Elsewhere, at a different time...
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His eyelids slam open. For two seconds, he is sure that he has slept too long. Nobody woke him. The hammer is coming for his legs.
Birdsong filters into his home. His lungs release their death grip on his last breath. He slumps limp into the soft embrace of his moss and pine nest, breathing in its musty-green smell. His spidersilk blanket is warm and drapes luxuriously over his body. Feathery-soft tufts of moss rub against his skin, steadying his nerves.
A couple of moon-dots mounted on artisanal clay holders cast a gentle glow in the burrow. A single window set in the ceiling across the room lets in a warm-looking patch of sunlight by the shelves. His home is spare, but comfortable, with plenty of leaf-mats lining the earthen floor and tapestries hanging from the walls for color and temperature control. He has shelves for clothing and eating implements, a water reservoir of his own, a tub, an ember-pit, a table, and a single chair. His nest, where the majority of his time is spent, is the best part of the burrow under the elm roots.
He is uncertain whether today is one of the days that he leaves his nest. Between him and danger, there are at least three layers of comfort or protection. He has shed the fourth—sleep—but there is still the blanket, the distance to his door, and the door itself.
He isn’t hungry. He is plenty warm enough. Therefore, there is no reason to leave the nest.
Aria may come today.
His fingers curl, gathering bunches of the blanket together. Even if she comes, Aria would never enter his home. If he doesn’t answer her knock, she will leave supplies at the door and he can retrieve them at his leisure. She doesn’t want to see him like this, none of them do. He’d be doing her a favor.
But I want to see her.
He bites his lip, the sting pulling his attention from the sharp ache that thought brings. The longing to see Aria helped him survive captivity. For months, as he wove fire and sunlight and poison for the humans, he would play the sound of her voice in his mind, running through every song he’d ever heard her practice. There were so many, for she was in training to be the next Songspeaker. But when he escaped and returned home, the horror on her face told him everything he needed to know. She saw what every other skyte in the Keep saw when they looked at him; one who might as well be dead.
I still want to see her.
Silently, he lists the steps needed to get to that point, ticking off each action as he accomplishes it.
Remove the blanket.
Exit the nest.
Walk to the tub.
Fill the tub from the reservoir. He notes the reservoir is low.
Scrub the body. He is careful not to look down, working by feel.
Dry the body.
Dress the body. He notes the back of the tunic still needs to be adjusted. There’s no need for it to hang open and the season is turning cold.
Wrap the arms from elbows to fingertips. He is careful not to look down, working by feel. The spidersilk wrappings are a comfort to his skin.
Knock knock.
His heart lurches toward the door even as his legs turn to stone. His hands reach for the door, all the way across the room as his feet refuse to move.
Knock knock.
He uproots his feet from the ground, stumbling toward the door. Hands shaking, he unlatches it and pulls it open.
Aria.
Her hair is darker than a starless night, while her eyes are star-bright silver peering out of a delicately pointed face. Her long, willowy fingers are wrapped around a knapsack strap that is slung over her shoulder. His egg-mate is the same height as him but with her head bowed and her eyes fixed firmly on his feet, she seems shorter.
She doesn’t lift her head as the door opens, but the corner of her mouth twitches. A grimace? A smile? He can’t tell. He opens his mouth.
Aria. It is good to see you.
I missed you.
Why don’t you stay and play jango with me?
Would you come back tonight and sing me to sleep?
Aria, I’m scared.
Please, look at me.
The words tangle in his throat, none of them reaching his lips.
She slides the knapsack off her shoulder and offers it to him, keeping her head down. He takes it from her, careful to keep his fingers from brushing hers. They are graceful, her fingers. Slender and perfectly jointed all the way from bases to the tips, where they grow increasingly transparent, as if fading from reality.
Even wrapped, his own hands are an obscenity of fully defined edges compared to hers. He pulls the knapsack close, lowering his own eyes and grunting wordless thanks. And he truly is grateful. She could have let another deliver supplies to him, but it is always her, and has been ever since he was returned to their Keep last year, barely alive. She cannot look him in the eye, but she comes every week to deliver supplies to the dead.
He steps back and slowly closes the door. When it is only open a crack, he stops. She has turned away and doesn’t see that he is still watching, or else she would wait. She would wait, not wanting to wound him, but he has to see. He watches her take three steps, then spread her wings and lift off.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Wings. Her wings are still attached. He stares, feeling the phantom motion of his own muscles lifting a wing structure, recalling the strong flex of lovingly painted primary feathers and how to push down hard for a sharp departure from the ground. Aria’s wings are well-groomed and vibrant in their cleanliness, displaying the pride of their crafter. She will be acknowledged and welcomed by the Maker when she ages away from this world.
The absence of weight at his back reminds him that he will not.
Every moment hurt exactly as much as he knew it would. The scars down his back burn. His legs ache. He slides down to the floor, curled around the knapsack, and closes his eyes. He will stay perfectly still right there for as long as it takes to fall asleep again.
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A shriek jerks him back to the waking world. The door bangs inward against his head as something shoves it open. He rolls aside, letting the door swing wide. A dangerously hooked beak pokes in, followed by a familiar feathery head the size of his torso. The head twists, fixing him with an accusatory eye. That’s about as far as Mother falcon ever squeezes in between the roots of the tree.
“Mreeekekekek! No seen chick outside. Too long.”
He rubs his head, glaring right back at her. Every day this week she’s tried to drag him out. A shred of defiance kicks up as he responds, “I’m fine. I have everything I need. I don’t need to leave.”
Most other skytes in his Keep only understand the most general intent of the wildlife around them. Gifted with wildspeech, he could converse fluently with any creature even as a newly-hatched wingling. Mother falcon’s meaning rings in his mind with perfect clarity.
“Mreekmrawwww?” Head-tilt. “Need food?”
“No, I have plenty of food. The others just sent me more.” He stands, hefting the knapsack onto his shoulder. “I should unpack it.”
“Mrawwmeee? Come out? Fly with?”
The muscles along his shoulder blades twitch. “No. Stop asking.”
The falcon’s head bobs back and forth in agitation. “Mekmekmekmekmreeeeeek. Too long in nest no flying. Not good.”
“I don’t want to use your wings!” he grinds out between his teeth. “Stop asking!” A good wildspeaker knows not to give an inch with birds of prey. They’re pushy and arrogant and he has to be just as abrasive as them to even be heard, but he’s having trouble bringing that arrogance back to the surface. “Go… go find a mate of your own. Have babies. Teach them how to fly, if you’re so desperate. Just—hey!”
Her head darts forward and her beak clamps around his leg, firmly but with precision such that she doesn’t break skin. A quick jerk flips him onto his back and she drags him out of the burrow a fair distance. Before he can yell at her, she releases his leg, takes one step forward, and plops down on his chest.
Her weight drives the breath out of him again. He coughs, wheezing as he shoves vainly at her. He balls up his hands, struggling to get enough air to shout, when she pokes her beak a fingers-breadth from his face and delivers a sharp lecture.
“Wounded chick. Mine. I take from snare. I save from hunter. Mine chick. Stop beak-snapping my legs.”
His throat tightens. He reaches up, burying his fingers in her downy breast. Words stick all wrong in his throat again, and all that comes out are the guttural moans of a wounded animal.
That great, dangerous head lowers further, the curved top of the beak gently stroking the side of his face as she croons from deep in her throat.
“Chick. Chick. My chick. Chick safe. Mommy make safe. Is okay.”
She doesn’t understand. She can’t understand why it will never be okay. Even so, he clings to her, burying his face in those feathers, soaking in contact with the only family that cares to claim him.
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“Days not warm enough yet. Be more warm.”
Mother falcon doesn’t force him to fly with her today. Instead, she preens several handfuls of down from her breast so he can line his nest. She’s right. There’s a leftover chill in the air from winter’s death throes.
“What is chick-food again?”
“Same as squirrel-food, same as mouse-food,” he answers, dully, checking for mites in the spot behind her head that she can’t reach herself. She asks every time. She has difficulty remembering diets that are different than hers, but if he doesn’t answer or tells her not to worry or gives her too much detail, she brings dead sparrows.
She clicks her beak, disapproving of his poor taste, but jerks her head once in acknowledgement. After one more affectionate nudge, she leaves the ground with a sharp flap of her wings. She doesn’t wait for him to turn away, doesn’t even think to spare his feelings. That he has no wings of his own makes no difference to her.
He stares up after her. “I wish I really were your chick,” he says, quietly. “Maker wouldn’t care about my wings, then.”
He brushes dirt from his tunic, but being dragged along the ground has thoroughly soiled it. Bending over, he swiftly gathers the falcon down into the hem of his tunic and returns to his burrow. He dumps the lot of it into his nest. Later, he will weave each tiny feather into his nest with proper care. For now, he peels off his tunic and breeches and exchanges them for clean spares. He grabs a small hunk of hard yellow soap from the shelf and tucks it into his pocket. Slinging the dirty clothes over one shoulder, he lifts a livewood yoke with two attached pails onto his shoulders.
The creek is an hour-long trek on foot from his tree. Refilling the reservoir will take several trips and consume most of his day, but he has little else to do. Besides, the higher he fills the reservoir, the longer it will be before he has to go out again.
Not much has changed on the trail, though there is more insect activity, hinting at the hope of warmer days to come. He lets his feet guide him, retreating into mindless movement. It is a careful dance to detach from his actions while steering clear of his thoughts, but he has become expert at it. By focusing on his breathing and the warm runoff of sunbeams down his back, he comes to the bank of the creek without thinking a single thought and sets the yoke down.
The first task is to wash his clothes. He finds a flat rock sticking up from the water and wades in shin-deep to reach it. Sliding the dirty tunic off his shoulder, he soaks it in the water for a few minutes, then stretches it out on the rock. He runs the yellow soap over both sides of the cloth several times, pockets the soap, and vigorously rubs the cloth together, dragging it along the surface of the rock as well. He continues this until it produces a nice, brown lather, then he dunks it back into the water.
“Hello are you someone who can understand me?”
He jerks back. The water snatches his tunic. Lunging forward, he splashes full-length into the creek, barely catching the cloth before the current steals it downstream. He hauls himself back to the bank, spluttering the whole way. Irritated, he turns toward the speaker awaiting him there.
The figure standing there is a head or two taller than him. There is something like a head and a face on the figure, but aside from that it is difficult to tell what he is looking at. It isn’t skyte. It isn’t dragon. It isn’t human. It isn’t animal or bird.
“Please I hope that you can understand me I have been traveling a long time and nobody I talk to stays very long.”
Bile crawls up his throat just looking at it. This creature’s whole being glows in fiery hues of radiant yellow and orange. Its body is shaped like a wingling’s drawing of a person. It has no proper legs, just a body like a tall, thin cone that rises to a point. Two tendrils sprout on opposite sides like arms, set just below a head that perches on top of the cone’s point. The head dangles a length of something like hair down the back, something almost as long as the body is tall. This figure is so strange, so alien. He should run. Warn the Keep. If he can keep ahead of it…
And yet, the voice is soothing. It is melodic and soft and perfectly coherent in a way the creature’s body is not. Swallowing, he answers, “I understand you.”
The face changes. Again, like a drawing, the mouth curves into an exaggerated arc of joy and the dot-like eyes enlarge. The mouth flaps out of time with the words that tumble out of this creature.
“Thank goodness I have been wandering for such a long time there is much beauty here but the people I find cannot teach me anything they make a lot of sounds I cannot understand and some of them run at me but they stop before they come too close and then they move away quickly hello I am Remara can you teach me?”
He takes a step back, overwhelmed. “T-teach you? Teach you what?”
Her smile grows, somehow taking up even more of her face. “Everything!”