We dallied at our little 'human camp'. I had been long since healthy enough to return to her flock's home valley, but we are honeymooning vigorously and sweetly. Other newly mated avian have found our small camp and used it as a brief shelter on their journeys home to happiness. I am embarrassed of their recognition and the fanciful tales they recount about the human who joined their swarm that year and made a legend of himself.
"If we're going to go home ever, we should do it soon." My Erry tells me one morning after we have made love. "I'm going to lay soon. I'd be more comfortable at home."
It's been a week or so since we mated, and we've been lazy and very in love.
There is a tree near the 'human camp' where the visitors have carved their names and home place names. We spend a few hours under that same tree while we wait for the afternoon sea breeze that sweeps inland over the mountains and which will carry us home.
"It's almost sad to leave." She smiles her dark blue eyes up at me. "It feels like a home now."
"I'm kind of looking forward to a proper bed and a shower." I laugh.
"Oh god yes. I still feel so damn feral. We need to visit the Arkhaven, I want a cut and style and my feet need the Mother. They're disgusting. Are you sure you are well enough for the flight?"
"Have been for days. Just a little distracted with something."
"Wouldn't be a little birdy would it?" We giggle together and hold each other warmly.
"How is Ornkeh?" I ask. She has visited occasionally.
"Oh... Still angry. Feeling better. Doesn't talk much. I think he's angry with himself. He still can't look at me properly."
"Maybe I should go..."
She shakes her head. "He needs to make peace with himself. I think he judges himself quite harshly, as he should, but he leaves no room to forgive his instinct. I don't know. It's sad."
There are feathers at my ankles now. They run like the flight feathers on my arms from my knee to my ankle. I did not get a tail, but they serve the same function. We have discovered that I am much faster through the air but not as buoyant on thermals. We have also discovered that if I lay inverted on my back with my arms out and my feet still, Eris can ride me through our coupling and I can guide us with my ankles, so long as she keeps us held aloft on her outstretched arms.
It's kind of naughty, but it's a great way to start our flight home.
The waning thermals of the sun warmed beach raise us high into the thinning atmosphere. We hold hands and simply circle in the warm updraft of air. There are postcards of newlyweds sharing the same smiling faces we show each other that make most people want to puke with their schmaltz. That's us as we feel the first cool drafts of the sea breeze ruffle at us and turn toward home.
With the stream of cool fast air at our wings we sail up over the mountains in no time, and I love Erry's gleeful shriek of joy as she recognises the valley of her home. I point out the plateau to our right where I met Merler and she makes me promise we can visit and thank her. Hours later we glide softly, still holding hands to a gentle landing outside her parent's hut. It is extremely late. Or perhaps quite early.
In any case we satisfy ourselves with finding a couch in the lounge area and fall asleep, exhausted and the human word happy comes nowhere near describing the contentment I feel as my Eris falls asleep atop me. I hold her and dream. I dream of children I will never give her. I dream of her shortened life if she follows me home to earth. I dream of my short existence here if I stay. I dream of xenophobia and hatred.
I wake to, "Twit, twit, twit, hello lovers. Wake up. Your family is all waiting. Come on. We have much to celebrate."
Mrs Vogel is brushing our faces with her feathers and Eris is drooling onto my chest. We are both completely naked and stink of our lovemaking and exertion from the flight. No one cares. Children pull at my feathers and ask if they're real. Ernst hugs me and earns a cock-necked look from the others.
"Try it!" He grins. "It is a very nice way to say friendship; to say family."
Then we all get hugs and it's a bit weird with all of the females pressing their naked breasts against me, but it's home and good. Eris is having a very hushed and giggled conversation with her mother and Srianne, and a couple of other aunts and nieces that I have not met. I expected Srianne to harbour a deep well of animosity for me given Ornkeh's injuries and absence. Apparently, they fought long and hard about his anger and departure.
It is not spoken of.
Mr Vogel leads me aside a while later when everyone is fed and full of flower essence and we can slip into the fading light of a day of celebration.
We walk to the top of the small knoll that Eris led me to that day a long time ago when her feathers had finished forming and her swarming was at hand. He leaned down to the ground and with his fingers he scraped at the dirt and grass and cleared it away from the rocks beneath. Rocks that shone white in the green sunset and reflected red fire within them.
"There are reasons for all things." He said and brushed the back of his hand in a very intimate avian gesture against my cheek. "Perhaps my people can start forgiving humans with this new hope."
"I hope so, father."
"Do those hugs feel good?"
We tried one. He said it was exceptional.
~*~
"Look husband." Eris tells me one afternoon. She has been moody and distracted.
"What?" She holds out an egg.
"I have started laying."
"Is that bad? You sound upset or disappointed."
"We cannot mate for a few days."
"Oh... We could probably use a break..." I laugh.
"Haha. Hmm. But it is... I'm cranky because I want to still."
"This girl called Trudy Alcorn had some ideas once, I think."
"Hahaha. Perhaps we can try those." Her face drops to a serious expression that I cannot read.
"What? Erry, what?"
"It is customary for newly mated avian to take their first eggs to a... I don't know the earth word for them... An old woman. A Singer..."
"Like Sarika? Merler? Mavisk?"
"Yes, like them." There are tears at her cheeks now and her chest is heaving. "But it's pointless. The custom is to establish fertility. I'm... My... I think I got a human heart from all my time on earth and now it's hurting."
She hands me another egg. It's just as beautiful as the first one that lies smashed in that cave. But this one has a slight pink blush to it like Erry's feathers get when... When she signals her interest.
"Come." I tell her simply. It is mid-afternoon and coming into the Arcadian winter. The breezes are cool but not lower than twenty degrees Celsius.
We climb them steadily, holding hands as usual and she asks, "Merler?"
"If she lives. She is very old. She will know."
"You hold hope?" Her eyes cry down her cheeks.
"I have wings... Who says hope is wasted?"
Her mournful cry into the darkling sky is sad like a crying eagle.
When we land upon the grassy shores of the lake that so long ago was my training ground, we look about for habitation. The small hut near the jetty seems in disarray and when we search it there are no signs of life. The fire is long cold and the cauldron rusting.
"What now?" Erry nuzzles my chest.
"I fish."
"Fish?"
"Of course. Without fishing, what is there?" She looks at me like I only owned three marbles in the first place, and I have misplaced four of them. Laughing with the simple joy of not being dead, having found and mated with my lover, and the remembered ridiculousness of my early attempts at fishing, I sprint to the water and immerse myself in the brisk waters of that familiar lake.
An hour later, we are boiling flowers, fungus and crayfish in the cauldron and six skewered fish smoke in the fires glow. The green sun is setting, and I am remembering that frightened boy who sat here so long ago wondering how he was ever going to find his mate.
"Hmmph... That could use spices, boy-man." Startles us both and glancing around, a very hunched Merler smiles deeply at us sitting in her hut. "I thought I smelled cooking. I've been too unwell to fish or climb for mushrooms. My wings..."
She holds her arms up and they are moulting. The feathers are thin beyond flight and her tail is ragged. She rummages in a basket and brings out some jars of finely ground things which she adds to the cauldron.
"I knew in my heart I would see you again. And you too, Eris human-bound. Look at your beautiful feathers, boy-man. Sarika's wish came true."
"How did you know of her blessing?" Erry asks.
"Does it matter, child? Show me your egg. That is why you are here, yes?"
I take it from the basket at my back. The same basket Merler gifted me so long ago, and hand it gently to her. There is no possessive need to protect it, I trust her fully.
She turns it in her hands in front of the fire for long moments, squinting into its opaque with the firelight depths.
