The entire cohort gathered in front of Tufani’s hut, a bubble of shock and anger and hurt pride while the Rookery tribe continued to celebrate around us. The rider who had rescued Dera was still sitting with her, arm around her shoulders, while Wren and Loclen tried to talk to her and cheer her up. A few other tribe members watched us as well, but I wasn’t sure if they were caught up in the drama or if they had half a mind to interfere with any trouble that might be brewing.
Juniper was just as bad as Dera, if not worse. Idra and Ento looked like they’d take a bite out of anyone who came near her, but from the whispers I heard one or both of them hadn’t put up the fight they could have when she was thrown from the rib they were on. That was a surprise in the same way that Juniper refusing to jump off the rib wasn’t. With how scared she had been up in the tree on the statue it was impressive she had even been convinced to climb up the rib in the first place.
Andhi didn’t seem like she knew what her reaction should be as she alternated between agreeing with Ulo’s ranting about betrayal and expectations and defending Tufani and the tribe. Nii listened as she sat to the side, staring at the ground.
Despite being one of the ones to go first, caught completely off guard, Prevna was taking the sudden turn of events pretty well. It was over and done with, she was fine, and it had the benefit of being exhilarating and memorable. She wasn’t raring to go and improve her time like Breck, but she was teasing me about being bitter when I had gotten the longest time.
Everyone quieted down as Tufani thumped through the grass to stand in front of her doorway. The glares and hurt expressions didn’t go away, but apparently no one was brave enough to yell at her to her face. I waited to see what she had to say. It didn’t take long.
“Every year I get a group of girls giving me those same expressions, and every year I still make sure the next group faces the same.” Her stern gaze swept over us. “Now you know what flying is like at its worst. When everything goes to shit and you don’t have enough time to react, let alone think. When you don’t have the skills or the strength to hold on. When you don’t have enough time to get properly settled onto your bird, though this time you had the benefit of a saddle. That will not always be the case. Hopefully you will never have to face such a unexpected situation again. Hopefully whatever flights you may have during your service will be easy and smooth, but the worst case scenario does happen. It’s the nature of the beast and my job is to get you prepared for it.”
Her tone did more than enough to tell us not to expect an apology or excuses for what she had done. She would do all she could to fulfill her obligation to make us the best fliers we could be even if that meant thrusting us into unexpected trials when we were supposed to be relaxing and celebrating. Even if it was dangerous.
The tribe’s healer finally reached us and started making his rounds through the cohort. Tending to any errant bruises or scrapes that we might have sustained while being tossed around in the air. I did my best to glare at him until he thought better of even trying to approach me.
Prevna, unfortunately, noticed what I was doing and leaned over to whisper in my ear, “You hobbled your way over here. Who am I going to dance with if you’re as nimble as a grandmother?”
I couldn’t turn to look at her. Not with her hair still down and tempting me to notice all the things I shouldn’t while she was close enough that her breath tickled my ear. But storm it all, I refused to let a stupid hairstyle change ruin everything. Soon she’d bind it back up and everything could go back to normal. She’d be…Prevna and I could go back to not getting hung up on stupid details.
“I don’t dance.”
She leaned forward just enough so that I could see her customary knowing smile. “I think you will.”
And then the healer was kneeling next to me and, in the time it took my brain to remember that this was Prevna and that I couldn’t stare at her no matter what—not even if that smile hit different for a moment—he was already treating my bruises while studiously ignoring my glares.
Prevna was too observant by far. After he touched her up and moved on, she turned back to me. “What’s wrong? You froze for a moment.”
Luckily, I had an answer I knew she’d accept and gestured vaguely after the healer. “Healing. I’d rather do it myself if I could.”
Then, because it was too dangerous by far, I focused inside of myself and did my best to rip up this new…awareness by the roots and stuff it into a heavy, robust sack. It didn’t quite feel the same as the nervousness I got around Wren but I couldn’t allow anything that might alter and jeopardize my friendship with Prevna. She was already too close. She already had too much of me and I didn’t have much more to lose.
I didn’t have the rage I needed to set the mental sack on fire, so I had to settle for stuffing it in an out of the way corner in the memory tent. Better to be untouched and muffled as possible. Forgotten.
The empty feeling in my gut grew a little, but now Prevna would never need to know about this particular mistake.
I focused back on Tufani’s speech just so I had something else to anchor myself to. She continued, “…setting expectations. Going forward, after the festival, you will start on the advanced shoots for a week before you also start beginner flights with the birds. Those flights will be as easy and smooth as we can make them.”
Ulo crossed her arms. “Why should we trust you?”
I expected Tufani to say something warm, something comforting, but she settled on the harsh truth. “Because you don’t have a choice. Enjoy the festival.”
She disappeared into her hut. No one dared to go chasing after her to demand more answers for our ordeal. I could understand her points, but I still didn’t like the fact that she had blindsided us. Didn’t like that someone could have been thrown off in an unexpected direction without any warning about what was going to happen and gotten hurt before one of the rescue fliers could swoop in to save them.
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Of course, all her warnings certainly paled in comparison to experiencing such an awful flight. Which was why Tufani had made us do it. No doubt all of us respected the sky now, though I wasn’t sure how she was ever getting Dera and Juniper off the ground again.
No one looked that enthused to enjoy the festival. Even Breck seemed more focused on getting back up in the air than trying out the tribe’s festival food or performances. I needed something else to anchor myself with though now that Tufani had left. Something to distract from the empty feeling and the sack and the way Prevna’s unfortunate choice of hairstyles threatened to ruin everything after we had just gained a bit more trust.
Snow crunched and feathers rustled. I turned to find Anore, the mother hen, waddling her way towards us. Another storm bird was probably the last thing most of the cohort wanted to deal with, but the bird called out a greeting to Wren and the other girl brightened. Then Wren leaned to speak softly to Dera. I was too far away to catch what was said, but it turned out not to matter.
Anore reached me and checked me over like she always did. However, she didn’t just run her beak over my body or bring one eye way too close like she normally did. The large bird seemed to recognize the bandages around my ankles—or maybe she could smell the poultice the healer had used. Either way the next thing I knew I was being picked up by my collar before Anore made her way to an empty nest.
Prevna and Ulo both laughed, but they sounded completely different. No doubt I looked like one of camp dog puppies being carried by the scruff by an impatient mother. Anore had gotten a hold of enough fabric on my back that she wasn’t choking me, but I didn’t like that I couldn’t do anything but hang there until she settled into the nest and tucked me against her chest feathers. I almost tried to break free before I remembered that it would only make me look like a fool in front of the cohort. So I settled in and tried to pretend like the whole thing had been my idea.
Prevna’s head popped up over the rim of the nest so that she could grin down at me. “Comfy?”
Anore’s feathers were soft and warm.
“Better than the snow.”
Prevna chuckled and then yelped. Anore had plucked her up too, only to place her down next to me. Then the storm bird called out again.
I heard Wren’s voice next as she spoke to the group. “Anore says that everyone is welcome to join her. Nesting is warm and makes everything better.”
I would have bet that Wren would be the next one in after that announcement, but she fell behind coaxing Dera. Instead, surprisingly, Nii slipped in and settled near Anore’s flank, so I couldn’t see her unless I craned my neck. Loclen and Wren got Dera to settled on Anore’s other side with a lot of coddling and promises that this bird wouldn’t suddenly fling her through the air. The tribe member who had been helping comfort her disappeared elsewhere. Breck stayed up on the nest’s rim instead of settling among the warm feathers. Juniper came and sat on my other side but, in a rare show of a rift between her and her guards, gestured for Ento and Idra to keep their distance. Idra looked more than ready to argue at that, but Ento dragged her away. Ulo and Andhi also didn’t appear over the nest’s rim. I wasn’t sure if they were still right outside the hut or if they had gone back to the lakeside, but I also didn’t care enough to try to check.
I wasn’t sure if it was out of boredom or something else, but Breck made use of her new perch to perform. She circled around the top of the nest as she chanted out a story with just enough of a lilt that it might have counted as singing. Blue-green light trailed her movements as she acted out various bits of the story she was telling or used gestures to better outline a scene.
It wasn’t a story I had heard before. One that must have come from her people in Haggler’s Cliffs. The Cliff Cutter and the Hag. Breck told the story of a great monster, with claws that could cut through stone and legs strong enough that it leap across the chasms that littered the earth with ease. This monster, the Cliff Cutter, was the ruler of the cliffs and all the other creatures cowered before her. All but one. Her nemesis, the Hag, bowed to no one and nothing despite being an old woman with only her memories for company.
One night the Cliff Cutter could no longer stand the Hag’s attitude and the monster decided to attack the old woman’s camp to make her break or die. The monster’s assault was over almost as soon as it had begun. It got caught in a trap of sticky webbing placed in the entrance of the Hag’s chasm that she had taken from another monster that cowered before the Cliff Cutter. The monster’s terrible claws could do nothing against webbing it couldn’t shift to reach and its powerful legs had nothing to kick but air. The old woman walked up to the monster and gutted it without a bit of fear. That night she had a hearty soup, and all of Breck’s people remembered the lesson: weapons and power are nothing without planning and knowing how to effectively use the tools available to them.
I appreciated the use of a trap in the climax of a story and I knew that Rawley would have too, if she ever heard it. Though it was a bit odd to hear the tale from Breck when she was always so focused on fighting and the clear importance she placed on her weapons.
By the time she was finished telling the story, I had propped myself enough to see a bit over the lip of the nest. The area around Tufani’s hut had filled with tribe members and they were taking turns performing on top of it. It must have been a common enough practice because I spotted Tufani in the crowd and she wasn’t complaining about the couple dancing all over her living quarters. A few of the tribe members were even kind enough to bring us food and drink from the cooking fires. Their bitter bark cakes tasted slightly different from what I was used to and they didn’t have river jewel berry juice. Instead the drink was made of some sweet and sour mixture that tasted good, but made me irritated because I couldn’t place what it was made out of.
Prevna and I talked as the night wore on, and I was able to keep it to its normal rhythm now that I didn’t have to look over too often and I had that sack tied tight in my mind’s eye. She did get me to promise to dance with her during one particularly weak moment when she pointed out that I had danced with Fellen last year. I don’t think she regretted the low blow, though she did soften it with a smile and a light touch to my arm. I did everything I could to pretend like that wasn’t all it took for me to do what she wanted, but neither of us was surprised when I finally rolled my eyes and said, “Fine.”
Juniper was a silent, sullen statue on my other side. She burrowed into Anore’s feathers and stayed there, doing little more than staring at her knees. Sometimes one hand reached up to fiddle with the pearl dangling on her forehead. I could have tried to comfort her or done something, but everyone else was around and she clearly wanted to be left alone. So I let her be and hoped that she’d be fine without landing another headache in my lap. Not that I really should be the one that she was coming to if she did want comfort or advice—nearly anyone else in the cohort but Ulo would have been better at that.
As far as I could tell, Nii kept quiet too except for when Breck dropped down to talk to her for a bit. Wren, Dera, and Loclen talked amongst themselves while occasionally drawing in Prevna and, more rarely, me. After awhile Ento and Idra returned but, after another silent exchange with Juniper, they settled on the opposite side of the nest. Andhi and Ulo ignored Anore’s offer the entire night. I caught sight of them in the crowd before quickly dismissing them from my mind. I didn’t need them ruining my mood.
We all fell asleep against Anore’s warm, comforting feathers until dawn broke and woke us up by shining light into our eyes. Which was how, after the initial excitement of the night, the first night of the Heartsong Festival finished quietly.