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Kreeth turned to face her visitor, nearly knocking over a jar of eyeballs. “You can’t be serious.”
Ygryk stood in Kreeth’s cave in the Ice Narrows and looked down at her talons. Good, Kreeth thought. At least she has enough sense to look ashamed.
“Don’t say that,” Ygryk murmured. “You know I’m always serious when it comes to love.”
Love! Don’t make me yarp. Kreeth suppressed a gag. “But really, Ygryk, an owl?”
Ygryk shrank, but her golden eyes were sharp as ever, shining like stars in the night sky of her plumage. “You just don’t get it, Kreeth.”
Kreeth snorted. She’d never “gotten it,” not as a fledgling and certainly not now. Things like love and mates and chicks were for the soft-hearted and small-brained. Why would she pursue another hagsfiend when she had the pursuit of knowledge? Of science, of magen?
The only hagsfiend worth her time was Ygryk, anyway, and Ygryk always came back. Didn’t she?
(She should’ve expected something like this from Ygryk, really—she’d always been a mushy one. In the winters when they were younger, Ygryk would fly over the frozen sea to visit her in the Ice Narrows. Kreeth, ripe with the foolishness of youth, would lead Ygryk out of the cavern she called home, away from her mother’s prying eyes, to sit atop the icy cliffs and watch the snow fall.
Winters in N’yrthghar were cold, even for hagsfiends. The two of them would huddle close together, shaking snowflakes off their wings. Kreeth had always been small, so Ygryk would wrap a wing around her, shielding her from the snow. Kreeth had disliked it at first—it reminded her of her mother, always calling her a runt, asking what was wrong with her, how could a hagsfiend be so puny?—but soon enough she was creeping closer to Ygryk, nestling into the crook of her wing.
The memory of it stirred something inside of Kreeth where an owl’s gizzard would be, but she brushed it aside.)
“Well? What now?” Kreeth turned back to her work station, pretending to reorganize vials of blood and jars of talons. She could feel Ygryk’s eyes boring holes through her back. “You’ll be his mate and fly off into the sunrise? Live happily ever after? Forget all about me?”
Ygryk was silent for a moment. Kreeth could almost hear her mind working over what she’d just said. Before Kreeth could open her beak to correct her misstep, Ygryk spoke. “Is that what this is about?”
“No," Kreeth said, but it was a clear lie.
Ygryk barked out a laugh, but it was all wrong, nothing like the sweet sound Kreeth used to hear under the snow. “And you said I couldn't be serious,” she said. “Kreeth, you—it’s not like I belong to you. And it’s not like we’ll never see each other again. I—”
Kreeth’s head snapped to look at Ygryk, who blinked, startled. Kreeth swelled up as she approached Ygryk (even then she was still too small, barely reached Ygryk’s beak, her mother was right). “You’re my friend,” Kreeth hissed. “If you want to throw away your life mooning after some owl like a fool, I won’t stop you. But when you’re stuffed up in some tree bored out of your mind in a year, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Ygryk glared down at Kreeth. The cave was thick with silence.
Then, she said, “Don’t you remember that you’re the one who didn’t want me?”
(It had been many winters ago, when they were still young, before Kreeth’s mother had died. They sat at the edge of an icy cliff, snow falling silently around them, Kreeth huddled under Ygryk’s wing like always.
“Do you ever think,” Ygryk began, softly, “of leaving the Ice Narrows?”
Kreeth snorted. “To do what?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Ygryk hummed. “Explore, I guess. Just us two. We could go up the H’rathghar Glacier, or maybe fly south across the sea. They say they have real forests there.”
“Ha!” Kreeth laughed, and Ygryk nearly jerked her wing away, startled by the sudden noise. “And drown in the seawater? No, thank you.”
“It was just a suggestion,” Ygryk mumbled. A beat of silence followed, and then she said, “I… I think anything would be fun if we were together.”
It was uncharacteristically soft, even for Ygryk. Kreeth craned her neck to look at her face and found Ygryk staring back, golden eyes shining like stars. Time stopped. Ygryk leaned in closer.
“Don’t you think it’d be nice, Kreeth?” Their beaks were only a breath apart. “Us, together?”
Before she could catch herself, Kreeth was laughing again, harsh and cutting. “Don’t be stupid, Ygryk. I only have time for my experiments. You know that.”
Ygryk lowered her eyes. “You’re right,” she said. “It was stupid.”
Ygryk withdrew her wing, and the snow melted on Kreeth’s feathers.)
Kreeth bristled at the memory, laughing hollowly. “But you keep coming back. You know I’m the only one who gives you the attention you’re so desperate for.”
“Not anymore.” Ygryk shook her head, ruffling her midnight feathers. “Pleek—Pleek pays attention to me. He’s kind, Kreeth. He… He loves me.”
Kind! Kindness couldn’t create a waterproofing spell. Kindness couldn’t help Ygryk fly over the southern sea. Kreeth didn’t bother hiding her retch. “It’s always love, love, love with you. Grow up, Ygryk. He’ll be bored of you after one moon cycle. I’m the one you always come back to. I’m your friend.”
Ygryk rose to her full height. She glowered down at Kreeth, starry eyes shining with emotions she couldn't understand. “Of course you are. My friend and nothing more.”
And then she was in the entrance of the cave, spreading her wings to leave before Kreeth could even think of a response, some way to cut her deeper. She looked back only once.
“I’d like you to meet him,” Ygryk said. “You’ll like him. You’ll see.”
How could I possibly like him, Kreeth thought, when he took you from me?
She blinked, and Ygryk was gone.