Wind swirled in a tiny vortex. Irus stood on the loose rocks beside a patch of scraggly, tough foliage. At first, the vortex was only noticeable as it sucked up dust. Then, a few dark feathers were pulled in by its spinning influence. Soon, more and more feathers were drawn into the twirling tower of air. Irus watched with rapt fascination and wondered from where all the feathers had come.
After a minute, there was a spinning, vertical spiral of feathers dancing in the air. Irus whispered a few words, the traditional words that the shaman had taught him to say when weird things started to happen on his Journey. And just like that, the feathers coalesced into a ball. Then the ball stood and was, instead, a woman in an elaborate outfit.
Irus burst into a big smile.
“What are you grinning at?” the feathery woman asked.
“I’m a bird.”
“With that goofy mug you look like an idiot.”
“I mean my spirit animal,” Irus said, unperturbed. “My Journey has brought me here, and you’ve appeared to show me my spirit animal,” Irus explained. “And those look like raptor feathers, so I’m guessing it’s a hawk or eagle. Which is awesome.”
The woman chuckled and waved one of her feather wands at the young man. “Don’t be so quick to judge, oh Journeying one.”
“Why not?” Irus asked. “The shaman told me my spirit animal would appear to me when the time was right.”
She nodded. “That’s not untrue.”
“Come to think of it,” Irus said, scrunching his dirty, unwashed face in confusion. He’d been out in the wild for a few days and was in a state commensurate with living outside. “Why aren’t you an animal?”
“It’s spirit-animal,” the woman explained. “With a hyphen.”
“I don’t understand.”
The woman motioned for Irus to step closer. With some hesitation, he followed her instruction while she knelt on the loose rocks. She dragged her two feather wands over the tiny stones. They began to animate and rearrange. The lightest stones formed a background and the dark stones coagulated like actors on a white stage.
“This is you,” the woman said, pointing to a sticky-figure type person made out of dark stones. “And you’re on your Journey.” The little stone Irus began to walk on the makeshift stage.
Irus elbowed her playfully. “Hey, check me out. I look trim.”
“Try to concentrate. I don’t have long,” she reprimanded.
“Sorry.”
She continued. “You go out to Find Yourself or whatever it is you humans do-”
“You’re human,” he interrupted.
“I absolutely am not.”
“Hair, eyes, nose, hands, feet,” Irus listed. “You sure look human.”
She shot him a knowing grin. “Is that the same thing?”
Irus opened his mouth to answer, but the words failed him. She had a point.
“On your Journey,” she continued, “You’re tasked with discovering something about yourself that no one else can know. For your people, this manifests itself as a spirit-animal.”
Some of the little rocks arranged themselves into a hill that the stone Irus climbed. It flattened at the top, and the stick figure stopped as a few small stones formed into bird in front of him.
“What you expected to find was an animal, but the point of the Journey is to find yourself in the wild. So it’s a spirit with a sort of animal theme.” She gestured to herself and the feathers arranged into what Irus decided was a fetching analog of clothing.
“So you’re a Spirit,” he ventured. “Capital S.”
She smiled. “You got it.”
“Of a bird?”
“Correct,” she said.
“What kind of bird?” he asked.
“Roadrunner.”
He frowned. “Not a hawk.”
“Not unless a roadrunner is also a hawk.”
Irus thought for a moment, but he didn’t see any way of stretching that truth. “No,” he admitted, “It’s not.”
She slapped him on his back. “So there you have it. You have a roadrunner as your lifelong companion. Or at least, the spirit or essence of one imbued in you.”
“Roadrunners can’t fly though.”
“That’s true.”
Irus was crestfallen. He realized he must look it as well, because the woman frowned at him.
“I’m sorry,” he apologized. “I wasn’t sure what to expect. But when I saw the feathers, I got excited for…”
She smiled and dragged her wands over the pebbly ground one last time. The stage wiped away, and in its place a three-dimensional bird began to form. Little stones hopped onto little stones and soon a life-size representation of a roadrunner stood in front of them.
“Roadrunners have lots of good qualities,” she said.
“But not flight.” Irus realized he sounded petulant, but he was unable to fight back his disappointment.
The spirit-animal woman took a different approach. “What is your task going to be back home? Do you have a profession lined up?”
Irus nodded. “I’ve always been handy and good with knives. I’m going to train with the carpenters.”
“Wonderful,” she said. “And your friends, when they tried to use the tools of carpentry, how did they fare?”
“Not great. Lots of broken chairs and sore hindquarters,” Irus noted. He felt his mood lighten just a little at the memory of his friends sitting on and breaking their own poorly-made chairs.
“But they used the same tools as you?” she asked.
“They did.”
“And your chair worked out just fine?”
“I still use it.”
The Spirit beamed at him and stood up. At her feet, the stone-made roadrunner stomped its feet and took off, running pell-mell through the nearby bushes. Irus noted its strange gait provided a surprising amount of speed. It was odd, yes, but it had a certain grace to its movement.
With a wave of her feathers, the Spirit disintegrated the living stone. The faux bird crumbled in mid-run, scattering stones back from whence they came.
“So from your own life you know this; the right tools in the right hands can make all the difference,” she said.
Irus looked back at her and smiled. It was a good point, and he felt some of his disappointment abate. Already, a new wind kicked up. Feathers began to disengage from her outfit and scattered to the four winds.
“Thanks,” he said. “All in all, I think this could work out.”
“I hope it does. But remember, it takes a lifetime to learn to use the right tools,” the Spirit said as she began to vanish amid the fluttering feathers. “But I think you’re going to do just fine.”
One last gust kicked up, the feathers flailed violently and then broke apart. She was gone. Irus watched as the remnants of her outfit blew away in every direction.
Except for the little pile on the ground. He picked up the feather wand and waved it at the ground. He thought maybe one or two stones shook, as if they considered moving at his command. But he couldn’t be sure. It was a new tool, and it would require practice. Irus could do that, he thought, with his shiny new spirit-animal to spur him on.
The Tall Tale Year 