ONE HAD TO GO— Ruby's rule or Swishy's life.

The scarecrow knew that as he aimed his rake at his creator.

DEATH and TYRANNY stalked the surroundings as her faithful serpents, slithering between the trees, orbiting Ruby in a changing pattern. The words were meant to be seen but never predicted. Ruby had made them alive. They, unlike Swishy, were eager to serve.

A tenseness entered his soul as he remembered how death eviscerated his Goldies.

But he postured before Ruby, he threatened her, and he let his autonomy be known.

The witch’s stone demeanor didn't waver.

Even though Swishy knew himself to be a thorn in Ruby's side, the stake that anchored her dreams from take-off, he knew that he and his friends weren't her only enemies. A monumental conflict brewed within her. He'd seen her memories once before and had met the cursed kin that occupied her body.

Ruby's deep dark eyes contained truths that Swishy hadn't uncovered. Within Ruby's gaze lay a community that wanted him planted and processed. The woman burst at the seams with stakeholders. And now those entities glazed across her eyes as a flattering moisture. Swishy, of course, knew that the souls were frothing.

"I would like for you to not look at me like that…" A faint disgust slid over Ruby's face.

"Sorry Ruby, but you're to be watched."

"No, that’s not it…You're pitying me."

Was he? Perhaps so. He pitied all life. Cearth had a pincer for everyone alive. Everyone. "I wish I didn't have to do this to you."

"How grossly soft."

Her eyes shot open—and the curses inside her screeched.

The waves of anguish traveled in ever-expanding rings, blackened sound waves rippling through the area.

[Grain Mill]—Swishy’s ability, a telepathic doom that pressurized the weak, though Ruby hadn’t declared the technique’s name or knew that it even existed. But her spell was functioned the same as Swishy’s. She'd drawn from the worst of herself and expelled it like factory smoke.

The threats cascaded toward Swishy and Trey and their defenses went up—a [Straw Shield] erecting from the scarecrow's rake while, for the topmost defenses, the Sling-raven trio blocked with their wings. Yet despite the double-layered block, Swishy felt the pulse of Ruby's aura. His straw curled from the raw intimidation. Trey, too, grunted and began to sweat. After a few seconds, the birds also started to whine.

"Let go!" Swishy said. “Sling won’t forgive us if you get hurt!”

And so the wrathravens flew away from the aura pressed directly on Swishy's shield, eating the straw. The curses stuck to the diminished wheat in a glopping sludge.

But Swishy kept his RESOLVE and DETERMINATION firm. It also helped that Trey charged [Zzt] over his fingertips, glaring boldly at Ruby.

Still, their knees buckled.

A slight weakness, but it was enough for Ruby to grin. Domination was her favorite flavor. "By all means, bow if that's what you're moved to do. I won't stop you."

The boys steadied themselves, straightening their bodies.

Another [Grain Mill] wave flared from Ruby's pupils.

Swishy doubted if he could take another—not by himself at least. It was Trey who erected a bubble shield this time, and it was the Sling-ravens who now benefitted from the protection. Myst worked double-time, drawing the shadows of his clouded mind into her body, using the toxins of Ruby's presence for her recovery.

Swishy nodded his head, not wanting to speak his thanks aloud, to clue Ruby into his suffering. His gourd flashed with a slight warmth, earnest smile energy from Myst.

But his gaze never left Ruby's, unable to escape her draw.

Thankfully, it was she who relented.

Swishy found that her impenetrable eyes drifted from his face to the luminous tines of his rake.

The gold, the gold—did she, like the wrathravens and the curses at large, inexplicably covet this too?

He adjusted his posture, waving it slightly. The air shimmered from the rake's pendulous path. And like arithmetic, the pools of Ruby’s eyes swayed along with his subtle movements. Still, he didn't know what to do with that information. And it only made him fearful. Everything she wanted could be plucked from his body. For his freedom, he’d have to contend with the bottomlessness of her wants.

Sway-sway, sway-sway—he hoped to keep her at bay.

"I'm not a fool, you know. Please, I am a lady. Not another trance-driven bird. I’ve seen gold. I know gold. I wear it.” She flashed her rings, her bangles, Clayhearth gold procured from the snitchtalons. “It's only gold…just gold. There's nothing your color can do for me."

The woman floated higher, the tornado she stood upon turning into a platform. Her winds wanted the boys to worship her.

His soul felt her venomous resentment. Color was a good thing, was it not? She wore many. The banana earrings. Her iridescent pearl necklace. An array of textured blacks across her dress and the downy plumage of her shoulder cape.

The boy's eyes, though, only traveled to her red nails, red lips, and red bottoms of her shoes.

“Damn…” Trey shook his head. “People are always trying to be God even though they can’t.”

“If they can’t, that means we can win.”

“Sure, there’s hope. But even though we can’t make ourselves God, we sure can go far beyond humanity.”

"I see…"

[Grain Mill] only ramped up, Ruby growing angrier. Swishy and Trey switched shifts, a straw dome shielding them as Trey rested his spirit. Others, too, sought refuge in Swishy. Now that Ruby had stirred the darkness, the curses activated, slithering, purposeless, until a sudden pleasure struck their fancy.

Swishy sensed the souls watching him, considering him. The curses underfoot slid around his Timbs, exploring his shoe grips, caressing the dark canvas of the toes and laces and tongue. Black on black was their preferred state, their natural home, but their attention shifted just like Ruby’s. Their path deviated to the rake. Upward the curses went, progressing upon Swishy, traveling through his straw without corruption, only reverence.

Trey watched it happen, too. “New friends come from all walks of life, huh?”

“I guess I’m popular.”

But that was an understatement and they both knew it. The curses had found a new altar in him.

Unfortunately, Ruby knew it too.

"I see your color does something for everyone around me. That's why I allow it. That's why the city must feed from it. But me…why doesn't it do anything for me? Perhaps that's something you can answer. Why am I…me?"

Swishy continued his swaying, though it was more of a fidget than his initial testing of Ruby. Straw strands drifted down from the rake, landing around his feet. Each strand was phased into puddles of nameless abyss. These watery circles disappeared as soon as they'd come. But the boy saw the sprouts emerge, small gold clovers.

The curses cheered.

His Timbs suddenly received a new wave of settlers.

The seething Ruby walked on air, pacing astride a strip of wind, fastening her hands around her broom.

"Watch out!" Trey shouted.

"For what? Everything?"

"That."

"Not again."

A cloud appeared above Swishy.

And nails shortly thereafter.

(…)

Swishy flew off—while the Sling-ravens flew Trey off, whisking him away in their talons.

“I’ve had enough,” Ruby’s voice said all around them. More and more, she was using Myst’s powers. The altar didn’t give her that—but the curses themselves, ones that’d migrated from outside of the city, gifted her these powers. For years she’d stored them up and together they worked toward pushing her beyond humanity.

And now she used these powers to assault her straw son and ex-employee. As the nails shot at them, Swishy read the fine print along each one: betrayal.

“Why do I have to make enemies with someone so easily hurt?”

“I don’t know, Swishy. All I did was get a job!”

“All I did was be born!”

Trey shrugged. “Nails for us all then.”

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Nails indeed. The torrent raged with all the screams Ruby held to herself. She was composed, riding along the clouds. Her spells spoke for her.

Swishy heard the [Midnight] curses drain below him, evaporating into vapors that rose into Ruby’s body.

Funnily enough, the same thing seemed to be happening to him, but slowly. Stray curses hopped onto Swishy’s speeding body. Within his head, he sensed the dinner party arachnid Myst was putting on, rolling the captured souls into hors d’oeuvres. Others seemed to swim around, not minding that they’d submitted themselves to a feast. The Swishy ecosystem was simply the place to be.

Ruby screeched, her face stretching monstrously, but her voice was drowned out by her onslaught.

The rain reduced its scatter, narrowing its range into a thick wall that cleaved Swishy and Trey apart.

Swishy tried not to panic. He fixated on Trey’s voice, on the wrathraven sounds, but the nails intensified and drowned them out.

When Swishy glanced upward, he saw Ruby flying above that raining nimbus, smirking. Her assaults were efficient, a physical attack combined with the spiritual disruption of her aura. While the attacks continued, she radiated that [Grain Mill] energy. Her sense of betrayal billowed like a fog—slow, immense, inevitable.

The rain continued its wall of black nails, sending an occasional spree of nails toward the boys, testing them.

Swishy knew when this happened to Trey. He’d detect a [Zlide] portal opening on the other side of the rain. Nails also deviated from the wall into the [Zlide], hunting Trey down.

The brief moments of Trey’s warp were the longest ones—because Swishy couldn’t sense him. Once in another realm, one’s presence vanished. No body. No spirit.

Swishy had to wait. He glided onward, fighting the pernicious gloom that seeped through every part of his body. Ruby’s cruelty left a lot to the imagination, and Swishy’s dark visions of a defeated Trey made him wince.

“Eaasy, easy, my little straw.” Myst rubbed the inside of Swishy’s eyehole.

“I’ll try.”

“No, you’ll do it. Trust your friend. We all must care for ourselves.”

“I know.”

“Then know it better. An altar shouldn’t fold so swiftly.”

Inside, in every corner and crevice of himself, his collected curses laughed at him—even the ones strung into web cocoons.

A portal opened right beside him and Swishy got hopeful. Trey is back, yes! But the cloud overhead shifted laterally, moving its nail wall between the portal and Swishy again.

Trey tried to breach the wall multiple times, warping away from Ruby and toward Swishy.

And each attempt was met with a simple moving of the partition.

Swishy started to attack the nails—but the deluge always had another stage to it. Ruby was at the reigns of that curse-laden nimbus. When the scarecrow used more force, Ruby deployed an empowered deluge. She grinned maniacally.

The boy dipped down, using the trees as cover.

Low is the way to go, he joked to himself.

As his feet skimmed the ground, the roots instantly reacted and shot a bark loop toward his ankle. He dodged but was shaken up. The land’s sensitivity had him on edge.

He’d come across a new territory, a forgotten aspect of The High Chasm. It was barren, a shadow-scarred wasteland. In this zone, curses were rampant and untreated. Not a drop of the latest heart seed had reached this place.

Even the everytrees had abandoned this sector. The ones that remained here were glorified stumps. Their branches flared outward in ambition but carried not a single leaf or fruit-bearing nebula.

In every world, there lay a wasteland.

Forsakenness reigned here in this section of utmost wanting, of peak HUNGER. More lassos, more snares set into the murkiest corners. Every other second, Swishy’s flight triggered a trap, resulting in more dodges, and more cutting through of vines with rake swings.

“Come on, gold boy. Turn these curses, feed them, and provide for our residents. They’re in need. They’re wanting. Please, don’t let that rake of yours go to spoil. Feed them. Do it.”

“I won’t.”

“Then what good are you?”

“I can’t believe a person like you can say ‘good’ without choking.”

There it was: Ruby’s wry smile and prodigious aura.

The boy flew on.

Swishy was lost, frustrated. Each dodged snare was a successful tick against his spirit.

Myst, however, flared her aura within him. His gourd overflowed with dark smoke. Everything dark handled by her. He, a suffering altar, had unwittingly provided much for his mischievous friend to work with.

“Allow me…”

The shadow mistress pressed her hand into the nail rain. Swishy read the emotions that exploded upon impact. ROT was the ruling word. He stared around at the barren sector, the emaciated everytrees that tried their best. Their branches trembled from effort, from want.

The boy stretched his rake to the next tree.

And the tree reached out, emitting a contented hum—

[Clean Sweep].

Ruby had blown the tree away with a tornado, uprooting it, sending it flying into the distant and uncertain murkiness. “You’ll make the world as I tell you to. Who are you to show me up? You were nothing before I gave you voice, gave you heart. All of this was dead wood and flatlands.”

“It was here, in some way, in some form that didn’t have your touch. This world was fine without you. You’re lying to me and yourself and everybody.”

“Go die.”

DEATH flowed across the rain, swimming along the suspended deluge with serpentine delicacy.

“I can’t die. If I die, this all dies. No matter how many hearts I give you, you’ll drain it all dry. Of all the people who could’ve been a sugar wraith, the world spared you. Cearth made a mistake. It should’ve starved you more.”

He spoke for Myst; he spoke for the darkness; he spoke for himself. It was ugly, what he’d said. And ugly was what he felt. He’d move beyond this someday. But not before damning his mother to hell.

“I should’ve never birthed you…”

“Agreed. I was a bird once. No thoughts, only wings. When I take this all from you, blame yourself. Because you’re right. This is yours. Everything but other people is yours.”

Lassos, snares, and darkness erupted.

The nail wall spread into a true rain again, revealing Trey but attacking him at the same time.

And the scarecrow’s golden rake slashed through everything that drew near it, repeated activations of [Swish Cyclone]

On Trey’s end, there were [Zzt] orbs, [Zap] beams, and [Zlide] attempts. Whenever a teleport was activated, the wrathravens guarded the entrance and exits, blocking nails and wind from catching Trey.

The pattern continued for a time.

All the while Myst slowly recovered, cannibalizing the rains, the realm’s miasma, and Swishy’s fright.

Within each setup, the HUNGER dripped from it in sticky shadows. The gooeyness of the darkness was a type of lava, bubbling and sizzling. He wondered if there was even a true tree beneath the layers and layers of curses, or if they were all corroded down to nothingness while all that remained was a poisonous cast.

The shape of life but nothing of its original form.

Myst intercepted his thoughts again, a navigator keeping her vessel through the storm. “Swishy, my dearest emotion-crow. You’re losing control again. I’m getting surrounded by blackwheat—which I don’t mind—but I’m sure you didn’t intend to turn out the lights on my not-very-humble, absolutely luxurious abode.”

“You’re right, sorry.”

“I don’t mind…if you want to be a dark god, I can show you how.”

“Thank you,” Swishy said though the prospect made him nervous.

But it turned out that Ruby had all the dark god techniques this time around. She drew a square with her broom, black lines solidifying in the shape. And then the square slowly traveled at Swishy, the box drawing in the curses in its path and growing the cube. It grew taller, wider, and darker.

Swishy flew away from it with ease—until Ruby snapped her fingers.

The box teleported.

And the scarecrow now found himself inside the black cube, feeling no different, but hearing its gathered curses laugh at him. Swishy was encased cackles. Many of the curses flooded into his gourd, submerging Myst’s living room.

“Are you okay?” Swishy shouted.

“I’m a shadow mistress. Worry less about me and more about how you’ll never dodge this attack.”

“Can I get a hint? Something helpful.”

“Disappear and you might live.”

“Might?!”

“Don’t ask me for guarantees. Your survival depends on you, dear altar.”

Myst laughed; Swishy groaned—and then he braced himself for the worst.

“[Sieve],” Ruby said.

(…)

Obsidian grids were carved into the cube before the whole structure shrank, collapsing upon Swishy. The boy activated [Pile] but his disparate strands couldn’t avoid the granular precision of Ruby’s attack. Death by thousands upon thousands of cuts—that was Ruby’s plan.

But Swishy had survived…in smallness, in his current helplessness.

He felt no pain, no panic—but he was sieved into grains, into the smallest pieces that he’d ever become. The boy floated through the air, a gourd—that thankfully remained whole—and his rice flecks of self.

His soul lost full connection to his body. It’d take longer than usual to recover.

Swishy did, however, keep a spiritual grasp on his heart. Much like his gourd, he’d never lose track of his core. Once forced through the sieve, the heart instantly recovered, essentially on its own, and Swishy floated it around the air. If he clung to nothing else, he’d grab his heart. He tracked it with all his soul. Ruby hadn’t found it but as he floated beneath the canopies, the nearest curses awakened, staring in its direction.

Nearby, Ruby’s pet serpents, DEATH and TYRANNY, were billowing around, sensing a great power around them.

Darkness everywhere sniffed for the heart, and Ruby keenly trailed the collective suspicion.

He hid it in the hollow of a tree, careful to avoid touching the bark. Once the tree had a taste, he feared the curses would close upon it, claiming it fully.

The boy decided to wait for Trey—when the [Sieve] happened, so too did a [Zlide].

Find me, please…

Meanwhile, Ruby flew around Swishy’s floating gourd, twin tornados guiding her feet.

“Nice wind sandals,” Swishy said.

“Nice head.”

“Thank you, it’s pumpkin.”

Ruby giggled, then sat upon her winds like a chair, crossing one leg atop the other. “Your heart will have to return sometime. I’m a clever woman, yes?”

“I wish the nail rain was back so I wouldn’t have to hear you.”

“Say what you will, but you can’t go long without that heart. You’re weak like that. Without heart, you’ll die inside. What do you think of that, you little mannequin?”

Swishy closed his eyes, playing stoic, but her words pierced through every bit of his soul. It was true. Even now as he drifted his heart in hiding, his emptiness roamed free, writhing in lost feelings. Both the good and the bad in him required a vessel. He needed a body. The emptiness of lacking one was too much.

[Scarecrow]—he fought with all his might to reconnect his soul to straw.

But Ruby blasted the drifting straw with a [Clean Sweep]. His pieces flew further apart, launched into the branches and treetops and mushroom patches. Whatever his blackwheat touched, remained black. But the gold-straw…that’d begun to change the clearing, bringing natural color into the curses. Grass became green, branches turned into a red-orange-honey assortment, and mushrooms sprouted with golden spots. Stalks of gold-straw had also made their appearance, growing large.

The boy of harvest was indeed that, a harvest.

As the brightness infused the dead clearing with second life, Ruby’s ENVY flowed from her eyes. It sparked in black crackles. She read the words and cut her eyes at them. She waved them away but they wouldn’t go anywhere. Like DEATH and TYRANNY, the word wouldn’t go away. Cearth liked instigating when it came to her—it was a hobby, almost.

“Fine,” Ruby sighed, rubbing Swishy’s gourd. “I am envious. This is true. But I won’t be once this is mine.”

She kept patting his head, harder and harder, drumbeats of fury echoing all around.

Swishy frowned. He soul-sweated. The stress of his free-roaming chasm had built up. His curses were exposed to the miasmic atmosphere, collecting allies, hardening its knife-edged laments. The bottomless parts of him were growing steely and colder by the moment. By the time they’d return to him, he feared being overwhelmed.

All the while, his heart trembled in its little hidey-hole. The land started to suspect. Strange energies pooled toward it.

“Help!” Swishy called.

“I can’t believe this,” Ruby scoffed. “Have a little dignity. You haven’t felt anything yet.”

“Help! Help! Please!”

The witch stared into his eyes. “You didn’t even exist a month ago. I feel silly. Hating so much of a nothing.”

The boy stopped screaming.

He had her where he wanted her. Everything noxious, everything that darkened, flared from his eyes and encased Ruby’s head.

The woman gasped in shock—though a sudden anger filled her eyes.

Myst’s face appeared in the cloudy helmet. She brimmed with power, drawing ever closer to her return to form.

“[NIGHTMARE]”, Myst declared.

The curses that lived in Ruby’s pupils fled into their caverns. Her pupils lost their glow. Ruby passed out, floating backward on her palette of wind.

Then Myst returned to arachnid form and released a hard breath.

“Hey! I found it!” Trey was flown by the wrathravens, floating Swishy’s heart within an electric bubble. Ambient spirits dove into it but were burned away by the [Zzt].

The scarecrow used [Scarecrow], restoring his anatomical form around his heart.

“Thanks, everyone,” he said.

“It was my pleasure,” Myst said.

“Mine, too,” Trey chimed in, charging [Zap] on all five of his fingers. He released the spells, blasting Ruby’s unconscious form over the next several trees.

“Okay, let’s go,” Swishy stared ahead at The High Chasm’s next slope.

“What’s there? Spit it out, little homie.”

“I heard it.”

“A friend, a ghost? What did I tell you about specifics?”

“My first heart.”

Swishy, Swishy! His name echoed with excitement and desperation in his head.

And then the crew flew off, leaving in their wake a sensibly recolored land.