Thank-you everyone who has reviewed here is another one for you.
He was right. It would take exactly two years to learn to speak, read, and write with a tiny quill. It took exactly one month of that time to get it through his head that the letter B and the animal were two different things. Once he could talk though he talked an awful lot.
"Oy! Plant more flowers, 'ow am I supposed to pollinate with only one?" And other things like, "The puzzles are escaping again, can't you tell them to settle down, I'm trying to sleep 'ere."
Although most of the noises coming out of his mouth were complaints, Elizabeth was able to have a nice conversation with him. She wasn't sure how he got such a thick accent, as she didn't have one. But she let it go because it was so "adorable." He had decided to stick with the name Beasly saying "it suited em" which pleased Lizzie most of all.
As days passed, he looked over the puzzles, counted them, and made sure they didn't escape the little house. From the looks of things the puzzles loved him. They danced around him illuminating the whole house. Every once in a while he would sit down and try to solve the poor things. He felt sorry for them; for every time a puzzle wasn't solved it was trapped as a sphere of light unable to spread its cleverness. When puzzles couldn't find someone to solve them they would come to Beasly and Lizzie. They had a lot of visitors who would challenge the puzzles. Out of the large amounts of people who came, only one or two were able to solve one. The puzzles then would burst, beams of light scattering everywhere. The puzzles left behind a weird type of currency that would show the owner had beaten them. Then the puzzle would disappear looking for a new challenger. These picarats, as they were called, were very rare; you could even sell them for large quantities of money.
So this was how the days of Beasly and Lizzie were spent. Each day was like the next. Beasly forgot all about his question of his secret power. While Lizzie's clairvoyant prediction was about to be set in motion.
"What's with all the rush this morn, Lizzie," Beasly asked sitting on the edge of a teacup, waiting for it to cool. Lizzie was rushing back and forth from the kitchen to her bedroom.
"I'm just getting ready," she put red lipstick on in a hurry, "for an important business meeting."
"Oh! So it's a date then?" he said with a smug smile.
"Strictly business," she smiled and patted him on the head knocking him into the tea.
"What was that for," he sputtered.
"I'm so sorry!" she pulled him out of the cup and set him on a napkin.
"You could 'ave killed me," he said coughing after each word.
"I just meant to tap you lightly on the head. I guess I'm just a bit scatterbrained because of my da- I mean business meeting," she corrected herself; she picked her purse up off the counter, "I'll be back by eleven."
"I'll watch the shop; don't worry your pretty little head about it," he said drying out his wings, "Go have fun on you date. Your apprentice has it under control."
"Thanks Beasly I will." She walked out the door; it had only been a second when she opened it back up, "It is not a date!"
"Of course not, go!" he said waving a hand.
"Okay, bye," she said and left again.
"Humans!" he muttered.
Later that night, Beasly had just put all the puzzles to bed for the night when the door slammed open and in walked Lizzie. She had a look of complete bliss on her face. "So 'ow was it?"
"Amazing!" she was ready to burst with information. She sat down in an old rocker, Beasly floated comfortably in the air in front of her. All of the puzzle sped out of the house and gathered at Lizzie's feet like excited children.
"You woke the puzzles, great," he rolled his eyes, "Well don't just sit there tell us more."
"He is an amazing man," she started, "he's so amazing!"
"We get it, amazing, anything else?" he asked.
"He's a mechanic, he showed me something he made," she looked both ways and held out a tiny person.
"It looks almost exactly like a real human," he said in wonder.
"It's just a prototype, but looks so real. You can't even tell it's a robot," she put the little toy away.
"Can you tell me the name of this fine gent?" all of the puzzles shook in agreement.
"His name is Bruno," she said it as if she was in a trance.
"All right all right," Beasly said shooing the puzzles back into the house, "You got your bedtime story now it's time for bed."
"Goodnight," she called to the puzzles who moved very slowly getting back to bed.
"They act like children!" Beasly exclaimed.
"I saw him in one of my visions," she said closing her eyes and rocking slowly back and forth in her chair.
"That reminds me, you told me, before I could talk, every puzzle keeper has a power." He said.
"Yes?" she said not opening her eyes.
"What is, what is mine?" he asked a bit nervously.
"Oh," she opened one eye, "you can't die."
"What!" he yelled waking the puzzles.
"You're immortal, eternal, you live forever," she said drowsily.
"I can't die," he repeated not sure what to feel or think.
"Yeah," she murmured and promptly fell asleep.