A CITY OF WISHES, A CITY OF DREAMS—and of enemies too(!), Swishy never forgot the enemies.
The snitchtalons swarmed the buildings, the skies, the shadows. Swishy had honed a bird-eyes experience of his own, a soulful radar that keyed into the ethereal frequency of all surrounding beings. The soul blues and blackwheat reds darted about as a moving net, a frenzied chaos skimming his periphery.
Swishy and his infinite stamina ran and ran and ran and ran, sprinting from the STRAWBRARY as he reflected on the current situation: his dusty straw, torn clothes, scuffed Timbs, and his missing friend. Life was complex and cruel, unpredictable and unforgiving, and he couldn't shake the notion that their struggles were useless—his and Trey's and everybody else's. The improvements never lasted, and the dangers became increasingly difficult and harrowing to manage.
And insulting, always insulting.
The current quills in his accursed haystack: the library snitchtalons eating his gold-straw for recovery. Their souls settled and neatly reformed over their shadowclaw bodies. And the only way that could happen so quickly was with an aid: his remnant gold-straw. He tuned into the frequency of the bird bodies being piloted toward his fall spots or perched atop the straw-filled pots—what Swishy called light-pots. Within the radar of darkness, the soothing gold-straw disappeared and the wracked sugar-wraith souls relaxed and steadied. The resting opposition prepared for a second attack, mulling over the memory of pumpkin headbutts and thrown books.
His hurt was their healing. And his heart their capital. Swishy was positively grated by the concepts. Not even video games had done him so cruelly.
But in life(?): Hurt always finds a way...
Swishy opened Trey's book and read mid-stride. The boy examined the valves and pockets and fluid sacs, mystified by the cardiac diagrams. There were unfamiliar words important to humans but trivial to himself: BLOOD, PRESSURE, TENSION. Easy words but complicated application. He couldn't identify what these had to do with hearts. If Trey had quizzed him, he would've failed. Besides, what more must he know aside from the constant beating, the rushes of feeling, and its occasional chasms?
The most confusing part was the glaring omission of cardiac regrowth—he found nothing on it. His own heart simply grew back, returning to form after stints of love. Are humans not the same...? Swishy found the human heart to be complex beyond reason, and fragile beyond functionality. Liquids, chambers, electricity—nothing made sense. A heart of muscle. A heart of goop.
What a useless thing for Trey.
Swishy was stressed. Swishy wanted better for his friend.
The boy glanced over to a distant clock tower, and the time arms indicated unfortunate news: 11 o'clock.
MIDNIGHT persistently rolled into town like the onset of bad weather. The clouds thickened. The moon dulled. The stars abandoned their lofty posts, casting Straw City into obsidian.
Forward! I must hurry!
But as Swishy reentered The Snake, relying on the shortcut Trey taught him, he glimpsed none other than the zeppelin. The LEDs peeked from behind a building façade, talking its Ruby-inspired talk.
PRAISE THE STRAW—TONIGHT'S THE NIGHT! DARKNESS REIGNS, BLESSINGS ACCRUE.
Swishy shuddered, recoiled, and he fearfully cowered from the desired harvest. The boy crept onwards but couldn't ignore his perception of the roused townsfolk. The locals acquired jagged edges, their chainsaw souls screaming for justice. Some fought for Swishy's wings. Others fought to plant and grow him. The night was thick with both types—though most were on the harvest side of things, the Ruby side. He snuffed the thoughts from his mind and redoubled his stride.
But the isolation chased him down—it picked and poked and pulled at him. He was the center of the city, its mascot, its beacon of betterment, yet he couldn't relate to anyone he met. He'd overheard all the common troubles, bad dates and annoying customers and family drama. As he passed by the townsfolk, he mentally rehearsed his own brand of small talk. They're trying to eat my heart. You know the feeling? When they want your insides? Isn't it crazy when that happens? Even he knew how stupid that sounded.
CAWAW! An angry snitchtalon dive-bombed from behind a chimney, its soul flaring with violent intent, which Swishy easily perceived. The bird aimed for his chest, targeting his seed—and Swishy swatted it with Trey's book.
A second bird flanked Swishy and the boy flicked his mitten at the creature's face. The snitchtalon fluttered wildly, unable to remove the glove from its small head.
With his naked hand, he touched the ground. The inside of his chest shriveled, energy pulsing from his core to his hand, and his hand towards the now-broken cobblestone. His inner strength gripped the buried roots, dragging the life upwards. Swishy concentrated, holding an image in his head, massaging the shape of the magical growth.
Ah ha! I did it!
The boy had brought up a rake of thick and twisted roots, its prongs helixed in wild bunches of blackwheat. For once, Swishy wasn't disappointed in the lack of gold-straw. Vengeance was the mood the snitchtalons had earned.
Both birds regrouped: one had removed the glove from the other's eyes. And then they circled Swishy, flying low and fast, carefully positioning themselves such that one occupied the scarecrow's vision while the other lurked in the blind spot. Swishy stood poised, holding the rake like a staff. He posed like the monk in Altruistic Altar. Flashcards or not, he'd decided to make his video game maneuvers work.
The birds plunged toward him like twin arrows, one on each side, and Swishy instinctually twirled the rake in his hands and released a home-run swing at the front-facing bird—crushing its wing—and carrying that same momentous swing behind him towards the second bird, who dodged.
So close! But it's okay. I can hurt him still...
Swishy loomed over the injured snitchtalon while glaring at the flighted one. He swiftly stabbed—and both snitchtalons gasped—but there was no kill, only Swishy precisely aiming, pinning the injured bird beneath the prongs. The scarecrow's eyes formed into skulls. He leaned downwards and took his prisoner into his mouth, using his enigmatic soul-works to break down its dark feathers. Swishy's winglet twinged, then slightly bulked up. And the remaining snitchtalon flew away, meekly cawing.
Flying...those were the days. He didn't remember flight. He didn't remember bird times in any regard. But the wings and freedom of the fleeing sugar-wraith infuriated him. The envy sharpened in him like a stake. The sooner he could soar from the shadows and noise, the better. His tenacious desire would see him through.
And the night felt the force of Swishy, presenting opportunities for his malice to thrive. The boy detected flashcard concepts floating in the dark, arcane lessons without an apparent source. VENGEANCE, INTIMIDATION, TERROR, DISQUIET zoomed towards Swishy, offering their graces. One by one, the scarecrow walked towards them, collecting his prizes. He could learn on his own. He'd stand as a crow-bane until he'd achieved his goal. As he proceeded through the snake, a final word rose from the ground in dark smoke, flowing into the boy's receptive weave: NIGHTMARE.
Swishy felt strong, decidedly formidable. He was tired of the fights, the conflict. He wondered why he had to fight so much but didn't wonder long. Another obvious answer: Trey. The scarecrow now served as his own shield, his own rake. Lonely but powerful. Self-defending, self-reliant. No attack had succeeded. The boy proudly reached inside and gripped himself—the beat was prominent but weaker than expected. He knew why: the rake.
All creation had a cost. Swishy, boy of seed, accepted this.
He could hear a murmur, a soul remnant trapped in his wing. The voice, the regrets, the last remains of a failed snitchtalon. Just like with the books, the soul of its prior creator, its owner, stuck to it always. The snitchtalon's voices clung to the textured fabric of his wing. The art of eating shadowclaws stuck with him. It meant nothing to him. But the sorrow-stricken voices remained—I'm dead, I failed, I've lost Ruby—though turned down to a low, low volume, a blessedly dull static of pain.
Swishy glared at his wing with NIGHTMARE intent, and the voices disappeared, choking off into silence.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
The boy continued through the Snake, that long and winding path, calmly traversing the cobbled darkness as the birds glared at him. The eyes beamed at him from every direction: the roofs and clouds and telephone poles. The windowsill planters contained eyes, too, hidden birds, staring and plotting and imagining great violence upon Swishy. The air thickened with outrage and kill fantasy. But Swishy remained tough; Swishy willed himself to strength.
The blimp reappeared as a shadowy ghost. It had a new message this time, less general, less affirmative and wheat positive this go around. The zeppelin spoke to Swishy and Swishy alone: SWISHY, HOW COULD YOU?
The fear blasted him in a single, harsh cadence, undoing his straw. His carefully constructed chest loosened and loosened. He could've sworn that his heart would fall right outside of him. Swishy had destroyed a library and eaten some birds. He'd created a cult. He vandalized everything feathered, everything lovingly constructed. The scarecrow Ruby knew was a good boy. But the scarecrow of the past couple of hours was a menace.
The NIGHTMARE he'd absorbed became tinged with regret. But it was too late for that.
The Ruby Hour cometh—the Ruby herself cometh. The city spoke it so.
(...)
Before Swishy entered the next clearing he anticipated drama. His soulful radar indicated as much, suspicions he soon confirmed with raw eyesight. The truth clarified before him in unbridled madness.
Hoodlums, vandals, street urchins, thugs: the Swish followers were stealing all the shadowclaw garlands, dream catchers, wind chimes, and tailored plumage coats. The boy walked amongst the ongoing carnage of Swish faithful looting the plaza to hell and back. Swishy couldn't help his mirth at watching the destruction, standing outside of a busted shop window, reveling in raining feathers.
His supporters faced off against Ruby's devotees—who were defending against robberies and saying things like Put the feathers back! What's wrong with you? You're defying Ruby for a scarecrow? She did the work—she made this town! The boy is just her spell!
Everyone was confident in their correctness. Everyone was determined and stubborn and immovable. Something had to give, a fracturing which was well underway. Straw City was in the throes of crumbling and destruction.
Swishy rushed past the flurry of fists and feet and feathers and rocks—rocks thrown at each other, and rocks thrown at the nearby snitchtalons. Each person was a walking weapon, their souls spiked like urchins, their barbed intents savagely clashing. The Curseworks was Swishy's goal, his destination. But the closer he got, the stranger the city became.
As the scarecrow dived through the uproarious denizens, his followers handed him handfuls of feathers—which Swishy snatched and consumed like a marathon runner. People stepped before him, obstructing him, singing his praises while also offering a shadowclaw corsage here, a makeshift torch of black feathers there, and dark orbs of plumage. Forward, he wished only to go forward, but the progress was slowed by the clamoring hands, the offering hands, the looting hands of love and devotion and undying belief in the boy's magic straw.
"Stop that boy!" A couple said in unison, a muscular man and a knife-wielding woman. They both wore wedding rings, a union Swishy learned was valuable and profound. And the couple moved as one, too, a unit of madness charging towards Swishy, blackwheat rowdiness reducing their eyes to runny red yolks.
"Help!" Swishy called to no one, anyone, everyone—raising his rake as a smoke signal, a flag. And thankfully a horde of Swish-faithful closed in around him, blocking the couple, reaching for the woman's knife. But the couple was unconscious. Their bodies dragged their opposition, slowly but surely, inching towards Swishy, gnashing their teeth, wanting nothing but to stop him. They screamed as one, double-voiced, double-demented: "We'll eat your legs! We'll eat your arms! We'll reduce you to hay bale! Ruby is this city—Ruby forever!"
Swishy's soul trembled. He'd sustained all manners of damage, confident that he'd reconstruct. But what if they ate entire chunks? Would the straw exit their bodies and make their way back? He didn't want to know, or think about it, or watch them tear through him with their jagged, timeworn dentistry.
He ran—what else was there for him to do? The couple's screams were properly dulled by the distance, but the image of their crazed expressions stayed with him. And the more he studied the people around him, he couldn't help noticing the multitude blackwheat insanity targeted toward Swishy. Ruby's devotees he knew they meant the violence. Using him was one level of danger, one which he was used to—violence, though, to wish and intend him harm, was jarring, nightmarish, and horrendously sinister.
What did I do? All I did was be born...
But his sprinting said otherwise, his sprinting said he knew exactly why he was running. He'd antagonized Ruby by insisting upon his freedom. The consequence of push-back, of raucous savagery aimed toward him, was only natural.
At last—a pocket of space, hallowed emptiness. A respite, though(?)—not quite, especially as he noticed an abnormality before him.
A sudden influx of non-card lessons materialized, gold letters floating in gilded mischief. Various words puppeteered the suggestible locals. Arcane commandments sat within the souls, a frenetic population of spells being cast as the confrontations continued. STRENGTH, FORCE, WILL, VICTORY were among the most common spells used by the people.
Swishy was blighted by surprise and doubt. Ruby invented the first flashcards, and Trey had been using borrowed cards from her deck. But how did the town achieve its own spells? What altar blessed them so? Something wasn't right, especially now that there were fledgling spellcasters flinging magic every which way.
Before him was a deep fryer of emotion, a hot rage frothing the proximate darkness. A battle of ideals, a battle of words and wills and worrisome dispositions. There was no regard to the side effects as people infused themselves with STRENGTH and FORCE. The cards couldn't supply power to small-muscled vessels. The same as WILL couldn't work in the weak-minded. VICTORY? Useless without the tools with which to dominate.
And so persisted the flurry of thoughtless spells. People were unskilled, uncaring. Rule number one: no entity can make something out of nothing, not even the curses.
He ran through the riot and jetted towards the Curseworks, towards Trey and Ruby. Swishy passed the clock tower and ignored it. Time(?)—there wasn't any. NUMB had activated in at least a third of the crowd, allowing them to ignore pain. People suffered cuts and scrapes and bruises without so much as a flinch. One woman was poked in the eye and fought off the impulse to wince or blink. Another man was kicked in the stomach and didn't double over.
People are stupid and so are their spells.
"LORD SWISHY!"
Oh goodness, not him...
"Hi Bristles," Swishy meekly waved, somewhat relieved to see him vacant inside, no magic words warping his behavior.
"Young liege, thou art returned...with feathers! How magnificent." Then Bristles bent down over Swishy and sniffed the wing.
"I was attacked," the boy swished, staying the urge to lean away. He couldn't show discomfort, he couldn't show fear. Bristles Wrathraven would know. "It just kind of happened."
Bristles' eyes darkened. A madness swirled inside that reminded Swishy of the blackwheat. But there was no blackwheat inside, no manufactured redness urging this bird-souled man toward rage. This was purely Bristles and rage. Wrathraven and predation. "Excuse me, my liege. Thy news upsets me. It bothers me greatly that these lowly shadowclaws would do such a thing to the savior of straw."
Bristles trembled. The shape of his soul was monstrous, a tremendous ethereal bird. The wings inside him stretched wide like a dragon. His aura expanded into a soulful blue wrathraven, its beak tearing towards the sky. The ghostly beak opened, shooting—not flame—but darkness.
"It's okay," Swishy cautiously patted his shoulder. "I'm okay."
"Certainly. But this cannot be. Every wing is thy wing. We will get them back."
"I was hoping so too."
Bristles brightened, his fury settling into a cultivated friendliness. "Let us go hunting. We shall acquire thy wings."
"Cool, let's go." Hunting—a new concept. But wings—an oldie but goodie. Swishy playfully hoisted his rake, down for whatever.
Bristles flashed a kind smile before heading deeper into the city. They were almost to The Curseworks, a half-mile away. He kept a swift pace, yet slow enough for the diminutive Swishy to follow. The architectural silhouettes of The Curseworks were raised to the clouds by twisted heart-fed roots. Dark clouds cut across the building foundations, giving the illusion of a floating plaza, a traveling fortress. Shadows oozed throughout the rough-hewn tree roots, coating its base of doom. "We'll succeed my young Wrathraven. One by one, we will taketh the shadowclaws out."
Swishy didn't expect to feel confident in Bristles, but it was hard not to. He assessed Bristles for the first time. A strong chest, a strong back—a true bird bulging from his tank top. His bronzed skin was wrought in calluses, his arms and hands coarsened from fieldwork. The pumpkin energy tinged his skin and aura, infusing him with an uncommon vitality, a wildness, a non-civilized being. He was big and strong and tenacious, at least three shadowclaws taller than Trey—and five wider.
Was Bristles friend-shaped? No. But ally-shaped? Absolutely. Swishy was compelled to team with the walking mallet, the self-proclaimed wrathraven—whatever that was.
"You want to take the birds out?" Swishy head-tilted. "Please explain."
"The enemies must be done away with. It is for thy protection. War is outrageous and volatile, therefore preparation is key."
Swishy considered the way fights escalated into this mysterious and head-jarring WAR. He surveyed the nearby conflicts and found the word tumbling through the darkness, bouncing from quarrel to quarrel, summoning mess and leaving ruin. In the distance, snitchtalons shrieked. "War...I understand. I think I've been at war since I got here. Us against everyone."
"Not just us," Bristles clarified," but us."
Several humans also emerged from The Snake, wielding pipes and garden shovels and wooden clubs and their torches. They were determined and full of anger. The blues of their souls swelled and popped with righteousness. The small mob approached and Swishy expected the usual Hello, Hi, Good Day, Everybody Eats, but he received a greeting from the wild, an ancestral one: CACAW.
Birds! He remembered the kidnappings, the Swish lovers stripped from their bodies. He'd been so focused on his heart troubles, he overlooked the blatant crimes. The soul exchange finally bothered him the way it should've all along. Inside, his pulse jackhammered.
And one other detail: each of these several people were carrying their own snitchtalons. Their bodies were bound with twine. The birds were bruised and unconscious. Swishy laughed at their torn vests.
"Are they wrathravens too?"
"Or shadowclaws! Who's to say? The war will sort that. Tis a waste to worry thy round-headed magnificence over such trifles. Dark wings and flighted majesty—these belong to us. Thy due is here to collect."
Swishy's hands curled around the rake handle, blackwheat proliferating and spilling from the prong ends. And for a brief moment, his attentive blues dyed themselves red.
A surprisingly joyous sentiment burst from Swishy. "We're a flock again! Can you believe it?"
Bristles smiled at his wheat deity. He then sneered toward the darkness.