Kokko, komea lintu: a tongue forged in flames - 1340 words

Caspian watched the motionless kukuri on the ground. His knees wailed against the rough concrete underneath him. Some hay used as bedding for horse stalls didn't do much to soften the impact of constant strain.

 

At least most of those equines had been sold a few months prior, but a couple still remained. None took their evacuation kindly - but none wanted to see them rent like the Athos, either.

 

The crimson dove seemed to rest peacefully, but it was clear from her figure that her sleep was anything but. Her sides rose and fell in an erratic rhythm, uneven and restless. The kukuri's wings were bandaged twice - once to treat the wounds they carried, and a second time to pin them to the sides of her body. No vet was able to hurry their way to the middle of nowhere with such a short notice. This left tranquilizers out of the equation.

 

Caspian wasn't able to tie and pin down the aerial kukuri on his own. He had the strength, but he lacked finesse, and a direction to follow.

Like countless times before, Meri was his saving grace - but even when ready to crash from exhaustion, the feathered beast wasn't helpless. It attempted to draw a line between itself and the aid it was willing to accept, and in the way of that path stood the headstrong girl.

 

While the eternal didn't often believe her 'tis just a flesh wound sort of claims, for once he agreed with Meri about her health. The kukuri was too spent to claw out any more eyes or organs, and the scratches it caused were far from life-threatening.

Not that her parents were unanimous with the two half-hooligans. The last time Caspian had seen Aarre's gaze so ready to set everything ablaze with a horrendous roar, was the night the Athos had appeared onto their doorstep.

 

He ran his eyes over the orange dove's frame. Every cut and bruise felt like an insult. Caspian didn't know why. It wasn't him that flew straight into someone.

 

What had even happened to her? The amber-tinted plating across her body was nicked and splintered all over. The flight feathers on her wings were so badly damaged, crooked, and bent, that it was no wonder she came crashing down like a plane trapped in a hurricane.

 

The eternal tightened his grip around the bandage roll in his hands. Their ashamed tremble tried its darnedest to push through, and into the rest of his body. Did the creature need more gauze? Even if it did, where on earth would it even go? The kukuri was like a canvas left stained by a sadistic artist, that painted with scalpels instead of brushes. Most of the cuts were only on the surface, making the whole mess look worse than it was - but still.

 

Säälittävä - sitä sie oot.

(Pathethic - that's what you are.)

 

A familiar, belittling voice rang in Caspian's ears like an aftershock from a gunshot. It stung like hornets on his eardrums. Unable to prevent his face from bending into a snarl, he attempted to lock it out by covering his ears.

 

Tommone tolovana. Kehveliikö sie kukuril ees teet?

(What a moron. What are you even planning to do with a kukuri?)

 

It never helped, and yet, he always tried it. Desperation had the tendency to make him do stupid things. As if covering one's ears would block out a voice that came from within.

 

Päreinäki se o - tota sie et jeesusteipil paekkaa.

(It's in pieces, too - you're not fixing that with duct tape.)

 

A row of shark-like teeth drew itself right in front of Caspian's face. A serpent of a woman followed it, as hideous as she always was for him - had always been. Gray and lifeless, emaciated and grim - cruel and violent to the very last breath.

 

And she spit fire. Embers that hit the dry hay and fattened into invisible, roaring flames. Shattered him into pieces, only to crush the shards into dust. It was what she always did - had always done. Dead told no tales, but they couldn't be silenced for good, either.

 

Not when they thrived off of insults targeted at their offspring.

 

A low growl crept up the walls. Unsafe, uncertain, unkind. It silenced the nightmare that haunted the eternal - but the mistress of that voiced snarl was far from finished.

 

Caspian's whole body flinched violently, when a rusted horseshoe hit the stone wall next to him. It struck the uneven cobble with a thick, sharp sound of impact - and straight through the ill-willed wraith. The curved piece of metal ricocheted from the stone and hit Caspian's shoulder. The strike forced an involuntary yelp out of his throat, and moved his muscles. He held the shoulder with his other hand instinctively - it was nothing a bruise couldn't sort through, but such action was automatic.

 

Another growl pulled the eternal's attention like a wallet on a string.

 

The crimson dove's auburn gaze was nailed to the cobble wall in front of her - right next to Caspian, and right where the hag's spirit still lingered. The kukuri followed its mouse-gray hair tips that flowed in the air, as though they were underwater.

She tried to get up, but the flightless bird was like a vacuum sealed piece of chicken with the bandages holding her in a neat package. She was as clumsy as a bull in a china shop without her wings - not to even mention how her own body fought against her efforts.

 

Caspian watched the dove struggle, his eyes darting from her to the spirit, and then back again. The sprite chattered its teeth as it hurled out an insult after the other, but it had called wolf too many times to make an impact as often as it would've liked. The eternal hushed it with a waved hand as he tried to examine the kukuri - the wraith's foul curses harried his already brittle sheet of focus.

 

The aerial opened her jaw. From that burgundy maw of off-white blades, a hiss shot out like from a rifle. It was sharp and unfriendly in every sense of the words, and it embraced all within its radius like dark water. The long feathers on top of her head rose, cresting from between her sleek ears like a sunrise. She lashed her tail at her surroundings, knocking down everything that wasn't nailed down. The lengthy pinions flowed through the air after her movements. They resembled silk ribbons that a water current had claimed as its own.

 

Caspian could do nothing but stare. None of this should've been happening - and yet, he watched the restricted chaos unfold in its own little pocket that one could call a stall in a stable. He couldn't understand how the kukuri could just...

 

See.

 

Obviously, just seeing didn't shift the ragged crone's state from untouchable - but hurling around horseshoes like the hag was some kind of target was still something he had never seen before. He was always alone with it, biting back whenever it hadn't pulled his teeth out already. Struggling to see and hear over the fire it told him to ignite - over, and over again, until he broke down like a porcelain vase.

 

A fit of hisses and spits from that very shrew tore Caspian out of his head like a meat hook pulls the sides of flayed cattle. He felt its elongated fingernails on his throat like icicles, before it decided to finally disappear. He hastily turned to the kukuri. The dove was out of breath from her own hissy fit, but her breathing was getting more and more stable by the minute. Her pupils slowly dilated from thin slits back to dark, gaping orbs of void.

 

In his underlying naiveté, Caspian stretched out his arm. He brought his clawed fingers close to the kukuri's cheek before his actions triggered an appropriate reaction. The dove snapped her jaws at him, nearly chomping on his knuckles, before he swiftly pulled his hand away.

 

Definitely not there yet. Don't be impatient.