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"looks like the cat did a number on you
vienna, oh
he took a brick off the side of the stoop, poor Vienna.
It'll be over soon."
Spoke didn't know how long they'd been flying for. His back ached and he could feel his wings wobble, struggling to support his weight. Even with the added support of an elytra they hurt nonetheless. A glance at mapicc told him he was feeling the same. The meager conversation they had earlier had fallen away. Adrenaline of escape worn off to exhaustion, everything felt strained. Like a rubber band too tight and ready to snap back.
The village they land in might as well be heaven, with the poor excuse of needing to regear, The dry hot air of the savanna cooling with the night is satisfying after being so high up. His lungs relax at breathing normal air once again. The sun hangs low in the sky.
"we should stay here for the night" Spoke turns to look at Mapicc, who was shaking out feathers from his singed and damaged wings. a cut on his cheek bleeds sluggishly.
"they're after us and you just want to stay here?" There's still a fury in his eyes, simmering just under the surface.
"it's better then running all night and getting caught when we're both too exhausted to move" Spoke argues back, "You look like shit dude"
"you don't look much better" Mapicc scoffs. "you look like you were victimized by a pigeon." he gestures to the feathers falling from spokes messy wings, and his general disheveled state.
"more reason for us to stay here, then!" He doesn't wait for an answer before promptly swinging open the door to one of the savannah huts, swiftly evicting the villager asleep in it's bed to roll into it's place, his wings acting as a shitty blanket as he curls up on the scratchy mattress. A few moments later the door creaks open once again. he peaks an eye open to see Mapicc feeding some raw fish into the furnace, a look of concentration on his face.
Spoke wasn't sure when they got like this, able to exist so silently, Not a word is said between them. Not as Mapicc sits down, holding his shoulder. Someone must have swiped it in their escape attempt. Invisible bodies made it so hard to tell who was actually getting hurt.
It was sure to be another scar, more to the dozens shared between them, Spoke wondered at what point does an entire person become scar tissue.
There will be a new one on Mapicc's cheek, right under his eye. It was slightly swollen, a purple bruise marring the skin as much as the blood. The effects of healing were already ticking in, pulling skin together, replacing the bloody insides with a pinkish red. It matched the one by his face, the one that spoke could see the inside of his mouth when it happened, The one they fought off infection with.
They would fade, as most things would.
But now they were a reminder of what they had been through. A lesson learned through blood and broken bone.
Spoke was the same, pink and red scars replaced with white, hairline fractures in his form. Cracks of the whole. He knew they covered his body and he knew which ones Mapicc could name, which he could point out. He knew his scars as much as he knew Spoke.
"Spoke, Dude you're staring-" A voice breaks him from his musing, much closer than before. Spoke blinks. His eyes focusing in again. His feathers rouse and fluff. Mapicc was standing in front of the bed, a cooked fish balanced on tree bark held before him. "here, eat" he gestures with it.
"fine fine okay" he says, grabbing the makeshift plate. He picks up the fish, it was charred, Mapicc always burnt food when he cooked.
"this looks like shit" he picks the bones from it, claws tearing away scales and skin. He eats it like a starving man, it was the best food he'd had in what felt like weeks, living off of carrots and cold, dry steak wasn't fun. finally something that felt halfway edible.
Mapicc scoffs, devouring his with the same fierceness. He slides down the wall, starting a half hearted attempt to preen his wings. "what's our plan going forward?" He asks
"find minute, hope he has a god team made?" he asks, licking his claws clean, "hope he has a plan for what the hell we're doing?"
"hah." Mapicc laughs humorlessly. he suppresses a wince everytime he tries to turn and preen feathers. By the fourth Spoke has enough.
"Let me preen your wings?" he asks, already getting up to sit by him. Mapicc was..touchy, about who could mess with his feathers, Spoke really couldn't remember the last time he had preened them though. And he wasn't in any state to try now
(not that his were much better,
actually he thought they might be in worse condition.)
"what? No I'm fine dude-" Mapicc says, sending him a glare.
"they're making me sad to look at. You're gonna leave a trail of feathers behind us and the maf- They'll find us in no time" Mafia sits heavy in his mouth like a curse. as if he would say it and magically they'd appear, like voldemort.
Mapicc grumbles, and turns around. And that's that, Spoke cards his claws through the red feathers. Kestrel, is what Mapicc said they're most like, speckled with black and fading to a deep colored red, They were singed from lava and flame from swords and arrows. Blood caked underneath them, along with dirt and grime.
"yikes" spoke hisses quietly.
"I didn't ask for commentary spoke!" He huffs. Spoke rolls his eyes.
"Alright fine, sorry."
He continues his task, he remembered someone, a long time ago teaching him how to preen feathers. Fluff them up, get out all of the dirt, remove wax from pin feathers, remove loose feathers. It was simple. easy as breathing, Spoke wondered if it was instinct by now. If only mapicc would stop moving.
"You're fucking pulling dude-" He winces, "be gentle!"
"I am being gentle you're being a baby-"
"Oh, so you want me to pull on your damn feathers that are already sore as hell from flying?"
"I'm not even pulling!" he complains, entire handfuls of feathers fall to the wooden floor of the hut. "are you molting???"
"no!" Mapicc growls as spoke picks at another pin feather that had grown in wrong. spoke sighs, grabbing a few of the singed feathers from the floor,
"we could sell these y'know" He jokes, mapicc turns to look at them, something flickers in his eyes. It looks like grief.
"they're literally burnt spoke." he crosses his arms.
"no no no they're from a very expensive bird, my best friend mapicc!" he smiles wide, for a moment his exhaustion forgotten.
"you are so stupid" Mapicc murmurs. And they stay like that for a while. Spoke stopping his preening to simply card his fingers through Mapicc's wings, soothing. Eventually he feels him relax into the touch. warmed by the furnace, it feels nice. It feels like home. Neither of them speak, sitting in silence, savannah dogs howl outside. Hunted and stalked spoke has never felt safer than this moment. He wonders what he could make with Mapicc's feathers, there had to be some use for them.
"you should let me fix your shoulder as well" he suggests, wracking his brain and e-chest inventory for bandages or other healing items. Potions and gapples were great. But some things just had to be healed by the body.
(there's a thing such as over healing as well, too much pots or gapples, hellish.)
"hm..?" Mapicc opens his eyes, spoke didn't remember him closing them, was he asleep?
"dude your shoulder is bleeding through your cloak, let me bandage it at least, You'll get your blood on me" he whines, leaning back dramatically
"You've had worse on you." Mapicc huffs, pulling down the red cloak he wore, a nasty gash was underneath, puffy and red at the edges, blood leaked out like sap. Spoke chuckles quietly, he reaches for an ender chest, finding none in his inventory. Mapicc seems to understand what he was going for, Grabbing one from his own inventory and placing it beside them, spoke huffs a thank you. pulling out his medical shulker.
"stay still or I'll stab you" he says, the cut needed stitches. But there was no actual point now, it had been far too long since the injury happened for it to be anything but a risk. Mapicc could cope with a scar.
"kinda counter intuitive" his voice is strained as spoke bandages him up.
"exactly" he replies, he makes quick work of the injury, "there, better?" he moves away once again.
Mapicc rolls his shoulder, Spoke can see him grit his teeth, "I'll live" he replies.
Spoke nods, shoving the discarded bandages away into the ender chest, mopping up feathers with his hands to also put in his e-chest. They'd be important eventually.
(after mapicc is taken he opens the chest, red feathers that are so painfully Mapicc's wait inside, red like fire, like blood, like anger.
and he weeps. holding them in shaking hands.
later, he wears one around his neck, a pendant, his reason until he can return it to its rightful owner.)
"let me do your wings now, they're just as bad as mine" Mapic says, a warm hand grabs Spoke's shoulder, turning him around.
"but you actually pull" he bemoans. And lets himself be turned around. His wings spread, Elliptical in shape, uneven from burns and scratches.
"Bless your heart, baby boy." mapicc mutters. Spoke was being dramatic, admittedly, he presents his feathers with experience, a care in his hands. A warmth that feels safe. Spoke relaxes, a quiet chirrup worms its way out of him, followed by chirps and warbles, he feels his face heat up. Mapicc laughs quietly, though he responds in kind with chirps back.
Spoke's eyes grow heavy, Safety making his thoughts slow, safe enough to rest, safe enough to think. his thoughts catch up to him, tumbling over each other and crashing into his mind.
"i'm sorry." he mumbles, his mind doesn't catch up with his mouth, he doesn't know why he's talking.
"..for what?" mapicc asks, his hands still.
"I..I shouldn't have trusted ash, I shouldn't have messed around with these exploits in the first place, I should've listened to Jamato." the name sticks to the roof of his mouth, feels wrong to say. It makes his stomach roll. He feels something like tears well in his eyes. Mapicc is silent and spoke is sure he irreprehensibly fucked up. He's going to leave again and he's going to be alone again.
"it's not your fault." He settles on, instead of preening he simply pets his feathers, reassuring, gentle.
"Mapicc- I-"
"No, spoke listen, it isn't your fault" he cuts his words off, "sure, you fucked up in the past. but this, us being hunted isn't. your. fault." He sounds so sure.
"Ash would have left us alone- we would have been fine if I had just- known how to stop-"
"he would have recruited us into the Mafia or just killed us. Spoke" mapicc reasons, "And I don't know about you, but I prefer this then being fucking invisible all the time."
Spoke laughs quietly, and it tapers off into sobs. he was never one for crying, he thought it made him look stupid. and now he watches tears hit the floor of the hut, dripping down his face. His shoulders tremble. A well of confusing emotions spinning into a torrent. He feels arms settle around him, his face is pressed into Mapicc's shoulder, soaking the bandages he just applied. He babbles a few words, mixed with quiet and shaky chirps.
"it isn't your fault spoke, it isn't your fault" Mapicc murmurs, a soft coo comes from his throat, he repeats the words over and over. It feels like a mantra. Damaged and torn wings pull him closer, settling over his own. Spoke feels so loved and so safe and so
so afraid.
It takes a while before he can even try to speak again without being interrupted by cries or chirps.
"I- I got snot all over your bandages" He mumbles, He had tucked himself into mapicc, if he wasn't so, so exhausted he would make a joke, or push him away. And in this moment all he wanted was to be cradled, held.
"Better then blood" He responds, Spoke feels his chin on top of his.
"I'm scared" he whispers into his shoulder, the words are muffled, it takes a moment for mapicc to respond, Spoke figures he must not of heard him. And when he finally speaks his voice shudders.
"I know, I am too."
There aren't words to say beyond that, nothing to articulate what they had come to. how they had changed. There's nothing to describe what they've become. What they've seen. Spoke feels like he's thousands of years old and seventeen all at the same time. He'd been fighting for so long now that an ache accompanied his bones that hummed and prayed for better days.
And Mapicc had been by his side throughout this.
He knew the weight of sat heavy on his shoulders. Spoke knew how it made him, how he took it and threw it onto a fire inside of him, enough kindling to burn the world to nothingness held in his core. And everything that weighed in spoke had frozen to ice and sat heavy inside of him, it felt like it dragged him down through flights and battles.
and now they sat, the fire inside Mapicc settles to an ember, and the ice that froze spokes veins thawed.
They were beaten, bloody, and bruised but they were alive.
throughout this all they were living. they had survived up to this point.
"We're going to be okay" Mapicc murmurs, holding him slightly closer as he fought off sleep. "through whatever shit's going to come."
The savannah dogs outside howled, crickets and cicadas buzzed. They curled around each other on the floor of the hut, safe. Spoke tucked inside Mapicc's wings. There wasn't an easy fix for what they had went through, would continue to go through. No bandages or potions or gapples. And yet this was enough to soothe.
"we're going to be okay."
Vienna carry on.