Of the Eleven

Of the Eleven

Postby Rance » Wed Jun 05, 2013 1:57 am

Eleven children. That's what I heard.

People could never be silenced. They would always talk.

Eleven? And how many were saved?

Does it matter? They're still mopping up the cavern; they're still scrubbing the stains from its floor, picking up pieces. There could be more.

And when one person spoke, so did another. The words spread like a brush-fire through town, easy to overhear, impossible to avoid. Talk of coming funeral services, the burning of what was left. Little children, all, like the components of some gruesome bedtime story.

A beast that eats children. From a carnival, no less! I would take the drow over that; I would take anything over that.

There were other rumors, too: had it not been for the old miller's intervention, more children would be dead; three unsavories had assisted in the slaughter of the beast; Governor Glenn Burnie and the Lady Olwak, with the assistance of the Constabulary, had looked upon the cavern killing-grounds and brought finality to the situation; a woman was in custody, that old storyteller, an accessory to the butchering--

The seamstress ran until she thought she would be sick. She had once been teased by Cherny for her inability to sprint. Despite the blisters bursting on the bottom of her feet and the hard clap of wooden clogs against pathstones, each step sending hammerfalls of pain into her heels. She never stopped. She had her dress tangled in her fingers, never letting go, never resting even when her lungs screamed at her to pause, take a breath.

I have got to go to my mathematics, she'd told him three days ago, if begrudgingly. No, if I go to the carnival with you and Mister Catch, my lessons will suffer. What -- what do you think Menna Olwak would say if I shirked my fractions for festivities and funnel-pie.

His little shack, that decrepit little hut where Cherny lived, was a blemish against the grasses in the afternoon sun. She almost stumbled, barely catching herself over her knotted legs. Dust billowed up from the path under her shoes. Somewhere, she lost a clog in the brush. The girl moved with such velocity and force that she slammed both palms against the shack's slanted front door to stop herself. A balled fist -- desperate, frightened -- drummed against the wood.

"Ch-...Cherny," she shouted, black sweat a wet mask on her face. Her cheeks were numb from the run, but the tears were still like hot needles. "Cherny, are -- are you in there? Open the door. It's Gloria -- it's me--"

Eleven children. That's what I heard.

He'd been there. He had been at the carnival.

I would take anything over that.
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Re: Of the Eleven

Postby Cherny » Wed Jun 05, 2013 12:51 pm

The little tumbledown shed is silent, lifeless; the door readily swings open under the hammering of the seamstress' stout fists, the space within empty and still, the air stuffy and redolent with the scents of dog hair and stale tallow smoke, a couple of fat flies bumbling in irregular circles around the ceiling. No answer to Gloria's shouts, though; only the whisper of branches overhead, stirred by a cooling breeze, and the raucous calls of the millpond crows.

It's a few moments before there's a rustle of movement from the latter direction, a crunching of old leaves and fallen twigs. Between the trees approaches a pale-featured little shadow who pauses at the sight of this visitor, hunched into his patch-coat despite the day's pleasant warmth, a bloodied and scored wooden board clutched before him like a shield. His gaze searches the girl's features, head turning to regard her with one hollow eye and then the other, some hint of wariness at her frantic appearance; worried, nervous - not of her, but of whatever has her so distraught.

Eventually, slowly, thin fingers unfold from where they grip the stained cutting board and offer a little wave. He dares no more than that.
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Re: Of the Eleven

Postby Rance » Wed Jun 05, 2013 1:20 pm

Inside the shack, nothing. Nothing -- except so much, the buzzing of flies like some biological timepiece, the motes of dog hair and dust dancing in the dying evening light. She thought the door would allow her entry, that he would be there, smiling and carving out the guts of walnuts. She would be able to blow out a sigh of relief, hoist her skirts, join him in knowing nothing was wrong--

But it was empty.

Eleven children. That's what I heard.

The villager's quantifying statement kept jabbing into the base of her brain. If deafened her, even as she said his name, "Cherny," like a mantra at the inside of the shack, over and over, more quietly, more desperate to hear a response. Jittering fingers came up to jam themselves against her nose -- was that the sweet confectioner's power she smelled in the air, sprinkled atop bramble-thick funnel-pies, warm with their yeasty rise? She thought she could smell the carnival, its permeating presence of freshly-honeyed sweets, the warm stink of shit from the dancing-horse stalls.

A bustling amid the brush caught her attention. She spun, glistening eyes like two bright beacons.

Cherny.

She saw first the makeshift shield and its bloodied surface. His jacket was a suffocating thing on him, or so it looked -- the heat was rampant, the sun still taking pleasure in what torment it gave the grasses even this late at night. He greeted her with silence, and though he waved -- he has all his fingers, some of the families were only getting back pine boxes full of what little was left, thank the Nameless he has all his fingers -- she did not run to him as she had so frantically to the shack.

She said his name again. "Cherny?"

A few wary steps put her closer. But why the blood, why the wood, where's the boy in his eyes--

"I -- I heard the most awful things," she said, across the grass. "I thought the most awful things."
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Re: Of the Eleven

Postby Cherny » Wed Jun 05, 2013 1:48 pm

Something close to a flinch at those words, eyes jerking sharply aside, the first attempts at a wan smile strangled before they'd fully formed. A few moments spent blinking fiercely, a couple of thick swallows, and he offers an unsteady nod in reply - faint at first, but then more emphatic.

The most awful things.

It's not a conscious decision, not a matter of deciding to place his feet in front of one another, but in a flutter of quick footsteps he has crossed the distance between them, bloodied board dropped carelessly as he reaches thin arms about the girl's ribs, his face buried in her shoulder. He clings fiercely, desperately, narrow shoulders heaving with each gulped breath, fragile beneath his coat's bulk, shivering as if touched by a bitter cold.
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Re: Of the Eleven

Postby Rance » Wed Jun 05, 2013 2:18 pm

The smile was a faltering attempt, a vagrant discontent, a fleeting attempt at normality. She could read it in all its facets, not because Duquesne had taught her how -- look for the wrinkles in the eyes, how quickly the teeth show themselves -- but because he was her brother. And a single droplet of blood meant everything.

He dropped the wood. He crashed into her, his mill-beaten hands a vice around her sturdy ribs. Cherny's face found her shoulder, triggered every instinct she often refused to believe even existed -- a bare hand crawled up to touch the back of his head, first to know he was there, but secondly, to hold him close to her as if he were the tiniest, most fragile trinket.

"Cherny," she whispered against his scalp, tilting down her chin as if she might wrap her whole body around his. His arms and shoulders danced with each one of his gasps. He was as fragile as parchment in that moment, and she was an old oak tree, wrapping him with her branches, refusing to let him go.

I heard about the children. The men wouldn't stop talking; they shared the news over ale and beer, over their morning sausage. I could hear their teeth squeak into each link while they talked about children, the carnival, about everything--

Against his ear, she whispered, "I am going nowhere. Do you understand that, Cherny? We're not moving from this spot until -- until you wish it to happen. Minutes or hours or days, months if we must."

What had his eyes seen? Had he been there? Had he been near -- was it like teeth in sausage? How long did the song play that they said the children had marched to; had his feet betrayed him even then? A thumb worked its way through his hair, to gently draw back its dark edges and let her see his face.

I feared the most horrible thing I could ever imagine.

"You're home," was all she said, because right then, not even rhetoric came to her.
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Re: Of the Eleven

Postby Cherny » Wed Jun 05, 2013 3:04 pm

Comfort. He has longed for it, in the days since; Many-Fights had done as best he could, his solidity a promise of safety, of protection from harm, but the boy had needed this - a gentle touch, soft words and reassurances. He nods against her in reply to her words, eyes squeezed tightly closed as if to shut out the world beyond her sturdy arms, and coughing sobs drag themselves from his throat to be muffled by mistreated cloth and tarsweat skin.

It's a stretch of minutes before he settles, the fit only reluctantly releasing its grip upon him; his breathing steadies, and his arms loosen from about her ribs. When he looks up again he is still pale, eyes puffy and red-rimmed, cheeks blotched with tears wept into her blouse; but his gaze is a little clearer despite that, his feeble attempt at a smile a little closer to success. He sniffs and clears his throat while he searches his pockets for a rag for his nose, struggling to regain his composure, what dignity there is to be had.

One last scrub of his coat-cuff across his eyes, and he reaches for the seamstress' hand, bony fingers twining tightly around. A small pull, an insistent pressure, and he nods in the direction from which he'd first arrived. Come with me.
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Re: Of the Eleven

Postby Rance » Wed Jun 05, 2013 4:03 pm

She was the hot sand of Jernoah. She was not just a seamstress, but sought to be something greater -- his pillar of strength, the rag for his tears. Her thick arms that encircled him, but yet would be willing to break anything that might try to wrench the boy away from her--

For the State. For Jernoah.


For him.

She loosened her embrace only when he turned his face up to her and subdued the silent tears. Her thumb, the very same one that was still brown with a tiny pinpoint scab, wiped one of his salty tears out of the corner of his eyes, streaking it against a dark sideburn -- he might have a beard one day, a tract of stubble, and he would not be so little anymore; she would not feel so large and he, not so miniscule. They would grow old and have stories from years long past. Their scant two or three years of vast separation now would be but morsels in the stew of age.

But for now, knowing he was safe, she was sure they would have such time.

He peeled himself away from her, then took her hand. Her rustling skirts were the heavy, snapping wings of a whippoorwill, and her single clog almost caught on the hanging hem as he drew her toward the woodline--

"Cherny," she said again, a name like a ritual, having so few words where often she had so many. Sister followed brother, though she wanted to tighten her forearm, wrench him back, say Why the blood, Cherny? and Not that way, not there -- we cannot trust it there, it will be just like those sausage-men said.

But all she could muster, obedient to his wishes, tears, and urges, was, "Where are we going?"
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Re: Of the Eleven

Postby Cherny » Thu Jun 06, 2013 1:15 am

The pull on her hand is insistent, the boy leading them through the trees with the clear assumption that she'll follow. Not far, not far. Across the slope overlooking the millpond, reflections on dark water visible between the pines; a rising flurry of black wings greets their approach, accompanied by a chorus of hoarse shouts from the branches overhead.

When he finally stops they stand perhaps a dozen feet or so from a fallen trunk, mossy and streaked with bird droppings; on closer inspection the reason for this is clear, with countless little shreds of meat tucked into pits and fissures in the half-rotted wood. He takes a seat against the base of a tree, and the tug on her fingers invites her to join him.

It might be a pleasant spot, peaceful, were it not for the mob of black birds overhead, croaking and cackling among themselves as they flap from one tree to another, or peer down at the pair below with bead-bright eyes; the mill-boy sits quietly, still unspeaking, gaze lifted for the branches above.

Patient, expectant, with occasional glances to Gloria to see if she's paying attention; some glimmer, in those instants, of the boy she knows, her t'oddah - distant, withdrawn behind walls of numb detachment, but at least present. He wears his coat like armour, huddling into it until the collar touches his ears, and blinks sleepily as they wait.
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Re: Of the Eleven

Postby Rance » Thu Jun 06, 2013 4:38 am

They were underneath the shade of the thick-barked tree. The white spatters of bird dung were strung across the soft moss, marking territory, inviting an upward glance toward the branches.

The black birds were sentinels, chattering among themselves and belching their croaky bleeds to the boy and the seamstress below. Their dark feet raised in flight, wings alighted them to other limbs, and they perched again. All their motions were jerky, instantaneous, wanting -- there were still ribbons of meat crammed into the knothole, a treat cut by a blade against nicked-up wood.

These were his birds. This is what he had told her about, what she had asked to see when they'd discussed the natures of morals over her broken nose. A coldness clenched at her heart, her lungs, crushed her ribs between its icy palms--

Hawks. Large, rotund birds tearing with fervor into the corpses, and sometimes the still-living. Hearing, hearing the crunch of their rock-hard beaks as they pierced flesh and drew out the little white orbs of eyes, sometimes before Cherny -- the Gatherer, always Gathering -- could do so himself. In that Golden Myrken Wood, she spoke to herself, too; she rambled through the day, for her t'oddah had forgotten all about language. Maybe this was why, perhaps this was the reason.

What if he was broken. What if she could not fix him. What if there was nothing to be fixed, and -- like an alloy which could not be melted down to its base elements once combined -- there was a new wound in him, a cloven part of him that glassed his eyes--

"Talk to me," she said, reaching to his collar, wanting to right it. "Anything. Please? A -- a little noise, my name, your name, anything. Only -- only me and your birds will hear, Cherny. You see? None of us are going to tell secrets."

"They are so big," she said, to speak of the birds. "They blot out the sun. You -- you feed them well."
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Re: Of the Eleven

Postby Cherny » Thu Jun 06, 2013 7:24 am

No hawks here, only crows - sleek and well-fed, glossy black feathers that shine like polished coal. Impatient at this intrusion, this interruption to their meal, such that even as the interlopers sit down the crows are descending branch by branch; by ones and twos they flap down to the fallen trunk, creaking and chuckling to one another, and these scouts are soon joined by others until the trees are deserted and the feeding log bustling.

Talk to me, she says, and he glances reflexively away, shaking his head sharply as he huddles deeper into his coat. She pleads, and he meets her gaze only briefly at that, heaving a disconsolate sigh before licking his lips.

"C-c-c-c--" A cry sound at the back of his throat, a brittle crackling of ice. Only that, for all that he strains for all that he frowns in concentration. A couple more attempts to no greater success, and at the last he presses his lips tightly closed, swallowing heavily as he scowls in frustration and embarrassment. He knows what he wishes to say, what he needs to say, but he can feel the Song lurking at the pit of his throat; terrible words itching to be released, trying to slide past his teeth in place of what he intends.

Better to deny those words entirely than to risk their being unleashed, and he huffs an irritated breath that puffs out his thin cheeks, returning his attention to the busy trunk. A glance for Gloria, then, and he nods to direct her gaze in that direction as well, this being what he's brought her here to see. Some of the crows - adults, keen-eyed and alert as they stalk and hop from one perch to the next - peck and pry at the scraps wedged into the grain of the wood; others, more numerous sit nearby - juveniles, brown-black plumage and eyes that have yet to darken from baby blue; as big as their parents or bigger, for all that they've only recently fledged. Each time a parent looks up from their work they are greeted by a gaping beak and scruffy wings a-flutter, fussing and croaking until appeased with a scrap of meat or whatever other fare has been found.

The scene seems to calm him, dark eyes flicking to follow the noisy creatures as they forage and squabble, frown softening, fading. It is a distraction, an escape, something to draw his thoughts away from the enormous jaws that gnash and champ in the darkness behind his eyelids. His fingers still hold the seamstress' hand, but their grip is not so fierce, so desperate.
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Re: Of the Eleven

Postby Rance » Thu Jun 06, 2013 8:03 am

He was abnormally silent. Cherny had never been the most talkative boy, subject more to his quieter logic than to the compulsion to speak simply to be heard; but yet, he could speak, the muscles were functional, the sounds were adequate. But he slipped over a single consonant. He chattered like the birds. His tongue was a hammer knocking on the inner gates of his teeth.

Why won't you speak, she wanted to beg him. Why won't your tongue work; why aren't you talking, as if answering that question would balance the whole world again.

But her patience and concern for him blotted out the frantic, Dream-chained seamstress -- she put the flat of a palm against his back, rubbing, feeling the sharp edges of his tense shoulder blades and his thin, young spine.

"We can just watch," she whispered.

The crows were an industry all their own. They reminded her, for several moments, of the sweaty, dirt-skinned workers at the Brown farm, shifting out the belongings of the uprooted Fletchers and drawing in the meager materials of a family that was not meant for so grand a manor. Their bent beaks plucked bloody slivers of meat and sinew out of the black knothole, delivering the grizzle to the awaiting mouths of larger, fatter, broader hatchlings. There was a teeming dis-nature to the work, the tinier parents delivering greater masses of Cherny's offerings into the mouths of their red-mouthed offspring. Imbalance. Impropriety. Opposition. They could have been crows, blackbirds, starlings; perhaps they were ravens or grackles, but to the seamstress as she held her brother's easing hand--

--Hawks.

She observed the inversion of the slight feeding the great -- it is just like Jernoah; it is just like Myrken Wood, it is just like what the sausage-men said of children dancing, laughing, giggling their way into the cavern's mouth -- for silent minutes. Finally, she withdrew something from her satchel.

She put in Cherny's lap a tiny, leather-bound journal etched throughout with her unsure mathematics and the hastily-scrawled practice of words. Page by page she turned it for him, until two blank sheets yawned open for him.

Sister unfurled her brother's fingers, and placed in his open palm a needle-thin stake of charcoal. She smiled.

"Draw them. For -- for practice. For your best-yeary."
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Re: Of the Eleven

Postby Cherny » Thu Jun 06, 2013 11:27 am

We can just watch. He nods at that suggestion, relaxing, leaning against the older girl for support, for companionship. He watches the birds' antics, the vying over a particularly succulent shred of meat, the dogged persistence in extracting another from where he'd wedged it as firmly as he was able; this was a game he played with them, hiding the morsels he put out, making the crows work for their prizes; they could have cheated, could have swooped down and raided the cutting board before he'd finished, but for whatever reason they chose to wait, to watch. Some of them paid close attention and headed straight for particular crevices in the trunk; others searched systematically, moving from one known hiding-place to the next. A few of the fledglings, impatient at the slow delivery of food to their expectant gullets, have begun to emulate their parents, peering and pecking at likely-looking cracks and hollows in the wood.

That the young are larger, more vigorous than their parents is perhaps little surprise - had the boy been here to feed them a diet of such nourishing fare no doubt they'd be every bit as hearty. Growth. Prosperity. Progress. The parents - with the mill-boy's help - provide for their young, the young have a better start in life than their parents. What the blood-bound siblings saw here was towards the end of that process, the last days of dependence before the young crows would start to make their own way, to find their own food, to choose their own roosts. Eventually, to raise their own broods of wide-mouthed chicks, and the process would begin again.

The seamstress presses her book upon him, and his head scans back and forth to follow the turning pages, a touch here or there for familiar words or figures he could recognised, though arrayed in configurations well beyond the twice two is four, twice three is six of his own lessons. Eventually an empty spread of pages lies before him, a charcoal stick set in his grasp, and that suggestion offered with a welcome smile; he doesn't quite manage to mirror her expression, but nods readily enough, setting the charcoal to the paper at the top of the left-hand page to scribe careful letters.

C O R O N E

A peaceful span of minutes passes as he draws, the dry scratching of stylus on paper near drowned out by the nearby chatter of his subjects, head bowed, eyes intent on the page. The rendering is careful, systematic, more of a diagram than observed from the bickering mob before him - eye, head, beak in profile; back, tailfeathers, breast; stick-like clawed feet below, overlapping pinions of wings held against the bird's side, hatchings of thinner lines hinting at the texture of each feather. He glances up at the crows only occasionally, familiar enough that he's little need to look at them to describe their form on the page.

As the picture nears completion one of the younger crows breaks away from the flock, flapping clumsily down from the fallen trunk to swagger towards the pair of quiet spectators, pausing perhaps a yard past the seamstress' feet and regarding them both with an inquisitive, blinking gaze. Cherny, for his part, keeps his head bowed over his work, feigning total disinterest; a sidelong look seeks the seamstress' eye, however, and he offers a slow and solemn wink to show that it's merely a clever facade.
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Re: Of the Eleven

Postby Rance » Thu Jun 06, 2013 1:41 pm

C O R O N E

A collection of letters she was not familiar with. She knew she simply could have asked What does that mean, but it might have broken the careful work of his hand as what began to appear on the page seemed shackled by the faded white parchment surrounding it--

The beak was a point, angled as if directing the eye toward some unknown spot of interest well beyond the dimensions of the page. The crown of its head was muted, round, bereft of the plumage reserved for its regal wings. There were places where the charcoal slipped out of the reality of the sketch, reaching for the edge of the paper as if the lines themselves wanted only to escape, but Cherny -- control in his wrist, precision in his direction -- gave them no such quarter. A crow came to life there as minutes passed, relieved of its need for motion but given breath through the boy's liberal use of angle, pressure, and proportion.

She had never seen him draw before.

"Co-rone," she said, accepting the weight of his leaning body, wrapping arm about his frail shoulders. "Is -- is that his name," asked with honest inquiry. A few listless crumbs of coal littered the edge of the page, which she helpfully brushed away with a gloved palm.

"Running walnut games may never be in your future, Cherny, but this?" A knock of her finger against the leather-bound volume. "This is what the Nameless have given you; you are exacting," she praised, but not with the mindless stuffing of some errant, uninformed onlooker, "patient with strokes, tender of hand. In short--

"Beautiful."

This evening more than ever, she could have watched him for hours, but a curious spy did not allow it. She tightened, tensed, as this fledgling crow dribbled its wings against the air, landed, and meandered toward them. The seamstress looked to Cherny -- do you see this, do you see him? -- and caught the masquerade in his eyes. His smile. His smile.

Careful, so slowly, she put fingers to her satchel's sagging ear-flap, unhinged it from a bone button, and procured a stale lump of bread. Her thumb and forefinger tore a single morsel from it, and she flicked it.

It bounced off her knee, rolled down a long crease in her skirt, and landed in the grass.
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Re: Of the Eleven

Postby Cherny » Thu Jun 06, 2013 10:58 pm

He offers his sister an askance look at her praise - beautiful - as if doubting that she looks upon the correct page to make such an assertion, but even so is pleased, flattered by it. In answer to her question he turns a couple of pages back, finding a leaf used for writing-practice, lists of difficult words repeated over and over until they stick; at the edge of the paper, in painstaking letters as if hesitant to mar her own work:

it is the scolers word for crow

Explanation enough, and perhaps some of the quirks of his illustration are better understood - cribbed from the blocky woodcuts of his best-yeary, the side-on view of the bird, lines that clearly mark out parts that would normally be indistinguishable as black-on-black. The name of the beast.

He watches carefully, as does their visitor, while the seamstress reaches into her bag; observes the heel of bread retrieved, and the piece torn off and sent... well, not as far as she might have liked. Certainly not as far as its target might have preferred, the morsel landing a little too close to the stranger's feet for its liking. The young bird marks its flight, however, recognising it as food, and after a moment's consideration sidles nearer, more wild and wary the closer he gets. It's only when she glances aside to the mill-boy that the crow darts forward, stretching out its neck to pluck up the breadcrumb with the very tip of its beak, hop-flapping away as soon as the prize is secured - and in a tilt of his head, quickly devoured with a self-satisfied croak as it turns its beady gaze back to the seamstress in anticipation of more.

Before she can offer another treat, however, Cherny reaches over to rest a light hand over Gloria's, covering the bread crust. While it was busy stalking her gift the boy has retrieved something from his own pocket - a little domed disc of tarnished brass, a button, lost from some fine gentleman's coat. The fledgling's attention is rapt on the thing as Cherny turns it over in thin fingers for both Gloria and the crow to see; from the way his gaze flicks between the two of them it's apparent that he has a trick in mind, something he's keen for the girl to see.
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Re: Of the Eleven

Postby Rance » Fri Jun 07, 2013 2:38 am

It did not matter to her that the image may have been more a regurgitation of previous studies than the likeness of any one crow around them. The image was his, a creation of his hand -- a proof of life, and that he was not some lie devoured by the rumors of men who cracked sausage between their teeth and gossiped of the death of children.

She preferred corone because it what Cherny had taught her; because it was not Hawk, a word she felt throbbing under her skin and echoing in the marrow of her brown Jernoan bones. And she thought that yes indeed it was a corone, not like the bleating feathered beasts in the Dream, could not and would not be the same, held no likeness of them save for its feathers and its twitching motions and those hollow beads of eyes that were always wanting, wanting--

"Why is he so close," she asked, a curiosity undertoned by a quick, frantic breath.

She meant to toss another tidbit at the bird, but Cherny's hand stayed her. He produced a button, a little pale jargoon aged by a hundred-thousand touches of the same fingers. The blank eye of metal winked in the dying evening light. The bird, with its beak still flecked by bread, saw it too.

And as she watched the button, eargerly awaiting his intent, she realized her free hand was as tense as stone, aching, and her fingers had closed on something in her satchel--

A book. A Historie of Myrken Wood. Her elbow was tight, prepared to spring, the want to crush that bird under the leather tome a hemorrhaging afterthought in her strong, seamworking arm.

"What are -- are you going to do with your button?" she asked Cherny, hiding behind her inquiry--

--for she would not abide Hawks, even if she knew they were no such thing.
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