Fable - Ask Silver and Gold, Worth Feathers Untold

[Lorinna Astarel]

"Steel," he hissed. "Fire," it clacked. Shook a quick shake. "Not welcome here,"

Lori silently reminded herself that they had not come here to be truly tested. They had come to learn from the experienced knights. Yet here she was, trying to negotiate with a three-headed raven.

She took her hands far from her sword, crossing them over her chest. She took a half step to put herself in front of Marannie again.

"We would not have brought steel..."

She glanced over her shoulder. Her gaze slid off the mist like water off a stone. There was nothing to focus on. Lori quickly returned her gaze to the unpredictable three-headed raven.

"...and fire if we had not been concerned."

She set her hands back at her sides and offered a slight bow. If it was a gesture the heads could do to one another then she could mirror it.

After all, a prince ranked far above a Baron's daughter.

"We've come because our friend was taken. Taken here. I would be grateful if..."

"Marannie!" the choice was high and shrill and came from above.

"Rhidghast!" she called back, darting back out from behind Lorinna again.

 

[Hector]

At Lorinna's first words, the three headed prince bristled. Center-most cocked, as it showed its spade beak. Left-most rosed with curiosity, and the Right- most clattered its beak. All seemed eased, when the young noble gave her bow. The right with a shake, the left with a squak, and the center with a bob.

Almost approval.

Korvo's heads listened. Intent to understand as their dark eyes gleamed, and their sharp mouths gave a staccato of clacks.

But the parlay was interrupted.

"Marannie!" the voice was high and shrill and came from above.

"Rhidghast!" she called back, darting back out from behind Lorinna again.

A flurry of feathers, as a darksome shape swooped down from the branches above. A fan and turn, swirl and twist as the mantle of ebon plums whirled just above the forest floor, a vortex that slowed towards Marannie, gathered in on itself, and from the feathered bundle was pulled a boy. Ebon haired, and dark gentle eyes.

He glid for a stride or two. Taloned feet scratched at the floor, and he short hopped, skipped to embrace young Marannie, with wide arms, and a strong squeeze.

Korvo's six eyes glared. And his three heads shrieked. Feathers raised in a puff. "Rhidghast!" They sounded, unified in their disapproval. He swelled up, all chest and throat. The right head lunged and pecked, the left head shook side to side, whilst the center glared down its long beak. "Why?" left. "Why?!" Right. "Why do you do this?" Center asked. "A mockery," Left squawked. "A shame," right crooked. "A joke, is it?" the center asked. Anger, mixed with the mildest amusement.

From the near distance, where the veil of mists thinned. The snap of twigs, the soft crunch of leaves, and a figure ducked into view, just beneath a branch that would have otherwise given him a smack. It was Hector, cautious as he slunk forward, his eyes turned from the branch toward the scene, and widened at the site as he straightened up.

 

[Lorinna Astarel]

Lorinna placed her left hand behind her own back towards Hector. She gave a single gesture with that hand. Her palm waving down towards the ground.

Calm

Another giant raven and the scene was chaotic once more.

"Korvo," replied Rhidghast. One long leg that ended in a four-fingered claw drew them ahead of Marannie.

"I come because she is here," he said plainly.

Lorinna stayed still. This one seemed to have a more direct focus. Perhaps one head was better than three.

"Prince Korvo," Lorinna called out. "I would be grateful if you could tell us if you knew where our friend is. They were brought here."

 

[Hector]

Calm.

Right. Easy. Calm. He could do calm. Though the way the three headed prince glared at him. Eyes narrowed and beaks pointed together in unity.

One head clattered, whilst another croaked, and the center most shook its beak back and forth as its feathers floofed. "Pah! Pah!"

A taloned hand twitched toward the leafed branch at his hip. Fingers flexed and flared, but did not clutch about the handle as Hector stood in the distance.

"Your friend?" the center most head rasped out. Turned away with a snap, and flutter of his cloak. "Your friend," the beaks clattered and clacked, and a taloned hand was raised, pointed due east, and the mists parted in its wake. "Rests at the heart of Mirewind Manor," One head peaked over broad shoulder. "But you will not be permitted to enter," snapped its beak. "Not until you right the wrong born from flame,"

Hector shrunk back.

 

[Lorinna Astarel]

Lorinna held her ground, feet planted even as she mentally reeled. She resisted looking over her shoulder at Hector.

Righting the wrong could entail almost anything. She didn't want to spend too much time thinking about which of those might involve demands for Hector to be punished.

There was clearly a magic to the place. Subtle, the kind she couldn't overcome with brute force.

"How do you want us to write this wrong?" She asked.

There seemed to be nothing else to do but ask at this point. Then it was either force or seeing if Marannie and her friend could negotiate.

 

[Hector]

A squawk. Prickly with irritation. "How does one mend the flame kissed?" one of the heads mocked. "If a forest burns, what is there to take its place?" another called. "Ash," one snapped. "Waste!" the right horked. The center most bristled. Korvo paced toward the portal in the mist, the clear path. "You must ask that corhuk," one of the heads asked, as they all peered over their shoulder, three hooked beaks and their shiny eyes gleamed as they fixed themselves upon Hector. "The one he burned,"

Hector felt his stomach drop. Still, his hands tightened as he took a step forward. "I will see to it!"

Korvo turned to screech and cry, his three heads a-snap with fury as he strode forward with long steps. "See to it!" they mocked. "See to it!"

Quick steps saw small body dart between them. "Brother!" Rhidgast called out, his human hands up and wide. "Calm, please!" he fanned.

Hector stood wide eyed. His heart quick, but he did not take back a step. A nudge at his side.

"They hold grudges," Marannie whispered to the elf.

"I can see that," he said through a nervous smile.

"Rhidgast," Korvo sneered, and shook. "You said you were here because she was here,"

"And she cares about them," he said easily with a nod.

"Kah," Korvo sounded. Turned again with a snap of his cloak, and marched through the clearing in the mist. "I have told you what needs be done," he said more clearly. "Do not make me regret this," A short hop skip bound turned to a bound clear. Cloak to wings and tail feathers, and Korvo took flight as a great raven. Three headed and monstrously large.

Still, not a branch broke at his ascent.

 

[Lorinna Astarel]

Lorinna waited until the air had settled around them. For the dust, leaves and detritus to fall back to the soil.

She turned slowly to consider the three people she found herself with. Hector, who she would trust with her life without a thought. Then Marannie, a girl she still didn't understand. And then Rhidghast, the raven-boy creature who had come here for the human girl.

Lorinna's eyes fell upon him.

"What are we walking into, Rhidgast?" She asked clearly.

He turned one eye to Marannie and then back to Lorinna. A strangely avian characteristic on his new features.

"You can tell her," she said quietly.

"Using fire against one of our kind is... Worse than using iron. It is as my brother says. The one sighted has a right to retribution."

 

[Hector]

Hector grit his teeth. Felt his whole stomach turn to pit, and his brow stiffen.

Marannie frowned. But nod as she stepped between them. "But," there was a worried hope in her breath, her eyes on Hector, and then Lorinna. "We don't know what will be asked, not yet,"

Rhidgast set one eye onto Hector with a tick of his head. "A small miracle Korvo did not set the unkindness upon you, really," something like a smile played across his lips.

Hector's brow scrunched, and he half smirked himself. "No doubt thanks to you," he turned his eye back to Lorinna, full with a warm shimmer of hope "And you,"

Rhidgast croaked a small laugh as he hopped forward. "More so me," he said with a hint of pride. Head turned to Marannie, and his smile widened. "And Marannie," he bade they follow, and strut toward the open path, dappled by silvery sunlight, and the shade of long branches, and big leaves. "And now me again, to make sure you don't get lost,"

Marannie turned toward Rhidgast, scrunched brow and pouty. "I could have guided them!"

Rhidgast croaked a laugh, and the sound of their talk grew steps more distant.

Hector stepped to Lorinna, slow with a tender look in his eye. "None of this makes much sense, does it?" he said with a small laugh. Cast a look out to the other two, still striding toward the mistless way, "And still makes sense all the same,"

 

[Lorinna Astarel]

"I'm not so sure about the second part," Lorinna whispered back. She preferred the nice normally world she was used it. She wouldn't admit it, but even the rules and order of peerages and hierarchies and manners was a comfort.

There was nothing too outside of her realm of experience on the walk. She could not see their home through the mist, but a dark, curved shadow rose out of the canopy of trees ahead of them.

Nothing outside of the realm of experience until they reached the door.

The branches were woven into an arch. From a distance the door had looked like it was made of sheer black onyx.

Her eye realised it move about ten strides away. It was a curtain of feathers. That, she might have accepted. The feathers were falling. Constantly falling.

"We cannot go this way," Rhidghast told them. "It is your way."

"How do we open it?" Lorinna asked.

"Open it? Walk through!"

Lorinna stepped forwards. The feathers fell aroundall around her. She was left in darkness. Another step and she was in the light with a vague sense of disorentstion.

"Steel!"

"It brought steel."

"Betrayed"

"Did it bring fire?"

"Where is the one who brought fire!"

Lorinna knew this. This was a trial. She stood in an open circle, a floor of knotted branches. There were over thirty of the corhuk above them. It wasn't anseminci4cle, but a randomly arranged set of platforms in the branches.

 

[Hector]

"Lori? Lori!" Hector called out his hand fast after her as she stepped through. But he shrunk back at the fall of feathers. Watched as each plume curtained and trailed about her like smoke.

She was gone.

His eyes wide as he remembered the promise he had given to the three headed raven. His breath stuck in his throat.

"Go on then, go on,"

He pushed out his breath, and held tight his fist. With a nod, Hector stepped through the cascade of onyx plumes. Found himself through the gate, Lori's tall frame before him, amidst a beam of light. Shadows, hook beaked and ruffle feathered all around.

"Fire!"

"There it is!"

"Tloluk's retribution!"

They cried, and their wings stirred a strong wind. Yet Hector stood there by Lori's side.

 

[Lorinna Astarel]

Lorinna looked around the space. She had been helpless in the dark forest floor. There was room for the giant ravens to sit in their enclosures above and around them, but not enough room for them to truly fly around the space.

She pictured one of them hopping up onto the wall of a nest and gliding down. At that slow speed she would be able to fight back. In the darkness, with them diving out of the air at speed with talons outstretched she had been no help.

Not that she assumed violence was the answer, but that she always had to be prepared for it.

"We were defending our companion. Who you took."

"Where are they?"

 

[Hector]

A squak.

A croak.

A buff of feathers and wings.

"Companion,"

"Defending!"

"Fire does not defend!"

Hector felt the chords in his neck tight. The spread of his shoulders, tense and his arms heavy. "Syr Herzog!" he called out to the council. "Your," no, he felt the words die in his mouth. "Tloluk, he took her from us!"

Some quieted, while others stormed on. "Took, took!"

"We invited!"

"Guest!"

"Aid!"

"You attacked!"

"You burned!"

Hector gripped his fist all the tighter. Felt his heart pound all the faster. He stepped forward, in front of Lorinna. "I did, I did attack, I thought my friend was being stolen away,"

 

[Lorinna Astarel]

Lorinna tensed. Then she felt that tension bleed away.

She knew that feeling. It wasn't relaxation. It was training taking over. Keeping her joints mobile, preparing herself for the fight. It took a modicum of control to keep her hands away from the blade.

She took a breath.

"Can we see Syr Herzog?

"Please."

It was hard to decide how to behave. She was accustomed to deeply ingrained customs and those creatures were strange.

 

[Hector]

Dark eyes flit to regard the human.

"Steel," clacked one beak.

"Steel!" cried a ruffle and fan of dark feathers. Hard to see through the swirl and rise of branches. The pour of light and the rain of black plumes.

"Steel says please," a bitter mockery.

"Fire cries friend!" a chatter and clatter that turned to storm of squawks.

The voices of the Unkindness clamored and shook.

Hector kept his eyes wide open, his body remembered to breath. He took a step back, as old words and old oaths mixed betwixt his mind. Dusk and dawn, twined as one.

A distant moon. Stars in the night sky. Tears in his eyes and warmth in his chest, wrapped around him and full in each breath.

His hand had found hers. His fingers slipped easy over knuckle and bone. Laced between digits as he stood beside her. Arm in arm.

One Above the roost peered down from on high. Eyes full of moonlight. Wings painted by the memory of starlight. A single note came from feather frilled throat. Like a river stone come loose, down bellow the shift of raging currents.

All the others came quiet. And the One Above made to shift from its perch.

 

[Lorinna Astarel]

"We are not getting anywhere..." she muttered under her breath to Hector. She gave his hand a reassuring squeeze.

Lorinna didn't know if she was trying to calm Hector or herself with the gesture.

She couldn't help but wonder if this was what crows were like. Squawking in their own language at one another with no rhyme or reason. Did they judge those knights that walked below their woven nests?

She didn't see the shadow above, she felt it's presence.

She stepped back, drawing Hector with her. The black shape fell, dignified wings spreading to catch air but never flapping.

She found herself facing another large round and discerning eye.