She looked at Isatha as they stood in front of the community hall, hoping that there would be at least some kind of work for her to do. Something where she wouldn’t go crazy!
Isatha remained silent, looking up at the sky.
“Is there nothing else to do in the flock?” broke Rethia the silence, after it stretched to long.
“No,” sighed Isatha. “There is no other work in the flock. Only one outside of it.”
Rethia cocked her head. “What is it about?”
“Well… few are called to it, and it is quite dangerous. It’s no less important than the other jobs, but only those called to it are allowed to take it up.” Isatha shook her head.
“But what’s it about?!”
“We have to be both warriors and caretakers, merchants and domestic workers. And that is all I’m allowed to tell you at this moment. You tell me tomorrow what you want to do. You have listened to several options. But don’t be shackled by them, when you make your decision.”
“We? Then that means you are one of…” Isatha jumped to the air, quickly flying away without waiting for Rethia to finish her sentence.
“That’s not fair!” howled Rethia after her. “Damn. Now she’s gone. can’t she just tell me which job would fit me? I know that she knows something! Why can’t she just tell me!”
Huffing, Rethia made her way home, to think about her decision. If she had known about this before her First Flight, she could’ve started thinking about it much earlier. Like this? She had to decide within four days.
The house was stiffling. No matter if she paced, lazed around in her nest of sat in front of the window to stare at the landscape, it was unbearable. She was restless, and the walls felt confining. Especially now. There was nothing else to grab her attention, and she remembered the grey dream she had had after tumbling from that storm straight into safety. There, the sky had been stolen from her.
So she left the house and flew, never noticing the light monkey clambering up her legs and curling around her belly.
Her wings carried her up. Circling over the village, eventually reaching the top of the cliff and the bamboo forest. But she wanted to go higher. Through the clouds, as high as her wings could carry her. Like that time with the lone mountain.
Pumping her wings, she reached colder air currents. Here, the white clouds scuttled swiftly through the sky, like fish in a river.
The world fell away beneath her, as she flew ever higher. The light blue sky turned a nice shade of dark blue, although it was barely after midday.
Her labored breath came out in tiny white clouds, and her face was numb. The air was thin here, the cold biting through her warm feathers and making her shiver.
It was utterly silent, so far awy from the ground, the village and the airspace she was usually flying in. Even her flapping seemed muted, as she hovered there, looking down.
Clouds passed by, deep below her talons, partially obscuring the plateau. The land had turned into formless splotches of different colors. It was impossible to make out the thin lines of rivers that she knew were there.
Rethia reveled in it. The feeling of the freezing temperature, the silence, the deep blue color of the sky, normally only seen during the blue hour.
Eventually, her thoughts caught up to her. You could only run from yourself for so long.
With her brain starting to churn again, she dropped backwards, letting her wings trail in the wind, watching as the sky turned light-blue again, as she felt warmer currents envelop her, as clouds moved past her.
What wonderful place, she thought, ignoring the storm that was brewing behind the dams she had built, with the hustle and bustle of the past two days, for just those few precious seconds longer. She flipped around, turning her fall into a more or less graceful spiral, slowing down until she circled somewhere above the Floating Baskets.
I have to decide on a job. What will it be? A warrior? Merchant? Caretaker? Forever bound to my home, that took me in when I had nothing? She said I wasn’t raised here. That I was found in the bamboo. Unknown origins. Maybe from a different flock? Are there even other flocks? And where? Nothing was mentioned in the scrolls. That strange common knowledge that I have is silent when I ask.
They took me in . They didn’t have to. I owe them thanks! But I don’t want to be bound! I want to fly free! I want to find my family. My lost home. As a merchant, I could. They travel around a bit. They hear gossip. They can pay for Landbound to investigate stuff… Is it even important to find those memories? I have a family now. A family that accepts me as I am. That welcomed me with open wings. I also have a cozy home now.
Her eyes were drawn to the horizon as her thoughts warred. To pay back what was owed, or to find her lost memories. Or to fly free.
I want to know what’s beyond, she thought longingly. I have a family and a home. I should be content with my life! but… I want to know… I want to feel the hot wind of the desert, and taste the air of the seas.
Her glide took her further over the plateau, showing her harpies busily flitting every which way: checking on monkeys, patrolling the borders and transporting things every which way.
Stolen novel; please report.
It didn’t look like a bad life. She would know what she would do on each day, what she would see, where she would eat and who she would talk to.
It just wasn’t her life, she realized.
The next morning, she found Isatha in the training grounds, playing tag with a group of warrior harpies. If looked like chaos. But graceful chaos. It took a moment, for Rethia to realize that Isatha was hunted by the others, yet she always escaped by a feathers width, turning, spiraling, dropping, circling away from her hunters.
The game came to a stop eventually, Rethia staring at all of them with envy.
If I could fly like that, I would never have to run away from a wyvern again, while hoping for someone to save me.
Isatha landed in front of her, while the warriors flicked their tails in a greeting and drifted towards their posts – either as guards of their males or their territory.
“I see, you have chosen your path. I think I know what you’ll say, but tell me anyway.”
“I want to fly free, unbound, like the wind. I want to see the world on my own terms,” said rethia with conviction. The question had seen her tossing and turning for half the night, before she had come to a conclusion. Before she had accepted her deepest desire, regardless of the voice telling her what she should do.
The matriarch had said it, as had Isatha: The flock had accepted her as she was, would still accept her no matter what she did. An unconditional family and home. There to catch her if she fell – or at least she hoped so.
Though she had yet to decipher what Isatha had said about this outside job.
Isatha smiled brilliantly. “Then you choose the path of a Traveler. For good or bad.”
“A… Traveler?” asked Rethia back, dumbfound. It sounded… well, not as glorious as she had thought. “What does a Traveler do? Was that the job you meant yesterday? The one that is both Warrior and Caretaker? Both Merchant and Domestic? I still don’t understand that one.”
Isatha smirked. “Then let me explain what a Traveler does. We carry out the rare missions that the Great Sprites hand us through our shaman. We map the lands and search for rare items, be they food, plant, weapon or stone. We learn of new peoples and customs. We gather gossip like others do gemstones. We keep an eye on the machinations of the mighty, and care for the tiniest mouse, if we want to. We protect cities if we’re payed to, and we hunt to fill the bellies of the hungry, if asked nicely.
“But in essence, we fly where the wind takes us and do what we like. And we bring back our spoils, be they gossip, reports, maps or rare gemstones. What the flock decides to do with them is none of our business.
“But to survive such a life, at times you must fight like a Warrior. You must be able to hash terms like a Merchant. And to thrive, you have to be a capable Caretaker and Domestic. Or find someone who does those things for you. Like your monkey friend there.”
Rethia followed Isathas pointing wingtip, noticing the monkey curled around her own neck.
“When did he get here?” she asked.
“Get here?” Isatha laughed. “He’s been here since I landed! Probably since you left your house, silly girl! That one is already attached to you. What name will you give him?”
“Huuh?!”
“Do you really think you can leave him behind when you leave on your journey? Then you seriously underestimate these silk monkeys. They are as intelligent as us, you know? I bet he’ll find some way to sneak on board, so you might as well take him along willingly. In fact, if he wasn’t so attached, I would drag you over to the Caretakers now, to get you matched with a monkey partner.”
“Huuuuh?!”
“They aren’t necessary, but they make life on the wind and among the Landbound sooo much easier.”
“Uh… Isatha? I think you lost me there.”
“Where? You’re standing right here, no?” said Isatha with a straight face.
“Uhm… when you talked about all that grand stuff a Traveler does?”
“Oh, that! Hehe. That was my best pitch in a long time,” she said proudly. “And I really mean a long time. The last time someone became a Traveler was years ago. So few are called to the open skies nowadays.”
“Why? Are we not children of the wind? Meant to fly wherever our wings take us?”
“It was so, long long ago. When this land was ours. And then others came from beyond the seas. The mermaids warned us all, so we at least had time to claim a place of our own. But beyond it, the lands were claimed by humans and elves. By beastpeople and dwarves. So similar to us, yet they couldn’t be more different. Our forebears welcomed these wayfarers with open wings. They accepted our help and then declared us as barbarians and hunted us down! They cut our wingfeathers and stuck us into gilded cages. And so the Great Sprites took from our four races what was most dear to us. They locked it away to keep us safe. The gnomes lost the sun, forced to live underground. The mermaids and dragonewts lost their mighty ancestor. And we lost our yearning for freedom.
“But that shouldn’t concern you at all. In the past six decades, we reestablish contact with the outer world, treading carefully. In those centuries without contact to the outside world, we were turned into myths. Many don’t know that harpies exist. If they have ever even heard about us, they did so through legends. And those tell about benevolent guides, or angel-like beings, sent by their false gods. Feh. As if we would ever serve anyone other than our flock and the Great Sprites. But we Travelers make use of those myths, when dealing with other races.”
They had left the training grounds and the plateau behind to collect Rethias belonging – a comb and a blank diary. Now, they hovered in front of a two-storied blue building at the edge of the village. A red zigzag was painted around the upper story, while the lower story was painted with green grass stalks at the bottom. The building looked much sturdier than the others.
They landed on the roof and Isatha led the way down a spiraling staircase into a single large room. Compact nests and cupboards lined the wall.
“This it the home of us Travelers. Since we’re out and about most of the time, we and the flock decided on a single large house for all of us. No one has a fixed nest, except for Nathia and me. You see those plaques at the wall? Those are our beds. We’re in the village most often, switching flight training duty. When you come home, you just pick a free nest. When you leave, you clean it up.
“The blue cupboards are for shared things. Towels, blankets, sashes, whatever. Once a week, someone comes to drop of fresh things and collect the used stuff. The red cupboards have name plaques. They hold personal things that don’t want to carry around everywhere, and that you want to keep safe. Don’t open them willy-nilly.”
Isatha handed her a blank plaque. “Carve your name here and then put it on one of the free red cupboards.”
After storing her meager belongings, and wrapping a new blue-and-green striped cloth around her waist, Isatha brought her downstairs.
Another single large room occupied the downstairs. It was comfortably decorated with low perches, reading stands, pillows and carpets. Shelves with books and scrolls lined the walls. Claw sheaths hung from the walls in regular intervals. Two tables were scattered in the room, cupboards near them.
“This room is for lazying around, reading or working on maps and reports. The cupboards hold writing utensils. Do put on claw sheaths before reading. These books are made of paper and, compared to leather scrolls, they are very sensitve and easily tear.”
Rethia looked at the owl with big eyes, utterly overwhelmed with all this new information. Isatha chuckled at that.
“For the moment, it’s enough for you to draw maps of the lands you travel and to bring back rare things. Come. Let us get some food and prepare for tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Yes. It’s one of my regular routes to a nearby city. It’s good that you decided on your job so fast, else I would have pushed it back until after your decision.”
She followed after Isatha like a lost puppy, still trying to wrap her head around everything.