by T Hearts
Griffin could absolutely believe it.
Rubies were bombastic forward infantry who charged in with fire and fury, Sapphires were reserved and calculative with training in keeping out of sight to solve problems from a distance. San was absolutely a Ruby.
But she hadn’t answered everything.
“So why are you out here?”
“Before you even start, no; We didn’t run away or escape or were kidnapped. Our handlers placed us out in these locations when we were nine years old and gave us a task each. Guard the Smokey Mountains, hunt poachers in the Everglades, Yosemite, and Zion, defend Yellowstone, protect people in Big Bend. Simple instructions for young minds, and then they just left us to fend for ourselves and see what would happen – or more rather, show the people in charge what a single Avio like us could achieve and how wasting money on new synths was pointless when you already had the best there was. We had handlers who we’d report in to, but then eventually things happened…”
“I’m going to guess that it was Broken Arrow.”
The biggest tragedy of ARCDA.
Broken Arrow had ruined their world. So much had gone wrong because of the destruction. If it weren’t for what had happened there, she might have still had wings.
Griffin shivered at the thought of it.
They’re all gone and you’re all ours-
‘No. Back in your box you bastards,’ she scolded herself.
“I don’t know all the details, but I think it was that.” San sighed. “Satu knows more than me, but the handlers disappeared, either by disaster or by their skills being needed elsewhere, and we were alone, but still with this task left for us to defend. Core never came looking for us…I don’t think they cared that much about us really…”
“You’re all in national parks?”
Peyton and Turtle nodded, breaking a smile out of San.
“Where better to hide people that need a lot of space than in the wilderness. Cipher is our last handler left, and he’s determined to make sure that we’re all okay so he travels to see us for one week each before seeing the next. He’s turned it into a radio show now – Strayfarer. It gives us something to think about and plan for, a future even if it’s a small one, because if we didn’t have that then we’d be feral or dead by now.”
She sat and slumped. Turtle pulled her back by her shoulders, Peyton assisting to tuck her wing up over her bare legs and the two held her close. They cared wholeheartedly for her as much as she cared for IO. A family beyond feathers.
Envy stung like a hornet.
When she had her Amethyst team, they had never really been close enough to call family. They were just colleagues. Even Nico and Darter weren’t what she would have called family, just friends-by-circumstance.
“You could have just gone back.” Griffin noted, keeping her own disappointment from her voice.
“Could we? Do you think that you could handle years of freedom to go back to a cage?”
Griffin tensed and steeled herself before she could be overwhelmed. These people were just intent on bringing up bad memories weren’t they, she sniped to herself.
San scoffed at her silence. “I didn’t think so.”
Shugging off her agitation, Griffin took a deep breath to resettle herself.
“You know I have to report this all in, right?”
“No, you will not.”
“I will because unlike you I can’t just fly off into the wild and hide for half a decade until some jackass nets me.” She criticised. “You have your responsibilities and so do I.”
“You-”
“San!” Turtle scolded. “Enough.”
“Griffin is just doing her job.” Peyton said firmly, pulling the fiery-girl down into a warm and comforting hug to brush her hair out of her face and help preen her wing. “We need to eat and sleep San. It won’t hurt to do that for a few hours. Plus, you’re terrible on an empty stomach.”
“No, I’m not!”
“She said angrily.”
“Turtle! Help me!”
Griffin groaned as they teased San, allowing herself to roll onto the ground and simply lay staring at the sky as their voices echoed through the night.
How the hell was she going to fix this mess?
Chapter 16
IO watched the critters from beneath half closed eyes and through the gap between her cocoon of wings.
At night, most of the critters and the men had settled down to sleep, whilst off in the distance some of the ranch hands had a late-night campfire going where they were singing a rousing chorus of Big Iron.
As per the bossman’s orders, no one was to interact with her or give her food or water, and yet whenever she woke up there was an apple sat by the door for her. She had her suspicions as to who was bringing it, but she had yet to catch them.
The deep sounds of slumber echoed and vibrated in the space around her. So many large bodies in such a confined area.
A Xiezhi Lin rolled over in its stall. Its armour plated scales scraping noisily on the concrete ground as it shuffled to find a more comfortable position in its cramped box. She had seen the long flare of its mane and tail flick and press against the sides of the bars whenever it moved and had it been tormenting her with its silkiness. Every time it sat near to the side of her box, she had wanted nothing more than to smoosh her face into the soft underbelly fur and run her fingers through its long tail plume, but had been far too scared to even attempt it.
The two sand-dappled Gattan purred and snuffled in the box across from hers, their long prehensile tails flicking through into the walkway, hoping to snag and trip anyone who walked too near. A Thryn, ugly and thin looking snored shakily close by – she felt so sorry for it. Every bit of meat they gave it, it hacked back up again, unable to eat any of it.
The Quetzal however…
It was sedated. Several stalls away, but still loud enough that she could hear it breathing and the regular shuffling of its feathers brushing the walls. The ranch hands regularly walked by on the overhead walkway to look in on the critters and IO and regularly kept dosing the big serpent-like creature up so that it didn’t wake. Every now and then its huge tooth-spiked beak would make a clacking sound and it could see it a sharp tongue waggle as it scented the air in its sleep.
Did it know she was there? She couldn’t tell but the thought of what could happen if it did wake up and escape made IO uncomfortable. Although not as uncomfortable as she was physically feeling.
A chill breeze snuck in through the slats in the barn roof, and shivering in her pyjamas, she tucked her arms and legs up under her poncho, wishing her body to grow more feathers to keep her warm. Her back ached, her wings ached, her tailbone ached. There was no room to move at all in the little box. The other critters were let out into the field behind them for some sunlight, but they had not extended this courtesy to her in any way.
She felt like crying as she another breeze jostled her feathers. All she wanted to do was fly. It wasn’t fair.
A slight sound alerted her.
Glancing out the corner of her eye she looked up at the source of the noise.
The Preternatural was above her. Watching again.
She didn’t like the way his skin pulsed and shifted colours like an octopus. Right now, it was a deep shade of mottled grey-blue, hiding him in the shadows.
“You’re stubborn.” He said quietly. There was no need to shout down to her, a whisper was all that was needed. She could hear him well enough and he could hear her.
“And you’re rude to stare.” She hissed back, standing and adjusting her wings and tailfeathers once more. One of the Gattan lifted their head at the sound of her feathers brushing the floor and it let out a deep and tired growl.
“Shh, cállate.” He said to the stirring Gattan. It gave him a slow blink then with a small snort rolled over and went back to sleep.
Snake-eyes, Xavier as she had come to learn was his name, was the only one with any respect and patience towards the crit
ters, and from what IO could tell, he was the only one that they listened to and obeyed. However, all she had seen him do so far was keep the critters calm and quiet, though she had seen him at one point with his arm through the bars of the stall containing one of the bat-faced Thryn’s and scrubbing it between its huge ears and coarse mane. She was sure that it was his favourite and seeing it starving to death was making him sad.
“Why would it make me sad?” He asked, answering her thoughts. IO shuffled uncomfortably. It was hard and unsettling to remember that he was a muser and that he was very quick to listen to her unguarded thoughts.
“Because you’re taking care of it. You’re doing your best and it’s not getting any better.”
Skin rippling, stripes of black and yellow briefly clouded his face before settling back to a honey-brown once more.
“It’s not bad to care.”
“I don’t care.”
“I’m not one of your men. You can drop the act. You care.” IO scoffed. “Otherwise you wouldn’t always be telling everyone that they’re doing things wrong, or that the animals need enrichment or time in the sun.”
Xavier scowled, the colours changing across his skin so fast that IO felt nauseous just looking at it.
“You do realise that they’re not going to let you out. And if a Quetzal can’t get out if here then I doubt that you can.” He said, drumming his fingers along the railing. “You should probably behave and be a good girl for them.”
“Should I now?”
“Yes. You should.”
“Is that what you told your flock of Raptors?”
His skin shifted colours once more, pale mottled stripes appearing on the dark colours he was creating then fading back again. Every feather down IO’s spine prickled. Each colour and pattern had a meaning. As much as it telegraphed his emotions, he could control it – as she had seen when she had used it to both entertain some of the ranch hands by changing into the colours of a poison dart frog, and to spy on two of his mercenaries who were tormenting a heavily built Ossa with cattle prods. The shock of appearing beside them and the beating he gave them had sent them literally crawling out of the barn.
“Well if we had you here, they wouldn’t have been a problem.” He said with a laugh, scrubbing his messy hair back from his face. “Do you know why Raptors respond so well to Avios?”
IO shook her head and he looked delighted to explain.
“When Raptors are small, no bigger than chickens really, they’re raised by Avios.” He said softly but with great enthusiasm. “They walk with them, eat with them, shower with them, teach them how to start to fly, the whole kaboodle. Wherever their Avio parent goes, they go too and do as they do; Even when they’re all grown up and can tear the head off a horse on their own, wild and free, they’ll still go running back to any Avio they see. Do you know why? It’s all about socialising them and giving them behaviours to follow and so they learn not to attack everything on sight or fight over food, or even cannibalise each other. If left on their own to learn how to exist…well…that’s what a Quetzal is I guess.”
A life without having any family or friends having been there for them. Living in terrible isolation and solitary. IO couldn’t think of anything worse.
She shook her wings quickly, hoping that Xavier was picking up her sadness for the Quetzal.
“Lovely biology lesson but is this going anywhere?”
“I’m trying to help you.”
“You can help me by letting me out.”
Xavier shook his head.
“And if I did? They used nets last time but next time they’ll be using live rounds and if they caught you, which they would, they’d break your wings and pluck you like a chicken. And I would lose every inch of respect I’ve gained. I have not worked my ass off to have it taken away by you.”
“They’re bad people though!”
“Not as bad as Core.” He shrugged.
“Does it matter who is worse than who? They’re going to hurt people like this. They’re hurting your critters.” “Even if you can’t help me, please, help them.”
He watched her for a moment, still but with his skin softly pulsing a mottled pattern that switched between blue-grey and marbled white. What was he thinking? Had she upset him? She wished that he was musing so that she could at least feel the echo of what he was feeling.
A torch flashed at the other end of the barn. Xavier looked around, the light catching on his eyes and flashing the eyeshine an iridescent orange-purple. His posture changed. Straightening up he adjusted his clothes and settled his skin back to a neutral colour, raising his arm to alert the other person on the opposite side of the barn to his presence.
“If you want to survive here,” He warned under his breath so that only IO could hear him, “you have to do as I say and as I do.”
IO’s wings tucked back up around her and she sat back down upon the ground, scowling up at him in protest.
“Of course, because they listened so well to you before.”
“Ignoring me is their own mistake to make. Don’t let it be yours.”
Chapter 17
San slept on one wing with the other covering her body. It wasn’t a sound sleep. Every now and then, her tail feathers would flare out and she would tense with her face scrunched in anger before relaxing once again. It had taken a while for her to settle down after Griffin had begun making them food from the rations in her bag. She had spent the entire duration of the meal pacing back and forth until Asher and Turtle had gently bullied her into laying down to rest.
Laying still and silent, it gave Griffin the chance to take a better look at the medley of markings across her feathers. A mixture of bars, stripes, and spotted eye-markings that had Griffin wondering if the design and colours were shared by any of her other sisters. She hoped that if she ever met them, that they would be at least half as ornery and marginally more reserved than San was.
Turtle chuckled, noting the sigh of relief from Griffin at the quiet. She glanced up, realising that as she had been watching San, the humans had been watching her. Asher’s dark eyes were flicking up and down, flitting between the feathers on her shoulders, the gun at her side, and exposed the scars on her wrists from where she had been sat propping her head upon her hands.
Clearing her throat she sat up and folded her arms across her lap so he could no longer stare at them.
“Quite the ray of sunshine, isn’t she?” Griffin quipped quietly to Turtle.
“Sundowner? She’s an acquired taste.”
“So, are you her secret handler?”
“Hardly.” He snorted, his face creasing with a smirk. “I’m more of her adopted old man who she worries and fusses over. And if you’re family to one of the sisters, then your family to all, so they all tend to fuss o’er me.”
“She adopted you?”
He rolled his eyes and gently moved San over so that he could sit on the floor and take off his boots.
“Long story.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” Griffin shrugged. “I’d like to hear it.”
Peyton and Asher looked to one another. They knew the story already but they appeared to be searchingly and silently questioning if it was a good idea or not to tell her. Turtle waved their worries away before they could say anything and clearing his throat, he settled himself before he began to speak.
“A few years ago now when I first retired, I thought to myself, you know what I really ought to do before I croak is go on a point to point road trip. All the way from the top of Alaska to the lowest point of South America.” He chuckled as he drew an imaginary map in the air and trailed his finger down the road he had travelled. “So I get to California and stay in a motel for the night. Little do I know that there’s a major wildfire burning up the area and my shithole motel is right in the way. Well Sundowner is apparently on patrol and scares the crap out of me and every other fella there by kicking in the doors and dragging us all out to safety.”
Griffin looked sur
prised.
“That’s pretty brave of her.” And dangerous. Even the slightest touch of fire on feathers could destroy them and drop an Avio out of the sky, then there were the burns themselves. Griffin had seen Avios who had had their wings burnt before. It took weeks for them to ever grow back and they always smelt wrong afterwards. Some never grew their feathers back at all and were permanently scarred.
“I guess she is really. Well I, ever the idiot, run back up.”
“Why?”
“My bike was still up there. I had a trip to do and I wasn’t going to let a little fire stop me.” He chuckled. Peyton rolled her eyes, muttering a hushed comment about his stupidity that only Griffin heard.
“Well Sundowner was pissed. Starts cursing me up a storm and threatens to throw my bike off a cliff with me on it if I didn’t get the hell out of there.”
Griffin laughed softly and looked back across at the sleeping girl. The thought of a much smaller and younger version of San with fire scorched wings scolding an old man seemed very much in keeping with the behaviour and personality she had already seen from the girl.
“What happened then?”
“Oh she insisted that I was a danger to myself and that I needed supervision.” Turtle shrugged. “She must have been about what…twelve? From then on she called me Turtle.”
“A good name to choose. It suits you.”
“How so?”
“You seem, sturdy. You like to travel, clearly, and you’re tough in a calm manner. A pretty good call sign choice.”
“Call sign?” Peyton asked. She had continued to be very polite and relaxed, and had spent most of the evening keeping Asher beside her calm. Even now he was holding her hands so tightly that Griffin was certain that he might break her fingers.
“It’s a nom de guerre that we or our teammates choose.”
“So, did you choose Griffin?”