DARKNESS WAS LAW.
Ruby knew it. Swishy knew it. And the curses had known no other reality, no alternative possibilities, so they simply moved along the currents of those who were greater. The pyramid of order had Ruby and Swishy at the pinnacle, then the natural elements of trees and wheat, and then animals. Curses, though, were at the bottom, the unit of everyone and everything else’s energy.
And that was how Swishy, in his near-total darkness, accepted that he indeed was a god. That he was a shot-caller, a divine maker and a breaker. Whether he produced or reduced the world was a matter of his discretion.
These were decisions that he never wanted to have on his mind, but knew that as a god he shouldn’t allow them to weigh heavily at all.
He chose to feel the weight later. Only when the privilege of regret availed itself to him and his allies.
As such, it was an easy call to keep the stakes coming.
[Stake Storm].
Ruby became a ghost, vaporizing her lower half, fleeing in her ghostly form.
But he kept the attacks coming. Now was his turn to go on the offensive. A dark god, a terrifying god, and one whose soul and intentions showed through each bombardment of stakes.
The stakes shot toward Ruby, impaling her over and over again. As her foggy body phased through the attacks, legions of phantom scarecrows etched into the air atop those murderous anchors. For a brief moment, the ghostly images of maimed Swishys pressured the atmosphere. Their heads lolled over, halfway detached from their necks. Their straw was a mass of tumbleweeds and dilapidation.
Swishy hated stakes for a reason, but they served as a powerful weapon in his time of need.
His doomed moods clung to those raggedy scarecrows: SCAPEGOAT, SURRENDER, SUFFERER, SACRIFICE.
When the ‘sacrifice’ stake burst toward Ruby, she avoided it this time, bemused by its flagship emotion. She circled the stake, touching it, caressing the sagged gourd of the phantom scarecrow. “How can you not like sacrifice? That’s what made this city. That’s what made you, you. Without the willingness to sacrifice, how can one truly possess a worthy heart? Embrace giving. Live the truth, dear boy, and we’ll all be happier for it.”
“Never.”
“But your reward is here, in Heaven.”
“I’ll always sacrifice, I know it. I’ll produce hearts for the rest of my days. But I’ll decide how to use them. And I won’t let you have a say at all. You don’t know what it takes. You don’t have it. You don’t have anything, anything, to sacrifice.”
“I’ve given, I’ve built, I’ve changed lives.”
“No. You’ve paid no cost. You’ve suffered—but we all do. Sacrifice is a choice, and it’s something you can’t do. It’s impossible for you. And that’s why you’re weak. That’s why when you pay the costs I’m about to force upon you, you’ll shrivel.”
“You ugly effigy.”
“Wraith.”
The stakes continued.
Ruby flew and flew, human form up top and ghostly smoke down below. She held her broom close, awaiting an opportunity. For now, the stakes were endless, Swishy’s pain great as it were.
It gave Swishy a moment to meditate. How to hurt Ruby? How to reduce her? When she was just a woman it was a hard enough prospect. Now that she’d gained further blessings, edging that border between human and shadow, Swishy’s victory conditions became less clear.
The rake rocked with Znitchy’s speech.
Don’t be dumb!
“Are you going to call me brainless like Myst.”
Yes! No matter what, anyone can get stabbed.
“I see…”
That tone tells me, you don’t. But that’s okay, it’s not your job to think. You said it yourself, you’ll give her the prongs. So make it happen!
The stakes intensified, Znitchy the driving force behind the Ruby chase.
Swishy cleared his mind.
All gourd, no brain, just as nature intended.
[Trust]…he fed it into the rake, into his boundless and fortifying chasm.
But the effects were far from what he expected. Or rather, he should’ve expected it but didn’t. Giving Znitchy and his chasm the blessing was a dangerous combination.
Pain floats—that was what he’d told himself. He revised that opinion.
Pain soared.
It stored, it boiled, and it sped through the soul with its primal electricity.
And then it erupted.
The V-o-O-d-o-O-o-o-o coiled through the grounds, exploding in stakes. Swishy, who hated stakes, now let them fly.
The stakes began to form within Ruby’s shadow, tracing her location with perfection before surging forth.
Every few stakes tore through parts of Ruby, leaving her grimacing. Whether there was injury or only annoyance had yet to be determined. But as soon as she restored herself, another stake smashed her, removing partial bits of her face.
But that negativity, that act of voodoo, of stored and released pain, was no good for anyone. And for the first time since Swishy had come into his god-like powers, his spell influence had done something horrible to the land.
The stakes indiscriminately smashed through the lands, upturning the ground with callous and destructive disregard.
Under Swishy’s control, the attacks had cleanly sprouted after Ruby, leaving the ground unmarred once they inevitably disintegrated.
But Znitchy’s way was faster, so there was no second-guessing. Do and believe.
Trust—misplaced or otherwise.
Cracks and fissures spidered along the ground. Stakes had torn through some of the tree roots. Wishwillows and everytrees alike had edged away from the dark aura. The grass, the wheat, the trees, and all the smaller portions of this living ecosystem were leveled by the [Stake Storm].
Red, orange, honey—these were all buried beneath upturned rubble. The land became a dug-up, lopsided mess. Dirt, stone, and shadows were the prominent elements now.
The blackness took root, then grew like toxic flowers.
Ruby, for a moment, wanted to swoop by and pick the flowers. There was no joy in her when she did it. But that aura in her stomach contracted again, squeezing the child inside. As Ruby reached, the inner girl also meekly offered her hand to the flowers.
You know what to do! Znitchy screamed through the rake.
“I know…”
Briefly, they paused—Znitchy allowing Swishy his softness before the cruelty to come.
The scarecrow shot curses into the rake.
Stakes blasted through Ruby’s hand and stomach, denying the woman and her inner spirit. Curses spurted from Ruby. And as Ruby called her spirits for recovery, she summoned them with a wind, suctioning them with her remaining hand. The entities were hesitant, crying, whining, screaming out, it-hurts-it-hurts-he’s-hurting-us, knowing that Swishy was primed to do it again.
He did.
More stakes—which Ruby now evaded as Swishy intensified the assault. Stakes bloomed from Ruby’s shadows, never giving her peace or respite.
Amid the chaos—the felled trees, the haze of debris—Ruby had fled toward her home. THE LAST STRAW wooden sign hung over the front entrance of her home. Swishy suspected that she hadn’t had true visitors or a real ‘shop’ for a long time, yet she kept the modest storefront appearance. For as monstrous as The High Chasm was, Ruby’s true home remained the same as always. Only two stories. Big, of course, sporting several rooms within, but most of those were occupied by the snitches and spirits that frequented her domain. It was a cute home. It had tanned wood with shadowclaw-colored adornments: a mailbox she didn’t use, purple stones for her flower bed, black windowsill, black curtains, and black roof shingles too.
A gothic manor was her mansion fantasy—but she preferred to live in the two-story cosplay of it.
But the truly ostentatious aspects were three things: the crown of wishwillows and everytrees presiding over everything. Above that, the sky islands, drifting faithfully. Swishy swore they were angled toward them, watching the battle with their imaginary faces. And thirdly was the altar off to the side, a black stone scarecrow that stood in equal height to the home.
Here, Ruby stood her ground.
“Your home is really cool. When I first came here I remember thinking that this was a nice nest. Cool decorations, a good meal, and lots of birds. You and Trey being nice to me. It was a dream that I didn’t know I had, but my dream was coming true. My heart found its place…”
“I did that for your heart. I know what you need. I’ll cook, I’ll clean, I’ll give you birds.”
Swishy sighed. “You were almost a mom. You were so close.”
“I am one. Just come along with me. Don’t let a little hurt stop you. Hurt heals. You’ve healed.”
Swishy inspected his hands, their blackwheat overgrowths bulging beneath his sleeves and mittens. Tufts of cursed straw stuck out from his pant legs too. His golden Timbs were interwoven with scraggly shadows as well, a spiritual mud from his travels. He flapped his wings—the black one healthy, the gold one a little weak, less robust than what he was used to.
“I’ve healed?”
“You have. The past…forget about it. Move onto the next heart. It’s easy. I’ve watched you so I know.”
“I can’t forget.”
”You can.”
”No, I can’t.”
Swishy clenched his hands around the rake, dark gloves populating from the infuriating conversation.
”Fine,” Ruby sneered. “I tried to help you.”
The boy formed a stake within her shadow, shooting it upward.
But Ruby disappeared, using an [Adieu]. Then she reappeared in the same spot, watching Swishy with open arms. As she wiggled each of her fingers, portals conjured around her—some through her. Parts of her shoulder swirled into an ovoid gate. Her right collarbone and left eye also formed into smoke. Her forehead too. And her jugular.
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The cloudiness was something she accepted.
But the girl inside, as smoky as Ruby made her abdomen, appeared with clarity and tenacity and pain. The little girl was doubled over as always, coughing, groaning, attaining none of the stability and power that the rest of Ruby now had. Ruby tracked her from the corner of her vision, threatening the girl for cooperation, for pain management.
The woman achieved power. A new body, too. And yet the hunger transcended Ruby’s inhumanity. In this one way, she’d yet again failed to care for herself.
[Black Blast].
The barrage commenced.
Swishy’s mind remained stuck on the idea of his healing. It wasn’t something he’d done. But handling the pain? He grew better and better at that. Wrangling anguish became natural as if he were a curse, as if he were a wrathraven. And Swishy found himself able to gather the stakes with the ease of moving an arm or a leg. A former technique offered itself to him, merging his shadows into stake, one pillar, one—
“BLACK ANCHOR!” Him and Znitchy shouted.
Swishy’s summoned a stake the likes of which could secure his giant guardians. His massive technique did it all: block Ruby’s blasts, smash Ruby, and tear through her home.
There were vapors—some curses, some debris, and some of it Ruby—though Swishy couldn’t tell what smoke belonged to what party.
And the shadows especially took a liking to a demolished building, Ruby’s home. Curses flung from the establishment, slithering over the displaced siding and shattered roof shingles. The debris of Ruby’s life was strewn about the rubble. There were shadowclaw-feathered clothing items. There were her favorite polka dot dresses. Small jewelry chests were broken, spilling out Ruby’s good-luck pearls and fruit-shaped earrings.
Next were the postcards, flying in the air from the destruction. They arced back and forth among the garden’s leaves, souvenir shop images of destinations that Ruby found attractive. One that stuck out to Swishy was a cherry blossom landscape, which triggered a vivid memory of Straw Village’s inception amid the pink snow. There were several depicting the white sand beaches with shells and crabs and sandpipers. Many others had bridges and farms and orchards, unmarred, un-stormed-on nature.
Family photos also blew in that wind, pouring out of their ziplock bags. The edges were browned and water-stained. Ruby had had them for a long, long time. Swishy recognized group shots of Shugarrians in their tank tops and shorts. There were healthy banana trees. Intact coconut trees. Every scene feathered grayed weather, the threat of the Stormcellar winds looming over their lives.
A single stake marked the home’s grave, a sturdy monument with a sign leaned on its base, a chipped away wood carving of:
thE LaSt StRaw
Ruby’s smokiness gathered, then curled into human form. She grimaced at the destruction. Blackwheat propagated through her broom.
Her inner girl seethed, stewing in a boiling aura.
And this time Swishy watched the soul child without the friendliness he’d offered before. He twisted his rake into the ground, and the stake twisted with it, drilling through the rubble. He watched the girl wince and whine. Swishy was sorry for the unkindness. Inside at least. He wouldn’t say so now. Because he needed her to hurt.
Ruby watched her belly closely, then glared at Swishy. She’d noticed the interaction, the spiritual layer of the battle that’d progressed under her nose.
“You’ve acquired such a talent for hatred.”
Dark, frayed, heartless. What was there to deny? The litter of Ruby’s life rained upon them. Photos, postcards, religious texts all in shreds.
Swishy retracted his black anchor, drawing its solid form flush into his own shadow—followed by a multiple release.
[Stake Storm].
Stakes skewered through the rain of Ruby’s photos, postcards, and travel brochures.
Anything that Swishy sensed Ruby’s fondness toward, he destroyed. Each picture of the childhood Ruby, or the flashcards she’d gained from the Stormcellar’s altar, or photos of her with a shadowy, foggy presence—her and Myst.
The HUNGER…it thrummed through Ruby, subjecting the inner girl to a Cearthquake.
Ruby went flush. Her skin revealed the physical symptoms of starvation, stress, and heartbreak. Nobody, Swishy had learned, was immune to loss. Every human carried weakness. Everyone could be made to die. The spirit first, then the body.
A steam of souls lifted off Ruby’s skin, terrified to join her, terrified of Swishy. But her wind sucked them in, dooming them to wraithdom.
Blackness took Ruby over, molding over her grayed and vein-riddled skin. More of her humanity offered itself to the darkness. Each vulnerability was replaced. As the seconds went by, Ruby gave away all that was human about her.
The altar shook from across the clearing, an aura rippling from its location at Ruby’s back.
“Flesh, skin, blood, everything. Take it all. I don’t want these things. I’m beyond them. Humans aren’t human in Heaven? What sense does it make to take that weakness to a place most divine? Aren’t I your emissary? Take it all. Drown me, drown me, and don’t ever give me back.”
“Aren’t you going to wish for it?”
Ruby raised her arms to the sky.
“I knew it. You really don’t have anything to offer.”
“I am enough. I’ve always ever been enough.”
“Then let’s see.”
Shadows crawled upon Ruby as they did when she first transformed into Myst. But now she’d achieved acceptance. Now there was nothing else for her. A woman could never lead shadows.
A shadow mistress, however, could make waves in the world.
As the curses drowned Ruby, changing her to the deathly pallor of gray paired with black smoke, she was renewed. Her aura, once blackened, had acquired the purple tinge of nightshade. She was less human and more herself. She eyed Swishy like a rodent. Before he made eye contact, he sensed the exact intent that was behind the interaction. Envy lurked. What she’d gained was good. Godly, in fact. Yet it wasn’t enough. The measure of enoughness was something that Ruby hadn’t quite worked out.
HEAVEN…it was all around.
But emptiness was destined to always be her preoccupation.
It began again, the hurt within. Her stirring hunger, her gaunt wisp of a girl, clutched at her stomach once more.
“What’s become of me…” Ruby lamented, raising her arms to the sky, gently regarding the territories that orbited above her.
The girl inside traced Ruby’s gaze. Passenger that she was, the girl seemed always to keep an eye out for anything that could fill her. Heaven…it either couldn’t reach her. Or for her seemed unreachable. She reached for Ruby’s ribcage, rubbing against it.
“I’m empty as are you. We’re in this together.”
A thin smile emitted from the spirit before she crumpled unto herself.
“There, there,” Ruby said. “Suffering is air. But you’ll earn your numbness in time.”
“If you ask me, you could stand to be less numb.”
Swishy, Ruby, and inner Ruby—none of them felt good. And the darkness, too, bonfire’d all around them, dreading what the future held.
(…)
Ruby raised a hand in the air and a current of wind balled within her palm.
The mini worlds above stopped their orbit.
Ruby’s stars ceased their casual parade, enlivened with [Postcard] visions and stolen wishwillows. They were so stunning that Swishy almost neglected the foreboding aspect of these changes. These worlds, lustrous as they were, were hostages.
Patterns in Ruby’s palm wind reflected on a nearby island, matching its blueprint of crosswinds and binding gale. The gusts in her hand looped as they did with the ones of the satellite. As the thickening winds revealed their slate grays, Swishy recognized the current as a moving chain. And with chains there was control. And that control lay in the air-filled hands of Rubella Castór.
“Here, Swishy, a vocab lesson since that’s something I’ve learned you liked. I taught you everything from my flashcards and I can spare another lesson. Because I am charitable. Because, despite all your rebellion and shortcomings, I’m giving you every opportunity to love me.”
The wind chains in Ruby’s hand began to unravel, loosening around her fingers, looping and loosening the binding.
And the same happened to the sky island of choice, its chains falling away.
Swishy kept aiming stakes at Ruby but to no avail. None of the darkness or the collateral damage of fallen trees and launching rocks had touched her. The winds favored her, guiding her smoke around his offensive.
The boy kept the momentum of the attacks but was growing dejected, layers of blackwheat flaming through him. During his onslaught, he stared at the unchained satellite world, and how as the winds released its mass appeared bigger.
The sky island was coming—and with it, the first of the letters.
A…
Upon a closer look, its familiar red-orange-honeys, its many dots of soul that went alight, and the tremendous T-shaped soul that was on its surface, the Straw Guardian he’d left behind to secure them. Straw Village. Ruby’s retribution was decisive indeed.
“Be honored, Swishy, that your village was chosen to ascend into Heaven. It’s proof of your value as a seed. And it’s a shame that this…family of yours could’ve had it all.”
“When did you do this?”
“Heaven was my wish and the Cearth gave it to me. Reaping a harvest is my right. You know this.”
”It’s not!”
”Fine, then how about an eye for an eye. A home for a home.”
Then the G… came into form.
More chains unwound, accompanied by Ruby’s laughter as she eluded the stakes, touching them with her hand.
Stakes, stakes, stakes—each of them alluding Ruby as his blackwheat proliferated with each desperate attempt.
“Magnificent darkness. You’ve learned so much with that body, the way it soaks up suffering. Perhaps you are my son…even if you are, you know, a collection of things.”
Her red-lipped smirk cut across her face with the devil’s sadism.
Straw Village descended toward them, burning around its edges from the speed. The surface crumbled from its friction with the air and the reckless handling of it with Ruby’s aura. Once a perfectly round island, it gained craters and indentations and jagged wounds.
The other three letters hadn’t yet appeared but Swishy knew what he was dealing with.
A-G-O-N-Y.
A flurry of stakes, Swishy shooting his darkness at Ruby as fast as his body would produce it.
But Ruby’s winds intensified as well, emboldened by his struggle. A tornado, an orb, a barrier of wind.
[Agony of a Girl] had returned, a final one.
Through the wind barrier, Ruby’s body strobed around in scraps, in fragments. Her gale blew through her constitution, depicting remnants of her shadowed form. An eye. A curled lip. Her bladed cheekbones. Her delicate hands.
The woman’s curses hated it.
Her inner girl suffered, wailing against the walls.
But Ruby withstood it all. Darkness, starvation, seemed like mere trifles to her now. Control. That was all she needed. Swishy sensed her calming down.
“What happened, boy? Loss seems to be a hobby of yours. Let's play.”
Swishy flew at his falling village. His wheats bristled against the wind, his blackwheat skin growing taller and unkempt like an abandoned garden. He was tangling, losing himself in a dark ball of self. The straw spread around his gourd, expanding into what he’d imagined as a mane.
The boy’s vision was restricted by his overgrowth. It felt like he was trapped in himself, drawing away from the world and nearer to his screaming chasm.
“I’ve learned much in my time with you. I asked for a savior and got a brat instead. You were good for something, I suppose.” Ruby gestured to the worlds, to the surface, and to the dozens of portals that opened over her shoulders.
[Black Blast].
The wrathraven beams exploded from the gates toward Swishy.
Swishy couldn’t see them all. He navigated around the beams on instinct and desperation. For as shadowed as he’d become, mired in his unlimited capacity for anguish, his scarecrow structure remained intact. Heartless though he was, that bottomless abyss of self carried his favorite words.
DETERMINATION.
TRUST.
FAITH.
RESOLVE.
And more.
It went on and on, fed to him from his memories and given through the prayers of the sky-drifting Straw-bound.Swishy felt them again as they careened closer to him and he flew toward them.
Black blasts all over, some of them clipping Swishy.
But his blackwheat supplemented him, growing him back, and so he pushed onward.
“Is this what Heaven is supposed to be, Ruby? Really?”
“As Heaven’s newest angel, you’ve got to allow me a slip here and there. Let Tita Ruby work, okay? We have an altar and many shadows working together to make this happen. Do-overs, do-overs. There are plenty of do-overs. An undoing is normal.” The woman giggled. She was blushing even. Ruby coyly placed a hand on her cheek, a woman at play, a portrait of innocence.
Swishy landed upon the prospective meteor, Straw Village, hoping to save it.
The village was there, too, every member. The Straw-bound greeted him with T-poses and reverence.
With Swishy came a gasp of relief from the T-posing Straw-bound. Even the kid-crows were on the ground, stretching their arms out. Purple-bowed Amie was the only one who was still moving around, attending to the children, positioning their arms properly, and smoothing down the straw on their heads. She held down the comforting, the babysitting, and then turned around to see Swishy’s return.
A scarecrow god descending upon the village.
And a cataclysmic array of dozens, perhaps even a hundred, black beams coming to waste them.
Swishy gazed at his village but sensed the tracking blasts. A great shade cast behind him. As they drew closer, the specters progressed to a broad eclipse. Heat from the blazes burnt at his back, singing his straw. “I can do this,” was all he said.
Amie only nodded.
And then, behind her, a massive structure, the equally corrupted Straw Guardian was staked into the ground, functioning as a root system for the still-gleaming wishwillows in the area.
Swishy went straight to the guardian.
The giant looked down at Swishy, then held out its hand, its fingertip.
Swishy contacted it, gripping that index finger, feeding the structure parts of his consciousness. Only a sliver. Because he had just one order.
Vines.
The tendrils shot from the guardian’s shoulders and arms to grab the Straw-bound, curling around their bodies to pluck them from the trees, from their staked positions in the ground, from their hiding places in bushes and trees and tall wheat stalks.
The Straw Guardian brought the scarecrows into its torso, merging them into its wheat, placing them inside.
“Grab everyone,” Swishy said. “And don’t let go! You’re the village now! You’re the only village they need! As long as you guys make it, we can rebuild. Ruby said promised do-overs. And there are. But not with souls. Not with people. We need to make it. Please make it. Do it for us. Honestly, just do it for me. Please, okay. For me, take care of yourselves. And I will take care of her.”
The Straw-bound, removed from their stabilizing stakes, were panicked as they were wrested into the air.
“Sorry, I can only ask you to take shelter.”
It’s okay, the Straw-bound telepathized. Their energy wavered. Uncertainty ruled their spirits. But they believed in Swishy. However, there was no ignoring the calamity of blasts that was now seconds from razing their lovely, hard-won home.
Swishy turned around, facing the apocalyptic flurry.
Black spirit smoldered around the luminous rake.
The boy knew there was no saving this land. This patch of fall, these wishwillows, were doomed.
“Goodbye, all.” Swishy solemnly said. “And thank you.”
The first of the blasts touched down, bending a wishwillow out of shape.
Swishy touched the ground. And instead of spreading a growth, an enchanted planting, he’d only had darkness to spare, darkness to spend.
[Trust]…he requested this of the land.
And a [Mist] was what he inflicted.
The blackwheat broke down into a smoke, working its way into the village grounds. The surface beneath Swishy gave way instantaneously, changing its state.
The land began to change from the blasts and the misting.
Swishy worked as fast as he could, changing the falling island into a gas, into a pure nebula, before all was lost. A giver. He was always a giver. Now, he tapped into his opposite nature—or his original. Bloom was the known spectrum of Swishy. But The Curse, the return to the darkness, was his other side. Though he held little faith in his shadows, his inner abyss smiled at Swishy, who, at long last, chose to feed it—and to feed it well.
“Resourceful, resourceful, resourceful,” Ruby annoyedly said, projecting her voice through the atmosphere.
But her commentary fell on deaf ears.
Swishy, the dark god, refused to hear her.