After Finn had explained the hatching-birth, he then told her what he knew of his own.
Finn’s mother had been a human and a prostitute. Many times she had found herself pregnant and many times she lost the baby. The only good thing about getting pregnant is that she couldn’t very well get knocked up when she already was and some of her clients enjoyed the baby bump anyway.
Several months into one of her pregnancies she felt the familiar stabs of pain that heralded yet another miscarriage and she had endured the unpleasant night, cursing the damned thing for costing her a night’s profit. She was not bleeding but was violently ill and when the pain ended with a sudden solid pressure, she had been sure it was nothing more than a clot that had passed (she really hoped it wasn’t a twisted fetus she would find). However, when she looked, her mouth had gaped at the small beautiful egg lying there.
She hadn’t been with any Reishefolk that she could remember, but then she also knew they could carry the damn gene having not been born with the wings anyway, a recessive gene. She wasn’t stupid exactly; she just wasn’t really good at much else besides spreading her legs.
Her first instinct was to throw it at the wall, hoping it would just turn into a cracked pile of yoke and she could be done with it, but the little egg did not even chip. She inspected the thing and wondered if it might be worth something; at least a night’s profit she had lost pushing the awful thing out, she hoped. She had grabbed her cloak; it was close to first light and the vendor’s stalls would be starting to open. It wasn’t the open market she was hoping to sell to though and the black market was open even earlier.
She had hurried into the darker alleys of the town and had knocked on one of those wooden doors that looked hastily made of planks but was deceptively hard to splinter with that little slot that a pair of beady mean eyes would peer through to inspect the unwelcome visitors on the other side. Unwelcome at least until they had something lucrative to sell.
They knew this whore well and the man at the door wanted to turn her away but she had grinned with those rotten teeth of hers as she pulled out the egg and he had hesitated. The stupid whore was unaware that many in this market carried the recessive genes of the Reishe, the boss included, and they would want that egg if only to keep the heartless cunt from making a gristly meal of it. Not many of her type realized their idea of a delicacy was a form of cannibalism. He didn’t think this one was above eating her own offspring either.
They pretended disinterest, a thing they were quite good at, but whores have their own way of smelling a lie, so despite their bargaining, she made off with a week’s worth of nightly profits although they might have paid her for a year’s whoring to keep that egg. More correctly, if she had been too greedy, she might have ended up floating in a gutter. Bodies were lost business so they did try to avoid it where possible.
The boss himself had taken the little egg to the largest Reishefolk settlement in the north. His own father had been Reishe and his mother a human and he had been born well loved by his father’s people despite the lack of wings or feathers. Even when his father had died, he was no less welcomed there, but then Reishefolk did not show favor or preference for winged offspring in most cases. When he brought the elder the little egg (now more the size of an ostrich egg since it had taken a month to be able to make the trip), the elder had wondered how he obtained it.
Before accepting the egg, he had made the whore tell her story; she couldn’t read or write so she was made to dictate it to be written. He knew that the child would want to know someday and the boss had the foresight to make it possible. It would be a hard pill to swallow, but better to learn it from a letter than from a coldhearted whore. The elder had read the letter unhappily and tucked it away for safekeeping. He did not send the boy to the aviary/orphanage as was usual, but gave the egg to his own daughter, who had been tormented by her many failed pregnancies.
When Finn had finally hatched, he was a beautiful infant; already possessing some blue/black feathers and he had hatched without help in a perfect position. He did not sleep; he was wideawake and did a rare thing for a newborn Reishe—he had laughed.
He was adored for the first three years of his life and then the elder’s daughter had successfully laid an egg of her own, to the joy of the Reishefolk there. No one had guessed that Finn was a distant child to the only mother he knew; he was always a happy, polite boy. He just wasn’t held or coddled, hugged or kissed, as his siblings were. His mother had always been polite and nothing more. Polite was all he knew of love but then, once he knew the truth of his birth mother, he counted himself lucky that he had the mother he did rather than the one who had tried to throw him away altogether.
Once Verity had learned the truth of Finn’s story, she felt great sorrow for Finn but he hadn’t understood why. He was not unhappy and he had been able to leave home and enjoy life without being held back or encumbered by a clinging mother. However, Verity knew that a man who never knew the love of a mother or father never really grew up and she could see a dangerous naïveté lurking behind his smart, serene face. Had she never known about his past, she might have simply left him be but having lost her own offspring, she had a hole in her heart that wanted to be a mother again. She was younger than Finn, only a little younger, but it was as he said—a mother is never less than a mother and age was not a barrier as far as she was concerned either. She was not really his mother, but maybe she could help him understand what a mother was supposed to be and help him be the man he couldn’t quite become without knowing.
Finn had realized that hours had passed since they left and neither had breached the silence. He chastised himself mentally for not being companionable and it was well past time they stopped for a meal.
‘Verity, would you like to stop and take a meal with me?” Finn asked with his usual friendly politeness. He stopped to stretch his arms and the full span of his wings over his head. Fluttering them like humans with restless legs was never quite as satisfying as being able to stretch them fully in open air. Verity watched appreciatively. Finn seemed to have an immodest, proud side to him when it came to those wings and it made her smile whenever he wanted to show them off. She would always watch attentively, happy to see his chest puff up with boyish pride. His wings really were magnificent though, so it was hardly a false reaction.
“Mmmm,” she groaned her assent, taking a cue and stretching her less impressive arm span over her head, but Finn liked to watch her too. She was a lithe little human that could bend more fully than most. He had watched her effortlessly pull her leg behind her and over her head, her leg perfectly nestled along the length of her back once before. When he had asked her about it, she admitted that flexibility was an easy thing to lose so she always stretched her limbs several times a day. Although she admitted she usually did so privately to avoid stares, but it wasn’t always possible.
Finn had not been happy about Verity having to carry their supplies either but the wings did pose a problem for regular pack carrying. Verity had had to assure him she was stronger than she looked and he was no less the perfect gentleman for allowing her to accept the job. They only needed a few days’ provisions besides so it was no great load to burden anyone with.
From where they sat to eat their late lunch, they could already see the Terra Massif and a hint of the city atop it in the distance. Since little else had been on her mind so far, she thought to ask Finn things that had crossed her mind as they ate cold cabbage stew and soft, marinated jerky.
“Finn, where are the blue-crested falcon Reishe usually from?” Verity asked him and his eyes were wide with surprise as he hurried to chew and swallow what was in his mouth.
“I didn’t know you could tell my ancestry—blue-crested falcons don’t even reach as far south as Ersenais on Vieres,” Finn offered, and then smiled lopsidedly. “Which sort of answers your question— the Reishefolk of my kind tend to stay in the northern settlements as well. They prefer the colder climates and game in those regions. Th
ere are softer meats the further south you go.”
Finn tore into a piece of the soft jerky with relative ease, showing he didn’t mind the change one bit.
“You hardly have the beak of your ancestors either,” Verity added with a laugh, and Finn wrinkled his human nose at that.
“I did tell you that, even as a Reishe, I was never much of a joiner, so I’m not opposed to warmth or challenge,” Finn reminded her after a sip of the soup and wincing as he tried to push a stuck bit of jerky from the back of his teeth with his tongue.
Verity thought that he would have had to adopt that attitude to have come this far in life. There was no warmth or hope of it from either of his mothers and even coming to Stoneweld, he had been initiated by cold wraiths and miles of endless ocean to fly across with wounded limbs. He was certainly not exaggerating his abilities at all. He must have tired of all that cold and idle living in a much shorter time than his ancestors could even conceive of. It was certainly no irony that the Tree of Life had recognized him as her own. It did not escape her that the tree was also called the Mother. There were very few coincidences where he was concerned. Something big led all of them down their paths and Finn was no exception.
As they sat there, the wind had picked up and nearly tore the veil from Verity’s head so she removed it, storing it in their pack and Finn got to see that thick natural veil of her hair underneath it. It was a silky black curtain against her caramel skin and her natural almond eyes had closed in a fringe of thick black lashes as she gathered her long hair to braid it. Finn’s fingers itched to touch it and when she opened her eyes lazily, she could see the innocent longing baldly on his face and she smiled kindly at him. She gestured for him to come closer and he did so with hesitation. She grabbed his wrist and lifted it to her hair and his hand opened as she spilled it into his hand.
His hand grew bold and he closed his hand to feel the strength and thickness of it. He looked askance at her again but her face remained permissive so he used his other hand to gather all of her hair in his grip. Her heart had pinched a little, remembering her own little son doing the same, and Finn mistook it for hurting her and pulled his hands away as if he were burned.
Verity had quickly taken his hands and smiled sadly.
“Not you, my bluebird, just a memory is all. You would never hurt me,” Verity assured him softly. His anxiety slipped away and his face calmed as his focus returned to her hair.
“You were going to braid it, right? Can I?” Finn asked now.
“I did not know you knew how or I would have asked,” she admitted and spun around, handing him an elastic to hold the ends after he finished.
“My sisters taught me how. My mother’s first true egg was a boy, but she laid my twin sisters’ eggs not long after. Twins are very rare, you know. Never in the same shelled egg, but they can still be identical as if they were. My sisters were very kind to me, and they let me play games with them sometimes,” Finn explained as he braided her hair. She had a feeling he was quick at it, but he took his time now, no doubt to savor the memory.
Finn frowned and Verity could not see it but heard it in his voice. “Although not too kind to me when I think about it. I was always the butler at their tea parties rather than a prince, or some sort of servant, so I guess they weren’t so close either. Still, they talked to me without me seeking them out so it was still more than I could say of my brother or mother.”
“You never mentioned your father,” Verity asked, since the subject was in the air.
Finn smiled. “He was nice and he came around sometimes, but he was a warmer type and I think the cold personalities of his wife and kids was too chilly for him. They all adopted more of the snowhawk gene like his wife, rather than the goldengull of his side. He had tried to be closer with me, but mother would throw fits saying he showed me favor over his own. He stayed in the marriage but he would travel a lot to stay away. He would always bring me back little gifts and tell me not to tell the others. If he could get away with it, he would tell me what he could of his travels and just before I was old enough to leave, he gave me his travel journal and it was all I needed to finally push me to travel as well.”
Verity could tell he loved his father and was proud, even as scarce as he had been.
“Do you still speak with him?” Verity asked and regretted it when she felt the sorrow in the following pause, his hands still holding the braid he worked on before he returned to it.
“He passed away shortly after I left, they just found him dead in the eastern mountains one day, carrying nothing but a letter to me and another little gift. My mother had gone into a rage, found my other gifts stashed away and destroyed them. When I returned a year later, my mother and siblings were gone too and no one knew where they went; even grandfather, the elder who had received my egg, had no clue.”
Verity’s heart had sunk as his strong soft voice recounted it without trembling, but her own eyes had welled with tears. Finn gathered the braid into the elastic and noticed her shoulders jump ever so slightly and he rounded her quickly to take her face between his hands.
“Don’t cry for me, Verity; it’s not so bad, you know. I still carry his journal, which was the one thing that really mattered to me, the real proof of his love,” Finn assured her, dabbing at her tears now with a silk square he kept in his belt. Verity smiled and gathered herself together with a deep sigh, patting his hand gratefully.
“I’ve always been a crier, Finn; I think I just stored too much of it away until just now…” she admitted, gathering her thoughts. “We still have a ways to go and we need to make haste. If we don’t make it to the base by sunset, we’ll have to wait until sunrise to make the ascent. The winds are far too violent at night.”
Finn rose up and helped her pack up their things and placed the pack on her back before they continued on.
When they had reached the base of the Terra Massif (after more companionable silence), the sun still had another half hour to shine before tucking in for the night. Verity had assured Finn that a late dinner could wait until they had reached the top of Windbreak; stopping again would have cost them their trip up before nightfall.
Verity had to tell Finn that they didn’t simply fly up the Massif; there was a launch pad of sorts where they would get clearance and the guards there would tell him the same things she already had, about the risks and the procedures and so on.
Once at the launch pad, it was as she said—they were given immediate clearance and a guard flew a head of them to let the watch know. Finn’s breath caught as he watched the man catch the wind that shot him up like a slingshot.
He listened carefully as the guard told him how to do it step by step and the guard had made him repeat it back to him, which he did without missing a step. Finn looked nervous as the time came and his eyes met Verity’s unsurely.
Verity patted his cheek and her eyes were soft. “I trust you, Finn,” she told him as she placed her hands on his shoulders.
In a quick series of movements, Verity had laced her arms into his quiver strap and wound her legs around his waist and locked them at the ankles behind him. The guard’s mouth hung open dumbly as she hung on effortlessly without Finn even grasping her yet. His hands flew up and grasped her rear and he had blushed as he moved them to one leg and the small of her back. The guard had been specific about that since he might need to shift to one or the other quickly as the current jostled them around.
“Ah, I think she’s on there pretty tight. Seems it would take her limbs tearing away for her to let go,” the guard added, thinking this couple had a better chance than most.
Finn did not hesitate and took off the moment the guard had signaled. Verity held her body to Finn’s as tightly as she could manage and when they hit the current, she could feel it try to tear them apart, but her muscles were nearly superhuman with use and she had no trouble holding on as she felt his wings catch the current and hold. Once she realized they were coasting, that girlish laugh rang out and she whoope
d with excitement. Finn clenched his teeth as he concentrated on holding his back muscles and wings right but she could see the smile in his eyes. Once they had landed on the top launch pad, Finn had been so filled with adrenaline that once Verity had loosed her grip, Finn had lifted her by her hips and spun her around again as they both laughed, the guards exchanging strange looks at their celebration.
A severe looking Reishefolk had stepped forward, his hands clasped behind him. He also had long dark hair as Verity did but a severe widow’s peak and grave slits for eyes on pallid skin. His great aquiline nose with blunted tip and wide nearly lipless grin made him look more reptilian than bird. His grin was definitely more predatory than warm as his arms spread at the same slow pace as the corners of his mouth.
“Welcome to Windbreak, travelers. The elder will be pleased to see another doll has made the trip.”
Verity and Finn exchanged a wary look. It was a simple word, but neither of them had liked the particular way he had emphasized the word ‘doll.’
Chapter 4: The Tortoise and the Hare
Dinsch and Krose together again and in a place that neither had imagined they would end up together: across the Echoing Ocean on the Stoneweld continent. It had seemed like an eternity since they had run off as a duo seeking adventure and with an ominous war ahead of them, they had jumped at the chance to wander off for a few days to remember better days.
On their way from Uzhuak Forest to Mythec, Dinsch had seen a strange place on the other side of a narrow channel in the rock where there stood odd statues of a Felisfolk next to its ancestral animal. Krose had seen it too but at the time, they had said nothing, knowing their priority of reaching Mythec was first. They had talked about it once they had reached Mythec and the more Melchior had shooed them away, the more restless they were to do something other than wait for a day that made them nervous enough. They certainly didn’t want to just sit and wait for the old wizard to die.
The Truth about Heroes: Complete Trilogy (Heroes Trilogy) Page 32