Birds of a Feather

"Sorry?" Nìxié leans forward to hear you. Seeing her look from the corner of her eye, you disappear in a blur. "Ah, Eilís!"

You hear her shout behind you, and ahead, the grass disturbs without a cause. A spell? When your feet land to leap once more, you cease and lose balance, though a coil keeps you upright from the knees down. Below, a long onyx spine binds your greaves, the strength unfelt until it constricts your femur, crushing the canteen on your pelvis.

With ferocity in your eyes, the longsword in your hand discards its scabbard as you pivot the handle down, but before the blade cuts below your hips, a sabre binds the point and flings it out, returning each weapon to a guard. A slim, vertical figure stares at you, shaking off her cloak's hood in the wind, the sabre chambering behind her head of black hair.

Nìxié lands behind you with the wind, stealing the journal from your knapsack, and escapes to the sky. "Sorry. This stays with us!"

The pressure on your joints alleviates as the snake woman retreats. Her human torso recedes into the dark, though steely light reflects between two amber irises. Annoyed, you look up over your shoulder where Nìxié soars far above. Magic? She wills the wind under her wings. You want to shout, though decide not to, fearing you can't.

You spit at the snake woman instead, "I had a good impression of you people." She keeps her distance without a word. Imprudent bandits. You drop your longsword, knapsack and other loose items, and pick up a tree cone to hurl at Nìxié's wing.

In the night's sky, Nìxié turns the pages in your journal and exclaims, "This writing?" She reads closely, her hair tangling in the wind, when a brick of some sort pierces her wing in a burst of feathers. "Ah!" She spins in a cry, loosening the journal from her thin fingers.

Moonlight hits the pages as it fell, and under it, you jump high enough to snatch it, soaring with Nìxié's wind. The snake woman below gapes, watching your moonlit figures in the starry sky. You descend slowly in the powerful lift, clothes untucking with hair flicking across your eyes. You spot the harbour city from above, the electric lamps still as bright, though you can't appreciate the sight at all.

"Milarch! Please, I need this!" Nìxié cries above, stooping with one lame wing. The wind disappears from under your feet. Crap. Clasping the journal to your chest, you helplessly watch Nìxié's figure, and tragically determined face, body you at speed.

An earth-shattering boom erupts the grass, roots and soil into the air, along with the pages of your journal that scatter in the turbulent winds. Nìxié, who pushed off your body before the impact, returns on one wing, observing your unfocused eyes. She exclaims, "Velmarie, Eilís!" and converses in their other language.

Velmarie steps into the clearing you made, carrying a white wooden cudgel under her armpit, airing out the dust with some loose pages. Nìxié redoes the knot of her apron, pulling it over her shoulders before pinning both your wrists under her weight. The snake woman's cloaked figure and sabre comes into the moonlight, tensing, lower half recoiling when you clear your stupor.

You frown at Nìxié who's sat on your hands. She blinks twice before hurtling in the air, thrown overhead. "Wah!" Her voice fades far behind you.

The snake woman lunges, pointing her sabre at your throat, but the butt of a cudgel slams on the polished cuirass beneath her flailing cloak in a massive crash. Velmarie's feet slide across the soil of overturned grass as her white cudgel bends against the snake woman's inertia.

"Eilís, stop," she says, and the snake woman relents. She sticks the cudgel into the ground, and asks you, "Scruff, tell us where you learnt this," holding up the crumpled papers of your journal, brushing off the settled dust with her other hand for you to read.

You stand, holding together your tattered clothes. "Give it back," you say.

She shakes her head. "This does not belong to you."

"That's my journal."

Before anyone can continue the conversation, Nìxié shouts from afar, "Wait!" and she lands between you two.

"Nìxié, I'll be taking back my journal."

"That's fine!"

"It's fine now? Bird, what's with you butting me into the ground?"

She blurts out in a stammer, "You'll run away!"

You retort, "Well of course, you're robbing me."

Nìxié shakes her head. "I'm not, now."

You could laugh, the corner of your mouth twitches, except you're too baffled by her. You meet Velmarie's eyes and say, "Give me an explanation."

She shrugs her shoulders and Nìxié stretches her wings and hand up to your eyes.

"We need you," she says, pointing at your face.

All three other pairs of eyes look down at her, and you point to yourself. "Ridiculous, you're not satisfied with robbing me, now you want to kidnap me?"

She ignores that, asking, "How much do you know?" and steps forward, once and twice, until you step back, clutching your clothes.

"What? The scribbling nonsense in my journal? All dreams and delusions."

She stomps her foot. "No! Don't lie, I can read them too."

"Fine, I'll admit that I can write in that script. It's not too difficult, but why do you want that map?"

"What map? First tell me where you learnt that language. Have you met them?"

"The mangrove. You wanted it at first, tell me why."

You two bicker long enough for Velmarie to sigh. She stands behind Nìxié who's expressive wings almost hit her during your conversation. Her hand chops her head.

"Ah!" Nìxié's knees buckle.

Velmarie looks at you and asks, "I think this deserves cooperation?"

"I'm hardly welcomed."

She grins. "I believe your people are accustomed to it by now."

You stare for a breath. "I don't have to work with you either."

"Rāvokh? I assure you that Nìxié is the only person who can help you." You glance down at Nìxié and her tearful eyes.

"Working with you three bandits?"

Velmarie laughs. "Nìxié, Elís and I are looking for the same things as you. We don't have to compete and bleed for it."

Nìxié shoots to her feet. "Milarch, please join my party!" She tugs at your arm, but it doesn't budge at all, you're still looking at Velmarie and, in your periphery, the snake woman who quietly circles you. You give your arm, much to Nìxié's excitement who shakes your hand. She asks, "Milarch, Let's share notes!"

"Bird. You can keep my journal. Bind it for me again will you." You look away.

"Wait!" she shouts.

"I'm not leaving the city dumb bird. I'm napping here." The snake woman pauses behind you.

"Oh," says Nìxié, watching you take your knapsack and longsword. Velmarie laughs.

Before you leave, the snake woman hands you her hooded cloak, her cuirass and finely banded tonlet glinting in the dark.

She asks, "Do you have spare clothes?"

"No," you reply, barely holding your your things and clothes together.

"Haha, you're bum."

You glare at Velmarie and thank the snake woman, wearily receiving her cloak from barely within arm's reach, keeping one eye on her lower half. After wearing the hood over your head, you leap into the dark.

"Did he escape?" Velmarie chuckles at how fast you left.

"Velmarie, help me I can barely see." Nìxié is on her hands and knees, picking the strewn papers with pathetic form.

Velmarie sighs and helps her, conversing in their language, "Nìxié, him? Ah, your wings Nìxié, you've blown away my papers."

"Be quiet, I'm trying to see."

"Oh."

Nìxié doesn't stay on her knees for too long. She stands and stretches her back with a sigh. She says to Velmarie, "Um, he's not with the guild and more knowledgeable than Lucien's friends, yet I've heard no news of him."

Velmarie wonders about that. "He works alone."

Nìxié smiles. "Not working for the guild either, he's completely hiding his discoveries. It's good for us!"

She's excited, but Velmarie voices her concern, "He's still one of them."

She passes her papers to Nìxié who replies, "That means we have to get him on our side."

Velmarie grins, "I like that," and shouts across the field, "Elís, you sleep outside don't you?"

You search for a ditch to sleep in, but whatever's ahead is black on pitch black. You're patient on the undergrowth's floor, longsword cutting the twigs and leaves you hear rustle in front. You'll know a ditch when you fall into one or when you're careful enough to walk down its decline like now. You lay against it, the longsword without its scabbard beside you with the knapsack on it in case you roll over and bleed to death.

Damned bandits. The snake woman left you with aching joints, and she somehow got ahead of you too. Nìxié must've been spying since you left as well, you didn't care to look up then. Fuck. Your hands massage your hair, head still concussed from the fall, and trying to take a sip of water, you grasp empty air. Right, everything is broken. You check the purse in your knapsack sighing in relief.

The following morning is frigid. You stand and throw off the snake woman's hooded cloak. She appeared in your dream last night, taking your legs and stabbing between your eyes, and with a shiver you face your periphery and notice her slim figure lying on top of her long onyx spine.

"Elís?"

Her body stirs, and murmurs something.

Not knowing where to put your hand, on the longsword's handle or not, it runs through your hair with a tremble. Thankfully, it wasn't an actual bandit.

"What are you doing here?"

She ignores you. With a sigh, you clear the bushes and bunch tinder into a pile, watching the canopy above wherever a bird might perch.