Fuck that, I thought.
I grabbed at one bit of wood and I wrested it free from the little fingers of wood that were grasping at it, fitting it into another position. Too little.
I used the Hyena, and I cut away at one of the fingers of wood, transplanting it up at the upper arm and elbow, where things were too thin to support anything.
Fingers began clawing at it. The same thing as before. Digging into the joints that had formed, breaking it down, trying to break up the larger pieces to create splinters.
I raked at the little roots and hooks of wood with the Hyena, shaving them off the arm.
My entire body, all at once, writhed. Every branch bending, contracting, shifting position, scraping against bone.
I dropped to my one good knee. The makeshift peg-leg scraped against sidewalk, but failed to find traction. The strength went out of my hand, and the Hyena, staying for a moment due to the spikes that stuck through my hand, dropped to the sidewalk.
I grunted, experiencing something that quite probably would have been pain, if I still had proper nerves.
I was breathing heavily, though I didn’t need to breathe in the first place. My eyes were open, staring at the ground, littered with smaller bits of branches I’d broken off and planned to use after. I didn’t dare look to see what was happening.
Fuck it. Fuck you, I thought. Don’t you dare take this away from me.
Let me fly, damn it. Don’t taunt me with broken wings.
To show me a vision where I had wings, to lead me to the point of tearing myself apart, replacing an arm, gouging at my humanity, then take it all away?
Even here, the Abyss had a hold on me. Even here, it could effectively destroy me. If it wanted to hit me where it hurt, to churn on as an endless machine of entropy, this was the way to do it.
“Show me you’re about change, not annihilation,” I muttered. “Let me change. Help me change.”
I felt the back of my neck crawl.
The crawling reached around to the corners of my jaw, then up to my temple, and across my cheeks.
I reached up to touch it.
Splinters, small fingers, hooks. Scraping at my fingertips, gouging.
Slowly reaching for my eyes, reaching for my remaining flesh.
Tiny, like the legs of spiders, pincers, fish hooks, they stabbed and set themselves into the flesh that remained, around my mouth, near my eyes, at my forehead.
Then they stopped. Waited.
Asking. Offering. A deal with the devil, metaphorically speaking.
Give up your face if you truly want wings.
Give up your eyes.
I could hear the dragon screech, not all that far away.
This crisis I faced was removed from a very large, very real crisis that threatened people and Others I cared a great deal about.
Do it, and you can fly. Fly, and you might be able to do something to save them.
A question and an offer that did nothing to resolve the debate about whether the Abyss wanted ruin or change. Or if there was even a difference between the two things.
Lose-lose.
Except I wasn’t there. The Abyss might have had a hold on me, but I was still free. I was a messenger, and I brought that ruin and change by nature.
“No,” I said. “No. You’re going to give me the damn wings, and you’re going to leave my damn face alone. You’re going to do it, because I’m going to give you my word. I’ll help the Abyss in a way that counts. I’ll give you your damn meal, and it’ll be better than what you’d get by taking a piece out of me.”
I could hear the giant intone another monosyllabic word, from two or so city blocks away. He didn’t shout, but he might as well have, given how far the sound carried. The dragon screeched in response. I heard the eruption of flame.
The wooden bits that had their hooks in my flesh released their hold.
Again, the wood shifted and reorganized. Wood at the underdeveloped humerus was moved elsewhere, thinning out the long upper ‘arm’ of the wing. The weak elbow joint got weaker.
I had the wings, but no feathers, no flesh to stretch between the fingers.
Still on my knees, eyes still on the scattered twigs and bits of wood, I reached for the Hyena.
I unbound the chain and barbed wire, and wound it around my waist and hips instead, a too-wide belt. When that was done, I cut at the remains of my sweatshirt’s sleeve, where it was hampering the growth of the larger of the two wings.
No… the wings weren’t different in size. There was a massive wingspan, the individual bones long, with the individual branches almost braided together, winding together like old roots.
The problem was the humerus, the elbow. Too thin, too weak. It threatened to snap from the weight of the wing alone, and I still lacked anything to tie the wing together.
“Come on,” I said. “Come on, come on.”
The wood at the elbow peeled. Knots grew, then fell out.
I sheathed the Hyena and reached out, trying to examine it, but the humerus was too long. I had to stretch my arm out to the full length.
My thumb found one knothole, my index finger found another.
The knot that formed the wing joint at my back shifted, moving closer to the shoulder. The humerus fit snug against my own arm, with only the sweatshirt in the way.
Reluctantly, I removed my hand and cut at that sleeve as well.
The branches at my back clawed the remainder of the sweatshirt to pieces. Scraps.
The scraps, in turn, were carried off, dragged to their individual stations. Stretched. The membrane of the wings. As the individual branches settled into position, they reinforced the wings. Almost forming musculature.
I sheathed the Hyena yet again, and grabbed at the elbow joint to help hold up the wing before the added weight could break it. Fingers into the knotholes.
Wood creaked, snapped, and strained as I raised the full wing. Longer than I was tall. The fabric had holes in it, and thin branches crawled through it like worms, veins, or vines, to spread out and shore it up.
I flapped, experimentally.
It wasn’t enough to lift me up.
Bat wings, not bird wings.
I couldn’t take off. Couldn’t fly. The twigs I’d been staring at on the ground were gathering at my feet. Giving more substance to my peg leg, so it was more of an actual leg.
I could almost imagine the Abyss mocking me, making the twigs give me the foot I needed as I ran, my wings extended behind me, fingers close together, to reduce drag.
I was still light. Almost lighter, given how the individual components of my body had rearranged. I hadn’t added that much material to myself. It was very possible the wings were fragile.
My body continued changing, rearranging, even as I ran. Finding a better configuration, strengthening my new foot.
Settling.
If I’d accepted the seal of Solomon, where would I stand now? Would this be possible? Would I have needed to go this far, or would I have proven more durable?
I could see the scene. The giant was in the middle of it all, standing in flames, while the dragon perched on a building just behind it, looking down.
Flames all over the street had frozen in place. Snow had been stirred by the dragon’s flight and giant’s movement, given permission to fall, until it froze again, and there was a slight haze at the street, from the smoke and snow that had settled further down.
Every movement stirred time back into action. It made smaller actions more obvious, in a roundabout way. Everyone left a trail for others to follow.