My ostrich should have come to me in my 25th year. I was in the midst of a week-long celebratory feast, probably because I won some sort of bad-ass victory over barbarians, when a man from a foreign land told me an enchanting tale of a large, flightless bird. His tale was riveting; the bird was exceptionally dangerous, rather tall, possessed claws that could disembowel a thousand men without dulling, eyes that could set ones soul ablaze, and vestigial wings that could stir up many a dust cloud. They apparently lived in super-colonies on a far-away continent where they traded sugar to the west and gold to the east. I set out immediately from my home and made for the distant lands in the south.
Ostrich's are controlled by a meta-bird that knows the dreams of all. Their link to their hive mind can only be broken by severing the head from the leader of their brood. This leader lives several miles beneath the surface of the earth and is surrounded by legions of their warrior and priest classes. Penetrating the many defenses and traps the birds had created to keep the heart of their colony safe would be a momentous undertaking; I was prepared.
As I made my way south, towards the massive metropolis of the ostrich, I met a traveler. The traveler hailed me from atop my horse, but as I attempted to ignore the otherwise unremarkable visage to my fore, the travelers cloak was shed and a horrible monster emerged. The creature had the head and legs of a goat, the sagging breasts of an overweight, elderly woman, and the body of a man, muscled and be-jacked and tanned. It towered over me and began to ask me riddles. "How does one know what the stars are made from?"
"Easy," I replied, "The stars are merely holes in the sky from which the ring of fire surrounding the Earth is visible."
That gave the beast pause, to which it followed with, "These holes in the sky, could they be the windows of the Gods?"
To this I was outraged, a polytheistic demon? I could not stand for it. I unsheathed my sword and leapt from my horse towards the beast, who was shrinking in fear. The cold steel from my blade plunged into the chest of the heathen; it let out a death rattle and I withdrew my sword. What I was not expecting was the explosive pressure of the blood in its veins, as I pulled out my weapon a blast of blood forced its way out of the wound, drenching a number of people standing nearby; their faces expressed pure horror. I wasn't really in the way, so I was fine. Whatever, I just kept kind of went on my way or some junk. Fuck blood covered peasants.
To make it into the south, one has to cross through a monolithic gate that opens into a mountain pass. The gate is guarded by a large edifice that emits blasts of heat when it senses any foreign presence. The heat is enough to make your eyes bleed. To get past the gate, I went around it. Mountains aren't fucking walls, they're slopes, I just walked around the gate and descended back into the pass; whoever designed that entrance was fucking stupid and should have built a wall. So with that out of the way I continued south.
When I came out of the mountains I met a man who was a snake. I needed to ride upon his boat in order to cross the sea to reach my goal, but I did not trust him. He told me that I would have to pay in order to sail in his ship. "An outrage!" declared I. The mere honor of bearing me in his craft should have been payment enough, but he insisted. I paid him by thrusting my sword into his abdomen and kicked him to the ground where he writhed for several moments before becoming motionless. I did not know how to pilot his water craft, so I rode his bloated corpse across the sea instead. The journey was fraught with peril. Examples of such peril were: large sharks, mermaids that refused to speak my language, the steady decomposition of the man I was journeying upon, my general lack of buoyancy whilst wearing a considerable amount of plate armor, and lusty freebooters of many nations. By the time I reached the shore opposite of the one I departed, there was nary a man beneath me. The body had broken in twain but my immense mental fortitude held it together. As I stepped out onto the foreign shore, the body dissolved into a black mass.
The land I had arrived at was a barren waste. Undulating dunes of sand stretched for as far as I could see. Indeed, it had to be the land that the story teller of yore had described. My goal, although it was not within sight, felt within my grasp. It's difficult to describe because I'm relegated to using metaphors and imprecise language. Essentially, I knew that there was an ostrich around there somewhere. They had to have nested somewhere. I was unable to attach a quantifiable distance that I would need to travel to fulfill my quest, which, in my experience, might irk some, especially those who require very specific itineraries when questing. Nonetheless, I felt as if I were closer to finding an ostrich. I began to walk, a walk that would stretch for several days.
My whims brought me to the peak of one dune. In front of me were more dunes. To my right and left... more dunes. There was fucking sand everywhere. Had I left my beloved home just to trek through a goddamn desert looking for some stupid bird that probably wasn't even that cool to begin with, despite what douchebag storytellers might have you think? Evidently. I began to scream curses, utter profanities, whisper threats. I was emitting all manner of obscenities at nothing in particular. Apparently, even the heavens themselves found my distress alarming, for an apparition descended from the sky and spoke at me:
"Hark, Northfist! Your distress is alarming. What you seek is not in these dunes, it is beyond them. Do not lose hope, fortify your spirit and press forward!"
The apparition seemed to be mocking me. These were all things I already knew. It was evident that what I was seeking was not in the dunes. Nothing was in these fucking dunes. Why the shit would anything want to be there? That would be stupid. Furthermore, if what I was seeking was in fact in said dunes, I would have already found it and departed for my home, rather than spending more time than was absolutely necessary in a godforsaken desert. This spirit was fucking with me, so I just tried to ignore it.
I walked for another day and as the sun reached its apex, a familiar voice once again came upon me:
"Northfist! I implore you to keep on moving through this vast desert. You must not falter in your quest, continue on, your current plight will give way to great rewards!"
The words reminded me of the vague proclamations of soothsayers, with their prophecies so general that they could encompass any possible event yet-to-happen to those they were prophesying. The spirit dogged me for another fortnight plaguing me with cliches and aphorisms that I had heard repeated on the tongues of the "positive thinkers" I had long ago expelled from my realm. My frustration with the spirit gave way to rage. I wanted to stab it a million different ways. I wanted to spill its heavenly ichor upon the ground in front of it's ethereal family. I wanted to stuff the spirits progeny in a burlap sack and drag them behind my horse. I wanted to do unspeakable things, but alas, I could not, for spirits exist in a different plane of existence than man. I had always felt more than mortal, but never had I felt so human as I walked through that desert wishing that I could shed my mortal coil to destroy that damnable spirit.
It was after a fortnight of walking that the thought finally occurred to me; if one could transcend the mortal realm of existence through death, what would be stopping me from killing myself in order to enter the domain of the spirits so that I might destroy this phantom that harassed me? The notion was brilliant, there was nothing stopping me! I unsheathed my sword and plunged it into my heart, much to the dismay of the spirit. As I embraced my shadow, I could feel myself leaving the temporal body that tied me to the mortal realm. I became corporeal, but it did not occur to me that death would try to drag me off to whatever heaven or hell awaited me so soon. He stood above me and declared that I must go with him to which I informed him that I do not take orders. Death was amused and ordered me to follow him. I told him that I was an adult and expected to be treated as such. He was no longer amused and told me that if I didn't want to take orders, I shouldn't have killed myself. I asked him if he wanted to wrestle, but he wasn't really into it and ordered me to follow again. I still didn't want to follow, so I grappled him and brought him to the ground. He was all, "Oh, guy! what choo doing that for?" And I was all, "Submit! Submit!" He submitted and I told him to begone. He didn't really have any other choice because I had him in a really badass hold.
With death gone I wandered the spiritual realm looking for the specter that drove me to suicide. At that point I really could not give a fuck about ostriches. Anyways, I found him outside this food purveyor trying to pick up some spirit babe. His courting tactics were an aberration. I watched him for several minutes and not once did he thrust or gyrate his genitals. I did not believe it was possible for my rage to grow, but I have realized, as I've grown older, that I can often surprise myself. I leapt from the bush where I was hiding and charged. As I was making haste to where he stood, he inquired into my well-being and expressed a certain amount of confusion regarding my death. I was unable to answer him, for I was engulfed with rage. I fell upon him and my hands embraced his throat, throttling the life out of him. The spirit babe stared as I crushed the bastards larynx. Unbeknown to be, she was not staring at the embodiment of my wrath, rather the massive erection I happened to be sporting. Evidently, death had submitted to me so readily earlier because my rage had encouraged my penis to engorge with blood. The girth of the organ was pressed against the small of his back, which made him profoundly uncomfortable.
I wish I could have cut the wraith to pieces with my blade, but strangulation seemed to suffice. As he ceased struggling and as I was finally beginning to experience feelings of elation, the babe spirit jumped upon me and embraced me. She had never had the rogue spirit of a would-be dead mortal man before. We made sex passionately and I masterfully listed off all of my triumphs and vanquished foes. She was impressed.
Leaving the realm of the spirits was merely a matter of threatening the right spirit. The lord of the spirits was a great dragon with one hundred eyes and as many wings. He sat upon a great gilded throne pointing here and there for reasons that were beyond my comprehension. I requested transport back into my mortal body. When the great dragon denied me I began to shout curses at him and I could feel the blood rushing back into my junk as I once again became paralyzed with ire. Unfortunately the dragon was not intimidated, so I was forced to challenge him to an ultimate fight. When the fight began, I forced a balled-up fist down the dragons throat and pulled its lungs out. I held the grizzly trophy about my head and began to wield them, as one would a club, against the dragon, who was now experiencing a rapid loss of consciousness. The dragon slouched over after a brief moment. It was probably dead, I'm not quite sure how spiritual dragons react to having their lungs pulled out. Regardless, a spirit of great magical knowledge came forth and agreed to transport me back into my mortal coil, if only I would stop murdering and spirit-boning all of his spirit-friends and spirit-family. I agreed, reluctantly, but only under the condition that I not be transported back to that desert, rather to the great metropolis where ostriches supposedly lived. He agreed and I found myself quickly losing consciousness.
As I opened my eyes I found myself amongst a mass of birds. They were large and resembled something like a glorified, flightless vulture. Where were the massive man-killing talons, the demonic eyes, the metropolis centered around the meta-bird?! Could these be the ostriches that I had sought for so many months? Indeed, they were. I felt cheated. It was all I could do to stab each one to death before returning home. I slipped into depression for many months. I never listened to stories ever again. My childhood was ruined.
