Page 2 of Fixing the Grumpy Pumpkin King
This was what happened when you were forgotten.
He should be angry.
He was angry.
But mostly, he was just tired.
And yet…something was happening…
Something tugged at him, forcing his eyes to snap open.
It was subtle at first. A pull, like a hook catching under his ribs. He sat up straighter, his heart suddenly pounding. He knew this feeling. He’d known it once, long ago, before mortals forgot how to speak to gods properly.
Summoning magic.
The pull came again, stronger this time. Insistent. His hands gripped the arms of the chair hard enough that the wood groaned. This couldn’t be real. After 259 years of silence, of being forgotten, cast aside like a seasonal decoration packed away in an attic...
Someone was speaking to him.
The air around him began to shimmer. The vines on the walls suddenly brightened, their colors flooding back as if someone had turned up the saturation on reality itself. Gold bled into true gold. Red became crimson. Orange burned like fire.
The summoning intensified. It was a yanking now, urgent and undeniable, dragging him toward the veil between worlds. His realm responded, power surging through him like blood returning to a sleeping limb.
It hurt.
It was overwhelming.
It was glorious.
Chapter One
TheveiltoreandLord Mabon stumbled through.
Power flooded his limbs like fire through kindling, sudden and overwhelming after centuries of barely existing. His knees buckled. Real magic. Real form. Real presence for the first time in 259 years.
He was here. Actually here.
Lord Mabon took a breath, and it filled his lungs with startling clarity. He could feel things. The weight of his robes. The solidity of the ground. The magic thrumming through his veins.
He blinked, taking in his surroundings.
A theater?
Not even a proper theater. Some converted community space with folding chairs and a backdrop that looked like enthusiastic children had painted it. Jack-o’-lanterns lined the stage. Plastic ones, garish and battery-powered. Harsh fluorescent lights buzzed overhead.
Two hundred and fifty-nine years of waiting, and he’d been summoned to this?
Of course. Of course this is what I get.
He’d imagined this moment countless times from his scrying pool in the Loam. A proper ceremony. Offerings of harvest fruits. Someone who understood who he was.
Instead: plastic decorations and folding chairs.
But he was HERE. Solid and real, no longer fading in that empty castle. That was what mattered.
Wind whipped around, his wind, carrying the scent of wet forest and sweet apples. Leaves swirled up from the stage floor in a spiral, caught in the vortex of his arrival. Orange smoke billowed, thick and dramatic, and the lights flickered overhead.
Well. If he was going to arrive in this mortal embarrassment of a venue, he might as well make an entrance.
