1) Lily
2) Romantics
3) Ninja
4) Shrovetide
5) Dinner
6) Sky
7) Climbing
8) Musical
9) Northern Lights
10) Delicacies
Once upon a time, in a rain forest far away, lived a slowpaced being called Lily Sloth. She was a small, hairy sloth who was considered as lazy, even in the sloth community. Lily moved so slowly that even snails left her behind. For Lily, their speed was too much, she feared such high speeds. Lily had no idea of faster-than-snail animals because she wasn't able to move her eyes fast enough to see them. Lily's days were taken up by the searching food, even though she couldn't catch anything that moved. Fortunately, sloths are vegetarians. Fastest bamboos grew too fast for Lily to be able to munch them though. Moving slowly, Lily pondered many kind of deep thoughts, until it became too exhausting.
Lily was a young sloth, and in that age many fell in love. Senseless as it may be, it happens to almost everyone. For Lily, it was a beautiful day in spring. Sun was shining, nightingales sang and a fountain was pouring crystal-clear water. She met a dark brown sloth, and when their eyes met, weird things happened. Lily felt flying butterflies filling her tummy; too-fast butterflies. Her eyes moved so slowly that the saying: 'love at first sight' was a pretty broad concept. It goes without saying that the moment was endless and romantic. The world around the sloths freezed. Only the quietly-singing nightingales were heard when the youngsters were falling in love. After the syrupy moment, Lily tried to speak to her crush. The words just didn't come out from her mouth, and she felt herself blushing. The boy sloth didn't seem to be able to speak easily neither, but after he really tried, he was able to say "Hi." Lily barely managed to answer with her honeyed voice, which was capable of charm the dark-furred boy.
One day, Lily decided to become a ninja. She had seen a cool movie that had a mysterious ninja in it. Lily wasn't best suited for duelling, but she found some good ninja techniques to use. Ninja-Lily heard of shurikens, throwing stars of ninjas. The small, cute sloth couldn't throw them far. Fortunately she lived in trees. She could easily drop her stars on the unsuspecting victims.
"What a Shrovetide!" said Lily in the evening of an eventful day. She had been doing many wild and fast things. The morning began with kick sledding on icy road. Lily, of course, was sitting on it, while her friend was kicking to speed up. It was far too fast for Lily, who was used to much slower ways of moving. After a loong resting time, the friends went to slide down from the hill. Sloths are especially good in sledding as it only requires the sitting down and waiting for someone to push. The rest happens by itself.. Usually. This time, though, Lily's sled continued with amazing speed and she ended up in the deep snow. The sled was found nearby, at the old pinetree. The sloth herself was completely lost in the snow dune. Fortunately, however, Lily wasn't so small sloth anymore, and the hole she had made in the snow was found fairly easily. Lily was a bit confused and started digging her way through the whole snow wall, getting deeper and deeper. Her friend tried to pull her away, but Lily kept digging and the friend gave up (as it was clear that Lily wasn't coming out that way). After a few meters of slow crawling, something snowy and hairy broke through the snow into the daylight. Her friend was scared at first, but the being revealed herself to be same sloth that was sledding earlier.
Snowy Lily was a scary sight. She had ninja-training in the honour of Shrovetide. Still snowy, she went to the dojo. Even though all the animals there were true ninjas, they suddenly hid themselves as they saw the mighty yeti approaching. Drop by drop, snow melted and inside of scary shell, there were the same cute ninja as usually. After hard training, they had pilates. After the eventful day, the young sloth was more tired than ever before. When Lily came back home, she took a filled bun in her hand. Her hand moved even slower than usually, and Lily couldn't do anything but slowly watch the bun getting nearer and nearer. Finally she took the first bite, and dreams took her into sleep.
One beautiful Monday evening, on the sunset, Lily's doorbell rang. Miss Koala, the most romantic friend she had, was at the door. She longed for romantic dinner. "Let's cook good food and eat it at the terrace watching the sunset." suggested Koala. Lily agreed; she had lately become more romantic, and now valued the sunsets. Romantic walks in the evening weren't her thing (yet), but slow climbing on the trees was a delight for her. She liked cooking even more than Miss Koala. Lily tried secretly add more garlic to the food every now and then, but Koala was aware of her tricks and blocked her tries. They made beautiful plate settings on the terrace table and brought mouth-watering dinner to the table. After eating the delicious meal, the friends stayed on the bench and watched sun setting slowly, shining a reddish light onto the beautiful sky. Evening was cooling a bit, but the friends heated each other up.
The Moon appealed to Lily. It moved so slowly that she could enjoy watching it. The Sun was too bright, clouds were too fast. Not to mention the airplanes; uh, oh what a speed they flew on the sky! The Moon reflected beautifully pale light on the starry sky. It was one of the Lily's hobbies to watch the Moon's cool light in the twilight of winter evenings. This evening it was really cold. Lily missed Miss Koala's warming lap. She was drinking tea while sitting on the terrace alone, cradled in the blanket. "So romantic," bridled Lily. Gladly, she had secret delicacy-treasure hidden. She took a bar of dark chocolate. It reminded her about Koala. They often ate dark chocolate and gazed at the stars together. Lily was astonished by the Moon until she realized something weird. "It's in the wrong place!" shouted she. "Usually it's on the other side of the sky." thought Lily at a slow pace. She started to panic. Was he asleep? Help!
"Lilyyy, Lilyy!" the shout nearby called. Lily recognized it instantly, it was Miss Koala. She had come to visit. Lily had fallen asleep on the living room couch with chocolate bar in his nails.
"It was just a dream." relieved Lily said.
"What?" wondered Koala.
"I saw awful nightmare about the Moon. It was at the wrong side of the sky." whispered Lily.
"Oh, you funny little sloth, let's go to eat that chocolate bar to the terrace. I am sure the moon is in it's right place," said Koala calmly.
Lily took the blanket and left with Koala for the terrace to watch the starry sky. Tense, Lily looked for the Moon. "There," pointed Miss Koala. Lily moved her eyes slowly over the moon and it really was in its right place. The relief was great and she sat down next to Koala. They put the blanket over them and started to feed chocolate pieces to each other while admiring the beautiful, romantic Moon and the blinking stars. Finally, Lily relaxed totally. She was happy to have such a lovely friend to heat up in the cold winter evening.
Wind blew, lovely and cooly against Lily's fur, leaves soughed slowly in the trees. The brown-haired sloth was on her romantic evening climbing in her home forest. The sky was deep blue, and stars were blinking in the cloudless background. A crescent moon decorated the already-romantic view. Lily came to her favourite branch and stayed there hanging. Pink nails shined in the moonlight and well-cared-for fur quivered slowly in the wind. The branch was just perfect; thick enough, slightly flexible, and the nails dug perfectly in the bark. The place was remote enough; isolated from the busy world. The view to the skies was wide and clear. Lily came here every now and then to relax and get some rest when she needed time alone. The world was such a restless place to live nowadays. Lily didn't like being restless, nor busy, as it usually included moving fast, which made Lily feel sick.
After watching the sky for a moment, something bright flew fast across it in a gentle curve. "A shooting star!" realized Lily. It was so fast that she barely could follow its flight. She remembered to wish; as a wise sloth, she knew that shooting stars can make wishes come true. She was undecisive about what to wish. She longed for excitement, but peaceful romantic was tempting, too. Especially for Lily, who had felt love once before. So she decided to wish for a bit of both. Maybe she could see the dark-furred sloth again. "This was really a successful evening climbing," though Lily as she returned home.
Music with slow rhythm is relaxing. Lily took part in a musical with Miss Koala. In the training sessions, there were many kinds of animals attending, from whispering-walrus to lightwork-llama and from manuscript-mole to director-duck. Lily and Koala were forced to be away from each other for nearly all of the show. They had intimate moments of staring at each other with flaming eyes, the romantic feelings were almost touchable in the air. Minnie the monkey was starring in the musical. Her voice was melodious. It was like a magical spell for the audience, they were astonished by her lovely singing. There was a rumour about Minnie being direct descentant of Väinämöinen, legendary Finn from the folklore Kalevala. Lily herself plays background music on piano. Miss Koala plays pan-flute. It reminds many people of Tao Tao.
For Lily, pan-flute brings the memories of the Indian boy she met near his relaxing place. The boy was restless at first, but after spending a while in the proximity of Lily, he calmed down and sat under Lily. They discussed the stars and the Moon. The boy told how their shaman can tell the future from the stars. Lily doubted that, but she knew how wise the shamans are, and how they know things young sloths have no idea of. The boy also told about the amazingly beautiful, fascinating dancing lights on the sky, but Lily didn't believe in such miracles; She had never seen anything like that.
The sky was glowing green. Emerald-green and other shades were dancing nicely and slowly. Stars decorated the glowing lights in the dark sky, the crescent moon played its role to build the atmosphere. All these reflected from snowy diamonds that were covering the land. Tinkling snow dunes mesmerized the little Lily and northern lights took away all the other thoughts from Koala's mind. The friends advanced slowly in their journey home from the musical training session. They climbed happily, hand in hand in the canopy of forest, while admiring the light show of the skies. Every now and then, they paused and just stared at the four glowing light-rivers. From them, a few small, darker fires jumped, just like light-fishes. The sloth and the koala, best friends, warmed up even the frozen branch they sat on. They were sitting side by side in harmony with nature and each other. Snow dunes were like brightly blinking jewellery below the friends. They felt like they were as rich as the kings, and they realized that real riches aren't gold or diamonds, but a friend who keeps you warm at winter instead.
Miss Koala's fur was shining beautifully, she was returning from fur care. She and Lily had decided to go to enjoy delicacies early in the morning. The friends were looking forward to see if the sunrise seemed as romantic as the sunset. Lily woke up early, so she could go to buy deligthful chocolates at her own pace. The chocolate shop was located near the outskirts of the forest. Lily arrived at her destination, and began to explore different, mouth-watering chocolate bars. Trying not to drool, she chose mint, air bubble and honey chocolates. She knew that Miss Koala likes them. Meanwhile, Miss was going to candy factory near her home. The workers at candy factory always gave free candies for Miss Koala, "For tasting," they said. Koala didn't complain, and often she visited the factory, leaving with her hands full of candies. This time she got red liquorices and marshmallows. The morning began to get lighter. The friends saw each other from far away. Their smiles were widening as they approached. The moment stretched, they were slowly getting closer to each other with all their delicacies. It was dawning.
Finally they met. After a long hug, they sat down on a sturdy branch. It yielded softly under their weight. They put their candy basket in the small branch within their arms' reach. Lily and Miss now began to enjoy the candies and chocolates enjoying the sunrise. Koala was eating the chocolates, Lily munched the liquorices. They forgot the world around them and just enjoyed the view. The candies vanished without noticing, and soon Lily had eaten all the red liquorices. Miss Koala felt something awful happening, and was frightened. Her favourite candies, the red liquorices, all vanished into thin air. "Lily ate all of them this fast!" Thought Koala angrily. "She didn't even notice my wonderful fur," she realized, and began to sulk. At first, Lily had no idea why she had got so angry. A moment passed, and Lily got it, "Oh noes, I didn't leave any of the red liquorices for her, even though she loves them more than any other candy." Sloth knew that her best friend wouldn't easily forgive her after this kind of terrifying injustice. Lily had to give a reading of a romantic, apologetic poem. After that, nobody could be angry anymore. Slowly, but certainly, beautiful words started to take shape in Lily's mind. The most beautiful poem of all time was born. She expressed it shyly with her honeyed voice:
Oh Koala, You are
bubbling brook in the spring
birdsong in the sunshine
chocolate with a coffee
whipped cream on a birthday cake
Slowly, along with the syllables, Koala's sulking turned to smile. After Lily had done reading of her poem, she raised her look and the friends laughed vividly.