A WING OF GOLD, A WING OF DESTINY—that’s what Swishy felt about this development.
The boy would later wonder if he could recreate this on the outside of his body, but at this moment he couldn’t stop touching his feathers. The ruffles were a mix of straw and true plumage. He pulled at loose threads and they were indeed that—threads. Yet other sections that he poked his hand through wouldn’t come up, the feather barbs laying just like any bird’s. A real bird, Swishy thought. The too-good-to-be-true sentiment came up briefly but waves of gold quashed it.
His logic told him that this was a genuine creation. He was given so much energy by the villagers. And those spiritual gifts paid dividends in gold-straw. The glow within his body was real. As Swishy took in the positive feelings, he watched the stalactites carefully. And those gold spikes reacted as expected: they sparkled and grew.
It just felt good. So good. And instead of doubting that he deserved it, he knew that he did. He was told so a thousand times over. And he’d fought for it, nearly lost himself for this gain.
“Do you have anything to say to me? Are you Wingy’s brother? You need a name don’t you?” Then Swishy forced himself to stop moving—though the urge to swish was great. He was a little embarrassed by his overly excited questioning.
Even the blue spirits above undulated in laughing rhythms.
The gold wing had nothing to add to this one-sided interrogation, though.
Makes sense. Swishy thought to himself. These aren’t curses. This is just straw and magic. It’d be a lot like talking to myself instead of talking to someone who was visiting.
“Well, I’m not a visitor! I’m my own wing, and I just live here!” The black-feathered Wingy yelled from the outside. But Swishy felt like that outcry proved his point. Who else would have access to Swishy’s thoughts other than himself—and Myst when she was up to it.
Swishy stared between a spacious gap in the ceiling, empty of straw and golden hangings, and noticed a type of blackened boning that ran along the topmost wall. It was a dark cylinder that moved up and down like a lever. There was a prominent flexibility to the appendage as it rotated in a circle, a movement he likened to the handle of a pencil sharpener. This was the black wing—or Wingy himself—and its boning and musculature were fused to the scarecrow’s back. Curses and energy coursed through the piping, infecting the surrounding straw and turning it to blackwheat. This wasn’t a bad thing, though, because the blackwheat secured the curses, giving them soulful purchase into Swishy’s body.
A symbiosis was clear here: the curses had safe and comfortable access to a section of the scarecrow while the main body fed energy back into the wing. Everybody eats, gains, benefits—or whatever word the townsfolk wanted to use. The wing curses, properly fed, remained in their zone, while the rest of his body could cultivate gold-straw—if nourished by ideal emotions at least.
He was intrigued by his understanding of himself. Swishy didn’t always think there was knowledge to glean from his body. He was the straw and the straw was him. The boy only had two organs: a wing and a heart. The anatomy of a boy was supposed to be a brainless matter, or so he believed, while the framework of magic was something he wanted to get closer to grasping. For once he made a link between his body and bewitchment, his straw and sorcery, the knowledge opened myriad possibilities for his future.
“[Wing Jump]!”
Instead of a sudden great flap, his wing fluttered so fast that you could only see a quivering gold light. The straw that held the wing to his body vibrated from the rapid movements. His gold feathers were the opposite of Wingy, who he’d received from the darkness of wrathravens and snitchtalons. Gold-straw didn’t beat down with oppression—in fact, it didn’t flap at all—but rotated in figure-eight motions.
He didn’t know why this method worked but his original bird spirit knew that it did. He knew from hummingbirds. To his recollection, Swishy had never seen one before. Nevertheless, his shadowclaw self was grateful for the inspiration from his wing-spinning cousins. His ascension was slow and controlled. The Swish-mini rose into the air with grace, gold dust issuing from the wingbeats. He steered around the many bridges and woven catwalks with easygoing piloting.
“Am I…?”
The aura birds glided around and flapped simultaneously, a purposeful message that meant: Yes.
“I’m flying!”
“You’re going slow as shit!” Wingy bellowed, its deriding echo casting a dark wind within the ribcage.
Swishy faltered, his rise stuttered from the force.
“Hey! Not so loud, let me try this out.”
“Okay—though you can take that as part of the lesson. Your little gold wing isn’t made for power like the black wing is. It’s more like a rudder.”
“I noticed that I can steer real good. I can swing from side to side like a…”
“A beheadingly amazing scythe!” Wingy’s laughter was equally violent—akin to a garbage disposal.
“I was thinking like a pendulum. A feather. Something that doesn’t kill.”
“Embrace it, Swishy! You’re good at killing! That’s the part of your talent that we love!” The other black wing curses were aroused by this statement and were ecstatic. Their agreement was strong, and they were so on the same page that their magic united into a spell: A-P-P-L-A-U-S-E.
In all black, naturally.
The letters rained down on Swishy and he used his super-steering to dodge.
“You’re no good at taking a compliment! Whatever. Congrats on your hummingbird bullshit.”
“Thanks, now go away.”
“There’s nothing I’d like more, Mr. Voodoo Doll.” And then Wingy went away. The spirit didn’t leave in the literal sense—the black wing and its anchoring remained attached to the body. But Swishy perceived the idea of the curses putting themselves away in a pocket. The vitality in the shadows retracted, signaling their return to ambiance.
Swishy was fascinated by the fact that curses could make others feel their sleep. He was learning a lot today. The pinprick of a scarecrow landed on the black wing bone and walked along its surface, impressed by the evident absence. But if he really, really concentrated, he could still detect the dormant spirits. He lightly tapped them with his foot. Nothing.
Cool, they can keep their kill-murder-kill dreams to themselves.
The aura birds waited. They slowed their orbit around the heart and focused on Swishy. Second by second, the flock members gathered in the same place, and their wings became indistinguishable from one another. Their energies merged into a growing blue orb, a spectral ball pit for Swishy to dive into.
Their body language said it all: Come through. We have things to show you.
Swishy understood this to mean gifts—he’d received so many already. What more could there be? But the nature of magic told him that there could be tons more. In the words of a passing Clayborne he’d overheard in the city: Don’t threaten me with a good time!
With a running start, the scarecrow leaped from the black wing in the direction of his heart. Before his momentum petered out and subjected him to the natural effects of gravity, his gold wing quivered with its hundreds of rotations per second. Like the golden fairy he was, he fluttered toward into flock.
Once he made contact with the mass avian spirit, the blueness took over. It was like diving into richly colored water. From within the orb, he could tell which of the birds carried which of the villager’s souls. He first distinguished their Swish-speaking cadence. Then he heard their original human voices.
And then…
Images faded in and out of his mind. The immersion was both immediate and inconsistent. He honed his sensitivity, stiffening his T-pose as a Swish-mini and as the original full-sized Swishy. The boy reached the village’s orb with his aura. As the contact persisted, glimmering gold-straw merged into the ethereal flock.
The vision grew less dizzying, less fuzzy. Everything clarified. And those images became moving pictures. Memories. Snippets of specific moments that were important to the great and inviting bird soul.
“Thanks for the invitation,” Swishy solemnly said. “I’m ready. I’m listening.”
Everything he was—optics, audio, straw, and soul—submerged within the gift of the village’s spirit.
(…)
Memories, memories, memories.
The time rushed into Swishy. The village’s memories poured over him with the crush of a waterfall. They drowned him with an overwhelming flow of imagery. Every mind was different. They had things they liked. Moments they cherished. Feelings that dominated their outlooks. Unique and hard-to-process psyches. But Swishy was a flexible soul. And durable too. Others may not have been able to withstand the sheer tsunami of information. Swishy could, though, and was confident that it’d take far more to break his psyche. His soul was perfectly malleable, a ready container to receive the combined years of his newest friends.
Series of firsts blossomed before him: a day the Stormcellar souls took over the shadowclaw bodies; their all-night celebration as they feasted the night the winds were tamed; their boarding of the ship when they left the island for good. More good occurred after they arrived to Straw City. They built houses, opened shops, and had regular meals. When the rumors of healing straw sprouted among the community, they eagerly tested the theory on those with minor ailments. Every life-changing milestone was condensed into orbs and wrapped around Swishy’s body like a string of ornaments. He took these in stride as he watched their lives change.
Next came moments that he was there for. The rise of The Curseworks, the festival in the streets the night he lost his heart. They rejoiced over the blackwheat. Some of the children’s memories lit up when handed toast spread with shadow molasses. Their drunken and thoughtless euphoria was given to Swishy as gifts. They didn’t know any better. They’d apologized for this. But their prayers had condensed the raw feelings into usable power. All their victories—even the ones that’d come at Swishy’s expense—were handed over to their straw god.
He realized the nuances of the gesture. They didn’t drain themselves because Swishy’s misery craved their company, a roundabout revenge fulfillment to solve any of his unspoken resentments. The straw-bound were starting fresh, and surrendering both the virtuous and the muddy parts of their joy was a normal part of the process.
Those memory orbs were shaped into ornaments with embossed letters. U-N-D-E-R-S-T-A-N-D-I-N-G strung around the golden mini-Swish. Their understanding? Or mine? Both is probably right. Yeah, both!
A minor confusion came to him: what’s understanding have to do with flight? Each instance he synthesized into his body granted easier control over his gyrating wing. There was a direct correlation between his wing performance and the empowered word. He didn’t get it, ironically, but he sure was glad that Goldie—what he’d decided to call this wing—was good to him.
One last memory came to fruition—a non-memory, actually, because its tactile sense differed from the other instances. It wasn’t foggy around the edges. His psyche didn’t experience this moment like fluff or cloud. Everything was clear and loud and moment-to-moment, as if it were a live recording. It actually might’ve been that, now that Swishy thought about it, but he wasn’t sure.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
A bonfire. A bed of sleeping Swishlings. The straw-bound staked to the ground. The blue soul lifted from their vessels and soared into the night sky. Meanwhile, the villagers themselves were drained. Swishy knew better than to freak out about this. The community shared the burden, shaving down their emotional capital into offerings to their god. They were moderating their losses. Everything costs—and Swishy was long past the point of fearing that anymore. In the sky, birds formed from the collection of energy, the ones that were now inside Swishy.
It was the present moment, or the present of moments ago, before the gifts had reached him. He assumed that villagers were right there now, staked and praying, while the kid-crows slept against their planted wood.
“If you want me to fly, I’ll fly. Thank you, guys!”
Swishy packed the memories away and spun his wing in natural figure-eights. He wondered, if only briefly, how much more it’d cost to earn a full-sized wing. Now he was small. Now, little Goldie on his back, was everything.
A strange thing appeared in the vision: Sling carrying the T-posing Swishy on his shoulders. He was seeing through the straw-bound’s senses, the present occurrence of Swishy and Sling arriving to the village. He exited the Swish-mini for a moment—and as soon as he did it felt a gnawing pang of sorrow. He missed his tiny gold self already. And he missed Goldie. It hurt more than anything. But then he was back in his body, the phantom pain subsiding. He was drowsy, though, not fully committing his soul to the original vessel, because he was about to go right back to his insides.
Swishy only had one thing to say: “Wake me when Trey’s here,” he sleepily drawled—and then conked back out, snapping his consciousness back into Goldie.
“Of course, young prince,” Sling said in her most soothing tone—while wrapping [Sanctuary] bandages around his gourd. Then she double-layered them. For good measure, she brought aura to the tip of her finger and wrote SLEEP MASK directly over his eyes.
The air was thick with soul. Blueness merged into feathers and masses of feathers were modeled into birds. Their heads tilted down at the slumbering Swishy, waiting for their turn to join him.
Sling waved her hand around, learning the villagers’ recent spells, using her influence to construct a bundle of wood chips and straw. She guided her energy through the sizable accumulation of material, creating wooden legs and a wicker seat. The giantess sat in her chair and crossed one leg over the other.
“Dummies. Who needs a stake when you can make a chair? Gosh, I love you guys but you’re so annoying.”
She nestled Swishy into her lap and drifted off to sleep.
(…)
Something that Sling didn’t know—Swishy snuck out.
The Swish-mini flew from his jack-O-lantern mouth as a golden sprite.
Before he left the village, he was curious about what he’d looked like, and not in the never-saw-myself-in-the-mirror kind of way. But this was a prime chance to get a perspective on what it meant to be dead inside. Fortunately, it wasn’t that bad. His hay was moistened by the dew in the air. The state of his soul was healthy despite the dark patches of blackwheat on his arms and shoulders and parts of his neck. He wore his scars without being controlled by them, and that’s what he assumed made him appear more like a real boy and less like an effigy. Relieved by his non-deadness, by the spiritual energy coursing through his main body, he heaved a sigh.
The Swish-mini flared in gold. He was a firefly for real, something he quite liked.
He flew around his black wing and noticed that the curses were still dormant but empowered. They nestled within the ruffles of the wing in an act that humans would call cuddling—but shadows didn’t feel warmth and coziest in the anatomical sense. For them, they were just occupying space and waiting for the fulfillment of the hex they represented. DARK, DEATH, DOOM, HOLLOW were all popular. Wingy stirred awake. Swishy obtained the idea of an opening eye.
“Hi Wingy.”
“Oh, you’re exploring. That’s pretty adventurous. You do cool things, sometimes, I can’t deny that.”
“Right? Just an idea I had since everyone is asleep.”
“Liar. You’re up to something.”
“You live inside me so if you can’t tell what it is, then that’s your fault.”
“Touché. Go away then. I’m going back to sleep. Watch for the big shit. Only disgraces get eaten.”
Swishy startled—then flicked the wing with his finger. But the impact was dull as Wingy already shut his consciousness off.
The fluttering boy turned to the sky and felt its immensity.
Cearth…it was large. Now that he was one-five-thousandth of his original size, even a meter of space felt like an overwhelming amount of ground to cover. He flew into the sky and a strong wind blew him off course. Luckily, it was only a momentary gust and he righted himself. More obstacles—that didn’t used to be obstacles—came at him now that he was scaled down to near nothingness.
A shadowclaw building a nest in a tree had dropped a dusting of negligible twigs—which were huge deals to Swishy as he experienced these as several falling logs. Thank goodness for the control his gold wing provided him. He swooped out of the way with ease—but with panic too—and acquired a brand-new respect for the mosquitoes that the city folk and snitchtalons swatted away from their bodies. Tiny life was no joke.
That same shadowclaw jetted from the treetop, sending great sheets of leaves upon Swishy. He pendulum’d his way around the arcing leaves, which was terrifying as they were dozens of times larger than him—and swaying. Lightweight, agile, and enormous in scale—it was a horrible combination but Swishy’s horizontal propulsion saved the day.
He flew above the treetops and hoped that was a safe bet. No debris. Just clouds and air. He looked above at all the huge stars—he experienced these as thousands of tiny moons. Their stunning white glimmer filled him with inspiration.
Now you guys better not fall! I don’t need surprise comets, okay?
Swishy was locked in on Trey’s soul. That was the bird he touched last, and its feeling lingered upon his body. The impression was strong and he could almost see a thread stretching out a pathway to his friend. There was something he had to show him. He couldn’t wait to surprise Trey. For all the gifts he’d received, Swishy had acquired one that he could share.
Eyes. The presence was intense. They were coming from one of the trees below him. He focused his soul into his optic center and got a strong visual of the hidden threat: the purple gazes of several hidden snitchtalons. Their human souls were, as usual, far too large for the shadowclaw bodies.
“Who are you?” One of the birds cawed, revealing itself.
The boy didn’t answer. He flew onward, hoping they’d ignore someone as small as him.
“You better answer, you golden beetle or whatever you are!”
Right. Sky-high gold stood out more than anything in these parts. And the soul sensitivity of the snitchtalons was expertly honed. They were also innately suspicious. Bad people by Swishy’s estimation—but he’d developed a respect for their suspicious natures. He was learning to become more suspicious himself. Nothing to feel badly about—just annoyed.
Swishy didn’t answer. He flew on.
“Stop!”
He refused. Onward—but slowly since the hummingbird wing was only a navigational tool. His wrathraven wing was for propulsion. The boy focused energy upon his empty shoulder blade. Try as he might to [Weave] something of a wing, he couldn’t. The image was clear: a big gold wing. The boy had the texture right. His artistic vision was perfect. It should’ve appeared.
But as soon as he attempted, the collected magic disappeared all at once, only to recur at the exact spots he’d pooled it from. He tried again and again, yet the spell nullification was instant.
“CACAW!” Not just the one bird, but all. Several snitchtalons were after him. And it was incredibly loud—the vibrations sent his straw standing on edge. He was lucky he didn’t have eardrums like a traditional animal otherwise they wouldn’t been destroyed.
The Swish-mini stood no chance before these absolute dragons. Describing them as wrathravens didn’t begin to do justice to the mass differential. Their beaks opened and Swishy stared into their raw pink throats. He swore he could see their veiny hearts pulsating within.
Wingy’s taunt tortured him. Only disgraces get eaten.
The boy didn’t agree though he certainly felt disgraceful in his position. The small get eaten. And he pressed onward with his slow drift, processing his options.
He was small, airborne, and far from his wealth of straw. It occurred to him to send his consciousness back to the main body, certain that his soul wouldn’t get eaten. But he didn’t want to give up this hard-won gold. The scarecrow wanted to stand his ground for his wing.
Am I being stupid? Stubborn?
Both. But he didn’t care—which was the gift and curse of said stubbornness.
The first bird was upon him as a dark eclipse. It shouted at him. “Where did you get that magic? Who cast you?”
“I’m a trick of the light. Leave me alone.”
“You’re Swishy, aren’t you?” But it didn’t wait for an answer. Its beak snapped at the boy—who dodged. Several bite attempts followed. The clack-clack-clack of the closing beak was deafening and disorienting.
“[Pile].”
Swishy dusted the bird’s eye.
As the snitchtalon rapidly blinked, the world disappeared and reappeared. Ponds of water welled from all around, tears from the irritated eyeball.
“[Quills].”
The boy turned into gold pins.
The CACAW came from the soul. Even the other birds were horrified by their kin. Nobody knew what to do.
Swishy dug himself in, controlling each pin, twisting, growing barbs, doing everything he could to drill down the discomfort. And though this wasn’t the plan, he was content to ride along as the agonized bird descended. The surface world reappeared in a turbulent blur of trees and leaves and woods—the snitchtalon crashed into a branch and everything sun, ceaseless cycles of sky and ground, before a horrible crunch! resounded upon landing.
The tears grew large, ponds on all sides rushing forth to drown him. Cursed words were developing within the injured parts of the eye: HATE, REVENGE, HURT, TORTURE. Swishy was sure that a spell wasn’t coming but the horrid presence made him a little sick. As a minuscule being, the latent miasma of gloom buffeted his soul with more force.
[Scarecrow]—he reconstructed, wing and all, and hid within a tree hollow. He went deep-deep-deep down into the tree, which he was lucky to discover was hollow through to the underground. Swishy illuminated the otherwise dark insides with his gold. The structure of an everytree was fascinating: it was all magic. The shadows flowed through to the branches, where it would bear fruit. And an equal amount of shadows traveled in currents downward to sustain the root system. Swishy followed the latter, passing through nodes of mysterious dark sap to drift along the root current.
He couldn’t see—both in sight and soul. The density of subterranean curses was more than he expected. But they were peaceable enough and only noticed him with a passing curiosity. They were far more gracious than the snitchtalons—which made sense to Swishy, seeing humans were the pinnacle of disgrace. It was one of the common man’s primary talents, he’d come to know.
Despite the obscured senses, his sense for Trey was fresh in his mind. He remained on the path. A thin gold aura spread outward and led the way, and he wondered at what point his own golden energy ended and Trey’s Clayhearth spirit began. Gold to gold—Swishy relished the concept. Matching Timbs, matching souls. Spiritual alignment at its finest.
The fairy-crow’s spirit bloomed once again, briefly lighting the root innards.
This time the curses acknowledged him.
Impressive! Incredible! Amazing! And something Swishy was shaken to hear: Delicious!
They now pursued him in clusters, sections of the tunneled roots sloughing off into a chasing ooze. A black current flowed after Swishy. Tongue-shaped sections jutted from the head of the miasma, lapping at the scarecrow’s heels.
He spun his wing with more concentration and precision. The rotations tightened—and the forward progress increased.
“Yes! I’m almost there!”
Trey wasn’t far. Swishy was so close he could see a boy-shaped aura, honey-colored and familiar. He just needed a way to break through the surface. He needed his friend to see him like this. Why this was important, he hadn’t figured out yet. But he knew that he needed this. There was nothing more pressing.
See me! See me in gold!
A dead-end was coming. The roots were made of curses and extended for as far as they allowed, but the ones in front of Swishy decided that enough was enough. Much like the current that oozed from behind him, there was a second sandwiching cluster that swam toward his face.
“I need help!” Swishy swished but Trey wouldn’t hear that—too little straw, too little Swish. His solution would have to be magical.
Both oozes were upon him, tongues and tendrils shooting outward, competing for who’d catch the boy first.
And then a third contender came: a blue soul phased through the soil from above, a colossus in comparison to Swishy but person-sized, human-sized. It was Trey’s astral projection. He dove into the underground in standing position. The blockiness of his Timb soles was immaculately rendered. Even the texture of his parka and jewelry couldn’t have been more perfect. Trey’s hands were cupped in kindness. [Zzt] sparks babysat each of his fingertips while his palms were an oasis of soft wrinkles and plush lifelines.
Swishy flew into the palms as Trey interlocked his fingers and clasped the hands shut. Black ooze spread over the ghostly hands, attempting ingress, but was deterred by clusters of static pops.
Trey’s eyes were comically closed. Made sense—he couldn’t see below the surface and had just submerged his entire ghost underground. He’d never done it before this moment. He trusted in his electricity and hoped for the best.
“I feel like I dipped my soul in a vat of poison.”
“You kind of did!”
“Whatever, just escape, yeah?”
Swishy watched through the see-through hands. The curses covered 70, then 80, then 90 percent of the fists. “Thank you, Trey! I’m going to leave now.”
“By all means!”
“I’m off!” Swishy tickled the soul-palm with Goldie to signal his ascent.
The scarecrow flew upward through Trey’s forearms and shoulders. He traveled into the chest, the neck, and the head. And as he progressed, the curses chased him by coursing along the corresponding parts of Trey’s soul. They were barred from entry as Trey controlled his electricity to encase himself. Swishy figured that Trey felt the corruption and targeted those areas with his aura.
Once Swishy flew through Trey’s head, exiting the static protection, he jetted into a root with more dormant, sleepytime curses.
Trey unclamped his fingers and switched to prayer hands.
It was all on Swishy now. The boy rose with haste and soon found that the root let out into the wide-open space of the above-ground tree trunk. He glimpsed the night sky through a nearby hollow and escaped the tree.
“Recall your soul, Trey!”
“Absolutely!”
The golden Swish-mini burst into the night, a little sparking firework.
Trey’s human body was bent forward on his knees, supporting the Bristles backpack.
The scarecrow waited with bated breath, fearing that the corruption damaged Trey. After a couple of moments, the Clayborne opened his eyes.
Trey smiled.
Swishy also smiled but realized his friend couldn’t see him. He made a heart shape in the air, gold glitter tattooing the night for a few magic seconds, before a fanciful landing on the tip of Trey’s nose.