I remember the first time I felt the wind pass through my hands. It was cold, and good, and utterly shocking, because I had never felt anything like it ever before.
Hearing my first sound was yet more shocking: "Koume, you idiot, I told you it wouldn't work! It needs more hensbane! You inever/i use enough hensbane!"
"Bah, hensbane! Always, you with your hensbane! If it were up to you, there would be nothing in the pot BUT hensbane!"
"And I would use it to scare iyou/i off, you old biddy!"
And on they squawked.
"Forget it, forget it. Let's try the frog eyes." I heard a plunking noise, as if something had been dropped into a bowl of water.
"Frog eyes, frog eyes and tektite tongue."
"I told you, tektites don't have tongues! I don't know what you think you've got there, floating in that damned jar of yours, but they can't be tektite tongues!"
"Well it couldn't hurt, could it?" Another hollow plunking noise.
"They smell like pickles."
"Well, they're pickled tektite tongues."
"They LOOK like pickles."
"Those are warts! What, you think that tektites know anything about oral hygiene?"
"I wish iyou/i knew something about oral hyg-"
"Oh, fine, fine, I'll spill it out..."
And then I started screaming.
Do you remember the first time you saw light? I do. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts; it hurts all over; but, goddesses help me, it's beautiful. It's iso/i beautiful.
Of course, the crones in front of me could not be similarly described. But, not knowing that, I merely gazed at them with my newfound eyes, wondering what was going on.
"It made a noise, Kotake."
"It's the fault of your goddessdamn ipickles/i Koume!"
"Well it's a step closer than what we had!"
"How is a screaming scarecrow closer to a manservant, than a regular scarecrow?"
The one with the blue gem on her forehead made an offended noise. "At least we could teach it to talk!"
"And who's to say that we iwanted/i a talking manservant? Enough jabbering around our house as it is, with you hovering around..."
I slowly came to comprehend that the noises being made here were communication; once I had made that leap, speech became simple. "Erm, excuse me."
Their heads snapped to face me simultaneously. "What?" A twin reply.
I shook my hand, listening to the sound of my stuffing ruffle. "What is this?"
The one in the red gown tilted her enormous beak. "Your arm?"
I shook my head. "No, no. Not that. iThis./i"
The two looked at each other for a moment, shrugging and clucking.
"It's life," a deeper voice rattled, as an old, crooked zora came hobbling down the field, "And if you plan on sticking around, you'd better get used to it!" The old man shot a glance at the sisters for a moment before smirking. "Heh. And here I thought that you were meant to scare away ragged old crows." The women glowered at him bitterly.
"It's very confusing," I said, continuing to gaze at my arm. I stretched and tensed my straws, playing in the sunlight.
"You'll get used it. You'll get used to a lot of things," the old zora said. He squinted up at the sun. "It's too hot to talk out here... come along," he ordered.
There was a squawk from behind him. "What do you think you're doing?" One of the witches demanded. "He's our creation, we made him!"
"And what are you going to use him for, hmm? Besides annoy an old man, by stealing his property?" the elderly man retorted.
The crones looked at each other for a moment, then shrugged their shoulders. I had clearly not worked out quite how they had expected it to, and they had more or less expended their magics bringing my dead old sticks and straw to life; there was nothing left that they could do, really. "We'll come back for you, old man," Kotake promised, zipping off with her sister.
The old man motioned, so I tried to follow; however, I found I had no legs. I took a hopping leap, attempting to dislodge myself from the earth; but this was to no avail. I was stuck fast.
Sighing, he picked me up and dragged me inside. Above his head, I waved, a ridiculous banner.
The walk was short. Once inside, the old man propped me up against the wall like a broomstick, and shuffled over to the stove, where he prepared himself some tea.
"D'ya reckon you drink tea?" He asked me, putting the water on to boil. "I'll make you some tea. And then I guess we'll see what comes of it..."
I watched him from across the room, thankful for the eyes, but unsure of what to say or do. Luckily for myself, it seemed the old man was content to talk on his own. "So, now you've got eyes and ears, what d'ya suppose you'll be doing with yourself?" I was about to answer, but he continued: "I bet you'd like to see the world. That's what I'd do, if I were young again. Lucky, you young people, that's what you are; world hasn't worn you down yet; it'd be a shame to waste that sitting in a field."
I watched him rummage through a chest as the water began to boil. He produced an old, knotted root from its depths, and a bottle. "Here we go. This should do you good," he said. At that point, he picked me up and lay me on the table, stalk sticking out in front of me, useless for anything but standing on, the same as any lifeless piece of wood; and, tsking his tongue, he took a length of twine and strung the root up to my base, and poured the contents of the bottle over them. It tingled, a strange sensation, neither pleasant nor unpleasant. "There ya go. Give it a wiggle." And indeed, I found I could move the roots.
The old zora smiled a satisfied, yellow smile. "Ha! Thought that'd do the trick," he said, swaggering in his victory. "Consider that my gift to you. Now you go out there, and do a favor to me... Go out and see that wide, big world. Go on, getcherself out of here," he ushered, waving me up from the table - I found my
entire body flexible and mobile, now - "And take a look-see at that whole, big world. Go where your heart
desires, see and do everything... And enjoy the gift!" The old man chuckled to himself as I found my way out the door, taking small, scuttling spider steps with the roots, and squinting in the sudden sunlight.
He seemed really and truly to believe that he had done me a favor.