The Mage Who Forgot the Controls

Meridian the Magnificent was, by all accounts, an exceptional mage. His robes were embroidered with the constellations of the Seven Skies, his staff hummed with crystalline energy, and his beard flowed like a silver river down to his belt. He had defeated dragon swarms, toppled tyrant kings, and once stopped an avalanche by yelling at it very sternly.

And yet, on a crisp autumn morning, as the village of Thornwick prepared for its annual Harvest Fair, Meridian discovered a problem.

He had forgotten… the controls.

Not the metaphysical “controls of destiny” or the philosophical “controls of the mind.” No—he had literally forgotten the commands for his magic.

It began with a simple request.

“Meridian!” called Clara, the blacksmith’s apprentice. “Could you light the ovens for the pie contest? We’ve got fifty pumpkin pies to bake and no time to waste!”

“Of course,” Meridian said confidently. He twirled his staff, pointed at the ovens, and… paused.

The incantation for summoning fire was… what again? Something like Ignis Flamora? Or was it Flamora Ignis? No, that one might summon a flaming boar.

“Well,” he muttered, “better just try something.”

He raised his staff and declared, “Ignis… something-or-other!”

A cloud of shimmering blue light burst from the staff—and turned the ovens into three very startled sheep.

The villagers stared. The sheep stared back.

Meridian coughed into his sleeve. “Slight… calibration issue. Happens all the time.”

As the day went on, the situation became more dire.

A child’s balloon drifted into the sky. Meridian tried to summon a gust of wind to bring it down—he ended up making every hat in the village float away instead.

When the mayor asked him to conjure a protective barrier around the fairgrounds, Meridian’s “barrier” instead became a shimmering maze that trapped half the livestock inside and wouldn’t let them out unless they solved a riddle about the moon.

By afternoon, the whispers began.

“Has he lost his touch?”

“Is he cursed?”

“Maybe he’s just… old?”

Meridian, overhearing, frowned. He had been feeling strange lately—his memory fuzzy, his thoughts wandering. His mind had always been sharp as a frost-edged blade, but now, entire spells seemed to have slipped out of his head.

The breaking point came during the pie contest.

All the bakers lined up with their creations, but with the ovens still full of sheep, half the pies were raw. The mayor begged Meridian to fix it.

The mage raised his staff. “Heat, warmth, cooking—how hard can this be?”

He uttered something that sounded like “Therma Bakeus!”

Instantly, every pie grew legs and sprinted away.

The crowd screamed as fifty pumpkin pies ran through the streets of Thornwick, leaping over fences and darting into alleyways like sugary bandits.

Meridian slumped against a stall. “I’m useless,” he muttered to himself. “A mage who can’t remember his own magic might as well be a broomstick in a hat.”

That’s when a small voice piped up.

“You’re not useless,” said Milo, a boy who had been watching from behind a stack of pumpkins. “You just forgot the controls. My granddad says when he forgets how to work the tractor, he reads the manual again.”

Meridian blinked. “Manual?”

“Yeah,” Milo said. “Don’t you have a magic manual?”

The mage thought back. There was an old grimoire, tucked deep in his tower library—a dusty leather-bound tome that had every spell he’d ever learned, written in his own hand. He hadn’t opened it in years. Why would he? He’d known everything by heart.

But now… perhaps it was time to relearn.

That night, Meridian returned to his tower. He found the grimoire exactly where he’d left it, under a pile of unopened letters and a rather judgmental-looking skull. He lit a candle, turned the first page, and began to read.

Hours passed. The words stirred memories—the cadence of incantations, the subtle wrist movements, the importance of visualizing the desired effect before speaking the spell.

And more than that—he remembered why he had started learning magic in the first place. Not for glory, not for applause, but for the simple joy of shaping the world for the better.

The next morning, the village awoke to a sight that made their jaws drop.

The ovens were restored—no sheep in sight. The air was filled with the smell of perfectly baked pies. Every runaway pie had been herded back, now cooling neatly on tables. And a shimmering protective ward surrounded the fairgrounds—not a confusing maze this time, but a warm, golden dome that let everyone in and kept trouble out.

When the mayor asked what had happened, Meridian simply smiled.

“I just remembered the controls.”

The villagers cheered.

From that day forward, Meridian kept the grimoire with him wherever he went—not because he feared forgetting again, but because he’d learned something important:

Even the greatest mage can lose his way, but with patience, humility, and a willingness to relearn, the magic always returns.

And sometimes, he mused with a chuckle, it’s worth keeping a few spare sheep spells handy—just in case the ovens ever got boring again.