And… that should’ve been the end. With me laying there defenseless, whoever it was that was expected to deal with me should have just killed me.
But instead… I just... woke up.
I was in my room. Like nothing had happened. I unsteadily got up from from my bed, fighting a wave of dizziness and nausea. On the table next to the bed was a piece of paper. As I moved to look at it, I noticed that something felt… wrong. When I could see straight, I studied my talons more closely. They were trimmed down significantly and they seemed to be covered in some squishy material that I realised made it impossible for me to poison anyone with them. Following this train of thought, I reached up for my fangs, only to find that they too had been filed down and capped. I was still feeling out of it, but even so I was livid. I just wanted to die, what was so hard about that? Why did they have to keep forcing me to live purely for their entertainment?
Still angry, but also curious, I went ahead and did my best to read the letter, but so many of the words were too complicated for me to read or so messily written that I couldn’t really tell what the overall note was saying. I only made out some of the more basic words and then what I assumed to be a name at the end— Sarian. Unsure what to do with the note, I left it alone.
With nothing to do, I looked around. Suddenly, I realised, with fear and more anger, that I wasn’t in my room. I was in a poor quality copy of my room. The ceiling was painted black and white, but it wasn’t constellations, just random splatters and swirls. And on top of it all, the air smelled wrong. It smelled… dusty. And deserted. There was no way I had been out of it long enough for my room to smell like it had been vacant for years. The furniture was all the same, other than the layer of dust on the top of the bedside table and bird perch. This room had been set up like this long enough for this much dust to have settled. So where was I? I looked closer at the barred wall in this room. If it wasn’t my room, I had to re-do all of my efforts in looking for a way to get out if I needed it. I studied the bars, but found them to be in better condition than the ones in my room. I moved on to the gate itself. The hinges were solid as well, but when I gave the gate a tentative push, it swung open.
I jumped back from the gate in surprise and excitement coursed through me before I realised that just like I had told Kairen so long ago now, I had no way to survive even if I escaped, especially now that I couldn’t use my talons or fangs. At that point, though, I didn’t care. I pushed forward further on the gate and stepped out of the cage. I was still dizzy, and so I stumbled a bit as I walked down the hallway, but at least unlike my room, the hallway attached to this room was a straight shot, I only had one direction to go in. As I meandered my way down the hallway, I considered my situation. I had murdered Krim. I knew that was true, at least. The Owner would be pissed. Suddenly a door opened in front of me. I jumped and then froze. I was in this too far to consider going back to the room. After only a second of thinking, I ran towards the man. His eyes went wide. Before I knew what I was doing, I held the man pressed to the floor, my useless talons wrapped around his throat, not so tight as to choke him, but tight enough I hoped he couldn’t get up.
Between wheezing breaths, the man started talking, “Eclipse… Eclipse!! I— didn’t you read the note? I— can you let me up? I’m not going to hurt you.”
With the mention of the note, I ‘hmm’ed a bit, my curiosity peaked.
“Yeah, the note. I left the note. Please let go of me, I know this isn’t where I said I’d meet you, but you don’t need to attack me for that, holy hell.”
I inferred that he was “Sarian,” but I wasn’t sure yet what I thought of this human, and I especially wasn’t sure if I wanted to talk to him. I did, however, carefully release my grip from his neck, and put some distance between us.
“Well, I guess you had no way to recognise me just from my name. I guess I should apologize for my overreaction, but that was scary as hell,” he laughed.
His smile looked so pure and gentle. The last time I had seen a smile like that was on Kairen’s face, and a twinge of hope passed through me. He looked like he was waiting for me to respond, but I didn’t.
He cleared his throat, “Ah, well. I hope you will accept my terms. I’d love to work with you on this problem.”
And like that I was lost. I didn’t want to be dragged into something that I didn’t understand, so, hesitantly, I decided to speak to him.
“Coun’t rea the noe. I on’t know wha Fa— Fa— Farian if talkin ‘bout.” I noticed that with Krim not around, I had already returned to my traditional way of speaking, but I was impeded by the coating on my fangs. Krim had always hated the way I had spoke; he made me talk “normally” but it had always felt forced, and I was glad to go back to my old, grammatically incorrect, syntax.
“Oh. I guess I didn’t transcribe my ideas neatly enough. I’m sorry, you must be so confused!”
“Farian likefs big wordfs and writefs badly. Farian doeth not make it eathy for a poithonbird,” I said, subtly looking for any indication that he had also been responsible for these squishy claw things.
“I— Poisonbirds are supposed to be able to comprehend human language, am I wrong? You’re speaking patterns are not conventional either, is it dialect or lack of understanding grammatical structures?”
“I understand human language jufst fine when thpoken. I can follow grammatical patternth if I choothe. And I’m thure I could read well if I was ever taught to read,” I shot back, feeling somewhat defensive at his comments about my intelligence, “Farian mutht not feel thympathy for the way I lived.”
He stuttered, “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to offend. I have a bad habit of just saying any possible thought that goes through my head. In any case, I should probably explain what’s going on since you couldn’t read the note. Would you like to go to where I had planned to meet up originally and discuss?”
I didn’t respond, just waited for him to start walking so I could follow.
“Uhh… Well, did you?”
I blinked, confused, “Sarian is asking me?”
“Yeah..? It was a question, right?”
“What if I thaid no?” I asked, curious.
“Erm, I— I don’t know. We could go back to that room? Or I mean I can leave you alone if you want some time?”
I tilted my head. When was the last time I had actually been offered a real choice? I couldn’t remember.
“I will go. Sarian should be careful or I might actually think I have a right to choice.” I joked pessimistically, lisp fading quickly as I got used to the foreign feeling of my fangs.
“Why wouldn’t you have a right to choice?”
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