Pretzel was inconsolable when she skipped her way back towards the house and found me on the nest with blood streaming from my neck.
She dropped her makeshift fishing pole to sprint for me, wailing when she buried her head into my side and gripped at my feathers.
It broke my heart to see her so distraught. No amount of pleading or explaining would get her to stop thinking I was on my deathbed.
She was broken. Just the sight of the blood dribbled over both me and her mother made her lose all hope and happiness.
Bee was determined on having me on the nest to care for our family. She didnt want me to miss a moment of them thriving while she prepared herself for the hunt.
Pretzel decided to remain with me instead of going with her friends. She was like glue to my side, and diligently dug up the ground in front of the nest for worms for the chicks.
I didn't have the heart to tell her that the soil here was not the right conditions for worms.108Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ45GW6PtkUJ
108Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡy5kuvty4yQ
She was doing her part, and that's all that mattered.
Bee checked on my neck and nipped at my beak to make me smile back at her when she stretched her wings.
She smiled down at Pretzel jabbing her fishing pole into the dirt on her own hunt.
"I'll be back soon" Bee reassured "I don't want you leaving this area while I'm gone."
"Yes, Mum" I teased "I'll be good."
Pretzel watched Bee leave then turned back to her digging. I checked on the hungry mouths beneath me that screeched when they felt I had lifted from them.
"Ah ha!" Pretzel shouted out and dropped her stick to dig the dirt with her bare hands "worms!"
"Worms? Here?"
She held up the writhing creature happily and shuffled over to stuff it into the closest mouth.
"It's going to be super hard to tell them apart now that they are all hatched" Pretzel frowned at the other beaks gaping upwards.
I could see what she meant. We had gone to all the trouble to allocate names to each one, but didn't know who was who anymore.
Once they grew a little more, it might be easier. For now, remembering names wasn't anyone's priority.
Pretzel ran back to her little patch to keep digging and tossing worms aside.
I decided to help by choosing my own patch beside the nest to take my claws through.
It didn't take long until I felt the soil grow cold under my touch, and start to blossom with the wriggling worms.
There was no way they should have even been here. 108Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLC1gKhBLuC
108Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlcgLq7vWGL
Was it because Angler had taken up residency nearby and had that cave that smelled like it had been purposely flooded?
That would explain the moisture in the soil. 108Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSiFPJ34fVT
108Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxB0fgp1ZZ8
In a way, the demon was helping the land thrive.
"You aren't very good at this, are you, Papa?" Pretzel chuckled at me when I tried to grab the worms but only sliced them in half "here."
She bundled up the portions and allocated the slippery segments to the demanding mouths.
"The big, hungry one has to be Pancakes" she smirked at the beak popping open immediently afterwards "seems like a Pancakes thing to do."
"It does, doesn't it?" I smirked at her logic.
I saw the flash of cheekiness in Pretzel's eyes in our brief moment of bonding.
"Do you think the seabirds will find us when you die?" Pretzel asked with a hand on my side "so they can carry you up to the spirits?"
I sat down and wrapped my wing around her so I could draw her close.
"It doesn't exactly work that way" I began "the seabirds can't exactly fly that high."
She peered up at me and I paused.
Would she understand what I had to say? Or was she just listening for cues, as normal?
Either way, she had to know.
"The gulls; they do eat our bodies like you said to me, but they don't take them up to the spirits. Our physical bodies don't exactly go anywhere. We are just here."
Pretzel listened in silence. I could see her trying to work it all out.
"I've seen what humans do to our bodies when we die. It isn't a nice place like I thought either. It's filled with black plastic bags and machines that crush the bodies into mountains. It's a horrible place."
"It sounds sad, Papa."
"It was. I didn't know what to expect, but it wasn't anything that. That demon tip turned me into this. I couldn't handle it, and I lost myself. But in doing that, I found you and your mother."
I cuddled Pretzel who savoured the feeling.
"When I die; if it's from this or something else, I'm not going to that place. I'm not letting any of you go anywhere near something so disgusting. No demon deserves that."
It made me tearful just thinking that Pretzel could be one of the rolling bodies down the hill of corpses. And if she wasn't dumped there, she would be stacked in the walls to slowly rot away as maggots infested her skin.
"You can't go anywhere near that place" I choked back.
"Is it that bad?" Pretzel whimpered "to die?"
I gazed at myself and nodded. She had to know. She couldn't fall into darkness like me, Bee, or the old mate had. She didn't need to witness anything like that and become her own Dead Bird.
"Are... the spirits bad too?" she sniffled.
I looked up at the bright sky with her, pondering.
I used to think they were manipulating, horrible things. Whenever something bad happened to me and I needed help, they always just watched in silence.
But it was good that they were silent. If they did speak, would thier words change my mind or anything that had already happened? I'd still hate them regardless. No, silence was what I needed to think and learn.
"Although it may seem like it, they are never bad" I felt a smile creep onto my face "they gave us life, and they are there to listen to whatever you want to say to them. You may lose faith in them and wish for a better purpose, but they will always be there."
"Besides, we can always scream at them too" Pretzel added, wiping her eyes and chuckling.
"That too" I agreed and bumped her playfully to make her giggle.
Her eyes lit up and she pointed to the sky where Bee returned proudly with a catch of fried fish. She dumped them down and watched as Pretzel happily bit into the cooked skin.
"Stealing food from him won't go down well" I warned Bee who tore apart one for herself so she could feed it to the chicks.
"He can't eat them all" she rolled her eyes back at me "besides, he saw me dive down to grab them and did nothing. Not even a noise. So, I took them."
"As long as it doesn't come back on you. I don't want you getting hurt" I fretted before she silenced me by shoving a tiny morsel in my beak like she did with our babies.
"I'm fine" she chuckled "and Pretzel is really enjoying it. I'm going to grab some more before he fries them all up."
I felt dissapointment run through me when she turned to leave.
"You only just got back. Let me."
"I couldn't. Youre injured and b...."
I pushed Bee back to the food and ruffled out my own feathers. I was itching to get back into the sky while I had the chance.
"I'm perfectly capable. I'll be back before you know it."
Bee still wasn't convinced, but wasn't going to fight me on it. She moved out of my way so she could enjoy her small meal.
I would bring her home something bigger. She deserved that after dodging Angler's electric death trap.
"Have fun, Papa!" Pretzel waved as I climbed over the fenceline and glided my way towards the warbling river where Angler was.
I could already see him frying his meal and scooping it up happily. His son was nowhere to be seen; diving underwater again most likely.
Angler cut off his electricity when he saw me land on the edge of the river to wait for my opportunity. I could see his neck had been stuffed with moss in the holes I had torn through the back of his neck. The slice across his face was caked with mud, which made it almost look like warpaint swiped on one side of his face.
Angler snapped up the floating fish and waded through the river towards me. I seized up, preparing for retaliation to my attack or presence here.
There was nothing but kindness when he dumped the fish at my feet and waited for me to accept them.
I felt his thick tongue run over the wounds when I lowered my head, his tongue probing around the flesh to make fresh blood spill over it.
It was bound to be infected for sure now. And I had been doing so good so far not to dirty it at all.
The blood snaked over the rocks I stood on and dripped onto the cooked fish Angler pushed toward me when I lifted my head to glare at him.
He pattered away, pausing to look back at me. Then he ventured further before pausing again to peer back at me.
I knew he wanted me to follow him, but that wasn't what I was here for. I just wanted to get the food and head back home where it was safe.
But if I did that while Angler was waiting for me expectantly, what was to say that he wouldn't stalk me home in the hopes I would follow him, jump the fence and come after my babies again?
It was probably safer that I just went to find out what he wanted.
Just go, then get out of there. Keep him happy.
I didn't want him lurking anywhere near the fence tonight.
The claw marks had spread further into the deer field we passed through. I saw they had inched two more trees forward from where I had seen them last.
When I passed them, I grew nervous.
Why was he still spreading his territory? Soon it would be on top of ours at this steady rate.
The fresh dirt outside the cave had been sprayed outwards too. No deer tracks slid down into the mouth that Angler slipped through with a low clicking.
I didnt follow. I had no idea of knowing what exactly he wanted. Intruding and blocking myself into a narrow cave tunnel with no easy exit was suicide. He could easy snap me up like the first time I had come here.
His face reappeared at the cave to stare at me. The lights of his body illuminated off the walls I could see pressed around him crouching there.
No. There had to be something he wanted that didn't involve me going in there.
"I'll wait" I grimaced, only to have him hiss back in response and try to bite down on my arm to drag me in.
I pulled it out of his way and sat there in hesitation.
I was really starting to regret this.
Well, if something did happen....
I dropped my helping of the fried fish to the ground before inching my way towards him and his cave.
He slipped out so I could squeeze in and walk on blindly.
Angler came up behind me to cast light around us. It only helped me see a breath ahead of me before the cold darkness swallowed up the surroundings.
The dirt I scraped along was freezing. It stuck to my body like mud, and oozed from my feathers like slime.
I hated it here. My whole body was coiled and ready to run at the first thing that would threaten me.
I had so much more to think about now. Fighting in unfamiliar places was not an option.
Angler's breath was warm on my body that was released from its slimy grip and thrown into an open cavern that Angler pushed past me to twist around.
The right side of it was a murky flooded pond of darkness. The left was cracked dirt and bones that led up to a mound where more were arranged into the clumsy shape of a human. Ahead was a curved wall that had a single hole in the roof small enough to let a sliver of light through. It dribbled with water that made the wall it streamed down glisten.
I approached the human while Angler slipped into his water to dissappear under the surface. His lights rippled under the surface that he bobbed around in, tearing at the sides of the tunnel there.
I knew he had a human when we were still in school together. His whole mutation back then revolved around saving them from drowning.
What had happened? Where was the human now if Angler was out here making replacements out of deer bones?
Was he alone down here?
I tried to find some sort of indication that his mate was nearby, but found none. I couldn't even pick up on another scent, or see signs of nesting in the boney dirt or the glistening wall.
It was just him and his spotted son. 108Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOxGwGjq4hy
108Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBzNsLMyhRF
That had to be a lonely life.
Angler resurfaced and shook off the water to coat me in it. His teeth were speared through masses of clumpy moss that he approached me with eagerly. He tried to force me to my stomach by applying weight to his front arms that buckled mine and did as he wanted.
I laid there while he pried off the moss from his teeth to stab into my wounds on my neck.
I was embarrassed by how easily my body bent under his and remained there. The last time someone had done that, it had been alone with River in the sunflower field while he made himself known to me in every way possible.
I felt a twitch deep down and seized in embarrassment.
Oh jeez, not now! 108Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfwIMCohOJk
108Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡI3YVdrvmK4
I didn't feel like that with him!
I could already pick up on the wanting pouring from me. I did want to feel that way again, and was waiting for that ache to be sated. Angler packed the wounds, oblivious to my inner turmoil beneath him.
I needed to get up. Break the disgusting feelings while I could.
The moment the last bit of moss was packed, I struggled out from his grasp and stood there, panting in panic; not sure what to do.
I know he had led me here to help me, but I was the one who had turned it into something more.
I know he could see and smell my fear of the stirred emotions. He only watched me in silence, his eyes dropping downwards.
"It's not what it looks like" I blabbered, turning from him to hide my erection "I don't think about you like that. It was someone else; River, not you."
He listened to my shaky words and crept around to the other side of me to place himself between me and the tunnel leading to the exit.
"I'm not..." I gulped down the lump in my throat "...thank you for the help but I really should get going."
I slipped past him and wedged my way back up through the tunnel. When I felt the open air over my body once more, I snapped up the fish and sprinted for liftoff so I could head home.
I was humiliated by my actions. It hadn't been intentional, but the intense pressure of his body on mine woke something inside me that hadn't been felt in a long time.
I was still burning with embarrassment when I landed and delivered the bountiful meal. 108Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhaT0U7YFq2
108Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2w1rlUFSY0
Flying around in circles to clear my head and give my body time to cool down had worked, but I still felt guilty about it all and having to come to that to hide it from my own mate.
"Welcome back" she greeted me warmly, then paused to inspect my soaked feathers and patched neck "where did you go?"
"Angler" I bit out "he... took me in the cave."
"You seem a bit nervous about that. What happened?"
I glanced at Pretzel listening as she feasted, and dropped my gaze.
Even though she couldn't understand, I still felt like this was a private matter.
Bee nudged her along and encouraged her to go play with Butter who was being led downstairs by the boys.
"Now" Bee nudged my side "how come you are acting weird? You can talk to me. I am your mate."
I smiled at her chuckle, and dropped my head.
"I wanted to be mated by Angler."
Bee's face went blank and she tilted her head to the side.
"Well, I wasnt expecting that."
"It was the way he was on me" I blurted to try and clear any confusion "I felt things that i know I didn't want with him! He picked up on it too because I... kind of got hard."
"Well, if I knew it was that easy, I would have pressed on your back from the start" Bee joked with a touch between my shoulders to try and lighten my shame "he didn't do anything, did he?"
I shook my head.
"I think he probably would have tried if I stayed any longer" I added "smelling like a wanting female is bound to set any male off, especially for an empty-nester."
"A wanting female?" Bee snorted at my words.
"You know what I mean" I jabbed back with a smirk.
She pressed her head to my shoulder and looked up at me.
"Aren't you going to tell me the story about this other mate?" she pried "I'm assuming this was all before you mutated like this."
I was astonished she was so calm about it all. Wasn't she just a bit hurt that I had reacted that way about someone other than her?
"It's a long story" I smiled back at her making herself comfortable on the nest I laid beside.
"I have nothing but time" she grinned and listened to me start the story of how I fell in love for the first time all over again. 108Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5HowtANwgc
Bee was deep in thought when I finished my tale. She flashed me a sympathetic look and leaned on me again.
"It sounds like a sad life" she commented while gazing out ahead "so much cruelty and anger."
"Being in the Cradle for so long was not one of the highlights of my life" I commented with a smile at her "what about you? Did you ever get anything like that?"
"Oh, no" she chuckled at me "unlike you, I was a good demon."
She had my interest. I waited for more about her own life I barely knew anything about.
"Go on" I pushed "tell me about it."
She fluffed up and settled down next to me.
"Well, to start with, I fell onto a road instead of a nice flower field. Almost got run over only minutes after arriving here."
I cringed at how dangerous her start had been already.
"The person who stopped put me in a box and took me to a friend of thiers. She was a strange but funny lady who lived in a caravan. Her name was Delilah. She was the most prettiest person too. She had this crazy curly brown hair that would always puff out the back like Pretzel's does, and she had wonderful dark skin that had white patches on it like spotted demons. She never really liked it though and complained about her 'printer running out of ink' ; whatever that meant. "
"She sounds like she had a good sense of humour" I snorted back.
"Well, Delilah was a very bubbly woman who always seemed to be smiling. She loved singing badly to the songs on her phone in her caravan. Usually she'd sing them to her fat cat named Lizard before I came along. 108Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJbaxmD7GMf
108Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtN1uTOHUq6
She was really into the natural stuff like crystals and sages. Her whole caravan always had herbs hanging in them and smelled amazing."
"So, she had no children?"
Bee shook her head.
"Never wanted them. Delilah was a traveler who didn't like to be grounded in one place for too long. She was a spirit that wanted to see everything there was to see out there. Lizard was her furry baby to her. 108Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡA21BwJl09G
108Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMG7kD4Qxjd
We did a lot of traveling together before I had even found a form to take. Since I had nothing to base off of like you did, I chose her age. She was twenty three."
"T-twenty-three?" I choked out" you lost most of your life!"
Bee shrugged so carelessly.
"I didn't know what I was missing, so it didn't bother me. I just did what I had to for my best chance; you understand that. We all do it out of instinct."
I nodded and fell silent.
"Anyway, it was good with both of us practically like sisters. We would literally just keep driving wherever the road took us. For money, Delilah sold smudging sticks out of her caravan with little crystals tied to them. They were kinda popular; not as much as she wanted though. She always had a box left over on the little kitchen bench in the back.
I got my first mutation on the road too; crystals. Delilah kept her jars of herbs and flowers and crystals in cupboards above her kitchen. When she was on the ground sweeping up the spilled sage from tying new sticks, Lizard tried to get into the cupboards. Delilah didn't react quick enough when the cat knocked down the jars there. I was right there and just threw myself over Delilah to save her from the glass. There was stuff everywhere, so I didn't know the crystals poking out of my back where mine until she tried to pull them out after we both thought I had been stabbed. It gave her an idea."
"Why does it sound like you aren't about to be a good demon?" I teased Bee who smirked and tilted her head up.
"I was good" she smirked back "I just didn't know that selling demon crystals was bad at the time."
"Demon crystals?"
"It is my story" Bee shushed me "let me tell it."
I shut my beak and listened once more.
"We were poor" Bee began as she looked at me "Delilah didn't have a job, and me getting one wasn't on the cards. She didn't want to be grounded, remember? So, when I mutated, she came up with the idea to sell the crystals from my body. She called them Demon Crystals, but didn't tell anyone else. I would just help her take them off and tie them to the sage; nothing else. She thought they would be more popular, but they were not. My mutation dried up after only a week, since she wasn't in danger anymore. We had to get creative to bring them back. 108Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRqORUG1IA6
108Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡotTVuZe3Uf
She suggested we purposefully put myself in dangerous situations with crystals nearby to force the mutation. Seeing as demons do take from their surroundings when they feel threatened, it sounded like it would work. And it did. I got the crystals back so we could pull them off and sell them. Again, I didn't know this was bad. I had been with Delilah for three years now so I didn't know better."
Twenty six and already mutilating her body for profit. The closest I had been to that was having my horns sawed off when I had been tagged.
"We figured that selling them from the source would probably draw in more people. They always wanted to know where the different coloured crystals came from, so we made that our thing. Sold them as 'demon crystals' straight from the source and claimed that they had divine energy since they came from a divine being."
"You were a scam artist!" I laughed out now "what on earth did you say they could do?"
"Tune them to the spirits, heal bad energies, make them find love, bring happiness to other demons, connect them to passed ones, cleanse body chakras, and draw energy from the moon itself" Bee counted on her claws "oh, and if you put a bunch of them in a little string bag with some rosemary and sage we sold and hung it like a necklace, anxiety would just wash away for you."
"No-one would fall for that!" I laughed with her "there's no way!"
"Well, since it was all from a demon, and we were cutting them right in front of them, they believed it. They liked our demon crystals and they were much more popular that the normal smudging sticks. I didn't know, o? I thought I was just helping Delilah with money for our food and fuel."
I nodded and rolled my eyes at her amused smile.
"You are jealous we had a good business" she jabbed cheekily "it got lots of attention wherever we went too; made us a tonne of money. We just kept going through the same process of forcing mutations and cutting crystals until someone told someone else who sent officials to us. Because Delilah was a free spirit who didn't live on the grid, she didn't register me when I was given to her. Technically, I was 'stolen property'; thier words, not mine, and I was taken away. It's only by living with a man from the agency that I realised what she had been doing was wrong. She tried to claim me back and put me under her name after a few days of me being gone, but it was a really high amount to buy me back while I was under the name of the agency. I knew we had raised that amount with my crystals, but she just refused to take me back and just left. I was handed over to one of the workers to help clean me of my mutations. He was a quiet guy who cared for injured baby birds mostly; he wasn't someone who would profit from me. Byron was very nice. He was the one who taught me how to help care for the animals while he was at work."
"Byron sounds like a good guy."
"He was" Bee nodded happily "and I was thinking about giving my soul to him too, before I had to go back. It was very boring without Byron. I got given a collar with a name on it, a little bed in the corner to sleep on, newspaper to pee on, and two bowls; food and water. No-one knew how to look after demons since the only thing they knew was how to look down on them as something lesser. They called me Beatrice. Byron called me Angie, and Delilah called me Sage. But, none of them were my name. I felt like I had only been given them so they could call me something other than 'it'. You called me Bee, and it's the only name I've felt like is really my own. I don't want to be known as any the others."
"You'll only be Bee to me" I snuggled into her. Her faded tag in her ear no doubt was marked as Beatrice from the agency. A name that had illided me now meant nothing. It was something she didn't want to remember, so I wouldn't dwell on it.
"So, how did you get out of there?" I frowned "and how did you get tagged like I was? I handed myself in, but you were already there."
"I saw what other demons had to go through day in and day out. I sat in my little corner and watched the lines while I wished I could leave those doors like they did. One day, something in me had enough of being Beatrice, and snapped. I made a run for it. They never chained me down or locked me up since I was so obediant. I just ran until I was caught and mutated. It wasn't my proudest moment. I bit and kicked and screamed to get to those doors while my mutations went wild. I borrowed things from every other demon there just to try and leave. I wasn't anything like I am now. I was... something else."
Her gaze focused blankly elsewhere, and I felt her sadness and shame. Bee jumped when I wrapped my claw around hers to snap her from the thoughts.
"What about Bobby?" I pulled her to something more pleasent "you said he helped you."
Her smile slowly lifted across her face and she nodded.
"Bobby was one of the demons in that room when I went bezerk. We had never met before. I was tranqued and tagged before the decision was made to dump me in the demon tip rather than try to make me better. I don't know why, but Bobby risked everything to follow me there. He was the one I saw when I woke up. He dragged me away from the machines and kept the sun off me until then. He was a nice demon with a nice family; I had no idea why he would want to come help someone he didn't even know."
I had followed two demons I barely knew to the tip as well. I had been too late to save them though. There was no coming back from that disgusting fate.
Perhaps Bobby knew of the tip?
"My old mate was there too. He was already mutated into his Death Bird and was trying his best to break the machine crushing down the bodies. He had been trying to save his friend that had been killed. He didn't want him to go like that. My old mate didn't even remember his name; that's how far gone he was. Bobby was understandably afraid and left me out of fear. He battled the machine while I lost myself in the tip and became this. When the humans came to try and kill us, we left together and decided to find somewhere safer. That when I made my home in that clearing with him and started our long journey of trying to raise a family. It became clear that his wings were only showing a defect he had even before mutating. It killed our children. This was years before we found Pretzel and you showed up after. And now we are here, with five of our own. It's certaintly hasn't been easy, but we made it together."
"We did. And you've come so far. I wouldn't change any of it. It's what bought me to you."
"Do you think things would still be like this if you had killed that male who slept with your human? Or if Byron had been successful in keeping me at the agency rather than being thrown into the tip? Don't you ever think what could have happened of we did things just a bit differently?"
"Are you regretting some things of your past? We can't change what has already happened, Bee" I sympathized with her inner turmoil"if I knew the things I did now, I think I would have changed a lot of things. Maybe they would have been for the better, maybe not. But what's done is done. You can't beat yourself up over what you did years ago."
Her glistening eyes darted to mine.
"I just wish some things would have changed" she whispered "that we could have been there for each other a lot sooner. I feel like we both could have used someone in those dark times. It sort of feels like I've run out of time."
"Well..." i bumped her side "...you did have a twenty-three year headstart."
"I've always kind of regretted doing that without thinking" Bee admitted "I thought she was my everything, you know?"
I understood the feeling perfectly. I thought I had my everything once before too.
"But if you didn't do that, I don't think we'd be here right now" I tried to lighten the mood "I think you did the right things, and I love you for that."
I saw Bee's smile and felt her relax when she snuggled into me.
"And I love you too, Teddy."
My insides bubbled at her soft words. I felt giddy just by hearing what I already knew.
"I think we should feed the children" Bee chuckled up at me "as wonderful as it is to compare trauma, I don't think they appreciate it so much. I'll head out first, then you can go after."
I made myself comfortable in the nest and quietened the begging mouths that sprung up at my movement.
"Don't go mating any angler fish while I'm gone" Bee joked when she turned to prepare for flight "save that enthusiasm for later."
My heart jerked at her knowing smile, and she left me wishing she was back already, even before she had even left the skies above.
Everything happened for a reason. It was all playing out to make me realise I was a very lucky demon to have her in my life.
ns 15.158.61.8da2
