SWISHY LOOKED AFTER RUBY FOR A WHILE.
The boy couldn’t just leave her.
Ruby survived. The woman slept amid the clusters of feathers she’d coughed up. She was dead inside, though. Swishy hadn’t noticed until now that the wraiths created a constant buzz around her body. Even when her mouth was closed, there was never pure silence. Stirring, humming, subliminal messaging—these came from Ruby endlessly. He suspected that she’d lived her whole life like this, one woman housing a whole community.
“Okay, Znitchy, you’re going to have a do a good thing now.”
No way.
“No choice, either!”
Wait, stop, I helped you win!
“Yeah, thank you!”
Swishy smiled at the rake, then throttled it for fun.
[Pile].
Znitchy broke down, grumbling as Swishy adjusted its form.
The blackwheat was filtered out and returned to the sublayers of Swishy’s body, while the reds and golds were wrapped around Ruby’s limbs and head. By the time Swishy was done with her, she resembled a scarecrow. Like Trey before her, Ruby was provided a gold-straw cast. Healing energy seeped into her body.
The girl inside was mystified by Ruby’s glowing abdomen and its odd warmth.
Znitchy reverted to a gold-straw thread, a [Heart String] that knotted around Swishy’s gourd stem. I’m going to sleep. Let me know when you return me to Trey.
“Okay, good job.”
Yeah, yeah, you too. Let’s save everyone again sometime.
Then little snores, little sleep-talking caws.
Swishy wanted to return to himself. No stabbing. No shouting. No sin flares and threats. His enemy was defeated and he eagerly returned to the business of being good.
Service was the start. Service was his everything.
There was also another motivator. The stone scarecrow loomed, casting its shadow over the area. The altar found him and Ruby and believed that his victory meant winning its favor. Swishy knew it was a dumb superstition, some primal thing that the bird in him believed. But he was struck with the gnawing urge to please this altar, this guardian.
He wanted to wipe the slate clean on his stab-tivities and curse-spraying. There was time. His friends were far off, recovering, likely reveling in the light of day. They were coming for him. But not yet, not immediately.
Goodness was on his docket, and Ruby, his victim, would be the unknowing recipient of it.
Swishy fed her straw chews, levitating strands from the tip of his finger into her slightly opened lips. When he got bored, he progressed to ‘real’ food, using [Weave] to create a rice bowl. A straw chicken leg came next. Then he got real fancy with eggshells with the chicklings inside—he’d forgotten the name of this Shugarrian delicacy. For dessert, he even gave her ice cream—with an intricate waffle cone texture to boot. Finally, he made a pumpkin.
He was rubbing it in, this he knew, but he believed he deserved at least this much.
The thing was, he was looking less after Ruby and more for the girl.
That hunger pang still needed a place to live. Swishy believed that he’d figured it out—once Ruby released her.
“You know, she’s weak now. You can come out.”
The girl just whorled.
“Come on, I know these things.”
Ruby’s lips parted further. A mix of blue and slate, soul and wind, blew from Ruby’s mouth. Rather than the fairy scale that Swishy was used to, the inner girl was as tall as him. And a force at that. Pure element, pure gale.
The boy meekly waved.
Wind, wind, wind. Strong force reflected in her hair, her face, her anger. She was a bundle of pale, fierce gusts. Her cyclonic limbs blew strands from Swishy’s body with every movement.
“Are you hungry?” At his feet was a pumpkin head, a straw jack-o-lantern of himself. He hadn’t yet fed it to Ruby.
The girl looked angry.
“Are you sad?”
The girl softened, the gales calming, making her nearly invisible.
“I can help.”
She was still translucent, not the least bit hopeful.
Swishy reached into his chest. The soft weaves gave way like a pocket.
He pulled out his heart and offered it.
The girl grayed, storm that she was.
Wild gales lashed the straw heart, lifting its strands, but none blew away. Swishy’s strength of heart was a certainty.
“I can’t say it’ll stop you from being sad or hungry. I can’t say that it’ll feel good all the time. That it’ll help you. But you can’t live on Cearth without it. Or you can—but then you’ll be a wraith.”
She cringed.
“If you want it it’s yours. But you have to pick now. Hearts need vessels. They don’t like being alone. So you have five seconds—“
She whitened, diffusing herself into a zephyr, into a still and enveloping air. The only evidence of her that remained was the subtle stream that brushed against Ruby’s puckered lips.
The girl retreated, returning to her cavern.
Swishy returned his heart and shrugged at the altar.
The altar didn’t shrug back.
Swishy plopped down on his Swish-faced pumpkin and dreamed up his next idea.
(…)
“Can we go back to the start?”
The altar was confused.
Swishy cleared that up with a history lesson told through mental imagery. He pictured his first day in Straw City where Trey told him of the century-old Curse. Everything that the surface world took for granted was taken back—down to the creeks and the seeds. He then imagined his first day as a scarecrow on Cearth, running through the lands, populating the plains with the sudden influx of wheat fields and woods—but he pictured the rewind, growths zipping into the ground, him backpedaling toward the altar, slipping into the shadows and away from the bright and intimidating sun.
The altar’s shadows swirled in understanding, subtly nodding its aura.
“Yes, yes, back to the start. It was comfortable. And I think my friends would like it. Back in the dark, nothing hurt.”
A stillness, a silence—what Swishy hoped was earnest deliberation.
“Do you know hurt?” Swishy didn’t know where the question came from. He just blurted it out. He’d never spoken to a stone being before. The CURIOSITY guided him by the gourd stem. He couldn’t help it. He, who knew not-much, wanted to know.
The shadows flickered a response.
You don’t have enough to take everybody back. You, yes. Only you.
“Oh…”
It was worth a try.
Besides, he wasn’t sure if Trey would like the dark. Myst, surely. But not Trey, and not the others. Still, he wanted to share his favorite thing. Mostly, he just wanted to feel the enclosure of it.
The boy, before his stone parent, just wanted a hug.
“Then…”
Ruby.
What to do, what to do, what to do.
Swishy had a decision to make.
And his gaze turned to the scarecrow altar above him, that which bore him anew. Swishy brimmed with reverence and love. He wanted to worship the cold black stone, that which granted him body and heart and magic. Many were only gifted one of the three, even none.
It was a beautiful thing to have the shot to live well.
And so Swishy handed over his heart. It beat within his little fingers.
“Is this enough?” Swishy asked. “Can she start over? They call me a god but I don’t have the answers. I’m just a boy. But her fate…I can leave that to you, right?”
The stone altar gazed forward.
Every wind ceased. The air itself stopped moving. Swishy’s straw ceased its unconscious swaying. He never knew that feeling of being stuck in time until now. Even the blue soul within his gourd ceased its swimming.
The only thing that was granted movement was his heart.
Steady beats and soft thumping. His little core was allowed its function. Only the altar and the heart existed in these moments, everything else frozen in time.
And then the shadows opened.
A dark pool rippled between Swishy and the altar, its surface shimmering with shadowed water.
Black diamonds were what Swishy imagined those sparkles to be. He wanted to reach in and take one. He wanted to dive in. Altar shadows…it’d been so long since he’d seen them. At that moment, he was jealous. The darkness was the same as he’d remembered it. Cozy. Comforting. The boy took a step forward, trembling, saddened that the conjured oasis wasn’t for him.
He dropped the heart in—and the core was accepted without a splash or wave. His heart was drawn in slow.
Swishy waved goodbye.
Then he went dark.
Blackwheat cracked through every portion of him. The heartlessness never got easier. And the palace that moved him so, the exact thing his chasm had been missing, made his weight much harder to carry. He wanted to cry and cry and cry. But the tears wouldn’t come. He didn’t exist yet. He hadn’t been permitted movement right now.
The boy, however, had learned another important lesson: he couldn’t just sit here and take it. Plan. Compartmentalize. Mitigate.
Never let the dark have it all…
The black scourge spidered through in him in thick veins, chasing the light away. Swishy was mindful to move his red-orange-honeyed tones to the surface, pushing them up through his shoulders and hands.
“Fly, fly away!”
The Goldies weaved into form, fluttering over Swishy as he went full dark.
“Go, already,” Swishy annoyedly said. “The bloom is waiting.”
And the fairies were off, their pollination mission clear.
Without their light, the doom-tinged clearing was reinforced. Only a heartless boy before an obsidian altar. He tried not to get in his head. But the stone scarecrow brought forth memories of everyone getting what they wanted from it—except Swishy. He knew, though, that such thinking wasn’t true. It lacked perspective. After all, he was here in the dark. And the bright world was out there somewhere, blessed at the tips of his fairy light’s fingers. He’d emerge from the haze. He’d done it through worse. And now he’d get to grow a heart for himself.
Still, he looked at the altar and couldn’t imagine feeling like this was another parent who didn’t want him. Its open arms were an insult to him. Because that portal was closing. Those gates weren’t for him. And he knew it.
The shadows told him so with their next actions.
With his heart consumed, the pool then opened around Ruby and the inner gale girl. It siphoned away the straw cast, absorbing the straw. Ruby’s body was next, the dark tendrils curling around her shoulders, holding her down. She didn’t look like a captive, a prisoner, a prey animal caught in a deep-sea snare. The altar’s ether simply eased her down, down, down.
It was a gentle descent, a supreme kindness.
One day Swishy would make it here, just like this, accepted back to his original home. But now it was Ruby’s turn. He composed himself even as the chasm told him to be hateful. Blackwheat all over, he managed to calm his envy into jealousy, and his homesickness to nostalgia.
Ruby awakened. She craned her neck around, confused but quickly orientated. Now halfway submerged, she spoke in a drowsy voice. “Swishy…my dear…are you sending me to Hell?”
“I’m not, no.”
“Please, be truthful.”
“I’m always am.”
“Please, Swishy—”
“It’s a good place, I swear!”
“Please, no lies! Why would you lie? It’s heartless to lie like that. Don’t let it take me! Please, please, please…”
“I’m n—”
Ruby was dragged into the depths, her hand raised, grasping for freedom. But even her blood-red nails were suctioned in, too.
“It’s…it’s just my favorite place…”
His spiritual dejection lasted only a second. Because above the pooling gate came a zephyr, pleasing winds that Swishy recognized. The gale girl projected herself as a pale sprite. No turbulence. No starved moods and deep gray gusts. She was just a wind fairy now. A shy one now. She even waved.
She flashed a gray curve across her face. A smile.
Swishy grinned in turn.
Stolen story; please report.
And then the girl was dove into the depths. Swishy was happy for her. She’d chosen her path. And she’d found exactly where she was meant to be.
The rippling pool shrank in its radius, reducing to a pebble, a wet patch, nothing. All gone.
The transaction was over.
Swishy raised his head.
He had a life to live and good to do. And when he made that realization, only then did the altar release the gravity upon the surroundings.
Wind, sound, soul—everything flowed once more.
With the altar satisfied, Swishy spread his arms. The boy was as dark as dark could get. Gloom, heartlessness—he’d done it all, he’d seen it all, and it’d someday all happen again. But the acceptance was a lesson that he’d never forget.
The skies cleared.
And one day, his soul would too.
With that he lifted his gaze, knowing that his start to love was paved with people.
A slate cloud unfurled, its marshmallow fluff splitting into silhouettes, into scarecrows.
[Mist]…the collective spells of the Straw-bound were undone at last.
The scarecrows fell from the sky, T-posing in glory, sun-blasted and sun-blessed as they plunged toward a new world. No curse could possess them. No wraith reached out for their bodies. Straw Village was free. The scarecrows—wingless, flightless—were teaching themselves to fly.
“Flap!” Swishy yelled.
They did—thud!—crash landing into [Pile] spells.
“You did it wrong,” the boy laughed. “You’re all lifetimes away from learning my secrets.”
(…)
DEAD INSIDE?
The scarecrow yearned to forget those days.
And he knew that he would—because Straw City was in a far different place now. Matters of light and dark had settled themselves, albeit in strange, unpredictable ways. But his friends handled first what was easiest: the world itself.
Swishy soared upward, surveying the self-repairing lands and the overlay of its soulscape.
The sky islands, The High Chasm, and the rest of the city were rife with shadows. As soon as Swishy turned out victorious, the cleansing happened immediately. It was a team effort. Myst’s webs descended from the clouds, the shadow mistress shooting threads downward to cocoon the stray shadows. She went straight toward the waterfall of refugees that leaped from the chasm, collecting them in a web-woven fishing net. She absorbed them upon contact.
Within a web-formed hammock between two trees, Trey-less Trey swayed under the influence of a [Zlumber] spell. Snot bubbles popped between his snores. Swishy imagined the reaction from Blue Trey when he found him.
The Straw-bound, too, once they reformed from their bad fall, prayed over the surging curses.
Multiple others helped Sling resurrect, using [Weave] around her bandages and humongous straw pile. They worked on her in shifts as they ran out of magic, four at a time rotating to another squad. Once she rose, she brushed herself off.
“Embarrassing,” she chuckled.
Then she shot talismans from her wraps.
CALM, COMFORT, SECURITY, SANCTUARY.
The rising and falling waves of curses became lower and lower, flattening, laying flush into the shadows.
Each entity became easier to settle once the uprooted grounds turned themselves right-side up. Sprouts grew. Felled trees pushed themselves up from their branch arms and stood back up. Cracks in their trunks sealed with soul and light. The reign of Ruby was over. And the land, its flighty curses, quickly adjusted to their newfound sunlight and calm. As the land re-grew itself, there were many crevices and nooks for them to settle.
And then—the gold sprites.
As far as the eye could see, clearings of wishwillows shot from the ground. His fairies had done well in their pollination mission. Swishy couldn’t do it himself, dark-stricken as he was, but once the towering trees went up his possible heart smiled.
There was no beat. No chance that even a seed of it had regrown. But he acted as if he’d never lost it at all.
A heart, a heart. He’d always have one.
As long as he tried, as long as he believed, then he did.
(…)
Days, weeks, months.
There were changes, changes, changes.
Once The Curse snatched The High Chasm away, there was no longer a massive siphon on the land. The surrounding woods and plains had augmented its hues. The reds reddened. The oranges deepened. Each gold had brightened to the miniature suns that they always wanted to be. There were flowers. There were mushrooms. Even the stones became shinier. The Last Straw had returned to its original glory and then became more beautiful than that.
If only Ruby could’ve seen it—and perhaps she had. But the woman’s starvation was a blindness too.
The darkness seeped through the soil, black intents folding through every ounce of beauty that the land offered up. The shadows were fuel for flowers or trees or whatever they chose. No direction, only animal instincts, the way Cearth meant for it to be.
Everyone splintered off into smaller villages, exploring the [Postcard] microcosms that were established by Ruby. If anything, the woman was full of good ideas. Once the phantoms were smoothed out into calm cast shadows, Ruby’s terraforming showed through. And Swishy, with his infinite magic, tended to those ideas. As he worked the lands with his enchanted touch, he sometimes fantasized about working with her, enjoying her immense humor and inspiration. Because they made a good team, or they would’ve.
Red, orange, honey.
He knew that Ruby loved it.
There was nothing that he did that she didn’t love.
Without her around, the curses seemed to like Swishy too. Most of them found their way to the altar—or perhaps the altar had sought them out, slowly rolling them back through an ancient magnetism. The dark was a beautiful place and Cearth had its way of letting the creatures know it.
Swishy only wondered one thing: how many of those curses were people? He knew that the scarecrows were created when the altar was destroyed, when its wish power could be activated anywhere within the city’s realm. But those couldn’t be the only wishes that occurred. He wondered what the other Ruby followers had said. How, exactly, did they go about offering the sum of their humanity as strength for their queen?
All he knew was that it happened. And his evidence?
People were returned to the land—always within The High Chasm.
They crawled from the shadows when no one was looking, either naked or in rags.
No filth lingered upon their bodies. They were clean, baptized within the shadows. Everyone in some form or another had lost their prior sense of self. No one could answer questions about where they’d come from or how they found themselves in the darkness. Trauma maybe. Or a rebirth. In either case, these humans reminded Swishy of himself. He rooted for them as they received their fresh, mysterious starts.
They were clothed, fed, and offered kindness.
But they seldom wanted to stay.
And when they did, it was only for a week at best.
It was too scary, being around scarecrows. Nobody looked like a human. For as ignorant as the returnees were, they sensed that their surroundings weren’t normal.
They fled—and the Straw-bound weren’t sad to see them go. They were in a strange place in life. There was nature to build and latent hexes to tame.
Sling was the most nonchalant of all. She simply drew up a SAFETY talisman and sent one of her wrathravens to deliver it, hoping the beast wouldn’t scare them further.
(…)
Another part of the aftermath: peace in the land—but it didn’t look that way.
To the outsider world, Straw City was no more.
Folks in settlements across the Cearth knew that something monumental had befallen Straw City. Its terraforming was witnessed from far and wide.
Businesses, trade, personal connections between towns—all had ceased. Even the snitchtalons that other settlements were used to seeing, sentient little shoppers, had stopped. Something was amiss. The population, however, had obviously gone missing—aside from stragglers found at other city gates, donning gorgeous straw textiles. But the muteness, the shyness, the genuine or feigned amnesia.
And there were those brave enough to travel to the land of straw to check it out.
But all they found were the most beautiful, bountiful plains. There were stunning woods. Vines and overgrowth hung over each unit of nature there and everyone was struck by the strangeness of fresh growth. The place appeared as an ancient, forgotten civilization, while also leaving evidence of that someone—some force—was tending it.
Still, the emptiness was enough to ward people from settling or staying for too long.
Humans from other settlements couldn’t see ghosts or detect magic. But The Curse had taught them to fear the altars. Something had vanished the people. They theorized that The Curse had taken them all away. And that instead of reversing nature, it decided to take the humans this time.
A great power made people fear the straw land’s beauty.
Some said it was a Straw Reaper. Others claimed that a monstrous wrathraven consumed them all, drawn to the lustrous city. One increasingly popular theory was most responsible for keeping people away: that The Curse had returned and Straw City was first to go—the people this time and not the environment.
Myst laughed at these rumors, which she telepathically announced to the Straw-bound.
“And not one about our cinnamon roll of a scarecrow that sends his magic fairies everywhere! But it’s so obvious! Hehehe…”
Swishy was glad to hear her joke again. He’d given her a heart a while back.
It wasn’t like the Straw-bound made a conscious effort to hide from the humans. They didn’t bother with cloaks or disguises. Many of them wore robes of bandages, their homage to Sling. But they still used discretion. Their struggles had made them soul-sensitive and knew far in advance when humans were coming. They went on about their days, running kiosks, crafting dolls, and hanging talismans. And when people drew near they’d take a break, a power nap of sorts, by finding their favorite wishwillows and T-posing beneath them.
When the days were hard, they chose everytrees, lying within the comforting darkness. There was a high feeling they got when the everyfruits trespassed their minds, seeking the exact food that the scarecrows wanted. Some of the kid-crows did it once, but the adults didn’t like that.
Sling picked them up by the scruff, shook her head, and that was that.
Still, the hobby continued for the adults. Their chief preoccupation was harvesting the fruits. They didn't need food or calories. Wicker baskets of everyfruits were left at the commonly used paths toward the city.
The Sling talismans labeled them with EAT, REST, LOUNGE.
No one spoke of hunger, not since their run-in with Ruby. It’d become a nearly taboo word for such a common concept. The scarecrows needed more time. When the idea of it came up in conversation, such as when a shadowclaw took off looking for food, or a squirrel harvested an acorn, the oh-they’re-hungry comments were followed by an undercurrent of shame.
Their hunger had brought them to the brink of self-destruction.
And now? That hunger had led to everlasting shame and repentance. They committed to serviceable acts. Raising the kid crows, feeding passersby, tending the lands—those generative deeds.
Beautiful lives were being lived and that was enough.
Swishy just liked not being the only scarecrow. They even had similar fashion these days, too, and adopted his parkas and Timbs. Fake wings were popular amongst the kids.
“Swishy can you teach me how to fly?”
“I can do a quick lesson.”
He was joking, of course, taking a page out of Trey’s book.
“Are you joking with me?”
“I just said I can do a lesson. If you don’t make it to the air, that’s on you.”
“Whatever, teach me how.”
Swishy went into a T-pose.
“Wait, we do that all the time.”
“I don’t know why you’re complaining instead of just doing as I say.”
“Because you’re tricking us.”
Swishy stopped the T-pose, then fluttered off.
“Wait, wait!”
“Sorry, kids, you’re un-disciplined!” Swishy stuck out an ethereal tongue through his gourd mouth.
“I can T, I can T!”
“Fine, then, do it! Do it all day! Stay disciplined or your wings will never come.”
Swishy flew away, laughing as the children hit their T-poses, closing their eyes. They couldn’t enter a trance state, though, not with how worked up they were. But their souls moved along their limbs, closer to a bird formation than the kids even realized. Maybe they’d get there. Maybe they’d discover their wings. He hoped so. The skies were more fun with a flock. And then when he flew to a sufficient height, the frost chips sticking to his straw, he transitioned to his other airborne form.
The boy became a cloud, no voodoo involved, just delightfully dark.
Shadows moved around him. Nature welcomed him into the formation. Somewhere in those heights, Myst was there too, laughing and laughing. Her newest heart pounded magnificently.
“I did good with the kid-crows, huh?” Swishy said. “My jerk powers are improving.”
“Yes, they are. Wonder where you picked that up from?”
“I don’t know, I’m just a sponge.”
“You’re a porous straw. I’ll give you that.”
(…)
Other changes, the least obvious ones, were only perceptible to the shadow folks—to Swishy, Myst, and the like.
In the post-Straw City days, Swishy was a gardener, an ecosystem maker. He never thought about what he was making—as he did a lot less thinking these days. His hands touched all the nature they could. The boy wanted to build homes and fields of every color, and that was exactly how he spent his days with the Straw-bound.
Swishy went along his route of enlivening trees while the Straw-bound used their [Weave] spells to carve out doors and windows and decorative etchings. The scarecrows had moved their magic beyond wheat and were practicing with leaves and wood.
Making a tree from scratch was something only the godly could do. But being arbor artisans was a reachable dream for them.
A healthy ambition drove the citizens. Swishy never knew he’d seen such a thing.
And that buzz continued even as Swishy slept—or T-posed in a trance—as was his version of rest. The scarecrow loved to do it under the moonlight when the night sparkled and star-shine clung along the edges of the straw stalks. Light bounced on the dew drops and mushrooms in bubbles. And the winds just blew within his first layer of straw. There was nothing in this world that wanted to use him. He loved the feeling of life, of never being pulled by the seams.
It was easy to loosen up, and the most natural thing to let go.
As Swishy spread his arms wide, the Goldies pushed themselves from his upper body, woven fireflies traversing the night. They were his bloom buddies, minion gardeners. The straw sprite crew went through the different villages and sky islands, sparkling across everyone’s lives.
GLITTER was an intent he’d never forget, one that he infused into each fairy.
This was what he was praised for, known for, and revered for too.
But there was something the common scarecrow didn’t know about him. His and Trey’s and Myst’s secret. Despite their times of peace, he was a dark god who did his deeds, well, in the dark. He had but one shadowy indulgence he made sure no one saw.
The chasm in him cheered, awaiting their treat.
Keeping his curses in check also meant serving them too. After the Goldies split from his body to provide for the wishwillows, Swishy allowed the chasm to leak from his body. His sublayers had their time to play amongst the night.
Dark smoke steamed from his body.
And these vapors thickened in scarecrow forms, those black sprites with bulging eyes and disheveled limbs. There were chunks torn from their shoulders and holes in their wings. Damage was their chosen color. They liked it this way. Swishy’s PAIN and AGONY and GLOOM and SORROW were allowed to explore. He thought of it as a spiritual exposure therapy to the world.
“Go on, now. Stay hidden but do your thing!”
And the hive darted away, traveling low and fast.
As the dark sprites went passed the red-orange-honey woods and the wishwillow aisles, they dove into the throes of the everytrees. The rubbery branches moved toward the fairies, greeting them, and offering places of rest. But the mini flock moved on toward the tallest everytree in the area.
A tremendous hollow resided right beneath the topmost canopy, a slit-shaped portal through which the sprites entered.
Gold, so much gold. The clouds, the mist, the debris in the skies.
And a surging darkness was present beneath them.
Cracked red eyes all around, a chasm of wrathravens flying everywhere, soaring by the sprites. The Swish minis were taken into the wrathraven feathers and the tops of their beaks. Together they flew with their dark brethren, accepted, even revered, especially as the nesting birds received instructions from a special someone.
[Nevermore]…
Bristles’ wings flexed across the realm, monstrous, gigantic as the Possessed Guardian’s, an unchecked might that continuously stoked. He’d grown powerful here, in his personal Heaven—or everybody else’s Hell. Without a Ruby, Bristles could be a wrathraven again. And when he saw the sprites dive into the realm, he welcomed them with the greatest of hospitality.
“Darklings!” Bristles echoed. “Thou art gods!”
The dark sprites were confused but excited.
“I beseech thee, screeeeech!”
The fairies T-posed upon their wrathraven experts and screamed to their heartlessness out. Voiceless as they were, the dolls emitted their scratchy war cries. They reveled in their nightly freedom, feral as can be.
After a time, they were done. They even exited the portal, waving to Bristles.
The Nevermore responded with a deafening wingbeat.
And then the sprites dutifully returned home, following the path set out by Swishy’s [Scarecrow] technique.
Swishy had a couple of bad kids, of course, MISCHIEF and MAYHEM sprites were tricky to track down. They loved to hide in the underground. But they could never truly hide where they were. In the former Straw City, blackwheat never existed in the open. And its conspicuous patches signaled a dark sprite hiding within.
“Come on, guys.”
The black stalks shook.
“Come home, come hooome, chop-chop.” Swishy held his hand out, growing it slightly.
The sprites took off.
“I mean it.”
[Sin Flare] flowed from Swishy’s gourd, a noxious sprite-killing smoke.
The minis stopped in their tracks, then begrudgingly fluttered back to Swishy. As they merged into his palm, Swishy pushed up a luminous knob of gold-straw, a lantern, a firelight.
A hum of comfort went through the blackwheat in his hand.
His gold sprites came home whenever—they had privileges.
Swishy called it a night and flew back to Trey’s apartment. When he described his immature darkness, his tale of being a big brother to himself, Trey laughed.
“You’re like an exhaust pipe, venting out all that gloom”.
“What’s that?”
“A car part.”
“What’s a car?”
“I’ll show you in Clayhearth.”
“When can we go?”
“Ha, do you know how many islands Ruby left up there? And then there’s the matter of all those little shadow bums turning human again? One human has gotta hold this down, at least until I swallow my pride and ask Grandpa Earth for help.”
“But I really wanna go.”
“We will, we will. We’re almost stable! May Cearth be kind to us.” Trey kissed his cross.
Swishy stared out the window with longing and excitement.
The darkness winked.
And the boys sighed.
(…)
The next morning Swishy had a revelation, a feeling that’d been coming over him since the new era: Straw City—or its many Straw Villages—couldn’t contain him. He didn’t need more. No, not that Ruby trap. Swishy just had more reach in the world. His beloved home already began to feel like a sandbox as soon as he’d created it.
Trey found him on the apartment roof, staring at the plains. “What’re you looking at?”
“I don’t know. Everything I guess.”
“You could take a day trip. Leave some fairies. They’ll do your job.”
“I’m not replaceable, Trey.”
“I said take a day off, not DIE.”
“Okay, you’re right.”
“Yes, drama-baby. I am.”
“Maybe a trip sounds good. But where?”
“Want me to blindfold you and [Zlide]?”
“I think I’m over the dark magic for a little bit.”
“Yeah, I know…But!”
Trey made a finger gun and sparked a [Zzt]. Its form was a little bird. Trey was getting good at the voltage arts. He spoke with his hands frequently these days, sparking book shapes at the library or shrugging stick figures when Swishy said something dumb.
“Where’s Clayhearth?”
“Far.”
“If the snitches flew there, then I can too.”
“I could probably fly there at this point.”
“Why don’t we?”
“Because I’d have to introduce my family to Myst.”
Swishy gawked.
“I’m kidding.”
“Are you?”
“Maybe, maybe not.”
Trey turned and blew a kiss at the sky, a specific cloud from Swishy’s guess. Swishy’s soul-reading came in handy, but he didn’t say anything. He just laughed.
“Okay, Trey, you know what? Let me do the [Zlide] thing.”
Trey already had the portal ready and bowed before it like a butler.
“So you were just going to make me go anyway.”
“Duh.”
Swishy stared at the portal. Energy electrified him. He felt like a scarecrow bomb. He backed against the edge of the roof, preparing his running start.
Trey raised the stakes and counted down.
“3….”
Swishy untied his Timbs and slipped out of them. Wherever he landed, he wanted his heel straw to bristle and split, capturing every bit of ground.
“2…”
Then off went the parka. Nature Boy didn’t need it.
“1…”
Arms wide, an action scarecrow at the ready. His heart hammered.
“GO!”
He air-dashed into the portal, clearing its darkness instantly, and carried that momentum through the exit gate.
The world, the wind—he felt it before seeing it.
Swishy gazed at his location for the first time. The sky—an aerial portal. He descended like an arrow.
The fields gleamed in his eye. Superbly empty, a blank canvas. The expanse appeared as one giant soul waiting for activation. His aura bloomed and bloomed.
His heart galloped.
He waited to land with a T-pose and a dream.
Then he did.
Colors burst forth.
Shadows applauded as they conjoined into rows and rows and rows of sky-piercers.
Heaven? Swishy wasn’t so bold as to claim that.
Cearth. It was just pure Cearth.
And to Swishy, there was nothing like it.
[End Book]