Story Time With LT: The Tenacious Christmas Twig, Part Two.... →[More:]

When last we visited the Twig, he was pinned to the ground while the roaring Wind bore down upon him, threatening to uproot him off to the End of the World....

The world had turned into a horrible wail that rose up from the earth and carried into the sky. A keening, awful din that tore at the soul and levelled anything in its path.

The Wind had returned.

And Twig could not withstand him. His roots, young as they were, could not hold. He could feel them losing their grip under the cracked and frozen soil. The weight on his thin, exposed body pulled and stretched the Twig to his utmost.

Then, a muffled snap, and the first root came free of the ground. The Twig, blasted with snow and ice and vibrating with screeching noise, vainly tried to dig his last few needles into the soil.

But the Wind was in full gale now, and the Twig's last remaining hold slipped free, and he was borne up into the flashing blindness and carried off, all needles gone, his limp limbs numb with shock.

And he dreamed.

He dreamt of a world gone white - utterly white, with neither curve nor plain, up or down. No sky, no water - nothing but a searing harsh reflection of white that burned the eye and blistered the skin. A buried land where nothing lived, nor could.

He awoke in darkness, bruised and sore, with his bark missing in patches and a deep gouge in his side. His body brittle, he made himself stand.

"Awake, are we? Good." said a voice, "I was wondering if you were going to pull through."

The Twig looked around and saw no one.

"Down here, down here!", the voice went on.

The Twig bent as far as his body would allow and realized he was looking at the smallest and strangest crow he had ever seen.

It was covered with all sorts of things - a tiny clock, a piece of stationery, even daubs of old paint. And it's wings were nothing more than little points that stood out from it's body.

"Who are you?" asked the Twig of his new companion, "and where are we?"

"End of The World, End of the World!" cackled the Crow. "I am the one of the Crows where everything blows and no one knows, and no one goes for nothing shows!"

"First things first! We must get you in better shape, lad. You can't be stuck in one place here. Things come out of the dark all the time, and if you're not prepared, well then...." the Crow trailed off.

The Crow busied himself suddenly, a flapping shadow against the gauzy darkness. The Twig could feel his beak prodding him in places, as if he were being examined.

"Won't do, won't do, the shape you're in!", the Crow announced sagely. "Need glue and a pin, some wood and a shim!"

And with that, the Crow departed suddenly. The Twig was too spent to cry out as the blackness rushed in to fill the space all around him. He surrendered to it, and fell back into a dreaming void.

So ends Part 2 of our story. Who is the Crow? What does he know? Will the Twig languish at the End of the World forever? Tune in tomorrow for the Christmas Day installment of the Tenacious Twig!