Short Stories

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Talan Crowel stopped dead in his footsteps.

Actually, this was true in more ways than one. Were he aware of his condition, he would have been more alarmed and subsequently wondering how he was able to, in essence, mimic the living, since the termination of his progress was that of a corpse.

But, alas, he was not.

Instead, his shock was reserved for a de-winging from a group of thug sprites, known simply as the trappers, inflicted upon non other than the village mute, Threer Saga. The trappers, numbering seven on this day, were always throwing their wood around, but this was over the top, even for them. Threer Saga was a mute, and completely helpless. There was no amount of glory to be gained by such a despicable act, except to solidify their reputation as worse than bullies. As Talan looked closer, he could see the reason for this latest and most vile act.

Stremer Strout was leading the bunch on this particular day. He was a detestable character if ever there was one. His hatred for the sweeter things of life, like ale, flowers, and extremely light breezes made him one of the least favored of all the wood sprites. And the one of the toughest. Talan could recall that three of the more noble wood sprites had tried to trick Stremer into revealing his existence to the family of sparrows that lived at the great tree’s top, only to discover that Stremer was able, somehow, to turn the plan on its head and force the three sprites into the sparrows’ actual nest! Talan could not recall how he did, just like he could not recall the three sprites’ names, but he knew without thinking that Stremer Strout was as treacherous as they came.

So why was he spending his time tearing the wings off of Threer Saga?

Wicked laughter mingled with muffled sounds of pain as Talan watched the horrible act helplessly. There were few things in this life as painful as having one’s wings torn off. And in the time they took to grow back, a sprite could perfect artificial wings out of stray wood shavings. Many a wood sprite had lost his employment because his commute became impossible without the wings. This was why Talan chose to stay safely on the ground for his sustenance, thank you very much. As a sawdust collector, he never had to deal with the pressures of flying or relying upon factors that could not be controlled, like the trajectory of the wind or pollen in the air. That miserable stuff can come from out of nowhere and pelt a sprite four ways to Patchday before he knew he’d been hit. There were also the unsafe menaces of stray flower blades, dandelion seeds and of course those sparrows. Also, one did not want to be flying when the rains came in early spring.

But as a master painter, Threer Saga spent her time doing nothing but fly. When a spot of bark became discolored, Threer would aestetically fix the patch so it looked like new, and give the tree some dignity again. Many trees could hold their branches high because Threer was so gifted at her craft. She was loved by the woods, and welcomed wherever she went. This made sense to Talan, since trees could talk no more than Threer could. But she certainly could fly. Her profession made her one of the best flyers in all the glen. That made what Talan was witnessing today particularly sad. Talan knew poor Threer would become another spritistic.

Unless he was able to come up with a way to help.

Talan paused. Where had that thought come from? He did not know, but it certainly was not a familiar one. Nor did it make him feel comfortable in any way. Quite the contrary, in fact. This thought of helping made Talan’s heart start to beat rapidly and made him feel generally queasy all over. As he looked over at the wretched scene unfolding before him, his thoughts spun rapidly in a whirlpool of helplessness and frustration.

“Curious.” He whispered, almost involuntarily. Frustration meant that he wanted to help and was angry about not being able to. It was more from a desire to know what was happening to him than for in-born bravery or particular care for the mute that he began to wonder what he could possibly do to help Threer.

The problem was clear; even though he did not realize he was dead, he still saw he was outnumbered seven to one. And these thugs were not easily pushed over. Rather, they did most of the pushing, and would just as soon push a wingless grandmother sprite out of a tree as anyone else. So taking that into account, Talan counted their sheer meanness as increasing the threat they posed twofold.

So he was outnumbered then fourteen to one.

Talan gulped on cotton, as all the moisture left his mouth. He was also now, suddenly aware of another unpleasant thought as he looked down. Talan had never been much of an athlete. In fact, the truth was that he was almost as athletic as a ground sloth. Almost. His lack of physical prowess played out in the fact he was always chosen last during games like smack the sac and bee sling. This point was even clearer because the tips of his tinker shoes were not, but rather hidden below his enormous eldar nectar belly. He thought it would take two of him to best each one of the trappers, physically.
So then Talan was outnumbered twenty-one to one. He decided at that moment that he would go throw pebbles if he made it out of this situation with all of his limbs.

But right now, he could not rely on his athletic ability to help him. He thought about fetching the local sirens to come and enforce order, but dismissed that idea almost immediately. They had tried before with Stremer, but he proved too tough even for them. The last time they had attempted to enforce order, their captain, Forgi Gonofan had found himself half-buried in a tree. It had taken the masons three weeks to repair the tree, and Threer almost half as long to hide the patch. Needless to say, Stremer had a poor relationship with the wood. Even if Talan could fetch the sirens, he doubted he could reach this clearing again before Threer was permanently grounded.

What was required was sacrifice.

Alarmed by this thought, Talan almost fell over when it came to him. Sacrifice? What kind of Sacrifice? Talan was unaccustomed to intervening in situations that brought him personal loss. He typically found such a notion disagreeable. The closest he had ever come to personal sacrifice was when his bedding den had caught fire and his pet rock was stuck inside. He had braved heat and flame to save his precious Cucumber, only to realize later that she was in no real danger, as rocks did not burn. In truth, it was no sacrifice at all because he was already dead; he would not have been under threat of burning if a river of lava was flowing through his hole in the ground, although Talan would have regretted that, since that would have killed Cucumber. Talan would have also objected to his home being called a hole in the ground, although that was what it was.

Talan did not know what was happening to him. He had awoken that morning having no particular plans and not wanting to be forced into anything, even by himself. That he had been unceremoniously thrust into this situation and had even entertained these thoughts of grandeur meant to him that he was not responsible for what had entered his pea-sized brain. And he certainly resented that.

But it could not be helped. Talan decided that he could as much walk away as he could rip the teeth off a cave bat, so he continued thinking about what sacrifice had to do with the horror befalling poor Threer Saga. He did not know, but, he was rapidly becoming more and more desperate as Stremer yanked ever harder on her strong wings.

Her wings.

His wings.

That’s it!

And with the thought, Talan felt a pang of both exhilaration and utter fear. What was he thinking? That his wings were worth giving for hers? Talan found this intellectually true. He believed that were his wings and Threer’s wings put on display for judging at the annual Buttercup Festival, her wings would win top prize hands down. They were bigger, fuller, and much more functional than his. It was no question that her wings were more valuable to her than his were to him. In his line of work, after all, he did not need his wings. Hers determined her livelihood. A trade like the one Talan was considering, then, should not mean much to him. Clearly, Threer’s had more value over all.
Why was was Talan so hesitant?

Talan peered through the bush, heart pounding. The pain that he would feel and the humiliation he would experience at the hands of Stremer and his band of thugs was itself deterrence enough from becoming involved. It was not as if wings were the Wood Sprite equivalent of a Lizard’s tail, after all. Those miserable contraptions could be let loose by their miserable owners faster than it took a hop toad to recoil its tongue. And oh, how those tails did flop. But that is another story.

No, sprite wings hurt to be torn off. And when they are torn, the wound has to heal before any new growth can happen. And then, again, there was all the time it took for them to grow back. So Talan realized that were he to sacrifice his wings for Threers, he was looking at months and months of unpleasantness. But this was not even the biggest reason deterring him jumping into the situation.

Turning his neck, which was an effort unto itself, Talan fluttered his wings. He had to admit that his ambivalence was born from the fact that he was fairly fond of his small appendages. He could barely fly, but he knew he would not have even the small status that he enjoyed without them. By jumping into the situation, he was giving that up as well.

Now Talan began to doubt. As he looked at the situation, he could see only reason turn his back, walk away and lose himself in a spot of tea. There was nothing for him to gain from getting involved. Perhaps if he were particular friends with Threer, that would be one thing. But that relationship did not exist. Threer had never even spoken two words to him. Of course, the mute had never spoken two words to anyone, but that was not the point. The point was that there was no particular reason for him to care about what was happening to Threer.

So why did he?

"Because you are now being reborn."

Talan looked behind himself. Who was that? He was sure that he had not heard a voice, but the thought was not his own. Never had he had a thought like that before. So foreign in fact that Talan Crowel knew that he had not been the source of the thought.

"I am giving you these thoughts. You are being born over into a new creation. So long have you been dead that your condition feels natural. But I have come that you might have life, and have it abundantly."

Talan stood up, and looked around himself, more than uneasy. Where was this quiet voice coming from? If it were any less perceptible, it would have been invisible. Yet what it was saying was as clear as Bog Pond after a rain. But Talan did not know how to respond. Should he start talking to the voice? Should he try to find the source?

Talan rolled his eyes. Was he losing his mind?

"No. Your mind is fine."

“Thank you,” said Talan, in spite of himself.

"It is your spirit that needs healing."

Talan’s mood suddenly shifted. It was not something that he had control over, but rather, he was suddenly peaceful and his mind clear. He was conscious, and consciously desired to pursue the dialogue with the strange voice further.

“Who are you?” asked Talan.
"I am the One who made the trees. From the largest redwood down to the smallest cypress. I am the one who sustains the trees, nourishing and watering each one with care and life. The trees know Me because they are rooted in their Creator. They know Me and trust Me."

Talan sat down again, gaping internally. The One who made the trees? What does that mean? He stared at his pointy-toed shoes as he thought about what to ask next. Before he could think of the next question, though, a light breeze came sweeping through, and knocked him on his back.

The last thought Talan had before he lost consciousness was that the light breeze exhibited a strength that bellied its touch. Then time seemed to still and all went black.

* * *


Talan seemed to float in a void of nothingness, kept aloft by an invisible force. He had no sense of what was up or down. His sense of direction did not help, since there did not seem to be any direction. Talan was nonplussed, but did not have a sense that anything was amiss. Content, in fact, was he to sit and wait for whatever was about to happen. After all, something was bound to sooner or later.

Then, before his eyes, but not in front of him, since this place seemed to exist outside of space, a bright light flashed suddenly, its intensity growing in strength and engulfing the entirety of what before seemed like impenetrable blackness. When Talan could no longer see any darkness, the bright light shaped itself into an impossibly huge tree, an oak by the look of it. It stood large and full, exquisite in its shape and living and breathing since before all time. Its trunk was an unwavering pillar, tall and strong.

Talan lost track of the time he stared at the enormous tree, so fixed was he upon its beauty that he was jarred when the tree began to shift and bow, as if an invisible hand began to push on it. But there was no hand. Rather, the great oak was doing something. What, Talan could not tell by the way the oak seemed to maneuver and flex in the intensely lit non-space.

Then, deliberately, the tree began to sprout ground from its roots. This was backward from Talan’s sensibilities, since trees gained their sustenance from the earth, not the other way around. However, surely as frogs could escape any trap, soil and water began to shoot out from the oak’s roots until earth and lakes and ocean’s and mountains covered the expanse “below” the tree. The tree itself stood in the middle of a vast garden, lusher than any Talan had ever seen before. Vividly colored wildflowers dotted a vibrant green landscape of rolling hills and impossibly blue rivers. There was a compelling serenity that Talan found irresistible, and he shook trying to absorb it all.

As he stared at the scene’s magnificence, Talan’s gaze was refocused back onto the great oak, which was once more shifting. But this time, the shift was accompanied by a trembling and contracting, actions Talan thought odd for a tree, particularly one this size. It trembled and shook and groaned and stretched until it threatened to shake the foundation of the landscape it had just created. Then it stopped all action as quickly as it had begun.

Talan looked to the tree’s trunk, which as he was just now noticing, was bare, save for two tiny shoots at its top which were not there before. They drank and breathed from the great oak, and started to grow. Before long, they were large, and strong, and covered in green leaves and flowers and good fruit. They were sinewy and full, imbued with life from the trunk, and rooted deeply.

But then, a thing Talan found stranger than anything else he had seen yet happened. The branches that had sprung up and grew so beautifully started to break off from the trunk. They began to pull and wrench and strain their way off the trunk. The trunk continued to stand firm, seemingly unaware of what the branches were doing. They continued to attempt to break away until the smaller of the two managed to crack the connection of wood and vein that gave it life. It was followed right behind by the larger one. At that, Talan felt a sharp pain rock the very depths of his being. He would have fallen if he had been standing.

“My word, what are you doing?” he heard himself say in horror.

Limply they hung, connected to the trunk only by its bark. Had a wind arisen, the branches would have been subject to its whims. But a breeze did not come, and the branches just hung, dead without knowing it.

Suddenly, the trunk began to stir again, this time, vibrating and causing the landscape to quake and tremble. The two branches clinging by mere bark began to rattle against the trunk, and each other. Their impacts made a loud “thwack!” that reverberated in the landscape even more. The earth below the tree split and was swallowed up by the quake, and the rivers and lakes that dotted the once pastoral scene dried up and drained through the cracks. The great oak shook even more, and the branches’ tenuous connection was abruptly severed with a loud snap, and they went falling to the earth, which now was dry with dead foliage in place of the lush green and healthy vegetation that had characterized it mere second’s before. They landed on the ground, crashing and breaking into thousands of tiny pieces. Talan caught his breath, if he was actually breathing in this place, at the branches’ violent shattering.

They lay there for a short time, dead, the landscape now completely reflecting the stain of decay that cast it in a hue of sickly brown. Talan looked on in disgust, numb to the earlier pain and repelled utterly by what had happened to the great oak’s creation. Barren laid the once-lush hills and forests. Vistas that had looked out upon roaring, wild ocean now saw only giant bowls of dust and cracked earth desperate for a drink. Death gripped the whole land firmly.

The giant oak, at the center of the once magnificent creation contracted then, bowing itself into an hourglass shape. It trembled there, raging and causing another earthquake, this one to dwarf the last. Surely, thought Talan, this would destroy the sickly landscape.

“With good riddance!” he spoke out loud.

But the oak did not undo its creation. The contraction lasted for what seemed like hours, as the landscape shook and groaned, and new earthquakes occurred. Storms of rain, snow and hail blanketed the land. There was famine and flood, pain and pestilence, and every manor of sadness and suffering that Talan had to look away, so repelled was he by the scene that was unfolding before him. And all this because a branch had ceased to fulfill its purpose to bear fruit and grow in the oak.

It did not seem fair.

Talan looked back at the giant tree in the middle of creation, this time accusatory. How could it allow a small thing like the branches severing themselves cause all this destruction? What was the purpose of growing them if they were just going to break away and die? Talan did not understand.

Just then, the tree stopped rumbling and as if in response, a vine sprung up from the soil just below the great oak. It snaked itself around the oak, attaching itself in various places, and taking root in the oak itself, both feeding the oak and being fed by the oak. The symbiosis took only a few minutes, until the vine was wrapped so completely around the oak that there was no telling where one began and the other ended. Where before there was only bark, now there were full ivy leaves adorning the trunk’s length. The two stood in the middle of the blighted landscape as a singular beacon of beauty and health the midst of death and despair.

But the vine was not finished moving. From its place of relational symbiosis with the strong oak, it plunged its roots back into the dry, crusted earth near where the branches had shattered in what seemed like a lifetime ago. Talan watched with curiosity and anticipation as the vine laid down roots in the earth even as its roots in the great oak remained strong. Deeply, it bored into the earth, softening and oxygenating the soil right below the shattered branches, and throwing all encumbrances of rock and clay aside. It absorbed the plight of the creation, drinking fully and taking into its veins the illness that infected the land.

Talan exhaled in wonderment as the land began to heal.. As the sickness of the land was ingested and removed, it was replaced by nutrients in an epic transformation too grand to take in yet too small to see. The land became good and able to sustain growth again.

In the midst of this transformation, Talan looked back at the remarkable vine that had begun the process, and his eyes went wide at what he saw. The vine, healer of the land, was itself sick. Its green, full leaves were now cracked and faded. Its interwoven flexibility about the oak failed and it became weak and brittle, unable now transmit nutrients across its once strong rooting in the oak.

The oak, in turn, cut off the relationship, refusing the sickness that permeated its once symbiotic partner. With loud snapping sounds, the vine’s connecting points to the oak were severed and the vine slid down the trunk to the floor below. Immediately, the vine started to decay and was absorbed into the earth. Talan felt sorrow for the vine, as its sacrifice to heal the land had severed its relationship with the great oak. The oak, in turn, looked incomplete without the vine.

The death of the vine seemed to enact a limbo state in the land. No longer was it trapped by the widespread disease that inflicted death upon the growth. But new growth to replace the old had not yet started. Talan looked over the land this time to see soil and earth ready to support new life, but not yet growing vegetation, brown where their should have been green. It seemed as if all creation was hanging, awaiting a new development.

Talan looked back at the area of the oak. It stood amidst its barren creation, a lone sentinel watching over its charges. He noticed again, the shattered shards of branches lying so close to but completely apart from the oak. They were still dead.

Talan inhaled. “When can I exhale?” he thought.

He did not have to wait long. Up from the soil, bridging the gap between broken branch and strong oak, shot the vine, this time stronger and thicker than before. It wound itself around the oak once more, this time establishing more points of contact and nourishment than before. Its leaves wrapped around the oak’s trunk, embracing it and creating an intimate symbiosis once more.

But it did not stop there.

Into the cleansed, bare earth the vine plunged, using the oak’s resources to begin to add growth to the land. This time, however, chutes from the vine broke soil next to the dead branches lying on the ground. Talan gaped as the chutes engrafted themselves to the branches, bringing them back to life and causing them to stand up. He watched, transfixed as the formerly dead branch pieces were transformed into living, free-standing trees themselves.

Except they were not free-standing. Thanks to the vine, the branches now had a connection to the oak, and they received the nourishment they needed to grow and flourish from the oak.

But the land was still in need of vegetation, Talan thought.

As if in response to this, the new trees began to grow and flourish and become a grove surrounding the great oak. They grew to strength and heights unachievable were they not rooted firmly to the oak. Because brought the connection between oak and branch together, the new trees could now expand.

Talan watched wide eyed as these new, strong trees started to drop seeds and new trees began to grow. They grew and the grove expanded. The repopulation was rapid, and soon, the entire hillside on which the grove sat was covered. Everywhere Talan looked, new trees were sprouting, returning life to the once-sick landscape.

But something was curious.

Talan frowned as he noticed that not all the trees were connected to the vine growing, and they seemed to sprout up dead, and leafless. The vine chutes were attempting a connection, but the dead trees would not receive them.

Strange.

Talan’s focus was abruptly thrown to a particular tree just outside the original grove halfway down the sloping hill. He looked at it with repellant interest, as he saw immediately that it was one of the distasteful dead ones that had curiously sprung up. Its limbs were pocked and dried, and had none of the buoyant flexibility that characterized its living counterparts. It was cracked and looked at any moment as if the smallest disturbance would cause it to tumble and break apart into dust.

And yet, there was something familiar about this one.

Talan watched as a small shut from the vine sprung up suddenly next to this rotted tree. It started to poke and prod the tree with a determination that made Talan feel decidedly uneasy, and he tried to ignore the shut and decided to pretend that the tree he was looking at so intently was alive and well. He told himself this over and over until the dead tree began to change shape. No longer was it bare and dry, but it took on the appearance of one of the living, nourished and full and ready to give its own life. Talan felt a sense of satisfaction as he took some amount of credit for how beautiful the tree was now.

The chut all the while continued to poke and prod and find an opening.

Vexed and slightly irritated, Talan wanted to shoo away the chute. He wanted to tell the vine that the ugly dead tree no longer needed the connection to the oak for its life, and that the tree was doing fine at living without it, thank you very much. His anger began to grow, and soon Talan was seething.

Then, his perspective shifted as he realized he was looking into a reflecting glass..

Shocked, Talan turned his head just as the chute came at him one more time. It was much larger than he had imagined. The chute from the vine that was connected to the tree did not prod this time, but knocked Talan, revealing intense weakness and pain and finally shattering him into dust.

* * *


Talan Crowell came to with a start. An involuntary squawk escaped his lips as he sat up, his gaze darting here and there. He was back in the glen behind the brush where he had been standing when the breeze knocked him over. He felt as though he had been out for hours as he struggled to regain his composure.

What had happened?

He did not have much time to ponder the question as sounds from the dewinging he was watching before in helpless frustration jumped back into his ears like grasshopper. He rose and turned to see that Stremer Strout had made little progress in his conquest to obtain Threer Saga’s wings. How long Talan was unconscious he did not know, but he thought that it could not have been long after all if the horrific scene was not yet over. He knew Threer Saga’s wings were exceptionally strong, but no had wings that strong.

Then Talan remembered again the voice.

“Are you still there?” Talan asked.

Silence answered him back.

After a moment, Talan again asked, “I say, are you still there?”

Nothing.

Talan felt a bit confused as he stood peering at the group trying to remove Threer’s wings. Was that voice truly there? Had his experience in the void been nothing more than a figment of his imagination? And what had it meant? Talan was not sure what the meaning of his vision was, but one thing he certainly did know was that something inside him had changed. It was not as if he had eaten some rotted eldar berries, or had been sniffing crushed pine needles. He could not quite describe what the change was. The best he could think was that he had a new awareness. Of what, he was not sure. But he fully intended to find out.

He was also sure the change had something to do with the voice and the vision.

And, curiously enough, this gave Talan some amount of confidence. It was not a confidence in himself, but rather a confidence in…

Well, he did not know exactly what prompted his confidence. But he was certain he wanted to find out. And he was certain that he would.

"I will never leave you nor forsake you."

It was the voice, but this time, it did not come unexpectedly. Talan welcomed the intrusion, which was not an intrusion. Rather the voice fed his confidence and gave him the courage to confront the injustice that was happening before him. Like the vine in his vision, which sacrificed its own life to cleanse the land and raise the branches back to relationship with the oak, he was now willing to sacrifice, although his would be a sacrifice on a much smaller scale.

Talan looked back, fluttered his wings, and smiled, before stepping into the clearing to confront Stremer Strout.

“I say! Hello there! You, sir, yes you! And all the rest of you, as well!” he called as he made himself visible to the band of thugs.

Almost as one, Threer included, the group looked up to see who was invading the privacy. Talan was almost jolly as he walked out to confront the band of thugs, trotting as though he were on his way to the ale bush for a spot of gin. The faces of his targets were as immovable as granite.

Talan stepped up to Stremer, noticing how imposing he was, having never seen him up close before. “Good day, to you Mr. Strout. I have been watching you for some time now, and I must insist that you release this poor girl. After all, her wings are exquisite and we would not want them ruined.”

Stremer looked at Talan the way a hawk may look at a plump chicken. That is, if the chicken forgot that its job regarding the hawk was to hide and hope that the hawk was not hungry. But this chicken seemed to want to be clawed.

“Who are you?” Stremer asked in a voice twinged with humor, outrage, and curiosity. Talan gulped.

“My name…my….is…Talan Crowel, and I de…demand that you release her at once.” He said meekly.

All eyes were fixed intensely on Talan. Stremer’s band of thugs was as frozen as Threer, who had temporarily forgotten that she was a victim. The look on her face was a mix of amazement and worry. She was worried about Talan? She would do well to remember that Talan was there to rescue her. Not the other way around.

After a long time, one of the trappers, a wiry, nasty little sprite, started to laugh. He was followed by the rest of the group. Stremer responded with only a wicked grin, which was more bearing his teeth than anything else.

“And what are you going to do if I don’t?” he said.

At that, all of the trappers except for the two restraining Threer, fanned slowly to surround Talan. They had dangerous smiles on their faces, and seemed excited-excited!-at the thought of another bit of prey.

They encompassed Talan, and moved in to grab him, when a breeze flew up and knocked the nearest one of them into Stremer Strout and one of the other thugs holding Threer. The other three took hold of Talan and began beating him with everything they had. Fists, feet and clubs all served to knock him this way and that. His head was tossed this way and that, and his perspective was muddied and clouded. He hurt all over, and yet, he was also detached from the pain. Deeper than the pain was a peace that passed anything he could understand.

Then he felt the pulling. His wings were about to be torn off. There was nothing he could do to stop them. He did not even know if he were upright anymore. He looked down, and remembered that he could not see his toes.

All that was left for him was to black out. The last thing he could remember was a series of raged yells, and then a flutter of beautiful wings flying away, followed quickly by darkness, until the wings were completely out of sight and everything went mercifully black.

* * *


Talan awoke in a haze of nausea and aches. He was horizontal. In a bed. Not his own. Who’s?

He tried to sit up, only to invite a wave of nausea that crashed him back into the pillow. A sudden shot of pain hit his back, midway up where his wings were. Wait. He reached painfully to touch his wings, only to realize with new agony that they had been torn off.

"Well done, my good and faithful servant." It was that voice.

He heard a stirring from the next room, and Threer saga appeared at the small, arched door. Was he in her house? He did not remember how he had come to be there.

She sat down next to him and gave him something to drink.

“I do say, Threer, what happened?” Immediately, he felt ridiculous asking questions of a mute.

She smiled and started to flutter her wings in a pattern that he did not understand. She tried for a few minutes before giving up and disappearing once again through the arched doorway.

Confused, Talan lay there, unable to do much of anything else. Is this what my sacrifice yielded him? Torn wings and permanent grounding, needing care from the mute that he had intended to save? He could not help but think that he was duped into giving up those wings. They were not much, after all, but they were his, and he was naturally fond of them.

Of course, in this moment, Talan Crowel did not have a wide perspective yet. He could not see beyond the pain and discomfort he was experiencing. His sacrifice actually had more significance than he was able to realize then. In birth, there is always pain, and Talan’s was not done, but his actions in the glen that day were going to touch off a series of events that were going to change the entire forest.

And all because he heeded a still, small voice with the devastating impact of a spring breeze and a whisper. This story is far from over.

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