The first thing that Salas felt was the pain of cold. He had never been cold before. He’d known the flush of chill when diving into the waters of slick grottos in search of fallen mermaid scales. He’d known uncomfortable breezes on particularly stormy nights when the ocean brought wet frustration to shore. But he’d never known this kind of cold: a biting cold so painful he no longer felt that his warm anatomy was safely housed in its skin. It was too weak to fend against this gripping, numbing sensation.

Salas wrapped his arms around himself and shivered violently, momentarily unconcerned of his whereabouts in the face of the pain that bridled him. It was only when hands began to shove him along that he raised his head. He and the other birds had been dumped inside of a castle courtyard, one vastly different from the only other palace he’d known. The structure was assembled with rough, dark stones.

Deep red towers jutted up in cones like gastropial shells, scraping the ominously hueless sky. Each window was framed with dark wood and blackened iron. The only redeeming features Salas could find about the structure were the variety of stained glass windows spotted higher on the walls.

Despite how the castle and its galore was a matter to take heed of, it was still not the more immediate concern. The cold dulled everything else.

There were human guards surrounding Salas and the birds. They were distinctly tall men; not as tall as the beasts that were now somewhere claiming Suscon, but nearly so. They were notably armed and seemed to have been expecting their new prisoners, for they immediately began ushering them through the courtyard.

Salas made a move to step and his foot sank into something thick and white that crunched compactly under his weight, enveloping his bare feet in frost. Snow.

This, again, was something Salas had never experienced. His immediate reaction to the bright stuff, as brittle as sand (though bringing no joy), was panic. The cold was too unbearable. What if he sank a foot inside a pocket of ice, and the cold snapped it right off? He’d heard terrible stories of the North and its glacial landscape before.

For that was the location he’d been brought to. The Kingdom of Diagor.

Hysteria rising within, he picked up the foot he’d placed, only to stumble back into more snow. His eyes scanned around wildly for a safe place to step, then immediately rejected the reality that there was no hope of relief in the consistently white ground. He hopped from foot to foot, piping gasps as his panic swelled.

The birds were fairing no better. Snow being new to them as well, they flapped about in their fluster, murmuring their alarm senselessly.

The guards stopped at the disruption, most seeming annoyed by the halt in the path of their intentions. One guard laughed at the Susconians, speaking in swift Diagorian to his comrades in what must have been dark humor, for his speech received deep chuckles.

Then Salas’ arm was grabbed by the guard who’d spoken, the others matching the movement to assert the captive youths, and they began making their way through the courtyard and into the castle. The young palace servants, accustomed to obedience, and anxious to be out of the snow, moved without a struggle. Once inside, there was no embracing warmth, though the cold dimmed slightly with the relief of the masonry floor. The guards began leading them down stone-walled corridors.

Salas, tense with nerves, began speaking to the guard who led him, his scattered thoughts making him ignorant to the fact that the guard most likely did not speak Susconian. “Sir! Sir, sir. What is happening? Where are we going? We will not be killed, right? We will not be killed? Please don’t kill us. And I do not have shoes! May we go somewhere warm? Where are we goi一?”

Salas’ babbling was cut short when the guard yanked him once, causing him to stumble, in order to shut him up. While the others walked ahead, the man stood over him, smirking with black mirth. The grip on Salas’ arm tightened as the guard leaned into him, his back finding stone when the man’s daunting presence pressed him to the wall. The guard spoke in the strange other language, his voice nearly a whisper. 

Salas caught only one word. He’d heard the word once spoken by a rude court jester when they’d spun a mocking tale of the North. The word was ‘whore.’

Instead of falling into offense, he assessed the man. With fast realization, he saw the telltale signs of a certain desire that he could read better than any book. Once, he hadn’t known what the look meant, but now he knew it all too well. The greedy dominirance. The softly demeaning words. The want within the man’s eyes. With Jovack and Eldron standing in his garden room and appraising him many years ago, he hadn’t been able to name the word. But now he could: lust.

For the first time, Salas considered why the birds had been spared the fate the nobles suffered. They’d been allowed to live. Why?

Perhaps the North had heard rumors of the Southern birds. The reputation of their salacious courtly behavior may have reached here. What if Diagor had plans in store for the birds that matched duties that they were well-accustomed to in the South?

The guard drew him from his reverie when he grabbed Salas’ chin and twisted his head up, so that he stared into a pair of coal eyes. In this position, their difference in height was nearly comical.

“You here now, slut,” the guard said low in broken Susconian. “We say, you do.” The guard’s gaze seemed to grow crueler the more he studied Salas and was obviously pleased with what he saw, his desire, for some reason, eliciting meanness. He plucked up a piece of Salas’ vivid hair and rubbed it between his fingers, his eyes widening in perplexity and increasing satisfaction with whatever he found in Salas’ appearance. He spoke more of his own language. The words ‘beautiful’ and ‘blood’ were understood.

The lack of warmth in the guard’s attitude was not something Salas was used to; one of the many things that leaked beyond his understanding. If someone in Suson pined after Salas, they were kind to him. They did their best to gain his favor, and he theirs. It was a social dance he knew.

This one he did not. At least, he only half-knew. He knew how to attempt to win approval, though not if the reciprocant was so brutishly vile towards him. The heartlessness confused him, as it seemed so counterintuitive. The man desired him, though he did not seem to care for Salas’ own desires, nor appealing to them. In fact, the man obviously repelled it. Why? If Eldron were here, he’d ask.

Salas fought the urge to cringe away at the condescending demeanor of the guard, and instead leaned into it. It seemed strangely, instinctually wrong, despite how used to flirting he was. The internal battle was one he was not prepared for.

Still, he smiled and pressed his cheek into the hand that still hovered near his face and asked, in hesitant Diagorian, “Bed?”

A moment passed. “...Bed?” the guard repeated, questioning Salas’ meaning. When awareness dawned on him, a spark of something that could have only been amusement lit the his features. This was followed by the guard throwing his head back, laughing. 

Salas’ smile slipped, as did the hand from his grip.

The guard turned and barked out to his comrades, calling out in Diagorian with a draw to his voice, as though he were relaying a lengthy joke. The punchline included grabbing Salas by the waist and jokingly humping his side swiftly, which had the other guards roaring with laughter.

Salas’ face burned with embarrassment; by the confusing rejection, by the broadcast of it, and the humiliation of being made the object of a crude joke that he could not understand. 

Once the guard had collected himself once more, he pushed Salas back to the others and made to walk. They eventually began to descend down a narrow, spiralling staircase where the air grew thinner and, impossibly, colder.

Eventually, a passage led out into a main, underground cavernous room with stone walls and cells on all sides. It towered up, and high above, dome cages hung from chains like wiry garden aviaries. Except these cages had no birds. Yet.