Pliro usually slept late, after folding up the pond and cleaning out lily beds. Then he'd scrub the night, dispose stars in the alligator furnace, and dine on ravens pickled with dust from the black locust flowers. Lavender rain was his favorite beverage and he always sipped the very last drop before throwing away his cactus cup.
No one had put Pliro in charge of anything.
But one day, when Pliro was mindlessly wandering about the Herchken forest, his heart had rolled out of his chest, through the rocks and boulders, across the streams, and finally burst into feathers and flames.
Pliro could not save his heart but he did feel a connection with and responsibility to everything his heart had touched. So, basically Pliro felt connected to everything. This was inconvenient but also useful. He could get the world to look out for him as much as he, now, cared for it.
One day, in the continuum of such strange quid pro quo existence, Pliro found a little bird that trembled with a cobalt blue light. The bird looked like a reflection in twater - it seemed that fragile and lacking in dimension. Pliro made a little resting place with soft grass and leaves and placed it very gently near the bird.
At first, there was nothing.
Then the bird slowly oozed into the resting place. Pliro was surprised. He had never seen anything like it. The bird hadn't hopped or flown. It had turned into a blue puddle with movement and slowly moved into the place through its cracks and crevices.
Days went by and Pliro tended to it. He would get cinnamon dew from a few neighboring moons and give it to the bird. For the most part, the bird stayed in it's semi-liquid state, usually asleep. But sometimes it opened its eyes. And they were the most beautiful eyes that Pliro had seen - gorgeous pink eyes that shone with innocence and understanding.
One morning, the bird did not wake up. Pliro sat by its side watching the bird evaporate. At first it was slow and then the process sped up until it ended in a cloud of flame and feathers.
Pliro noticed something shining in the bird's resting place.
It had laid an egg...a rowdy little heart that had rolled out of a man's chest one day.
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