A HUG, A DEATH-GRIP, A CAGE—Ruby’s enclosed arms were all of these at once.
The scarecrow keyed in on the hug aspect of it first. Ruby, to no small surprise, was a gentle lady. Even though she was of slight build, nothing about her mania suggested that she knew how to touch others. But her arms slid beneath Swishy’s like silk wraps. Her body simply belonged there. The nurturing energy was something that Swishy didn’t expect but he knew not to trust it. His naïveté had been all but driven away by the madness around his birth and everything since.
But a real hug, a true one—Ruby had a skill for tenderness. Ruby seemed to enjoy a slight peace. She was fine with doing nothing for a time. It seemed like a mechanism to replenish the requisite chaos for her to become inhuman again. Yet for now she treated him like a plushie, pressing her hands into his soft folds and burrowing her face against his neck.
“My son,” she whispered.
“I’m no son. I just came from nowhere.”
“No, I made you. I did it because I wanted you here. Babies are a little ugly sometimes. They cry. They’re misshapen. But I’ve always loved scarecrows. They’re so cute. You’re the perfect doll.”
“I’m not a doll either.”
“What are you then? Everybody is something.” Ruby was convincing and unconvincing at the same time. Her insides howled. Swishy disregarded the cries of her sugar wraiths—as he was sure Ruby did too.
“I’m a boy, I think.”
Ruby laughed. It started as a giggle but then tapered into an ugliness.
Swishy could tell that she wasn’t laughing alone. The jeering energy came in no negligible part from the souls inside. Much of the original Stormcellar lived in her. In her dark eyes, in her mouth and muscles and organs, Ruby’s wraith community dismissed the I’m-a-boy-I’m-of-value notions that Swishy presented.
“Sure. You’re a boy. Everything about you is boyish, boy-shaped, boy to your essence.”
Again with the ambiguous wording, the indecipherable tone. These words could be received in both good and bad, gold and black.
The scarecrow started to feel insecure. A wave of blackwheat bristled through his body like a sudden wind across sun-seared plains. His innards buzzed as he considered the oddity, the aberration of his head, his straw, his wings. Even his Timbs made him cringe. People clothes on a non-person. Like dress clothes on the snitchtalons. Everything about himself struck him as a silly costume—at least as he felt Ruby’s breath brush through his straw.
She’d achieved her harvest once more, and there was nothing that Swishy could do about it. He tried to [Pile] but her energy kept his weaves in place. His wings only twinged when his soul wanted to flap, and yet a magic in her kept him from flying away. She didn’t have to hold him hard to subdue his options. Ruby only had to embrace him. When the world was in her hands, it never left her.
But the boy didn’t want to be her world. And his friends didn’t want that for him either. Everyone made their attempts at saving him.
Yet Ruby’s teleport signaled a tonal shift to the conflict. Ruby held all the cards—and now she stacked the deck even further.
Blinding lights blared from Swishy’s peripheral. Several [Zap] beams arrowed toward them. Trey wasn’t even minding his aim—because some were going straight for Swishy as well.
But then his periphery clouded over in darkness.
After a moment, everything went pitch. Swishy was drawn into darkness, into another activation of the Ruby-styled [Zlide]. Before disappearing completely, he noticed that Trey had activated one as well.
The boy and witch traveled deeper into The High Chasm, which began to incline upward with hillier terrain. Trey pursued. Warp after warp after warp occurred—but it was clear that Ruby’s was better. Her’s conjured faster and went for almost double the distance. As Trey found himself getting left behind, he fired desperate [Zap] beams at her, but his aim was off.
The attacks that did get close were deflected—Ruby’s [Clean Sweep] winds were waiting amid the woods, keeping themselves small, modest, at rest until they sensed their leader’s need for them.
“What a lovely spell…” Ruby said, twisting the [Zlide] portal darkness in her hands. The smoky aura licked at her palm like a pet. “Why didn’t I think of this?”
Her first [Zlide] usages were a test run. Swishy found that confirmation to be humiliating.
“Ah well,” Ruby threw her head back, a playful flourish. “I suppose I hired Trey for a reason. He’s much smarter than me. The young have such focused knowledge. They’re an under-utilized resource. Well, not with me at least. My eye for talent is number one. I always pick the winners.”
Swishy tried to move again but Ruby’s aura slackened him. His soul wouldn’t budge or tremble. He was stuck. His emotions were boiling lava.
It cooled occasionally, though, because Myst remained faithful to her gourd station.
Myst spun the fog of his mind into power of her own. But he sensed her concern. She had no comments, only work, a concentration that he’d never before seen in the typically nonchalant shadow mistress.
“Let him go!” Trey was charging several [Zap] spells on his fingertips.
“I made him, though. It’s my project. You were there. You even bought some of the ingredients.”
“So? He wasn’t Swishy yet. He’s Swishy now.”
“I suppose I hadn’t counted on the sentimentality of youth…Maybe I am a fool…”
Trey shot his [Zix-zhooter] at Ruby but was blown away. Her [Clean Sweep] winds were out there, moving in set rotations. She’d brought security. There was never a moment when she didn’t. Once the winds displaced Trey, snitchtalons burst from the treetops toward him. They flew by him with a quick claw swipe, only to hide in the trees once again.
A distraction, mostly.
And then as Trey pivoted around, watching his back, Ruby’s gales closed rank and blocked his access from the area. Trey was walled out while Swishy, Ruby, and the arachnid Myst remained inside.
The Clayborne shot several blasts at her but one gale or another blew the attacks off course.
“Swishy, Swishy!” And then Trey’s screams weren’t audible anymore as the winds picked up, thickening, revealing a dark gray appearance.
The gale walls pushed outward from the center, allowing the pleasantry of the Swish-colorized habitat in. It was a pleasant arena, balmy, sun-baked. There was fauna of all hues. It was a good day here, in the eye of the Ruby storm, while beyond that her [Clean Sweep] terrorized the boundaries to which Trey had now been exiled.
“Trey! Come back!” Swishy called, reaching out to him.
The winds blew his straw bits in Trey’s general path, but that was about it.
More [Zlide] portals opened in the distance only for the winds to blow away their shadows and magic. Ruby bullied Trey’s gates, locking him away. Whenever an entrance or exit gate appeared, the winds attacked those shaped darknesses. All concentrations of the shadows were cleansed, deconstructed, placed on instant time-out.
The Sling-ravens now revealed themselves from the nearest shadows—from a canopy overhead, a tree hollow, and from a shadow down below—bearing their talons at Ruby.
“[Rise],” she said. But what opened behind her was a [Zlide] portal—not for her and Swishy. Instead, her dual-headed wrathraven burst from the gate, a tower of shadow whose height surpassed the trees.
Naturally, the Sling-ravens turned tail and jetted off. Trey had been mindful enough to infuse them with [Zip]. But the winds also shaved away at that spell, blowing away its magic.
The birds slowed to normal speed but had gotten away.
“Good birds!” Swishy called.
“No,” Ruby matter-of-factly said. “They’re not good. They’re dead. Trey doesn’t deserve nice things. Not after he shot me.” She lifted a burnt hair from her head, then flicked it away.
She opened her hand toward the horizon, her soul stirring, targeting Trey. Black and purple particles gathered in the air, clouds forming and air smoldering.
“Run, Trey!”
But he wasn’t running. Swishy could see that for himself as another [Zlide] opened accompanied by a succession of bolt beams.
The zap attempts dispersed, torn apart by wind barriers.
“You’ll get what you have coming to you. Don’t you worry, Trey. I may have fired you but don’t think I’ve forgotten your severance pay.”
Around the attack origin point, the Ruby cloud darkened. Its vapors spread, then hardened into lines, defined corners. A box—then grids inside the box, then…
Oh no, not this!
“[Sieve],” she declared.
Off in the distance, Trey’s faint sparks were swallowed.
“How could you!”
“I set my mind to it—and then I did it. With follow-through, you can do anything.”
“[Adieu],” she said, and so the Ruby gate drew them in and exhaled them out—to somewhere or other.
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(…)
KIDNAPPING—the Straw City special—had finally happened to Swishy. And, to his annoyance and frustration, it was something that Ruby made a smooth process out of. He saw her talents up close and personal.
It happened in a flash, no tunnel, no dark realm, just in one door and out another—like blinking.
Overall, if Swishy were non-sensitive, non-perceptive, he could summon anywhere without worry. He’d be a genie. He’d be Myst. But he saw everything that Ruby’s dark warp was cooking. All the intricacies that presented for a split-second were seen as freeze frames. He understood with great depth, the efficacy of Ruby’s magic.
Once the door closed, there was no current or uni-directional movement. Both Ruby and Swishy were inert in the dead space. In this realm, Ruby kept the [Postcard] spells. Swishy felt the edges of those life-sized cards orbiting the boundary walls, flipping and flipping, revealing and concealing itself, a live insight into Ruby’s indecision. None of these cards were activated. For now, they served as a repository for her power, a murky wallpaper for her warp realm.
“This is Trey’s spell…”
“It just the way shadows move. He does it faster than most but once you’re used to shaping the darkness, it’s manageable enough.”
Swishy knew what she was talking about. And he could see that she even had help. The borders of the realm were teeming with curses, Ruby followers that acted as spell aides. Whenever Ruby called upon them, they provided her the benefit of a more robust outcome, correcting her minor mistakes, adding depth to the intention of her spell. The curses were the extra cooks in the kitchen that refined her culinary cuisine.
Even though Ruby never knew what exact outcome her altar pleas and spells would have, time had gifted her the benefit of good credit. Because she was a reliable petitioner, a face and soul that the Cearth had come to respect, she was given more power through an elaborate system of autocorrect, of shadowborne tutors that edited her craftsmanship.
It was a lot like the flashcards in that way, a primordial version of Swishy’s starter tool. She usually received the approximate idea of what she’d aimed for.
But there were things that she couldn’t help, the TERROR among them.
Ruby kept her instant [Adieu] going in succession, bounding across The High Chasm. They passed through alternating areas. Some were modern plazas that the bird-and-Myst hearts had erected. Others were deadened zones that were barren and heart-starved. Most of what they had warped through were healthy patches of Swishy-fed lands, places where his gold sheddings had landed throughout the course of battle. Even though he’d set foot in these areas before, Ruby’s winds had blown him much farther than he’d expected, and the lost shreds of his straw was no less potent than when it was on his person.
He’d grown this world with such efficiency. It made him hopeful even though he was a hostage.
Swishy smiled—an expression that he subdued as Ruby’s fingers anxiously dragged across his torso. She scared him, yes, but he still felt better. He was able to move in her grasp again. The intermittent brightness of the world was helpful. Each time he was carried over an area he’d enlivened, nature called out to him, speaking not in words but in energy.
His spirit settled, stretching within the binding of Ruby’s pressure. The boy’s energy flowed again. He tensed his arms, his legs, his wings, and confirmed that he was indeed ready to break free.
Firstly, though, Ruby’s nails dug into him. Her ENVY that pinpricked his soul. He could feel it all over. That he’d done good for the land. And that this was a crime. Ruby was normally content with stealing and colonizing, but in this one thing, in providing life, in fostering brightness, she’d hoped to achieve this within herself.
“Life really flows through you. Some people are just chosen, huh?”
“Aren’t you one of them.”
“No. I am not.”
“I wouldn’t agree with that.”
“Kind or cruel, I can’t tell what you are.”
“I can tell with you.”
“You have a smart mouth for a farm.”
Swishy decided not to push it, and turned his conversing energy to the enemy of his enemy.
Myst bathed in his darkness, weaving it, storing it, and even bottling what she could.
Are you okay? Swishy thought, hoping that Myst could hear it. Even though he wasn’t swishing it out, his thoughts were the domain of his head, his gourd, and he imagined that there had to be some manner of echo for his tenant to pick up.
“Yes, I’m good. You’re suffering greatly, and I’m eating well because of it!”
That’s…good?
“Well, it’s the best of the worst.”
I guess I can appreciate that…maybe.
“And I appreciate the meal.”
Swishy inwardly sighed, his exasperation on overload.
“Upset?” Ruby taunted, swelling her aura. Her smoky energy sharpened into thorns. And those points pressed further and further into him. She’d made an iron maiden of herself, something that Swishy defended against by thinking of his RESOLVE, anchoring his soul in place. He wouldn’t waver. He wouldn’t give. He wouldn’t allow these spikes to grow close to his heart.
[Pile]—Swishy broke his straw down, sliding from Ruby’s grasp. His wings and head and heart flew away to a safe distance before his body reconfigured. But as he returned to form—[Adieu]—Ruby had appeared once more and slid her arms beneath his armpits, hugging him around the chest.
The boy broke down again, reconstructed, and was once more caught.
Both Swishy and Ruby tangoed for a time, an escape artist faced with a broom-flying harvester. Ruby wouldn’t allow him to get away, not ever. Swishy didn’t stop trying. And Ruby didn’t mind so much that he even tried.
The woman grabbed Swishy again and pressed her iron maiden spikes into him. “Here’s the deal, scarecrow—and you, too, spider demon.”
Myst offered a wry smile at Ruby’s regards.
“One of those hearts will come with me.”
“I won’t let y—”
“Yes, yes, I know, you’re unwilling. But you will. Me, a kind woman, am warning you. As you’ve already seen, there are bald spots in this tree of mine. Civilization grows within this terrain but there’s only so much one heart can do. Fortunately, you have the capacity for many. There’s two hearts here—and more to come.”
[Pile].
He slipped through her forearms and fingers.
His gourd and wings flew away—
But pain. A TERROR that rushed into his heart from all directions. Ruby had caught his heart before it could fly away from him. Her dark energy stabbed into his essence like the nail rain. ROT also entered the straw, breaking down its layers, corroding the bond to his soul.
Swishy could feel his weakening hold on his heart. There wasn’t enough of his soul there to remotely control it.
Swishy used [Scarecrow] and reformed into place. He was whole again—with his torso formed around Ruby’s hand, her fingers flexing inside him, reaching for his heart. His body slid between her fingers, removing her touch from his heart.
The boy stabilized again, the condensed amount of his soul absorbing Ruby’s infectious ROT.
Ruby complied, removing her hand from his body and returning to the old gesture, the comforting and mothering hug. But the woman was who she was. Swishy sensed a whorling chasm in her body. Hordes of curses screeched with voracity. He shut his mind to their cries, refusing to read the negative emotions.
The scarecrow adjusted his position, easing away from the dark ocean of Ruby.
He was in her arms, though, waiting to suffer.
Ruby smiled.
Her darkness flared once again.
(…)
Ruby’s coldness intensified, the FROST of her aura locking his soul into place.
No actions could erase the harsh vapors that followed her. An intent of TERROR emanated from her, the letters stretching and looping around her arms, touching Swishy’s soul with the cold aspect of chains.
Ah, there it is…Swishy thought—which Ruby invasively intercepted.
“Oh hush. It’s only a hug, my little mannequin. This is as close to being a boy as you’re ever going to be. Accept my gift to you.”
“I think it’s fine for you to be less generous."
Her expression tightened. And so too did the terror-laced bindings that orbited her arms. The word was just a side effect of who Ruby was, of how the Cearth weighed and measured her essence. Every word that she produced from the darkness was something she didn’t mean.
“I wish the Cearth would give me something of a break.”
But the shadows or the ground didn’t respond in any fashion to her “I wish.” Nothing moved from Ruby’s casual request. She’d been judged—and empowered by that judgment—and that was something she’d have to live with.
And something she did live with, all too willingly.
The terror expanded from her arms and struck out on their own, twisting around Swishy’s torso, making a path toward the boy’s neck.
“I can’t be a terror? Can I?”
“We both know that you are.”
“At least I’m something.”
The sadness in her voice—Swishy wanted to not hear it. He was upset on multiple fronts. His sympathy for her was reflexive but he was offended that she had the nerve to portray softness. How dare she, in her infinite cruelty, be vulnerable? He didn’t want to hear it. But he was her captive audience.
Then her words hit home in a meaningful way, At-least-I’m-something manifesting into the inherent nothingness of her sentiment.
A Shugarrian in lineage but a sugar wraith at heart, she removed herself from the trappings of her flesh. The body that squeezed Swishy became lighter, relinquishing its constitution.
The wind of herself flowed into Swishy’s body. The coolness of her gusts slid through his tunneling weaves.
And that’s when he felt her presence with his soul. She was inside him, making comments. There were several wind doll Ruby’s exploring his body. He considered this her version of the Goldies.
While the hug on the outside seemed like a show of tenderness, there was a war within. The wind dolls spread through Swishy, collecting his gold-straw and blackwheat. His straw shifted all throughout his torso. Ruby was quick to get to the point. There was no exploring the extremities. What she wanted were hearts. The majority of the straw curled in his chest as she made her windy progress through him.
Meanwhile there was a tornado swirling around his gourd. Wind had taken him over in full.
[Spiral]—the scarecrow twisted to free himself from Ruby’s grasp—and it worked. She was a sorceress and not a bodybuilder, after all. But his insides still responded to Ruby’s leftover presence. The wind dolls were doing their sick work upon his body, gathering his straw around their centrifugal forces, harvesting him from the inside out. But the goal wasn’t just straw. It was to clear space for her to take his heart.
The boy felt lighter inside, his heft blow away.
His HOLLOW feelings became more of a reality with each moment.
As the boy spiraled away from Ruby, his chest started to cave in. There was nothing there. He was a malnourished structure. Clumps of straw were expelled from his body as he traveled onward, defenseless against the inner scourge.
The woman laughed, both her real body and the infiltrating winds.
[Pile]. Swishy dispersed his straw, separating the limbs with ease—but the head and torso only remained intact.
Ruby’s face lit with joy, holding her haybale prize in her hands.
Swishy was trying to break himself but Ruby’s winds pulled him together, tiny tornados that acted as cords of muscle. He would break no longer. Ruby protected the shape of his body. His heart was within reach.
[Blizzard]—the woman’s hands had become coated in FROST. The coldness of a woman long-starved was potent and terrifying. Swishy’s torso was frozen, sealing the spots wear the arms and legs would return.
“I can’t m—”
He couldn’t swish-speak through the freeze. A sudden fear came over him as he went rigid in body, mouth—but not his mind. He stared into Ruby, lamenting her iciness. Losing wasn’t an option. But he was a solid crystal in her hands. Even his gourd was hairy with frost.
“Ah yes, my little food group. Get used to this. Consider this being taken to the fridge, the freezer if you will. Whatever you find more suitable for your stay.”
I’ll get you, he wanted to say.
But there was no way for him to say it. Everything about his expression had hardened into silence. Only his thoughts were loud. Within his crystal prison, he watched the remains of his iced body turn to blackwheat.
Ruby cradled him in one hand as she pressed the other down onto his chest. The ice broke away in shards, developing a heart-shaped hole. She plunged her hand through him, sifting through the heart chamber. “I’ve always wanted to dig for treasure, this is so exciting!”
The boy countered with [Scarecrow] but the frozen parts of him only trembled. He vibrated in Ruby’s hand. She gazed into him, checking out her reflection in his encasement.
“I’m so beautiful,” Ruby said. “I should keep a compact on me so I can gaze at me always.”
She raised him close to her beauty mark.
“I thank you, mirror boy, for your cooperation.”
His soul was jailed inside a useless, far-too-heavy body.
Mysty, he said in his head.
“Yes, straw child?”
Got another nightmare in you?
“It’s you who are full of nightmares from the looks of it.”
So yes?
“Yes.”
[NIGHTMARE]—the inside of his head started to flame up. Tongues of black fire shot from his eyes and mouth, Myst taking over. These dark flames took over the entire body, melting the ice.
“I haven’t forgotten about you, shadow sister.”
Ruby shoved her face into the darkness. A thin smile spread across her face. She was ready this time.
Myst shot a purple poison through Swishy’s eyehole—but Ruby slipped her head to the side.
“[Begone],” the witch said.
A portal opened around Swishy’s head.
“Hmm, this isn’t good,” Myst said.
And then the portal sucked the gourd—and the gourd alone—in.
A [Zlide]? Swishy thought-screamed.
“Indeed, it is, young straw. She wins this round, it seems.”
But my heart!
“Yes, that is a problem, isn’t it?”
Within the warp realm, the sugar wraiths rejoiced.