Welcome to the World!

"It won't be long now!" Crow says, "Just a few more stitches, my new friend, and you'll be enjoying this wonderful day with me. As soon as I fix this..." He holds a sewing needle between the claw-like fingers of his left wing to get a close look at it. Just as he suspected, the tip of it is bent. He had gotten a bit too enthusiastic while tightening a thread loop on his latest project and banged it against his prototype walnut butter and jelly sandwich maker with built-in walnut whomper. Using careful precision, he guides his tiniest pair of pliers and straightens the needle as best he can.

Crow is a high-spirited boy. He stands exactly three buckets high, if you count his top feather that curves up. That's bragging rights tall for his age. His feathers are the shade of the bedtime sky and he has dapper little crow's feet, although he insists they are rugged. Oh, and he refuses to go anywhere without his trusty, gold, wing-tipped goggles atop his head; for when the going gets tough.

Crow helps the king and queen keep the mighty Castle Reignith in good working order. For example: the doors need to swing quiet, the hedges need to be kept neatly trimmed, and the pipes need to remain free of leaks.

When he decides to relax, Crow's favorite thing to do is build. He builds all sorts of fascinating gadgets and knick-knacks for work and for play. Many of them, like his vroozle launcher and mechanized head scratcher, are lying about on shelves in his workshop where he is right now, concentrating on the final touches to his latest creation. Today, he was inspired to create a hand puppet out of cloth. It is an amusing little white and pink cat, and with such a joyful smile upon its face.

"Huzzah!" he says as he holds the completed puppet up high. It sparkles in the sun's early light as though enchanted by magick. "Lovely! The perfect start to my creation's new life."

Crow is very proud of his new cat puppet and decides to bring it with him as he begins his morning chores. He puts on his favorite bright-red flat cap underneath the goggles, pins the needle onto the cap with a bit of thread attached in case his puppet breaks any stitches, adjusts the brim, then marches from his room with the puppet on his hand. Through the castle halls he goes, whistling a happy tune.

After a short while, he feels roused to say, "What's that, little puppet? You want to explore this part of the castle?"

"Yes," he says in a squeaky kitten voice while wiggling the puppet around with his claw fingers. "I would like to see what's down this hall."

"You've got it! It is your birthday, after all."

"Thank you! You're so thoughtful," he says in the puppet voice. "And if I haven't already said so, thank you for creating this body of cloth for me. It's a wonderful likeness!"

"No problem. It was a lot of fun to do!" Crow chuckles.

Before long, he notices a long wall tapestry with a glow of colors emanating from behind it. He approaches with caution, making certain to position his goggles snuggly around his eyes. Curious as to what is causing it, he pulls the tapestry aside and reveals an almost vapor-like rainbow substance bubbling through the cracks of the rubble core stone wall. "Hmm. Maybe something inside the wall needs fixing. Let's check it out, little puppet!"

"Oh, yay! You're so brave and amazing!" He tucks the puppet into his orangy-brown vest's pocket with its head sticking out to watch as he examines the wall.

After putting on some gloves and trying with a chisel to loosen some of the remaining mortar around where it is bubbling from, not even one of the stones wants to wiggle free and he is not sure how else to look inside the wall, so he tries pushing against it. When he does, the wall opens inward like a door and all the bubbling and colors mysteriously disappear.

He removes the gloves and cracks the shell of a glowberry he plucked from the large pouch worn on his right thigh over his red breeches, pops it into the Reflecto-Raystick (or just Raystick for short) that he invented a few moons back, and tests its resulting beam of light before venturing in. The door begins to swing shut as he does. Moving quick, he catches it in time, pulls a mallet out from his pouch, and sets it down to hold the door open.

Inside is a hidden room with a few odds and ends stacked and scattered about in it, but Crow's attention is drawn to an elegant oval mirror leaning against the back wall. He believes he glimpsed its surface shine for a wink, and is convinced it was not due to the light of the Raystick. Unlike others of his ilk though, Crow is not afraid of shiny objects or his reflection.

The mirror's surface ripples like water in a pond. Intrigued by the rhythmic motion, he walks up and braves touching it with his fingers to see if it is wet. Instead, it is dry but feels as though his hand could go all the way through if he tried.

At that same moment, a larger ripple appears lower on the mirror and out onto the floor next to him leaps a small, white and pink fox with two tails.