"Talien´s No Good Very Bad Day" by Michael Tresca

The sun shone brightly in the sky over Keystone City. Talien got up from his bedroom to look out the window. It was so bright that it illuminated his entire room, even through the shutters. He chuckled to himself.

He rubbed one hand through his shag of white hair, wincing at the two sharp horns he encountered. Admittedly, things had changed. He was over eight feet tall now, weighed more than 300 lbs, and had the strength of an ox.

And clumsy as one, he thought as he let himself relax onto the simple bed. The bed protested with a creaking of springs. Talien ignored it.

His lower torso was covered in white fur down to his hooves, which where as hard as iron and about as loud when his footfalls echoed through the city streets. His upper body was chiseled muscle, finely tuned after repeated practice. The white fur made a thin line up his stomach and somewhat covered his chest. He heaved a sigh.

There was much at stake. There had been a Crusade proclaimed against the forces of evil by the god Sikkar, and Talien, Arch-Prelate, was loathe to ignore the signs. When a white hawk attacked a black crow to prevent it from invading its nest, Talien promptly recognized the sign. He also recognized it as a divine sign because he'd never seen a black hawk before. Come to think of it, he'd never seen a white crow either. At least, not in his yard. He'd specifically chased off all crows so that he wouldn't see any signs. But they always found him. Last time the two birds had smashed through the World's End Bar into his haggis. He hated it when that happened. Later that month, he went head to head with Natas, the head evil guy himself.

He hated it especially when he was courting lady Maleficent and the damn things "left a gift from heaven" as the lady eloquently put it. He still blamed the fact that she hadn't chosen him on the moment he offered her flowers and the infernal birds surprised him. Later that week, the draconians stormed Keystone City.

Talien sighed again, not wanting to sigh but unable to think of anything more creative to do. He was really beginning to consider taking up archery so he could take care of these damn birds once and for all.

Talien shrugged again, stretching and yawning. He walked over to the mirror, marvelled at how he could possibly stand to look at himself at this early in the morning, muttered jokingly to himself that he was surprised the mirror didn't crack, and then looked down into his washbasin to clean up somewhat.

The mirror cracked.

It cracked loudly, rudely, and with an obvious "CRACK!" sound that was then followed by shards of mirror bouncing off of Talien's head. His ego almost faltered in that split second, until he heard the fluttering of wings and the squawking of two obviously annoyed birds.

Talien ducked sideways out of the conflict and bit his fist. These birds were driving him nuts.

Sure enough, it was the white bird and the black one. Neither seemed to be winning, although the black managed to shake his head somewhat, cawing loudly. They pecked at each other warily, neither striking a telling blow.

Talien closed his eyes.

"This is not happening. I do not see this. This is merely a nightmare, and I will wake up any moment, screaming and then thank Sikkar that he did not send me a prophetic omen." He put his hands to his mouth and shouted heavenward, "He did NOT send me a PROPHETIC OMEN!"

More squawking.

Talien clenched his fists, and gathered his thoughts. He'd slain dragons, evil minions from the yawning depths of hell, and angry boyfriends before - these were just birds, he could handle them rationally. So he did what came natural.

He threw something at them.

It was, he realized as it tumbled through the air, a vase that the Lady Maleficent had hand crafted herself, made especially for him. It was a gorgeous vase, with a picture engraved on it of Talien versus the evil Archmage Dardechion. The sorceries of the evil mage encircled the vase into a repeating pattern. Talien's own details were incredibly crisp, right down to the ram helmet he always wore.

Talien winced as it shattered with a rather dull thud for such a beautiful art object, scattering both birds to respective corners of his room. Talien glared at them both like a referee, stepping into the center and carefully not looking at the shattered remains of his once beautiful vase and relationship.

"Now," he shouted, realizing he was shouting at two dumb birds but not caring anyway, "I am going to tell you this once and once only. You two have to stop FIGHTING, and moreover, you have to stop fighting by ME. ALRIGHT?"

The white bird cowed. The black bird squawked angrily.

Talien regained some of his composure. "Now I REALIZE this is a sign of things to come, and I REALIZE this isn't a good thing, but I think we have had enough of this stuff for a few months now, and it's time to come up with some other sign, eh?"

The black bird looked at the ceiling in mock disgust. The white bird blinked. Talien frowned and threw up his hands.

"Maybe a thunderstorm, or a black cat crossing my path, or a mirror being shat..." he glared at the shattered mirror. "Okay, so this is REALLY bad." He sat down heavily on the bed, resting his head on his hands with a huff.

In the past, the birds fighting had been before two major life threatening disasters. It was rather annoying, actually, because Talien then had nightmares and couldn't sleep until said terrible event finally struck. When it finally did, he was greatly relieved, which made his comrades at arms think he was nuts when the draconians stormed the city and he screamed "Thank Sikkar! It's about time!" Some of the other paladins took it as a sign that their leader was wrapped up in the ecstasy of battle. Others thought he was just plain nuts.

Which wouldn't, Talien thought as he reached for one of his holy avengers, be too far off the mark should anyone see him right now.

He hefted the avenger easily, swung it around menacingly a few times, and zeroed in on the crow. Talien squinted at it. The crow squinted back.

What he originally presumed to be a white hawk was in fact a crow. A white crow. That made no sense, since everyone knew, including Talien, that crows were black, and evil, and foreboding, and often said, "Nevermore!" for no damn good reason other than to be evil and foreboding. The white crow was obviously the loser of the fight between the two avians, and it blinked at him pitieously with pink eyes. This being the case, Talien began having second thoughts about the other bird behind him.

The other bird, as he whirled on it, could be seen to be, in fact, a bird of prey of some sort. A big bird of prey. A big, nasty, white bird of prey.

His holy avenger thrummed in his hand. The one word echoed over and over in his head. "Evil!"

Talien looked down at his avenger. "I don't believe this," he said incredulously, "you want me to get involved in a rumble between two birds?"

The sword thrummed expectantly. Talien nodded and promptly resheathed it.

"Alright, that's it, this is ridiculous, everyone out." He threw open the shudders, and snapped one finger towards the open air. "Out! Now."

The white crow ducked its head but cowed when Talien took a menacing step forward. Then it launched itself quickly, looking back doefully at Talien, and the black raptor flew off in pursuit.

Talien shook his head, muttering, and proceeded to get dressed and clean.

The day was uneventful. If anything, it was just too uneventful for comfort. There were the occassional threats from the Fallen, an argument with one of the telemancers who supposedly teleported a rich kid into the wilderness, and a lady of noble standing who wanted to know where Talien was two nights ago, but that was nothing unusual. Still, uneventful didn't mean safe, and Talien took every precaution he could.

This included locking and barring the doors, window, strapping an avenger to the backboard of his bed, leaving a knife strapped to his leg, and probably a long sleepless night.

Talien arrayed himself in bed, put his hands behind his head, and waited for whatever evil to befall him.

An hour passed.

And another.

After three hours of this, at which point he began to lose circulation in his hands, he realized that he was being slightly absurd about the whole thing. After all, anyone out to get him would certainly not be loud or obvious about it.

The knock at the door nearly scared him out of his skin. After taking a deep breath, he carefully sat up and right and called, "Who is it?"

"It's Neetrith, the assassin. I'm coming to kill you."

Talien laughed, unlocking the door. "Very fun-" His jaw dropped as Neetrith stepped into the room, gently closing the door behind him with the heel of his foot.

"-ny" Talien finished as Neetrith, still grinning, slammed the heel of his palm into Talien's jaw, felling him in one blow.