The coop was quiet.
Sunlight filtered through the slats of the old barn, casting soft stripes across the straw. Chickens clucked gently, pecking at feed, unaware that the world had changed. All except one.
Clucksworth stood motionless beside a broken sword, its hilt still warm from the hand that once held it. Sir Cedric — the knight who had guarded this humble coop for years — lay fallen, his armor torn, his body still.
They came at night. Ninety-eight demons, cloaked in smoke and shadow, eyes like burning coal. Cedric fought them all. Not for glory. Not for gold. But for chickens.
Clucksworth had watched from the shadows, trembling beneath a feed barrel. He saw Cedric's final stand — the way he roared, the way he bled, the way he smiled at the end. "Protect them," he whispered. "Even if I fall."
Something inside Clucksworth snapped.
Grief surged through his tiny frame, and the air around him shimmered. His feathers unraveled, replaced by soft plush. Cotton spilled from his chest like breath. His eyes glowed with stitched fury.
From the straw, plushies rose — stitched from scraps, stuffed with vengeance. A toy lance, wrapped in a baby blanket and tipped with a tiny sharp needle, hovered beside him. He gripped it with a wing no longer made of bone, but thread.
Then came the horse.
It formed from discarded pillows and torn quilts, stitched together by invisible hands. Its button eyes gleamed. Its hooves were soft, but its gallop shook the coop. Clucksworth climbed onto its back, his plush body pulsing with heat, then chilled with resolve.
And as he mounted, the final gift arrived.
Cotton swirled around him, weaving itself into armor — a plush knight's plate, stitched with silver thread and padded with sorrow. A helm formed over his head, shaped like a chicken's comb, regal and ridiculous. But the weight of grief made it sacred.
The coop was no longer a home. It was a battlefield.
"They took my knight," he whispered.
His voice was soft. But the cotton trembled.
"Now I'll take their heads — one stitch at a time."