The Love Fruit

Of all the magical items coveted by wizards, and well, pretty much everyone, the Love Fruit is definitely number one. It’s more desired than the Smiling Sword, more yearned for than the Never Ending Toast, and more hankered after than the Peculiar Cat.

One bite of the Love Fruit, and you will feel loved and cared for the rest of your life. Not by anyone in particular mind you. In fact it wouldn’t matter if your whole family fell off a cliff and at the funeral your girlfriend told you she’d been having makeout sessions with your brother and she thought you were actually weird looking and had stink breath. You would just smile and shrug and say, “That’s okay, I know I am still loved and valued.” So basically you’d be a real dumbass, but you wouldn’t care.

Now the thing you have to know about the Love Fruit is that the second someone takes a bite out of it, it disappears and starts growing someplace new. It’s impossible to know where it will end up, but it’s almost always someplace hard to reach, like the top of some freezing mountain, or a goblin king’s unwashed back. One time it even ended up growing by one of those hot vents at the bottom of the ocean they talk about in earth science. It stayed there for a thousand years or so, and probably would still be there today, except one of those glow in the dark crabs wandered by and licked it.

Anyway, there were these three wizards named Grimmyer, Hokelstein, and Philathird who all wanted the Love Fruit real bad. They used to be best friends but their lust for the fruit had driven them mad, and now they were total dicks any time they ran into each other, which honestly wasn’t all that often because they spent most of their time looking into their magic peering crystals and sending out crow minions all over the freaking place. Once one of Hokelstein’s crows actually found the fruit, but then it just ate it and flew off, which goes to show that sending a crow out to bring you back food is a pretty stupid idea.

It was Grimmyer who finally found it. He was absently flipping through his peering crystals, not even trying that hard, when he stopped to watch a couple of peasants fighting over who’s turn it was to brush the dirt off the pigs. He was laughing pretty hard because one of the peasants had just said, “I’ll brush the dirt off my pig after I take it out of your butt!” so he almost didn’t notice the Love Fruit growing on a bush next to the pig pen. After he wiped the tears from his eyes he thought, “Hmm is that a kiwi growing on a bush?” (the Love Fruit changed the kind of fruit it was every time it moved which is another thing that made it hard to find) “Don’t they usually grow on vines? Besides it’s not even the right season fo… OH HOLY SHIT!”

Quickly he jumped on his flying board and zoomed down to the farm, startling the ever loving shit out of the fighting peasants, who thought they were gonna get in trouble for their dirty talk. Grimmyer, who obviously didn’t give two craps, was about to grab the fruit and take a big juicy bite of it, when he was knocked out of the air by a huge bolt of lightning. “That’s weird,” he thought, “It didn’t even look like rain when I left.” For a wizard, Grimmyer was dumb as hell.

“Unhand that fruit!” shouted Philathird from atop his flying horse, “Thou are not worthy of its blessings!”

“Shut up, Philathird!” yelled Grimmyer, “You’re a pretentious dick! Why don’t you go fuck your horse!”

Before they could trade any more clever barbs, the entire bush started floating up into the air where Hokelstein was waiting on top of a cloud he had summoned.

“Ah hell no!” Philathird and Grimmyer said at the same time as they rushed after him.

Hokelstein tried to get away, but he forgot that clouds were not the fastest modes of transportation. The other two wizards quickly caught up with him. Grimmyer cast Slime at Hokelstein. Hokelstein cast Mud Wave at Grimmyer, and Philathird cast Lizard Storm at them both. As you might imagine, the two peasants watching from below had a pretty disgusting time.

After battling for what seemed like hours, Philathird suddenly paused mid-blast. “Hey,” he said, “What happened to the fruit?” All three wizards looked at the bush and saw that The Love Fruit was gone.

“Holy shit!” they all said at once and raced toward the ground.

There, standing in his pen, stood the happiest pig any of them had ever seen.

They all three stood there for a long time trying not to bust out in tears, until finally Philathird cried out, “I can’t believe that goddamn pig gobbled down my Love Kiwi!”

Grimmyer and Hokelstein looked at each other and busted out laughing. Soon Philathird and even the peasants joined in, although that was mainly because they were glad that the wizard fight was over and they didn’t die.

Later, at the feast, everyone agreed that, although they were sad it had disappeared again, the Love Fruit made the pig taste really delicious.