Chapter 89: Those Left Behind.
Ren ran through the village square, her hand in another's. The hand was warm. The sun's light was soft. She ran between the great huts, past other children, past smiling villagers.
"Edda, come 'ere!" she said. There was laughter behind her, and the footsteps chased faster.
A hut waited at the end of the path, and her mother stood outside it. Ren drew near, and the woman bent down to meet her. There was a smile there. There always was. Ren looked up, beaming. Her mother's hand reached out and brushed Ren's temple. The touch was slow. Comforting. Her mother's eyes were kind. Her mother's mouth opened.
Chirrp!
Ren blinked. That was strange. Her mother's mouth opened again.
Chirrp!
Ren woke to a pair of enormous golden eyes staring down at her. They did not blink, but they certainly judged. The bird let out another chirp, loud enough that her whole tiny body trembled with it. For a long moment, all they did was stare at each other.
"Hey, get-"
Solara leaned forward and pecked Ren's chin. Hard enough to hurt.
"Ow! Damn it!" Ren shot upright. The bird tumbled to the side of the bed with an indignant chirp of her own. It was early. Early enough that the room sat in that dimness that lived between night and morning. The room's only lantern had burned out hours ago.
The bird righted herself. She flared all four wings wide and opened her beak, and Ren saw the glow gathering at the back of that tiny throat. She raised both hands.
"Hey! Hey! Calm the hell down!"
The bird did not calm down. Those wings only beat faster, and this time she squawked, in what was unmistakably a threat.
This was not supposed to happen. The bird had woken up too early. Edda was supposed to take Solara to the Beast Hall while she still slept. The only reason Ren had agreed to keep her overnight at all was that Edda shared her room and Ren did not, and at the time that had sounded smart. It did not sound smart now.
"Listen," Ren said quickly. "She's uh- Lysanthia and Ash are-" She raised one finger. "They're both gone for a few days. So all you have to do is-"
There was flame, and it bathed the room in white.
Ren leapt off the bed just in time, and only because she had been watching for it. She turned. The backrest of her bed now had a hole the size of Ren's fist punched clean through it. It was still smoking. Thank the Divine the blast had ended there. The bird had already turned to face her, wings still flared wide. She loosed another blast.
Ren raised her hand. Her Sigil answered. Two flames met in the middle of the room, orange against orange, and Ren winced. Hers was losing. Hers was losing to a bird that could fit inside a soup bowl. Ren stopped thinking about how little sense that made and pulled more Essence through her mark. It filled her, and only then did the two flames balance in the center of the room. Five seconds. Ten. Then she felt the bird's flame gutter out.
Ren lowered her hand, breathing harder than she should have been. Solara glared at her with those enormous golden eyes, loosed one furious squawk, and flew. She flew for the door.
"Oh no you don't!"
Ren leapt. The bird's wings flapped once and Ren missed her by a feather. She launched again, higher this time, but Solara had dipped, and Ren sailed clean over her and hit the floor in a heap. By then the bird had reached the door. She landed in front of it and stood there, wings folded, staring up at the wood.
Fine. It was fine. It wasn't like the bird could-
Light flared. Ren shielded her eyes, and when she opened them again, there was a very bird-sized hole in her door. Solara tucked her wings. And then she rolled through it.
Ren stared for one stunned moment. "Hey! You! Get the hell back here!"
By the time Ren made it into the corridor, the bird was already halfway down it. Still rolling. She fetched up against a student's boot and came to a stop, and the dark haired boy looked down at his own foot.
"What-"
Solara chirped up at him. Then she chirped again demanding something in a language the poor bastard didn't speak. Ren crossed the distance in three strides, scooped the bird up, and stepped back. Solara was already twisting in her grip. Ren adjusted her hold.
"Don't mind her," Ren said, retreating. Then she turned and ran before the bird could break free.
The bird twisted out of her grip almost as soon as the door opened. Her wings beat fast and for a few seconds she was flying. Ren pointed a finger at her. "Listen to me, Sol. You are going to be bloody reasonable. I didn't sign up for this b-"
Solara's beak opened. Ren saw the glow at the back of her throat and threw herself sideways. Then the bird fell, but her flame came anyway. It went straight up instead of at her, and it burned a hole through the ceiling. Through the hole, the first sunlight of the morning peeked down in a single golden bar.
This... this was going to be a problem.
Not much was left of Ren's room by the time the door finally opened. One of the only things still left standing in the entire room was Ren's reading table, and she was pretty sure the only reason that was still left standing was because the bird wanted to look down at Ren from it.
The bird was on the table and she was chirping loudly. She'd been doing it for half an hour. Ren had tried to give her water. She had tried to give her food. Hell, she'd even tried to apologize to her for any wrong she might have ever done. The bird just kept chirping.
A lot of people must have heard. This would be another infraction, another trip to the Archon. Just great. He was the last person Ren wanted to disappoint.
So when the door creaked open, Ren turned toward it with an explanation ready. It was going to be an Inker. Hells, it might be the Archon himself. All Ren could do was pray someone believed that for the first time, it really wasn't her fault.
It was Edda who stepped inside instead. Her gaze traveled the room once, moved to Ren, then moved to Solara. She raised an eyebrow.
"Oh, thank the Divine you're here. You're late but it doesn't matter." In one moment Ren was standing, and in the next she was on her knees in front of Edda. "Please. Please do something. She won't stop screaming. Please."
The bird regarded Edda from the table with big golden eyes that did not blink. Edda raised her hands. "Hey. It's okay, Sol," she said, stepping closer. The beating wings slowed by a beat.
Ren watched her friend reach out and brush one of Sol's black feathers. The wings stopped. Sol let out a tiny chirp and pressed herself into Edda's hand.
"Oh, that's just bullshit," Ren said, rising off the floor. "Why the hell wasn't she like that with me?"
"Because you don't think first." Edda brushed the top of Sol's head with one finger. "Did you even explain to her why she's here? Or think about what she's feeling?"
Ren stared at her. "Explain? To a bird?" She threw a hand at the ruins of her ceiling. "I tried, actually! Not like she listened!"
She stepped nearer as she said it. Sol turned her back on her and Ren sighed.
"Sol," Edda said, and her voice was now very soft. "Both your mommies are gone for a few days. They left you with us, okay? We're going to take you to the Beast Hall. Lysanthia left enough food for-"
Sol let out a chirp. Then another. Then a very low one. "What's wrong with her now?" Ren sighed again.
"She wants to see them. I think," Edda said.
"Well... she can't," Ren said, arms folded. "That's why she's here in the first place. Dumb bird." Ren muttered that last part to herself.
"Maybe that's why she doesn't like you." Edda scooped Sol up into her cupped hands. "Tact, Ren." She looked down at the bird. "Come on, little Sol. I'll show you where they are." She paused. "Do you want to be on my head?"
Sol let out an angry chirp. "Okay, okay," Edda said. "I get it, I get it."
"Don't tell me you can understand her," Ren said.
"Don't tell me you can't," Edda replied. Then she looked around the room again, at the smoke still curling out through the ceiling. "I'm surprised nobody else got here first. I heard you from an entire hallway down."
Ren felt her face go warm. "Well... they know my room has a way of, uh..."
"Suddenly catching fire day to day?"
"...Yeah."
Edda nodded and turned for the door. Ren grabbed the food pouch off the shelf on the way out, because if the bird starved on her watch, there would be no grave deep enough to hide in.
The halls of the Academy were quiet. Ren had known the bird had woken them both up early, but she hadn't thought it was this early. The corridors sat empty and their footsteps were the only footsteps anywhere.
Solara lay cradled in Edda's arms, and her head moved in every direction. Her head turned in quick, jerking motions, toward every corridor mouth they passed. The chirping began again when they reached the descending passage. It was soft at first, but by the time they properly started down the long stairs toward the Crest chamber, it was loud enough to ring off the stone.
"What, can she feel her or something?" Ren asked.
"Bonded beasts are supposed to be able to." Edda glanced back at her. "You should know this already. Don't skip so many classes."
"Yeah, yeah."
They stopped in front of the door. It was a blazing white, bright even in the dimness of the passage, bright enough that looking at it too long made Ren's eyes water. Sol let out a mighty chirp and flew from Edda's hands. She half landed and half fell on the stone before the door and stared up at it.
"See?" Edda knelt beside her. "Both your mommies are inside. And we can't open the door from the outside, so-"
Solara's wings flared and beat. Her beak opened wide, and a flare of orange flame poured out. Ren threw an arm across her eyes. Oh hells, she didn't even want to know what the Archon would do to them if they broke the Crest chamber. When she lowered her hand, the flame was still pouring. It met the white of the door and simply…scattered harmlessly.
"Solara-" Edda said. "You can't open it-"
Solara let out an angrier chirp and tried again. Then again. Then again.
And each time, the flame came thinner. Each time, the chirp that followed came quieter. Ren and Edda stood there in silence and looked at each other, then back at the bird.
Eventually, the bird's wings folded against her body. Then she slumped and sat against the base of the door.
"I didn't think she'd miss them this much," Edda said. She wiped at one eye with the back of her wrist.
Ren sighed. As much as the bird annoyed her -and by the Divine did the bird annoy her- seeing this was...a bit too much. She walked over and sat down on the cold stone beside her. The bird didn't even move, not even to turn away. That, more than anything else, told Ren that this was serious.
"Sucks to be left behind like this, huh?" Ren finally said.
For some reason, Solara chirped. Was... was that an answer? Was Ren simply going insane because she hadn't had enough sleep? She didn't know. Right now, all she did was nod slowly.
She reached out to brush the top of the bird's head. Solara smacked her hand away with one black wing. But even the smack barely had energy behind it at all. Ren pulled her hand back.
Edda crouched on Sol's other side. "Do you want to go to the Beast Hall then, Sol? That's where your mommy told us to take you."
Solara turned toward Edda and let out a sad little chirp. Then she turned back to the door.
"Don't think she wants to," Ren sighed.
"I know but then what are we-" Edda said. "What do we do then?"
"We wait, what else?" Ren said.
She could feel Edda staring at her, and so she turned. "What?"
"Ren. We have classes. I know you love missing yours, I actually do take mine, y'know."
Ren had thought about this, actually. It was simple. "We wait in shifts, what else? I'm not spending all my time here." Ren held up a hand and started counting on her fingers. She made it to four. "We've got me, you, Corin... what the hell, there's that Alisa too. Between four people, I think it's manageable."
"Ren-"
"It's fine, Edda."
Edda looked at her for a moment longer. Then she pulled the food pouch over and drew out one strip of meat. She laid it on the stone in front of the bird.
"You should eat, Sol," Edda said. "They'll be upset with us if you don't."
Solara regarded the strip. She leaned forward and took a single peck. Then she turned back to the door and pressed herself tighter against it.
Why the hell am I doing any of this? The bird doesn't even like me. Hell, she might just actually hate me. Ren thought. Then she thought of Corin, with a real Spark glowing green on his arm.
"Maybe it's time somebody paid her back a little," Ren muttered. Sol let out a tiny chirp. Ren turned to Edda. "Well... we're gonna need some pillows or something."