A little bit of magical ranchers for you. Jimmy lives in his own little world until a strange man with no memories falls into his lap.
It was, for all intent, quite a nice day. They’d always been, and always would, but there was something different about that day. An unexpected warmth in the eternally lazy breeze that made the light so much nicer to soak up during afternoon sunning. It was welcome, but it was… odd. And it didn’t take long for the reason to reveal itself.
Jimmy stared down at the still form that lay in his grasslands, eyebrows knit with concern and disbelief. The golden gates that towered above squealed closed until they became one with the blue skies once more. His wings fluttered in yearning, but Jimmy ignored them.
He focused on the newcomer instead. Poor sod. With a black leather vest and flaming hair, his appearance was certainly that of the sort of eccentric that Jimmy might expect to be his first visitor in… a while. He seemed like he might have been interesting to talk to. Too bad he was dead.
Jimmy crouched down, placing a hand on the stranger’s shoulder as he groaned to life like a zombie. He stretched out his ears and Listened closely to bones and blood under his fingers. Ah, carbon monoxide poisoning. Of course it was. His body seemed to be recovering at a remarkable pace, though, now that he was here. The flames, maybe?
“Are you alright, mate?” Jimmy finally decides to ask.
The stranger finally pushes himself up onto his knees. His red eyes were glazed over, even as he took in his surroundings. “Whu- where am I?”
“My home.” Jimmy said, a wing stretching out to the scenery. “I’m not sure how you got here, though.”
He scratched at his neck as he looked around. “I… don’t remember.”
“Well, that’s unfortunate.” Jimmy huffed.
Jimmy worried his bottom lip. The man was clearly out of it. It had been so long since Jimmy interacted with another person, what was he supposed to do now?
He glanced around, looking for something- anything. Between the grasses he caught sight of a sweetberry bush. Good enough. He launched himself up and glided over to the thorny shrub, collecting two handfuls of the little red berries, then flew back.
By then the stranger was sat on his butt in the grass, just taking in his surroundings. When Jimmy held out his hand he didn’t hesitate. In seconds the berries were gone completely. “Pretty good, thanks stranger!” He grinned.
Jimmy’s wings flapped in pleasure as he smiled back. “My name’s Jimmy.” He offered. Perhaps too readily, but it was in his nature to offer.
“Jimmy, huh?” The stranger looked him up and down, then laughed. “Well, Jimjam, the name’s Tango, and you got some sweetberry still on you.”
Jimmy’s poor white shirt was indeed now stained with red juice. Oh, that was going to be a pain to get out. Not as much of a pain as the chance he had just missed thanks to his slow wit, but still…
His ears started to ring. Tango stood up, but his injuries got the better of him, and began to collapse.
Jimmy panicked and reached out, snapping his grip around Tango’s wrist just as he began to push off the ground. “You shouldn’t stand quite yet.” He warned the man.
Tango gave him a curious look, but it faded quickly into a content smile and shrug. “Smart, my head hurts like nothing else.”
He really listened to Jimmy? Just like that? Yellow feathers vibrated happily as the world quieted.
“So, where do you live exactly?” Tango asked as he glanced around the fields.
Wings tilted back. Where here? He glanced around, observing the nearby horizon. “Everywhere?”
Tango laughed. “But where’s your house?”
“I… have a nest. I think.” He was not so good at construction, for all he knew it had fallen apart since he last saw it weeks ago. Or was it years?
“You just… live out here?” Tango asked, utterly baffled. Jimmy self-consciously picked at the sweetberry stains in his shirt. “Really?”
“I don’t plan to be here for very long, you see. So, there was no reason to make one.”
“… How long have you been here?”
“Ah… And how long do you suppose I’ll be stuck here?”
Tango hummed. “How long is rather long?”
Jimmy held out his fingers, counting in his head. “About a quarter of forever, I would say.”
“I see. Well, if it’s only a quarter…” He suddenly tumbled back, slapping the earth. “No! That's too long! I have a life to get back to, a mission to complete!”
The canary’s eyes widened. Was his guest important? “A mission? What was your mission?”
“I…” Tango wavered, letting out a sound like a deflating balloon. “I’ll get back to you on that one when my head stops hurting. But I had one!”
“I see.” Perhaps he hit his head harder than it looked on his way in. The poor soul. Lovely, but poor. Jimmy’s wings perked up. “Well, would you like to stay with me? I can make you comfortable.”
Tango went quiet. Jimmy waited. He was used to waiting eternities by now. Or so he thought he was, but the longer the silence stretched the tighter Jimmy’s chest became. His ears twitched, Listening to the world whisper awful words to his guest, never heard but desperate to tease – threaten – the canary with the thought that it might be.
When they grew a little too loud Jimmy reached out, grabbing hold of Tango’s head and covering his ears. A yelp escaped Tango as he was yanked forward. Their eyes locked. Even when a blush began to creep onto Tango’s face Jimmy continued to stare, try to convey the correct answer. Surely it would be more powerful to a creature of sight than the whispers. “Would you?” Jimmy mouthed more than he spoke.
Eventually, a sigh escaped Tango. “Yeah, sure. I’ll be your guest. Don’t really have much of a choice, do I?”
He couldn’t help it. Jimmy let out the happiest trill of his life and pulled Tango into a hug. He could hear the world grumble, the game no longer fun when it did not win. But it could deal with it. He was Jimmy’s friend now.
Jimmy shot up onto his feet, holding his hands out to help Tango up. “Your headache is fine now. I’ll show you around.”
There was a moment of hesitation, confusion, as Tango put his palm to his head. But then he laughed and took his hands. “Yeah, sure. Lead the way.”
The trill returned to his throat. Jimmy spun them around in time to step onto the path the grasses parted to show. He tugged at his friend’s arm, guiding him forward when he seemed too busy with awe to follow on his own.
After the initial awe and wonder wears off Tango is quick to insist a proper home be built. Actually, Jimmy saw the exact moment the proverbial switch flipped. It was when he found the remaining scattered straw that was Jimmy’s forgotten nest.
Jimmy wasn’t sure why it was so important. It wasn’t like there would be any rain or cold nights anytime soon. Night was a difficult thing to catch, anyways, when the sun and moon only ran perpetual circles on the horizon. One might say it never arrived. Another might insist it never left. Jimmy was partial to simply sleeping when and where the rare bout of exhaustion hit him.
But Tango was new, burdened with habits formed in a world Jimmy at times forgot existed. He’d get over them, probably. Until then, Tango was adamant, and Jimmy was inclined to indulge his precious company.
So, Tango built a house. Jimmy adored it. Tango called it an ugly foot. Out of spite the world sided with Tango, and it burst into flames with one brush of a misplaced candle.
At least the world was kind enough to leave behind reimbursement. Jimmy plucked through the wreckage for the pinecones with the bucket he used to put out the last flames while Tango hissed and smoldered. Quite literally, his hair in a war dance despite no enemy to burn. Not one that could be, anyways.
“I wasn’t anywhere near the walls!” Tango grumbled when Jimmy sat down beside him.
He patted Tango’s shoulder, using his wing to pull him into a half-hug. “There, there, my friend.” He wished he could say it was not the man’s fault.
A kettle-ish sigh escaped Tango as he slouched into the comfort. “Maybe it was for the better, with how ugly it was. I’m not good at this.”
“Don’t say that!” Jimmy insisted.
Tango seemed not to understand though, muttering under his breath words that had no need to be heard. Gleeful hysterics danced on the wind. He grabbed Tango’s shoulder’s, reorienting the man, before cupping his face, leaving gaps around his ears pointed towards Jimmy so no other mischievous voices might be heard. “It was a lovely home. It was young and full of character, and I loved it. Say you loved it too?”
Once he had gotten over the embarrassment, Tango’s face fell. “It was a foot tower, Jim. Do you really want to live in a foot tower?”
“If you made it, then absolutely!” He snapped. He felt the cold shiver of regret tickle his spine as the laughter grew louder. No, it was not a lie, but Tango didn’t deserve this.
Luckily, Tango made it irrelevant, “Well thank you, but I think I’m done trying.” He buried his face into Jimmy’s shoulder, ears red when Jimmy’s hands moved away from them.
“I can build it!” He quickly assured. He would make his friend the loveliest house in this world. To prove his words, he ran back over to the rotting remains of Tango’s foot tower, tearing out a plank that had yet to be entirely consumed by moss or burrowing beetles.
He sat down beside Tango once more, who leaned in curiously, allowing Jimmy to reach into his breast pocket and pluck out a pencil. He started to scratch up a sign. “We will have a home, the two of us. See, this is the first plank! Home of …” He hesitated and turned sheepishly to Tango with the widest eyes he could muster. “Oh, could I have your name again?” He asked, wings vibrating out so no one else might hear.
Tango raised an eyebrow, then burst into laughter. “Oh! Oh, my void. little buddy. If you forgot my name you could have just asked, I get it. I forget people’s names all the time. Here.” Jimmy whined as the plank was stolen from him, then the pen. Tango printed out the sign himself, sketching out his name, before handing it back to Jimmy. “I’m sure you’ll make a perfect home.”
It looked like chicken scratch, but there it was, the most beautiful thing Jimmy had seen in a long time. Jimmy thought his heart might leap into his throat from the excitement and hugged the board close to his chest.
It wasn’t until Jimmy was painting the details in with the nicest paint brush he didn’t own that he realized the outline said ‘Tagno’ instead. The world laughed, and he nearly cried.
He put it up anyways, right beside the door of their perfect home. Small, but cozy, and vastly beyond Jimmy’s capabilities. Tango was still his, even if the first home burnt down, even if temporarily. That cheered him up, if only a bit.
When Tango complained of having porridge for the seventh something in a row they agreed to make a barn as well. After it was built, and Jimmy had shaved off the toe-like edges of the roof, Tango went one direction and Jimmy went the other. Tango returned with a basket full of colourful chicken eggs ready to hatch that day, and Jimmy brought back a quartet of cow eggs that hatched the next day.
Life went on. They wake just as the sun was in the same place it always was, make a lovely breakfast, play with the animals, replant the garden, put together some ridiculous idea of Tango’s, and laugh together when the world tore it apart in a tantrum. When Tango decided it was time for bed, because even if it took him longer to remember to do them each time he refused to let his habits slip , they would curl up in their nest together and cuddle until at least one fell asleep.
Jimmy could not remember being so happy. He wasn’t sure he ever had been. Tango was his for at least a quarter of forever, and he would relish every moment of it.
Of course, though, he was not the one who got to decide how long forever was, and after all. Tango was only a guest, as he said.
“I think I was searching for something.” Tango whispered one day, matching the whispers around them.
Jimmy felt his wings tense to his back, dropping the daisy crown he’d been weaving for the new goats. “Is that so?”
“Yeah, I was looking for something special, something important that I needed.”
“Did you find it?” It was too hopeful, one that was squashed immediately by the knitting of Tango’s brows.
“I’m not sure. I hope so.”
That was enough. The world stopped teasing Jimmy, satisfied with the shake in his hands. Jimmy took the reprieve to grasp Tango’s hands in his own and pull them close to his chest. “Tango, I’ve forgotten again, could you give me your name?”
Tango snorted, eyebrow now raised. He made so many funny and wonderful expressions. “Jimmy, you just said it.”
“Right. Sorry.” His voice came out shakier than intended as he dropped his hands. The world laughed.
Silence fell again. Then, “I wonder if my old home is still there.”
“I don’t remember it totally, but I remember little things. The broom sweeping the halls, the stone arches, the hideous carpet that refused to sit still, the big iron cauldron of who-knows-what making whatever-it-was.”
“It sounds nice.” No, it didn’t. It sounded like a place Jimmy couldn’t be.
“Yeah. It was. I miss it.” Tango sighed. There was a pause, Jimmy watching with terror tearing his heart out of his chest as Tango opened his mouth.
“I hope...” His voice cracked, and he shook his head.
Jimmy’s hands snapped onto Tango’s arms, knuckles as white as his face.
Tango’s eyes grew wide, staring back into Jimmy’s desperate gaze. It was too late, the words had been spoken, and the world was all too happy to make Jimmy aware. Golden bars split through the clouds, becoming painfully visible in the sky above. Jimmy couldn’t look at them, even as Tango did. A choked sob tore from his throat.
“What…” Tango stammered, yanking himself out of Jimmy’s slumped grip. “What’s that? That-”
The wind told him before Jimmy could put together some excuse, some argument of why they should be ignored. It was the door. Unlatched, ready to let one of them leave whenever he wanted, now that the key had been used.
Tango turned back to Jimmy. “Did you know?”
“Yes.” He wasn’t clever enough to create a convenient truth.
“Whu- We could leave at any time? Why didn’t you say anything?” Tango jumped up, already looking for how to reach the gold that stood in contrast to the colourless grey clouds collecting around it. What was kept out had already begun to flood back in, a series of revelations and memories flowing through the world back to their owner.
“You don’t have to go.” Jimmy insisted, following Tango up to reach out for him once more. “Let’s head back. What do you want for supper?”
Tango shook his head. “I don’t want supper. I want to go home!”
“Home?” A wing pointed hopefully back towards the ranch, whose bricks were already crumbling, wood splintering, shingles rattling.
“No!” A strike of thunder rolled past, raising his voice to the heavens. “My real home! I want to finish my mission, I want to see my ravagers, I want to lea-”
Tango finally paused, caught between indignation and confusion. It softened only slightly, when Jimmy felt the first plop of rain hit his cheek. He wrapped his own hands around Jimmy’s wrists, taking his hands into Tango’s own. “Jimmy, let’s just go.”
“I can’t!” He cried, voice warbling. Rain beat down, turning the fields to mud. A crack rang out behind Jimmy, and he couldn’t look but he watched the ranch house crumble to the earth in the reflection of Tango’s eyes. He swallowed the lump in his throat, wondering if the world had decided to fill it with frogs again as a cruel joke, just when he needed his words the most.
“I can’t leave.” He tried to explain, raising his drenched wings. “This is my world. I can’t leave.”
Cages weren’t meant to let birds out whenever they pleased. The world was no different.
But Jimmy underestimated how stubborn a man could be.
Tango looked enraged now, and for a moment Jimmy flinched away before he realized it was not directed towards him. “It was you. I was looking for you.”
“It’s a bit late for flattery.” The frogs in Jimmy’s voice croaked. The world around him roared, the rain nothing more than laughter and jabs to his heart, one for every eternity he’d spent in the world. “No one looks for death. You do everything you can to stay away.”
“I’m not- Jim.” He sighed. Hands cupped his face, gliding over his ears until all Jimmy could hear was Tango’s heartbeat. It was like being blind to a creature like Tango. His mouth began to move, slow, deliberate, like Jimmy’s had that first encounter. They formed five simple words.
This was entirely rude and unfair. “You know it’s Jimmy.” He said petulantly.
It made Tango laugh. Though Jimmy couldn’t hear it, but he could feel the rumble through Tango’s palms and see the scrunch of his eyes and feel the hot air that barely brushed his nose. He could go without his hearing, Jimmy thought for a moment. As long as he had Tango. Jimmy's face was brought a bit closer. Six words formed this time that caused the winds to whip angrily around them in some attempt to whisk them away.
Can I have your true name?
It wouldn’t help, Jimmy was sure. The world had more than just his name, what could a man hope to do with it? Still, Jimmy felt it fall from his lips anyways.
A toothy grin stretched across Tango’s face, as his fingers began to trace something against his temple. His eyes glowed a deep, frosty blue that Jimmy could feel in his bones. Jimmy felt something inside himself pull, and pull, and pull-
He squawked indignantly as he realized what it was Tango drew out with the runes, but it was too late. Suddenly the sound was back, and the rain stung flesh. It was too loud, too painful, too everything. Foreign heat pulsed deep in their core. Jimmy became dizzy, falling right into Tango’s arms.
Then it all stopped. The air was stagnant, and the only sound was a steady, distant drip. Jimmy felt almost too warm, but cozy, nestled in right where he should be. Or so his soul assured him. Despite this, he couldn’t breathe, or rather, he felt the exertion of holding his breath. There was the thin clatter of metal against metal, and then he was moving.
Jimmy dared pry open his senses for only a moment through the sudden exhaustion he had not felt in a long, long time, and watched as a little golden birdcage on a stone was slowly swallowed by the darkness. He felt himself soon follow.
Jimmy woke up to something slamming into his knee, and tearing a shriek from- not him. This was enough to wake him fully. He was trapped, confined, and even if it felt like home the need to flee filled him. He spread his wings and took off without thinking. He smacked his head into a hanging pot for his troubles.
“Void, Jim, give a guy a warning!” Tango gasped out above him.
Jimmy opened his eyes to an unfamiliar roof of stone and red wood. Everything one could imagine hanging from a ceiling and more dangled on ropes and string and heavy iron chains, rattling from when he had hit them. Tango’s face replaced the sight, his eyes and hair now a matching blue and looking far too large, as he held out his palm.
Jimmy flipped his tiny body over with a shake of his poor wings. Little orange talon clinked against the wood floorboards, and a confused chirp escaped from his beak. He hopped up into Tango hand, nesting comfortably with no intent to try and fly once more.
Tango laughed. “Look at you, birdy! Just when you thought you couldn’t get cuter.”
His feathers fluffed up around him. Tango laughed again.
They made their way through the room, Tango tripping over several of his own possessions and causing both to squeak in fright and pain each time. There was a tiny little round table in the corner with two matching chairs, upon which were stacks of paper and trinkets that promptly moved to the floor via boot. After some more fumbling an old scarf took up its place.
“Can you, uh, change back yet?” Tango asked, placing Jimmy on the scarf. He lifted an enormous witch’s hat up off the ground and onto his head before joining the bird, by which time Jimmy had prodded the scarf into a nest. Jimmy tilted his head, then shook it. A thought occurred then, though, and he peeped at Tango until he got the picture and put out his finger for Jimmy to rest his beak to.
Are you there? His own voice rang out in their mind.
Tango smiled. “Yeah, I’m here.”
“Ow!” Tango shrieked, yanking his hand back from the sharper-than-it-looked beak, while Jimmy began twittering away, wings flapping in a huff.
How dare you! How dare you bind me to your soul without asking, you sleazy witch! What do you take me for, an impulsive imp?
Tango winced. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry! It worked, though, didn’t it? If we had the same soul then it had to let you leave! And, you know, I get what I came for as a bonus.”
Jimmy whistled indignantly, settling into a fluffy, pouting lump among the colourful wool.
It did but it’s rude and dangerous! You should ask before you make a fae your familiar!
“Well, I was going to, but then your cage locked out my memories when I opened it and-” Tango sighed, slumping against the table. “I heard there was a powerful fae down in those mines that’d be good for dark magic, but I didn’t think you’d be so much work.”
You shouldn’t complain if you have what you wanted, then. Jimmy turned his beak up.
Tango stuck out his tongue, then giggled. “I could say the same to you, Jimbo.”
The air settled. Jimmy felt his energy leave him once more. He had so little left in him after all that, his magic felt almost atrophied from the cage’s effects. From the way Tango’s eyes drooped and the heaviness of their tied souls he imagined Tango felt the same. He hopped up to Tango, up onto his arm, and buried his face into his chest.
Thank you. For not leaving without me.
A warm hand cupped the bird closer to Tango’s chest. “Let’s get some sleep, Jim. We have a big week ahead of us.”
Jimmy cooed in agreement. They settled into a single bed shoved inside a tiny closet. With the very last of his strength he knew he would later regret using he took on his human face. Tango seemed surprised only as long as it took Jimmy to bundle him up in his arms and wings. He’d likely lose form before the morning and return to Tango, but for now he cherished his new soulmate.
dededos
2087
snowghoul
kaledo-art
