Ol' Flint the Crow

Flint's Second Tale pt. 2

...The stranger - which you guessed it, was Edvrick - smiled at me as his head cocked to one side. This annoyed the hell out of me as I examined him from head to foot.

I noticed that there was some strange kind glow illuminating his bright cheery face. The light was so soothing to behold that it would have brought a blissful joy in my heart if I wasn't so stupid to accept it. Fluttering calmly above his head, his silver hair glimmered like a clear starlit sky. He was clothed in a robe of bright blue which whiffled over the many flower beds of the forest as he seemed to glide delicately on top of them.

"Get back human!" I yelped while swinging the snake's poisonous fangs about like I was actually capable of fighting off someone who defeated a wizard.

Lifting his slender eyebrows, Edvrick curiously repeated, "Human? I'm afraid my feathery friend that you are a little mistaken. I'm not human, I am a Sylph; a spirit of the wind. "

"Shut up," I screamed. "No lies human! Whoever heard of a Sylph?! It sounds made up to me! I-I ain't gonna go back in a cage. Do ya hear me?! I ain't ya prisoner! I ain't gonna be hurt no more!"

Edvrick gave me a compassionate look as he twirled the old man's wand in his nimble fingers. The wand began to spin, as if on invisible strings, above his palm as a gust of wind circled the object. As it spun faster, the wind formed into a ball made of white stripes. The wind and the wand's rotations increased in speed as my eyes began to hurt from the strain of looking at it.

All of a suddenly, the ball shattered, scattering hundreds of cloudy stripes in every direction. The only thing that remained rolling in his palm was a small marble, made of a crystal substance, and what looked like a tiny wooden splinter buried in the center. Taking a second look, I realized it was in fact the wizard's wand shrunken to fit inside the puny ball where it could never be used to harm again. Edvrick dropped it in a pouch hanging from his waist. It made a sharp clinking sound as it jingled with the many other marbles inside the bag.

Lowering himself to be more eye level with me, he then replied, "I assure you, I mean no harm. My only desire is the wellbeing for all living things that I come across. Please friend, tell me. Are you hurt?"

Edvrick meekly gestured to the scars covering my body.

I twisted my head at myself and grimaced at my pitiful form. It was the first time I had ever bothered to look at the miserable state of my body. Jagged cuts from years of torture ran down my back and chest. Some were so deep that parts of my skin had patches where feathers now refused to grow. From my brittle beak, white flakes peeled off and rained down by the wingful. Underneath that, the deep scar going around my neck, where the wizard opened me up with a blunt knife, could be distinctly seen. I barely looked like an animal at all. Instead, I seemed to be more dead than alive.

I tore my eyes away from me as I shed tears. I'm not proud of this, but the realization of the torment I had endured at the hands of the wizard was more than I could bare. I cried and buried my face into my wings like a blubbering child. Gods!

As I wailed and fell limp on the grass, I suddenly felt the smooth hands of Edvrick wrapping around me. I tried to fight, but the more I did the more I wept.

Boohooing more than I care to describe, I moaned, "Just kill me! If ya have any pity ya'll just crush me right now. Don't go on tormentin' me human! I ain't got no more life to live! Why must you hurt me so?!"

"Shh..." Edvrick said as he held me carefully in his arms. "There's no need to worry. You are safe now. No one will harm you anymore. I won't let anyone do such things to you again. You're safe with me, friend. I promise, you will always be safe with me!"