It’s alive. That’s the first thing I note, feeling a little relieved that the object of our rescue attempt did actually survive it. I can tell because the bird creature is breathing, its beak opening and closing a little, its eyes blinking. Those are the only parts of it moving, though, the rest all wrapped in thorny vines. I wince – the thorns have got to be painfully digging into the bird’s flesh. I empathise, largely because I’ve so recently been literally fighting my own way through a thorn bush.
Not wasting any more time, I crouch down to start releasing the bird from its bonds. I have to work carefully – any time I tug at the vines just means that thorns dig deeper into its body. I do have to tug at them a bit when I saw through the vines, but the alternative is unfeasible. Even thinking of having to find the ends of each individual vine and then untangle them like the bird is a kitten caught in a tangle of wool makes me feel impatient. My kingdom for a pair of secateurs.
Bit by bit, the vines fall away and the feathers of the bird’s body are revealed. By this point, it looks completely red despite me having seen yellow on its body earlier: the blood has just stained everything. It’s weak, that’s clear. Even when I gently pull the final thorns away from its flesh, it barely moves. Raising its head, it tries to push itself upright, but fails to do much more than twitch.
“Hey, take it easy,” I say to it soothingly. “Here – have something to eat while I heal you up.” So saying, I pull a chunk of uncooked meat out of my Inventory. It looks at the meat, but ignores it. Then I feel like slapping myself for my idiocy. If it was a meat-eater, why would it have been attracted by that fruit on the bramble-monster to begin with? Then again, why would it have such a serrated beak if it doesn’t eat meat? Still, worth offering it some berries. “River, could you find a few pieces of fruit from the bramble thing we just killed, please?” The lizard-man grunts in assent, pushes himself to his feet from where he’d been resting and walks back to the scene of the fight.
While I’m waiting, I start pushing healing magic into the bird’s body. Its flesh is pretty lacerated, honestly. Its wings are particularly bad, the tender skin connecting the bones especially vulnerable to the ripping thorns. One wing is worse than the other, probably the one which was under attack for longer. Left to heal naturally, I’d guess that this creature would never fly again. Fortunately, with the power of my healing Skill, I watch from both ‘inside’ and out as the flesh slowly knits together, leaving smooth skin behind. It doesn’t regrow the feathers, though, leaving a good few spots with little to no feather coverage.
By the time River gets back with a clawful of cherry-tomato sized fruit, the bird is well on the way to be fully healed. Halfway through the healing, it pushed itself to its feet. It could actually choose right here and now to just take off, assuming that the missing feathers won’t impede it in any way; I’m more than half-surprised that it doesn’t just do that. Instead, it waits calmly, if still a little nervously. I’m not at all surprised at its display of nerves – standing on the ground between several predators, all much bigger than it is, has to be more than a little uncomfortable.
Offering it some of the fruit River hands me, I’m pleased when it doesn’t just fly away but instead starts picking the fruit delicately out of my hands. I run my eyes over the bird’s form as it eats, gently holding each orb in its front claws while it chews at the flesh with its beak. I’ve been calling it a bird creature because it flies, but it’s not easily confusable with a bird from Earth. Principal among the differences is the fact that it has four legs. The front set are noticeably bigger and stronger, looking more like the grasping claws of a bird of prey. Another strange feature considering that the bird disdained meat.
Its back feet are little more than simple supports. They have long toes with small claws on their tips. They do a decent job of holding the bird stable on a flat surface, but seem good for little else. The bird’s weight is concentrated mostly in its front, the wings attached just above and behind its front legs.
In fact, its position reminds me of nothing more than a human’s plank position if the human is resting on his hands rather than elbows. And if there was a large chunk of thigh taken out. And if the human’s neck was significantly longer. And it had wings. Again, it’s not a great comparison, but really, I can’t think of anything on Earth that it’s truly like. Maybe a pterodactyl would have been vaguely similar? Except they only had two legs, didn’t they? Either way, it looks significantly more comfortable than I would be if I was trying to imitate its position. Actually, wouldn’t my new Strength help with that?
I brush away the random thought. Considering that my exercise these days consists of running through a forest to avoid getting killed, or fighting creatures to also avoid getting killed, the length of time I could hold a plank position seems rather irrelevant. I continue looking at the bird. Its beak is fairly straight and quite short, sharp protrusions of bone imitating teeth. It’s these which make chewing the fruit so easy, though it seems to be chewing with the ones on the side towards the back of its beak which are reasonably blunt – the ones at the front are sharper and some are even hooked. My flesh crawls at the thought of them digging into me.
As for its wings, it has proper feathers covering the skin connecting the bones, not the proto-feathers covering its body which are similar to those covering the raptorcats. It also has a hooked claw at the front joint of each of its wings, the joint which on a human would be our wrists. I don’t know if the claws are supposed to be more weapon or utility, but certainly they were instrumental in clinging onto the branch above the bramble bush. Without them holding on, I doubt we’d have had time to save the creature from being pulled into acid and digested while still alive.
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When the bird finishes its fruit, it looks up at me questioningly. In its gaze I see nervousness, but also a strange sort of invitation. Something is nagging at me. I frown as I try to tease out what has caught my attention. Then a memory comes back to me – the memory of Kalanthia’s anger when coming home from a hunting trip to find me feeding Lathani. I wonder… Maybe it’s time to try out the single Skill which I’ve never tested.
“Tame,” I invoke seriously. Not sure what the requirements for this Skill are, I err on the side of caution and look it in its orange eyes. The first with round-shaped pupils I’ve seen in this world, I realise with a start. Then the Skill takes hold. I don’t know exactly how I know when the Skill starts – there’s no feeling of being pulled into a separate space like there is with Dominate. The world doesn’t fade out around me and I’m still completely aware of the small movements and noises of my companions and the eerie forest surrounding us.
Instead, it feels like a dialogue has been opened. No, not a dialogue, at least, not a true one. More like...a trade window in a game. A mental version, not a literal window opening. It feels like I’ve offered a trade to the bird and the bird has accepted it and is now waiting for me to actually make the offer.
Feeling completely at sea, I default to the way I approach the Battle of Wills these days – projecting my thoughts and emotions towards the bird as if I had the link of a Bond or the temporary connection of a Battle of Wills. I offer it companionship and the protection of working together in a group. I can’t offer it much more, unable to guarantee even my own safety, let alone that of others. I’d like to be able to offer it food and shelter, but even that is something I cannot promise, not knowing its needs. Equally, I can’t offer it strength, since I don’t know how beasts develop, but I can promise that I will work towards the betterment of the group, not just my own betterment. After a moment more of consideration, I also tentatively offer healing if it is hurt.
In return, I need a team member, one who will work with the team, not in opposition to it – I’ve seen how one bad apple in a team can rot the group from the inside in the corporate world. Like it or not, I am the leader of this team, thanks to my position as Binder. Any new additions need to recognise and accept that. And, most importantly, be willing to take directions from me or my other Bound – in the right contexts.
Unlike a Battle of Wills, I don’t get to feel the emotions of the other party, which means there’s no way to tell how my ‘offer’ is being received. The physical demeanour of the bird doesn’t give any clues either – it’s observing me with the same curious wariness that it has been ever since I freed it from the vines and started healing it.
The seconds multiply, and I start to wonder if this is going the way it’s supposed to or if something’s gone wrong somewhere. Then, just as I’m about to try doing something different, there’s a shift. It’s the mental sensation of the other party putting their cards on the table. The bird recognises what I can offer it and is giving its counter offer.
It expresses its desire to always be free to fly, never caged. While this should be an obvious one, I sense that the bird isn’t only imagining a physical cage: it desires to be free mentally, cooperating with a companion rather than obeying a master. It expresses the need to have its expertise listened to and respected, the need to be able to reject any decision which it feels puts it unduly in danger. It agrees that it doesn’t need to be the decision-maker, but it will not accept being offered as a sacrifice for others. It draws the line under being able to leave the relationship at any point where it feels these needs are not being met.
All of this, of course, is not being expressed in words: the bird would have to be the most intelligent one I’d ever heard of to be able to express thoughts so abstract in such a way. With this kind of mental connection, however, words are unnecessary. Feelings, emotions, sensations, all of these combine to translate the message I believe the bird is trying to convey. I might be wrong; misinterpretations are, of course, possible. However, I don’t think I am. There’s a solidarity to my impressions which I can’t help but think the Tame Skill is the source of. Either that or my increased Wisdom or Animal Empathy are stepping in to help me here.
I give the offered counter-proposal the time and deliberation it deserves – we have a time limit here in terms of the duration of my torchlight, but I can’t rush this. In the end, I accept the trade, feeling that it’s nothing I wouldn’t agree to even without the Tame Skill structuring the offers on each side.
Having accepted on my side, I feel it immediately when the bird accepts on hers. A Bond immediately snaps into place, the sensation far more intense than the almost unnoticeable one of the Dominate Skill. It’s very different too – although the sense of being able to communicate mentally and detect the other party is present, the control is not.
In my Bonds with River and Bastet, there is no doubt that I am the dominant one. I instinctively sense that at a moment’s notice, I can shut down the Bond on my side, blocking communication and feelings from my Bound while at the same time still being able to communicate my thoughts down the connection. I can remove the Bond at any time. I can enforce my will through the Bond whenever I want, obliging my Bound to follow my instructions to the letter. Although I haven’t done any of these things – or not knowingly, anyway – the higher my level in Dominate has gone, the more understanding of my capabilities I’ve gained.
This is not like that. It’s what the bird asked for in the first place: a partnership. Neither of us can act unilaterally on the Bond; we have to agree to modify the connection in any way. Neither of us can oblige the other to do anything, either, and the Bond can be broken by either of us at any time. Whether that is the nature of a Tame Bond or because those were conditions set by the bird during our trade, I don’t know. I guess I’ll have to find out.
The lack of control means that I don’t automatically feel I can trust my new Bound the way I did with the others. I don’t feel like I’m as safe – if the bird decides to attack me, there is little I could do with the Bond which would stop that. Our agreement feels more like a written contract than the chain of my Dominate Skill – the Bond will not stop either party from contravening the agreement, but it will enforce consequences, such as breaking the Bond if I sent the bird on a knowingly suicidal task. It leaves me vulnerable in a way; I can’t imagine doing this with River and then immediately going into the village with him – only the knowledge that I could order him and oblige him to obey allowed me to go through with the plan.
However, in some ways, Tame suits me much better than Dominate. Not only are contracts a lot more familiar to me than chains, but when it’s an equal partnership, I need bear no guilt about forcibly engaging the creature’s allegiance. Moral concerns can be dispensed with when there’s a non-coerced agreement between myself and another party.
My torch flickers for a moment. I look at it sharply. The pitch is more than half used up and we still probably have a long way to go. We need to get moving again.