Ol' Flint the Crow

Flint's Second Tale pt. 1

...Before I can speak of my friend Edvrick, I must first explain what he helped me escape form.

My youth was spent in the dark, cold and afraid but not alone. The wizard's lair smelt of animal excrement and fresh blood. Always fresh blood, since we had plenty to shed. Wood chips covered the floor to make it easier to clean the putrid filth below. However, the wizard never cleaned, making our situation that more difficult to bare.

Our tiny cages were stacked on top of each other, causing the lower animals to stink the most, for obvious reasons that I care not to explain. We took up most of the wall space, but there was room for a few misshapen hooks where sharp instruments, for prodding us, hung. With the darkness all around us, our eyes grew past their normal size, making us look constantly in a state of shock.

We twisted into abnormal shapes inside the cage, and we were only let out when the old wizard abused us with his- experiments... Torture, to be more specific! One by one, we were strapped on top of an operating table and ripped apart by the old man. Tearing open our insides and splicing them together, he sought to use us for his idiotic schemes. His most recent one was attempting to give us the ability to speak as a human. As you know, most animals are wordless and can only talk by simpler forms of communication.

There are exceptions, however. But these exceptions are a rare occurrence, making talking animals a sought after oddity for sideshows and circuses. That is why the wizard operated on us without mercy. He saw a chance to make money, and so he took it with no regard for the creatures he had to hurt in the process. Damn that man!

Through his persistence, and not from his skills as a sorcerer, he managed to keep me alive after the brutal operation. Hm! I suppose that I should be grateful. So many weren't so lucky, but I'm not. After giving me only days to heal, the wizard immediately chucked me into a birdcage no bigger than the span of my winds.

Swinging my small pen around as he giddying cackled at my suffering, the wizard led me through a dimly lit forest littered with colorful flower patches. His balding head shimmered causing me to cover my stinging eyes. Dressed in a grey cloak too big for his spindly body, he strolled among the trees like a pompous idiot. He swung me once more to my reeling gut's dismay.

"Stop it!!!" I hissed. "I ain't no damn travelin' sack!"

Just so you know, my new vocal cords were not fully developed yet!

Anyway, the wizard cackled as he pulled a crudely carved magic wand out of his pocket. Jabbing my ribs a few times, he smirked as I let out a howl from painful hex entering my body.

"Get that thing the hell away, human!" I screeched as my legs swirled violently above me.

Wiping the tears off his jolly face, he spoke in his irritatingly raspy voice that I loathed so. "Ah, Ah! I don't want any lip from you. I need you on your best behavior at the market, today. They'll be plenty of saps willing to buy you for a fair amount of gold, so put on a smile if you know what's goo for you."

"Drop dead ol' man!"

I'm guessing he didn't take too kindly to that remark since he stabbed me again with his wand.

Convulsing on the cage floor, I howled, "Please, stop!!!"

"Are you going to behave then?" asked the wizard, arrogantly.

"Yeah..." I gasped.

With a crooked smile, the wizard said, "Goodie! You should actually be glad I'm selling you. You'll have it a lot better than the rest of your animal friends. You'll have a new master. Who knows, they may be a hell of a lot friendlier than I. They might hit you only half as much as I do."