TVisTV Book 3: Chapter 28 (RAW)

Chapter 28 - Knights of the Sky

He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.

- Friedrich Nietzsche

“Oh! He’s a big one!” Tia cooed in appreciation. “Are you going to eat him? They do not taste that nice.”

“Perhaps I will, if he does not behave,” Seraphina declared, lips curving into a cruel smile. “I’m sure he would go well with a wine sauce.”

Seraphina doubted she would. At almost two-hundred gold coins, and several hundred captured ravens later, the bird in front of her was far too precious.

“You should not tease him so. He is most distressed, separated from his unkindness,” Tia said, fluttering above the young noblewoman on bat-like wings before settling on her shoulder.

“His unkindness?” Seraphina asked, only the slightest hint of exasperation in her voice. “Surely that is a good thing? We could do with a bit less unkindness in this world.”

“His treachery, his family, his wing-mates,” Tia explained offhandedly, in a sing-song voice that seemed to echo upon itself.

“Oh, I see… perhaps you should have led with that,” Seraphina replied with a tight-lipped smile.

The raven in question eyed them both with beady, intelligent eyes. There was a malevolence there as it regarded the Fae.

Flightless… silly flightless. Thinks she can keep me in this. Not for long, not for long!

On the table beside the wicker cage lay a small selection of fruit and meat, a fruit knife, and a leather hawking glove. Beside the glove was a cast filled with Tia’s customized equipment. Seraphina slipped on the gloves and picked up a small slice of fruit, and slipped on the glove.

Bite my finger and I’ll make you into soup, Seraphina sent across the bond of her magic necklace.

The bird cocked its head, hopping toward the edge of the cage.

Tricks?

Seraphina held its gaze until it turned away. No tricks, she sent, and offered a piece of fruit.

Hunger won; the raven snapped up the morsel and gulped it down.

This one was decidedly smarter than other birds she had encountered. Birds of prey were hopeless conversationalists, their minds filled with nothing but the sky and meat. The raven, though very young, was incredibly naïve—naïve, in Seraphina’s estimation, ultimately meant malleable.

“The lengths I go to for you, Tia,” Seraphina sighed.

The fairy kissed her cheek; even this mystical creature was not immune to the girl’s charms. To Tia, who had been granted her freedom by the noblewoman, even small kindnesses were great gifts and blessings from heaven.

The raven looked calmer now. The mild soporific with mild hallucinogenic properties she had laced into the fruit, courtesy of Eloise, was taking the edge off its aggression. Softly, Seraphina sang to the bird, a hypnotic lullaby that shredded its suspicions.

Her pet serpent stirred momentarily in her bodice before sinking back into a torpid sleep. 

Come, she offered. Come and eat your fill. For your wings, I will give you food and shelter.

The ancient promise between man and monster slipped easily from her tongue. Unbeknownst to her, the words had been formed by instinct thanks to her Monster Taming skill. An echo of the first bargain between man and the other children of Iasis.

You have learned Monster Taming (lvl.5) [Impoved Monster Taming lvl.2]

Smiling wickedly, she opened the wicker door, and the raven hopped onto the glove. Lovingly, Seraphina stroked its head and chest, watching it preen with pleasure as its secret third eye opened—the very reason her Monster Taming skill worked on it at all. The Watcher Raven was a low-level monster, often mistaken for a common variety of bird: a mutation expressed by the world’s latent Mana. A sign of the corruption that threaded through every part of this world.

From the tray she took a sliver of dark meat already dusted with a fine red powder laced with stimulant to counter the soporific from the fruit. It would not do to have her new pet fly about drunkenly.

The raven cawwed with confidence. Its third eye, vertical and glossy, opened like a pearl slit.

She offered the drugged meat. The bird snapped, swallowed, and stilled—head lifting, pupils narrowing to keen points as the draught took hold.

Meat? More? it pulsed across the link, hunger bright as a struck flint. No pinch. Strange hug. She stroked its feathers affectionately. Hungry hug.

The drug was having rather curious side-effects on its avian brain.

“I’m naming you,” Seraphina declared, tickling its throat. “Kiwi.”

The Watcher Raven’s head tilted curiously. Key-wee? What is the significance of this sound?

“It’s one of the cutest birds in the world,” she said, a smile tugging at her mouth. “Small, rou… absurdly brave. Braver than a hawk or eagle. A messenger of the Divines.”

The Watcher Raven considered, offended and intrigued in equal measure. Cute is chicks and for prey. I am not a chick. I am not prey. I am better than any hawk or stupid eagle. 

Animals, even monsters, were pure things that did not understand the lies that only humanity could produce. They understood deception, but they did not understand lies. 

“It’s also clever,” she added, eyes dancing at the lie. “Very clever and very strong. Like you.” She waited a beat. “And its beak is very beautiful,” she complimented.

Satisfied, the bird clicked its beak. Key-wee, it tried, with the careful pride of a child testing a title. I will be this.

Tia hovered by Seraphina’s ear. “Am I beautiful, too?” she asked, half in worry and half in jealousy.

“A beautiful bird for a beautiful fairy,” Seraphina replied adroitly. “Your charge is carry my Tia through the storms that are to come.”

Tia preened, then alighted on Kiwi’s back. “Easy, big one,” she crooned, settling her weight. The mutant bird flapped its wings, a brief adjustment, then a steadying stillness.

Weight. Not heavy. Still balanced, Kiwi reported, pride swelling. I can carry a Tia.

“Good.” Seraphina stepped back a pace. “We begin with small things. No fancy stuff until I say.”

She raised two fingers. Come. The command slid across the bond, an imperial command filled with all her awful majesty. The bird understood that it was before a Power.

Kiwi crouched and sprang to Seraphina’s glove, wings half-unfurled, Tia’s knees grasping the feathers behind Kiwi’s neck. Another finger. 

Back, Seraphina demanded.

The raven complied, returning to the table in a rush of air and a triumphant chuff.

“Again,” Seraphina repeated, rhythm building—table to glove, glove to branch, and then back again—each motion a lesson in balance and trust. Tia’s bat-like wings hummed, subtle, not to lift herself but to shape the air around Kiwi’s pinions.

“Now fly,” Seraphina called. She lifted her arm, thrusting Tia and Kiwi into the air. Go.

Kiwi wings clawed at the air. The stimulants sharpened every sylabble of Seraphina’s voice, imprinting the sounds more powerfully onto his psyche than the sight of his mother out of the egg. Tia’s power joined his, her wing-beat not a beat at all but the casting of a spell: a tiny pressure-front that kissed the raven’s primaries, smoothing eddies, turning their flight into silk.

They crossed the blue of the autumn sky, a low, clean arrow. Kiwi flared, landed light, then burst upward again of his own will, joy surging in his motions as if it was the first time he had taken to the wing.

Seraphina felt a pang of jealousy at their freedom. How great it would be to soar once more?

Tight sky! Fast sky! Kiwi exulted.

“Show me a spiral,” Seraphina demanded.

The Watch Raven corkscrewed, a controlled ribbon of dark feathers; Tia leaned with him, her wings opening in time with his. They shot down then, tipping into a daring dive that flattened into a skim along the roofs of nearby Academy buildings wall. Tia laughed, a bright chiming that filled the air with its joy.

Kiwi climbed, cut the sky into a figure of eight, tight turns and rolls bolstered by Tia’s magic—up, roll, right himself with a snap that would have unseated any other rider. The fairy’s wings flared with purple light, and the air itself seemed to reach up and hold them steady through the transition.

They practiced like this for a good half hour until Seraphina decided it was time to try flight in full harness. 

The young girl opened the case and drew out the miniature saddle Miriam had prepared. The maid had fashioned the whole thing to Seraphina’s exacting specifications: thin waxed leather, silk cord, and clever knots.

Seraphina worked quickly, fingers sure and economical as she set a narrow, padded perch along the raven’s back between the wing-roots. The perch was stitched to a figure-eight harness: a broad forestrap that lay high across the chest, clear of the keel and wing joints, and a second girth that passed just behind the wing bases around the ribs. A short crupper tucked beneath the tail coverts kept the rig from creeping forward on steep dives. Dangling stirrups lay on either side of Kiwi’s neck for the Fae rider to brace for a charge, accompanies by a small lance rest on the right. For Tia, there would be no need for reins to guide her beast. Two creatures of wind and sky required no such things. Miriam had fashioned the whole from Seraphina’s exacting specifications: thin waxed leather, silk cord, and clever quick-release knots at every buckle.

The young girl helped her giggling servant into her modified plate harness. Fae loathed the kiss of iron and steel, but Tia was simply made different. This was, Seraphina supposed, was yet another reason why her own people had hated her. To complete the ensemble, she handed her servant a long lance.

Kiwi took the burden without complaint, muscles working beneath plumage, his breath steady despite his earlier efforts. The harness creaked once, then settled.

Heavier. Still carry, Kiwi sent, the thought firm as a Knight’s pledge.

“Good bird,” Seraphina said, and meant it. She lifted her hand: Fly.

Tia flew upward on ebon wings, an armored Fae knight that should have never been. An amalgamation of ancient magic, human ingenuity, and an ambitious girl’s ruthless demand. An encouraged abomination. For this, Seraphina knew, she would do anything for her patron. There could be little else deadlier than Fae cloaked in the Glamor that could strike from the skies, her own personal aerial assassin.

Only a Watch Raven could fly while under a Glamor. Any other bird would simply crash, flying blind.

She let them cavort in the air, flitting through branches, gliding, soaring. With the Fae’s magic, even with the additional weight, the Watch Raven had never flown so fast or so high. He felt it in his beating heart that he could challenge even the great birds of prey to a duel in the sky. Why, the bird that was not truly a bird thought, I could steal the fire from the sun itself. 

Kiwi landed on the glove with a flutter and a proud bow, Tia sliding off in a neat dismount to alight on Seraphina’s shoulder once more. The fairy’s cheeks were flushed with exhilaration; her mail chimed faintly like distant bells.

“He is marvelous,” Tia breathed, patting the raven’s neck. “We shall make the sky jealous.”

“You shall make the sky orderly,” Seraphina corrected, though a smile tugged free at last. “You shall bring down all the birds in the sky, and bring me whatever they carry.”

With this she would intercept a good number of messages come to and from the Meridian.

She stroked Kiwi’s crown. “You’ll do,” she whispered. You’ll more than do.

The raven’s third eye slid shut, content. Key-wee carries. Even when the little thing wears all her shiny. Key-wee shall kill a Bird-cat!

“Now go and do that!” the young noblewoman ordered.

Tia chuckled, hopped up onto Kiwi’s black and the pair soared once more into the air. The Watch Raven cawed in delight, eager to prove its supremacy in the sky.

Seraphina let herself enjoy the picture as they flew away: Tia in full plate, fierce as a sharp stab from a sword, riding the black of a Watcher Raven through the clean blue air. With Tia’s lance dipped in Cornelia’s lethal venom, she mused, the pair did actually have a very good chance of killing even a Gryphon! Bird-cat indeed, how droll, Kiwi. Or at the very least, they would be able to kill a messenger Gryphon’s child rider.

And, the more they killed, the stronger they would get. The more the corruption would seep into them both, aligning them even closer to the girl’s wishes.

Tia now had an aerial mount that could carry her even when she wore full armor, and Seraphina—ever the cunning planner—had yet one more piece on the board to play with.