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“We shouldn’t be doing this.” Kara breathes into the air between them.
“Afraid somebody’s going to catch us?” Jenny grins back. Kara pushes Jenny away gently, leaving her hands on Jenny’s shoulders and looking into her eyes.
“I’m afraid somebody’s going to get hurt.”
“I would never let anything bad happen to you.” Jenny reaches up to her shoulders to grasp Kara’s hands gently in hers.
“Not just me,” Kara lowers her eyes to the ground between them, “what about Reggie?”
Jenny’s eyes harden in response, “what about him?” she asks with an edge to her voice.
Kara lets go of Jenny’s hands and steps away, wrapping her arms around herself for comfort, "wouldn't he be hurt by you doing this? By… us doing this?”
“Who cares about what Reggie will feel?! What about what I feel? What … we feel?” Jenny asks as she approaches Kara from behind and wraps her arms around her.
“I just can’t, in good conscience, do this with you while you’re still married to Reggie,” Kara pushes Jenny’s arms off from around her and begins to walk away, “it will only end badly.”
Jenny stares down the hall as Kara walks away. Stunned for a moment before she begins planning. She was never a dumb bird, and she was going to use every one of her tools to her advantage.
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“Honey, I’m home!” Reggie announces as he comes into his shared rooms with his beloved wife, Jenny. They had been together for many years now and Reggie had only grown more in love with her. In recent months, Jenny had been pulling away from him in their relationship, seeming more distant and cold.
That was all going to change tonight however, Reggie had planned the most romantic, sweetest, most perfect night ever to reconcile their relationship. He was going to take her along a route encompassing all their most important locations from the beginning of their relationship until now. With a candlelit dinner and roses and musicians all along the way. It was perfect.
Reggie sets his things down by the entrance of their room and goes to clean himself up before asking Jennie to go with him for his surprise.
As Reggie cleans himself up with his back turned to the room Jennie quietly approaches from where she was waiting in an adjacent room, preparing her own surprise. Reggie was not going to make it to any of his plans tonight, or any of his plans for the rest of his life. Jenny had her own plans to revive her relationship with Kara, whom she had been rendezvousing with for the better part of the past year and truly wanted to spend her life with, for better or worse.
She had been planning this night for weeks. Everything would go perfectly smoothly. She had planned, prepared, and practiced for this. This night was the start of her perfect future, a life without Reggie or any other male birds in her way, just her and Kara, forever.
Jenny approaches Reggie from behind with the knife. It would be quick, and quiet, even painless, for whatever that was worth. While Reggie is distracted, she raises the knife and swiftly plunges it into his neck, pushing him forward over the sink to minimize the mess. This would need to be cleaned up quietly and the less work she had to do, the better.
Jenny walks away and leaves Reggie to his death while she checks the hallway to make sure the coast is clear. Once she feels safe enough, she goes to wrap her now late husband's body in thick leaves to drag him down the hall and into the woods to dispose of him.
The journey out of the burrow is short but after that Jenny walks far to make sure that nobody can find Reggie’s body, if they ever even get the idea to.
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Days pass with no word from Reggie to the flock and after a full week’s time, Jenny announces him dead and lost to them for good.
Jenny watches and waits as the flock mourns, her happiness with Kara will come in due time.
Kara keeps her distance, she knows what Jenny did, without either of them needing to say anything. She won’t hold this against Jenny. It was an act of love, one she wholeheartedly appreciates, as sick or twisted as that may be.
They dance around each other for months when around others. Hiding away in quiet rooms or alone in the wilderness to be with each other for now. They’ve been waiting for so long already, a few more months isn’t going to hurt them when it means they can have their entire futures together, uncontested.
They never speak about what Jenny did, likely never will. It will remain her quiet act of devotion between them, something to say that she really means what she says when she whispers “I love you.” into Kara’s ear while they are still hiding their relationship from everyone else.
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Six months after Reggie is announced dead, Jenny comes forward to formally announce her relationship with Kara and to state that they intend to spend the rest of their lives together, leading the flock as one. They plan for a wedding of greater grandeur than Jenny and Reggie’s. A further silent spite of that past relationship. There is a great feast and hours upon hours of dancing and jigs. The burrow is splashed in a rainbow of colors from all the flowers and drapery. It is a great day of partying and joy for all involved.
No one comments on Jenny moving on, despite having no answers as to what actually happened to Reggie that day. There are whispers, but they swiftly fade out of existence, nobody attempting to contest the great leaders of the flock. Jenny and Kara lead together in harmony, bringing a new age of greatness and peace to the flock and even the lives of all those who live around them. No living being can deny that they are indeed soulmates, meant to be together in this life and the next, through hardship and hell, through doubts and insecurities, and, most importantly, through love and happiness.