I feel like the butterfly from The Last Unicorn, full of song and rhymes, but none of it makes sense. So this is why I write, so thoughts, songs, rhymes and riddles are organized. And that is why I'm writing this, I am a butterfly. So don't listen to me, listen.
Schmendrick sits at the table staring at the apple that is sitting in front of him that he is trying to turn into a pear. He waves his hands over the apple whispering the incantation for the twelfth time, nothing happens. Nikos, who is standing behind him and watching over his shoulder, shakes his head. Schmendrick tries for the thirteenth time; the apple explodes and turns into a fish.
Both men watch as the fish struggles for breath and slowly dies on the table before them. Schmendrick cringes; he has always been terrified by the mere thought of death. Nikos looks sadly at the young magician, he has made up his mind, there is no other way.
"Schmendrick, we must talk," Nikos says turning Schmendrick's chair so that they are facing one another. "My son, your ineptitude is so vast, your incompetence so profound that I am certain you are inhabited by a greater power than I have ever known
"Unfortunately, it seems to be working backward at the moment, and even I can find no way to set it right. It must be that you are meant to find your own way to reach your power in time; but frankly, you should live so long as that will take you.
Therefore I grant it that you shall not age from this day forth, but travel the world round and round, eternally inefficient, until at last you come to yourself and know what you are," Schmendrick opens his moth to thank his mentor, but stops upon observing the grave look on his face.
"Don't thank me. I tremble at your doom," he tells the young magician. Nikos whispers the incantation and moves his hands over the magician's head.
He leaves Schmendrick sitting at the table, both scared and overjoyed at the same time.
A/N: If you couldn't figure it out, this is about the day Nikos puts his 'curse' on Schmendrick. I thought I'd improvise a little bit on Schmendrick's character, but the speech Nikos makes is directly from the book. Check if you don't believe me. Anyways all the characters are © to the great Peter S. Beagle.