What made magic so wondrous?
Moving mountains, overturning seas, and taking lives were merely its basic functions.
It could turn polar wastes locked in ice for thousands of miles into a land brimming with spring, or transform a dark, sealed cavern into a pristine paradise.
It could restore youth to the elderly, or instantly reduce a healthy, robust person to a handful of dust.
Before God created the world, who could have known how rich and colorful it would be?
So magic, at its heart, was an extension of imagination-as long as you dared to dream!
When Shawn stepped through the rippling, ocher-colored archway, he was immediately awestruck by a fantastical scene that could only have existed in dreams.
Just beyond the archway was a mountaintop. Shawn gazed down at a vast grassland encircled by mountains, feeling as though he had arrived in heaven itself.
Lush green grass, blue skies and white clouds, babbling streams, and fruit hanging in abundance.
The simplest, most unassuming elements of nature had come together to create the most inviting place imaginable.
A light rain seemed to have just passed through, and a fine mist still lingered among the mountain woods.
Halfway down the mountain, a herd of magnificent, pure silver unicorns wandered beside a clear stream flowing over stones, accompanied by golden-haired foals.
The unicorn that had brought Shawn inside was clearly the undisputed head of the herd. Its wives-however many there were-immediately surrounded it, and they began licking one another.
Shawn did not disturb its happy family life. He continued downhill, taking in the scenery as he walked.
Rare birds unseen in the outside world hopped among the branches, their chirping both lively and strangely peaceful.
Among the fragrant grasses of the central plain, flocks of sheep grazed, while other animals he could