Memories (ForthBeam fanfic)

Chapter 17 - Sending Love On The Wings Of A Pigeon

Tae's POV

This story took place on my third life after Wayo, and ninth since Tee. It was a fairly serene life, where i felt contented and silently waited for my love to come back.

When i was a child and growing up, i built a pigeon loft on the flat roof of my room. I bought eggs from a breeder with old stock and raised them with enormous care.

I designed training flights that were meant to be challenging, but my birds always got home before i did. I guess it was as close to fathering I've gotten so far and probably will ever get.

I've always loved birds. I collected feathers from rare or beautiful species starting from an earlier life, and i still have most of them. Someday I'll turn them over to a natural history museum, maybe. Most of those birds are not just rare but extinct, in some cases for hundreds of years.

The father i have been blessed with in this life was a very adventurous one. He'd always  take me and my brother on his trekkings to many unexplored reaches of forests, caves and mountains.

I remember one day climbing up to a mountaintop with my father, gazing down in a trance as the field and trees became a small patch in a broad quilt and the houses and people small figures in the distance.

It was one of the moments when i felt the deepest respect for humankind. There have been a few moments like that. And many times I've felt the opposite.

When i think of that life, the thing i always picture is sitting among my birds at dusk every night, listening to the sounds of the neighborhood below, fathers coming home from work, and kids running about and playing, and the voices of chattering women, satisfied of the world taking place below me.

As i got older, i set up regular messenger routes to and from nearby villages. I once sent a note to my brother living with his new wife two villages away, and another time sent in my homework to my teacher's house when I'd stayed home sick.

Most of the times when i should have been paying attention to my lessons i gazed out the window and thought of the skies while my pigeons gathered on the sill.

One time i gave a pigeon named Khun Ying to my cousin who lives in a city far to the north when the family came visiting for some holiday. My mother was three weeks short to giving birth to my little sister then.

It takes roughly ten days to travel to their place but Khun Ying made her way back to the house in time for my sister's birth. I couldn't believe to see her walking toward me across the front lawn. My cousin was disappointed, but I couldn't give Khun Ying away after that.

One night i was feeling lonely and wistful, and i wrote a letter to Tee and attached it to the carrying capsule on Khun Ying's leg. I sent her off expecting to see her back by dinnertime, but she didn't come back.

I waited for a week, and another. When a month had passed, i was miserable. I'd sacrificed Khun Ying to my hopeless errand, and i felt awful about it.

I didn't really know where Tee was, or if he really was back in the same lifetime. At that time, i felt an overwhelming sense of excitement and joy that maybe, Khun Ying will find him and he'll read my letter. I've waited two lives after Wayo and Phana, and have never seen him since. But this time i was patient enough to wait silently, preparing for our reunion.

Years went by, and in lonely moments i sometimes imagined Khun Ying flying over oceans and continents, mountains, forests and villages.

I dreamed her eyes were mine. I pictured her in Chiang Sean, flying across forests and mountains and gardens in her effort to deliver my letter. I pictured her perched on a rooftop in Wayo's old house, waiting for him to come home.

Sometimes i even fantasized that Khun Ying had found him and succeeded where i had not.

I kept track of the time by the length of Khun Ying's absence and imagined Tee's advancing age on his life far away from me. The day i turned eighteen, Khun Ying had been gone two years and five months, and i pictured Tee living the prime of his life somewhere.

On the first day of my solo trek atop a mountain, Khun Ying had been gone for Five years and three months, and i pictured Tee falling in love with someone.

On the seventh year and nine months, and i was busy on my trade routes, i pictured Tee living contentedly oblivious to our story.

When Khun Ying had been gone for fourteen years and three weeks and i pictured Tee happily living with a family of his own, i visited my father now growing older, who was ill, at our old house.

I went up to the roof of my old room and sat by the old loft as the sun went down. I looked down and saw a grizzled old pigeon walking up the roof.

With a familiar gesture, she spread her tired old wings and rose to stand beside me on the top of the loft, where there haven't been any pigeons for years.

Silence and moments passed, i looked at her as she looked back at me with her neck slightly bent to the side. It was like she was talking to me, and i felt like she was sorry and sad. Gently, i reached for her and cupped her in my arms as i brushed her dirty feathers. I wished i could see her fly again like the old days.

I saw that she still had my letter curled up in a capsule tied to her leg.

She couldn't find Tee, but at least she could find her way home.

.
.
.
.
.

A/N: I was feeling extra nostalgic after watching a family drama last night. So here's the next part... Don't worry, this isn't as sad as the previous chapters...

This chapter is a little side-story about one of Forth/Tae's many lives after Phana and Wayo 😊😉 ,...i hope you'll like this..

Comments.....votes....comments please :)))))
thanks you.!!