A/N - there once was an ugly duckling, with feathers all stubby and... black! Well, more of a very dark brown, really, with a reddish glint and a rather fetching iridescent, purple-green colorshift to match his purty hair an' eyes! Aw. Whaddya mean, it doesn't scan? Pfftht, pfftht, get outta town! LOL! :P
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Jaan lay supine on the cold, rock slab exam table in some dark cavern, waiting in dread silence as had been instilled in him over the years, his wrists and ankles and this time even his waist and neck restrained, his wings pinned down at three strategic points each; pierced through both his faux-elbow and faux-scapula tendons - and just below his faux-wrist, at the juncture of his sorry, scraggy flight feathers and vestigial thumb and finger bones.
It hurt, though his current owners most likely didn't get it. They never did. To them, wings had no nerve endings. They were just like hair, to be tugged and plucked and tugged some more. Oh, he'd put up a worthy fight as usual, though it had cost him what little strength he'd kept in reserve; and he now spent the remaining chunk of his fight or flight energy numbing himself mentally and physically, practically watching his limited coinage clinking away through gaps in the rock face.
This sucked. He didn't dare move, for fear of ripping through his chronically damaged wings, or even for fear of being clipped. Now, that was a constant threat. He'd been clipped more than once, sometimes down to the quick, and his attempted escapes after a clipping generally resulted in him landing on his ass, and staring down the tiller of a crossbow. The beatings that generally ensued made him cringe to this day, and subsequent threats of amputation still haunted his dreams to the extent that he often woke up screaming.
He trembled. There was no way he could live without his wings. None. He often dreamed of flying, of soaring, only to somehow end up bogged down in mud, entangled in vines and detritus, his pursuers never far behind, clomping their way towards him, wolves set loose then slavering at his neck, letting him know with a snarl and a glower that if it wasn't for their masters, he would be instant kibble. He'd pretty much clammed up every time after a nightmare like that, which sometime brought about even more beatings for being dull-witted.
Escape attempts before an imminent clipping only meant he would be shot down, just as he'd claimed the sky. It was worth it. Mostly. Even if he'd managed to escape his captors, his tormentors, there was nowhere for him to go, though the sky beckoned him like a fickle lover. But what was the point? He would be alone. Always was, always would be. He could maybe fully claim the sky, but he could never, ever share it with another living soul. After all, he was a freak.
Yeah, well. So be it. Jaan sniffed, and wiped away stray tears with the heel of his hand.
They had named him several times over the years, though he was more often than not just plain It. He vaguely remembered his birth name, something raw and weeping to hang onto, though it had transmuted over the course of time.
Jo'uhn.
Yeah, that was it, though that didn't carry well with many of his owners, especially those who didn't have a J in their alphabet. He'd been Zhahn, J'n, and even Yaaghaaghaagh by some sloth-like creature that articulated even slower than it moved. Wow. Easy pickings. Performing for them was a blast. All he had to do was clamber up and down some trees, over and under, and swing, maybe even jump for joy, do some push-ups, some sit-ups, dazzling them with his own natural speed and agility or even his exercise regimen, and the crowd… absolutely almost didn't fall asleep before he was done. They could barely track him visually in any case. Breakneck stuff for these guys. Yeah, those were the good ol' days, when he did nothing but build up his strength and recuperate… in - Between.
He struggled against being creeped out by the latest species that had claimed their sick ownership of him. Moles. Damn dirty moles. Stocky, two-legged creatures about a head shorter than him with sloping brows, beady eyes, long snouts, sharp claws, and brown, velvety fur.
He was deep underground and in deep shit. Crap. Now he was even further away from the stars. He had to keep his hopes up. Stay positive. The one mole, who'd chosen him above a cool bunch of prancers, seemed kind enough, concerned even, but the other, pissy-looking one, would be after his blood if he didn't do whatever might be required of him. He knew that look of old. There was a definite glee in his eyes. Yep, that mole was a total bad-ass.
As he lay there, freezing his own ass off, chest heaving in anticipation, Jaan reluctantly recalled how he was once kept in an underwater, air-filled tank by some bunch of sentient, telepathic sharks, and sent to the surface either to relieve himself or to retrieve tree rats for them, a long, sturdy chain clamped around his ankle. This he willingly did, as those damn sea monsters had a nasty look in their eyes that told him he'd be their next meal if he didn't come up with the goods. It wasn't that the ocean lacked bounty. Far from it. It was more to do with variety. And he was said variety. They'd fed him fish and seaweed, which was fine by him. It even fattened him up after almost a year with nothing but foraged fruit and nuts, supplemented in desperation by grass, when he was owned by egg-laying pigs who kept him around to muck out their nursery, and tend their grubby little hatchlings. After being tossed nothing but hay for days on end during their weaning, even those piglets looked like they tasted good. He'd then accidently cracked open a newly laid piglet egg when he fain- passed out on it, slurped up the contents even as they leaked away into the mire, and had incurred a thrashing that almost had him wishing he'd never need to stand up on two legs ever again. In fact, he didn't even take the time or trouble to haul himself upright.
He woke up in a sale pen.
By then he'd craved meat pretty much in any form, and his purchase by those smart sharks, though terrifying, gave him enough sustenance and energy by way of primary protein and fish oil to attempt an escape. He'd used the tree rat hunt to eat fruit on the run, and to search for rocks in the vicinity, to break the chain, finally stumbling upon one after some hundred forays, and hauling it back to the tree by his point of ingress/egress on the shore. He planned on revisiting the rock on his very next foray, and hightail it out of there. Trouble was, the greedy sharks hadn't appreciated his delay in returning with their lunch, and had stuck him half-submerged in a tank complete with electric eel. He didn't think anything could hurt that bad, but he was wrong. It'd latched onto his chest, leaving him with a feeding scar just above his sternum. They'd sent in a disciplinarian to chew up his wings when he dared to stare up at them in defiance. Then they sold him on. He guessed they'd grown tired of their tree rat diet, and had gone back to their fishy staple for a while.
In a nasty twist of fate, Jaan was subsequently bought by the very tree rats he'd been forced to hunt. They merely made his life a misery. He was of no real use to them as they were adept at finding their own food, but they weren't so hot at providing their own entertainment. He'd been cheap because of his then useless wings, and had been traded by the sea-going gluttons for a one-shot meal of some spicy snake stew laced with extract of prune. He later heard they'd crapped their own watery habitat for days on end. He guessed vengeance was sweet.
But short-lived.
He had nothing left to him then bar lick his wounds, and take whatever punishment the tree rats cared to mete out. It usually involved being randomly hauled out of his cramped cage, and beaten senseless. On sunny days, he'd flap his wings, dash off some aerial stunts, building up strength, though as ever his flights were hampered by a chain around his ankle. It entertained the tree rats, keeping most of them off his case. When he was lucid, it gave him time to think.
Mostly, when it rained or froze or the days were short, he would think morbid thoughts as he sat in a miserable huddle, his wings wrapped around him protectively, and hope to wake up dead some day. When the sun came out, warming his battered body, he would spread his wings, and daydream as he basked in those welcome, warming rays, imagining himself… Elsewhere.
But where was this Elsewhere? Where had he come from? He remembered nothing beyond having been content once. Happy. Surrounded by love and comfort, even if he was a freak. Whoever they were, they'd accepted him for what he was. Yeah, in his dreams. His memory didn't serve him well, and he'd maybe conjured up endless welcome images, to the point where he no longer knew truth from falsehood. He imagined the thwap of many wings, the joy of flight and the exuberance at being above the land with his own kind. He didn't dare hope that the sound and sight might be a memory and not just a flight of fancy, that he wasn't alone after all. He berated himself for wishing freakdom on others, just so he wouldn't be the only one.
Jaan remembered he'd done something seriously, incredibly stupid when he was a fledgling. From far above, he'd seen something flailing before some weird vertical well, and had broken some imagined formation. It was a creature in distress. It went under. Or - through. But - he couldn't let it drown!
Jaan dived in, only to come out into a dismal, frozen wasteland and not a body of water after all, and was instantly wrestled to the ground by a dozen lizards pretty much twice his size. Where had the water gone? He bitterly recalled that the well was in reality only a thin slice of water; a shimmering, blue mirage. He'd let the exhilaration of gliding on thermals lull him into believing he was invincible.
He'd been dragged through endless vertical wells after that, and the years had shambled by. There would be no rescue. Maybe the creatures he once lived with were happy to shake off their wayward burden, wishing they'd exposed him at birth. Maybe they'd shoved him through the well on purpose to either sink or swim rather than peck him to death as an outcast. Whichever way, he was no longer their problem. He had to save himself. He'd been trying and failing ever since.
Jaan was shaken from his sorry musings by the excruciating clatter of claws on rock bed. How solid was this place?
"Sluice it down."
Uh oh. The bad-ass mole. He was ordering around a female.
"Pim Waarul, I should like to clean it up while it remains docile. Gently. It's hurt, and weak from lack of sustenance, and possibly even a chronic sickness. You must have realized by now it wasn't treated well. Most likely it never has been. It's up to us Kandians to - "
"It. Refused. Worms. Worms! What kind of creature turns its nose up at that kind of fare? It's been spoiled. I want the thing to know its place. You can fix its injuries once it's clean, but it can't get clean with you dabbing at it in that prissy manner of yours. Oh, and I want it performance-ready by ninth candle."
"You can't do that to it! And I can only surmise that it cannot stomach worms per its species or per its continued illness! You are too quick to second guess, Waarul; too quick to judge!"
The female grabbed a fistful of mole chest fur, and twisted. Jaan winced.
"Why my littermate threw in his lot with you, I shall never know. He is a good-hearted soul, even if his allegiance is misplaced. He missed his vocation. He might well have been a vet like me, and we might have been partners, he and I. I can only surmise you have some hold over him that I have yet to discern."
The one called Waarul inhaled sharply, then growled. Uh oh. Was the lack of polite address a slight upon him? Or was it the female's insightfulness? Jaan cringed, and looked away, hoping to avoid bearing the brunt of the mole's ire. That's the way it usually went with infighting. Take it out on the unfortunate slaves by beating the crap out of them. He almost wished for the once harmonious lifestyle of the seals of Mardol. Life was weird but easy then, until the walruses invaded their territory. Then Jaan wasn't quite the cute pet they all loved to caress with their gentle flippers. Gentle? Hah! Tell that to his sorry carcass. They took it out on him, whupping his ass and then some, taking their flippers to him like paddles, until he bled all over their pristine, white sandy beach, which irked them even more.
When the sea lions took sides, turning the tide of war, the seals sold him on to buy much needed weapons. That was the only time he actually met something like his own kind. The Horgo. They weren't winged, but at least he could force himself to feel like he belonged for a while. They smiled and shed tears. As did he. Wow. It was a first for him, but not for them. They didn't care that he had feelings. He didn't want to think about what they did to him just for fun. Not now, not ever. They were especially creative. It made his entire body ache and jar with the memory of it. He never wanted to see another screwdriver ever.
Then came the fluorescent, nocturnal Vithian bees. He'd been pathetically hopeful there after the distaster with the Horgo. They'd had something in common. Wings. But he couldn't understand their orders, their constant, angry buzzing, and he stood there, wide-eyed, looking and feeling like an idiot. He'd fumbled in the dark, unable to get any kind of handle on his duties. So they'd stung him repeatedly in his upper arms and thighs. His limbs had been useless for days.
Then they sold him on.
Every time caused him to quake, though he maintained his defiance as best he could. What else did he own? Not a single, solitary thing. Not even his own body. No, wait! Whatever he was, he still owned his own wretched heart and soul. His memories? Not so much. They'd been twisted. Wrecked. Pretty much beyond recognition.
His current owners continued to chitter and squeal in the background. Whatever. Jaan kept quiet. Talking made no difference. The fact that he was prone to surly outbursts only exacerbated his situation, making his owners believe him to be cunning. Which he was. It just never got him anywhere. He wished he hadn't opened his fat mouth here in front of these moles. And now, the male was about to strike the female, and he, Jaan, couldn't do a thing to help her.
"Sow!"
"Worm!"
"Ah, does that not make me delectable, Pim Karrowin?"The male licked his lips.
"Then allow me to rephrase, Pim Waarul. Wormcast!"
A growl began deep in the male's throat, and reverberated around the cavern. Jaan clenched his teeth, his eyelids, his fists, and just about anything else remotely clenchable. This was not going to end well. That thought was corroborated by the familiar crack of a whip.
"Release it, then. I intend to drive it into the waterfall."
"Alone? Where, pray, is my littermate? He was meant to be here by seventh candle!"
"He lies drunk on the tavern floor, wench! Now do you finally comprehend the hold I have over him? I bought him years ago! I funded one of his many sordid habits! He is mortgaged to me! I own your witless littermate as much as I own this miserable thing, and whatever is his, is mine! Whatever he craves, I dispense! Where is he now? When here you stand, so vehemently defending his ill-chosen purchase! Was he not supposed to assist you? Answer me that!"
"I - "
"Whatever he loves, I provide or deny! And I choose to deny him this avian!"
"Why, Waarul? Why?"
"He long ago denied me access to something I yet desire, citing me unworthy."
Jaan watched fearfully as the male scent-marked every damn surface, even the slab he was lying on.
"Of what, Pim Waarul? Of what?"
"You, Karrowin. You."
So, now he was some pawn in some mole tryst? Jaan was spent. Even lying there drained him. It sucked. He felt himself being unbuckled, being yanked up by one arm, then being flung onto the rock bed. Ow! That jarred his wrists and knees, sending a jolt all the way to the tips of his wings. He flapped them, lifting himself a fraction and taking the pressure off his other four limbs. He barely had the strength to maintain even a brief hover.
His wings were shot. He knew it, he bet they knew it, too. Their toy was broken. Despite the prospect of ending up clean for once, he couldn't move his sorry ass towards that waterfall wherever it was to save himself from a thrashing. Mentally he was prepared for whatever came his way, but physically, he'd never felt so bad. Something was wrong. His head was spinning. His limbs were quaking. His wings were juddering. Was he sick? He couldn't afford to get sick.
Aw, crap.
Jaan sank to the floor.
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A/N - heads up - our boy is extra speshul...
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