The Legacy of Dirty Birds

Taught and Learned

It was happening again.

Calum could see Tarif's face in the edge of his vision. It was suppertime, the training field was empty, this place was always cold. He could see the frost form over his skin in the corner of his vision. He could feel millions of its tiny sharp teeth.

"You should really make an effort to socialize with your peers." Tarif's voice was tight.

"You asked me to stay a few extra hours, sir." Calum lowered his training sword.

Tarif's eyes went red for a moment, he drew his sabre.

Calum panicked, he barely managing to lift his own weapon before Tarif's streaked down and sliced him across the cheek. It was not a fake toy like the one Calum wielded, and Tarif's hand was unnaturally precise. He had planned in advance for this. It was just a meticulous daydream to him.

"Do not gamble with my word, boy." He sneered, as the child before him held a hand to his bleeding face. "I am the only one willing to put up with this attitude, the one putting a roof over your head, and food on your table. That can all disappear in mere seconds."

Calum stared at the drops of his blood on the grass and listened to the swish of Tarif's cape as he walked away. 

He woke up covered in sweat. There was a cleft in his body. He needed something desperately but had no idea what it was. Fingers reaching, grasping, discovering the long, metallic-colored feathers that stretched past the length of his forearm. Something akin to hunger and mania dove him to pull on these new feathers. The bandages couldn't stop him, but these new feathers were too fresh and too large to pull out. Calum couldn't believe the frustration that filled him when he resigned to tug on the smaller ones. There was a numb roar in his ears. It no longer stung when he plucked them out.

"Calum?" A hand on his shoulder, Calum winced away from it.

"Deadwing?" He croaked.

There was a pause, "I'm here."

He was, by all his welven gods he was there. His slender fingers brushing Calum's arm, not much more than a shape in the dark with two floating eyes. They were a black cat. They were a constant invisible presence. Calum realized his breath came quick and shallow and dragged roughly against his raw throat. Deadwing's hand turned into a fist, gently rubbing his back. the space between his wings. His heart slowed down just enough for his mind to clear.

"Deadwing?" It was an odd sound on Calum's lips.

"Yeah?"

He ran out of words, but it was okay. They seemed to understand.

"You want to go outside." It wasn't a question. Calum nodded.

"Come on then." Deadwing offered a hand up.

Calum took it. He was numbly aware of how short and stubby his hand felt in Deadwing's. His skin was cool. Where we they going? Deadwing led him up the boardwalk past Holly's room. The tree thinned. Branches became less cluttered. Calum watched the ground underneath him melt away as branches became his step ups, there was a railing now. It became a tunnel. He tripped once, Dee caught him, one of his wings wrapped around him. The wind stopped blowing. There were soft black feathers keeping the chill off his face.

Calum saw the sky. The roof of the wooden structure opened up into a crow's nest near the top of their tree. He let himself sink to the floor, staring up at the stars. His hands stopped shaking. Calum's head rested against the wall of nest, and his breaths slowed until they were deep and drowsy.

"Feeling better?" Deadwing looked like a completely different person, he wasdandelion seeds flying in the wind, like blue river stones and the song of birds at the first sign of spring.

Calum nodded. "Thank you."

For the first time, the space and silence between them was not strained. It was cold water on a burn, a relief that ebbed and flowed with the sting of other stimuli. Other feelings. Calum found himself wanting to be closer to Deadwing. He had no idea why.

"I used to think this was a dream. I don't anymore."

Calum's gaze broke from the sky and landed on Dee's face. His eyes were sharp and already focused on him, they were such a brilliant shade of crystalline blue, like the curl of his frown, sharp enough to taste. Every point in his unkempt body like a snowflake, perfect and unreplicable. He started to understand what art was.

"What made you change your mind?" Dee asked.

"This. This is too real."

Deadwing stared at him, Calum realized it no longer made him uncomfortable.

"Earlier you asked if your wings would be permanent. That's been bothering you." Again, it wasn't a question.

"It's a big change."

"How do you feel now? How do you really feel?"

Calum's teeth dug into the scab on his lips. "I feel like... I want a home. I don't think I was ever..." he could see Tarif's red eyes and felt moisture collecting behind his eyes, "going to...earn what I was given. Here is different. You don't expect anything from me in return. I feel selfish... but I want this place to be my home. I've never felt...like I belonged...like I have here. The thoughts that made me uncomfortable with looking so much like a welf...I think I they were taught to me; I don't want to think like that anymore."

Deadwing's eyes shone with the stars in the sky above. "I was nervous when Holly told me she was breaking you out. Maybe even jealous. I didn't understand what she saw in a...Hunt kid that made her think he'd fit in with us. I think I was taught that as well; I wouldn't mind if you wanted to make the Crow's Nest your home too."

"That's—thank you." The panic was gone from his body and now Calum just felt really, really giddy.

Dee smiled, just for a moment,and Calum knew everything would be okay.