It began on a lazy mid-morning when Sabel, having just recovered from a minor cold and a landlady-induced dunk in the lake, strolled outside the café with a croissant in his mouth and bed-hair still blooming like a crown of chaos. His parrot friend, Percival, rode on his shoulder, nipping at flakes of pastry and throwing unsolicited truths at passersby.
"That man just lied to his wife about where he was last night," said Percival, flapping.
"Let him have his secrets, bird. It's too early," Sabel yawned. "Besides, I'm bored. Again."
As fate often does, it intervened in the form of a glint—a flicker of odd shimmer just under a rusty old roadside delivery box. Now, the box had been there forever. No one noticed it. Even the mice avoided it. But Sabel was a creature of boredom-fueled curiosity.
He knelt down, croissant still half in mouth, and opened the box. Click!
Inside were smooth, rainbow-hued pebbles, swirling with moving lights—magic rocks.
"Whoa," he whispered. "Percival, am I hallucinating?"
"Nope," said the bird. "But those rocks are humming with illusion magic. Chaotic, too. Be careful."
"Be careful," Sabel mocked. "Since when have I ever—?"
The second he touched one, it sizzled, blinked, and poof! he was gone.
A puff of feathers and pastry crumbs marked his disappearance.
Sabel reappeared standing in the middle of the marketplace—except he now looked like an extremely well-dressed llama.
"BAH!" he shouted. "I mean, wait—NO! WHAT?!"
"Llama prince!" shouted a cabbage vendor, fainting dramatically.
Sabel danced in place on hooves, panicking. "Percival! Undo this!"
"You touched the prank rocks," said Percival from above, now riding a cart pulled by four confused ferrets. "Enjoy the consequences."
A group of children ran up to the llama-prince and began throwing bits of fruit to him. He tried to protest, but all that came out was: "MMMRAAAA!"
It took an hour of flailing, bribing a baby sorcerer, and falling into three decorative fountains before Sabel returned to his true self.
Panting and soaked, he staggered back to the box, eyes wild with revenge—and glee.
"These things are awesome."
Over the next few hours, Sabel "accidentally" dropped a few rocks near the café's outdoor tables. Chaos ensued.
One grumpy customer morphed into a duck mid-complaint and started paddling in the coffee cream bowl.
A street performer began juggling invisible bananas and became convinced he was the King of Apes.
A noblewoman's hair transformed into a garden of singing flowers that debated about the ethics of tea.
Sabel? He stood behind the counter with his apron, notepad, and wicked grin.
"Special today?" he chirped. "Chaos au lait."
Unfortunately, not everyone appreciated the fun.
Rosemary, the café's co-owner and chief of all things reasonable, returned from errands to find a lizard reciting poetry to a table leg and a customer having a polite argument with his own hat.
"SABEL!"
The prince froze mid-pour.
"Yes, darling blossom of order?"
"What did you do?!"
"Technically, I just found the rocks. You can't blame me for being... a conduit of discovery."
She didn't reply. She simply grabbed his ear and twisted. Hard.
After several minutes of stern lecture, Sabel was sentenced to clean up the entire area, return all transformed patrons to normal, and lock the rocks in a magically sealed teapot labeled "DO NOT TOUCH (Seriously, Sabel!)".
Later that night, Sabel sat on the rooftop with Percival, sipping ginger tea and watching the stars.
"You know," said Percival, "you could've started a riot. Or turned into a goat again."
"Worth it," Sabel said, legs dangling, cheeks still red from Rosemary's twist-of-doom.
"People do need fun, I suppose," said the parrot. "Even if it means a few magical tail-feathers now and then."
"I'm just making the world more interesting," Sabel said, holding up one remaining pebble he'd accidentally kept. "One chaos rock at a time."
Percival sighed. "You're incorrigible."
"And you're still riding a cart led by ferrets."
"…Touché."
And above the mischievous café, under the moonlit sky, a prince, a parrot, and a hidden pebble plotted quietly… until the next round of magical mischief began.