whispered. Zannie looked through the encroaching night, trying to see the great, green butterfly of firefly legend.

“Butterflies and moths, bees, insects, and all denizens of Fairfield,” said the Monarch in a loud voice, “I give you, the great Luna Moth!” He thrust his tiny arms upwards and lifted his wings to direct attention above him along the tree trunk. A second firefly spotlight shone on a spot almost a foot above the Monarch’s head.

Zannie immediately looked at the spot and let his eyes take it in. The moth was larger than Zannie had ever seen, with a wingspan nearly as big as his own and two or three times as tall. But where Zannie’s body was much longer than his wings, the moth’s body was shorter than its impressive wings. They were a luminous pale green with spots of red and yellow near the bottom that looked like eyes. It seemed unafraid of the spotlight and fluttered its wings briefly, much to the delight of the gathered crowd. They buzzed and chipped in excited appreciation.

After a few moments, the Monarch said, “as I said, he can’t stay long, but he has agreed to stay long enough for the traditional summer dance.” The Monarch nodded to someone in the crowd and festive buzzing music began to play. The crowd mingled around, finding partners of the appropriate species, or at least appropriate wing count, to dance with. When the melody of the song repeated, the dancers fluttered, twirled, crawled, or otherwise cavorted with their partner, all the while letting out a happy, hooping buzz of celebration.

Zannie grinned and watched the dance with amazement. The pixies had dances, but only pixies ever joined in. Here, all the different insects danced together in a loose choreograph, allowing for differences in height or wing-structure between partners. It was controlled chaos and Zannie was entranced.

“Didn’t I tell you it would be awesome?” said Dickie.

Zannie could only nod in agreement. This day had been, in a word, awesome.