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Flitter was a simple blue butterfly who spent most of his day flying around a dry riverbed of crabs that continuously attacked amphibious-looking reptiles. He'd occasionally pick up shiny objects off the river bed and throw them down at the crabs - it was funny to him how the objects would bounce off their little shells. Oh, how they would glare up at him and snap their pincers! But they could never get him, for Flitter was clever and could fly out of their reach.

Now, aside from a little tormenter of crabs, Flitter was also a collector of crystals. In addition to the other shiny objects he'd find to throw at the crabs, he was always on the search for colourful crystals jutting out of the rock faces. It took some work for his thin little butterfly arms but eventually he'd get them loose and joyously carry them home to the flower garden. Unfortunately, sometimes he would lose his grip and drop the crystal over the crabs. This made him sad, but the crabs would cheer him when this happened instead of glaring and snapping their pincers. "Give us more of that" they would call out to him. But Flitter wanted the crystals for himself.

Back in the flower garden, the elves had given Flitter some boxes that he could organize his crystals into. See, the elves liked crystals too, and said they would reward Flitter the more crystals he was able to collect. The elves made similar arrangements with all of the creatures of the flower garden, but Flitter did not mind because he had the advantage of knowing where to find all of the crystals - plus he could fly.

Flitter's friends would come by occasionally to look at his collection. He would happily bring out some of his more prized ones and hold them up. Oh, how the sun would beam down and shine through the crystals, making the entire flower garden glow with coloured light... and the friends would dance.

One day a new grasshopper was hanging around the garden and saw Flitter deposit a new crystal into his boxes and proceeded to ask what the heck was up with all the crystal collecting going on in that particular garden. "Silly grasshopper, they're for the elves!" Flitter explained.

He showed how the boxes were organized by colour as well as a general shape of crystal that was drawn on the side of the box. The grasshopper looked around at some of the other boxes in the garden, asking why Flitter's were bigger. "Ahh, see, the elves reward us when we get one of every crystal! They give us bigger boxes that can hold more! Those small boxes over there only hold three crystals because he just started collecting them.. but mine..." he waved his arms over his collection proudly, "...my boxes can hold FIFTEEN crystals each."

The grasshopper gave Flitter an odd look, wondering why bigger boxes - and more work - was a reward. "Uh, that's impressive.. how did you manage that?" Flitter smiled, puffing out his little butterfly chest and pointing to himself. "This butterfly has collected FOUR sets of these crystals, so I have big boxes for a bigger collection!!"

The grasshopper scratched his head, still not sure what to make of the enthusiasm of the butterfly, or why he's collecting things for the elves. "What do you do when a box is full?" he asked, at least wanting to keep the conversation going. Flitter gave the grasshopper a quizzical look, as if the answer were obvious. "I don't bring home any more of that crystal, duh! I mean, eventually I'll get a bigger box and can start bringing more of those crystals home, but until then, why waste the effort? I guess I could set them on the ground but that's messy and I'd rather work on filling up the rest of these boxes first!"

The grasshopper nodded, looking around for a reason to leave, but Flitter kept talking. "It's not easy, you know, carrying these heavy things. I drop them sometimes. Probably one out of every twenty. The crabs in the riverbed seem to really like them. Honestly I don't know why they don't just work them out of the rocks themselves since they have pincers and can dig." Flitter was rambling.

The grasshopper looked over the collection again, noticing some boxes have very few crystals while several appeared full. "Why don't you fill up those boxes that are sort of empty compared to the others?" Flitter sighed, as if the answer were obvious once again. "Nature is RANDOM, hopper, and I find them as I find them.. unless of course I know I don't have room for them.. then I keep looking. If I get really desperate, then I'll spend all day until I find what I'm looking for, sometimes even flying up to the mountains. Like, say.. all of my boxes were full or mostly full except this one here.." he pointed to a specific box that only had four crystals in it while the others were full or almost full. "That tells me I need to find that one more.. so tomorrow that's just what I'm gonna do! Try to find that one. But of course if I find others that I can fit in my boxes still, I might bring that home too. Kinda depends on my mood and what I am able to find, but I do want to fill all of these, eventually."

The grasshopper nodded, "..so you can get the elves to give you yet bigger boxes."

"RIGHT! You got it." Flitter was happy that he had explained himself so well.

The day was ending, so the grasshopper excused himself but promised to come visit more. Flitter waved and headed home himself for a nap before the next day came and he needed to go find more crystals for his collection, and the elves that seemed to want them.