Quaxly and the River of Mirrors

Quaxly has practiced the perfect start for a canyon race. Beyond the first bend, glittering reflections turn every easy answer into another question.

9 min read · Adventure · October 4, 2026

A beautiful start

Quaxly had practiced his starting pose in three puddles and a polished saucepan. His feet would begin just behind the line. His chest would face the first marker. His head would turn slightly, so the spectators could appreciate his carefully arranged crest. The pose was ready. The river, which had not attended any of those rehearsals, kept sliding past as though it had other plans.

The race began in a broad pool above Mirror Canyon. Course flags led through a gentle channel to the finish meadow, with marshals waiting at the difficult turns. It was a friendly event, but Quaxly had decided friendship could happen after he won. He inspected the blue markers downstream, then glanced at Buizel, who was swimming small circles to warm up and paying no attention to poses.

Lotad waited near the bank, its broad leaf holding a bead of water. It seemed too calm to be a serious competitor. Quaxly watched it drift, correct its position by a tiny movement, and drift again. He assumed it was merely avoiding effort. The marshal explained that the flags were blue with white ties, that racers must pass each real marker, and that anyone could stop at a safe landing if they needed help.

Quaxly listened to the word blue and felt prepared. The flags were obvious. The river went downhill. He had been quick in every practice session. Across the pool, a breeze lifted the ribbons tied to the spectators' fence. Lotad watched those ribbons longer than it watched the starting line. Buizel turned onto his back for a moment, then righted himself and settled beside Quaxly.

The starting horn sounded. Quaxly's first burst was exactly as he had imagined: clean, quick, and just ahead of Buizel's nose. His crest stayed neat. The spectators clapped. He reached the first marker with a lead of several lengths and turned toward the canyon. The river narrowed between pale walls. Sunlight bounced off the water and flashed against the stone until the whole entrance seemed to sparkle.

Behind him, Buizel held a steady pace. Lotad followed a line close to the bank, where the current moved differently. Quaxly did not bother to study either choice. He wanted to increase his lead before the narrow channel. A blue flag appeared ahead on the right. He turned toward it, paddling hard, and found another blue flag glowing directly beneath it in the water.

At first the second flag seemed irrelevant. Then the river bent, the canyon wall threw back another reflection, and four blue shapes appeared where he had expected one. Each pointed toward a plausible opening. Quaxly slowed, annoyed at the interruption. His beautiful start was behind him now. The part of the race he had never practiced was waiting in every glittering direction.

The wrong blue

Quaxly chose the brightest flag. It shone on the left wall, above a smooth opening between two shelves. He paddled toward it and found the opening was only a shallow side pool. The current curled along its edge and returned toward the main channel. There was nowhere to pass the marker because the marker was not there. His own reflection looked back at him, looking embarrassingly pleased with itself.

Buizel passed the entrance without following. He glanced toward Quaxly, then toward the real flag across the channel. Lotad paused near the side pool and tilted its leaf. On the leaf's wet surface, a little reflected blue shape wavered. Lotad moved a few inches. The shape disappeared. The real flag did not. Quaxly stared, suddenly understanding that brightness could be copied much more easily than position.

He returned to the main route, losing his lead. At the actual marker, the white tie flapped in the breeze. Its reflection moved too, but the reflection's tie pointed in a different direction. Quaxly looked up at the ribbon, then down at the water. The distinction was small, but it was a distinction he could use. He passed the marker correctly and entered the next stretch.

The canyon became narrower. Quaxly could hear the river before he could see each bend, and echoes made the sound seem to come from both walls at once. He tried to hurry toward Buizel, whose orange back appeared briefly ahead. Hurrying brought his crest too close to a hanging branch. He ducked, lost balance, and splashed water over his carefully arranged feathers.

Lotad floated past while he straightened them. It was not moving dramatically, but it rarely wasted a movement. At each turn, it watched the direction of drifting leaves and the little wrinkles on the water. Quaxly saw that its relaxed start had not been a lack of interest. It had been attention spent somewhere he had mistaken for nothing.

A marshal waited on a safe shelf above the next marker. Quaxly could stop there, ask for advice, and continue. He thought about the spectators seeing him consult a marshal during a friendly race. Then he thought about another wrong opening. He pulled into the landing and asked which features stayed useful when the flags reflected. The marshal pointed to their supports, their white ties, and the bank beneath them.

She did not give him a shortcut. She showed him how to check the route he had been given. Quaxly nodded, took a breath, and returned to the current. His feathers were wet, his practiced pose was long gone, and Buizel was farther ahead than before. For the first time since the horn, he knew what he was actually trying to do.

The river's pace

Near the canyon's lower end, the safe race channel crossed a stretch of small rapids. A wider route along the outer bend avoided the strongest water. The flag for that route stood behind a pale outcrop, and its reflection showed more clearly than the pole. Buizel reached the turn first, slowed, and looked for the support instead of choosing the shining patch. Quaxly followed far enough behind to notice the decision.

Lotad entered a line closer to the center. For several lengths it moved smoothly, then a sideways curl of water nudged its leaf against a low branch. It was not in immediate danger, but its forward motion stopped. The current pressed gently, keeping it caught. Lotad tried one small correction, then another. Neither cleared the leaf without pushing it farther beneath the branch.

Quaxly could have used the delay to pass. He pictured the finish meadow, where a recovered place would seem like proof that the wrong turn had barely mattered. Then he noticed Lotad's feet moving with increasing urgency beneath the surface. He pulled toward the nearest safe pocket of water and called to Buizel, who had just passed the real marker.

Buizel turned back along the calmer edge. Together they studied the curl that held Lotad against the branch. Quaxly could reach the leaf from the shallow side, but pushing directly would only bend it. Buizel moved upstream and steadied himself where the branch met the bank. He held it slightly higher while Quaxly guided Lotad sideways, following the water's curl instead of fighting straight through it.

The broad leaf slipped free. Lotad drifted into the calmer pocket and rested for a moment. The marshal above the rapids gave them a reassuring wave. Quaxly's chest thumped as if he had sprinted the whole canyon, though most of the work had involved waiting for the right angle. Buizel shook water from his ears. Lotad settled its leaf back into shape and looked toward the remaining marker.

They continued separately once everyone was comfortable. The event was still a race, and Buizel had earned his lead. Quaxly did not ask him to stay behind. Instead, he studied the small lesson the water had provided: a current could be used without being obeyed blindly. He chose a smoother line beside the rapid, then corrected his course gently where the outer bend widened.

The canyon mouth opened ahead. The finish flags were real, fluttering from poles on both banks, and beyond them lay a meadow full of bright blankets. Quaxly saw Buizel cross first. Lotad followed along a steady edge route. He took one final breath and paddled toward the line, not with the perfect pose he had prepared, but with a route he could read all the way to its end.

Third place, properly earned

Quaxly finished third. There was no tie, no secret bonus, and no announcement that helping had somehow made him the official winner. Buizel received the first-place ribbon. Lotad received the second. Quaxly took the third with wet feathers and a slightly crooked crest. He looked at its blue fabric for a moment, then fixed it carefully where it would not trail in the water.

The marshal thanked them for helping at the branch and checked that everyone was comfortable after the rapids. Then she fixed Quaxly's ribbon when its loose end caught under his foot. The blue tail had been trailing in the grass; he had been too busy staring at the results to notice. Buizel waited beside the berry bowls. Lotad shook a last bead of river water from its leaf, and the afternoon moved on.

Buizel invited them to share the berry bowls at the edge of the meadow. Lotad settled its leaf beside the blanket, and Quaxly sat where he could watch the river. From here it looked simple again: water going downhill between two banks. Somewhere inside the canyon, one flag would still seem like four. He wondered how many other things only looked easy because he was watching them from the comfortable side.

A child asked whether his crest had looked like that at the start. Quaxly quickly smoothed it, then noticed Buizel trying not to laugh. He let one small feather stay crooked. It was the feather the low branch had caught, and it seemed unreasonable to pretend the branch had not happened. The child admired the ribbon and ran back to the finish line before Quaxly could invent anything impressive to add.

Later, the racers walked along the bank path above the canyon. From that height, they could see the side pool where Quaxly had turned wrong. The brightest reflected flag lay exactly where he remembered it, convincing and useless. Lotad tilted its leaf toward the view. Quaxly nodded. He did not need the trick demonstrated again, but he appreciated that Lotad had taken the trouble to share it in the first place.

Next week's practice would be different. He would still train his starting burst, because speed was useful when it went somewhere sensible. He would also follow a slower route, watching leaves, ribbons, and the supports behind the flags. Perhaps he would ask Buizel to come. Perhaps Lotad would show him how to notice small changes without making every correction feel like a crisis.

At home, Quaxly hung the third-place ribbon beside the polished saucepan. He glanced at his reflection and adjusted his crest at last. The pose looked excellent again. He enjoyed it for a moment, then turned away to open the route sketch the marshal had given him. A beautiful start was still a beautiful start. Now he wanted to learn what came after it.

An original fan-created story by the Poke Fun Play editorial team. Illustrations generated for this adventure.

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