Swishy was set to receive more gifts than he could count. He didn’t know it, of course. Sling simply carried the boy while he played with his feathers. He relaxed. He luxuriated. And he was totally unsuspecting of the fortune to come.
The flood of blessings would hit him at once, and right when he most urgently needed it.
He spread the feathers he’d collected from Myst like playing cards. The gorgeous plumage filled the boy with so much happiness that his wing uncontrollably twitched and flapped.
“You’re hitting my back.” Sling lightly scolded.
“I’m sorry!”
“I’m joking, it’s fine. You’re like a little doggy, the way you wag your tail when you’re excited.”
“It’s a wing. I think that’s much cooler than a dog’s tail.”
“Dog tails are cute, though.”
“I don’t care. Wings are the best.”
“Fine, my young darling. Wings are the best.”
Swishy sighed as he ran his fingers over his treasures. It’d been a while since something this good happened to him. He envisioned the kind of world where Myst was this kind to him all the time. She could be a magical, shadowy Trey to enliven his spirit. Myst could make him his personal feather cloud. Or just make sure to fly above him every so often and let him catch the strays. Or…make me wings? No, I bet that’s the most expensive thing there is. If I ask for that, she’d probably take everything else.
He entertained his flight dreams without a shred of guilt. Magical bonuses were provided to him as a flurry of old vocab words pushed within his straw, a recap of past flashcards: HOPE, HEART, DETERMINATION, RESOLVE. These were the basics, everything he’d need to prioritize if he were to not just live but live well. Ah, my old friends. You’re back! Please be gold. Show me gold.
But he couldn’t see that deeply inside himself. His straw was malnourished and well-worn. Swishy was returning to form and he knew it—these intents were the start of his rehabilitation at least.
The scarecrow clutched the quills and held them to his heart, a bouquet for a boy who wanted to fly.
As Swishy sat atop Sling’s shoulders, he sensed ethereal tributes laced within the air. They were invisible at first. And then the blue dots appeared everywhere, keeping pace with Swishy, glued to the edges of his massive aura.
Soon those energetic masses took shape. Wings sprouted from the orbs and gently flapped in motions that were less for flight and more for greeting. Swishy was absolutely sure that they were waving to him. His impression that the ethereal constructs wanted to draw close to his influence was unquestionable. He wanted to know what their feathers felt like, if their ghostliness was of another quality that he was used to, or if the aura visuals were added drama to the otherwise classic softness of physical plumage.
He wasn’t afraid. He knew they came in peace and that they came for him—or even, if he should be so bold, belonged to him.
Swishy was ready for his prizes. The aura birds zoomed toward his magnetic being, ready to see what the straw boy was about. Each entity had already seen what Swishy was capable of. He’d slung so much magic in the past few hours. From sending communication through soul-links with his followers and making a bomb of his hollow feelings, he fancied himself a grandmaster wizard. The first spell ever cast upon him was CURIOSITY, and he knew that this spiritual flock emitted that energy. They wanted to know what he felt like. The only way for the incorporeal to know that was to merge with him.
“Come at me, bro!” Swishy called, scarecrow-posing atop Sling’s shoulders.
An impromptu audition for Swishy’s grace was what had occurred, and though Swishy didn’t know it, he’d stoked their enthusiasm with his own. It was a blissful ignorance. But who was the boy to turn down a gift? And better still, who was he to think things through? His hands flexed, the fingers wiggling with a fun-filled greed. There was very little that was free in this world and he knew that these birds were giving themselves away. The boy got the message that he didn’t have to pay a thing. Each faceless bird emitted an aura of smiles. JOY was the word upon each of the aura creatures, minimized but multiplied, reduced to drops of soul that forged fluid streams through their spiritual veins.
The boy’s fingers spread as wide as he could make them—which wasn’t wide at all but oh so welcoming.
Gimme, gimme, gimme!
Swishy grabbed for the first bird. As the boy held it in his hands, the bird’s radiance pushed back against him. Friction from the spiritual energy created a sensation that was akin to touch—yet at the same time prevented direct contact with the aura through the thinnest of margins. It was a near-invisible barrier, a bird-shaped void that coated the blue energy, that represented a visible lack of presence while still affirming its tangible existence.
The scarecrow stared into the bird’s face—right where the eyes would be if it had eyes. Mystified by the entity, Swishy turned it around and around, inspecting its anatomy, both the outside and the innards. He looked specifically for words of power, emotional intents, and a technique name. But instead the energy declared nothing other than JOY. There was only a divine simplicity in its nature. The bird was just a bird. The bird, also, was a prayer. Villager energy ran throughout the blessed form. The boy ran his finger through the spaces between the wings and along the ridges of the feathers. He played with the quills, squeezing and tapping and flicking them. He hugged the torso against his heart. That’s when he was able to read the words then, the well-wishing of the followers that he’d entrusted to Trey.
“BE WELL!” The feathers said.
It was so simple, the kind of thing he’d seen people say to each other in the city. He was a sucker for love. Swishy, who had no memories of the before-altar times, still knew that the bird touched something of his spirit that was always there. He was a lot like Myst in that way: he knew the truth when he saw it, especially when confronted with the feeling inside him. The boy knew that the projected feeling was something that belonged in him.
The skies were filled with birds of blue aura. A flock that cared for him was long overdue. These were good birds, not snitchtalons at all. Their flapping was a relaxed action. The urgency of the hunt was absent from the insouciant glide of the bluebirds.
Come to me! Swishy hoped to himself. Show me more!
Even though he didn’t say it out loud, the soul birds read the spiritual energy and responded in kind. The next bird tucked their wings against their body and rocketed in a sleek beeline into Swishy’s open arms. Plunging into his chest, the bird’s solidity decomposed in small sections, a puzzle surrendering one piece at a time to the shelter of Swishy’s straw body. As the pieces were shuffled off into the depths of the boy, they eased into their proper place within his spirit. Each part of the bird that lost itself had instantly found a synergy and home in the scarecrow.
“I MISS YOU,” read another section of the energy.
Swishy knew exactly who that bird was from, one of the straw-bound adults. He warmed inside. This was experienced in two forms. The first was that his soul generated a heat that bolstered the total sum of his energy, which infused him with firmness and vitality. Secondly, his straw packed under the weight of the metaphysical flames, buckling, crackling, and then settling into a matted layer of support. Its pressure was complex. He couldn’t deny its welcome, though. His instincts told him that this was how little boys should be made to feel.
The birds shot into him from the skies—two at a time. He recoiled from the blows but remained sturdy. His scarecrow pose was so secure that his body had glued itself to Sling’s shoulder, merging his soul with its point of contact. He didn’t need a stake as he naturally acted as his own anchor. Indomitable and immovable was exactly how he felt. And the energy that flowed into him reinforced both his emotions and his spirit.
Blue aura drained from the birds and spread around the boundary of Swishy’s body. After the first few birds, the energy layer clung closely to him, touching the straw as if it were skin-tight clothing. But as the fifth and sixth bluebirds fused to him, that aura lifted off his body. That invisible layer between his straw and the outermost threshold of his energy began to develop. And grow. His influence was demarcated by the blueness that stretched further and further away from him. The aura even smoothed out the wrinkles in Sling’s bandages as it pressed down firmly. The grass and wheat began to lean away from his presence—which seemed to exert an effect that was something between gust and gravity.
He remembered the sensation of Ruby’s wind-like power when entering The Curseworks. He wondered if it was that. But then he dismissed that notion—because Ruby’s gale was an attack. Swishy’s winds were more like zephyrs that blew through your hair.
The seventh and eighth bird entered him and the aura didn’t grow this time, but details now manifested within his impressive aura. The parts of his energy that coated around his one wing gained realistic intricacies. Aura thickened in spots to form the edges and creases of the feathers. His soulfulness selectively tightened and loosened to create energy art. The blue force was becoming a body of its own.
A ninth bird flew to him, larger than the rest. Swishy held its torso while it slowly flapped. He knew this to be the most special construct one all. Trey’s message infused within the interior: FIND HIM! LET MY BOY GLOW!
(…)
Swishy held the bird, never wanting to let go. There was so much to explore, so much texture for him to enjoy.
Stolen novel; please report.
There were other straw-bound supporters found in that same creature, overshadowed by Trey’s spirit.
And as Swishy ran his hand through the bird’s body, the rest of the village's wishes were readable. It was like having a letter that everyone signed. Trey’s bird phased into his body, merging through his straw. Swishy closed his eyes and indulged in the soul-burn of a feeling, absorbing the contribution with everything he was. Then it was gone. He didn’t know the fortification he’d gained from the gift, but it had to be something good. Of this, there was no doubt.
Swishy shut his corporeal senses down and focused.
The boy was creating himself. He thought about what Trey had done, his own detailed soul drawing from his body. Swishy was a bird soul at his truest essence and was energized by the fact that he could become something new—or at least an entity that was wholly unique to how he felt at the moment. He’d shaped straw for all this time. Now he’d craft spirit.
The birds came three at a time now—Swishy had a vision and the flock sensed it. They were as hungry for Swishy as Swishy was for them. He’d come to crave the nurturing energy. The boy’s mind was filled with the messages contained in the birds, what he experienced as an audio recording of the prayers.
“We love you. We promise to care for you. You are our child and friend and savior. You’re everything we need.”
There were some unsettling and confusing notions thrown into the mix as well.
“We burn for you. I am ash, I am fertilizer, I am a straw that will rise from the mash and crumble!”
He wasn’t quite sure what all that fire and brimstraw stuff was about. But the words tasted like hope. Each entreaty manifested as energy. Everything he took inside his body was a type of food, nutrition in dozens of birds and hundreds of feathers. The intensity of the village’s souls was the most amazing thing of his young life.
Wingy awakened again. It’d been a while since his dark wing had something to say. Swishy, in his T-posing discipline, had locked his wing into his preferred position but the influence of Wingy somehow made it more perfect. The wing curse was very into the feathers and found-family of it all.
“Ah, this is good! Keep it coming! I can’t wait to wing jump off of this. Whoa! Look at that wing aura! You’ve gotten really strong. If I knew that I’d be joining a talent like you, I would’ve sought you out myself. You really make me feel lucky to be your wing, I mean that.”
“You’re being unusually nice.”
“You’re getting unusually blessed. I’m an opportunist. I don’t deny this. You knew who I was when you were fucking eating us.”
“I know, I know, I wasn’t complaining. Just shut up and…eat—or absorb. Whatever.”
“Whatever is right. Back to the buffet!”
Wingy wasn’t the only cursed presence that reacted to the prayer birds. The curses awakened in the area. As Swishy passed, the forest thickened with them. The boy amassed tons of spiritual energy and exerted a reduced but proportional force from his body. His presence pressed into the surrounding nature and the hidden curses now pushed back. They followed the outer orb of the boy’s blue prowess, slinking around the forcefield. The curses tried to burrow and travel underneath—but were barred. Swishy’s energy was an orb that also reached under him.
Everything within striking distance wanted to taste the boy’s soul. He was getting respect. Something about the measured and tactical movements of the shadows gave off the impression of deference and even veneration.
Sling looked around and let out a mild laugh. “Quite the big shot, aren’t we?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” The straw god was so smug, so carefree.
“Play coy then my dear. Any time you’re playing is great news for me.”
“I can hardly handle how sweet you are.”
She playfully squeezed his body and mentally tightened the wraps that held him in place. The slow constriction was a recognizable pressure, a mummy hug from his bandage mommy.
Everything had been so bad for him for so long. The blackwheat was a horrible turn of events that he’d gotten used to. One of the worst things that he’d learned since his current foray onto the planet was that you could grow accustomed to anything. But the banality of pain wasn’t something that nullified it. No matter how numb you’d grown to a condition, the ill would make itself known with unpredictable means. The boy continuously found novel ways to experience hurt. It came in different words, a dark vocabulary, a library of blackwheat that tattooed volumes of sorrow within his straw.
His inner self whirled through his chaotic memories, a blur of discomfort that settled onto his worst moments.
Straw Guardian towered above him in its rot and decay. He could feel the E-squad’s former presence swimming through the tattered scarecrow. The wrathravens were forming an [Ultimatum] stake above the structure. Swishy tried to think of gold and wings and Trey. He said the names of foods that he’d read from Sling’s bandages. The boy did everything he could to reinforce a world of hope and fantasy and simple pleasures—but [Possessed Guardian] gazed upon him with dead eyes. It crumbled. It flaked. It died, raining the cursed debris upon his head.
Substantial portions of his body throbbed with the pain of life—but then he felt the birds flapping inside him. The flock circled his heart, following the slipstream of the one in front of it, a seamless halo that infused him with pleasing energy. Support came in the form of wings and prayers. He briefly wondered what’d become of him if the people stopped loving him. But he squashed that thought with a metaphorical Timb. He ground it beneath his heel. He’d spread so much love and never stopped loving. There was no reason to fear a limit or an end to the affection. Straw and adoration were in limitless supply. He clung to this truth, burying it deep inside.
He held his hands over his chest, cupping his birds, his heart, his everything. I’ll be good to you, I promise.
Curses were curious about him too. They were in the woods, the clouds, and the underground as well. Some slithered through the wheat stalks. Others hid beneath the wings of beetles or within the shells of slugs, eyeing the majestic scarecrow. All the flexing of his power of late had made him something of a hot ticket in town. The curses wanted to live within his heart, the inner chasm revealing itself as prime territory to nest in.
Other curses stared him in the face. They longed for the uncorrupted blues within his gourd and sought to pollute them. The blue soul in Swishy’s eyes were shaped into a tiny flock of birds. They wanted to create dark moods in his head. They even chirped out their favorite shapes that they’d seen Swishy’s eyes morph into: Hearts! Feathers! Exclamation points! Swirls!
When Swishy heard the curses’ requests, he imagined fulfilling them—but in black. He shuddered but opened himself to that future.
And the boy wanted to take curses in too. He was no longer afraid. Perhaps a healthy fear of the curses was warranted but he didn’t want to reject anybody. There was so much loss and deprivation on Cearth that Swishy yearned to house everyone he could. He knew that the wise thing was to be more discerning—but that’s just not who he was. He was a god, or treated as such, so he’d take everything the world had to give and more.
But patience—he’d still ere on the side of patience. He used that bird-granted aura and bolstered the edges of his power, keeping the curses at bay. He would accept them when he could. They’d first have to wait, though. Swishy was enjoying himself, and there was something important that was happening inside him. He’d absorbed the birds and found that he’d not yet unwrapped the full nature of the gift.
The scarecrow repelled the outside with his aura while he delved inward to his heart. He saw through the inner birds, beyond their harmless and loving blues.
He was after gold now—it had to exist inside him. His body functioned to create gold from the raw force of emotion yet he couldn’t see it in himself. That was the difficulty in going on his third heart, on growing used to the curse-wielding and of accepting his hollowness: the brightness became murky and hard to identify.
“Find it for me,” he whispered into his chest. “Pluck at my heartstrings. Get at the good stuff!”
And the birds listened—of course they did. They were his friends, his followers, his flock. The community of winged kin skimmed the surface of his heart, setting it ablaze with aural flame. Swishy locked onto that warmth. Those soulful fires spread with purpose toward the light. They’d travel parallel to the blackwheat veins but never touch them, aiming to search through the unmarked straw.
The flames soon gathered in hotspots of light, clinging to certain areas. Swishy could feel the map of his heart and learned which parts were normal hay, blackwheat, and golden. The birds had found the gold for him and all Swishy had to do was tap into the irony of the next spell.
“[Harvest]”.
(…)
His spell activated.
The chosen strands were telepathically drawn from the heart and free-floated with a gap in the straw, a ribcage compartment for Swishy to transform them. [Bale]—the gold-straw gathered together, learning each other, separate strands fusing their energy and becoming a singular unit. [Scarecrow]—he rearranged that bale-collected straw into a miniature version of Swishy. It was smaller than smaller. Even an ant was giant in comparison. But it was a little gold boy that Swishy was proud of.
He made a bold decision then: he sort of vacuumed his consciousness away from the main body and pulled it into the Swish-junior. On the outside, he was unconscious—with a roaring barrier that protected him and Sling from the curses. But on the inside, he’d reawakened as a miniscule scarecrow. Small but gold.
The golden boy stood on a ledge of straw. He moved around a bit, convinced of his control over this body. Stomp-stomp. He was pleased that he’d crafted a fine set of Timbs—for fashion, but also for authenticity. Being true to himself seemed somehow integral to his magic, though he didn’t know why or how that was.
Swishy discovered that he was a cavern. The multitude of weaves appeared as a series of ledges and bridges and overhangs. Some were orange and yellow. Others were black—those closest to his heart. Gold-straw hung in threads all over, occasional stalactites that illuminated his body. The boy imagined that the warm glow resembled the inside of a beehive. He hadn’t expected to be so honeyed on the inside.
His heart was above. He heard the beating. He felt it, too, as the energy pulses reverberated through both the air and the surface he stood upon. Everything rumbled. It was hard to keep balance, but not too hard. He was mostly reassured that his body was a real body—there was so much activity and feedback. Swishy was as alive as his soul now indicated, and the feeling thrilled him.
Bluebirds came from all angles then, softly flying around him, giving him a wide and careful birth. They were giants, of course, pure wrathravens in comparison to Swishy—but nice, loving. Their leisure purrs rippled through the air.
Then they waited. Inside of Swishy, they hadn’t expected to meet a separate one.
Swishy intuited that it was time for a spectacle, some demonstration of Swishness. He pulled a clump of straw from the ground and kneaded it with both palms.
The birds stared and craned their necks forward.
Swishy revealed the wheat ball within his opened palms—then grabbed the opposite ends with his fingers and gave it a mighty stretch, his arms spreading into scarecrow position. He held the staff vertically and raised it.
Each bird came downward and took a piece of straw within their talons, flying away and stretching their strand. It was just a rake. Swishy loved his rakes. And the birds loved crafting the curved tines with their feet. Everyone knew this was a special rake, the first community rake.
“Good job!” Swishy called.
Flaming wings were all around, a flock of torchlights crackling with pride. Everyone was their own campfire, and it was beautiful.
Swishy planted the rake flag—though wincing at the idea that he was casually stabbing himself. After the flag was planted the birds cawed—silently as they didn’t have voice-boxes, but their auras flared.
One more thing flared: Swishy himself, not the tiny scarecrow, but the original body. The gold-straw stalactites loudly cracked as they pushed from the ribcage walls, lengthening, thickening, and deepening its golden luster by a shade. Swishy was awed by the architecture of himself.
So too were the birds, who clung to the stalactites with their talons and hung upside down. They weren’t real shadowclaws, after all, so a little bat impersonation was nothing to them.
“You guys are actually the best!” Swishy echoed through his insides.
The birds spread their wings.
And mini-Swishy’s wing—which he’d forgotten to create—instantaneously appeared. It was little, of course, grown to scale. But it was gold. The boy ran his hand across it, giddy, not knowing what to do with himself.