And Back To The Creation Nest
As the time passes by I have set the flower crown down on the table and put on another that is more suited for what I have to wear around the castle. Keeping up appearance can be rather extinguishing. I’d much rather wear the avian’s gift.
I watch the avian as he seems to be inhaling the food that I had brought over to him. I have never seen someone look so hungry. I wave an employee down as I request for them to bring over more food as it is obvious to me that he will still want to eat after this.
“My Lady, you shouldn’t be with someone so unkept and willing to gore himself like that.” The butler whispers to me as if he was stating an obvious fact.
I snap my head and hold back the physical recoil of being called a lady. But more importantly the rage that I feel for the words spoken about someone that has clearly been through a lot and probably has not had time to eat or even take care of himself settles in showing in a more obvious way. “How dare you question what I want to do. How dare you question the company I choose to keep.” As I scold the butler I clench my hands as I feel sparks flying from my body and snapping.
The butler sighs as he places his hand on my shoulder and I recoil to his touch. “My Lady, I am just worried about you and your image.”
My image? For some reason the idea that anyone here cares about something like that is wild to me. They never have before, so why would they now. Where was this care when I was being accused of the murder of my parents. No, I will keep him here. I remove the golden crown embedded with amethyst off my head and place the flower crown of alliums on my head as to make a point. “You are dismissed for today, but I refuse to have someone question me the way that you are. If you dare question what I do again you may leave this premise.”
The butler opens his mouth to possibly argue back but seems to choose to stay quiet. He bows before taking off and a maid drops by another bowl of soup for the bird in front of me.
He looks right at me as if he might be trying to figure something out. What that could be, I am not sure but he seems to be able to speak after swallowing the last bite of his last meal. “I can go if I would be causing you problems. I don’t have to stay here.”
I look into his amethyst eyes that seem to be on the verge of breaking but something inside of him seems to stop him from actually crying. I point at his flower crown that he had made just recently that is on top of my head as I give him a gentle smile trying to sooth his emotions some that are probably running like a wild fire that he is barely able to keep under control.
“I put on the crown that you made me. How could I think that my new friend could ever be a burden. You are someone that I will protect. That is of my own choice, so you don’t need to feel as if you are ever causing problems.”
His gaze casts to the side but it lands on the new bowl of soup that was placed in front of him. “I’ll try and eat this one slower. And Lu.”
I give him a smile as his eyes seem to waver. “Yes, what is it Phee?”
“Thank you. I don’t need protection but I am not actually the strongest out there.” He takes his first bite of his new bowl soup and moves it around in his mouth as if to savior the taste.
“Of course you don’t need protection. But I can provide for you where you may fall short.” If I don’t provide for someone that is in need or someone that I want to consider a friend, what good am I? Is all that goes through my head as I see him finally swallowing.
“It is more of that I can’t take much of a beating myself. I do have physical strength.” His voice seemed quiet as if admitting that is some type of sin. Yet it came out and he was sitting here as if he was fighting some instinct to flee.
“Little Allium. Please, breath, you are safe here.” I don’t know what he went through but he seems to be panicked about something.
I watch as he takes a deep breath and exhales. “You aren’t just saying things to control me right? Will I really be safe here? Singing sweet nothings into my ears as if you know my deepest desires. Sounds crazy but that is how you sound at the moment. Someone that isn’t looking for courtship, and you are looking for friendship instead. You also seem to know about the avian so it wouldn’t be that far for you to know that we are very susceptible to how persuasive other races might be. We tend not to be sailors as we are more easily convinced to be taken away by a siren sing to us.” He pauses and then looks back up to me with tears streaming down his face. “You aren’t trying to control me, right?”
A pang in my chest wells up as I see him unable to hold back his tears that he was holding onto. They all seem to want to escape at once. But even though he seems to be holding back. The avian are normally not aware of that flaw to the extent that he seems to be. “Who hurt-” I stop my sentence there. If I don’t answer his question he’ll think that I just want to use him. “No, I would never try and control someone like that. I just need to know a lot about different races, given my position.”
“I see.” His voice trails off.
Did I say the wrong thing? No, maybe I didn’t but clearly he has been hurt by someone that he trusted before. “Allium, wait here. I will be back in a few.” As I get up and walk away I feel his eyes on me as he possibly watches me walk to the next room.
As I walk into a living space I bend down to pick up the gems that seem to glisten in the chest that keeps them safe. There are many different colors to these gems mostly purple, red, green, and black. They are all magic crystals produced by this kingdom. However, people around aren’t very skilled at activating them. I take a handful of them and bring them back to the table and sit next to Phoenix as he seems to jump.
“I’m back Phee.” As I place the gems down I can see how much he is shaking. I don’t know what happened to put him on edge like this, but it makes me feel bad for any strife that he might have gone through. “Do you need me to move away Allium?”
His head seems to snap up at the sound of my voice. “What? Oh, yeah, maybe not so close to me, sorry.”
“No need to be sorry.” I scoot a little farther away as I sort through the gems analyzing what spells they have embedded into them. I settle for some rubys that have some healing and defense buffs attached to them. “Can I see the crown you made for yourself?”
His eyes seem to look up from the table and notices the gems and golden thread that I carry with me in my hands. “What are those for?” Phoenix eyes the red in my hands as if it was possibly something to be feared.
“These gems have spells embedded into them. I just sorted them by spell and wanted to give them to you.”
“What kind of spell do those have?”
I look at the gems in my hand and then back at the avian in front. “These are defense and recovery boosting spells. I can’t craft much by hand but I wanted to embed these into your crown.”
He seems to look intently look at the gems in my hand then back down at the table with the others. “Can I put the purple ones in yours?"
I nod and push aside the amethyst gems that glisten with the light fixture above hitting them in the right spot that shows their value even to an untrained eye. I don’t even pay attention to what the spells are that the gems are in-tuned to. I just know that the ones meant to cause harm are in a separate storage container. I would not ever keep that container out where people can easily access it either. “Do you want me to cut the golden thread too?”
As Phoenix looks at the gold that is on the spool he slowly nods and I provide what he needs. “Can... Can I also just have some it looks so nice and I have an instinctual desire to hold onto pretty things.”
I give him a smile as the avian seems to want to just not take. But he seems to also be in some nesting stage at the moment. “How much do you need little bird?”
His eyes are fixated on it as he seems to not be able to respond for a while as what he is wanting to say is probably being processed in his head. “I want to say all of it, but that is probably too much.”
I conger up a spell and access my stuff in the magically created dimension and pull out another golden spool. “Here, you can have this one.”
As the avian in front of me takes the thread he looks it over as if to inspect that it is the same thing. He looks up at me as if there is a wave of caution and weariness that has over come his body as I observe what appears to be his muscles tensing up and the motions in his tattered feathered wings cease. “You have to have some motive. What do you want?”
I close my eyes as I think about what I would have wanted. I do believe it is just a desire for connection and he seems like a good person from what I can tell. “I wasn’t really wanting anything other then friendship. I am normally so busy that I don’t always have people to talk to. You seem like nice company.”
Phoenix hesitates to take the thread as he looks at it as if the string is the most valuable thing in the world to him. “Thank you.” His voice was quiet and he looks at the spool that he just took. “You are telling me the truth right, you don’t want to just use me?”
“I can’t lie. At least, not well.” I cut the gold thread on the other spool and hand it to him as he seems to be at a loss watching what I am doing to his flower crown and the gems seeming to imitate my motions.
“Then, if, if you don’t want anything from me besides that, then then, prove it to me!” The avian finished the crown before I did.
“How can I do that little bird?” I ask as I cast a sealing spell on both the crowns so the gems don’t fall out of the string and flowers.
“Can you, do something for me?”
I look right at him as he seems to be nervous while I pass him the crown. “Of course, what do you want?”
“Can... you prune the dead feathers off my wings? They have been keeping be rather grounded.”
“Of course! Come here. Move closer and turn around Phee.”
“Right.” He turns around and I see his wings shake as if this was something he might not have wanted to do but he was trying to trust me.
“We don’t have to do this if you really don’t want to.”
“No, I’ll be alright. Please, just having my back to someone is difficult because I can’t see them.”
I decide not to pry as I shift my hands through the feathers on his wings. “Let me know if it gets to be too much little bird. We can stop at any time.”
The motion in his wings stop as he looks back slightly. “Thank you.”
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
So if I remember when this goes live I will create a master post for this specifically. It will also be in As I am projecting this to probably have around 30-40 chapters. It will just make it easier for others to find the chapter they left off on or in case someone falls behind and wants to catch up. Anyways, Hope that you all enjoyed and if you want chapters early, I release them 5 at a time to my Ko-Fi supporters. Chapters 6-10 should be up on the 29th. But chapters 1-5 are available there. <3
