Bird of a Wing - Chapter 34: Chapter 34

Eyeri clung on to Tai'ray's back, resting his head against Tai'ray's shoulder and neck. The second day worth of flying had been distinctly unpleasant, despite being in a more comfortable position on Tai'ray. The winds had been damp meaning Eyeri had spent most of the day wet, his hands freezing. As the light began to dim, they landed in a clearing not too unlike the one the previous night. Unlike the previous night, no one really spoke, instead, Nel'os and Dyn'ad lit the fire in the hut and passed around some meat jerky for dinner. Afterwards, everyone collapsed on the nest and Eyeri, himself, fell to sleep pretty much the moment his head hit the pillow.
Ryraso had a dim memory in the midst of the storm winds picking up outside and of the hut creaking loudly. Eyeri stirred afraid by the noise but Ryraso cooed gently in his ear. Ryraso felt Tai'ray's arm tighten around Eyeri before a wave of magic appeared around them, silencing the storm. Eyeri settled and his body relaxed. Ryraso smiled gently, relaxing slightly himself, not entirely aware of what was happening.
The next morning, the sky was grey and overcast. The sun was hidden behind a thick layer of cloud. It was cold and no one seemed ready to leave the hurt, which let Herymi slip out easily, climbing down the rope ladder with some difficulty. He fell the last few feet and groaned. His muscles were stiff.
'Go too far and I'll chain you down tonight,' Tai'ray said to Herymi over the link, giving him permission to wander ad stretch his legs.
'I won't,' Herymi smiled, taking the permission and starting to walk upriver, fingers running through the wet plants.
He could see plants which were distantly familiar plants, which only grew up north. It was astonishing just how fast the royals could fly. They were already so close to k'nairi lands. Herymi crouched down and picked a purple flower from the ground, twiddling the stalk between his fingers as memories flowed over him. It felt strange to be so north after so long.
'You okay over there?' Tai'ray asked sounding slightly more awake than before. 'Need one of us to come to get you?'
'I'm not in pain,' Herymi said slightly amused by the assumption. 'Just the nostalgic, I guess.'
'Your link was singing in pain,' Tai'ray murmured almost sadly. 'Is coming home that painful for you?' the Winglord asked, a mental tendril caressing Herymi's mind gently.
'Not painful itself but some of my memories of leaving...' Herymi drifted off. Some of it was painful. Some of it was just sad and some of it still burned in Herymi's heart. The way they had treated him in those last few months had been incredibly painful.
There was a fluttering of wings and suddenly Tai'ray was there, his face solemn. He sat on a rock and tilted his head. "The fight you had with your nest, it was bad," Tai'ray acknowledged out loud, the words almost piercingly loud in the early morning quiet. "Childish and stupid on both sides," he added, the words feeling like a slap in the face for Herymi.
"Not my nest," Herymi snapped back fiercely, before sighing. "Why are we having this conversation so early in the morning?" Herymi asked sitting on the bank a little way down from Tai'ray.
Tai'ray moved down to him and wrapped a wing around him. "Because any other time of the day we have an audience and this is a sensitive matter," Tai'ray offered lightly. "You knew this would happen eventually," Tai'ray murmured gently, placing a hand on Herymi's shoulder. "Before the end of the war or after, eventually all caw will have to return to the k'nairi."
Herymi's story was uncommon but not unheard of. For a human to prefer the K'nairi way of living was rare, which made it only more confusing why Herymi had chosen the other side but it seemed that Herymi had left the place he considered home for similar reasons to Ryraso. Bad communication between his 'friends' and him. Tai'ray knew more than Herymi did however about the circumstances in which the fight had occurred but then as Winglord, he would.
"I did," Herymi's tone was resigned and he slumped his shoulders. "It was always a matter of time until you decided Ryraso's perception of your respect for him was less important than having a part of the population fight for the opposite side."
Tai'ray flinched slightly. "It wasn't quite that ... Is that what people thought?" he asked sounding slightly embarrassed and concerned, his cheeks turning slightly red.
Herymi gave him a look and nodded. "Everyone knew that it was only after Ryraso was allowed to leave that it was acceptable for the rest of us to. Your feelings for him, while apparently oblivious to him were quite plain in the link."
A sound of immense embarrassment came out of Tai'ray's mouth and he hid his face in his hands for a moment. He took a deep breath and looked back at Herymi with a strange expression on his face. "I know you don't like cities. I can't make any promises currently Herymi. Every human will be grounded in Navat for some time, however, I may allow a few to return to their original towns. Provided they can be trusted," he said calmly, firmly putting them back onto Herymi's issue.
"And no doubt claimed," muttered Herymi. "Thank you for the offer, but I left on bad terms with the entire community. I doubt even if I return they will want anything to do with me, or accept me back, " Herymi spoke almost ruefully, he was not one to chase after the past. He had no intention of forcing his way back. Not to say if given chance he wouldn't try and mend fences, but he would not force the process either. Not for a while anyway.
"The argument was rather public," Tai'ray said disapprovingly. That part of things hadn't been Herymi's friends' entire fault. It had been Herymi's. Herymi looked away from Tai'ray and for a moment there was silence between them. Herymi was still playing with the purple flower in his hands and the river rushed past them, occasionally spraying them with droplets; not that either minded. Tai'ray exhaled and decided to take a chance. "They made a claim on you," he revealed.
Herymi blinked, Tai'ray watching as the man opened his mouth to reply only to find himself speechless. Tai'ray winced as an onslaught of conflicting emotions rushed through Herymi, able to feel them through their proximity. Tai'ray watched as the flower Herymi was playing with fell into the river and floated away, the sun coming out as if it sensed something important had been revealed. Once Herymi's emotions calmed down, Tai'ray decided to give the second piece of important information he had.
"Tonight, Tayagwe is one of the places we can stop to rest. Unless you really do not think you are ready, I want to stop there. I think it would do you good," Tai'ray added. That hadn't been the original plan, though it had always been one of several options. Herymi complicated matters, however. As much as Tai'ray wanted to rush them all to Navat, to pass by the place which Herymi had fled from in such a complicated matter seemed unfair on all involved. As Herymi had said, it hadn't just been his friends he left, it had been the entire community and the people who had taken him in.
"To see them before I'm about to have a hot red iron across my back?" Herymi made a strange noise.
"The brand is a necessity but if you truly don't wish to see them again..." Tai'ray trailed off, giving Herymi a look.
"Truthfully, I do but whether I am ready to, I'm not sure," Herymi admitted.
The Winglord nodded in acceptance, smiling gently. The mix of emotions almost reassuring. There was no sign of rejection or hate. Only shock. Herymi had been mentally preparing to fix a broken friendship, not deal with a claim. Tai'ray wondered if this was some of what Ryraso was feeling in the mix of emotions which were swirling in the healer. At the moment fear for Eyeri was most prominent feeling Tai'ray could discern from Ryraso but like Herymi's potential nest, he and his mates had been courting a human who had not actually realised he was being courted.
"You have until we arrive," Tai'ray said gently. Most rulers wanted traitors to suffer and be punished. Wanted them to regret their actions for the rest of their days. Most did this by trying to make the traitor's life hell. Make ensuring they were in pain for the rest of their life. However, in the k'nairi's opinion, this only really caused resentment, not true regret. His way was almost the complete opposite. He wanted his runaways to be happy. Happy, safe and loyal. He did care about them after all. The link made it impossible not to. And to be honest, what was the better way to ensure someone's loyalty? Through pain and threats? Or through kindness and happiness? One could be taken away as easy as it was given. The other only caused rifts which were unacceptable.
"A claim?" Herymi murmured again, sounding dazed and confused. Not quite believing what he had been told.
"Is it so hard to believe? You are handsome, and you have an impressive skill set for a human. These are people you have known for a long time, who have cared about you for a long time," Tai'ray mused out loud.
"People I care about, but also who I fought against and abandoned. Why would they want me?" Herymi's voice sounding confused. "I told them I never wanted to speak to them again."
"The answer to that is one only your intended can give you. However, I can tell you one thing. The night of the argument? They had planned to propose to you," Tai'ray let the final bomb fall.
The look Herymi gave Tai-ray was one of pure horror. Not at the idea they had planned to propose but rather what that meant. It meant they had been courting him for a while. Long enough that they thought he would accept. A proposal was not given lightly. A bond, normally, formed under certain circumstances. The ceremony you went though made it instantly. They had been courting him and he had not noticed. That was bad stuff, but considering his last words to them and the fact he had left...
"They were hurt in more ways than one when you left," Tai-ray murmured, watching as the possibilities as to what had been happening around him over the weeks before he left slid into place for Herymi.
"That's not fair!" Herymi muttered. "That's really not fair. They treated me like a bloody stranger the month until I left. I thought I'd done something to offend them or that maybe because the four of them were a nest now they didn't want the human hanging around anymore," Herymi complained. "How is that meant to be courting?" he demanded.
Tai-ray shrugged helplessly. "They never left you alone..." he commented, searching through the memories of Herymi's intendeds, willingly offered up by them. Seeing some things which were obvious to the K'nairi that a person was being courted and at the same time things which would make someone feel like a stranger. Especially if the person had been a close friend first.
"I worked with O'chetur, I lived next door. It would be hard to avoid me," Herymi pointed out darkly, standing up of the rock and pacing, his hands clenched.
"Be that as it may, courting in the manner they were doing was the advice given for courting a virgin human who are known for being skittish to these matters, it was all quite normal. They just never told you," Tai'ray said almost sheepishly, unimpressed with the memories.
Herymi went from having four friends who would hug and tease him for the hell of it, who he trusted to carry him in flight, drop him and catch him again, to four suitors who barely looked him into the eye and spoke with guarded voices. Mentally he added a note to the information about how to court a virgin human that this way only really worked if the human was a stranger and not a close friend. A close friend would only be hurt by the change in behaviour.
"So they thought no longer even touching my hand and making dirty jokes around me like they had for years was the best way to win my affections?" Herymi demanded angrily.
"I didn't say it was the right way to court. I think the way they went about it was stupid," Tai'ray said in complete agreement with Herymi's tone of voice.
"Stupid k'nairi," Herymi grumbled. Tai'ray could feel doubts now. Doubts about why would they want him if he had left them while they had been courting him.
"They still want you Herymi," Tai'ray said gently. "They were hurt in more ways than one when you left. You forced them to decide between fighting and not fighting you know? O'chetur was almost put on trial for cowardice. Luckily for him, Nel'os stepped in and allowed him not to fight on the condition that he remained in Navat as a guard."
It was rare for a K'nairi dominant to be reluctant to fight, even if that meant being away from his mates. More than a few doms had been mind searched by him or by his mates to find out real reasons for the lack of motivation.
"They moved to Navat? Then why are they..." Herymi asked frowning.
"The guards are on rotation. They spent a quarter of the year in Navat, then the rest in their hometowns. It's not like Navat is in any danger after all," Tai'ray said calmly. It also meant the guards were fresh and ready to come to the defence of their homeland at any given notice. "When it was announced I was allowing claims, they did everything to ensure they met the requirements. The only reason I will not force it upon you is because of the history you share. Given the amount of the things you did not know, it would be a lot to take in at once."
"Bit of an understatement," Herymi croaked.
"True enough. Herymi it's okay to be scared to see them. The others in your village as well. What is not okay is if you try and lie to them. You will see them at some point in the next few weeks. Either tonight or as prospective mates. It is your choice what ground you first speak on.
Just remember, things have changed. Now, let's get back to camp, shall we? I think breakfast is being cooked from the smell in the wind," Tai'ray smiled softly. Herymi pulled a face, his stomach feeling uneasy from the amount of revelations he had been subjected to but nodded, following Tai'ray back to camp on foot. Very grateful to Tai'ray to let them walk back to camp, it gave him time to start putting everything he now knew back into order.