you fit into me
like a hook into an eye
like a hook into an eye
S
he had woken to the sound of rain. It was a rare enough occurrence—rain in a desert—that Aghavni had forfeited further sleep for the far less pleasant, yet necessary, task of relocating a pot of milk-white poppies from her cluttered desk to her cluttered windowsill and hurtling into two empty vases in the process.
Vines had shot out from the earth-filled drawer beneath her bed to wrap around her ankles before she could fall. (She suspected her magic proved itself useful in these ways, much like a cat leaving dead squirrels in its owners bed, in the hopes that she would eventually grow fond of it. Unfortunate for both parties. She had always found dogs more endearing.)
Sighing, she had willed the vines back to their drawer before gazing down at the vases. It was how Kite, her father's choice errand boy, found her: groggily shoving vases into her wardrobe. She had not yet discovered the limits of its acquiescence and hoped, not without merit, she never would.
“Sol,” came Kite's low, stately grumble. Her father’s choice messengers never bothered to knock. She returned the favor duly, whenever she was able.
“...Yes?”
“Your father has a message for you.” Which wasn’t uncommon—what was uncommon was the ungodly hour he had chosen to have her hear it. The sun had not yet graced the horizon, and as a gaunt, moon-white form loomed spectrally by her door, she heaved the groaning wardrobe shut and greeted the messenger with a frown.
“Father has the patience of a saint,” she remarked, as she nudged a piece of wood through the handles. “He couldn't wait a few hours more?”
“Normally I would have something clever to say to that,” said Kite drily. The soft clanging of glass on metal meant he had just pushed his glasses back up his nose. Something he did incessantly whenever he bore unpleasant news.
“But the urgency of the matter prevents me.” She looked up, puzzled, as he entered the room, trailing sapphire cape catching on the doorframe. The twist of his mouth was uncharacteristically grave for his youth; no doubt learned from her father.
“A teryr has been spotted in the city.”
She would've thought she had misheard—a teryr? One had not been spotted in Solterra since her mother's time, and there was talk amongst the king's advisors that they had all but died out—if not for the solemn way he held her gaze.
“What?” Aghavni cried, springing to her hooves and descending gleefully upon the startled messenger, her weariness sloughed off like snowmelt. “And you choose now to tell me?”
“You were rather preoccupied, if you recall,” said Kite tartly, glowering as he yanked his cape out of her grasp. “And if you'll only exercise some of the saintly patience your father shows—” he ducked the swinging arc of Aghavni's tail as she turned swiftly towards the window, “—as that was only half of the message.”
She was deprived of the chance to ignore him when the muffled thump of something heavy landing on her bed drew her attention away from the skies. The rain had morphed into a dreary drizzle, masking the world beneath; if the teryr was so much as torching the streets below, she wouldn't have seen a flame through the unnatural fog.
“Here. And I quote Lord Senna's words: wield it with care.”
Her father's scimitar rested grandly upon her rumpled bedsheets. Save for the widening of her eyes, she found herself incapable of a proper reaction, having spent it all on the teryr. In all her years as her father's only child, he had never once let her touch his sword.
The message, without Kite having to utter it, was clear: this was her chance. Her chance to claim the most coveted honor for a Hajakha, for any Solterran, from time immemorial.
It was time to slay a teryr.
—
She was not the first to arrive, though she hadn't expected to claim that particular honour. What vexed her was that she was not even the second, nor the third to arrive—it seemed half of Solterra had piled into the narrow streets to gape and swing hastily polished swords and axes and bows. No Solterran warrior worth their pride would be caught trying to flee.
Kite had accompanied her, despite her protests. She had persuaded him to draw back once she found the teryr, and his pale, towering form (he was a hand taller than her father) melted into the crowd rather naturally in the midst of ensuing chaos. The scimitar hung, sheathed, at her hip; she would not invoke it until the last moment.
First, she had to find the old beast.
Kite had told her all he'd known about it as they'd pushed through the crowds. Supposedly it was ancient, a king in its own right, larger than any of his species anyone (living) had ever seen. She'd taken his descriptions with a grim smile; the size of the thing mattered little. All that mattered was that the teryr's heart was in the right place, nestled beneath its feathered chest, and remained pierce-able by a well-aimed blade.
Aghavni ducked as a stone whistled through the air, just shy of her ear. Scowling, she threw her gaze over her shoulder in search of the assailant—only to catch the dull glint of a spear, the Regent's own, as his dark form blew past her. So he was here too; was Orestes?
Wiping sand from her eyes, she followed swiftly after Jahin; she trusted a man like him, Davke born and raised, would only ever run towards a teryr and never away. And she was right.
Emerging from the blizzard of sand, first a wing, then claws, and finally: beady inkdrop eyes, as large as dinner plates. Gritting her teeth, she took shelter behind a pillar as the teryr screeched and dove from his perch on the parapet. Slowly she drew out her father's scimitar, and traced over the foreign inscription.
The crow does not roost with the phoenix.
She smiled wanly, and stepped back onto the sand. “Jahin! On your left.” As she crouched to the sand, she thought: The crow is roosting with a teryr.
And the phoenix is dead.
{ @Jahin @Locke @everyone "speaks" notes: }
