Tale of a blue bird

[arfindel]

Lady Ba'nepie Breggan the young one was coming home from school and felt a bit bored. She really wanted to join her friends in the big parties for the New Year in Thesos but her mother didn't allow such a thing and demanded her home. After some scouts were sent with messages from Avalae to Windermeer and back the young lady accepted coming back to spend the season festivals with her family, mainly after her mother promissed to get her an invite to the Governor's palace.

Lady Ba'nepie the young one had been sent to Avalae to learn jewelry art from a pretty famous but mainly expensive master. She didn't do very well but her family tradition of crafters and her mother's ambition made it unavoidable. Anyway the delicate trykerette was much more interested in dancing and having fun with her fyros colleagues so her matis time was not entirely wasted, at least from a certain point of view.

Anyway right now, the Matis Maze behind them, the small caravan of fully loaded mektoubs and the guards Breggan family has hired to bring their daughter safe to Windermeer, were happily trotting towards Lake Superior. They stopped for just some moments at Watergate Border Post, more to have a snack and clear their throats with a sip of dandellion wine when they heard a weak moan coming from the South.
At once they all ran to help the one in trouble. In Loria trykers know that help should be given with both hands and fast to anyone, to be effective.

Right in the water, by the edge they were met by a horrible view. A big homin was laying on his back and the lakes ripples were washing the blood from tens of wounds. Apparently the homin was attacked by some torbaks and brought to this pitiful state. The trykers carried him back to the OP, improvised a litter from what they had and prepared for swift treking. In Avendale already they should have found a doctor.... but lady Ba'nepie was nowhere to be found.

Panic struck them and they all ran to find her. After shouting and calling all around the Border Post one of them finally saw a coloured figure by the lake where they have found the wounded. They ran there and found lady Ba'neppie herself kneeled and watching something she had found in the sand, among the baggage of the wounded that lay spread in pieces everywhere. It was a cage. And in the cage there was the most wonderful bird she had ever seen. A blue yber.

Of course there were ybers all over the place. They flew in large flocks and sometimes followed homins around. They were intelligent birds and never went too close to cities, but still at their margins they found enough food. However the tryker ybers were dull, with brown heads and reddish brouwn beaks. This bird, while having undoubtedly the form of an yber, was delightfully blue with rose and yellow shades.

The guards hardly could make lady Ba'nepie to move on and take the cage with her. The bird had been probably horribly scared and was sitting at the bottom of the cage with its feathers ruffled.

They made their way to Avendale then without anymore troubles, except that they had to take good care of their mistress whose mount was going on his own now as his rider had both hands clutched over her new toy.
Once in Avendale they stopped and called a doctor to see the wounded, but unfortunately it seemed to be too late. The tall blue body of the stranger was already inert, and the tryker doctor could only acknowledge that his seed lost all power. They were sad to have been too late for rescuing him, but Loria is hungry, and he was not the first victim to die in that unmerciful area.

The whole caravan made then their way to Windermeer where the loving parents of lady Ba'neppie the young waited eagerly to see their daughter back and safe. Even faster then they thought it wouldbe beacuse the young mistress didn't want like other times to spend at least half a day in Fairhaven for her usual shopping.

In the meanwhile the bird seemed to recover. And first sign she gave was a shriking craaaaah at 5 in the morning right after the day they arrived home. Lady Ba'nepie the young jumped from her hammock, her guards burst into the room. The bird was just stretching in the first sun rays, looked at them with one eye, scratched her beack with a claw then open her beack and: crrrraah - the shrieking noise deafened them all for a minute.

Gaxy, as lady Ba'nepie the young was called by close friends here, in Windermeer, asked her guards to take the cage in their room and she tried to have some more sleep. "Craaaaah" was heard from the other room the shrieking sound as if no walls were there to separate any rooms. Gaxy put her pillow over her head. From the next room sounds came: obviously someone was trying to talk the bird to be silent and finally, after some more shrieking sounds the cahe must have moved in the other side of the family mansion.

After some hours of bad sleep Gaxy woke up, washed herself, had some breakfast and asked about her birdie. The cage was brought in her living room. The birdie had her feathers ruffled up and angrily eyed the maid who brought the cage. A time sat silent on the cage floor. Then when things settled around dared to climb on the little branch the cage had for it. It started to preen itself for a long while not giving any attention to Gaxy who was next to it watching and trying to talk to it in her softest tone. Slowly her feathers came into normal position, she eyed Gaxy with one eye, opened her beack and "Crraaaah" the whole room seemed to shudder.

After a whole week of efforts, and against the parents laments over the continous noise, Gaxy decided the birdie might have been unhappy because it was deprieved of freedom. So she opened her cage and stayed around in a closed room to see what happens. After a while, with a wise cautious attitude, the birdie stepped out of her prison. Watched Gaxy with a warry eye and flew instantly on the closest hammock. For some hours the Ba'nepie mansion finally had some silence.

Gaxy left the room happy she found the key of the birdie's behaviour. She went to Avendale to do some shopping because the big Festival of the New Yars Eve was close at hand and she wanted to be elegant and beautiful at the Goevrnor's ball. She came back late in the evening and with a mektoub full of shoppings. It was already dark and the mansion, it was reported, had been in normal silence all day long. Gaxy went to bed satisfied.

First thing next morning she hurried to the bird's room. She wanted to be sure it has enough water and food and the little thing was accommodating with her new home. Not closer than 100 m from the door she heard its call "Crraaah" said the bird while everyone around covered their ears. "Oh well" said Gaxy to herself, "it must be just her way to greet me". And indeed, the bird was silent when she entered the room. It was just preening herself eyeing Gaxy suspiciously with one eye.

But... the room was not the same... The curtains had big holes in them and the hammock's ropes were chewed completely as the hammock now was transformed into a small heap of wool on the floor. "Bad birdie" said Gaxy upset "bad birdie, who told you you can chew all around you" The bird looked at her attentively.

Gaxy tried to come closer but the bird flew one meter farther. They followed each other like that through all the room. Finally tired lady Ba'nepie the young called her maids and together tried to corner the bird. After a lot of running, shouting and work, they caught it. First to put hand on her was old Gaxy's nurse. The bird turned her beak and in fraction of a second the trykerette's finger was all blood. It was not a deep bite but deep enough to scratch the skin.

To the end they caught it in a towel. The bird was trembling, the women shouting, the nurse crying for her finger, the whole room looked like a war field.

Gaxy got irritated. Her magnificent idea was nothing worth...and she still didn't learn how to befriend to her bird
e. For a while the bird's room was empty. Servants brought her food and water but Gaxy's interest in the bird seemed lost.

The big evening of the festival came closer and both lady Ba'nepie the young and her friends had lots to do. Right before leaving to the ball though, Gaxy had a new idea. If the bird was not totally free, but kept in her hands, maybe if had felt free and stops shrieking (because the bird was giving at least 2 concerts a day while the Ba'nepie family tried to find a lot of visits to do or shopping around).

So, as she was dressed already for the party she went to the bird's room to try her new solution. The bird came tamely on her finger when invited. She climbed her hand, and further to the arm... here Gaxy thought it was enough climbing and put the other hand as a stop. But the birdie didn't seem at all happy with this and chewed her finger enough to make her retract it hastily. She climbed to the shoulder and stopped for a while. Gaxy was uncertain of what to do. Then without a warning the bird slipped under her dress at her bossom. There it seemed happy like in a nest and remained unmoved. Lady Ba'nepie the young was happy. Obviously the birdie loved her.

She ran to her father to show him. Her father though was much too preoccupied to prepare a toast for the festival and some talkings with other crafters from his branch. She ran to her mother to show her. Her mother smiled affectionately and - looking into the mirror (she was trying a new pirate hat; just the latest fashion) only noted "See? It's impossible to not love this child".

Gaxy ran then to her old nurse to show her. The old nurse looked at the bird suspiciously then all of a sudden asked:" Is it this dress' fashion to have a hole under your bossom, Gaxy? I doubt you mother would approve such .."
But she couldn't finish. Gaxy was shrieking now worse than the bird. Her beautiful new dress for the festival was mercilessly chewed in round big hole right in front.

The bird was taken almost by force out of her nest (she had obviosly loved her new nest) grabbed and put back in the cage, and all house started to run around little Gaxy's hammock when she was crying her new beautiful dress lost forever.

This seemed to have been the last bit. After the Festival, the bird was moved in a holiday house they had on the beach North of the town and left there to be fed by servants when they remembered.

Gaxy left for school and months have passed...

During the next summer Still Wyler took the power in Fairhaven and started pretty much an erradication of all old matis friends of the old governor. Wyler was a sharp general, maybe not so much a politician and wanted to be surrounded strictly by friends. At the same time Gaxy's parents packed pretty hastily preparing for a long trip to visit their daughter in Avalae. Most of their important affairs were stuffed into a long caravan of mektoubs, impressively long for a short visit to their daughter maybe and several chests were deposited in the house on the beach.

The night before leaving both the servants and the family were exhausted of packing, carrying, packing again and the silence set over the mansion... till a couple of hours after midnight when a servant looking as if he has seen a ghost knocked hard in the door. It was no other but the administrator of the beach house.

He has left the cage door open by mistake... he babbled... a thiev came... the thief is nowehere ... blood blood everywhere...continued he.

Nobody understood much but all ran desperately to the holiday house. Inside the main room looked like a war field. Drawers contents were thrown in the middle of the room, chests have been emptied. On the top of the cage the bird was watching them with one eye. And indeed everything was also tainted with fresh blood.

After looking around better the Ba'nepie couple looked at each other with a dreaded look. The thief was not a regular thief. Nothing of value was missing. Nothing of value for a thief that is...And who knows if that daring thief has even survived to ... the bird's furious attack. Because the blood everywhere including the bird's beak could come from nowhere else. Gaxy's bird, once free, attacked the unsupecting theif with all force and bite him like an enraged torbak.

But there was not time to ask what happened to the thief. Some documents were missing, and were exactly those documents that Gaxy's father feared to take upon himself through Wyler's border guards, but expected them to belive that if they were not in his luggages then they never existed.

They searched the whole room. took all night long file by file out of all documents until at 5 am the next morning a powerful "craah" made them freeze. And then Gaxy's father saw it!. He saw the small heap of shredded paper right next to the birds' cage. He understood it all at a glance. The thief had run only with his life, and even out of that not a lot remaining.

The leaving was postponed a day and when the long caravan of luggages was finally put into motion, a cage was decorating the first mektoub to move. They travelled to the Dew Drops peninsula, then through the portal in WInds of Muse... and then, before the way they took made an angle to the Loria lands, they all stopped.

The Be'Nappie Breggans came down from their mounts to the cage. Told the bird some words and set it free. A last "craaah" was heard and the bird flew away forever.

Nobody stopped the family to leave to Avalae anymore. SOmewhat later rumours came that Gaxy never finished her jewelry school because a certain tall matis, of a good family - but not by far so wealthy as they hoped - related to the Jinovitch family asked her to marry him. The Ba'nepies were never invited to the capitol city because the Yrkan House never wanted to keep close relations to the Jinovitch ....people slowly forgot them...

The bird - people say - is still to be seen even today in Winds of Muse, but others say that the Ba'nepie Breggans must have fed it matisian enriched food so that nowadays the bird, or its followers have a special form, colour and mainly a bigger shape than usual.

[beaut666]

I KNEW pirate hats were in fashion! *laughs* ..great story, you tell it well!
Beau

[arfindel]

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