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Hythlodaeus raised his bow, took careful aim at a passing cloud, and drew the string back to his cheek. A flock of bright birds, hundreds of them, burst from the brush nearby. He paused to watch them, tracking them with his arrow as they wheeled and darted overhead. Their bright colors - their feathers and their auras both - were so lovely against the sky. His target practice could wait; they’d be on their way soon enough.
In the meantime, he found a friendly-looking rock nearby. With a happy sigh, he settled onto its sun-warmed surface and stretched his feet out.
While the birds continued to swirl above him, he looked around. His whole life, he had noticed everything: the lights in the windows of the gilded towers crowding above Amaurot’s boulevards at twilight, the hasty notes scribbled in the margins of the submissions he reviewed at the Bureau, the glow of others’ souls surrounding him everywhere he went. It sometimes could be tiring, noticing so many things all the time.
Here, though, was one of the few places where he could be by himself. No chatter, no surprises lurking in the paperwork and crystals littering his desk, no constant glow of civilization clamoring for his attention. The silence and the solitude were complete; taking in every detail of this place was soothing enough that he’d shed his hood and mask.
Why, then, as he watched the birds taking their leave, did he have the uncanny sense that he had missed something?
He glanced around again. This time, he found a telltale glow of aether in the brush. He frowned - perhaps he ought to investigate. Scrambling up from his rock, he left his bow behind and tried to move stealthily. Eccentric, his colleagues called his appreciation for this physical exertion. Exhilarating, he called it. The little presence did not move as he approached, even when he pushed the bushes surrounding it aside.
Once he had a clearer view of the thing, he gave himself permission to laugh. A high, joyful giggle of delight rang across the wilderness. “Oh, you are splendid!” he cried.
It was another bird, he supposed, or perhaps it was some sort of rodent? It was about the size of a pumpkin, brown and hairy, with a very round body and a very small round head. Its eyes were beady and black, and it had a long and skinny beak that curved slightly downwards. If it had wings, they must be quite small, and tucked under its plain brown hair. Its aether glowed an unfamiliar, brilliant green as he examined it; it watched him in turn.
Neither of them moved for a solid minute, each sizing the other up. Although he’d found this new little concept - and oh, what fun it would be to share its existence with Azem when they returned from their latest journey! - his sense of forgetting something, something just out of sight beyond the corner of his eye, did not go away.
“Hello, my new small friend,” he said. “Are you injured?”
It did not respond, and still did not flee from him. He wondered if perhaps it was not accustomed to people? That led to wondering who might have approved the concept, though. What possible purpose could this maybe-a-bird serve? Had it been around for a long time?
The concept’s lack of response seemed to indicate that it did not understand speech. Curiouser and curiouser, he thought. He tilted his head to consider it more carefully. Useful or no, the thing had an incredible charm. “Would you care to join me?”
The creature continued not to answer. After a few moments, Hythlodaeus nodded. “...Very well; you’re right. I will fetch my things and join you, instead.”
The appearance of this peculiar creature had temporarily shoved his worries away. As he collected his bow and quiver, though, his unease returned. Perhaps explaining the situation to his new friend would help him to work out whatever it was he couldn’t name on his own.
He settled into the grass next to the brown creature and gave it a friendly wave. In the distance, he could just make out the towers of Ktisis Hyperboreia above the horizon. “I don’t suppose you know anything about Elpis and concept testing?” he asked, just in case. The episode with Kairos aside, his recent visit with Emet-Selch had been as routine as anything involving Elpis ever was. With a chuckle, he nodded, just as though the bird had answered after all. “Hermes would find you enchanting, I suppose. He’s always had a secret, special fondness for the creations with wings.” Hythlodaeus winked at his companion. “We aren’t supposed to have favorites, you see.” He hummed with warm delight. “All of us do, though.”
The little bird stooped to investigate something skittering in the dirt near its feet. It reminded Hythlodaeus of Venat stopping mid-sentence to peer at some root or berry she’d spotted. “Could she have something to do with these worries?” he asked. He couldn’t see how she might be connected, but.… He shook his head. It was no use. Nothing before, or after, his visit stood out in any meaningful way - it was the same shark-infested mundane work as always, day in and day out.
Drawing his knees up to rest his chin on them, Hythlodaeus reached down to toy with the fletching of one of the arrows in his quiver. The focus that his archery usually brought did not descend on him. His thoughts continued to churn. Maybe just toying with the arrow’s fletching was insufficient to bring down that peace, and he needed the entire experience of drawing, and aiming, and loosing?
“Concepts can be broken into their component pieces,” he murmured. “Perhaps the same process could be applied here…? If I could just sort our visit to Elpis into meaningful, separate parts, maybe I could find something that would lead to an answer. Would you listen, if I tried?” The creature’s lack of expression was probably as close to an acknowledgment that he would receive.
Where to begin, then…? “I was with Emet-Selch the whole time,” he said slowly. He reached absently for his braid and twined his fingers through its end. “Honestly, given his noisy complaints about the visit overall, there’s no way that Hades noticed something unusual and kept his counsel.” Hythlodaeus chuckled. “He would never remain silent in the face of anything irritating.”
The bird scratched idly in the dirt with the end of its beak. Fascinated, Hythlodaeus forgot his troubles for a few minutes. He shook his head to clear it, which made the bird startle and fluff its… no, not hair, he realized. A primitive sort of feather, perhaps. Venat would know.
His concern settled around his shoulders again like a heavy but uncomfortable blanket.
“What hasn’t she been saying, my friend?” he asked. “I feel as though… as though I can almost see the shape of what she leaves out of her letters, when she sends them. Like a half-forgotten dream, perhaps.” He frowned as he recalled trying to ask her about it. She had appeared at the Bureau one day a few weeks ago to ask him if he perhaps was working too hard, and would he consider taking some time for himself to join her on her next journey to some far-flung corner of the star?
“No one had ever suggested I work too hard, you see,” he said with a little bark of laughter. “And who am I to deny that woman anything she might want? The excursion to the forest near Amaurot was exactly as splendid as she’d promised.” He paused to fix the bird with a critical look. “...You, perhaps, aren’t familiar with Amaurot. Or forests, or… anything, really, I suppose.” He sighed. “It is our capital, the center of our society. And forests are…” He considered for a moment. How to explain the way this particular tree had received unanimous approval for its golden leaves and smooth, creamy bark, or how that aggressive-looking large cat had gone through three revisions and eaten several Words of Lahabrea before its release into the world? He shook his head with another rueful chuckle. “Suffice to say that Venat and I spent an enjoyable day tromping through positively primeval places, and she…” His enthusiasm faltered as that unease returned. “She didn’t answer me, when I asked her about my worries. She just watched me across the campfire.”
Like Venat had done, the bird considered him for a long moment before it gave its feathers another rustling fluff. He tilted his head. “I suppose none of this is your concern,” he said with the hint of a smile. Tentatively, he reached towards the creature. When it did not shy from his hand, he reached just a little bit further, until his fingertips brushed against the feathers on its back. As he’d expected, they were hairy, and soft, and altogether peculiar for a bird.
It was entirely unlike the sleek, long-tailed blue bird darting past him into the sky, in his half-forgotten dream.
“...A blue bird?” he mused. The brown one in front of him leaned gently towards his hand with a silent demand. He beamed at it. “Of course you’re not blue, little one. Forgive me - I was trying to remember a dream.” Its aether glowed an even brighter green than before.
They sat together for quite a while, until the soft golden sunset had yielded to the purples and blues of night’s mantle. His mind was full of glimpses of a cloud of birds, not so dissimilar from those he’d encountered earlier in the day, though these were all a uniform bright blue. They darted and danced overhead, but where they were and where they were going was hidden in a fog he could not pierce.
As Hythlodaeus shifted his weight to relieve a knee that had grown stiff from his inactivity, he knocked an elbow against his quiver. The clatter of arrows against the case seemed to hook behind his ribs and pull him out of his reverie. He blinked as he looked around, taking in his surroundings, grounding himself and remembering where he was.
Near Elpis. Archery practice. Alone. …well, alone except for the bird which still hadn’t moved from its spot near his side. Below his hand, the creature seemed to be dozing.
“My dear new friend,” he said. One beady black eye cracked open at the sound. “My dear new friend, I’m afraid I must be going. Back to Amaurot, you see, so that I can continue my work tomorrow.”
The paperwork that had inevitably gathered on his desk during his absence today was not worth troubling himself over, nor did it give him a particular sense that he ought to hurry back. He took his time, stretching luxuriously when he stood, before collecting his bow and quiver from the grass.
“Thank you for the conversation today.” He nodded to the bird as solemnly as he would to a colleague in the halls at the Bureau. “Perhaps I will see you again, the next time I have a moment to myself.”
The creature finally stirred. It stood - revealing two absurdly slender legs, and oh, how Azem would thunder with frustration at having missed it! - and waddled imperiously to the next clump of bushes, a few yalms away. There, it settled again. It seemed already to have completely dismissed him.
Chuckling to himself at the thought, Hythlodaeus prepared to return to Amaurot. Perhaps he’d simply let anxiety about a half-forgotten dream distract him too much from his more boring - more essential, his colleagues would say - responsibilities. There would be no time for these sorts of thoughts when he arrived. He vanished from the little island and reappeared in the center of the city, not far from the cares and worries that would once again keep him from considering the strange blue birds at the edge of his mind.