For the Birds- Part 2 Tom/Luna

[black_hat]

“She’ll be very glad to have you back after the week is up. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, or so they say. I’ll take their word for it.”

 

He smiled at her, and resumed his work. Luna did not know what to say, or what his purpose was in the deception.  He kept his word, and soon she had to meet the new challenge of tomorrow. The one of flight.

 

The next day, he let her worry spiral before he put down his book.

 

“Are you ready for our little experiment?”

 

Luna could not muster a note in reply. “It shouldn’t be too great a challenge. A bird’s natural place is in the sky. Though you were an odd sort of bird even when you didn’t have feathers…I suppose they, or instincts, make little difference.”

 

She did not think she had instinct. He opened the window once more and held out his hand. She went without a fuss. “I’m going to give you a head start and you will either sink or swim.” He smiled at his joke. “I think that’s the proper motivation, don’t you?”

 

Then, without warning, he tossed her into the open air. Luna was prepared, however, and began to beat her wings furiously. The world was unfortunately up-side down, and she realized she could have done much better without that start. She was basically flying towards her death, rather than away from it. She tried to steady herself valiantly—and succeeded.

 

She managed to flutter in the air, and saw him looking up at her. And in an instant, his face was level with her struggling body, and then she was really sinking. She chirped in genuine bewilderment.

 

She fell a little further, past the window ledge, and she was beginning to get tired. She was going to plummet, and even bone in her body would break, knocking the life out of her. And he planned to casually, coldly watch it.

 

She wished he wouldn’t watch at all, and allow her to fall with some dignity. But as long as he was watching, she was going to continue to try.

 

This continued for a full fifteen minutes, her struggles not to drown in the air, but by then her muscles were tearing from her efforts, she just knew it, and her mind was beginning to swim in circles while she tried to keep climbing to remain conscious. At last, her wings gave way, and she started to fall, feeling like a high diver, and…

 

He reached out, his motion as quick and accurate as a serpent’s, and caught her. She lay in his hand, breathing heavily and barely there at all.

 

“That was pathetic.”

 

She peered up at him, her wings stretched out in a spread-eagle position. He went to his chair and after sitting, placed her carefully on his leg. “But you struggled so beautifully, it was worth preserving your life for a little longer.”

 

She clicked her tongue, and drifted inward, away for the burning in her body.

 

“To tell you the truth, I’m bored with my success.”

 

She was determined to pretend that he was talking to himself this time. “It’s the grand irony that amuses me the most. I have everything. I have nothing more I can want, nothing more I can gain.”

 

Talk to a person you didn’t just throw out a window, she thought to herself, greatly annoyed, and pretended to be dead.

 

He prodded her with his finger. She sighed inwardly, and hopped to her feet. She cooed. He didn’t smile but she could tell he was pleased. Luna began the arduous task of scaling to his shoulder but he did the unthinkable.

 

He gathered her up and placed her on his shoulder.

 

She grew still, wondering what to do, how to proceed…

 

“I’m bored with myself.”

 

She shuffled sideways towards him—for his right shoulder was very broad.

 

“But if I were about to die, I would go mad. But then I see that struggle of yours and so many others, and I wonder if I should place myself close to the edge to feel…I don’t know, perhaps just to feel so very alive on that edge. To prove myself to myself, in other words.”

 

She nibbled at his collar, testing the water.

 

“I know you’ll keep my secrets,” he said, and smiled darkly. She found that—though there were sharks in the water--she wasn’t as terrified as she had been over the course of the last few months. She leaned in quickly and gave him a quick birdie kiss—or that’s what she mentally referred to it as.

 

He didn’t seem to mind. She imagined it made all the difference that she was a bird rather than a person. If she were a person, she suspected he would suffer from some sort of fit. Ginny was barely allowed at times, though he was allowed to do as he pleased. He was a rather funny person, honestly. But it was delightful, getting away with it.

 

He got up quickly to pace, and she was elated.  He was very tall, so she felt tall by association. She bobbed her head up and down with glee.

 

“So I don’t feel like a completely fool talking to myself…click twice for yes, click once for no. Do you want to be fed to Nagini?”

 

She clicked sharply once.

 

“Good girl. Now, about the flying dilemma. I’m not an expert on this subject, I’ll admit.”

 

Luna tilted her head.

 

“But perhaps you are trying too hard. I expect that you should glide, rather than exhaust yourself immediately.”

 

She clicked twice thoughtfully, and rested on his shoulder, thinking it over. As night fell, she was in her cage once more, with the cover neatly in place, but she was cold and rather lonely. She tried singing to herself—and hoped to get his attention. Yet he was probably elsewhere.

 

When morning came and the light shone under the cloth into her cage, she expected him to appear shortly afterwards. Only he did not.

 

She fluttered, and landed at the bottom of the cage. She pulled at the door and –managed- to lift it. If she were careful, she could squeeze out through the opening. She took it in slow motions, and her beak was starting to hurt. She jumped through at the last moment, and was free. Luna struggled through the cloth and scrambled onto the desk, looking around impatiently.

 

The study was completely empty, and she was quite disturbed.  Usually he was in here at least a few hours. Where was he, then?

 

She looked at the parchment as best she could, but it rolled about in the most terrible manner possible, like a giant boat. Growing upset at the futility of her situation, she began to let out the shrillest sounds imaginable in her fury.

 

The door opened, and she stilled.

 

“Be quiet. It’s not hard for the most oblivious person to figure out that--.”

 

He paused and looked at her, free and quite un-caged. She suddenly had a very bad feeling about this. She didn’t struggle when he picked her up. She did coo a bit but was quite sure that wouldn’t help her.

Once more, at the window, and she was very stoic about the proceeding events. He tossed her out the window, with more force than before, and Luna spread her wings, trying to think about what he had said. She let herself fall, hoping and hoping and believing, then the wind caught her. She flapped a few times to gain altitude. There was a rhythm to this, rather like a rhyme, and Luna started to understand it.

 

She circled a few times, looking at the world anew and the sky that she momentarily owned. The clouds were much lovelier up close, and she could see everything, right down to the dew on the petals of the flowers and grass. She saw him watching her, so she turned in even sharper circles and took even deeper dives.

 

He motioned for her to return, and she did, feeling rather proud of herself. The moment she alighted on his hand, she began to preen.

 

“Even as a bird, you remain yourself,” he commented. “A true intellectual…proud of accomplishing something that most of your kind do naturally.”

 

Well, that was a bit uncalled for.

 

“But your feathers are lovely today.” Thus he was forgiven. “So we’ve solved the age-old mystery of flight. Now, for a whole other creature. Some excel under pressure, Luna, practically consuming it. And some fold like the hollow things they are. Let’s see how you deal with pressure.”

 

Before her eyes, he began to construct a maze with his wand. It was really, very extraordinary, eerily similar to a house of cards.

 

“You will be trying to find this.”

 

He took something out of his pocket, and it glittered in the light. For a moment, she mistook it for a human eye, and that put a damper on her mood. Out of sight, out of mind; or rather, out of sight, out of her mind. She shuddered. Then upon closer examination, she saw it merely looked like an eye but was actually an odd sort of jewel.

 

“The eye of Odin,” he explained, sounding a bit smug. Luna whistled appreciatively. “It is nice, isn’t it?”

 

He placed it in the maze, but Luna couldn’t see where it was for the walls were in the way. Then he put her in the maze. The walls were too narrow for her to fly out. She blinked and twittered.

 

“What are you waiting for? You’ve already lost a minute. Only 29 more to go.”

 

What happens when it reaches 29 minutes, and I’m still eyeless? The she heard the hissing. Nagini, it seemed, had also entered the maze. Luna began to click forward, her twitters bubbling out of her without her control.

 

“Can you multitask, my dear? One threat behind you, three ahead of you.”

 

What? Then the figures in the cards came to life. One footless Foot Soldier crawled out of the surface, with his feet tied over his shoulder like an old pair of boots, and Luna hurried by it before it could gain its footing. Wonderful.

 

She turned a sharp corner, and there, blocking her way, was the Empress, with a rather large ax. 


---Oh, yes, this will be continued btw :-)

*Line about 'Intellectuals studying what is natural' from Bill Cosby Himself.