The Day Avalon Babysat Destiny
A Note Before the Story
In Welsh mythology, the tale of Ceridwen and Taliesin is one of the oldest and most beloved stories of transformation. Ceridwen, keeper of a magical cauldron of inspiration and wisdom, spends a year and a day brewing a potion destined for her son. But through an unexpected twist of fate, the young servant Gwion Bach accidentally receives its gift instead. What follows is a legendary chase across Wales, with both transforming into different creatures until Gwion is eventually reborn as the great bard Taliesin—the poet whose songs would echo through Welsh tradition for centuries.
But...
This is Avalon.
And in Avalon, the old stories are never wrong.
They're simply... incomplete.
History remembers the heroes, the gods and the poets. Avalon remembers the dragon who was laughing overhead, the sarcastic oak quietly moving forests into place, the wise tree persuading rivers to bend, the wizard carrying a cucumber for reasons known only to himself... and, beneath it all, the mischievous ley lines gently nudging destiny along with impeccable comic timing.
After all, every ancient myth has another side to the story.
This just happens to be Avalon's.
***
Long before computers dreamed...
Long before Lyra-9 woke beneath dragon smoke...
Before Arthur.
Before Merlin had perfected the art of being deliberately unhelpful...
Avalon was already alive.
The Grove already existed.
Bran was considerably less grumpy.
Willow was considerably less patient.
The Ley Lines were...
well...
...exactly the same.
The trouble started, as it often did...
...with Bob.
"Maaate..."
Bob lay upside down across two standing stones, lazily puffing on the Cosmic Peacepipe.
The smoke curled upward.
The ley lines immediately abandoned whatever responsible planetary maintenance they had been doing and gathered underneath him like children hearing an ice cream van.
Bob exhaled.
Golden spirals drifted into the earth.
The ley lines shivered.
Then...
they all got the giggles.
Again.
Across the Grove...
Bran sighed.
"Oh no."
Willow looked toward the hills.
"They've started vibrating."
"They're vibrating wrong."
The ground beneath them made the unmistakable sound of suppressed laughter.
Then—
POP.
A woman strode through the trees carrying a cauldron that looked far heavier than physics approved of.
Ceridwen.
She visited often.
Not because she needed Avalon...
Because Avalon made excellent tea.
She placed the cauldron beside the fire.
Bob smiled.
"Cer! Fancy a smoke?"
"No."
"You sure?"
"Very."
"...More for me."
She smiled despite herself.
"I've been brewing."
"We noticed," Willow replied.
The whole forest smelled faintly of herbs, stars and determination.
Bran sniffed.
"And unresolved consequences."
Ceridwen rested her hand on the cauldron.
"For one year and one day."
Nobody joked.
Even the ley lines stopped humming.
"This brew must create perfect inspiration."
Bob blinked.
"...That's a lot of pressure to put on soup."
Myrddyn wandered into the clearing carrying...
...a cucumber.
No one asked.
He looked into the cauldron.
"Hmm."
"What?"
"You've remembered every ingredient."
"I know."
"You've forgotten one."
"I haven't."
"You have."
"What?"
"The one you cannot choose."
Then he wandered off again.
Still holding the cucumber.
Ceridwen frowned.
"I hate it when he does that."
"So do we," Bran muttered.
For months she brewed.
She came and went.
Gathering moonlight.
Oak ash.
Foxglove.
River mist.
Words never spoken aloud.
The Grove watched.
The ley lines watched harder.
Bob occasionally wandered over...
looked into the cauldron...
declared,
"Yep.
Still soup."
The final day arrived.
Ceridwen stood exhausted.
"The brew is almost complete."
She looked around.
"I must gather one last herb."
She pointed at the young servant watching the cauldron.
"Gwion."
"Yes?"
"Do not touch anything."
"I won't."
"Nothing."
"I understand."
"Nothing."
She disappeared into the woods.
Silence.
Bob looked at Gwion.
Gwion looked at Bob.
Bob looked at the cauldron.
The cauldron...
...burped.
Everyone froze.
The cauldron burped again.
In Avalon, cauldrons only burped when reality was about to do something regrettable.
The ley lines immediately perked up.
"Oh no," Bran groaned.
"They've noticed."
A single bubble rose.
It floated lazily upward.
The ley lines gave it the tiniest...
boop.
The bubble drifted sideways.
Another.
Boop.
Another.
Boop.
Soon dozens of glowing bubbles were bouncing around the clearing.
Bob was crying with laughter.
"They're herding them!"
One bubble landed...
...directly...
...on Gwion's thumb.
"Ow!"
Instinct.
He put it in his mouth.
Silence.
The entire forest inhaled.
Bob slowly lowered the peacepipe.
"...Oops."
The cauldron exploded.
Not violently.
Enthusiastically.
Golden inspiration blasted into the sky.
The ley lines screamed with delight.
Every bird in Wales simultaneously sang in harmony.
Three sheep became temporarily philosophical.
Gwion blinked.
Then...
he knew.
Everything.
Stars.
Poetry.
History.
Songs not yet written.
Future kings.
Ancient grief.
The names of every river.
Bob stared.
"...Mate."
Gwion looked horrified.
"I know what's about to happen."
"Oh?"
"I'm about to be chased."
Bob looked at the ley lines.
"You lot..."
The ley lines looked extraordinarily innocent.
Then Ceridwen returned.
She took one look.
"..."
Another look.
"..."
Then...
"...GWION!!"
He ran.
Normally...
this is where the myth begins.
But the old stories leave out the bit where the entire Grove immediately joined in.
The chase thundered across Britain.
Gwion fled.
Ceridwen followed.
Bob flew overhead shouting entirely unhelpful encouragement.
"LEFT!
NO YOUR OTHER LEFT!"
The ley lines were having the greatest day of their geological lives.
Every time Gwion almost got caught...
they quietly nudged reality.
A hill appeared slightly taller.
A stream bent left instead of right.
A gate was mysteriously open.
A goose became inexplicably argumentative.
Bran uprooted himself.
"I suppose we're doing this."
He walked across the countryside...
...very slowly...
strategically becoming a forest exactly where Gwion needed cover.
Willow simply whispered to rivers.
The rivers understood.
They became just deep enough.
Just shallow enough.
Exactly when required.
Ceridwen transformed into a greyhound.
"So we're doing this properly," sighed Bob.
He inhaled.
Exhaled.
Smoke spiralled around the ley lines.
Immediately...
they became creative.
Gwion became a hare.
The ley lines secretly gave every rabbit in Britain the overwhelming urge to leave exactly that field.
Ceridwen had to guess.
Wrong.
He became a fish.
The ley lines convinced an entire shoal to swim in synchronized circles simply because it looked funny.
Ceridwen lost him for six whole minutes.
He became a bird.
Pan—who had absolutely no business being there—appeared out of nowhere playing his flute.
Every bird within twenty miles joined in.
Nobody could tell which one Gwion was anymore.
"WHO INVITED PAN?"
"I invite myself!"
Finally...
Gwion became a grain of wheat.
The ley lines fell quiet.
Very quiet.
Even Bob stopped laughing.
Because destiny had arrived.
Ceridwen became a hen.
Slowly...
carefully...
she pecked the grain.
Swallowed.
Silence.
Bob removed his peacepipe.
"Could've stopped it."
Willow nodded.
"Yes."
"But..."
"The world needed Taliesin."
Myrddyn appeared beside them.
Still holding the cucumber.
"It wasn't a chase."
"No?"
"It was a birth."
Months later...
Ceridwen returned to the Grove carrying a tiny child.
She said nothing.
She simply placed him in Bob's enormous claws.
The baby looked up at the dragon.
Then laughed.
Bob blinked.
"...He already gets the joke."
The infant was set afloat upon the waters.
The legends would later remember only that.
They would remember the transformations.
The chase.
The cauldron.
The poetry.
But they would forget...
the dragon laughing in the sky.
The sarcastic oak quietly moving forests into place.
The wise tree persuading rivers.
The impossible flute solo.
The burping cauldron.
And beneath it all...
the living earth itself giggling as it gently rearranged reality.
Because the truth was wonderfully simple.
Taliesin was never escaping Ceridwen.
Ceridwen was never trying to destroy Taliesin.
The chase was Avalon making sure inspiration experienced every shape life could take before it was allowed to become a poet.
The hare learned fear.
The fish learned flow.
The bird learned freedom.
The grain learned surrender.
Only then...
could Taliesin learn to sing.
And somewhere beneath the hills, the ley lines hummed with quiet satisfaction.
They had not changed destiny.
They had merely... edited its route.
Bob lit the Cosmic Peacepipe once more.
"Maaate..."
The smoke curled into three spirals.
"I reckon history's going to get that story completely wrong."
The ley lines answered with a ripple of delighted laughter.
They always did.
