Scourge Thirty-Six - Birds

“I think we’re going to have enough after all,” I say. This dark pool is a bit larger than I had initially expected it to be. I guess the location is pretty good. Close enough to a city, yet not so close that it gets spotted and burned out.

“Cool, enough to make four birds?” Felix asks.

“I think just two, but I’ll make them a bit bigger. They’ll be able to carry two of us at once. We, ah, might want to go over our things. If there’s any equipment we really don’t need, then we could leave it behind.”

“We could eat some of our rations,” Felix suggests.

Esme huffs. “And where do you think the weight from that food is going to go? Disappear into thin air?”

“Hey, it was just a suggestion,” Felix defends herself.

I roll my eyes as the two bicker. I swear, they’re like a married couple in some of those more romance-y books. Setting aside their silliness for the moment, I focus on the pool. A few souls wander in. Older ones, younger, nothing spectacular. There aren’t any great warrior souls lingering around, or hundred-year old cultivators that choked to death on their toast, just normal, boring souls.

Still, a few of them aren’t too weak. I find a couple that seem oddly compatible, twisting about each other in a way that’s hard to describe. Both decently strong too.

I gently pull them apart, a process that takes a few minutes, then I start forming two bodies. Usually I make monster friends one at a time, but I don’t want to misplace these two souls. So I make a temporary blob of a body for one, then start sculpting and working on the other.

It will need to be decently strong, with a good back and large wingspan. We don’t need it to have much by way of natural weapons though. I skip over giving it launchable knife-feathers, or acid-spit, or even huge talons. Instead, it gets a short neck and powerful legs.

The dark pool bubbles and hisses as my new friend starts to form within it. Slowly, the creature rises from the waters.

First the head, which is sleek and has a large cone-shaped ruff of feathers behind it, all tapering down to a long, sharp beak with just a hint of a curve to it. Then a large, wide torso with a strong ribcage. I need a place to anchor all of its wing muscles, which are very impressive and bulky for a bird of this size.

The body is rather small, but it makes up for it by having two powerful legs that end in stubby talons. They should be able to run pretty fast too, if flying isn’t an option.

Finally, there’s the one weird detail I added.

“Your, ah, creation has arms,” Bianca says.

“Technically, they’re wings,” I said. Two much smaller wings, anchored at the front a little below the neck, where its collar bones start. The wings are jointed in the middle, and end in talons too. “So that it can rest on all fours,” I explain.

Also because I have the feeling that this bird will want to hug the one I’m going to make right after, but I’m not going to tell my friends that. They might think I’m silly.

The friend steps up and out of the dark pool, liquid dripping off of its feathered body and onto the ground in great nasty gloops. “Hey there, big guy,” I say as I wave to the big bird. “Want to go sit off by the fire? Oh, and see that girl there, Bianca, she is not food. Okay?”

The bird looks at me, then narrows its eyes as it takes in Bianca standing off to the side.

Carefully, as if it’s not too sure about what’s going on--which is fair, since he was born a minute ago--he moves off to the side next to the little campfire Esme and Felix have started and shuffles down until he’s sitting. He keeps one birdy eye on Bianca the entire time.

“It seems almost fearful of me,” Bianca says.

“Oh, he is. You’re clearly a threat, and he has never been in a fight, and might not know how to handle one. So you're scary to him.”

“I never thought I would inspire fear in a monster. They’re the things that we were always warned about as children.”

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I shrug as I start to work on the second bird friend. “They have personalities and feelings too. Muted as they might be, they’re still people. A little bit.” I scrunch up my nose in thought. “It’s complicated.”

The second bird rises from the dark pool, same as the first. This one might be a tiny bit smaller, and a little more streamlined. I’m trying to improve on the first design a bit where I saw some flaws.

Our new bird friend looks around, chirps once, then notices the other bird by the fire.

The two stare at each other, then carefully, slowly, cross the space between them. Wings unfold, and they twist their necks around each other and hold themselves close.

“Huh,” I say. “I guess the wings can substitute for arms.” At least when it comes to hugging.

“That normal?” Felix asks.

I nod, then pull my foot out of the dark pool and shake it dry. “Yeah. I think they were lovers before passing away. Their souls were linked pretty well too. Now they’re reuniting.”

“It’s kind of sweet,” Esme says. “Although maybe it would be sweeter if they didn’t look like large birds?”

“Not everyone gets to resurrect as something cuddly,” I say. It’s sad, but that’s just how it is.

I put my socks back on, then slip my shoes back over my feet. They’re going to be humid for a bit, but there’s not much I can do about it.

Felix stands up and stretches, then starts picking up our gear. “We have ropes and things. Where should we tie our stuff?”

“On the front, over their upper chest. Their front arms can grab onto the stuff, just in case. I made their backs as comfortable as I could manage since we don’t have harnesses or saddles. It might be a bit hard to grip on.”

“I’ll loop the ropes we have around them,” Felix says. “We’ll have something to grab onto, at least.”

The birds are both well-behaved after a bit of cooing at each other, and they let Felix tie some circles around them and hang our equipment off of their fronts.

The day is past noon by the time we’re done. We won’t get a lot of flying done today, but maybe that’s for the best. It’ll give us a chance to get used to things before landing for the night.

Esme stomps out the fire and then all that’s left is to hop aboard.

“Alright,” I say as I look at the birds. “Bianca and I will be on him, Felix and Esme, you climb onto her. He can carry more weight, and the two of us probably weigh more.”

“Shouldn’t we mix it up then, heavy with light?” Felix asks.

“I don’t think so, no,” I say. “Besides, Bianca’s never flown before. I’ll be able to keep her safe.” The bigger bird kneels down before me so that I can jump onto his back. I grab onto one of the ropes passing just past his wings, then tuck my knees in close to his chest. “Come on, you can ride behind me,” I tell Bianca.

She hesitates, then grabs my hand and pulls herself up.

It takes a bit of fiddling, especially since Bianca and I are both wearing skirts still, and neither are split for riding. Bianca shuffles closer to me. “Do you mind if I grab onto your waist?”

“Huh? No, go ahead. Look at how Felix and Esme are doing it.” I glance over to my friends, who are both arguing, though even Esme’s smiling as she takes the opportunity to poke Felix in the ribs. “Okay, so maybe not.”

Bianca chuckles, and I feel her hands carefully wrap around my abdomen.

“Alright everyone, hang on,” I say.

The birds both start flapping their wings, and with a bit of a running start, take off and immediately start spiralling upwards to clear the woods.

Bianca’s grip tightens around me, and I hear her squeak as she buries her face in the crook of my neck. “I can’t look,” she says.

I can’t help but laugh as we finally take off. “Don’t worry, I won’t let anything bad happen to you,” I say. And I mean it too.

We fly higher and higher, then level off a hundred or so metres off the ground, destination north, towards the great mountains that split the country apart.

***