Gilded Cage~ Shapeshifter Rebirth

Chapter 15 |Past~Arina|

In the end I found a way. It's a bit risky, but it's not like I hadn't tried that before. Apprentices were just allowed to send letters to family once a month and they'd get a reply one month later. So we usually would not write anything urgent in our letters. Even though sending the letters out were so easy, only one letter per month was allowed. To train up our independence they said. 

So if I had something urgent to communicate with my family or vice versa, I'd fly over in my bird form. My family was living inside the Ivory Manor too, just a restricted place for apprentices and servants. So I just had to be very careful. My plan was to ask my mother to buy a silk handkerchief from the capital and she'd just mail it to me. It's nearly end of the month, so I just had to wait for a week. Instead of two months, if I went for the mailing route. It's not that I knew a way to return the handkerchief to the young master, but at least I had a new handkerchief ready with me just in case! I could then return it whenever I bumped into him. That's common courtesy. 

Everything went well. I flew over to my parent's house, but they're not in. I left a note. When I was flying back, that was when misfortune struck. My forearm was still recovering from the sword wound by Min. I nearly forgot about that. It was not very painful, but that did not mean the wound had totally healed. So when I flew over I controlled my speed within a reasonable range in order to avoid stressing my wings. But when I was getting very close to Mirror Court, a falcon dashed out and began to chase after me. I didn't even know why there was a falcon in this area. Of course I could not out fly such an animal, so while I was trying all my might to flap my tiny wings and avoid the attack of the falcon, I was actively searching for a small place for me to sneak into to wait until the falcon lost interest in me.

I was flying over some courtyards, that's when I decided to fly closer to the ground in order to find a place to hide in. My right wing hurt, no doubt my wound opening up again. It's getting harder and harder to move my right wing, I was tilting to one side. When I rounded a corner, I noticed a tiny slit between open windows of one room in a courtyard, I quickly zipped in. The size was perfect for a finch like me, but was too small for the falcon. Furthermore, I was rounding a corner at that time, so the falcon might not see me flying in. 

I zipped in through the tiny slit and collided with someone immediately. My injured wing could no longer hold my weight and I dropped down. I was caught by someone's palm. 

"I told you not to die and you rebelled by dying in my hand?" someone drawled sarcastically above.

I looked up and saw the evil young master. What fate. And could you stop cursing me? I just had an injured wing. I was far from being dead, I thought in annoyance. 

A soft voice from somewhere further in the room asked, "Who are you talking to, Carlisle?" 

Carlisle's eyes brightened and then called back, "I was just muttering to myself, Mother. The wind is quite chilly, I closed the window for you." The tiny slit where I flew in disappeared after he closed the window. "I will visit you again tomorrow."

"Don't bother with an old woman like me! Go and play with your friends, Carlisle." 

"Don't let grandaunt hear that, Mother. She'd be envious beyond control." 

A giggling that sounded like silver bells floated out. "See you, my son."

So that evil master I met by the lake was the famous Master Carlisle, son of Lady Rosanne. No wonder he was so handsome, must take after his mother. Carlisle walked out of Lady Rosanne's court and walked along a road. After awhile, I presumed we had finally reached his place. He entered a room and sat down on a chair. 

He took a close look at my wing.

"Let's see what injured you. Considering how dumb you are, probably by a twig or something. Did you fly straight into a tree branch?" He raised his eyebrow. "You crashed into a twig, didn't you?" He chuckled to this. 

Was I really that dumb in his mind? I thought in annoyance. 

"The wound is already healing and you had to pull it open again. Just how dumb are you?" He flicked the feather on my head. "What's so important for you to fly in condition like this?"

You! I had to buy that stupid handkerchief to return to you!

He placed me gently on a cushion and then he went out of the room. He returned with bandages and some herbs. He crushed and ground the herbs with a mortar and pestle. Finally, the herbs became paste-like. He then took hold of my wing and applied the paste on it. Luckily, it's not that painful. The place where the paste touched felt cool, it's kind of soothing. 

Did he know medicine? He returned with the herbs very quickly and prepared all the herbs by himself. Where did he find the herbs? 

Finally, he was done bandaging my wound. I tried to move my wings after that, but was stopped by Carlisle. 

"Stay where you are. You wanted to open that wound again? This time I would just leave you to bleed to death."

I was a bird, I was a bird, I kept reminding myself. So even with his warning, I still continued to flap my wings. I was not supposed to be able to understand him. It's already kind of weird when I just stayed calmly while he applied the bandaging on me. But that could still be explained by blood loss. But this time I couldn't stop just because he said so. 

A weird mixture of laughter and evilness seemed to gleam in his eyes. Oh no... what was he planning again?

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Author's note

What was he planning? Stay tuned! See you next time!