I dream four great hawks and a speckled bird.
I dream Quetzalcoátl, Ometeótl, the Great Manitou
who leaves me a vision to make me strong,
who lifts me to birds
from a mere
cat girl.
✧
W
e shouldn't linger, Rook says coldly, but I ignore him.
His voice has lost his edge at the appearance of the autumn-girl and without it, he is only a stag, matching me shoulder to dark shoulder. The tines of his antlers dull down to bones. The malice in his eyes curdles to milk.
I step past him flippantly, but not before whispering a singsong, concerned, Crow? into his coal-black ear.
I want to talk to the autumn-girl and Rook snarls because he knows he can't stop me.
My hair tumbles around my face as I tip my mask up, up, up. "I'm glad to hear it.” A tingle goes down my spine at how lovely her voice sounds as it echoes through the boggy glade. Like it belongs there, cradled by the leaves and the moss and the little white daisies like snow. I think back to Elder's row of glittering perfumes.
Bottled up to be lovingly emptied, pretty things put up on display. Can the autumn-girl's voice be bottled up as well, to be carried with me forever? I tilt my head, blow at a strand of my hair.
Smile at her a secret smile.
I look down as I walk, so that I won't break a leaf or, worse, a mushroom. I don't look up again until I have made it all the way to her, the moss in my wake undisturbed, the daisies (and mushrooms) spared from a cruel crushing death. Rook trails behind, as sullen as a lost shadow. In his silence I hear his anger, a little like green wood spitting on a fire. Yet my coat is as mottled grey as a stone. I throw him a reproachful smile over my shoulder and mime (in my head) stamping down on our telekinetic bond.
Until that beautiful voice drifts again through the glade, and my childish spite is instantly quelled. “I’m Nicnevin,” she says, “a knight of the Winding Gold. Who are you – and your companion -, miss?” And then she bows, a motion so magnificent, so practiced, her wings skating up against the birch, that even Rook stops his sulking to stare.
Did she say... knight? But of course I heard it too. I nod, forgetting to sneer, and Rook's head slips to a rest over my neck. I raise my brow yet say nothing. I will forgive him this incursion because I know him too well to miss the wonder stippling his thoughts; he'd accused me earlier of not guarding mine enough, yet his have always leaked through like floodwater out of a shoddy dam.
“You — are a knight?” I say, asking for us both. I wonder if there is excitement in my voice; it is a little lighter than normal, a little airier, and if I listen I can hear the thud thud thud of my heart in my chest. (Reminding me hostilely of its importance.)
Rook's head shifts and his antlers tangle like whispery branches in my mane. She must not be from any of the courts. There are no knights in Novus, Bird — only in stories.
“There are no knights in Novus,” I parrot, my eyes blinking, lashes tangling. “So you have come from very far, haven't you?” My bird's tail twitches, like a cat's does when it's happy. A breeze whistles through the trees and curls of white lotus petals flutter down from my braids.
“Oh.” She'd asked for our names. “My name is Bird, and this,” I nod, gesturing towards the stag with his head resting sourly over mine, “this is Rook.” Another breath, before I smile like Elder had taught me.
(Strings at the edges of your mouth, dragging upwards. Gently, gently. And squint your eyes, just a little. So that they curve like two half-moons.)
I wonder what we look like to her, two pairs of eyes in the growing dark. One like half-moons, one like a milky abyss.
