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Phil had always considered himself perfectly normal. Perfectly normal for a crow hybrid, that is. By human standards he was probably the farthest thing from normal, with giant wings sprouting out of his shoulder blades and feathers popping up like hair.
But the humans didn’t need to know about all that.
They only saw Phil Watson, a perfectly normal, definitely human book store owner and his very kind wife.
People tended to like Kristin more because she was always handing out free samples at her bakery to the little kids, while Phil was more reserved and preferred to stay and read inside his store.
Phil didn’t mind. It actually was beneficial for him that more focus was always on his wife than on himself, so his carefully concealed secret, masked by magic and spells, would not be found out.
Because if the townspeople found out, his delicately crafted life here would crumble like the stale cookies Kristin forgot were lingering in the back of the bakery.
He and Kristin had a wonderful life together. They didn’t need a lot of money to be happy, but her job as the baker and his job as the owner of the only book store in town provided more than enough for them to live comfortably.
Their small cottage was located on the outskirts of the village, with a garden in the back and a nice cobblestone path out in the front. Inside were walls and walls of bookshelves, filled to the breaking point with Phil’s (and Kristin’s though those didn’t fill nearly as many shelves as Phil’s) favorite books. All the rooms were always filled with light and had an airy quality to them, something that Phil, being a crow hybrid, absolutely loved.
Kristin pretended to be mad at how much space his wings took up on the bed, but he knew after one too many instances of finding her snuggled up inside them in the mornings that she really loved them.
And every morning it was the same routine: wake up, brush the others raven hair (for they both had dark black locks), eat breakfast together in their kitchen filled with light and good memories, and make their way into the village for work.
Kristin would set about preparing cakes, cookies, and crepes to serve to the villagers, and Phil, over in the book store next door, would prepare the best stories for his patrons.
Life was good—better than good, life was grand .
Until it wasn’t.
Until Phil woke up one day and Kristin wasn’t curled up against his side.
She was always by his side; something was wrong.
Phil stumbled into the kitchen and gasped with shock.
The windows were smashed, lying in jagged pieces on the floor. Every single one of them. The table was overturned, vases that had lined the counters tossed onto the floor and the flowers inside of them smushed.
Quickly, Phil raced out of the front door, throwing up his glamour as his bare feet bounded on the cobblestone pathway.
He raced into the village square and frantically called,
“Where is she?!”
Villagers stared at him, but his terrified expression soon turned their bafflement into worry.
“Phil, what’s wrong? What do you mean?” A well-meaning villager by the name of Niki asked.
“Kristin, she’s gone. I woke up this morning and she was just gone,” he gasped. “
“Maybe she just went to the bakery a bit earlier than usual?” Niki suggested. She was an assistant at the bakery, so she knew Kristin personally.
“No, you don’t understand. Our kitchen was trashed, probably other areas of the house too, —Kristin’s been abducted ,” Phil explained, his eyes snapping all over the square with the dim hope that she’d fight her way through the crowd and tell him that everything would be all right.
But she didn’t.
And so Phil grew more panicky.
“Abducted?! Are you sure Phil?” someone else asked. It was a villager by the name of Sam.
“Yes I’m sure Sam!” Phil yelled, growing impatient now. “I need to find her!”
Someone laid a hand on his shoulder. He shrugged it off.
“Just calm down Phil, and I’m sure we can—“
“I will not calm down !” He cried angrily, throwing off yet another hand.
His glamour splintered.
“She is my wife! I love her more than anything in this world!”
His glamour cracked.
“Where IS SHE?! ”
His glamour shattered.
With a massive disturbance of air, his wings spread out at his sides, slamming villagers to the ground and brushing the side of the buildings surrounding the square. Feathers that had always been there seemed to sprout up out of nothing, standing on end in tune with Phil’s emotions.
The villagers gasped. Someone screamed,
“Crow hybrid!”
And before Phil could see just how much he had ruined his life, he launched himself into the sky.
Phil only had one goal now: find and save Kristin.
He had taken her to a place far away, to the outskirts of a villages that was on the outskirts of nothing, so that they wouldn’t be disturbed,
He hadn’t wanted to be dragged back into the world of hybrids and gods, of complicated magic and even more complicated people.
But here he was.
Standing in the same room with a very complicated person, the same person who he would soon rip to shreds for taking Kristin away from him.
“Dream. I’ve come for my wife,” was all he said as he stood before the man who he had been too afraid to kill years ago, his glamour surrounding him like a thin veil.
Dream sat on a throne, looking perfectly at home. But the throne wasn’t his.
It was the throne of the man who was beheaded on the floor in front of him.
“Really now? What makes you think I have your wife, Angel of Death?” Dream said, his voice trying to sound upbeat even though it was dark and menacing.
“Because you’re a coward who won’t fight me directly,” Phil accused, sliding his new netherite sword out of its sheath.
“And you’re an old man who seems to have lost his wings. Eager to fight are we? Well, I guess I can entertain you for a moment longer,” Dream said, and with a casual wave of his hand, a man spun out from the shadows.
The man had blonde hair and stark white robes, and wore a look of determination that made Phil laugh.
He thought he could kill Phil? The Angel of Death himself?
He didn’t stand a chance.
In seconds it was over, and Phil was stepping over the man’s body, his white robes now stained a dark crimson.
“You’re going to have to do better than that, Dream,” Phil growled.
Dream only smiled, and made another gesture with his hand.
This time, two people faced him: a brunette with white goggles and a man with hair as dark as coals.
Phil liked his black hair better.
They lunged at him in unison, but he was easily able to deflect their swords.
They came at him again, and this time his sword was the one rushing up to meet them, slicing through fabric and flesh.
With cried of anguish, they both fell to the ground.
Phil knelt down, about to finish off the black-haired punk, but the look of terror in his eyes made him pause.
“Please,” the man whispered, “Please, let us live. I have…I have family I need to go back to tonight. We both do.”
Phil wasn’t a complete monster. He knew what it was like to desperately want to return to someone’s side, to want to be with them above all else. It’s not their fault they were employed by a manipulative demon. He let them live.
“Seriously Dream,” Phil drawled, wiping his blood-stained sword on the hem of his robes.
Dream looked angry now, and this time it was he who came at Phil.
Phil had been scared, all those years ago. Scared to kil that boy, even if he had been causing the most damage the magical underworld had ever seen.
Now he wasn’t scared.
He was furious.
Their blades clashed, netherite on netherite, and Phil hissed as he felt Dream begin to force him back.
“Where. Is. My. Wife.” He snarled, a boost of strength allowing him to shove Dream off of him.
“Like I’d tell you!” Dream yelled, and advanced again.
“Oh, you will,” Phil muttered, ducking under Dream’s swing and slicing at his leg.
Dream screamed in pain and fell to one knee, but quickly recovered and was back on his feet again. This time, however, he was imbalanced. So Phil took advantage of that.
He darted forward, feigning a swing, but Dream anticipated that and moved to block where Phil’s sword would have gone, had he not predicted Dream’s prediction and planned for it.
With a swish of robes, Phil stood behind Dream, his sword pressed against his neck and his knee placed uncomfortably in Dream’s back. Phil grabbed the wrist holding Dream’s sword, and with one painful twist Dream was forced to drop it. He grunted in pain.
“Now, I’ll ask again. Where is my wife?” Phil whispered in his ear.
“Maybe you should be asking me that question,” a voice said, sounding awfully similar to the voice of the man Phil now threatened.
A strange figure appeared out of nowhere, flowing green robes surrounding them. Their face was nothing but a porcelain orb, with an oddly garish smiley face carved into it.
“You know where my wife is?” Phil asked immediately.
“Yes, I do. Who do you think ordered this guy here to abduct her? Yours truly,” the new guy crowed.
With one flick of his finger’s, a sleeping Kristin appeared, floating in the air beside him.
“Kristin!” Phil cried, and since he had no need of Dream anymore, he slit his throat.
His body thudded to the floor behind him as Phil ran to her.
“Man, aren’t we violent!” the strange guy exclaimed, moving to block Phil’s path to Kristin.
“Out of my way mate,” Phil growled, trying to push past him.
“Ah ah ah, you can’t have her just yet,” the god (for Phil could only assume he was a god now) chided, and sent Phil tumbling backwards with a blast of air. “You have to go through me first.” He finished in a growl.
“Why are you so fixated on us?! Just let me have her and leave us be!” Phil yelled, readying his sword for a fight once more.
“I need to do something to change things up every millennia or so!” The god defended, sounding almost like he was the victim in this. Phil growled and lunged at him.
The god moved lightning fast, ducking around Phil’s sword like it was a toothpick being swung by a chipmunk.
“Why us?! ” Phil snarled, diving forwards again.
“Because you are an enigma to me, Phil. I know virtually nothing about you. Sure, my employees tried to tell me things, but that spoils all the fun!”
Phil kept trying and trying and trying to hit the dang thing, but the god just wouldn’t stay still!
He supposed he would just have to level the playing field.
He stopped for a moment, to catch his breath and begin letting his glamour slide off once more. Before, it would only have been cumbersome, to have his wings hit each and every thing in this stupid throne room, but now they would be more useful than useless.
“Weak little human~” the god cooed, apparently taking his pause as a sign of weakness.
“Oh you thought I was human?” Phil smirked. “I’m worse than human,”
And with that his glamour fell away once more, his wings extending from the pocket of nothingness they were slipped into every time he cast the spell, his feathers rippling over his skin once again.
“…A crow hybrid…” the god muttered. “I didn’t know that you were…”
“I was. Before I abandoned that life for her,” Phil said, unable to keep a smile from crossing his face as he gazed at Kristin. Then his face hardened again.
“Let’s do this.”
With his wings and now his magic fully available to him with his glamour gone, Phil began actually getting hits in on the god.
He enchanted his blade mid fight, the netherite shimmering a deep purple.
His whispered spells that affected even the god, calling upon the magics of his ancestors that he had used for hiding all these years, now for fighting. They came to him, those spirits from the past, dancing around him like fog on a river.
The fight was long an arduous, as any fight with a god is, but Phil managed to pull through and finally slice his sword right through the pale neck of the god.
His death wasn’t prolonged or painful, he just faded away with the sound of laughter and bells. Too nice for something like him, Phil thought.
Hopefully next time he was reincarnated, he would learn not to come after Phil and his family.
With the god banished, Kristin was freed from whatever spell had been used on her, her eyes opening to find herself tumbling out of the air in a strange new place.
But before she could even utter a scream, Phil was there, catching her ad holding her close.
She didn’t ask about the blood that spread across his normally green cloak, or the bodies that littered the floor, two of them still alive but only barely.
She only said,
“Let’s go home, Phil.”
And so they did.