"The little mushroom owed a lot to the sun, it felt, and the rain, and the little paws that ran by, the quick, tapping, hooves, and the worms in the dirt. The little mushroom often thought – and it had a lot of time to think, being a mushroom, that couldn't see, nor hear, nor move:
"'If I could see,' it thought, 'or hear, or move, perhaps I could know more of these wonderful things that helped me grow, and I could help them in return.'
"But it could not. It was a mushroom, who could only feel the strength of all it drew strength from, and grow. And one day it was eaten, and that was that.
"But what the little mushroom – who had become quite a big mushroom by the time it was eaten, to be honest – did not know was that, while it could not see, nor hear, nor move, it did glow. As it grew, it did glow. When the sun could not shine, it did glow, and it glowed with the gentle coolness of the rain that had rolled down its folds.
"In the night, it did glow, with that gentle coolness, and the owners of the little paws, the quick tapping hooves - by the glow, they did find their ways home.
"And when came the day, not long after it was eaten, that it returned to the earth…well, it helped the earthworms too.
"But perhaps it did know, now that it was one with the earth, from whence it came, the all-knowing earth through which the Motherfather gives life. Perhaps it now knew, unseeing, unhearing, unmoving as it was, in its way, it did help. And perhaps it was content."
"That seemed like an awfully specific parable, Shroud," Beauty Past Compare said, rather unimpressed, when he was done, "well, are you content?"
"Perhaps," he laughed, and turned towards the sun.
END