Better Safe Than Sorry

In a wide forest where rivers wound like silver threads through the trees, all the animals lived in a rhythm they believed would never change.

The deer grazed in the open meadows. The rabbits tunneled beneath the roots. The birds nested high in the canopy and sang as if the sky itself belonged to them.

At the center of one great river was a small island—rocky, bare, and often ignored. The animals called it useless because it grew nothing and offered little shelter. Only the turtles visited it, basking quietly in the sun.

The turtles, however, were cautious creatures.

They often said, “The forest is generous, but it is not always safe.”

Most of the animals laughed at them.

“What danger could there be in such a perfect place?” they said. “We have food, water, and shade everywhere.”

The turtles did not argue. They simply remembered older seasons, when the wind had changed suddenly and the land had not been kind.

One dry year, the forest grew restless.

The wind shifted for many days without rain. The trees whispered differently at night. The air became sharp, as if holding its breath.

The turtles climbed onto the island more often.

“Something is wrong,” they said. “The forest is too quiet.”

But the deer continued to graze. The birds continued to nest. The rabbits continued to dig.

“There is always something wrong, according to the cautious,” they replied. “Life goes on.”

Then, one afternoon, a thin column of smoke rose far beyond the hills.

At first it seemed small.

Then it grew.

The fire came not as a spark, but as a moving wall.

It raced through the forest faster than any animal could run. The trees that had stood for generations were swallowed in roaring flame. The ground itself seemed to glow as the fire advanced, driven by wind and dry branches.

The animals fled in every direction, confused and panicked. Some ran toward rivers, only to find the heat already there. Some ran deeper into the forest, only to meet more fire.

The sky turned dark with smoke.

And still the fire came.

Only a few remembered the island.

Those who reached it swam or leapt into the river, desperate and exhausted. The turtles helped them onto the rocky shore, where there was no grass, no shelter, only safety.

From the island, they watched the forest burn.

The deer that had once been so confident were gone. The rabbits that had laughed at caution were gone. The birds that had filled the sky with song were gone.

The forest they had known became ash and silence.

Days later, when the fire finally passed, the island remained.

Blackened trees stood like memory across the water. Slowly, new shoots would return to the land, but it would not be the same forest again.

The surviving animals stayed on the island until it was safe to return.

And when they finally did, they remembered what the turtles had said all along.

“Better safe than sorry,” they repeated quietly, no longer as a joke, but as a lesson carved into survival itself.

The Fable of Tlaloc’s Waters and the Last Sun of the Fourth Age

In the days when the world was still counted in Suns, the heavens grew uneasy.

First, the sun turned a pale white, as if it had forgotten warmth. Then it burned red like a warning eye, and the sky began to crack with strange fire—lightning without storms, falling from above like the heavens had lost their balance.

The elders of the temples said the Fourth Sun was weakening.

The Shaking of the Earth

As the red sun deepened toward darkness, the earth began to tremble.

Mountains groaned. Valleys shifted. The ground split in places where no one expected, as if the world were trying to turn itself inside out.

And then the oceans answered.

Great waves rose from the distant sea—tsunamis that rolled across the coastlands, swallowing shores and pulling whole stretches of land back into the deep.

The people of the Fourth Sun cried out to the gods, but the sky only flickered with that strange falling fire, as if the heavens themselves were speaking in warning, not mercy.

The Arrival of Tlaloc’s Flood

Then came Tlaloc.

He was the rain-bringer, the keeper of storms and waters, and his mood was not always gentle.

From the darkened sky, the rain began—not as drops, but as endless sheets that turned rivers into roaring paths and filled the world’s hollows without stopping.

The sea rose higher. The land sank lower. The world became a single, unbroken flood.

Above it all, the sun dimmed into a strange shadowed glow, no longer white or red, but fading—as if the Fourth Age itself were being washed away.

The Few Who Escaped

Among the people was a small group who had listened to the old warnings written in the trembling of the earth and the strange fire in the sky.

They gathered within a hollow vessel carved from a great tree. Around them, the world disappeared beneath water and wind.

Some say the gods took pity not on their strength, but on their awareness.

As the flood rose, Tlaloc’s waters covered the old world completely, erasing temples, cities, and memories alike.

But life did not end.

It changed.

The New Beings

When at last the rains slowed and the waters began to fall back, the survivors emerged into a silent, reshaped earth.

The Fourth Sun had ended.

From the remnants of life, new forms appeared—some human, some animal, some something between memory and dream. The world was no longer ruled by certainty, but by transformation.

And above them, the sun returned once more—faint, uncertain, but alive again, beginning what would become the Fifth Age.

The Lesson of the Fable

And so the fable of Tlaloc teaches this:

When the sun changes colour, when fire falls from the sky, when the earth shakes and the seas rise beyond their bounds, it is not only punishment—it is transition.

The world does not simply end.

It is washed, remade, and given another chance to become something different.

Call for Submissions: Peasant Magazine

 

Peasant Magazine is seeking submissions for Issue #2. Specifically it is looking for fantasy, historical fantasy, historical fiction and magical realism stories that are between 1,000 and 8,000 words in length.

PM is a free nonprofit fantasy/historical fiction/magical realism literary magazine that focuses on stories set on earth prior to 1750 or set in a fantasy world.

Furthermore stories don't have to be 'first time publications'. They also accept reprints of previously published works.

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Peasant Magazine Issue #1, 8x11

Peasant Magazine Issue #1, Free PDF

 

 

The Fable of Great Yu and the Wandering Waters

In the early age of the world, the sky changed in unsettling ways. The sun lost its steady gold and turned a pale, watching white, as if it no longer approved of the land below. Later it deepened into a burning red, and strange fire fell from the heavens—streaks of light that struck mountains and plains like warnings written in flame.

The earth itself began to respond. The ground shook in deep, rolling earthquakes that cracked riverbeds and shifted hills from their ancient places. Rivers forgot their paths and spilled across the land. From the distant coasts, great tsunamis surged inland, swallowing fields and villages, returning them to the sea.

It was said that Heaven had become unbalanced, and so Earth could no longer remain still.

The floods did not stop. Waters rose and spread until valleys became lakes and roads became submerged channels. People fled to high ground, but even the hills were not safe, for the land itself continued to tremble and reshape beneath them.

At first, the people tried to fight the waters directly. They built walls and barriers, but the floods broke through again and again. The skyfire continued to flicker above them in the red-tinged heavens, as if the world were still being warned while it continued to fall apart.

In this time of chaos lived Great Yu, a man who did not argue with the heavens or curse the waters. He listened instead to the shape of the land and the behavior of the rivers. He saw that the problem was not only the rising water, but the broken paths of the earth itself.

While others built higher walls, Yu chose a different task. He walked the world, following the flooded valleys and the trembling ground. He observed where the waters wanted to go, even as earthquakes shifted the land beneath his feet and distant waves continued to rise from the oceans.

Great Yu began to guide the waters rather than resist them. He cut channels through the land so the floods could move instead of overwhelm. He opened paths for rivers so they could return to their natural courses. Where the earth had been shattered by shaking and where tsunamis had erased the coasts, he shaped new routes for balance to return.

The sky above slowly changed as he worked. The red of the sun faded. The strange fire in the heavens grew less frequent, as though the warning had been received and the chaos was beginning to settle.

At last, the waters began to withdraw. Rivers stayed within their channels. The land stopped trembling so violently. The world, though changed, was no longer breaking apart.

Great Yu did not build an ark or escape the flood. Instead, he learned its logic and taught the earth to hold it.

The fable of Great Yu teaches this:

When the sun changes colour, when fire falls from the sky, when earthquakes and tsunamis reshape the world, the challenge is not always to flee or to survive by separation. Sometimes the task is to understand the flow of destruction itself, and to reshape the world so that what overflows can become order again.

Free Fantasy Magazine releases first issue

 

 

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