Edge kept walking, fuming. Red followed along with a yawn, hands in the pocket of his robes.
“c'mon, chief,” Red prodded, “y'gotta say who’s there.”
“WHO'S THERE?” Edge growled.
“femur."
Edge abruptly stopped to whip around, glaring. “FEMUR WHO?”
Red grinned. “i got a femur jokes on me for the road.”
“YOU’VE MADE THAT STUPID JOKE TEN TIMES ALREADY!” Edge summoned a sharp, white bone, snarling. “YOU FUCKER—”
Something bright and glowing swooped above his brother’s head, and then it dropped something. A red and bright thing slapped on Edge skull. Red watched with wide sockets as a berry slipped down his brother’s face, stopping on his cheekbone. It left a trail of red slime, marking his brother’s face.
Edge lifted a shaking hand to his face. “WHAT… WHAT THE HELL IS IT?” He sounded horrified, as if expecting the worst.
Red covered his mouth. “i think it’s… i think it, uh, WAS a berry.” Shit, don’t laugh. Don’t laugh.
“YOU, BIRD!!!” Edge roared, pointing at the copse of trees at the side of the road. “YOU’RE GOING TO BE DINNER!”
Red cracked up, wheezing, glancing at the trees. The little white bird stooped on the branch of a tree and spread its wings as if announcing its presence. It looked… really pretty, as if… the feathers were glowing. Its eyes weren’t a regular black, but a glowing white encased in a thick dark line—wasn’t that a light bird?
Abruptly, Red froze. “ya can’t!” he blurted at his brother.
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN, I CAN’T?” Edge groused, banishing the bone attack. He crossed his arms. “IF IT LOOKS LIKE THAT, IT'S ENOUGH TO FEED US!”
Red’s mind conjured an image of his brother trapped in Asgore’s dungeon. “chief, no, that’s a light bird.”
Edge frowned. “WHY IS THAT IMPORTANT?”
A light bird. A critically endangered light bird. Red looked at the bird one more time to confirm it. The pretty bird’s body glowed, its wispy wings fluttering as it hopped from branch to branch. It chirped at them, and its feathers rippled with magic.
Red started sweating. Dinner shouldn’t be a critically endangered light bird.
“it’s a light bird,” Red told his brother, the guy who basically followed the law down to its roots. “you can’t do shit to it unless you want to die. they’re basically a protected specie. they’re critically—” Red stressed the word “—endangered.”
Edge glared at the light bird, eyelights fiercely glowing. “IT DROPPED A BERRY ON MY SKULL. IT’S LUCKY ENOUGH TO SURVIVE ME ON THE FIRST DAY.”
Red stole a glance at the tree. “you could try being friends with it.”
The critically endangered light bird released a warbling trill that made it sound like it was laughing. Red grinned at it, chuckling. Yeah, it would be ridiculous for Edge to befriend a bird that dropped a berry on him.
“I DOUBT A BIRD LIKE THAT WOULD BE GOOD IN CONVERSATIONS,” Edge scoffed, and then patted down his uniform. Worry marred his features, causing the lumpy berry to fall onto the ground. “DID IT STAIN?”
“nothing but your skull has berry slime.”
Edge took a deep breath and hissed. If looks could kill, the light bird on the tree branch would be dead. “I'LL GO FIND THAT DAMNED CREEK I KEEP HEARING. WAIT HERE!”
Red watched as his brother stomped away. He disappeared between the trees, at the opposite side of the light bird. “or, you could just… magic up some water?” he mumbled. Was Edge trying to save magic for the scholarship entrance exam?
A resonant trill caught his attention. Red glanced up, and nearly gaped. The tree closest to him gained a new light bird tenant on its branch.
Red felt like his soul was exposed under its steady gaze.
Red gulped and hoped the light bird didn’t pick him as its next berry victim. It just kept looking at him with eyes that glowed with magic… white magic.
It looked strong despite being the perfect size to perch in Red’s hand.
Red cleared his intangible throat. “…you, uh, hang up there often?” he asked, warily.
The light bird made tremulous sound that made it seem like it was laughing. Maybe the light bird though he was funny. Red decided he was safe from berry slop. For now.
He grinned, hesitantly. “well? you, uh, gonna leaf me hanging?”
The light bird released the same laughing trills, and nearly slipped off the branch. Red perked up, seeing it cling upside-down, like a bat. He didn’t know light birds could do that.
“heh, i guess you like jokes, huh?” The light bird looked at him and warbled weakly, hanging on the branch like a tree ornament. The lights in its eyes glowed, almost sparkling. Red grinned wide. “ya still haven’t answered me. i guess i'm barking up the wrong tree.”
This time, Red expected the trills. The light bird made the same laughing sound so hard the branch he was on shook vigorously. Red started laughing with it.
“wait, wait, i got some more,” he wheezed, “but, uh, there’s only tree of ‘em.” The light bird released a sharp cry.
Red gasped when the light bird let go of the branch, falling onto the puff of dead leaves on the ground. It kept making the same sound as before, so Red figured it was okay. When it stopped laughing, it wobbled up to sit, shifting in the pile of leaves, neck stretched out and eyes trained at him, expectant.
Well. It wasn’t always that Red had an audience.
“you’re not gonna make like a tree and leaf, are ya?”
The light bird fell over, and Red watched it lose its mind. It made a small pit in the pile of dead leaves, rolling around. Red kept laughing, wiping the tears from his eye sockets.
After a few seconds, it shuddered, and then sat back up, chirping at him. Red assumed it wanted another joke.
“so, did it hurt when ya fell from heaven?” Red winked, and the light bird raised its wings, as if showing off that it was completely healthy from its fall. Red chuckled, grin softening. “that’s not what i meant, you numbskull.”
The light bird trilled at him, tilting its head.
“what, you don’t how to flirt?”
Red flinched when the light bird’s wispy feathers sharpened. It flew up, so quick that Red thought it was faster than a fire geyser explosion. It landed back on the branch, wings spread out and body puffed up. There were darker patterns on the underside of its wings, like sharp, four-pointed stars.
“wait, did i offend ya?” Red trembled, eyelights trained on it. The light bird tilted its head and warbled low, a soothing low that had Red’s soul calming at the sound. “so, uh, that’s a no? ‘cause ya look… uh, threatening.”
The light bird hopped down to a lower branch, body not puffed up anymore. Red found himself admiring its magic feathers made of light. Its eyes were glowing in the same colour, sparkling at him. The light bird spread its wings, and Red found himself staring as the light bird’s white plumage shifted, becoming a dark blue with yellows and blacks and light blues. On each wing, there was an eye-shaped spot of yellow with a dark center.
“wow,” Red breathed out. Okay, the light bird proved him wrong. Was it—was this flirting? “yeah, you’re really pretty.”
Then the light bird stooped down and crooned, deep and low. It looked as if it was beckoning him closer, wings shifting subtly, shimmering with magic.
It looked so beautiful. Red had never seen anything like it.
They stared at each other, until the light bird blinked, along with the yellow spots on its wings. Red jerked back with a gasp. The light bird crooned several times, like it was chuckling. It folded its wings back, tucked into a less flirty bird.
Startled by his pounding soul, Red found himself blushing. “o-okay, you win,” he stammered. How… Had the light bird understood him? Now that he thought of it, he’d been joking around with a light bird for a while.
The light bird tilted its head and trilled. Then, its feathers shifted back to white. Red found himself missing the colours, but then…
“so, you’re a guy bird, huh?” Bright and colourful plumage was a sign for male birds, Red knew that much. As a light bird, this guy could probably pretend to be a female bird and get away with it. “your feathers looked really pretty. i bet you get all the lady birds fall for ya.”
The light bird warbled at him and hopped up a few branches higher. Red followed its movements, sighing when it disappeared under more leaves and branches.
“well, i guess you have other things to do, too.”
Before he could take a step forward, he heard the flutter of wings and saw something drop in front of him.
Red crouched down, eyelights taking in the shiny, soul-shaped white stone on the ground. He reached out, taking it into his palm.
There was magic in the small stone. No, it wasn’t a just a stone, this was… Wasn’t this basically an enchanted stone? A rare stone, worth a lot of gold.
“is this for me?” he croaked.
He heard the trill of the light bird and looked up. It had perched on a bush next to him, watching him.
Okay. This was obviously normal enough, right? Light birds dropped rare stones on the ground in front of people. Totally normal. They also flirted with skeletons like him and understood what he meant by flirting.
…shit, that wasn’t normal. Maybe that’s why they were endangered. Red shuddered. Maybe they were so smart that some people domesticated them. This light bird knew how to listen to someone and understood him enough to mess with him.
The light bird chirped, as if asking him what he thought of the stone.
“t-thanks, sweetheart.” The light bird froze in place, and Red witnessed him quickly start grooming the underside of his wing, hiding his head. “it looks really pretty.”
Red checked the stone again, lifting it above his head. It shimmered gently, revealing a clearer view of its center.
It wasn’t a stone.
It was an enchanted crystal worth more than thousands of enchanted stones.
Red figured he must be dreaming. Maybe he was seeing things? A critically endangered bird laughed at his jokes and flirted back at him—that wasn’t normal, right? Right, it was a dream.
“RED!”
The light bird swiftly sprung up and flew away. Red wilted as it disappeared through the trees. He caught a tell-tale of shimmering light, but it was covered by so many leaves. He assumed the light bird could see him better.
“RED, GET OVER HERE!”
“yeah, yeah – hold your bones down.” Red went over to his brother, pocketing the crystal. His brother held a tattered parchment, glaring at it. “gonna be late, chief?”
“I’VE FOUND A MAP, SOMEONE TOLD ME THERE WOULD BE A GOOD SHORTCUT THIS WAY!” Edge pointed at something on the map.
Red sighed, and then threw one last look at the trees, searching for the light bird.
