Bird: Part Three
#3 of Bird
Third part. An escape of sorts is made.
"Aoife wants you."
It is evening time. Bird has been in his room for several days, and although he has been brought meals by the ever-silent Giorgo, and brought a new white tunic by Esme, he is not permitted to go out. The room is not large, though it holds a bed, a bath and a chamberpot, which is removed and emptied twice a day.
The room does not even allow for him to spread his wings to their fullest, and he hates it. He hates being alone, without company, without purpose.
He looks to Daniella where she stands in the doorway.
"No, thank you." He says, and his voice is as calm as always. The tortoiseshell looks interested at the celestial quality of his voice, her ears twitching She would catch him before he managed to flee past her, but for all her strength he is confident in his speed. If he changed his strategy, this time around, hid as opposed to flee - he had overestimated his stamina, before.
This time-
"Stand up." Bird does so, and Daniella steps forwards. Her fur is light and not heavy, and she wears heavy trousers and a leather bustier over a shirt, daggers at each of her hips - it's sensible dress, and Bird wishes he could wear it instead of this robe-like cloth.
He hasn't even been permitted sandals, let alone shoes.
Daniella steps forwards, and she is shorter than him by several inches but Bird is still somewhat intimidated by her build: Daniella has shown herself to be a capable warrior, and anyone that wakes you by incapacitating your lungs is someone to at the very least be cautious of.
"Aoife wants you." She repeats, drawing out the syllables. Bird stares at her for a few moments, his lips pursed together in some part-defiance, and he squares his chin, looking her straight in the eyes. Daniella's lips quirk, and suddenly her teeth are on display.
Before he knows it, she has him across her shoulders, and for all he struggles in her hold he cannot quite manage to pull free. She drops him just outside the door to Aoife's office and murmurs into the shell of his ear, her breath hot on his skin: "Keep your defiance between us, or it will be worse for you."
And with that she pushes him into Aoife's office, leaving him stumbling on the ground.
He is perplexed by the mercy on her part, but he makes no comment, instead reluctantly moving to stand. He looks carefully to Aoife, but the lioness pays him no attention as she looks to the papers stacked on her desk. He folds his hands behind his back, neatly, and waits.
Bird has no wish to make conversation with the woman after all.
"Pretty bird." Aoife says after a few minutes' worth of silence, and she stands up, moving closer and grasping the belt of his tunic - it's not a proper tunic, more a white robe than anything else, and the translucent fabric offers too much sight of his body. He dislikes that: too many people had stopped and stared at him the two years since he'd been amongst the wider peoples, and this fabric would make such glances all the worse.
She pulls him closer by the finger hooked in the leather, and he looks up at her, his eyes slightly wide.
"I am not pretty." He says, firmly, and she chuckles. Her teeth look so very sharp.
"Aren't you now?" Her hand moves lower, and Bird lets out a choked noise, closing his eyes tightly as if to make the hand on his cock go away, but they're interrupted: there's an explosion outside her window, and Aoife drops her hand. "Shit." She says, and then she's gone, running out of the office and down the corridor.
Bird hovers, dazed by the sound still ringing in his ears, his wings spread to keep from falling.
"Bird." Her voice is distant, but he looks to Daniella all the same: she carries daggers in harnesses, and two new boots. He blinks at her, and she holds them out.
"What-"
"Put them on, moron, hurry up!" He takes the daggers and straps them to his thighs beneath the robe, pulling on the boots. "Let's go, then." And with that her hand is in his, the feel of her fur mildly pleasant as she pulls him into a run.
Everything is in a haze, and Bird himself feels dazed as he runs beside her, out of the building and into the streets, through the streets. She bundles him in the back of a covered cart, and he sits and he stares at her at the cart begins to move, run by some magic or other.
"You took me." Bird murmurs, and Daniella snorts, stacking boxes of fruit between them and the end of the cart, in order than any quick glance would cause an inspector to miss them.
"Of course I did." She says, as if it's an obvious idea, and he tilts his head, frowning at her. She just winks.
The cart runs for hours upon hours, even as the sky darkens further, and he sleeps for a time. When he wakes, it is light and his arms are wrapped around Daniella's neck: she is carrying him under a high ceiling of green leaves, and sunlight dapples the ground.
"You're awake." She comments, and she drops him to the ground - now, Bird walks alongside her.
"Why did you take me? She will surely pursue us. You have wish to die?" The language doesn't come naturally to him, but he can speak it well enough. He's long-since stopped longing for the tongue of his kind.
"No wish to die." She says lightly, with a shrug of her well-muscled shoulders. She is fit for travel, and he glances to the pack upon her back. "You just seemed like a damsel to be saved by a night."
"I'm not a damsel."
"I ain't a knight, either." She speaks differently now, to how she had upon his capture, and he wishes to question it, but her easy expression has faded into the stern one he is used to. He doesn't understand this, but he makes no further comment. "Where is it you wish to go?" Her modulation is utterly different: she speaks loftily, as if every word is an effort.
These people are beyond him.
"John. I wish to go to him."
"Who?"
"John Kelly. My-" He frowns, recalling the word Aoife had used. "Captain."
"Mmm. In the capital."
"The capital?" He repeats the word as a question - he does not know the capitals of these nations. The seas are easier, understandable, far better to navigate than the land. He questions how those angels of the mountains manage to find anything.
"Maragh." She says. The shell melts away again, and she grins at him. "You'll like it. Lots of boats."
His lips twitch: he does like boats. He wonders how she knows this, but the frown is back, so he looks forwards, ignores the ache in his feathers, ignores the enigma of the tortoiseshell woman beside him, and continues to walk on.