AERIE: Book 01 Part 02

There was nothing wrong with my back, but she scratched at it, and it felt good.

"Tomorrow we find your Eris. I'm sorry if I sleep on you." She told me as I drifted away under the stars.

In the morning I was tasked with fishing again while Merler went off on her own for most of the day. I remember whooping with joy when my claws speared a hapless fish and I thrust it glittering from the water. By the time she returned I had six in the basket she kept by the little jetty.

"Come human. We are ready."

Well, I was thoroughly soaked. She may have been ready. I stripped off my suit and hung it to dry. I thought nothing of my nudity anymore and she did not mention it. We ate two of the fish and drank some flower essence. She spoke a little of her day and smiled as I regaled my fishing.

"The sky is just a different atmosphere. Now you can catch fish, you are ready to fly."

"Yeah right. You saw my landing the other day. Good old 'rock boy'."

"Too much thinking." She tapped my head with her talons. "Too much human still. Make a fire."

When I was done, she took the mushrooms I had collected and diced several of them finely. She added them to a cauldron with a small amount of water from the lake.

"Your egg." She looked deeply into my eyes. "You must trust Merler if you want to find your Eris."

Gingerly I took my egg from its nest in the basket and handed it to her. My fingers refused to let go of it until she placed a hand on my heart and tweeted something at me.

"This is of her." She said and using a single talon she broke a small hole in the top of the egg then flipped it and did the same. I watched in horror as she blew in the top hole and the white started bulging out the bottom hole. She used a talon to break the white and stir inside the egg and soon it all ran out of the bottom hole into the warming water. "Trust me, human. Take your egg. It will still be suitable to her."

I put the empty egg back in the basket and watched as she stirred the cauldron.

"Come. Here... Your arm."

I reached to her, and she quickly swiped a talon across my wrist and squeezed at me making blood drip into the cauldron. "This is of you. Two parts to one puzzle. Take off your breather."

I comply and she says, "Watch." And nods at the slice she made on my wrist. As I watch and she stirs, it closes and before my eyes it turns slowly pink and healed. When I look back, she is ladling some of the mix from the cauldron into a wooden cup.

"Drink human. Leave your breather off. This will kill you otherwise."

It is bitter and thick. It has an earthy taste and a custard like consistency. It was not at all easy to swallow. I lie back on the grass nest in her hut and watch stars outside. They swirl and I twist with them. The rubber band that stretches between Eris and I becomes a tangible thing as I feel the soupy concoction swirl through my body.

I can feel her hands on it at her end and mine at my end. It's like an umbilical cord between us. I see her as she was last week; sweet and snuggling and amazed by our new love and connection. But I feel her now. Ragged. Lost. Alone. Afraid. Cold and hungry.

My skin feels rain and I bat at my arms finding nothing wet.

"Shh. Let it be. Talk."

"It's raining."

"Can you see her?"

"No. I can see what she sees."

"Tell me."

"It is dark and there are storms. Rain lashes her. She is cold and shivering. There is a fire she cannot light. She has collected sticks. She is crying like the eagles back home." It tears at my heart. I can hear her anguish.

"Focus human. Quiet your heart for a moment. Still your thoughts. Focus on what you are seeing. Look for her."

Colours swirl about me. As I focused on Merler's voice I was brought back to my place in time, and everything is twisting, and I vomit.

"That's right. Into the bucket. Just focus. Know, don't feel. Don't think."

"There are broken fish. Shells. Dead things. Twigs. Grass but it's wet and they are everywhere. They swarm and she is afraid. The sky is full of angels flying. But she is lonely and cold and in a rock. They fly below her, and she can hear them. Some of them find her and she bites and slashes until they leave but they return. They dance and scream and strut and she cowers in her hole. At night she leaves and forages. I see her chipping things from rocks, and she fishes for crayfish. She is sad. She is so terribly afraid. And oh, my fucking god, so aroused."

"Shh. Shh. It is okay. It is what happens. Shh. Focus. Tell me what she sees."

"There are clouds with trees in them. Broken cliffs. Islands and fish. Thousands of avian fly in the sky and she is away from them but too close."

"Tell me of the sun."

I falter as I wander in my intoxicated state, searching through these dreams of Eris.

"Um... It is small. Green instead of yellow. The light shines on the cliffs and paints them green like wet frog blood. It sinks and she watches it and hopes just by a little thread..." I am filled with a vision of that last sunset we shared. It's what is in her mind right now and I sob and shiver and black out.

In the morning she is asleep on top of me again. My rising deeper breaths stir her, and she smiles apologetically.

"Today you fall." She tells me and feathers her hand against my cheek. "Today you fall so that you can rise."

I'm slow and retarded by the hungover feeling from whatever was in that concoction. There is a thread though. It's hanging from the corner of my psych from where those dreams came. I can feel Eris at the end of it.

"Turn around." She tells me and scratches at my back. "Look."

Something pinches at my back, and she holds her hand out to me. "See. You are one. This never happened with Eric. But look. You change, human."

In her hand is a single ginger red feather. The same colour as my hair.

"Is that a trick? Haha." I laugh at her. What sort of idiot does she think I, ouch!

And she shows me another. "You change, human. She and you are deep. I knew my Eric only years but... It does not matter. Can you feel her?"

"Like a beacon." And it's true. I turn to the east and point over the mountains. "She is there. She is afraid. They hunt."

"And today you fall."

"I don't understand."

"You don't have to. I have one last gift to you, my human friend. Eric's shadow. My reminder."

"I'm scared. She is so frightened. What if I am not enough?"

"Oh, but you will be. Here."

She handed me a cup and nuzzled into my chest as Eris used to. "She told me about this gesture. I drank of you both. I saw. She spoke to me and told me."

I sip nervously. The last drink this feathered witch gave me, had me hallucinating.

"What is in this?"

"Hope. A little faith. Some dreams and a bit of my blood."

"Blood?" I cough.

"Only enough."

"Enough?"

"Enough for your change."

"What change?"

"You are changing, human. You are learning to trust something far deeper than your very great mind and your fickle heart. Look." And she pretends to pull another bright red feather from my back. "Stop doubting."

"Enough tricks. She is hounded. I can see it. They come daily and dance and reach for her. She is frightened and just over there." I point East. "I must run."

"No." She smiles with her hand on my heart as she walks me backwards.

"No?"

"You must fall." Her hand feathers my cheek, and her feet rise up together and thrust me backwards. I fall away and watch and hear her cackling. "Fly human."

I twist and turn and find she has dressed me in my suit while I was sleeping. There is a basket at my back. My fingers taste the thick wind and twist me until I'm not rolling any more.

"It is just another atmosphere." Her words ring in my ears, and I lift my arms like I am hunting fish and for the first time on this planet I lift myself above a glide. I search for warmer air and rise high above the hills and mountains and a sound comes from my throat. It comes from deeper than my vocal cords and trills my exhilaration into the deep cloudless sky. I head east.

East across the mountains and the empty green plains. East across a nasty scar of mined ground that yawns from the planet and makes me sad in a deep part of me. East along the string that connects me to her.

~*~