MEMORIES FLOWED OUT OF MYST, emptying her for the greatest relief of her existence.

It didn’t matter that she was an arachnid, that her grand altar of a home was demolished into a theater of rubble, that she now took residence in a five-foot-nothing boy, or that her first friend on Cearth now pursued her with voracity, evil, and brazen disregard.

Myst placed her hands over her chest—before plunging them in. She delved into herself, gripping her beautiful, pulsating chaos. She’d wanted a heart, and not at all for the same reasons that made her want one now. She’d originally aimed for euphoria, for that sense of strength that made the land give birth to itself. A heart was power. A heart was drugs.

But what she received was an emotional core. There were desires, disappointments, and vulnerabilities. She’d changed inside, becoming more human than shadow, and more girl than genie.

A heart, a heart—how quickly it’d become something essential to her being.

Once Myst had completed her memory projection, it continued to strobe around the environment on a replay. The dream smoke that she’d released flowed beyond her control. Once outside of her, Swishy and Trey and the other busybody curses were free to view it at their discretion.

Reliving her dangers was unpleasant but not as hard as she’d thought it’d be. As the vapors left her body, relief filled her in equal measure.

Myst could confidently say that she felt quite good.

The spider woman peered beyond her Swish-pumpkin window to the sky. The hearts from the snitch-wishes were up there. Sacrificed portions of the bird bodies had constructed the wings sticking from the hearts. They flew around with a careless, ditzy joy. Myst appreciated what her contribution had become. She thought the altar hearts were pretty, that they’d make great tattoos, but she wanted her straw back where it belonged.

Though the heart that remained in her had healed nicely, she missed the drifting parts of her, the Cearth-carved constellation of straw and shadow and feather.

Spider Myst reached out, pointing to every single gleaming dot in the sky.

“I want you all. I’ll take you all back.”

“You will,” Swishy and Trey said together.

“I’m touched,” Myst said, shocked. She didn’t think they were listening but was glad that they were.

Her musings took priority and that amused her to no end—especially when considering the several tornados closing in on all sides.

[Clean Sweep] created wind towers throughout the woods. Ruby’s obedience everytrees even root-walked out of the way, side-stepping the sickle-swing gales. And the twisters also carried a measure of elegance as they gently nudged aside the trees and bushes that remained in their path. The weather tiptoed around the fauna, pausing in place with a reserved message of excuse-me-trees-while-I-go-and-kill-these-boys.

Once the gales were granted clear passage to the trio, their color darkened, their speed increased, and their volume boomed over everything.

The little arachnid backpedaled inside of her pumpkin-rind apartment.

“My heart, my dear heart,” Myst whispered. “You can’t have it.”

Even though she said it to herself, Ruby was locked into the battle. She read all shadows, all defiance, especially the ones of the spirit. “It’s not yours. It was never yours. You wisp. I’ll take that thing from you and show you what it’s actually for!”

The witch’s broom-riding silhouette intermittently emerged and then vanished from the skies. Though her aura continuously exerted itself, she was functionally a phantom, untouchable yet everywhere. After all, she modeled herself after Myst. Her aspirations for inhumanity had brought her far. And there was so much farther for her to go. Ruby’s potential stretched before her like a bottomless abyss. Myst saw it and sensed it. There was so much to take. Even the shadow woman was earnestly awed.

Ruby, too, knew her potential but had a different reaction to it. Being a human, Ruby didn’t know her limit. Not knowing how great she could be was what drove her mad. The comfort of knowing would always, always elude her. And so she had no choice but to become more.

Myst was saddened by the HUNGER that drove Ruby onward, and she had no measure of what fault was Ruby’s and what came from Myst’s latest wish. Ruby’s gestures and residual aura were dominant, but in her wake was that starved inner child, dragging along like a limp and resentful fishtail.

[Clean Sweep]—many of them. Ruby was vicious about her cleansing. And dainty, too, because nothing was destroyed. The dark woods were a side-stepping bunch while the gales were polite to every piece of wood, every insect, while exuding its force to the trio. Myst watched the edges of her shadow drawn out beyond her Swish-windows, vapors that shaved her away as pulled reserves from the blackwheat below.

“I’m still recovering,” Myst calmly said. “I leave it to you, boys.”

“Yes!” Swishy and Trey said, back against back, warily eyeing the slow approach of sky-high wind tunnels.

“I wish you triumph, then, hehe…”

Myst sank into her webbing and hugged herself.

Me? Cared for? Couldn’t be…

But it could.

And as Myst watched her straw repair its shreds and tears, she’d at last begun to know it.

(…)

The eye of the storm was a myth. The weather collapsed upon everything and everyone, securing The Stormcellar’s legacy.

These winds cared not for what Myst knew or had begun to know.

Only for what Ruby wanted.

(…)

HEART THIEVES, NATURAL DISASTERS, MIASMIC ENNUI—Swishy accepted that these were problems that were his to solve. His errands, his duties, his promises to his followers.

A straw god—or any god for that matter—had to step up and handle business. These are chores, housekeeping, that’s all. Swishy wasn’t trying to minimize the issue but he was. His brain needed that push, the encouragement that this was manageable enough. RESOLVE didn’t come easy. His spiritual firmness required a cheat code, a gourd hack.

“It’s light work,” Swishy repeated to himself. “Light work, light work.”

“It’s not but I admire the confidence.”

“That’s not helping, Trey.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Light Work. I didn’t mean to throw you off.” Trey smirked, of course, because he did.

The tornados closed in.

“Take turns?” Swishy suggested.

“Yeah, we’ll have to!” Trey shouted, the imminent gales drowning out his voice.

The winds were upon them.

Swishy acted [Swish Cyclone]. He swung his rake several times, the golden gales stretching in 360-degree arcs around him and Trey. His techniques staved off Ruby’s barrage, wind cancelling wind, light counteracting dark.

“Cleansing is unstoppable,” Ruby’s voice cut in from all around. “My canvas shall be pure!”

And so she released her winds faster. The [Clean Sweep] tornados instantly refreshed with new ones. Her fury was the hardest worker there was.

When Swishy found himself overwhelmed, being pincered by two or three wind towers, Trey bailed him out.

[Zlide].

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

This was how it went: Swishy took phase one of Ruby’s attacks while Trey handled their escape to an opposing side of the clearing.

“I can do this all day,” Ruby said. “But you boys, oh you little boys…”

She kept sweeping, diligent as ever, the dust and darkness rose rapidly. Her finesse with the broom was something else. She flicked her wrists so saucily, so begrudgingly divine.

The boys knew that Ruby was right—their tactics weren’t going to last forever.

Instead of a two-to-one spell ratio, Ruby cast three tornados for each of Swishy’s. Once, she’d let him know that she could easily do better by casting four [Clean Sweeps] against the next [Swish Cyclone]. The boy went wide-eyed and open-mouthed, to which Ruby responded through the clouds, determined to embody Voice of God aesthetics. “Yes, my dear, that’s the face. Winning by a lot is a virtue. When the common experiences talent, they’re exhilarated. Feel my power, feel it all with your heart. Does it not want to jump out and rejoice?”

The scarecrow couldn’t hope to cancel these gusts fast enough. He held his hand out to Trey who dragged him into a [Zlide], barely avoiding the crash of tornadoes.

Swishy struggled to collect himself. His twin beats were throwing him off.

His heart raced while Myst’s didn’t. His shadow sibling was calm, calm, calm. Swishy re-gripped his rake. He wouldn’t squander her faith in him. No way. Not ever.

Once he’d exited the [Zlide], his gaze drifted to the Myst-made movie smoke.

While a new batch of tornadoes were cast, instantly surrounding him, but he was ready with his Swish Cyclones, having prepared them while traveling through Trey’s warp.

The tornado forces battled it out, another stalemate of gale that afforded Swishy another opportunity to glance at Myst’s projected memories. Within the walls of his Swish Cyclones, he watched his sibling’s gradual diminishment. The abuse of everyone’s wish privileges fed him stacks of ANGER and then, once he calmed down, of DETERMINATION.

When his cyclones were tamed and he was trapped between the Ruby-borne pillars, the Myst smoke was then cast onto those as well.

The boy saw the memories with clarity against any backdrop, any change of situation.

“Thank you…” Myst whispered from within his head.

“For what?”

“Thinking about me.”

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s everything.”

He paused to consider. “Mm, it’s that way for me too.”

“I see that now.”

“Hearts are simple sometimes. Care is air.”

“What a fantastic thing to say for a boy who doesn’t breathe.”

“Our souls do, I think that’s how breath feels.” His aura ebbed with everything he felt.

“That they do, young Straw, that they do.”

Their twin beats settled and unified.

The next tornadoes came, carrying Ruby’s voice, each rotation releasing echoes of her pitying sighs.

(…)

Swishy enveloped him and Trey in a [Swish Cyclone]. The golden gale encircled them. The deafening sounds of the clashing winds muddied his thoughts at first. But the boy found clarity and focus within his glimmering gale. He stared into the sky through his self-made tunnel, tracing the Myst-sponsored bird hearts. They floated in the air, exuding smoke, carried by tiny pairs of shadowclaws wings. They were stunning, really. The materials of this world were so full of potential. If only, the beings would share.

If only.

Snitchtalons were circling the hearts, collecting them in their beaks. They bounced them within their maws, jostling, playing, tasting, inhaling. The curious jewels were the city’s newest landmark. Even the birds—while mindful to do Ruby’s bidding—were moseying along with the gems in their mouths, reluctant to either consume them or let them go. Strong parts of them wanted these hearts for themselves. They wished them for themselves. But practicing their warped sense of selflessness, they dropped the jewels into Ruby’s hand.

Ruby stood atop her levitating broom and inspected the tiny hearts in her hand. They pulsed and beat like normal hearts. Soft plumes of smoke ebbed from them, creating a fogginess around her hand.

She held one in her forefinger and inspected it like a jewel. She floated right above the ongoing Swish Cyclone, glaring down at Swishy. For a second, he expected her to dive down in there. But instead she sneered and dropped a single heart down. Swishy caught it in his hand and brought it up to his eyehole. Myst crawled up to the window, the pulse inside her matching time with the Cearth’s version of a bird heart.

“What’s this for?” Swishy asked Ruby.

“I wanted you to see the seeds of this world.”

“You’re going to plant these?”

“Isn’t that what I said…”

“I don’t like what you’re going to make.”

Swishy tossed the heart into his eye and it floated back into Myst. She cherished the pittance in her hands even though she’d already healed. The shadow girl weaved a fog trail around the heart and wore it as a necklace.

“Hmpf, such a waste…” Then Ruby crushed the hearts in her hands, grinding them down into feed. She wiped the debris from her fingers.

Swishy felt Myst rush up to his eyehole. Both hers’ and Swishy’s mourning joined as one as the heart rain drifted onto The High Chasm.

Callous as Ruby’s actions were, the hearts were effectively seeds.

The Cearth trembled. The High Chasm roots pulsed with its new energy.

But instead of growing the woods, the nature, the wheat stalks, it’d grown items that were normally crafted by human hands. While the growths started as floral sprouts, they’d grown into amorphous shadows. And those shadows turned into buildings. All around, the shops of the destroyed portions of the city grew from the ground. Even the signs were crafted. RYE AND WISDOM, WONDERWEAVE, and even the STRAW GLIZZIES kiosk.

As the Swish Cyclone dissipated and new towers of [Clean Sweep] chased after him, he flew through the woods. Underneath his body, he found that the giant tree’s roots had developed a harder texture, smoothed and rounded cobblestones.

There were flowerbeds, there were gardens of straw, there were faceless scarecrows, there were birdhouses.

With the hearts, the simple land feed that Ruby crushed and scattered, her town was being recreated. Every structure contained a similar aura, a foundation that Swishy recognized as the [Postcard] spell. But the localized version. Rather than changing the entire canvas, Ruby now had the means to itemize.

She’d developed a word, one that Swishy recognized as the most powerful one yet—though innocuous enough.

IMAGINATION.

“Oh boy,” Trey said.

“It can’t be that bad, can it?” But even Swishy’s minimizing wouldn’t calm his rattling heart.

”Normally, I’d agree with that but why is it black?”

”It’s very black, yeah.”

”Truly dark,” Myst chimed in with all the melodrama she could muster.

The Cearth rumbled, its curses flowing toward the heart-filled nodes.

(…)

Curses clamored at the chance to become what they were meant to be. Swishy hoped that’d be a tree, a flower, something edible to be shared.

It was a naïve notion and he knew it.

But the curses were making wishes—no altar required—because the hearts were in the soil, ready to infuse them with their store of energy. They were loud about it, too, bringing back one of the original Straw City wishes:

Hearts? Are those hearts? We can be scarecrows? We can be Swishy’s! We, finally, can show our stingy savior how it’s done!

And right then, the first roots twisted around the ground, sprouting in knotted and many-coiled poles. As those poles elongated with harder, rigid edges, Swishy recognized these structures by their other name.

Stakes, they were stakes.

Shadows traversed over the length of the growths, acting as a glue, a binding agent. Not only did the blackness support the stake, it summoned the nearest leaves and bark and organic debris around them. From each planting location, the forms developed around those accursed spines. A torso. Arms. Shoulders. A neck and head. Features of blue soul ripped open across their faces, two eyes, and a mouth if they were lucky.

At their feet, crates and baskets of organic debris were formed. Immediately, the scarecrows picked them up and started filling them with items. Leaves, rocks, straw, everytree fruits.

Some started organizing the boxes against the nearest building or kiosk. Without orders, they set to work, being normal as they could manage. Ruby had brought them to life and so they decided to live as they were used to.

Shops, shopkeepers, and an instant harvest. Swishy couldn’t in confidence say that Ruby’s world vision was a terrible thing. Everything seemed well enough. Except he could feel the beat of Mysts’ heart in those buildings. She was all over the soulscape, a cascade of slowed heartbeats, sorrowful ones. Her pieces missed each other. And most of all, they missed belonging to her body. She deserved to return to herself.

And these newest land growths gate-kept Myst from that goal.

Swishy evaluated the newborn scarecrows, their scarecrow-ness, so to speak. He’d decided that they were more like scarecrow flowers atop their stake-like roots. Bark dummies that’d blossomed into life.

Anchored, immovable, but filled with living souls, with covetous and all-too-human desires. Instead of their arms stretching to the side with the rigid dignity of true guardians, their arms hung forward like long and drooping serpents. And their hands fanned outward with dozens of fingers, scraggly and never-ending branches for them. Their avarice was palpable.

Taking the world was their project as Straw City citizens, as it always was.

But for now they just moved the boxes, the crates. They used leaves to wipe the buildings down. Even though they used relatively dirty nature to clean their establishments, their techniques worked, leaving behind a polished finish. Ruby even assisted them by sending in a [Clean Sweep] wind, the tiniest of tornadoes, an ankle-height spell that zipped along the budding township.

The rootcrows bent downward and patted the helper wind like a pet before resuming their work.

The scarecrow roots stretched and pushed the entire being around as its form of movement. Still, they were anchored into the ground. Swishy felt their presence drilling into his High Chasm heart. Their souls joined his, feeding off that which was once his. And Swishy sensed their overall disorientation. Everything in the world was strange. They, like the newborn Swishy, had shied from the sun. They were bewildered at their bodies. They tried to speak but their bark-textured mouths only produced tearing noises.

“Swish-swish?” The boy called, wondering if they spoke the same language.

But the bark cracked, it cried, it peeled, it sloughed off with ancient and unknowable scars.

Meanwhile, more roots twisted into stakes, scarecrow bodies pushing through the tops.

“Are there even any real humans left?” Swishy really wanted to know.

“I try not to think about it.” Trey massaged his hands, reassuring himself that his flesh was still his flesh.

Swishy reached over and put his hand over Trey’s, kneading the mitten texture into his friend. Slowly, Trey steadied his breath and soul, suppressing the memory and fruition of the BIRDCAGE.

“You’re one of the good ones, Trey. Real as can be.”

“Thanks, Swishy.” Trey took his hand back, which charged with static.

Overhead, Ruby flew through the clouds, cackling. “Welcome scarecrows. Congratulations on rebirth. Congratulations on your new hearts! You’re not new here but let me remind you of the drill. This land is my platter. And at Tita Ruby’s table, everybody eats!”

The scarecrow mouths broke into jagged fruition then, their beating hearts dangling like a pair of tonsils.

“But my dears, my loves (her nose crinkled at the word), our world needs fuel. What fuels you? What fuels everything?”

The beating mouths turned toward Swishy, aching to make a meal of him. His twin beats, both him and Myst, had gone haywire.

“I’m in there,” Myst indignantly said. “I’m in all those abominations.”

“Me, I’m just here.” He stomped his Timbs upon The High Chasm roots. A third beat pulsed through him. His sudden awareness of his stolen first heart joined the party.

“I want it all back,” Myst said, spinning a webbed noose around her limbs.

“And we’ll take it.” Swishy felt the RESOLVE with both his heart and chasm alike.