It’s a beautiful, beautiful day.
Big, too – the horizon has that extra width to it that can only come from last night’s storm clouds fading away on its edges, leaving the air dew-fresh and just a little thick. The sun is strong, the breeze is gentle and insistent. The bugs that are out are slow and unsteady, the ground is damp and the big puddles are still there and not yet starting to steam.
On days like this, he feels good. And when he feels good, he feels bold. And when he feels bold, he gets himself an unusual breakfast.
So he spreads his wings and leaves the shining shore behind and flies low, low over the perfect blue water and he keeps his bright little eyes focused on what was underneath it.
He had always been eager for new things. He was the first to snatch dinner from his mother’s beak; he was the first to try flapping; he was the first to topple pell-mell out of the nest altogether; the first to leave for good.
And he’d been the first to wonder about the funny little wriggly things with no limbs but fins that muddled and fuddled their way beneath the lagoon’s surface, and the first to try to pounce at them – and then the first to discover, much to his delight, that pouncing with sufficient fierceness would carry you right through the calm flat blue and right into their soft and fine-scaled flesh, tooth and talon.
The damp feathers afterwards were frustrating, but the meal was delicious. And on a day like this the sun will steam him dry before he’s even finished eating.
And that’s why he watches the water so hungrily as he goes now, beak clicking, teeth clacking. Last night’s storm hadn’t been violent, but it had been insistent. He’s behind on food – not by enough to hurt, but enough to vex. And when he’s vexed he feels bolder.
The fish squirms, just at the edge of his eyes, and he thinks second and pounces first.
Water is a tricky thing. It lets you breath, but not as well as air. It can crush you or hold you up. It can sweep you away or let you float.
And it can play with light so that a big fish far away can be a little fish just below the surface, leaving him with a beakful of nothing and a sharp anger and a sudden, profound tug at one leg.
Then both legs.
Then his body.
Then his wings.
Something much bigger than any fish is on him, a toothless, mouthless pull that drags him down. He flaps and flaps and flaps like he hasn’t since he was in the nest and dreaming of the sky, but instead of too-thin air there’s the weight of the world around him, pressing on him, wearing at him, dragging him down.
The fish was gone.
He sank, and up around him came a blue so much more profound than the sky that his body shook with it.
It was a beautiful, beautiful, day.
That never matters, does it?
***
For Gunbod, the day was neither beautiful nor ugly, just long, which was why he almost put his pick right through the thing before he saw it. The metal tip veered at the last moment, betrayed by tired and inflexible muscles, and it sank off-base. Then he cursed, leaned close, pulled, and as his brow furrowed and his back ached he was eye to eye with something very very old.
So he told the foreman.
And the foreman told the quarry’s owner.
And the quarry’s owner sent word to a good friend of his, Baron Menzen.
Baron Menzen came late in the evening, by carriage, and peered at the rock under lantern-light and lens.
“A bird,” he said. “And a very beautiful one. Look, you can even see the feathers… oh, this is wonderful. I will pay for this.”
And the quarry’s owner was delighted for such an opportunity to further endear himself to his good friend, Baron Menzen, and so did not charge more than a nominal price, which was exactly the sort of thing Baron Menzen had long ago learned to smile at. It made life easier for him.
The bird did not.
It was so beautiful that it was the work of many days to remove the stone around it a chip at a time, with each blow of hammer or chisel sweated over for fear it would send a crack through the leaf-delicate imprint of a ghostly feather. Baron Menzen swore and sweated all day between meals, which were delivered to his study. He slept in his chair fitfully, and awoke with hands already clutching at his tools.
After six days of this his eyes were full of spots and his head was full of cobwebs and his hands were shaking and his nerves were cracking and he cleared his throat and called for his maid.
“Clean up in here,” he said. “I’m going for a walk. Don’t touch anything important.”
Or else, he didn’t say. And she heard it quite clearly, especially when he slapped her rear on the way out the door. She knew his moods.
Her name was Grasell. She had lived at the estate her entire life, and worked there for half of it – officially for half of it, after she’d helped her mother without pay for most of the first half.
“Busy hands can wash dishes,” she’d been told. “Wandering eyes can look for dust. Itchy feet can run to the woodshed.”
So she’d washed and looked and run and then she’d been a maid and had to do all of that and also have her rear slapped, and she’d done all of those things quite well. But what made her a good maid was none of that, it was that she could do all of those things without ever once revealing to anyone how badly she wanted to break everything around her into little tiny pieces.
Even when she was by herself, with a fragile piece of stone that her master had paid more money for than she’d made in her life.
The desk was cleaned of crumbs; the shelves were dusted; the floor was swept; the crumbled bits of limestone had been taken away. Everything looked so very clean and sensible now, exactly as it ought to. The bird lay frozen on its back in the stone, on the wood, and it was as if it could never have been anything else or anywhere else at all.
Were those teeth?
Grasell had been a very bold child, and had run her mother ragged just coming up with chores for her. She’d hoped that she’d done well enough work tempering her to keep her impulses in check, but it was and is and will be the fate of parents to never, ever be correct.
She was also a little bit near-sighted.
So when Grasell leaned down and close enough for her breath to fog the cool surface of the stone bird’s body, and peered carefully at what were indeed little tiny but perfect teeth, it was as much fate as chance as anything at all when her nose brushed the surface of its beak.
Oh.
Grasell blinked and watched the world swim back into focus in front of her eyes. She felt as if she’d come up for air for the first time in forever.
Oh.
Oh. The poor thing. All that blue, all around it. Then the dark and the weight.
Poor thing. Poor little bird.
Her ears still felt clogged, like she was stuck underwater. She pawed at them. No, still ringing.
Oh. That wasn’t her ears. That was the baron, shouting at her. She’d never heard his voice go quite that loud or high before; it was like a bat, or one of the big membrane-winged flying creatures that sometimes nested on the island in the late days of spring. Their calls had been so sad, and she felt a bite of pity inside her that none of them were there anymore to herald the lengthening days.
What was he mad about? She was still touching the stone with her nose, that must be why. It had been a long time ago that she’d done that. A long, long time underwater. Yes, she could straighten up now, she decided. It had been long enough.
It was also something the baron approved of, because it put her face somewhere where it was safe for him to hit it. Right on the cheek too, a proper place for a bruise. And again. And again. She was going to be purple when this was over, if she were lucky.
The baron grabbed at her, held her by the arms, bug-eyed and furious as angry little pants steamed from his beard. She saw that his clothes were rumpling and how would she ever get them back into shape again, much less remove the stains? Her mother would be aghast if she was still alive.
His hand moved against her wrist, adjusting his hairy-knuckled grip.
That was when Grasell knew something new: the bird’s wings had claws.
And very, very quickly Baron Menzen knew that too.
***
Grasell stepped outside through the servant’s door through the last time and thought about names. She’d daydreamed a few times of them, but now she’d need to pick one for later, once her head start had worn off.
It wasn’t going to be pretty. But there were places she could go that weren’t here, especially with some of the shinier things that had been in the estate. Maybe an ocean away. Yes, an ocean away would be nice. Put all that blue water between her and here.
She would have to be careful. Water was tricky like that. But she could do it. She knew she could. Boldness had always suited them.
And the sky was soft and only half-clouded. No rain to be guessed at. It was summer.
Yes, it was a beautiful day. It was a beautiful day for sure.
And this time they wouldn’t take it for granted.