CONFUSION AND RELIEF.

There feelings came to Trey in one package—the Swishy joining him as a bird package—but now that his visceral flight came to a close, releasing him back into an all-encompassing blueness. The backdrop of his thoughts was painted in soul color. He waited for the mental theatre to continue, ruminating on what he’d just seen.

The interactive history lesson was more informative than he realized. He felt fortunate to receive it—at least until the memory birds itself seemed to turn on him.

They were really about to jump me in my mind? Ain’t that scuffed. I hate this place.

It was still good to see Swishy, though, and for the passengers to talk to him—even if the vision didn’t tell him the whole story. However, it wasn’t done talking. Trey was still in a trance. He was well aware of the outside world, the imminent peril of wrathravens lunging toward his baby-boy spirit.

The TRUST word stabilized him, vanquishing any hint of pessimism, especially since the intent moved through the Straw Guardian. He was covered by those dexterous hands. Nothing would go wrong.

With the giant scarecrow's reassurance on the outside, he comfortably focused on the blue environment within.

“Alright, passenger, talk to me, say something. You know we don’t have time with the wrathravens out there and all!” Trey wanted to add a ‘chop-chop’ to the commentary but decided against it.

More flies with honey than vinegar I guess.

After their birdcage battle together, the passenger seemed considerably more responsive and talkative than it once was.

It was a core he hadn’t known.

Something Trey didn’t let on—something that he had unconsciously hidden from himself. He sensed that his soul had a little more body, an unrecognized heft since awakening from the Bristles battle into the scarecrow cast. He’d dismissed it as a side effect of magic-boosting from the straw itself. The wheat was enchanted. He couldn’t think of anything healthier for his body—not even veggies. But the normally short-lived vitality of prolonged rest didn’t settle down. The young man’s soul stayed slightly flared, flexed, and strong. His soul wasn’t bigger, but it was fuller.

There was something that in retrospect Trey was unsettled by. It was something that he’d felt for a long, long time. Everyone these days locked some aspect of their souls away. Trey was no exception, but he didn’t know that sealed part of him until now. Some people needed a lot of time to figure themselves out, soul searching, Trey laughed to himself. But the Clayborne didn’t need nearly as much time. Mortal peril was talented at speeding up growth, understanding, and in this case ethereal know-how.

Something live thrived within, something equally vibrant to his soul. He knew it wasn’t his. It didn’t belong to him. Yet the kernel now unraveled, releasing an aura into his stream of life, assimilating into Trey’s spirit.

“What are you?” Trey asked. “Who are you?”

But the unraveling continued. It unwrapped in ribbony strips but there was yet more to reveal.

Fear. Many fears. There were all sorts of fears that he could relate to but knew hadn’t belonged to him. The cadence and phrasing of the thoughts were unique. The voices were not his. The thought patterns weren’t recognizable in the last. Trey had so much on his mental stack. He wondered if he had telepathy. But whose ideas were these? The young man conjectured that his empathy was just on overload, reading the emotions of the ambient curses, a bit of Swishy action performed by Trey.

But that couldn’t be it. There was only one Swishy. And Trey was just Trey—a soul, yes, but not at all a dark dweller. He was a human. And like the human-turned-wrathravens proved during the fight, the transformation didn’t give you easy control over the rest of the species abilities. You had to practice. Your understanding had to be learned. Nothing that came innately was gifted without cost. Effort, effort, effort.

Then what the heck is this?

Trey knew that he wasn’t wholly himself since his battle with Bristles—but he didn’t know that there were birds on the inside, an entire flock for him to utilize. Loose feathers flitted from the orb inside in cool and angelic blues.

True manifestation was the progress through which he now worked, starting with his mental.

His unawareness was a great folly but his meditation fast-tracked him through his soul-deep make-up classes. The young man’s zen mode reminded him of something that should’ve been on the forefront of his mind and priorities for a while now: that his soul had been unmade and made again. [Zpread], [Heart Strings], and [Soul] were not trivial techniques added to the suite of Trey’s moves. He’d been changed for a while and now his passenger made him know it.

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Trey’s mind flooded with images of birds. They were flat hieroglyphic images depicting the uses of avians as tools, as one of history’s most serviceable aids. Walls and walls of carrier pigeons and trained hawk doodles scrolled through his brain. Many of these birds were groomed by servants. Some were revered as gods. There were winged thrones and geometric humans bowing to ancient wrathravens.

Jeez, Trey thought, My imagination is on some shit!

It wasn’t his imagination, though, but a hidden truth. Every image made him feel something—and feel deeply. Most of all, he felt loss. A mournful energy cascaded through him. The waves were numbing and horrific.

And clear, so clear. His first revelation came from what he’d already known about birds and life as he’d lived it in the modern era.

Avians were tools—utilized without glamour, dignity, or basic respect.

The hieroglyphic walls fell away like crumbling puzzle pieces and flashes of real memories played in a slide show of bird oppression. Shadowclaws that’d acquired Clayhearth gold and other supplies to fly back to Straw City. The snitchtalons that patrolled every ledge, suspicious and sanctimonious. OBEDIENCE spells sizzled through every flighted being that Trey had seen since the state of his employment.

The post-Swishy memories came then—the worst ones, the Bristles-related ones. The memories surged through him. There were deaths. There was conflict and strife.

There was Bristles. His hands were around necks, squeezing the life out of whoever the memories belonged to. There were Bristles’ old arrows. There were his punches and kicks and bites. There was the overwhelming menace of the [Nevermore] ripping into the victim’s innards.

There was so much suffering. So much suppression.

Bristles had revolutionized the slavetalon game. Wrathravens had absorbed smaller birds and even each other. He trusted that Swishy didn’t mean for him to do any of these things when advising him to USE THE BIRDS.

Magic was something that worked best when gravitating toward enchantments that worked for oneself.

The clues kept coming.

And these clues were waking him from his trance. His eyes fluttered open and he once more saw multiple worlds at once, his mind and the physical realm.

Wrathravens were descending upon him, blockading his vision of the gold sky, an eclipse of dark puzzle pieces. From apart, their many wings were triangle-shaped, and when they came close their forms became distorted with smokiness. Their auras were acquiring murderous shapes as the wrathravens prepared their attacks. These weapons were refined and certain. True beasts—and not the human ones—were mixed into the fold now, a couple of larger ones leading the bird-human infantry in their charge.

Then the next second, a vision of his soul took the forefront: hieroglyphic bird histories, vivid Bristles binding, deconstruction inside of Swishy’s soul incinerating mouth.

The horrors of the mind and the horrors of the physical interlocked and converged. Their edges sealed their edges together to coalesce into a strange state that unlocked Trey’s bird core.

Wrathraven attack. Memories. Steadying his trembling five-year-old form atop the straw giant’s head. Memories. Straw Guardian raised an arm, its branches weaving into a wooden shield. Then back to the memories, back to the realm of all blue.

The passengers were inside waiting, condensed into that single blue core.

When it came to his body, Trey thought there was only one soul inside. Juggling multiple souls was a wrathraven thing. A Swishy thing with the black wing and blackwheat and birds he’d eaten. But Trey was a human. There was no soul siphoning. No absorption of the living—or so he thought.

His mental construct of himself turned all around, foolishly searching with his eyes—an all-too-human instinct. As soon as he stopped the ‘seeing’ and tuned into feeling, his grasped-for answers effortlessly came to him.

Hey, dumb-dumb!

The snitchtalons.

”What do ya’ll want?” Trey couldn’t help but smile. He didn’t expect to make friends. And he expected even less to see these allies again. “Didn’t you guys die or something?”

Or something, he says. You’re always talking mess. YES, we’re dead.

“Okay, rest in peace bros.”

It’s just that we’re in the ether now. We couldn’t even shit on your soul if we tried. Tragic, really.

”You love me now. Don’t do me like this.”

Ugh, whatever. But that’s not why we’re here.

“I know…I felt the emotions.” Trey was trying to be gentle. The birds had always given him the worst of times but his empathy ran deeper than his pettiness. The snitches were here now and he wanted to continue their established teamwork trend.

Yes…we may have defeated Bristles but we’re unsettled. We need to do one last thing before we head into the great unknown.

”Is that what you’re calling it because you’re not going to heaven?”

Wow, you’re funny, you know that? Anyway, we just have…a gift of sorts.

”It’s not shit, is it?”

No moron. Memory…a little something for your service. Good luck…

Their voices trailed off. They weren’t the sentimental type. They were the grudging type. They were perfectly content to die sticking it to Bristles and were slightly galled by having a little more existence left in them after the fact. Once they’d said their piece, indulged in their mic drop moment of Myst-wishing Bristles to oblivion, they were ready to dissolve within the sea of soul. A beautiful end to their cruel lives. But they’d ended in valor. They’d punctuated their lives with honor. Trey respected that. He’d be better than them, he’d live with more heart, but they’d shown him a death worthy of motion pictures. Their souls dissipated then, their consciousness eaten by the greater whole of the blue tunnel. SACRIFICE, the flock had melded into those nine letters, which also broke down into atoms, dispersing into lower case forms, then separating, flaking, merging with the air.

Merging…with Trey. The snitchtalons had joined the blueness. And that blueness began to enter him, the consciousness of the birds, the sacrificial spell, the parting gift they’d left behind…

When he returned to his consciousness, his lips moved on their own, uttering one word:

“[Znitches].”