Kokko, komea lintu: a pyre of soot and ash - 1301 words

Caspian carefully peeked in through the cottage's window, his hands on the windowsill. He barely had a line of sight to the thing that was doing who knew what kind of damage inside. Only a flurry of feathers and high-pitched screeches were very much clear from the outside.

 

The eternal backed up slowly. He could feel in his palms how the timber shook from the fury that it held caged within. The dried moss that clung to the edges of the roof fell off like dead insects. The whole thing trembled like a small dog in a freezer.

 

His home had become a trap for a beast that didn't have even the slightest of intentions to cooperate. It had made it known that it was injured, but its tolerance ended right at that fine line. It was the flame that swallowed a barn in the wake of a misplaced candle, and it would never yield to be anything less.

 

There were no other places to put that cursed thing - Caspian didn't have much furniture to even speak of, so the choice was obvious.

 

Not that his opinion was respected much. It never was. The carpenters better make him a new bed, at least. It was the least they could do, surely.

 

"Kokko!" A bright voice pierced the air like an arrowhead carved from flint. The Athos turned to the voice, and saw Meri waving a book in her hand. The smile on her face was wide from accomplishment.

"Here! A fiery, giant eagle - listen to this," she opened the book as she walked to Caspian, and read out loud:

 

"Swiftly flies the magic eagle,

Giant-bird of worth and wonder,

To the river of Tuoni,

There to catch the pike of Mana;

 

"One wing brushes on the waters,

While the other sweeps the heavens;

In the ocean dips his talons,

Whets his beak on mountain-ledges." ¹

 

"Meri - Meri - Meri," Caspian abruptly interrupted her. "I don't know if you have noticed," he pointed at the cottage, and whatever screeched inside it, "but that thing is not an eagle."

 

In that same, exact moment, one of the windows of the wooden cabin burst open. Shattered glass flung both in and out, warding off curious children and bystanders - the dark-hided eternal included. Something struck at the wooden boards nailed into the window frame repeatedly. The rhythm of the strikes was fast and relentless, almost resembling gunfire.

 

This was exactly why the planks were there - to keep what was inside, inside.

 

The creature voiced its foul mood extremely audibly, the highest shrieks jabbing at everyone's ear drums like a rusty cheese grater. It then proceeded to break something else in the single-room house, continuing to hurl stuff, things, and its own body around the cramped space. Caspian grimaced as he heard another crash, his shoulders rising to his ears.

 

What even was there to destroy anymore at this point?

 

Meri blinked a few times as she digested the sight of an angry, orange ball of fur and pinions decimating the home of her tall friend. Bright-colored plumes with darkened tips flew out in periodical puffs from the broken window, like from a shredded pillow that had at some point been stuffed with feathers.

She turned to Caspian and spoke, drawing his attention:

"Oh, no," she raised her voice slightly, her tone nonchalant, "that's a kukuri."

Caspian's brow furrowed as he crossed his arms onto his chest as he turned to her. He didn't even have to open his mouth to inquire about such information, when Meri already yanked another book from her pocket. Of course she had her sources - and places to keep them in.

 

Meri had practically forced her mother to modify her skirts and dresses to have pockets - unfortunately for Lilja, by endlessly whining. But all that complaining and groaning was worth it, tenfold. Two portable storage compartments were two hundred percent better than none, and they came in handy more often than the girl had the time to call Caspian an idiot, or even a green flagpole.

 

To top it off, her friends had noticed the nifty pockets she almost flaunted around - which lead them to spread like a wildfire across the whole village, as small as it might've been.

Meri was absolutely thrilled, even though she felt a bit silly about it. It was such a small thing, after all.

 

"The hell is a kukuri?" Caspian spit at the brown-haired girl, his sharp canines flashing like a bright red warning sign. He received an amused chuckle for his reaction.

"That thing right there," she stated lightheartedly, gesturing at the cabin that seemed to be ready to crumble at any second.

 

Caspian wasn't impressed by the answer.

 

The crimson kukuri struck at the wood around her once more with her beak. The logs that made the walls of the building were full of scratches, deep cuts, and other marks to harshly remind of her raw power, and inextinguishable rage. She never went down without a fight, and if for nothing else, she made sure to leave an indelible impression.

 

The dove didn't let anyone close, to her or her prison. It was a miracle no one hadn't perished while she was hastily transported. Caspian had taken the worst of the blows, as was the way of things.

 

Meri tucked the two books under her arm. She scanned the eternal's injured body with a worried gaze whenever he looked away - although the fresh wounds weren't what she was concerned about.

"How's your eye?" She inquired carefully. Caspian turned to her in one movement, smooth and casual in its underlying tone.

 

The girl couldn't stop her face from twisting into a grimace as the Athos' vivid eyes met hers. It seemed like Caspian was already able to see with both of his eyes, but she didn't even want to ask how well it was with the clawed out one. A huge bruise in a myriad of shades of blue and purple obscured nearly half of his whole face. It painted itself on the side that the kukuri had struck in its panicked state. The most intense darkening nested right around the eye socket, and on the cheek bone. It made Meri squeamish to think what would've happened if Caspian wasn't what he was - and she wasn't one to falter at the sight of gore and grime.

 

The enraged dove howled inside her splintered cell. The strength she had acquired from adrenaline and ire alone wasn't something sustainable. She hadn't eaten in days, and her body screamed for hydration.

 

The desperate pleading of her body, triggered by her sorry condition, echoed to ears that had been deafened by hysteria. She had to get out. There was no other way. If she didn't, she would die - and the dove refused to.

 

Yet, her very own frame of flesh and bone denied her of that option - an option induced by impenetrable dread. Slowly, but surely, her voice grew hoarse and wheezing. Every muscle in the aerial's body shivered and stung, wavered and wailed. The wooden walls closed in on her. They encased her in darkness.

 

In that lack of light, she sank. Fighting against it did nothing. Unceremoniously she slumped, and fell to the floor among all the chaos and damage she had caused in her fit of rage. Between her teeth, her tongue against the roof of her mouth, she could taste the bile and the blood.

 

This couldn't be the way she'd go - it just couldn't.

 

A line of light drew itself into the dark, its razor-sharp outline tearing at the blackness like a serrated knife. Into that light, formed a figure - slender, malformed, strange, even terrifying. Its maw flashed a row of pointy teeth, sharp like needles. It uttered something the kukuri couldn't understand. Made sounds that were foreign to her. Like from a completely different plane of existence, higher in its worth, and lacking in modesty.

 

She couldn't make sense of a single little sound it made - and yet, in every syllable, there was a galaxy.

 

"Let me help you."

 

Tuo kokko, komea lintu, lenteä lekuttelevi;

lenti hauin pyyäntähän, hirmuhampahan hakuhun,

tuonne Tuonelan joelle, Manalan alantehelle.

 

Yksi siipi vettä viisti, toinen taivasta tapasi,

kourat merta kuopaeli, nokka luotoja lotaisi. ²

 

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¹ The Kalevala - The Epic Poem of Finland to English, John Martin Crawford (1888), The Public Domain Review

² Kalevala, Elias Lönnrot (1849), Wikiaineisto