WHUMPMAS IN JULY DAY THREE ― prompt: love
@whumpmasinjuly here’s a short ficlet of elsie before he was elsie -- when he was saker, a hunting fey snatched from his coastal home and caged at a London penthouse.
CONTENT WARNINGS ― creepily intimate whumper, broken bones, pet whump, elsie’s screwy headspace
TAGGING ― @doveotions and @wildfaewhump ― if you don’t want to be tagged, please let me know! or alternatively, if you do want to be tagged...
“Come here. Come here, my little love --” Mistress’ voice cuts into Saker’s fitful sleep, pulling him back to reality. Back to his cage, the bars biting awkwardly into the space between his wings.
She’s not going to ask twice; a second time is all but a promise of punishment, a warning crackling through the cold, morning air. She’s not going to ask twice, just call him bad, and he doesn’t want to be bad. He wants to be good -- it’s all he has left, the only success he can cling to.
He wants to be good, but he’s so tired, the rain soaking through his feathers and dribbling over his skin, tearing exhausted shivers from him. Shuffling from his corner to the door takes all of his strength. Even more with his broken, useless legs; each movement sends a jolt of agony through them, no matter how much of the weight he takes by dragging himself along with his hands.
Pathetic. Back home, he should be dead; the sea doesn’t tolerate weakness, and neither does the sky, or his roost-mates. He doesn’t even remember their names: the realisation is numb, a dull grief nestled beneath his sternum. As much as he misses them, he knows they’d be disgusted with him now -- disgust, he likes that word, the word for bitter, bird-eye black berries -- a fey reduced to begging from a human.
They’d probably kill him, call it a mercy. For him, or for them -- he isn’t worthy of being a fey, isn’t worthy to share the same blood as those wild, snaggle-toothed falcons. Full-bloods, not dirty stains on the lineage like him. And if he isn’t worthy of being a fey, what is he worthy of? Not this, certainly. He should be grateful to Mistress; if she wanted a hunter, she could’ve taken one of his roost-mates, stronger and fiercer, but she chose him. Broken, pathetic little Saker, who has to right to the cliff he nests on, no right to the sea he skims over, no right to the sky he keens to. She gave him an opportunity to be good, to be better.
He’ll always be thanking her for that.
At last, Saker reaches the door, slumping against it. Panting from even that short journey; he knows she needs him for another hunt, but his exhaustion is bone-deep, almost rivalling his desire to be good.
“That’s it, little love,” murmurs Mistress, reaching through the bars to run her fingers through his hair. He keens softly, nuzzling into the touch. She’s so very good to him, far better than a scraped-out excuse for a falcon deserves: her fingers dip down, scraping along the nape of his neck, finding the spot, the place that fills his body with fluttery warmth as she scratches. “Good boy.”
Saker tilts his head a little, giving her a better angle. The sensation makes him coo, a bubbling, throaty sound marred only by how painfully raw his throat feels. Whatever a boy is, he doesn’t understand -- it’s not something Mistress thinks he needs to know, so he’s happy being ignorant. Happy knowing she only says it when he’s being good.
Little love: there’s another word he doesn’t quite understand. Separately, yes, they make sense -- little means winkles and cockles, handful after handful like jewels. Love means sharing a nest, pluck pluck plucking as you groom someone’s wings. But together? How can something as big as love, as expansive as the star-spangled night sky, be folded and fitted into something so small as a winkle? How can it refer to him?
He feels her hand move, drawing away from his special spot, and knows better than to whine. The first time Mistress found it, all he wanted was for her to keep going -- but Mistress gets tired, the storm of her anger rolling in, her lightning-stick crackling. There’s still a patch of raw skin there, taking the edge off the special spot’s euphoria. Reminding him that any comfort is more than he deserves.
What comes next is familiar: the rustle of fabric, the hood slipping over Saker’s head. Familiar, but he still tenses, a shudder twisting down his spine. Afraid -- in his tongue, it means staring at death. Now it’s just staring at darkness.
“Right, out you come” The door opens, a clank that rings through his ears, making him shudder and hiss as he shuffles blindly towards the sound of Mistress’ voice. “Time for a hunt, my little love.”
Somehow, he manages to find the strength to follow her voice, slumping a little as she attaches his jesses. The thought of the hunt is overwhelming, a wave about to crash and drag him under -- but he wants to please her, so desperately. He wants to be her little love.
