Fan Fiction ❯ Freedom's Song ❯ The Bird ( Chapter 1 )

The Bird

"What are you doing up here?" Tokala asked, one hand against the cool stone of the aviary wall, a still cool winter breeze lifting his hair as he got above the protective castle wall. Dano turned to look over his shoulder, a smile slipping across his face. Sunset colors smeared over the horizon, purples, reds, a last little bit of gold, reflecting over his eyes, making them not like amethysts but more like children of the sunset. He was already dressed for the celebration, blue silk ruffles up his throat. Such a light blue silk seemed out of place to Tokala, as if Dano were giving away a secret that belonged to Tokala. The thin silk contrasted with raven hair and tight black velvet pants, like innocence contrasted with Dano's grin, with the unspeakably playful ideas glittering in his eyes. Who was to say that the Songbird would share any kinds of secrets with the youngest son of the lord of the shire anyway? Frustration sugared Tokala's words, "Come away from the edge, Dano. Mother wishes you to come down to the banquet hall."

Dano looked back towards the sunset, towards the ending of the last day of winter. He was six years younger than Tokala, but he was the one sitting on the edge of the castle wall, violin resting on his bent knee. Below where he sat at the top of the tower, people scurried around getting ready to celebrate Winter's Night, to celebrate the wedding of winter to spring, of the old year to the new. Looking back over his shoulder at his older and dearest friend, violet eyes danced and a pink tongue flicked out to lick at a tiny bead of perspiration, to tease Tokala just a little bit. "Toka, come sit with me, uh?"

Tokala crossed his arms over his chest and stood there for a moment, trying to get some footing under his thoughts. Dano l'Oiseau. A foreign name, l'Oiseau meant the bird and Dano seemed true to his name. He'd taken to living on the roof of the main tower, with the aviary. If it had been anyone other than the Songbird, people would have thought he was strange. Such things though were expected from one touched by the gods, and so Tokala had known where to find Dano on the last night of winter. "I don't want to sit on the edge of the castle wall, Dano. It's a long way down and stop flirting with me. We both know nothing's going to happen."

Violin in one hand, bow in the other, Dano got to his feet, standing right in the middle of the stone, standing on nearly the highest point in their world. With bare feet and loose hair, as if he were the bride of spring, he said playfully. "Don't be so icy, Toka." Slightly accusatory, he pointed the tip of the bow at him, "Winter's over! You don't believe that whole load of lies about Songbirds, do you? You think I'll suddenly forget how to play violin if you kiss me? Or that you'll just all of a sudden start getting excited by the women your father tries to feed you if you don't kiss me?"

Color flashed up Tokala's cheeks and his eyes narrowed. It showed too easily against his pale skin, with the light contrast of winter blond hair. "You're crude. Is that because your magic is going to make everyone fuck each other tonight or because you're trying to help me not miss you when you leave?"

"Ha! You are going to miss me!" Dano jumped down to the wooden floor of the tower's top, his bare feet taking to the worn wood roof like he was some mythical woodland creature, closing the distance between them without a sound. Long black hair dancing around on the breeze, he closed the distance to Tokala before the prime lordling had the sense to back up. "Admit it then! You're going to miss me!"

"Don't be a girl!" Tokala hissed, taking one step back, his boots smacking the wood floor sounding like disapproval even if he couldn't quite get that tone into his voice. "Of course, I'm going to miss you. I'm going to have to do all the horse chores on my own the whole bright half of the year while you're out on your Sunwalk, smiling at lord's daughters and trying to lose your gift to every pretty face!"

Dano's face twitched and Tokala looked down at the wood under his feet, then off at the sunset. He let himself think it was the sunset and not his words that spit the wall up between them. Dano bit his lip, the edge of it and Tokala could hear his fingers messing with his bow, his nail scratching at the cherry wood, flicking over the gold that held the horse hair taunt. "Now who's being crude? Go tell your mother I'll be down in a minute, Tokala."

Tokala thought for a moment that he might get stabbed with the sharp silver tip to Dano's bow, but then the smaller man turned away, the violin coming up to his shoulder, bow going to its place on the strings. There was no sound to Tokala opening and closing his mouth like some shocked fish and if there had been, the music that swirled up around Dano would have blotted it out anyway.

He didn't want to feel as he felt, standing there watching the very last of the sunset reflect over Dano's shiny black hair. His fingers tried to betray him as they reached out for long flying black hair tangling in the breeze that didn't care a damn for politics or the rules of status.

Songbirds were the voice of the gods. Their music spread fertility and harmony. Children of Shire Lords sired the knights and scholars that kept the peace, that held the swords and politics at the throats of neighboring countries and other shires. Sexual purity kept the magic in a Songbird's blood. Being in love with brazen black haired Songbirds kept at least one shire child from fulfilling his responsibilities to his family. Tokala closed his eyes and let the black hair flowing over his skin be his whole world for a moment.

The Celebration

Tokala's boots weren't quiet as he walked away, stomped down the stairs, and Dano gave into a grin, kicking his music up just a little. All his life he'd heard over and over about how Songbirds were like unicorns, that he'd lose his magic if he breed. He wondered once if that was why he'd started looking at men instead of women, but he knew as true as he knew his music that if Tokala had been a woman, he would have wanted Tokala anyway.

Dano didn't believe in magic, expect maybe the magic he felt when Toka smiled at him. There was no magic in his music or voice that twenty years of practicing hadn't put there. Dano knew that for a fact, but everyone in the shire and in all the shires he'd visited on his Sunwalk, they all knew that only a virgin Songbird could call the goddess, could play music that would seduce fertility to the land.

He put one foot back up on the stonewall, closed his eyes and played to the sunset. His goddess was no timid shy girl without tits or teeth. She was real and deeper than any magic that bondkin might dream up about Songbirds and how many baby calves were born in the spring.