RP:A Myna Interlude

Deep In the Forest (Sage)

Sabrina makes her way up the path, some other adventure took her the wrong way round to her home in Larket but she was confident she would make it there eventually. The sun still cast its toying dances through the lush greenery overhead, so clearly there was some time. She strode alone, lengthy raven trusses rhythmically bouncing with her walk, it was one of those perky-always-happy walks that led one to believe she had lived too long, or too little. Minty green eyes take from the path to spy the various color changes that rose in the scenery above her, if she was not careful she would likely run directly into anyone currently in the path.

Maladroit wasn’t directly in her path, as such, more hanging by its toes from a branch in a tall tree where it has been doing goodness-knows-what. The sound of striding feet, however, roused the creature from its strange reveries, though how it might hear with no ears, indeed how it sensed anything, will ever be a mystery. The curious gaunt, anyway, dropped like a rubber-fleshed, abominable rock out of its perch to land not two feet from Sabrina. It was quite directly in her path now. In one many-fingered paw, it was holding a bird-nest. In the nest was one tiny chick, its fluffy new pinions not quite ready for flight.

Sabrina stopped in the tracks she was making, of course she would, there was a thing holding the tiniest of chickadees all nested in its bed, to keep going would be absurd. She cants her small head, trying to make the head and tails of this thing and doing her best to wash those ideas of its eating the poorest of pinions in one gobble. Her head cants further to the stress of breaking as her attempt to peer southerly on the faceless face of the creature by which had no oral orifice to claim such a meal. Large almond mint eyes squint tightly; her head bearing forward to visually discuss with the expression of wonder as to if this thing could even see her. Should a ‘hello’ be in order it would go unsaid, while she wished she could say she’d seen stranger things that claim would fall privy to lies. There was no social protocol for a venture such as this and so she was delighted in what she saw, cautiously so, for all intents and purpose this could have been a beasty of the darker forces but to determine such a thing one would have to take inventory of its actions. A fair few minutes pass in hungry chirps of tiny facey faces clutched delicately in the…hands… of this Gaunt and in silence she pondered at length the correct approach to this scenario.

Maladroit would make this an awkward sort of stand-off, for the creature had no means of imparting words - none it cared to employ at this point, anyway. It raised its other hand, though, a spindly-fingered affair, its digits possessing a few too many joints to allow for any reasonable or natural sort of evolution to be anywhere in Maladroit’s heritage. The fingers made an odd, wibbling motion, almost as if the creature was waving hello and, while this wasn’t precisely its intent, the effect suited it just as well. In the nest, the infant bird huddled and quit its cheeping – it had become friends with the horrendous gaunt, but this new creature frightened it, and the little myna feared it would be imminently eaten. The gaunt shuffled its pony-sized frame toward Sabrina, one long finger now ever-so-gently tapping the tiny chick on it tiny head. The little myna gaped it beak, hoping for another worm. It was so hungry since its feathered mommy stopped coming to feed it.. Eyeless, wordless, Maladroit nevertheless canted its featureless head toward Sabrina in a way that suggested this little bird was something she ought to do something about.

Sabrina makes an awkwardly disgusted face at the crinkle-cut-frenchy fried fingers, her hands finding their partners to make sure she had an appropriate amount of joints per digit to assure she made the correct assumption that the fact remained this creature had ghastly hands. She mimics a less jointed rendering of its little wriggling wave and finds herself in a position she had yet to find herself before; an animal that held mistrust for her. Truly a travesty indeed, one she intended to amend with the swiftest of fixes; food cures most ailments, especially when dealing with creatures of lesser intelligence. She kept her eyes on this Maladroit being and with a swipe of foot to decayed leafy ground she cleared a small section to expose the rich mud of Sage’s floor. A tiny wriggle of her own delicate digits disrupts the earth at her feet so’s the worms give rise by themselves like tiny and brown little bean sprouts. Those minty reflections shimmered a bit, though not as if the eyeless wonder would grasp such an occurrence as the energies she used were displayed through those very windows. She would step away from the fountain of worms all fat and juicy and hungering for the promise of rain. She steps away only because to touch a creature unknown could end in so many horrible ways- life lessons being what they were and her curse of emotional transference often becoming the first issue to arise when meeting new things.

Maladroit is not capable of taking offence at Sabrina’s wise caution nor much of anything else in this world, though the slow starvation of a baby bird – and thus the end of its all its many future days of flight and freedom, its tiny Fate-strings cut short and never allowed into the greater weave – apparently irked it enough to warrant this bit of care-seeking. And it is with a level of care quite at odds with its ghastly frame that Maladroit lays the nest down on the earth, the little myna within still gaping and cheeping in hope of another, much-needed meal. Sabrina wouldn’t know it, but the gaunt was well aware of how this little bird’s path was now inextricably tangled with the woman’s own, in ways not yet crystallised but present in the stars, in the slow track of whirling galaxies, in the great tapestry of creation.. All the myna knew, on the other hand, was that its belly hurt, and its chirps grew louder and more insistent.

Sabrina would wait for the creature to make a wide enough birth before sinking to her knees in some unspoken obedience to dangle a tiny lively bit off squish over the bird’s gaping maw. She was a smart kind of cookie though when she figures out with little pointers there were no manner of chewing this slithering morsel. No question in her mind a mother’s duty she shoves the worm in her mouth and emulsifies it to a warm sludgy mix of spit and goo before spitting the mixture in her hand and pinching mouthful by mouthful into the hungry and noisy mouth. She would spit the remaining flavor at Maladroit’s feet in a very unlady-like manner, for the taste was not something she would have chosen for herself and to be rid of it erased any protocols involving etiquette at all. “Shut up” she says flatly, forcing the last bit of juicy protein down its begging throat hole. It didn’t seem to catch a fill but she realized this was the way of tiny things and their ability to avoid the knowing better. And the bird did hush, staring up at her with pasty lids and blackened sclera that made it look more undead than alive. She hoped, for it sake, that its feathers grew in bounty for its face was that which a mother couldn’t even love. Gods, birds were the epitome of nature’s grave mistake over nudity.

Maladroit hunkered down on its bony-looking haunches at a respectable distance, and watched the chewing and feeding, the quieting of the chick, with an interest that barely translated at all to the vacant space of rubbery skin where a face ought to be but isn’t. Its fingers wibbled madly, though, perhaps betraying some kind of excitement, who knows.. When Sabrina spat the well-chewed wormbits out and they landed close to its fore-hands, the gaunt poked at them idly. Such a small gesture, but Maladroit was appreciating the life of the worm, even that tiny brainless and fleeting life, which was by Fate decreed to end at this moment and no other. Maladroit can see this plainly in the ethereal weave of Fate-strings surrounding them all. It’s wriggly spirit off to whatever heaven a worm might enjoy, no doubt, the wriggler’s flesh has served its purpose in being alive in the first place – to feed this little myna, whose Fate is greater…. Sabrina’s future was now more closely twined with the bird’s, and Maladroit’s was less so. This being the desirable outcome of it all, Maladroit hauled itself to its four hand-feet-things again and snapped its wings. The trees too dense for flight here, the gaunt folded them down again and turned to go..

Sabrina couldn’t help but witness all the signs that would lead this creature away from her, and in a well decided moment she stood from the Myna, picking it up only when she had sure footing whole in its nest and chiming in again with that incessant noise. “Wait” she would say to the faceless thing, reaching thin pale fingers out to that rubbery appendage intended for flight in more flighty places. No ears to hear, nose to smell, mouth to speak… she reached out with intention of gracing her bare skin to its fleshy folded leathers as a gesture, or a gift, that bled unto him the warmest of thankyous and well wishy things. A direct emotion from her heart, for she was better with touches than words to cloud her meaning. Of course if the beast let it be so, this touch to take place by Sabrina’s wish to make it so, he would be momentarily filled with whatever understanding he had- he cared for the bird well enough to see it to safety and therefore is guilty of a measurable emotional range that Sabrina could tap into given the state of things and with this new power, should the power be had at all, Sabrina would flood him to the …gills… with gratitude for the infantile bird thing. A life spared is always preferable to a life wasted, such is the way of a Druid’s belief.

Maladroit is a strange creature, one whose life and death and subsequent un-death have followed a path so peculiar, with developments so bizarre, that it almost defies the capacity of any reasoning creature to comprehend. It has not, for many years now, possessed what others might call ‘emotion’ but it is not entirely unfeeling.. In its own way, it is capable of acts of immense kindness, occasionally acts of cruelty just as profound, but nowhere in it dwells true evil. What Mala lacks in physical senses, it more than makes up for in preternatural ones. There is no need for Sabrina to lay a hand on the gaunt in order for it to know her deepest feelings – some she might be embarrassed to know are available to somebody else – including the ones she actually wishes to share. But Maladroit tolerates her touch, and there is to follow an exchange that perhaps Sabrina will in all her days to come, however many those might number, never forget. For into her heart, that centre of feeling, floods a vast and fathomless sense of wonder gleaned from the once-goblin’s meanderings among stars and between worlds, and to many stranger places besides. And too, there is an emotional memory of Maldroit’s mixed in with it all – the knowledge of how Creation in turn treasures every atom of itself; every speck of every life, great or small, every ghost and insect, each mammoth and mote of dust… It is an appreciation - some might call it love - so profound and broad of scope as to almost crack her insides for a moment, but Maladroit withdraws then and with not one look behind stalks off into the forest.