Relase: Nightwing: Bloodhunt

 

Nightwing: Bloodhunt

Genre: Action / Superhero

Director: Sam Hargrave

Writers: Jimmy Ellis & APJ

Based on DC Comics characters

Cast: Taron Egerton, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Rachel Brosnahan, Madelaine Petsch, Allesandro Borghi, John Carroll Lynch, Kyle MacLachlan, Ted McGinley

Budget: $110,000,000

Domestic Box Office: $182,309,113

Foreign Box Office: $154,093,556

Total Profit: $73,400,229

 

Reaction: Another strong solo outing for Nightwing, even if overall box office and profits are both slightly lower than his last entry and far from Batman heights. 

"Nightwing: Bloodhunt wisely doubles down on what made the first film work: treating Dick Grayson like a person instead of just another superhero. Sam Hargrave delivers muscular, grounded action—particularly the warehouse fight with Deathstroke—while giving surprising weight to Dick’s internal struggle between police work and vigilantism. Taron Egerton continues to feel perfectly cast, and Rachel Brosnahan gives Amy real personality beyond “cop partner.” Jean-Claude Van Damme, meanwhile, is used sparingly but effectively as an aging, frighteningly efficient Deathstroke. The film’s plotting occasionally feels more like setup than payoff, especially regarding H.I.V.E., but the emotional arc lands cleanly." - Paul Landon, Film School Rejects

"A remarkably grounded, blue-collar crime thriller that treats Blüdhaven like a character and handles Dick Grayson's internal conflict with real maturity. Everyone from Egerton to Lynch holds their own in their roles. That all being said, it does stumble under the weight of its own mythology: muddled villain motivations and an anticlimactic warehouse raid takes the wind out of the sails of an overall good Nightwing movie." - Dexter Quinn, Cinematic Observer Newsletter

"Though competently made and occasionally exciting, Nightwing: Bloodhunt struggles to fully justify itself as a sequel. The central badge vs. mask conflict for Dick is compelling in theory, but often spelled out too explicitly, leaving little ambiguity or emotional complexity. Professor Pyg feels strangely disposable despite a memorable introduction, Tomas Dorrance barely registers as a villain, and H.I.V.E. mostly functions as sequel bait. Jean-Claude Van Damme brings welcome menace to Deathstroke, but he feels more like a recurring threat than a meaningful antagonist here. Strong action and an appealing lead keep it watchable, though the story sometimes feels more transitional chapter than complete film." - Dave Manning, Ridgefield Press

Rated PG-13 for sequences of strong violence and action, disturbing images, and thematic material.

COMIC TO FILM: NIGHTWING: BLOODHUNT

 

Welcome back for an all-new edition of Comic to Film! This time we're looking at Nightwing's latest adventure in the DC Comics Universe.... Nightwing: Bloodhunt. Sam Hargrave (Nightwing, Matchbox: The Movie) is directing the Taron Egerton-led film from a script by APJ (Batman: Duality, Donkey Kong Country) and Jimmy Ellis (Rubicon Lies, The Song of Roland).

Now Showing: Nightwing: Bloodhunt

 

Nightwing: Bloodhunt

Genre: Action / Superhero

Director: Sam Hargrave

Writers: Jimmy Ellis & APJ

Based on DC Comics characters

Cast: Taron Egerton, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Rachel Brosnahan, Madelaine Petsch, Allesandro Borghi, John Carroll Lynch, Kyle MacLachlan, Ted McGinley

Plot: Detective Dick Grayson (Taron Egerton) leans against the hood of an unmarked cruiser, just another tired cop with all the paperwork on his mind. Amy Rohrbach (Rachel Brosnahan) steps out of the car, coffee in hand and joins him. The two talk about Mayor Hill’s address the next morning, before reaching some police tape. A young man lies slumped beside an overturned trash bin. No blood, no gunshot, just vacant eyes and a small injection mark on his arm. Around him are scattered pamphlets from a nearby shelter. Amy kneels, muttering how this is the fourth missing-turned-dead case this month. Dick crouches beside her, snapping photos. He checks the victim’s ID, then flips open a small leather notebook, not the police issue one, but his own. It’s filled with names, dates, scribbles in shorthand, a personal log of cases that don’t make the news. As uniformed officers mill around, Dick notices faint scuff marks near the fire escape - signs of a struggle. His instincts kick in: angles, trajectory, movement. For a moment, his cop mind and his vigilante mind overlap, like twin lenses. He considers climbing the escape, but Amy catches his look and shakes her head. “Don’t go scaling rooftops on me, Grayson. We’re detectives, not capes.” He forces a smile and pushes the thought away. Amy files her report for Redhorn, but Dick lingers, staring up at the fire escape. For him, this is supposed to be a routine case, another unsolved tragedy in Blüdhaven. But something about it gnaws at him, the same way it always does. As they get back into the car, Dick looks down at his hands, the faint scars still visible under his cuffs, and flexes them. He whispers to himself, “Cop not mask.” As they drive into the night.

Blüdhaven’s central plaza fills with people waving flags and clutching signs. Mayor Hamilton Hill (TBC) stands on stage in front of microphones, promising renewal for the city’s crumbling port district. His words echo across the square, obviously practiced with a glimmer of hope. Among the crowd stand Dick Grayson and Amy Rohrbach in plainclothes. Dick’s gaze lingers on the rooftops. The Mayor raises his voice: “Blüdhaven has been forgotten too long. No son of this city should ever feel abandoned.” The applause that follows is uneven and scattered. Dick catches a brief metallic glint high above, then the crack of a rifle splits the air. The crowd screams as bodies surge in every direction, and Hill collapses against the podium with a crimson bloom spreading across his suit. Dick and Amy shove through the chaos, but the shooter is already gone. Kneeling beside Hill, Dick checks for a pulse, knowing it’s futile. As EMTs rush in, his eyes fall on a small card propped neatly against the microphone stand. He slips it into his glove before anyone else notices. Written in deliberate, almost ceremonial script are the words: “A son never forgets.” Dick’s eyes narrow on the words. Legacy, Fathers, Sons. His chest tightens with memories of Bruce, of Eduardo Dorrance, of every shadow cast by family ties. Amy calls out his name, breaking the trance, and he shoves the card into his pocket with a nod. As Hill’s body is shrouded and the plaza fills with sirens, Dick’s face hardens, some things need more than policework.

Inside the Blüdhaven Police Department, the tension is suffocating as Chief Delmore Redhorn (Kyle MacLachlan) fumes in the conference room, barking that the mayor’s assassination is the department’s “biggest failure in decades” and demanding answers before the press tears them apart. Amy flips through crime scene photos, noting how surgically clean the hit was, while Dick stays quiet, arms crossed, his expression unreadable. Redhorn presses them to deliver names fast, threatening to put every cop on the street if he has to. Dick only nods, slipping his hands into his jacket pocket where the calling card rests, its words, “A son never forgets”, burning against his ribs. He says nothing about it, keeping the message hidden, too personal and too dangerous to reveal.

High above Gotham, the gears of the Clock Tower turn in steady rhythm as Barbara Gordon (Madelaine Petsch) sits at her bank of glowing monitors, her chair angled toward the blinking data streams. The assassination dominates the newsfeeds, but her attention is fixed on the grainy sniper footage she intercepted from Blüdhaven PD scanners. Running ballistics and tactical overlays, she traces the shot’s precision, military-grade, almost ritualistic, to a known signature: H.I.V.E. She speaks through the comm, her voice steady but edged with concern, telling Dick that this wasn’t a mob hit or a lone gunman, but part of something larger, coordinated, the kind of play that eats cities from the inside. Dick leans in the shadows of his apartment across the river, listening, the calling card still burning a hole in his pocket. He doesn’t show her the words yet, only asks for more on H.I.V.E.. Barbara pauses, studying his face through the camera feed, and reminds him softly that secrets have a way of festering, especially in Blüdhaven.

The port district is a maze of shuttered warehouses and half-empty shelters pressed against the docks. Dick and Amy move through the corridors of a clinic, speaking with weary staff who admit that people have been disappearing for weeks, transients, addicts, the forgotten people. On a corkboard in the back, faded photos of missing men and women overlap like a patchwork of ghosts, and Dick quietly snaps copies with his phone. Outside, they trace names against precinct records, realizing the victims aren’t scattered at random but vanish in clusters, almost like neighborhoods being systematically purged. Amy mutters that this feels like a sweep, not street crime, and Dick feels a chill as he adds the data to his private notebook. He adds that Hill must’ve been just another piece. He remembers the words on the card, “A son never forgets”, and wonders if this is the first ripple of something orchestrated, something meant to be personal.

A prison transport rolls through the outskirts of Bludhaven toward Gotham's Blackgate Prison. As two guards ride up front, a hooded and cuffed man sits in the back. The van suddenly shudders as a spike strip snakes under the tires. Rubber explodes and the vehicle jerks, scraping against the guardrail. One guard reaches for the radio, but it's dead. The back doors of the truck blast open as Slade Wilson / Deathstroke (Jean-Claude Van Damme) drops in. Before the guards even know what's happening, Deathstroke already takes them out with two quick slashes of a sword. Deathstroke then turns his sights on the hooded prisoner. The man shouts through his hood with panic. Deathstroke fires one bullet into the man's chest. He then pins a hand-written card to the prisoner's chest. When the response team rolls up, the rain has already washed most of the crime scene clean. Three bodies and not much else. They find the card on the slain prisoner - it reads: "A son never forgets".

At the Bludhaven police precinct, Amy flips through stacks of reports. The missing persons board behind her and Dick is growing by the day. Dick starts drawing lines between addresses on a map. What starts as a scatterplot tightens into a corridor - shelters, clinics, needle exchanges - all along the port district. Amy leans in, muttering how it's too clean to be coincidence. Amy then gets footage of the transport murders, freezing the frame on Deathstroke's form. Dick is confused, but decides to pursue the missing persons case more instead of focusing on Deathstroke's appearance.

Barbara sits in the Clock Tower. Her screens flicker with shipping ledgers, chemical manifest, and falsified invoices. It's clear to her that someone's buying black market anesthetics and surgical-grade tools in bulk and routing them through shell companies to make them "disappear". She manages to trace them to an abandoned meat-packing planet on the edge of the docks - a building condemned long ago. Barbara sends the coordinates of the building to Dick.

Dick sees the coordinates appear on his phone screen while parked outside the police precinct. He instantly realizes that the location sits dead-center in the cluster of disappearances. He shuts the phone and suits up as Nightwing.

Nightwing slips into the meat-packing plant through a service vent on the roof. He follows the sound of machinery through a maze of hanging plastic curtains until he steps onto the old production floor of the plant. Steel cables line the room where meat hooks once hung. Now, they hold people - half-conscious, strapped down, tubes running from their veins into barrels of chemicals. At the center of it all stands Professor Pyg (John Carroll Lynch), face hidden behind his pig mask. Around him move half a dozen "Dollotrons" - twisted men and women wearing surgical bindings, eyes vacant, moving with jerky obedience. Nightwing moves first, but the Dollotrons react instantly, converging toward Nightwing. He fights them in a tight rhythm. He uses his stun batons on them, aiming to disable them, not kill them. Pyg shrieks and lunges with a bone saw. Nightwing uses leverage from the Dollotrons near him to do a backflip away from Pyg's saw. Nightwing uses the cables to swing himself at Pyg, delivering a boot to Pyg's mask, cracking it in half. Pyg crawls toward Nightwing, but Dick uses his stun batons to incapacitate Pyg. The Dollotrons suddenly fall still. Dick looks around the room. He starts cutting the restraints of Pyg's subjects. He calls in for police reinforcements. Dick changes back into his police clothing. By the time the sirens of backup reaches the docks, Pyg is bound in his own restraints, drooling and muttering on the bloodstained floor. Once Amy arrives with the backup, Dick officially arrests Pyg. Amy asks how he got there so soon. Dick lies and says he was getting a bite to eat in the neighborhood already.

Pyg is cuffed to a table in a police interrogation room. The cracked remains of his mask sit on the table in front of him. Pyg seems pained to not be able to wear it. Across from him, Dick sits in silence, waiting for Pyg to speak. Amy leans against the wall of the interrogation room. When Pyg finally does talk, it isn't coherent. He begins rambling about perfection, obedience, the art of correction. Dick lets him ramble until the name of Pyg's benefactor slips out: Tomas Dorrance. Pyg tries to backtrack his story, but Amy is already furiously writing the name down. Pyg grins as he whispers that the "pretty piggies" he built were just prototypes, and the real work is happening elsewhere. When they step outside the interrogation room, Dick says that he thinks Deathstroke's attack on the prison transport may actually have something to do with this case after all. Amy tells Dick that he should get some sleep as he looks exhausted. Dick's mind is elsewhere though and he walks off down the corridor of the precinct.

Barbara waits for Dick in the quiet hush of the Clocktower, her screens loop the surveillance from the meat plant raid with Tomas Dorrance’s name blinking across a case file. She tells Dick plainly: Tomas is connected to H.I.V.E., but there’s still a window to bring him in legally, to prove to himself, to Bruce that Nightwing isn’t the only path. She touches Dick’s hand, reminding him that Blüdhaven needs a hero who can walk into court as a citizen, not a shadow. Dick stares at the city outside, rain streaking the glass, and wrestles with the itch in his muscles to suit up. Finally, he nods. “Badge first. Mask second.” Barbara sees the strain in him but shows pride, telling him that’s why he’ll win.

In Chief Redhorn’s cramped office, Dick and Amy lay out evidence like they’re stacking a war map, missing persons clusters, chemical purchases, Pyg’s confession fragments. Redhorn is reluctant and paranoid about optics after the mayor’s assassination, but Amy doesn’t blink and Dick keeps his voice controlled and calm. When Redhorn signs the high-risk warrant, Dick feels an electric jolt run through his body. Amy smirks, nudging him: “Look at you. A real cop.” He forces a grin, knowing he’s trying to believe it too.

Officers gather near the docks as Dick moves down the line in full Bludhaven Police Department tactical gear, badge visible - no mask. He gives the plan once, clear and direct - primary breach on the side entrance, secondary team through the loading bay, no freelance heroics. He tells everyone to follow procedure. The convoy pulls up and they move fast. A ram hits the steel doors. Once the door is breached, flashbang grenades are tossed inside. Dick leads the way in, weapon up. Amy is right behind him. Upstairs Tomas Dorrance (Alessandro Broghi) watches the feed from a bank of monitors. He sees Grayson at the front of the stack. Tomas studies him for a moment before tapping a control.

Grayson and his team moves down a corridor when Deathstroke steps out of the shadows, sword already in motion. He slashes police rifles to pieces. An officer manages to get a shot off. Slade lets the round glance off his armor before striking back. In less than half a minute, the police unit is scattered across the warehouse floor. Only then does Deathstroke turn fully toward Dick Grayson. Dick pulls out his shock batons and circles opposite Deathstroke. Dick lands a clean hit to Slade's shoulder, then another to his helmet. Slade responds with a kick that sends Dick flying to the floor. An explosion suddenly tears through a wall near them. The shockwave knocks both men off balance and fills the corridor with smoke and debris. Dick gets back on his feet, but Deathstroke is gone.

Dick decides to push through the smoke toward Tomas Dorrance, who watches them enter his control from behind his security console where he's watched everything. He calmly aims a pistol at him. Dick orders Tomas to drop the weapon. Tomas answering by firing. The first shot shatters a monitor. The second hits a doorframe near Dick's shoulder. Amy appears in the doorway behind him, weapon raised, shouting for Tomas to surrender. Tomas fires again. Amy jerks back as the round hits her vest just off-center. She slams into the wall. Dick doesn't hesitate. He fires his service pistol twice. Both shots land clean. Tomas staggers back, more surprised than afraid. He drops to his knees as his gun skids across the floor. Dick moves to Amy immediately, calling for medics as he sees blood ooze out from under her vest. As officer rush in and paramedics take Amy, Dick stays kneeling beside her. Outside, sirens build as Amy is loaded into an ambulance. Tomas Dorrance is pronounced dead on the scene.

Deathstroke moves through sewer tunnels, boots splashing through ankle-deep runoff. He moves without panic. At a junction, he plants a compact charge against an old support column and keeps walking. The detonation follows seconds later, collapsing the corridor behind him in a rush of debris and foul water, cutting off pursuit. The tunnel finally opens toward a drainage spillway that empties into Gotham Bay. Slade climbs the ladder to the surface, emerging near the dark water that separates Bludhaven from Gotham. He steps aboard a small boat and leaves the area.

Dick sits beside Amy’s hospital bed, jacket folded over the back of a chair. Monitors beep steadily while rain taps against the window. Amy lies pale but conscious, bruising visible along her ribs where the vest absorbed most of the impact. She jokes weakly that paperwork better count as light duty. Dick nods, relieved but exhausted. He tells her the warrant held, the operation was clean, and Dorrance is finished. Amy studies him for a moment and says he did things the right way. Not reckless. Not alone. Dick doesn’t answer, but the words settle. He stays there long after she falls asleep again, watching to make sure she keeps breathing before finally standing to leave.

In the Clock Tower, Barbara pulls up intercepted communications and shipping manifests moving through Blüdhaven’s port. New shell companies appear where Dorrance’s network collapsed. Replacement routes already active. She tells Dick that H.I.V.E. anticipated losses and adjusted within hours. Deathstroke wasn’t protecting the operation, he was evaluating resistance. Testing response time. Testing him. Dick listens in silence, leaning against the console as footage loops of Slade walking through the destroyed warehouse. Barbara warns that this wasn’t the last they’ve seen of Deathstroke. Dick asks her to keep digging. When the screen goes dark, he remains standing there a moment longer before heading back toward the city.

Days later, Dick moves through Blüdhaven in plainclothes, taking statements and checking in on shelters. Patrol officers nod as he passes. That night, Nightwing crosses the skyline above the same streets, moving between rooftops as squad cars roll below. Police radios chatter in his ear. He lands briefly on the precinct roof, looking out over the harbor before disappearing back into the city. Badge during the day. Mask at night. No hesitation between them anymore.

Top 10 Emmy Rossum Films

 

Sherman J. Pearson here for another Top 10. While just Emmy Rossum's voice appears for a few brief moments in The Silver Swan, it does still count as her 10th performance for Last Resort Films. As usual, I like to mark such an occasion by ranking those ten films.

Top 10 Emmy Rossum Films

10. Rock Paper Scissors

9. Final End

8. Rachel Rising

7. The Silver Swan

6. Parasite

5. The Creature

4. Booster Gold II: The Booster Gold Story

3. Sinatra

2. Booster Gold

1. Booster Gold: Lost in Time

Release: The Silver Swan

 

The Silver Swan

Genre: Animation/Family/Fantasy

Directors: Tomm Moore and Nora Twomey

Writer: Jacob Jones

Voice Cast: Morgan Freeman, Emmy Rossum

Budget: $30,000,000

Domestic Box Office: $12,003,077

Foreign Box Office: $15,999,009

Total Profit: -$26,763,294

Reaction: Even with a more modest budget than our usual animated release, The Silver Swan was a tough one to market for a variety of reasons (a capella soundtrack, no dialogue, traditional animation, etc.).

"The Silver Swan is a visually gorgeous, melancholy fairy tale that feels perfectly suited to Tomm Moore and Nora Twomey’s storybook sensibilities. The watercolor-inspired Irish setting and hand-drawn musical fantasy sequences are often enchanting, while Morgan Freeman’s narration gives the film a warm, timeless quality. The emotional ending lands surprisingly hard for a family film even if the narration spells out things too obviously for those not paying attention. The story also occasionally feels slight and repetitive in the middle stretch." - Tony Hardaway, Orlando Sentinel

"The Silver Swan is a beautifully realized fable that thrives on its exquisite visual storytelling. Reminiscent of classic Disney shorts and recent dialogue-light triumphs like Flow, the narrative remains simple, allowing the stunning animation and musical landscape to do the heavy lifting. Casting Morgan Freeman as the primary narrator was an inspired choice; his iconic, resonant warmth anchors the film, proving once again that the man could read a dictionary and entirely captivate an audience. It's a poignant, bittersweet cautionary tale that leans into visual majesty over complex plotting, and it succeeds wonderfully because of it." - Dexter Quinn, Cinematic Observer Newsletter

"The Silver Swan often feels oddly insecure in its own storytelling. The relentless narration repeatedly explains feelings, intentions, and themes that are already perfectly clear, flattening what could have been a more emotionally resonant experience. Most bafflingly, the film outright states its moral in the closing moments - a choice that feels less like thoughtful family storytelling and more like a lack of confidence in both the audience and the filmmakers’ own ability to communicate meaning through character and imagery. Combined with repetitive pacing and a premise stretched thin, the result is a film that looks magical but too often talks itself to death. And don't get me started on the a cappella soundtrack..." - Walter Williams, Animated Times

Rated PG for thematic material

Last Resort Films Jukebox: The Silver Swan

 

Now Showing: The Silver Swan

 

The Silver Swan

Genre: Animation/Family/Fantasy

Directors: Tomm Moore and Nora Twomey

Writer: Jacob Jones

Voice Cast: Morgan Freeman, Emmy Rossum

Plot:  DISCLAIMER: The following feature will be told both in part by the stylings of The Kings’ Singers and the narrator (Morgan Freeman). We thank both for their participation.

Once upon a time, out in the faroff brooks of Ireland, where the trees swayed among the breeze and the brook babbled and bobbed along the river, there lived a beautiful young swan with a long, shiny golden beak, shimmering black eyes and long, neatly trimmed silver feathers, granting her the name of the Silver Swan (Voiced by Emmy Rossum).

All the animals by the lake loved the swan, for she was beautiful and swam about with grace and precision. Yet even so, the swan was unhappy. Every day, she would wake up and hear the chirping noise of songbirds singing their merry tune, the croaking of frogs as they hopped from one lily pad to another, the quacking of ducks as they waddled into the river, yet the swan, as graceful as she was, did not speak. For she had no voice of her own.

For years, the swan had wanted so desperately to sing and talk to her animal friends. Yet, whenever she tried to open its beak, no sound would come out. Spring past, summer too, fall and winter, no matter what season, the swan continued to yearn for the day that she too would speak. A dream that she thought would never come true.

One day, however, the Silver Swan noticed a beaver scurrying down the path, carrying with it a map. Now, the Silver Swan had never seen a beaver down this part of the lake before, so she followed the beaver down the path until finally, the beaver stopped in its tracks, its beady eyes scouring through a piece of paper.

The swan gently approached the beaver, nodding in acknowledgement of its presence. The beaver however, paid no attention. The swan stood about, unsure of what to do. Why had the beaver rejected their bow?

The swan lightly bobbed its head up and down in a final bid to get the beaver’s attention. Yet the beaver stayed focused on their paper. Now the swan was really perplexed. What was so special about this piece of paper that the beaver would ignore all of her gestures? The swan swam towards the beaver, her eyes gazed on the paper, and wouldn’t she believe it, it was no ordinary paper. This was a map, guiding the way to a place called the Land of Harmony.

Well, the Silver Swan was very excited. She spun around and around in the lake over the idea. As she did, however, she splashed several drops of water onto the beaver. The beaver tapped onto the map, silently acknowledging the swan’s presence. By watching the swan bob her head up and down, he could tell that she wanted to join him, so the beaver held the map up to the swan, motioning for her to follow him.

The beaver and swan would travel down the river, stopping by to greet the praying mantis along the way. Before they could travel any further, however, the swan spotted a mess of lily pads scattered about, frogs hopping here and there, to and fro, blocking the pathway.

The beaver was frustrated. Now they had no way of reaching the Land of Harmony! While the beaver stewed in their sorrow, the swan examined the hopping path of each frog and got an idea.

She swam up to the lily pads, hoping to catch the eye of the next frog she saw. As luck would have it, one tiny little frog would spot the swan, stunning in size and stature. He hopped up to the swan, landing on her beak. The frog and swan eyed each other, not sure of what to say.

Before long, the frog’s eyes would motion towards the map, and he too would learn of the swan and beaver’s journey to the Land of Harmony. The frog had always wanted to find his own voice, having grown tired of ribbeting in the pond, so when the frog saw that the path had been blocked, he turned towards his friends, motioning for them to move their pads aside.

The frogs, wanting to be kind to their young friend, hopped off their pads, setting them aside so the swan could move forward. The swan thanked the little frog by giving him a little peck on the cheek and invited him to join them by sitting on her back. So they went over, continuing their journey towards the Land of Harmony.

The days passed by, and the river grew long and arduous, the mornings being harsh and long, the evenings being dark and cold. All the animals grew tired from their travels.

And hungry.

Lucky for them, the beaver knew of a place where they could stop to eat. A nice little tree with a few bushes with enough berries and leaves and plants for them all to share. The beaver even found a nice twig for him to chew on! That night, the animals rested by the plentiful garden, dreaming about what their lives would be like once they reached the Land of Harmony.

The beaver figured that once he got his voice, he could tell all the jokes in the world.

The frog hoped that one day, he could be the king of the pond with a voice commanding enough for all to hear.

And the swan? She just wanted a voice to call her own.

The next day, however, there was trouble in the air. A terrible storm was on pace for the brooks, and the winds were growing harsher and stronger. The swan, beaver and frog tried to press forward, but the waves were growing too large for the swan to swim, and the map was only just barely hanging onto the beaver’s hands. Any time the frog tried to hop, he’d nearly get blown away.

All of a sudden...

KABOOM!

Lightning struck, causing the beaver to jump into the brook, only to realize that he had forgotten the trusty map. Just before he could reach, however…

KABOOM!

The thunderous lightning hit again, perilously close to the brook, forcing the animals to close their eyes to keep from being blinded. When the lightning went away, the beaver trepidatiously stepped onto the ground, his jaw opened wide when he saw that the map to the Land of Harmony had been ripped to shreds thanks to the lightning and now, was sure to be soiled by the rain.

The beaver, frog and swan all hung their heads in defeat. Now they would never reach the Land of Harmony! The swan sadly turned towards her newfound friends, giving them a small nod, as a token of thanks for trying and started to swim away…

Before she could go far, however, the animals heard another, unfamiliar sound. That of a blackbird chirping on top of a tree, inviting them to go under its branches. The beaver and frog did so, but the swan could not. Instead, the blackbird took its nest over, placing it on top of the swan’s head.

At that moment, the blackbird saw the charred remains of what was once their map and fluttered about.They knew the way to the Land of Harmony, and they were more than happy to help them on their journey! The others were overjoyed, it was as if though the clouds had parted and the sun was once again shining in the sky! The blackbird led the way, guiding the animals throughout the bobbing brook until finally…

…they arrived.

The Land of Harmony, at long last.

The first thing the swan saw was that of a violin soaring through the sky, similar to that of the blackbird. That was only the beginning as the animals saw:

* A herd of trumpets marching, being led by a snare drum.

* A trombone slide, one that a young piccolo slid down.

* A cello gondola being used by a pair of saxophones, one tenor and one alto.

* A group of flute flies fluttering about, one even being eaten by the frog (who in turn tweeted like the flutes)

And at the center of it all was the most beautiful sight. An organ sporting many faces and many different voices, all singing the same song. It was a marvelous sight, a beauty to behold!

That’s when the swan spotted something not too far from the organ. A small little red button, with a note placed on top. It read:

“Press the button, you make your choice,

And claim yourself a beautiful voice,

One that all the world can see,

A gift from the Land of Harmony!”

The swan was overjoyed. At last, she would finally have the voice she was after. She pressed the button, waiting for her chance to speak…

…but nothing happened.

At least, not at first.

The next thing anyone knew, the organ began to play a soothing song, one fit a swan so graceful and beautiful as herself. And when she sung, she had the most wonderful voice. It was oh so stirring and all so stunning.

She swam and spun about, singing her joyous melody for all to hear. When she was finished, the swan felt free. Finally, she had found her voice…

…but as she opened her eyes. She noticed something.

The frog and beaver were gone.

The swan was confused. Did they not want to have their voice as well? The swan looked over to the button again, the note now longer than what it was before.

“Claiming your voice comes at a price,

You must share the wealth and play nice.

If you are greedy, then I fear,

All your friends will disappear.”

In pushing the button, the swan had made a fatal error. All three of the animals had to push it at the same time. By only pushing it herself, she had neglected her friends, the very creatures that got her to this point.

The swan was heartbroken, all she had wanted was to have a voice all her own, but knowing now she had no one share it with…

…she started to cry.

And so the swan made the long, sad, arduous journey back home, dejected and without life in her body. She would forever have her voice, but now, she would forever be alone.

The moral of this story? Cherish those you have around you and share your joy with others…

…because you never know when it might disappear.

THE END