The birds have wings

by Luke Thomas

Dear Diary,

The grasslands near Whitewail shifted like a painter’s whim—vibrant green fading to burnished gold, stalks towering taller than a man. Summer’s heat clung to us, thick and syrupy, the sun forever teetering on the horizon, bathing everything in dusky amber. Our fey mounts raced forward, but distance here is a liar. An hour? A day? Impossible to tell.

Then the flowers appeared. First orange, a sea of them rippling between the golden grass, their petals glowing faintly as if lit from within. Our drake slowed, nostrils flaring, its copper scales shivering with unease. Above the blooms, hummingbirds darted—if hummingbirds had butterfly wings and eyes like molten glass. A dozen began trailing us, their wings a kaleidoscopic blur. Harmless, we thought, until we noticed their beaks: needle-sharp, glinting like obsidian.

We crossed an unseen threshold. The orange flowers bled into crimson, and the air crackled. Behind us, the hummingbirds burst in showers of feathers, reforming as sparrows twice their size, butterfly wings now spanning like stained glass. They circled higher, watching. Waiting.

We rode onward, the golden sea of grass giving way to fields of violet blooms so deep they seemed to swallow the light. The hummingbirds—now owls with vast, shimmering butterfly wings—hovered above, their silent flight unnervingly precise. Gael tried speaking to them in Sylvan, his voice lilting with the old tongue, but they stared blankly, their movements arranging into eerie patterns: a wing curled like a finger, talons splayed like a hand. Signs? Or fey mockery?

Hayley’s magic brushed against their minds, confirming what we feared: no intelligence, only instinct. Puppets of the realm, nothing more.

Now fatigue is a mortal affliction, and the Feywild delighted in reminding us of that fact. Just as our limbs grew heavy and our eyelids began to droop, the sun—that fickle, golden bastard—leaped backward in the sky, dragging noon back with it like an overeager suitor. Our mounts, blessed with their unfeeling stone hearts, pressed onward without complaint. No hunger, no exhaustion—just the endless, indifferent clatter of hooves against earth. Meanwhile, the rest of us were left to suffer in this beautiful, unrelenting dreamscape.

The birds behind us, at least, had the decency to tuck their needle-beaks into their wings and surrender to sleep. A small mercy, or so I thought—until the flowers turned blue.

Now, I’ve always had a fondness for blue. It’s the color of Keralon’s evening skies, of Elsa’s favorite ribbons—but this? This was blue as a bruise, as a warning. And then came the pops. Like corked wine bottles at a noble’s feast, if the wine were made of pure malice. The owl-butterflies returned, but bigger—wings vast as sails, talons like scythes, eyes the crimson of fresh-spilled blood. Their screeches sent a shiver down my spine that had nothing to do with magic.

Battle was inevitable. We wheeled our mounts around, blades and spells at the ready. Alistan’s sword flashed like silver justice, Gael’s arrows whispered death, and Liliana—gods bless her reckless courage—charged ahead like the Feywild itself owed her coin. The owls fell quickly, but victory was short-lived. The air hummed, then buzzed, then swarmed with insects, their bites sharp as betrayal.

I swear, if one more winged thing tried to drink my blood that day, I was going to set the whole realm ablaze.

Hayley rode her goat straight into the fray. She wove a spell of draining magic, sapping the strength from the remaining owl-beasts, and I—being the gracious brother and brilliant pyromancer I am—followed up with a fireball. Because as always, the answer is fire.

Between swatting insects and incinerating fey abominations, we finally cleared the field. The surviving owls fled, their wings casting fractured shadows as they vanished into the ever-shifting horizon.

Just when I thought the Feywild had exhausted its capacity for terror, it unveiled its latest masterpiece: a roar ripped from the throat of the horizon itself. We turned as one, and there it was—the sky woven into a face of a thousand tiny birds, their wings a shifting mosaic of fury. No hesitation. No grand speeches. We ran.

Mounts? Yes. Dignity? Left somewhere in the violet flowers. The ground beneath us split into mirror images of our frantic flight—fey doubles that moved just out of sync with reality. A stroke of luck! We sent them careening in the wrong direction, buying seconds with borrowed shadows. Alistan and I lagged behind, our drake built like a fortress, not a racehorse.

The land itself conspired to aid our escape—forests melted into deserts, illusions flickering like candle smoke. I seized the fraying edges of the magic and pulled, weaving our scent, our sound, our very presence into the chaos. The swarm lost us, their shrieks fading into the honeyed air. Safe. For now.

We collapsed, adrenaline still singing in our veins like a poorly tuned lute. Sleep came fitfully, dreams full of wings and needle-beaks.

But morning brought no respite.

The birds had reformed: not a face now, but a hand, vast and grasping, as if some unseen puppeteer guided their hunt. Hayley reshaped our faces into fey likenesses, while Gael’s primal magic muffled our steps. For hours, it worked. Then… cliffs. Because, of course, there were cliffs. Alistan, our mount and I tumbled into a crevasse, bruises blossoming like ill-timed roses, before scrambling back out like startled cats.

And there it was: Whitewail, looming at last. But time, that slippery fiend, had slipped through our fingers. The deadline pressed against us like a knife to the throat.

Then Liliana, bless her reckless heart, offered a new plan: abandon the boat heist. Storm Vivienne’s palace instead. Plunge straight through her portal to King Ulther’s castle.

Madness.

But then again—when has that ever stopped us?

Continue reading...

A test of magic
24th of Aran, Y126 Year of the Tree

A Festival of Foxes and Frolics
30th of Dagda, Year 121, Era of the tree

Elsa

Adventure Ahead!
1st of Lug, Year 121 of the Tree

Rosebloom's Bookworm
4th of Lugh, Year 121 of the Tree

What to do when your hostess has a Secret Society Membership
5th of Lugh, 121 Year of the Tree

The most useful kind of magic
6th of Lug, 121 Year of the Tree

A Betrayal of Satyrs
7th of Lugh, 121 Year of the Tree

Maladies of the Mist
8-11th of Lug, 121 Year of the Tree

The Hunter
11th of Lug, 121 Year of the Tree

A Hidden Path to Logvale and Beyond
12th of Lug, 121 Year of the Tree

A Master of Fire
13th of Lug, 121 Year of the Tree

Too Many Goodbyes
20th of Lug, 121 Year of the Tree

Letter to Hayley I
1st of Ogan, 122 Year of the Tree

Letter to Hayley II
3rd of Solstice, 122 Year of the Tree

Letter to Hayley III
24th of Edon, 123 Year of the Tree

Letter to Hayley IV
17th of Gobu, 124 Year of the Tree

Letter to Hayley V
7th of Daga, 125 Year of the Tree

Letter to Hayley VI
14th of Mannan, 125 Year of the Tree

The Reunion
14th of Mannan, 126 Year of the Tree

The Emissaries of the Fenhunter
15th of Mannan, 126 Year of the Tree

The Fall of Cairn Fussil
4th of Nuan, 126 Year of the Tree

Festival Frenzy
10th of Nuan, 126 Year of the Tree

The Terror of Ravensfield
13th of Nuan, 126 Year of the Tree

Dragon Bones in the Dark
15th of Nuan, 126 Year of the Tree

The Determination of an Undead Kobold
16th of Nuan, 126 Year of the Tree

Battle at the Burning Village
17th of Nuan, 126 Year of the Tree

A Reminder to Take Action
18th of Nuan, 126 Year of the Tree

A Grand Ball of Intrigue
20th of Nuan, 126 Year of the Tree

The Search for Norgar
20th of Nuan, 126 Year of the Tree

Why you can never trust a bard
20th of Nuan, 126 Year of the Tree

A Royal Reward and a Challenge
28th of Nuan, 126 Year of the Tree

An apple a day...
29th of Nuan, 126 Year of the Tree

Dealing with the fey
30th of Nuan, 126 Era of the Tree

Aunty's Wrath
3rd of Aran, 126 Year of the Tree

Best served cold
9th of Aran, 126 Year of the Tree

Venturing into dangerous waters
11th of Aran, 126 Year of the Tree

The Fury of the Marsh
11th of Aran, 126 Year of the Tree

The young stag and the undead wolf
20th of Aran, 126 Year of the Tree

Anaya's Prison
21st of Aran, 126 Year of the Tree

Tales of Immerglade
22nd of Aran, 126 Year of the Tree

The festival of Wolf's Rest
26th of Aran, 126 Year of the Tree

Battle of the Bards
26th of Aran, 126 Year of the Tree

Undead at the Cathedral
30th of Aran, 126 Year of the Tree

Elves and worms
4th of Brigan, 126 Year of the Tree

How we got Sixteen Cows
8th of Brigan, 126 Year of the Tree

Descent into Acid
9th of Brigan, 126 Year of the Tree

Sorry we stole your hoard
10th of Brigan, 126 Year of the Tree

Strange Dreams of the Northern Wetlands
12th of Brigan, 126 Year of the Tree

Latebra Velora
15th of Brigan, 126 Year of the Tree

The Tragedy of Alistan De la Roost
17th of Brigan, 126 Year of the Tree

From Keralon into the Feywild
22nd of Brigan, 126 Year of the Tree

A Feywild Festival
??, 126 Year of the Tree

Into the Jaws of the Warg King
??, 126 Year of the Tree

The birds have wings
??, 126 Year of the Tree

Sneaking into Whitewail
??, 126 Year of the Tree

The birds have wings

Continue reading...

Find your way!

Resources

WHO WE ARE

LEGAL

Get the news

Listen to our Podcast

Our Allies