Chapter Text
14 Calistril. The sun is bright, though it offers little warmth, and the wind, though gentle, bites into the sensitive skin on Sparrow’s face. Winters in Mendev are still bitterly cold to her, even after three years living through them, but the chill makes Heaven’s Edge no less beautiful. The house has been cleaned and aired, the staff are preparing for the travel back to Drezen, and Sparrow has come across a climbable tree.
She’s not looking for one. She is meant to be cataloguing the areas around the estate that will need landscaped again once the weather warms, the last thing to do before they head back to the city for months; Daeran helps her by joining the stroll and providing amusing commentary. The once-verdant gardens of the estate all need to be replaced, or at least strongly cared for, as more than a decade’s exposure to the ecosystem of the the lands adjacent to the Worldwound with no support have left the flowerbeds blackened and withered, and the many decorative trees warped with strange invasive lichen.
This tree, however, is relatively healthy, a large hardwood with thick lower branches within easy reach and a strong limb system. It reaches toward the sky, its bare branches cracking the blue above into thousands of tiny pieces.
It’s perfect for climbing, and Sparrow would know. She’s always had good instincts for it; she never fell, not once, her feet always finding the boughs solid beneath her. She has the urge, suddenly, to do it again.
It’s been a long time since then, of course, but muscle memory is a powerful thing–reaching up, feeling the bark under her hands, letting her own strength pull her into the air. She doesn’t even notice she’s left the ground until her feet have planted firmly on the lower branch and she’s already reached for next one up, and Daeran’s voice cuts through the moment of exhilaration.
“My dear, what in the world are you doing?”
She freezes. Her first instinct is to jump back down, apologize, and continue the journey through the gardens. But the servants wouldn’t be finished packing up the rest of the furniture for at least another hour, and she’s already started. Daeran is always telling her to take the time to enjoy things.
So she gives him a look she hopes is appropriately flat and hefts herself up to the next branch. “I am climbing a tree.”
“Darling, deliberately misunderstanding a question to answer its overt meaning and not its actual intent is my specialty. I’ve had years to hone the skill. I would not suggest implementing that tactic without careful instruction or it will be far too obvious that you are dodging the question.”
“How else am I–-” Sparrow pulls herself up with a sharp exhale, “-–supposed to practice, then?”
“Indeed? Then I shall be more transparent–-why are you climbing a tree, when you could be doing anything else?”
Sparrow finally pauses and turns to the ground. Through the branches, Daeran stares at her with a cocked eyebrow, as if he had just come across a fascinating, if slightly unsettling, species of insect. “Have you never climbed a tree before?”
“I had toys and games to play that kept me from such desperation,” Daeran says with dignity. “And I grew to be quite tall, as you are aware. I hardly needed to elevate myself any further than my own noble breeding provided me, though I suppose we couldn’t all be so lucky.”
Sparrow swings her legs over a branch and settles, letting the bough sway under her weight. She could probably go a little further up, but Daeran’s amusement is cut sharp at the edges and he’s giving a watchful look, as if expecting her to plummet from the heights at any second. “It’s all right. I know what I’m doing,” she tells him. “I used to climb trees a lot as a child. Crow often took jobs that led us into the outer edges of the Mwangi expanse.”
Her hands tighten on the bark and she gazes up at the unending blue of the sky. For a moment she’s small again, and bright, smelling of the salt that always carried on the wind of the coasts caught in endless summer, and seeing every new horizon as an adventure to explore. The trees that grew in the jungle varied, but the best to climb were thick-trunked, covered in moss that let her scale the sides, with thick arcing branches that eventually took a soul brave enough to try above the treeline to the sun.
Sparrow always went as high as she could go, reaching for the unlimited potential the heights offered. The world would sprawl below, and she would settle against the bark, letting the tree sway with the wind beneath her as she closed her eyes and pretended she could fly.
She could fly for real now–all she needed to do was unfold her wings and take to the skies–but it was different, with the trees. Climbing up meant searching for the view and resting where it was found. It meant trusting herself to find the right branch that wouldn’t crack underneath her: to go as high as she could with the certainty that she wouldn’t fall.
Sparrow pulls her attention away from the painful blue of the sky. Daeran is still at the base of the tree. She tries to find the words to describe what she’s feeling and comes up empty. Instead, she just says, “I don’t know, it makes me feel young again. Sorry for the delay. I’ll be down in a second.”
Daeran stares another moment, then sighs, very put upon. Sparrow immediately moves to slide off the bough but the tree shakes vigorously before she can–-she watches, wide-eyed, as Daeran grabs at the same knot she had used to propel herself up. He must have paid close attention to her path because he follows it to her branch almost exactly, though with far less grace. As he gets closer, Sparrow can hear an almost-inaudible string of curses, and she smiles.
“I do hope this piece of wood is strong enough to support the both of us,” Daeran tells her as he finally settles beside her. The bough sinks from the addition of the second body with a low crackle. “If this splinters and plummets us to the ground, I plan on being absolutely insufferable as we travel the river of souls.”
“The fall would only break a few bones,” Sparrow says, unable to hold back the waver of laughter in her voice. “And I have wings. If we fell, I would catch you.”
"Is that so?" He’s chosen to sit right against Sparrow, their thighs touching, and after a moment, a hand slides across Sparrow’s back and settles on her waist.
She leans against him, taking in the sight beyond: the bare branches of the trees reaching to the sky like fingers dancing against the blue, and the thin scrubland laid out past them, determined patches of dry grass facing the cold amongst the reds and purples of a landscape marked by the influence of the Abyss. Life persisting even in the face of destruction–-or perhaps making something new out of the thing that should have destroyed it.
“I will have splinters,” Daeran informs her gravely. “But I suppose there’s something to this tree climbing misadventure. The view is quite…arresting.”
Sparrow smiles and glances back at him to see him already staring at her. She cannot hold back the huff of laughter. “Did you get that line from one of your romance novels?”
“I have no idea what you're talking about.” The hand on her waist curls closer to her hip, and Daeran brings his other hand up to brush against her cheek, his thumb stroking the feathers near her left eye. “There’s also something to be said about the privacy one can find in such a…secluded location.”
“I suppose it's rare for one to look up,” Sparrow whispers, and feels Daeran’s smile as he presses it against her lips.
It is surprisingly warm, that high in the trees. Neither the Count nor the Countess end up leaving its branches until a servant, long having finished packing, comes looking for them.