Closed [Nesting Aeries]Listen to the rhythm of your heart(Phoenix)

[Lavira]

Summer 91, 513

Sunset.

The summers warmth was beginning to recede as Syna settled beneath the western horizon. It cast a pleasant atmosphere on the surrounding mountainscape, lighting yonder peaks with heavenly fire while dashing the valleys in abyssal darkness. The clouds that flirted the skies in broken waves made it picturesque. It was a beauty any artist could appreciate.

But most of the citizenry was lost in drunken reverie at the Courtyard of the Sky. The sounds of Inartans taking their pleasure in drink, drug, and...sometimes other forms would have made even Rhysol proud for the chaos that it brought. But this was Ivak's realm and the passions of his volcanic people were his alone to revel in. One could almost feel the heartbeat of Skyinarta as the music swelled, the beating of the drums pulsing through the stony columns around everything and reverberating off the mountainsides in the distance.

Most of the populace was enjoying the party. Most, except for one.

She sat alone in the nesting aerie, her knees drawn to her chest and her arms wrapped around both legs so that her cheek could rest atop them. This woman who felt like a lost child in not but her work clothes, still smelling of the days work, could not bare the thought of such revelry for all she heard in the beating of the drums and the hoots of the people and even the joyous cries of the eagles as summer came to an end, was the horrible cadence of dripping water, the low moan of the wind through the stone, the ferocious crack of thunder in the sky...This woman who sat crying alone in this place she worked, an aerie that was not hers, in new, but already well worn clothes, with her hair loose and the snowy feather upon the leather lattice her mother had given her.

When she tried to blink the tears away by clenching her eyes shut, the darkness that came made her sob, the pinpoint eyes seen even when her own were shut made her shudder. Even in waking, it was there. Kovac's friendship, Iosha's kindness...they only absorbed some of the ache she felt from those awful three days. And though her side had healed, her legs fully mended, the woman named Lavira still felt the burning beneath the scar that could so clearly be seen upon her side.

Her hand crept away from its crossed place to press upon the chunk that left a hollow in her side, just beneath her ribs, cringing even as she did so. Mohya was not here to see her like this this time, that fine and proud bird whose nest this belonged to. How weak the dame must think of the Chiet. How weak and pathetic. Mohya was so hard to read, her actions so confusing (or was it herself that was confused, unable to see that beautiful birds change in behavior since returning to her duty following the accident; was it she who was confused and incapable of hearing the unspoken voice that raptor held).

Vira sobbed, her fingers arching at her side until her fingernails drew blood and tried to use the additional discomfort to block the cadence of the party she heard even from here. She could put a good face on throughout the day, sweeping her misery under the rug the same way she swept the dust from the aeries. So long as she avoided those locations which might trigger her anxiety most, nobody needed to know, not even Mohya. Or so she hoped.

[Elysium]

Powerful wingbeats reverberated dully against the static air, signaling the return of the matron-bird to her aerie. Mohya often left to hunt, to escape the acute loneliness of her own domain. It was comforting to dive fiercely against the waters of Thunder Bay, exchanging feeling for purpose as she swept against the placid edge, claws finding purchase and prey. To do was something she understood, could control. To feel was not. The Eagle did, while the Human felt and did not. This was the source of her pain.

She settled directly in front of Lavira as she always did, tucking her tawny wings in a sinuous motion. The girl was crying; she was upset, again. This too, Mohya understood. How to quell the sorrow however, she did not. She stared with molten eyes, calculating, tilting her crested head in a quizzical motion.

How to fix? How to heal the girl who was badly broken?

During her panicked flight, she’d heard Lavira’s cries. She had learned of Heshvala’s claw and the great wound it’d left. Mohya felt they were kindred in a certain respect. Through the negligence of humans did she lose her young; through the negligence of Eagles did Vira lose her eye, her flesh. And yet she was still Chiet, still performed her task, always aware of the price she’d been forced to pay. But what to do? The pain still strangled her will to speak. She could not speak, would not.

She sat, frowning only as a bird could, and listened to the girl’s soft cries.

How badly she wanted to break free and give comfort. She wished to bond with this girl. Lavira was too strong to be Chiet. It was her will to survive that carried her on, the unyielding spirit of an Endal shining through. But Mohya needed to find the strength to do so, for hers had given out. It had died in the Storm.

[Lavira]

The sound of wings approaching broke the young woman from her weeping but not from still clutching her side. She could see the beautiful bird approaching and knew she'd either want Vira to leave so she could rest or might try and give her some kind of solace. But what could the eagle do to help her? A piece of the teen had been left in the chasm she had fallen to, and not just a physical piece. Her mangled side, though finally beginning to mend completely, had proven that.

The silence of the bird was expected as the one-eyed Chiet stared back, her arm half-hiding her face. It was the returned stare that made Vira shift uncomfortably and lower her gaze to one side. But what could she say to the raptor? Mohya never talked to her, never talked to anybody but her mate. And it stung, especially for all that Vira had given to the eagle trying to cheer her up. Without speaking, the teen got to her feet.

The young woman moved around the enormous bird to stand at the drop and look down silently. It was easy in the fading light to see the shyke-spot she'd struck mid-season. Were her fingers still etched in the crap that covered that rock where she'd tried to cling? Maybe there was even a piece of fingernail. The thought made her shudder and the shudder made her remember the pain. Her hands pressed into her side once more, her face taut as she tried not to groan. She had been lucky...Her mind went to Kovac and the night he had stayed with her, the afternoon spent on the flats, and the subsequent hunt at one of the Western lochs not ten days prior to today. He had been a godsend to her, Vira acknowledged that, a blessing in the form of a mongrel archer, charismatic and handsome...and someone like Mohya who did not run away from the haunted woman now looking down at the very place that had started this all.

The tears returned to her vision and Vira bit the inside of her cheek. She spoke more to herself now as she stared at the drop. "Why can't I let it go, Mohya? Why can't I just let it go?" The woman turned to peer up at the bird, pleading for the eagle to say something, anything. "Why do I have to wear this farce of a face like some...some petching...." She struggled, turned from the bird as she took a breath and balled her fists. Then, she just screamed. Up here in the aeries, it was easy to do that, to just let it all out in a single vocal burst to echo across the distances. She screamed until her lungs were empty and her sides were aching. Her right side flared in pain anew and the teen choked on a cry as she clutched at the hollow of missing muscle and nerves, barely covered by puckered skin.

As the throb began to ebb, she found herself laughing hollowly turning to move more into Mohya's shadow. "At least you can fly, Mohya. You just leap off the edge and fly. I bet it brings you such peace and clarity of mind, too. You certainly look more at peace with life when you're flying. What I wouldn't give for that...to just let it all go and forget about the pain...forget about the dreams...for get about that petch of a man...I hope he got eaten by something, wherever he went." She spoke of Garren, the venom and hatred in her voice tangible. He had BEEN there, KNEW she had fallen...and he didn't even come to see if she'd survived, didn't even help find her. "Instead, I'm stuck here. You're probably laughing at me, too; probably wondering when I'm going to get out so you can have your nest to yourself. Is it pity that you stand there beside me every time I come, Mohya?"

Her gaze again returned to the world beyond the aerie. "I don't want pity, Mohya. I want..." The woman closed her eyes and sighed, head raising so that face was pointed at the sky. "...I just want some peace. I feel so broken, and they can't see it." Or that's what she told herself. She wondered if Kovac did see it and that was why the Avora stayed near throughout the hunting trip, if that beauty he saw in her was nothing more than the basic attraction of a man to a woman and Vira was yet blind to the truth. "Nobody can. How do I make myself whole again, Mohya? What am I supposed to do?" Her thoughts were chaotic, but that shouldn't have been surprising. She was desperate and standing on the precipice of just giving up. For all that her heart went out to the Avora who likely partied somewhere in the city below, the young woman was mortified to get attached to him in any form after Garren's abandonment and the near broken spirit that had been left.

"Gods, what am I supposed to do?"

[Elysium]

The great beast did not flinch at the sound, though it set other eagles nearby to preening. Mohya simply stared, fiercely sad for Lavira. She’d seen many faces, all Inarta, but none so endearing as hers. The bitterest truth was how the fall had mangled her heart. Lavira was overcome by self-loathing, directionless sorrow. Patiently, the raptor listened to her plight, her beak’s gradient shining in the mountain’s dim fire.

"At least you can fly, Mohya. You just leap off the edge and fly.”

After falling, seemingly with no end, this girl still wished to fly? The bird adjusted her wings with a light rustle. She indeed had the spirit of an Endal, as it was told by the first. Her heart trembled. Vira knew only sadness because she could not fly and Mohya knew the same because she could not speak.

The great bird very slowly approached Lavira, closer than perhaps she’d come before. Deliberately she turned, settling as the youth had no doubt seen with the others. Mohya was offering a seat to ride. She was offering flight. Internally, her mind struggled with the action and for the first time since the djed storm, a fragile thought of speech listed from the matron eagle, touching the fringes of Lavira’s consciousness.

It just said: ”Fly.”

The image of them, flying together above the volcano; the feeling of joy instead of pain… Mohya struggled to communicate her vision best she could, to say she wanted to face this challenge, together.

”Strong,” another thought sang, ”Endal.”

Vira had earned her respect but it was painstaking, for Mohya had carefully constructed this barrier she now fought to cross. That much was obvious by her infantile, stuttered sentences. Long months of silence had nearly left her mute. With each thought, a true voice began to emerge, as Mohya pushed against the internal obstacle with all her might.

”You are strong, Lavira. Let us fly.”

She sounded wise, voice rich and dark like the shadow of her plumage. It seemed caring, too, motherly in a way most humans could only hope to emulate. But the question remained.

Would Lavira wish to soar through the clouds together?

[Lavira]

Not wishing to further disturb the birds nest, the teenager turned to leave at last, her head hanging and a palm rubbing at her reddened eyes. She may as well return to the Common rooms. Better to lay there than risk Mohya's temper again.

But as she turned to go, the quiet ruffle of a hundred feathers rubbing against one another made her stop and turn her head slightly to peer back at the enormous bird. The position Mohya had taken was by far and large new. Vira had seen her laying down, had seen her standing and in flight; she had seen her bathing in the water she brought each week and the dust that cleaned mites from their feathers. She had seen the raptor in every position imaginable (even in flight with her mate, dancing in the sky so high above, talons locked) except this one.

No, this was a new position for the great eagle to settle into, one that Vira immediately recognized. It was alien to see the riderless bird performing it and she wondered for a moment what it could mean...until a thought, more of an image, touched her mind.

Fly.

She could see it clearly and yet hazily at the same time as Mohya tried to step around the barricades she'd erected since spring last year. The quiet and maternal voice, so uncertain in that single word made Vira's heart flutter in excitement though her face was awash with uncertainty. Then came two more thought-words and the Chiet was sure she would die then and there as the bird peered at her with such deep and knowing eyes. It'd been so long since the bird had spoken in any form that it was a wonder she understood the eagle at all!

Strong. Endal.

Vira closed her eyes where she stood, concentrating in an effort to clarify the images. Her hands trembled. Surely Mohya was joshing her. What a cruel joke this would be for the proud and intelligent bird to pull on the already stressed woman. But the supreme effort the eagle took to just say that stuff was clear, as clear as the sentence that finally accompanied the previous clipped words. That was what the bird wanted? Truly? Vira was unsure even as she approached the eagle, one hand cautiously extending and hovering over her neck feathers as she looked into the brilliant eyes.

Then her hand closed the distance, the texture as silken as ever. She replied clipped, "What if others see you? Isn't it akin to...I dunno, a sin to take a cripple?" Eagles were picky birds, though, but it was exceedingly rare for a bird to choose "damaged goods", so to speak. Riders needed to be both physically and mentally capable and it was the former which had kept Vira as a Chiet, no matter the birds she'd cared for and the young who hatched and fledged under her watch. But Mohya would surely see that Vira was not going to say no. That this bird, of all birds, had stepped forwards to let her ride was beyond special.

[Elysium]

The uncertainty of Lavira’s approach was as a cat to a snake. Her gaze was awash with conflict. This was as Mohya had expected; too often had she shown her ire in times passed, as birds were wont to do. Her grief would turn to anger. Shame filled the raptor’s heart. Wind Eagles were meant to protect, not to harm. Too many times had this girl been shown otherwise. It was no surprise to see her afraid.

Straining, she pushed further. ”You are no cripple. You bear wounds of the warrior. Life is your enemy. But now, without an ally, you cannot fight.”

Mohya shifted uncomfortably. ”I have been alone, too long. I fought the same battle and lost. You child, you give me hope. You asked to fly. This, I can do.” If things were meant to be, they’d bond high amongst the clouds. The year’s passing had eroded her selfish grief. With each flare of the watchstones, she knew better what it was like to feel isolated, to be truly alone. But time and again, Lavira cared for her. Not just because she was Chiet, not because she wished to bond. She did it out of respect for her ancestors and out of compassion for her.

The images were clearer now. She sent a picture of two hunters in the sky, beast and man, sweeping over the rippling waters of Thunder Bay, whooping against the wind. Lavira with shortbow in hand, red locks glistening in the light would smile up at the sun, one golden-flecked eye luminous with joy. There was a distinct sense of rightness to the vision.

”Do not be afraid.”

She shook her feathers lightly, head bowed low. Whatever her choice would be, it would be made today.

[Lavira]

Again that voice filled her mind, and for a moment now, Vira was taken back to her childhood and her mother caring for the grand Thunder Bay Eagle she'd had. The thought that Mohya was patronizing her was absent, however, it was the nurturing favor the bird showed that Vira attached to most.

Uncertainty still plagued her as her hand hovered over Mohya's neck, rubbing the feathers gently and eyes remaining closed. This must be a dream; it had to be. What bird would want her? She'd already proven to one rider she could hold on as good as any, insisting to both the Endal and Kovac they needn't secure her so tightly. That was back on the eighty-ninth, the memory of the hunt with the Avora still fresh in her mind. She shuddered in delight just as the words echoed from Mohya: Do not be afraid. It was accompanied by the most serene sight she ever could have imagined, one that summed it all up.

"How can you know where..." The teen hesitated, her hand still stroking the stunning plumes. It was an obscenely arrogant thing to claim, but it was what fit best, "...where I belong most?" Vira pressed her face into the feathers now, happy tears now slipping from her eyes. "How can you know where my heart belongs, Mohya? Of all that I have wanted, nothing secedes my longing for the sky. I'm forever looking up, hoping..." She trailed away and rolled her head so her single eye could see the eagles face. She'd dreamed of flight since she was a child, like something gone from the world supplemented the images, showing her a past that might have been hers in another life, another time.

It was never out of greed or lust that the woman pined for the sky. The heavenly expanses were where she knew she belonged, nothing more and nothing less. She didn't want the glory or the power or the money; she didn't even want to Bond to prove this caste-driven city wrong. She wanted only to fly.

Finally drawing a breath, the woman reached up to the spot she had seen others grasp and took hold of a thick handful of feathers. Then, with knee pressing into the hollow near the birds shoulder, she pulled herself up, swinging her leg the rest of the way over. Like the few times before, she settled back near the base of the birds neck, bending her legs so that her feet rested over instead of under the wing-joints. It was up to the bird, now. Mohya had to make the choice, in the end, Vira was simply the pawn awaiting decision as she said calmly and confidently,

"Fly, Mohya, take me home."

[Elysium]

”Because we are the same,” Mohya said simply. Though two souls apart, they were so similar it was nearly painful. They bore the same scars and despite it all, both wanted to soar. This she’d seen in Lavira from the beginning. Her love of the sky was the fragile string that kept her from madness. How else could an Inarta feel? They were a proud, passionate people. Injury only meant weakness – an inability to hunt, to thrive.

"Fly, Mohya, take me home."

With an avian cry, they were out of the nest. Wind rushed above and below her wings, pressure lifting them higher and higher as they soared. Mohya felt fierce joy at the weight of a rider and that joy slowly began to seep into Lavira’s consciousness. Their separate feelings began to meld into one as they rose in altitude.

With powerful wings, Mohya swept them both into a thermal, beginning the spiraling ascent higher still. Vira wanted to dance with the clouds; she could truly feel the girl in her heart, now. They arced gracefully as incredulous Inarta gathered below, mouths gaping.

’Is that Lavira?! The Chiet girl?’

Their voices were drowned by atmospheric bluster as both eagle and rider crept toward the sun. As they reached the pinnacle of the sky, Mohya gave a laugh – or was it Lavira? – and the bird narrowed her wingspan, angling toward Thunder Bay. Together they shot from the current, gliding smoothly over the lake, watching at the sun danced gaily across the gelid water.

Mohya was not just herself any longer. She felt Lavira distinctly. Without even realizing, they were on the precipice of a true bond. ”You fly well, Lavira,” she said with a phantom smile. The Eagle had not felt so alive since her first mating. Syna’s light warmed her gold-and-teak feathers and it eased her aching heart.

”Make the choice,” she sang in the chiming tones of the wind. Her conscious mind pushed politely at the girl’s, as if requesting admittance once and for all.

[Lavira]

Exultation.

No word could describe the feeling that flooded her senses when the mighty bird launched herself from the aerie and into the sky. Her muscles tightened and she clung to the feathers with hands and body, her head low to keep the drag to a minimum. The pressure of the climb pressed her further into the soft mass and it was with effort that the human turned her head to look down at the mountain below. She could see a few Dek that she worked with staring up at her, their hands shielding their eyes and saying something to each other, then one running out of sight, back into the warrens, probably saying something to another. Let them judge, let them tell, this was her moment. Hers. Lavira's. And be damned to them who thought she was not worthy. She worked hard if not harder than some; who could say she was not worthy!

In her mind, she could feel the pressure of the birds consciousness against her mind, a yearning to meld with the teen as Vira turned her eyes back to the sky. As the bird climbed, her body twisting between wing beats until the sun was on their backs, the woman clinging to her looked over her shoulder again, this time at the sun (a little more visible now) that still crept beneath the horizon lined with mountains. She squinted against its brightness and then looked heavenwards again. The clouds were far higher than she could go that day, the drifting cirrus well out of reach of the likes of a human. But to be up here with one who wanted her....

Vira closed her eyes again and grinned, pressing her face into the birds neck as her heart soared beside them. The presence of the eagle in her mind was so intense now Vira couldn't help reaching out as well. It was like a precious stone ripe for the plucking. She yearned for it as the eagle finally capped her climb and hung suspended for what seemed an eternity. Adjusting her position quickly, the tension in her right side well beyond painful from this most unexpected excursion, Vira released the eagles neck to throw her hands into the air and toss her head back, ruddy locks left to blow in the high altitude current as they hung there.

Heaven. This was Heaven, it had to be. The gods had left the misery and the heartbreak on the mountain and filled this girl...no...this woman with absolute relief. Her heart surged with joy as that moment lingered for eternity. It was a sense of the most raw peace she ever had felt.

And then the eagle dove, Vira tilting down quickly to press her body against the neck once more and adjusting her footing instinctively. Though the force of the wind against her ripped the whoop of delight from her lips, Vira needed no words to reply to the urging of the bird beneath her. She needed no hand to hold or rope to steady her. In her mind, she could feel it like a gate waiting to be opened. There was no lock upon the gate as her "hand" closed upon the ring for it did not need to be locked. With open and waiting heart, she threw the 'gate' open to meet Mohya before it and make the bond.

It was instantaneous, the sense of the other filling her through and through. It was intense, the feel of the birds mind and body as her wings controlled the dive and then spread to carry them over the lower hills leading to the Bay and the sense of yearning in the eagles own consciousness. In return, the bird would feel the turmoil of sleepless nights struggled through since mid-season; of constant physical pain as her body tried to find a way of handling the missing muscles and nerves in her side; of sheer joy and love that of all the birds, the least likely to truly see her chose her. Vira saw through Mohyas dual eyes, the intensity of the birds vision a shock to the almost eighteen year old who'd lived some three years now with only one eye to see through. The ability to focus upon some small point far below was unsettling and dizzying and Vira closed her own eyes in an effort to break from the image.

But beneath it all, the Chiet....no...She was not a Chiet any longer. She was an Endal now. And beneath it all there was pride. Her mind filled with the want to continue flying throughout the coming night, but she knew that would be unwise. "Amazing...is that what the other riders feel? Can they feel their birds too? Mohya this is..." No words could express it, though the explosion of emotion and color in her mind seemed to sum it up.

Euphoria and Exultation.

[Elysium]

Mohya gave a phantom chuckle, having felt Lavira’s sentiment before she could even express it. The bonding was absolute. ”Yes,” she said telepathically, ”you can see as I see, feel as I feel.” The great eagle could sift through emotions she’d never even dreamed. To be mangled and to be ashamed were alien concepts, now bearing down with such leaden weight that a strangled cry escaped her. There was the need to cry, too; eagles were not compelled to cry, to kiss or to embrace. These human feelings were nearly incomprehensible, yet she had to feel them just the same. Things she’d never understood suddenly became clear.

They soared through the sky, drifting lazily on the current. Mohya’s feelings were Lavira’s, too – she’d know fierce avian pride and sadness, the predatory thrill of the hunt, the dance between mates, and most of all, the absolute devastation at losing her children through the storm. It felt good to know and be known and this concept was transferred seamlessly to her rider.

For a time they flew in silence, speaking without words. Mohya showed her memories - sheets of golden light kissing the clouds, fish scales shimmering in the afternoon sun, the waters of Thunder Bay casting prisms from the sunset above. These were things Lavira knew, yet they were through the eyes of an eagle, the things her raptor loved best. She’d see every minute detail, every speck and glorious hue. Sight was what she’d lacked. Mohya wanted to give her this.

In exchange, she prompted for emotion. Through the bond, she’d felt things foreign, yet they pleased her. Mohya quietly asked for love, passion, joy, grief and fear, for humans experienced a spectrum of sensation that eagles could never even fathom. ”I’m happy,” she said finally, after a time.

”Thank you.”

There was a question that lingered; should they turn back or continue? The sunlight was slowly fading.