Of Birds and Branches

by Frances Pauli

  She had no power. She had no friends.

  Her father had picked his successor in Kov’an, and it was Kov’an who would rule.

  Mima did not humor him with an answer. There was little point. She spread her wings wide to honor the South Wind and walked with her steps dragging.

  It was Arli who led her to the high perch in the Temple of the Twin Moons. Mima had spent the previous day finishing her mother’s diaries and bathing in a sacred mixture of herbs and oils. Her feathers gleamed brighter than the temple tiles. Her beak was smooth as glass, and the rough skin on her legs and feet had grown soft as the silk in the bright yellow wraps she wore.

  “You will perch here for three days.” Arli spoke without the ritual inflection, as if even in the Temple, the power of Mima’s impending reign faded. “Then you will receive your circlet. After that, you may remain in contemplation as long as you see fit.”

  “Remain?”

  “Should she wish it,” the old hen reverted to ritual speech, “the new queen may take upon herself an additional period of contemplation in which to make ready her rule.”

  “I doubt very much I’ll need it.” Mima lifted her crown feathers and sighed. “My rule was settled long before these preparations began.”

  “Every rite has many reasons,” Arli practically chanted now, the words eerily echoing those Ist’av had spoken weeks before. “And each ritual contains many layers of meaning…and of purpose.”

  Mima wanted to argue. The mistress of ritual’s words were too close to Ist’av’s, too like something the translator might say. But there was something in that, too, which stalled her beak. She stood silent while the braziers below the perch were lit, and when Arli bowed to her, Mima leapt upward, spread her wings, and flew.

  She settled into the high perch with her back to the temple and her face to the shrine mosaic which depicted the moons’ many phases.

  For three days she would remain in this posture, in silent meditation on the heavenly bodies. Her mind, however, fixed on Ist’av. She’d been forced to re-imagine them during the last weeks of her preparation. As her understanding of the bird shifted, so had her grasp on their long friendship.

  Despite the lie, she still considered it that. Friendship. A deep affection borne of discourse and shared values. The many mornings with the scholarly translator had been the highlight of her palace life. And though she’d effectively banished them from her presence, Mima felt the lack of Ist’av as an empty space in her heart.

  She missed them.

  Every morning since demanding to be left alone, Mima awoke listening for a knock on her door. She’d waited, knowing it would not come. Knowing that Ist’av, unlike Kov’an and her father, would honor her wishes.

  Mima sighed and glared at the moons. She closed her eyes and tried to force Ist’av from her thoughts. She breathed and recited the words of concentration in her mind.

  Ist’av.

  How she wished she’d spoken to them once before taking to this perch. How she wished she could focus on anything but her translator friend. How she wished the temple visitors would be quiet.

  Mima straightened. Her eyes stretched wide. The apses in the temple were always quiet, full of penitent, whispering birds. Why, suddenly, did their words seem to scream at her?

  She tilted her head left and right. In one apse, a hen was praying for the health of her son. Mima heard her as clearly as if they shared a perch. Another bird wished to wake with less pain in his claws, and a pair of young lovers whispered as loud as a trumpet for their parents’ blessings.

  What was this? Some magic of her ritual preparations? Some trick or design? Mima gazed with new eyes at the mosaic. Design. Many holes opened among the moons, hollow tunnels built into the brick and the tile. She could see the openings if she squinted, hidden among the dark halves and crescents.

  Many mouths speaking with the voice of her people, channels carrying their prayers directly to her perch.

  Many layers of purpose.

  She settled into her feathers and closed her eyes again. Ist’av’s words echoed truer with every passing moment. Her vigil here had less to do with meditation than she’d believed.

  It was all about listening. Listening to the words around her. Listening to those she was meant to rule, whether or not she could achieve that status for real. Her father had an army, but she had three days to hear. Three days to understand.

  It wasn’t over yet.

  She spread her tail feathers and leaned toward the many moons, letting them sing to her. Mima closed her eyes and listened to her people.

  The circlet had so little weight it would be easy to forget one wore it. Mima brushed it with her wing-finger and tapped her beak halves softly together.

  Early that morning, Arli had helped her down from the perch, rubbed her sore legs with oil, and fed her for the first time in three days. She’d been allowed a brief break each day-start for water and to relieve herself, but by the time the mistress had settled the golden band around her crown, Mima was ravenous, exhausted.

  She’d had only that short meal in which to speak with Arli, to discuss with the old hen the things she’d learned. Then, with time at the foremost of both their thoughts, Mima had chosen to ascend to the queen’s perch for an additional period of contemplation.

  Through the talking moons, she heard the distant rhythm of steps entering the temple, but she let it fade into the background of her thoughts.

  The apses were nearly vacant today, and if that was because her birds were busy elsewhere or because Arli had shooed them out to give her quiet, Mima couldn’t have said.

  She’d already heard what she needed to. She sat, now, for her own sanity. To give herself time to think, to plan, and to bolster her courage.

  “But her coronation is finished.” Kov’an’s voice interrupted her peace. Blasting in the sacred space, a sure announcement that she’d run out of time for contemplation.

  Still, Mima sat without moving a feather. She turned her head to the side and listened to the room instead of the moons.

  “It is my right,” he argued with Arli. It had to be the hen, though her voice was too soft to hear clearly without an apse to amplify and deliver it to Mima’s perch.

  Whatever the mistress said, Kov’an lowered his voice. Though the rumble of their conversation continued, Mima could not make out a clear word of it. She leaned back, twisting just a little.

  Perhaps Kov’an would give up. Mima ground her beak slowly. Her father would not. Eventually he would drive the warrior back to her, with his wretched branch, for mating. She had no more waiting left to her. The time had come for her to deal with them both. Was she ready?

  She’d almost decided to give up her vigil and descend when Ist’av’s voice joined the argument. Their words thundered. Mima had never heard them touched with so much anger.

  “It is not for you!”

  Kov’an rumbled in reply, and the Temple of the Twin Moons echoed with furious hissing.

  Far below, Mima heard the patter of Arli’s feet. The old hen passed beneath her in a blur, retreating to her room behind the altar. Had she done as they’d arranged?

  Mima moved slowly. In the shadows atop her perch, she turned, rearranging her feet so that she looked out over the temple floor.

  Ist’av and Kov’an faced one another. Between them lay a silk-wrapped bundle, and behind Kov’an, the branch that gave away his purpose here. Mima’s heart stuttered. The large warrior had his wings spread to the sides. His head was low and forward in a posture of threat…or attack. Ist’av needed to back down quickly, or the warrior would pounce.

  Mima opened her beak to warn them, but the translator hissed so loudly, so fiercely that her perch trembled. She focused instead on keeping her feet beneath her. Below, Ist’av stretched their neck high, mantled their wings, and towered over the other bird.

  But they were no soldier. They were not a fighter at all, and though they had height on their side, Kov’an easily doubled them in bu
lk. The warrior had skill, that and the deadly glint of the barbs set along his wing and tail tips.

  “Ist’av,” Mima cried aloud, but her voice never reached them.

  Kov’an lunged, and the temple filled with sound. Ist’av’s hissing. The roar as Kov’an launched into the air. Mima’s gasp as his claws came forward, reaching for the translator.

  Ist’av ducked and spun. Lighter and faster, they rolled around and away, striking a quick peck on the warrior’s wing as they passed. It was a glorious blow, but if Kov’an knew anything it was the art of battle. He swiped with the other wing, knocking Ist’av’s legs out from under them.

  Their momentum carried them apart. The translator skidded on their tail into the far wall while Kov’an spun and made to charge again.

  “Stop!” Mima’s shout bounced from wall to wall. It entered the moon mouths, traveled into a dozen channels, and bellowed from every apse.

  When the combatants looked up, she spread her wings wide and jumped. Mima’s shadow fell ahead of her as she glided to the tiles. Her beak opened and shut with a clatter, and both fighters faced her. They bowed as she alighted, though Ist’av simply lowered their neck and remained seated.

  Injured. Mima saw pain in the way they dipped their head to the tiles.

  “You disturb the ritual contemplation.” She let her voice raise to the rafters. “You desecrate this temple with your petty sparring.”

  “Your pardon, Highness.” Kov’an lowered himself to the tiles so briefly that it barely counted as a bow. “The librarian and I will take our differences elsewhere.”

  Mima ground her beak halves together. What game did the warrior play now? He fluffed his chest feathers and his crest danced up and down.

  “But since I have your attention,” he continued without taking a breath, “you and I have a ritual to complete.”

  “What is that?” Mima ignored the branch he’d left to the side of the room and waved, instead, toward the wrapped parcel.

  “My gift to you,” Kov’an said.

  “He lies.” Ist’av groaned and staggered to their feet. Their left leg curled unnaturally, toe claws just brushing the tiles.

  “Doesn’t everyone?” Mima could not resist the reprimand. Her breast tightened for Ist’av’s pain, for the sight of them after so many days. But they had still deceived her. “Don’t you, translator?”

  They flinched. The gesture, the guilt to their hanging head, gave her the courage to continue. She felt it in her cockles, in the base of her tail. A righteous heat burned inside her, and she meant to use it to her full advantage.

  “I bring you this offering,” Kov’an began.

  Mima raised one wing. She spun to face him. “You do not.”

  “I…” Kov’an met her gaze, smoothed, and tried again. “I have traveled—”

  “You have not.”

  “Mima.”

  “You wish to finish our rite?” She cocked her head, raised her crown feathers, and dared him to answer.

  “Yes.”

  “Then I reject your branch, Kov’an.”

  “Mima…” He growled her name, claws raking against the tiles and the barbs in his wings rattling.

  “I reject your branch, this branch.” Mima pointed to the one he’d tossed aside. “And I reject you, Kov’an.”

  “You cannot.” He dared. “Your father has promised—”

  “My father?” Mima hissed and lowered, spreading her wings, and easing forward. Here, and here only, she bluffed. The warrior was twice her size, and she was nothing if not terrified of him. “My father promised you his throne, is that it? He promised that you would rule in my stead, that you would assume control of my power as he did my mother’s?”

  “It is the way.” Kov’an lowered to match her. “You can’t hope to fight this. You haven’t thought it through, Mima.”

  “Oh, but I have had much time to think, soldier. And I have had much time to listen. My father is not so popular as he would have you believe. Nor do I think for a second that he means to give his power to you.”

  “What would a hen know of this?”

  “I know that Tal’pi means to rule through you, that the cock who expanded our borders to the far cities would not part with even a scrap of control so long as there is breath in his body.”

  That struck home. Finally, Kov’an seemed to hear her. His wings tightened to his body, and his crest stilled.

  “He promised,” Kov’an repeated.

  “He lied.” Mima forged on, mentally checking off her first task. She’d shaken Kov’an’s faith in her father, and she’d distracted him from the subject of branching just as quickly.

  In the end, it had not been her he wanted.

  “You must understand that a bird will lie,” she pressed. “Just as I’m sure you understand that a group of soldiers may say one thing to a hero’s face and quite another behind his back.”

  Kov’an hissed. His stance grew prickly again, and he snapped his beak. “You will gain nothing by this.”

  “Won’t I?” Mima asked. “Do you know, Kov’an, that even an army can grow tired of incessant war-making? Do you know that those who worship the bird who bullies them, can also hate him?”

  “You go too far!”

  For a breath, Mima thought he meant to attack her. His pine-cone body quivered. The metal of his weapons clanked. But when Kov’an looked directly at her, Mima saw the truth dawning in his round eyes.

  He knew they hated him. He knew it, and had only played at being their hero.

  “I have spent long days listening to my people, Kov’an. My people. Do you understand now?”

  “Your father…” It was a weak protest—a last, feeble effort.

  “My father has been detained in his quarters,” Mima said. “For though I’ve been very still, you’ll find I have also been quite busy.”

  She turned her head then, looked over one shoulder, and found Arli standing in the shadows behind her. At Mima’s glance, the old hen nodded. A signal that their plans had been successful.

  “You’ll find two of my warriors outside,” Mima continued. “They will escort you to your new quarters.”

  “No.” He shook his head, dragged one foot against the tile. “The branch…”

  “Take it with you,” Mima said. “Our rite is over, and its rejection is both complete and permanent.”

  “That’s not my branch,” Kov’an tried. He waved his wing toward the wrapped bundle. “Ist’av brought me this, this one to give to you.”

  “I did no such thing.” Ist’av’s voice held enough pain to drag her head back around. They’d crept a half-step forward, but it was clear their limb was broken.

  “Did you bring this for Kov’an to present to me?” Mima asked.

  “I did not.” Ist’av lifted their head and met her gaze at last.

  Mima saw much in that glance. She saw everything she’d hoped, everything she’d known all along. Without looking away, she dismissed Kov’an with a wave.

  “You may go now.”

  He might have rushed her then, struck while her attention was on the wounded translator. Mima would have seen it in Ist’av’s eyes. She trusted them to warn her.

  Trusted them completely.

  Eventually, Kov’an’s steps announced his retreat. He’d lost, as her father had, through his own over-confidence, through his own brutal actions. The whispers from the moons had shown her just how thin Tal’pi’s grip on her mother’s power had grown.

  Mima’s reign would not be one of war and conquest. She meant to steer her people back to their knowledge and the traditions her father had so scorned.

  She meant to rule, as her mother never had. But first, she had one more matter to settle.

  Arli summoned a healer to bind Ist’av’s leg. Mima waited while they were tended. Waited, and watched the translator for any sign the pain was greater than they let on.

  When their leg set and secured, Mima spoke to them of the thing that had yet to be decided.


  “What is in this bundle?”

  Arli carried the silk forward, lay it on the tiles between them. Ist’av lowered their beak, staring at the fabric without answering.

  “Ist’av.”

  “It is a branch,” they said.

  “And you brought it here?” Mima’s skin felt hot beneath her plumage. Her legs trembled. Long days on a single perch, she told herself. Long days of sitting could do that. “Not for Kov’an?”

  “No.” Ist’av spat it, shaking their head.

  Mima waited. She watched their long neck shiver and then tense. Their wings puff and then smooth and settle.

  “I brought it for you,” they whispered.

  Mima let out her breath. She closed her eyes, swallowed, and waved Arli forward with a wing.

  The old hen reached down, bent, and unwrapped Ist’av’s offering.

  Mima looked at the branch.

  “I have traveled,” Ist’av began, chest puffed. “I have journeyed far, and far have I flown.”

  The ritual speech flowed from Ist’av, flowed, and sang without falter. Each word spoken with absolute honor, undeniable, truthful.

  “Deep in the sacred forests have I found this branch. Returning with love, I present it to you.”

  Mima bobbed to acknowledge their speech. She dipped forward, and she inspected Ist’av’s branch.

  Her mind, even in this, had already been decided, had come to its conclusion high on the queen’s perch.

  For Ist’av, however, she could do nothing less than honor every word, every gesture of the rite. She gazed upon their offering, and she examined it from every angle.

  The stem was long and slender, arching from the base to its middle, and then sloping into a leisurely dip. The tip curved up in a flourish, like the last line of a poem, like the stroke of a translator’s brush on parchment.

  Its length sprouted twigs and greenery, full and even, fully in step with nature.

  “Yes,” she whispered. “The branch reveals the bird.”

  “Is that an accept?” Arli asked.

  Mima understood. When her mother had looked upon Tal’pi’s branch, she’d seen the cock she loved reflected in it.