Chapter 40: Cheep!? 38

Cheep!?

Chapter 38

Charles stared down the group, fighting back the urge to start hissing, screeching, and belting out squawks at them in anger. Each of them stood to attention, still poised for action, but equally uncertain. Skye glanced repeatedly over Charles’ shoulder, as though to be sure that the cat was actually leaving. 

Truthfully, he was too, though he was using his essence sense and sense of smell more than anything. For the time being, he didn’t move, and neither did the Greenhorns. Only when a minute had passed and both the scent and essence image of the cat faded to nearly nothing did Charles turn his full attention to the adventurers. 

Up close, Charles noticed a few details that he hadn’t seen from afar. Mithel, with her blond hair in a mess, looked even younger than he’d thought. Child labor laws might not exist in this world, or, more likely, she wasn’t actually a child. Charles couldn’t guess at the truth of it, but he turned his scorn-filled gaze to the paladin next. Reese was clearly well toned, but pale, hinting at the fact that she likely wore her armor a great deal of the time. A symbol of a god– Advarica, Charles had heard–hung by a thin, bronze colored chain around her neck. She still held her shield and sword, Charles’ eyes wandered to the former and once more clearly saw the hole he’d put in it, as well as in her shirt, but she lacked the wound entirely. Her arm, too, seemed to move just fine, leaving him to wonder how capable her healing was as those strikes barely left a mark on her belly. That was quite paladin like, he admitted, and maybe, slightly impressive.

Ronald was the least dressed of them all, scarcely remaining in a simple pair of pseudo shorts that he could generously call underwear. The man carried a two handed polearm type weapon that appeared to be a glaive, and had set himself to an adaptable stance. Charles wanted to take him seriously, but… ‘No, you’re in your shorts, man…’ 

Before Ronald could react to the semi-disgusted glance the Phorus had clearly shot at him– albeit, Charles did admit the man looked quite fit – the bird's eyes roamed over Dachna. The man seemed the most put together of them all, but Charles could tell he was ready to move at any moment. Skinny though he may be, Charles guessed the man was all muscle. Ronald was a beefcake, but this guy was lean, and Charles vaguely felt it odd that someone who looked like they could be on the cover of some teen modeling magazine was out in the forest. 

The rescued man, Eustace, just looked like he wanted to go home, and was probably quite ready to be done with all of this. Charles couldn’t blame him, considering he’d had a very rough time of it based on his telling of things. He was curious about the slightly too coppery scent that Eustace had, but Charles couldn’t place why he would be smelling that. There weren’t any visibly bleeding wounds on him, though, he did have many that were bandaged up.

Skye was taught as a strung bow, and Charles could see that it wasn’t only a combative stance. She seemed like she was half-way hopeful, and another half incredibly wary, for she had no idea if her decision had come to bite her head off, or help her. Charles breathed deeply and slowly as he looked her in the eye, struggling to make that decision for himself.

The team tensed just that little bit more as he kept staring, and Skye bit the inside of her lip to keep from looking away. She succeeded, keeping her eyes level with Charles in spite of the possibility that he hadn’t in fact come to help them. Charles approved the mettle he saw in her eyes, even if seeing the vague hurt and guilt did nothing for his own emotional state.

With a long exhale, Charles forced his body to relax, second by second. His feathers ruffled and flexed as he lightly shook himself out. The Greenhorns relaxed fractionally, but started to back away as he circled partly around them towards the fire. Charles distantly felt an instinctual, unlearned fear of the fire, but he easily and contemptuously suppressed it. 

‘I guess beasts have a natural fear of flame, probably fair enough honestly.’ With a tired ‘whompf’ Charles sat down just about as far away as the others had been sitting from the fire. Warmth spread across his feathers and chased away the mild chill from the air. In spite of himself, he let out a delighted trill, he opened his wings and let his feathers fluff out again, letting the warmth suffuse his achy muscles from having to stalk the Greenhorns for hours on end. 

At that, he turned his head over to the still standing– no, still gawking – adventurer team. He snapped out a quick, chastising chirrup at them, before turning his attention back to the fire.

“Okay, okay, I’m… I’m clearly still asleep right now, right?” Mithel said while shaking her head back and forth in slow and small motions, “Because that’s… Is that the same bird?”

Skye spoke next, “Yes. Absolutely the same bird.” She stopped speaking, her voice having become much more high pitched, like her throat wanted to close up on her. 

“So… We’re cool, then?” Dachna threw the question out, partly towards Charles, “Bird, we’re cool, yeah?”

At that, Charles did turn his head to him, which, almost funnily, caused them all to draw a breath. The flat ‘are you kidding me?’ look that Charles gave him probably didn’t help. He turned his attention back to the fire once more.

“C-can he really understand us?” Mithel swallowed hard, “That’s… That’s not an aberrant ability I’ve ever heard of.”

“Seems pretty obvious to me,” Ronald walked towards the fire, slowly enough to be casual, “Not sure what that’s suppo-”

“Ronald,” Mithel nearly hissed, “Why are you walking towards the two and a half meter tall killer bird!?” 

“The kil–what now?” Ronald blinked, “He’s not a kil–okay, well, I guess he technically did kill some poachers, huh?” At that, Charles frowned and looked at him. Ronald stood still for a second under his gaze, before shrugging. “I mean, Dad kills people sometimes. I don’t walk on eggshells around him.” 

He sat on a decently sized upturned rock nearby, the same one he had been on before. His glaive sat behind him. The weapon was almost definitely placed intentionally out of easy reach. They watched as Ronald gradually let himself relax, bit by bit, for what felt like an eternity. 

Charles glanced at him, before making a show of looking back at the fire. In the first place, he didn’t really have much beef with this one in particular.

“See? He’s a good boy.” The man beamed, halfway seeming to convince himself. 

‘I’m not going to stab him.’ Charles felt a ripple of annoyance cross over his feathers, but Ronald did too.

“Uhh, I mean, he’s very kind and understanding.” Ronald cleared his throat, but didn’t tense back up.

“Dude, I swear, all of you people out on the outskirts are just…” Dachna didn’t finish the statement, shaking his head, but smirking all the while. He moved over, a bit further from Charles than his friend was. 

Ronald scoffed, “Weird stuff happens, gotta get over it eventually.”

Mithel shuffled quickly and not very quietly past the two of them, making a wide circle around Charles before sitting opposite of the Phorus. 

Reese wordlessly ushered the exhausted Oath Sworn towards the tent, tending to him while occasionally glancing over Charles. He noticed the complicated expression on her face, and while he wanted to be able to move past everything, he still felt his skin crawl at what she’d subjected him to, and even more so at what she’d said before. She seemed markedly warier around him than she had seemed before, even with the tier two cat nearby.

Finally, Skye moved with hesitant steps to the opposite flank of Ronald, sitting just scarcely closer to Charles than the man was. She stole glances to him, and to the others, and for some reason Ronald only smiled at her broadly for whatever he saw in her expression.

Charles had to admit, she was hard to read right now. Her expression was a tangled mess of upset and maybe hopeful, such that he didn’t even want to try to sift that one. There was silence around the campfire, broken only by the gentle rustling of leaves in the cool breeze and the crackle and pop of smoldering wood. 

What was the last time he ever sat by a fire? Distant memories of his old family came to him, when he was young, so much younger than when they’d vanished. Holidays spent around a warm fireplace, sharing in the glow and telling stories with either hot cocoa or warm apple cider. His dad let him try some of his ‘adult’ apple cider once, and then immediately regretted it when Charles not only liked it, but wanted more of it. His mom had been furious, but also amused, and just for those nights he was allowed to have some. His sister had hated it when she’d been allowed to try it, too. Though, she liked the normal warm apple cider just fine. 

The memory hurt him, just like they all did, and somehow it hurt more than he thought they still could after so long. Perhaps knowing that he might someday meet them again had stirred him up, or maybe he cared more than he thought he had–more than he wanted, even. Was Elizabeth still the same, with gangly long legs and her awkward manner? His sister never had really been good with meeting new people, but she was a good kid. Maybe she’d been given a different body too, like Charles, but he had no idea. It stung all the more that he didn’t even really know his parents enough to be able to find them if they weren’t in their original bodies. Rick Monroe, Adela Monroe, Elizabeth Monroe; would those names mean anything to anyone here?

Charles came back to himself, remembering where he was, and with a start wondered how he could have possibly gotten so distracted.

And yet, surprisingly, most of the others weren’t by the fire anymore. The flames themselves had chewed through the logs, and new ones were laid atop, keeping the warmth going while Charles had been lost in thought.

‘I thought for sure they’d stick around?’ He frowned, before looking up and catching a glimpse of where the moon was in the sky. ‘Oh… I guess it is quite late.’ 

The ones remaining around the campfire were, perhaps, the two that had the most cause to be there. Charles lifted his head, dragging his attention up to the paladin that kept herself seated further from him. He wasn’t sure if that was out of fear, or to try to be respectful of him.

It was… an appreciated gesture, since Charles didn’t want to be sitting that closely to her.

“Looks like he’s back with us.” Reese spoke with a touch of mirth atop a mire of anxiousness. 

Skye started, turning her gaze from the woods back to Charles. Their eyes met, and this time Skye averted her sightline to the paladin.

Charles chirruped aloud, deciding to at least try to make sure they knew he was talkative. Not that he could communicate… Unless he wanted to try to write.

He’d try writing later, hopefully if one of them went to sleep, or before the morning, whichever came first. It was one thing to be able to understand them, but another thing entirely to be able to write to them. Perhaps that’d be better to keep in his back feathers, but… he also needed to know what the response would be. 

“I guess that’s permission to talk,” Reese chuckled, before taking a deep breath. 

“He’s perfectly sapient, in my book, so just talk to him?” Skye offered, wondering if she was having trouble coming up with something to say.

“That’s exactly the problem. He’s far more intelligent and developed than any low tier area should ever have the ability to produce. I mean just look at him!”

‘I’m a very pretty bird, what do you want?’ Charles snorted at her before his eyes glared down at her again.

“I’m sorry, I’m not trying to mock you.” Reese said, before her expression became much more controlled and professional, “Really though… I apologize for what happened. I hadn’t realized you were…” she gestured vaguely at him, trying to extrapolate some kind of term to encompass him whilst seemingly pointedly dancing around the word, “You, I guess. You’re obviously very intelligent and have some incredibly valuable ability to communicate with other beasts and understand people.”

Her eyes narrowed a bit as she asked thoughtfully, “You… can’t speak this language, right? I was just assuming, but…”

Charles was halfway through shaking his head, before he stopped, tilted his head in consideration, before shrugging and trying to say, “You’re a pecking jerk for trying to collar me, and I’d like to kick the snot out of you and never see you again. But, I’m settling for a working relationship where I can abandon you if need be and not feel bad.”

Roils of essence came off of him along with his stream of chirps, chirrups, twitters, and a final cluck. 

Incomprehension mixed with visible nausea and a growing frown covered her face.

“Anything?” Skye asked Reese when she saw her expression.

“It's… not words? Not ever really images, but I get the feeling that…” she seemed to swallow bile back with a pale complexion, “I get the feeling that he’s not happy with me, but he’s going to deal with it? I don’t know why though. His type should just–” she stopped herself from whatever she was saying, schooling her features instead and saying, “It’s… complicated to feel.” 

Skye, stunned, turned her attention to Charles with equal shares of interest and dread, “What about me?... Err,” she paused, then shook her head to herself. “I owe you an apology as well. We’ve been talking about it and… it was deeply disrespectful. I would like to earn your forgiveness, and I don’t have any designs on trying to tame you. But, if you’d allow it, I want to help… however I can.” 

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Charles could plainly see the rueful expression on her face, and while he would never claim to be a professional at reading people for if they were lying, he didn’t get the sense that she was. He was still furious with them, and he expected much from them, but… this was a start.

He sighed, “You owe me a pecking hide.” 

She blinked, confused at first before a blooming expression of joy spread across her face. Reese quickly asked, “What was it? That was way shorter.”

“I have no idea!” She grinned happily, “Maybe I owe him something? I don’t know, it was a little too… blurry? But that’s good!”

Reese gave a small smile with as much relief as Skye had. That surprised Charles, but begrudgingly also was a point in her favor for not being put out by the obvious difference in treatment. That she could be happy for someone else was barely a point in her favor, but it certainly wasn’t a demerit.

Skye reached out her hand, slowly and gingerly to Charles' side, obviously wanting to touch his feathers. Unwittingly, he felt himself stiffen at that, his feathers grew rigid, and a tightness in his chest compressed almost painfully at her approach.

She stopped, wincing at the very obvious discomfort that the large Phorus before her displayed and then sat back away from him.

“Sorry, that… I got a little ahead of myself.” Skye spoke low, while Reese looked on with clear apprehension and concern on her face.

“Skye… I… hesitate to say this, but remember that he’s very powerful. And… more than any aberrant you’ve probably ever really heard of. No offense, Phorus, but… this is a very dangerous charge you’re accepting.” 

For her part, the elf shot her a heated glare, but she stopped herself before she said anything. Instead, she mastered herself and said, “Thank you for the advice. I’ll be careful.”

Reese pursed her lips before shaking her head, “I overstepped my bounds. Apologies, once more.” She rose from her seat, before turning to the tents, “Will you be fine out here?”

Skye frowned, before sighing at herself once more, “Wait, ah, Bant’s arse.” A raised eyebrow from the Advarican paladin answered the seemingly random curse, “Sorry, about getting mad. I know, this isn’t the most… advisable thing I could be doing right now. You’re just looking out, I get that. But, I should be fine out here if you’d like to turn in for the night? I know we’re all probably going to be… very busy tomorrow.”

The paladin gave a small warm smile before nodding, “I think I will turn in. Also… I think it might be a good idea to keep to yourselves about him being able to communicate even this little bit with people. Maybe don’t even tell your team, but I’ll leave that to your discretion.”

“Yeah… yeah, I know what you mean. I’ll tell them, though. They at least deserve to know a bit more. Will you tell the guildmaster?” 

“No,” Reese shook her head, “I’m not beholden to the guild system. I’d suggest you not lie to him, though. He may not ask you specifics, though, so…” She shrugged.

With a laugh, Skye poked fun at her, “You’re a very odd paladin, you know?”

“And you’re pretty odd for a ranger yourself,” She nodded, “Goodnight, Skye. Wake someone up if you need shut eye. I’m serious.”

“I will, and thanks again.” With a returned tilt of her head, Skye made herself a bit more comfortable around the fire, her eyes panning about the edges of their camp. Now that the wail-wards were recharged, though, she wasn’t nearly as worried.

Charles guessed that him being one of the more dangerous threats in this part of the woods probably helped out, too. For a while, neither of them spoke, but Charles alternated between glaring out at the darkness and studying the fire again. Instead of shifting awkwardly like he thought she would be, Skye seemed to be remarkably comfortable with everything.

‘This is the real start, huh?’ Charles came to a quiet realization, ‘From here on out, things aren’t going to be as straightforward as territorial disputes and eating badgers…’ It was sobering to know that he would have a whole new world in front of him. Danger, most assuredly, but also potential. This was a fantastical plane of reality, and Charles hoped against hope that it was at least as gorgeous as it was dangerous. What kinds of sights waited? Were the cities medieval, or something more?

Charles would be calling fowl if Alterra didn’t at least have one floating mountain somewhere.

“It’s a lot like the nicer nights with my teacher,” Skye broke his contemplations with something interesting, “He’s a druid. That’s, uhh… He helps shape the forests, works with them to create ecosystems and hunts monsters…” She then mumbled, “...right, he makes them too sometimes. Arsehole.”

Charles flinched at that, ‘What now? The what now?’ 

“There were a lot of times where I’d sit around next to Quillfax – they’re like bear-sized things with spear length quills sticking out of their backs – and hand feed them fruit. They were my favorite, but if they didn’t know you, they were really prickly,” she had a small smile at her pun, “But they were the sweetest things when you got them to trust you. A lot of people don’t really get that beasts came first, before all the monsters. There’s just… so many monsters, now, you know?”

By the expression of shock and confusion on Charles' face, no, she realized he really didn’t.

“Uh… Well, that’s… good?” Skye tapped her thigh in idle thought, “They’re… like beasts, but not? If I had to try to describe them, they’re thoughtless– only, not exactly; they’re one track minded and angry, so very angry at everything else. Some think that Venris, God of Chaos and Monsters, made the first of them, but my druid teacher said that was calf shit, because apparently monsters are caused from something completely different.” She shrugged, “I believe him, but that kind of talk doesn’t really endear you to the pantheon folk.”

She gestured to the fire, “Beasts generally either hate, or are mesmerized by controlled fires, depending on if they’re just sentient or sapient. You’re definitely high sapient, so you’re less like a beast, but more like a person. That’s… gonna be a whole other issue if you want to be around people at all, because most people are going to assume you’re not fully sapient. There are degrees of it, and usually only very old, very powerful beasts hit that mark.” She shook her head, “Anyways, tamer’s used to just set up a bonfire, big things, and do these week long rituals during the harvest season. You’d get these big congregations of just-barely-aware beasts coming and mingling, all managed by a wing of druids. It used to be a big deal, but even my teacher wasn’t around to see them. Those rituals only exist in verbal records nowadays, people don’t do it that way at all anymore. Too ‘pagan’ for the city folk–” she caught herself before sneering, “Uh… At least, that’s what he’d say. I don’t really like the pantheon all the time, but, I don’t really like all of the pagan stuff, either, so… Guess I’m not really that religious.”

Charles gave an approving snort.

“Anyway, guess the fire thing is true? You seemed pretty into it for a bit?” She smiled at Charles before turning her gaze back to the fire, the complicated look she’d had before now something warmer and more approachable. Charles listened quietly as she made conversation with him one-sidedly, he found it was somewhat nice.

Charles looked around the camp one more time, making certain that no one was watching. 

He reached down with a claw to the ground, and Skye watched him curiously. When he started scratching short lines in the dirt, Charles felt a strange connection to words he’d never personally learned as though they’d always been there, a part of him somewhere. It was like English had never been his first language, and there was a jarring moment when he realized his scrawled writing in the dirt was neater than it had been as a human. ‘Well don’t that just figure, my handwriting never got better until I didn’t really have hands anymore.’ 

The amusement of the moment lasted until Skye dropped the stick she was fiddling with. He looked up to see her staring in mute shock at the words, before her head snapped up to the tent as though afraid that someone was going to walk out of it.

“Y-you can write?” Skye whispered quietly to him whilst visibly freaking out, and Charles was suddenly very happy that he’d waited until everyone else was asleep, because she was most definitely bothered by this revelation.

In the dirt, he’d written, ‘Can you take me to see my family?’ And following shortly below, he added, ‘Yes, please answer the previous question. Then tell me why writing is a problem.’

“It’s not a problem,” she said quickly, “Well, no, that’s wrong. It’s actually a big mess. Oh, gods that’s a big mess… Uh.” She glanced back up to the normal question above, “Yeah, yeah I can do that. Umm.. Sorry, give me a second? I need… I need to have a little existential crisis for a minute.”

Charles blinked before he wrote, ‘Take your time’, in the dirt.

And, true to her words, Charles watched Skye look at the fire with an incredibly pale face for several minutes, working through something internally that was only making him more and more worried.

‘I’m gonna give her like five more minutes to pull it together.’ He thought to himself dryly, but four minutes passed before Skye looked back to him.

“Okay, you can’t write anymore, to anyone else. Alright?” Skye appeared even more stressed than before, and she kept her voice low still.

‘Why?’ He wrote out simply. Charles needed to know what the big deal was, especially since it had a lot to do with how he might carry out further information seeking actions.

“Because… look, there’s the aberrant thing where aberrants can sometimes understand spoken languages that are said to them and around them. Sometimes they can communicate a little bit! But… you’ve never been taught to write, right?” She stopped, almost hopeful that Charles would nod ‘yes’ to that answer. He shook his head in the negative automatically, even though immediately afterwards he regretted that moment. “Ugh… okay… no, we can… maybe make this work? If someone asks if you were taught, say yes next time, for the Great Mother’s sake. Because the only thing that also gives you written language comprehension this clean are deific blessings. Only the gods work with this stuff, and the regular gods don’t bless beasts or monsters.”

Charles immediately saw where that was going, and weighed the options of immediately braining Skye and leaving. He stayed his beak, though, both because she hadn’t run screaming, and because she was actively making sure they were still alone every few seconds.

“Only Venris works with beasts, but mostly monsters. I mean… I guess maybe the Great Mother could, too? I’ve… never heard of her taking Chosen at all, or even any real clergy but…” She slowed and then took a deep breath, “No, you know, that makes a lot more sense? Yeah, that’s better. Much better. Okay, so, we’ll say you’re the Great Mother’s Chosen, but… No. We don’t say anything. Yeah, keep that quiet because this is so far gods damned above my pay grade…”

Skye proceeded to have another meltdown, but Charles gradually eased off of the ‘Have to kill Skye’ option. He really, really didn’t want to have to use that option, either, because she wasn’t the worst, and honestly her existential crisis right now was amusing in a concerning kind of way.

‘Are you okay?’ Charles scrawled in the dirt near her field of vision.

She steadied herself and stared at the lettering before sitting down and idly picking up a stick. She wrote, ‘I’ve accepted that I’m going to an early grave. You?’

‘In spite of recent events, I plan on living a very long, fruitful life. Maybe see my siblings have chicklings. I’d love to be buried in fluffy chicks again.’ 

Skye stared at the writing before smiling a little, “That sounds… adorable and comfy.” Then she paused and looked at her own writing, comparing the two several times. “That’s not even fair, your writing is better than mine, you don’t even have hands!”

Charles blinked in surprise, then actually looked and had to agree. He nodded sagely, a look so incongruous to the moment that Skye couldn’t help but laugh, low at first, and then picked up in volume. It was a stress laugh, and he found himself softly chirping along in amusement. They fell back into silence, and Charles noticed that she was less on edge than before.

“You can’t tell the others, and I won’t either.” Skye said as she stared past the fire, “Especially not the paladin. I think she might be obligated to end you by her goddess if she knew for sure that you were a Chosen not of the Pantheon.”

‘Why and the cluck would that be the case?’ Charles wrote out, before he then added, ‘Nevermind, this is a kind of gods vs. not gods thing isn’t it?’ 

Skye blinked at that before shrugging, “Maybe? I don’t even know why you know that, that’s just so far out of my awareness that I don’t even… yeah. But, we can take you to your family. Are they all… you know… like you?”

He shook his head at that, but he was smiling warmly as he thought of them, ‘They’re all normal compared to me. Not Chosen or anything. I’m the odd one of the bunch, if you couldn’t tell by the fact that I’m not a small flying bird.’ 

With a snort, Skye nodded to that, and their conversation lulled. Now that he’d gotten that off of his chest, Charles did feel better. This was… he hesitated to say nice, but it was acceptable.

Snoring drew his attention to the tent then, loud and like a buzz saw, before the sound of someone slapping flesh rang out, followed by an aggravated murmur. “Sleep on your side, damnit,” floated out into the night. Charles chortled at the same time as Skye, as they shared a bit of mirth on their shared watch before morning came.

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