~Falkner~
Inspections day… it all came so fast and I was so unprepared that the world seemed to be crumbling in on me all at once. I had lost Morty, I had broken another beam in trying desperately to fix an already broken one, and I had lost it over and over again, hearing those footsteps in my house and even cursing at my father, damning him to hell even though I hadn't the slightest clue where he was at the time. All I knew was that he was there, somewhere, watching me because I could feel his eyes boring into my back as I worked, silently scolding or praising me I would never know… but he was there.
I had called him a fucking natural disaster and told him to fucking leave me the fuck alone because at the very least I should be able to freak the fuck out in peace… only an hour later I recoiled and apologized to my dead father—hoping he could hear me—and tried to move on with my life. By this time the inspector had come as well, and actually kicked me out of my gym while they did their work because I was so quick to make promises and give them excuses for why this place was falling apart. It was hell to have to walk out on my gym, and the only thing I could think of to get my mind off of it was a strenuous activity that would keep me focused.
I found myself in the largest field outside of Violet city—not the one I usually went to with my father's grave—and I had gathered all my equipment to try and break the everlasting Renegade. I thought maybe if I did I could have a piece of myself back… or at the very least not feel like I was drowning in failure. I wanted to know that I still had it in me.
"Zephyr, stay out of the way." I plopped the pudgy pokemon down on a small boulder. "Watch after Lego."
The musical little song bird named Legato had filled my house with lovely music in the last few days, making things bearable as I worked, just barely holding on while every tweet felt like a nail being driven into my heart. I loved the sound, I loved the message she portrayed in a voice that was so unlike any other birds, I loved everything about her and more… however the fact that she was able to twist me into a sprawling mess of emotions because she was a constant reminder of Morty… it truly bothered me. I was at my wits ends, trying to cope with what had happened that night at the league meeting, and all I could do was sit there a suffer because she was just too damn sweet and melodic to ignore. I had even cut her name down to size to fit her utterly adorable ways. For some reason everything iLegato/i rolled off my tongue, it came out as iLego/i on accident, and so it stuck.
The tiny Chatot turned her face up to me, twitching in worry because last time I left Zephyr with any kind of responsibility over her she wound up cowering and hissing at him for trying to mate with her. I was well aware that this may be just a surface scratch though, since I had caught Lego fluffing up her feathers around him once or twice—flirting self consciously in her youth. There wasn't a doubt in my mind that when Lego got bigger and Zephyr got more mature—IF he got more mature—they would be mates.
I beckoned Jake over with a hand as he was scouting ahead, looking across the milky clouds and calling down with loud harsh whistles of excitement. Out of all the birds I owned Jake could fly the highest up into the atmosphere, and he loved to come swooping back down like a bullet as if he was going to perform a trick for an audience watching. I envied that bird's speed and wished he was large enough for me to fly with him because the adrenaline would simply blow my mind.
Pride came over in a the same gesture, flapping his massive black wings with long strokes as he landed smoothly, his shoulders back and chest out because he truly was the most proud bird I had ever raised. His eyes reflected a sudden wicked desire to battle, and I knew that as long as he was ready, Renegade wouldn't stand much of a chance. The Bravairy had put up plenty of fight before, but I knew what to expect now and after weeks and weeks of watching it on what I called a "bird leash", which was basically a loose but hardy wire around their foot as they went on with their daily lives—safely away from the rest of my already trained birds. I felt like all the downtime I had around this bird—though it wasn't much—had created a stronger look into its mind. Renegade was a simply bird despite its obvious hate for humans, and I knew that if I could tap into the reasons why I would soon be able to fly with him.
Mama Bird was laying behind Zephyr and Lego now, her frail bones rising and falling in her old age as she breathed peacefully, though not asleep because she didn't want to give Zephyr the chance to mate with Lego. Mama Bird had been on her baby's tail feathers for the last week, scolding him more than often, pecking at him when he tried to get the Chatot to eat honey with him out of the trees, and then later with other more troublesome things.
Jake landed on my shoulder thickly, crashing into my chest because he was not the best at landing. I gripped him tightly as he pushed his face into my neck, an obvious hug.
"I'm fine buddy." I said to the sensitive bird, who had been by my side more often lately, watching me as if he could sense that something was making my skin crawl. I held him against me for a moment until he scrambled off, bouncing on the ground to Mama Bird's side and looking back at me with his handsome face. This was the first time I seemed to notice just how much the swellow had grown in the last few months. He was a worthy, artful bird and I couldn't be more proud as he settled with the others quietly, leaving the battlefield to be and Pride and Renegade.
The enormous wild bird was sedated in his pokeball right now, radiating an aura of passion and rebellion as I unclipped him from my belt and took a deep breath. There was an obvious mental state of mind I had to be in for this breaking to go right… and I found that the more I thought about it the more I truly WAS ready. It had been so long since me and this bird sparred, and while I had to be kicked out of my house for the inspection, there was nothing better to do.
"Brace yourself Pride." I sniffed curtly, taking a step back and then hurling the ball forward as far as I could, away from my birds where it landed with a thud and burst into a glorious white light, revealing the scarred warrior from Unova. Renegade, disoriented for a mere second, glanced in our direction and screeched one hell of a wail.
I jumped on Pride, settling myself swiftly and taking off with him, laying flat on his back with my hands gripping his shoulders as his wide wingspan stretched our beneath me. The thrill of flight struck me for a brief moment as we ascended, matching the run-away bravairy pace for pace as he also rose to the challenge.
I had brought ropes with me this time, rather than the usual equipment in hopes that I could actually get myself ON the wild bird without him trying to fight Pride. It was probably stupid and more dangerous since Renegade's attention would be more focused on me… but I couldn't say I truly cared. This could be a suicide mission I was attempting… but if all went well I knew that I could bring myself out of this depression for a little while.
Howling eagerly and Pride screeching with me we rounded on the wild bird, swooping in and out while I examined its massive form. Even larger than Pride himself, Renegade was truly inspiring. He was a milky white color, with tints of red and blue and brown feathers here and there, and a wide hooked, scarred beak between his forward fronted eyes. Everything about this bird screamed hunter, and I knew it was the type that would make a meal of smaller birds like pidgeys. Shivering at the thought I righted myself so that one hand was free with a rope.
"Closer Pride!" I held tight as we neared the larger warrior, the two eyeing each other with great hatred. I grit my teeth, adjusting the rope and leaning slightly to the left while Pride hauled to the right for balance.
"You can't win Renegade!" I screamed past the howling of wind in my ears as the two birds suddenly made a sharp turn. I wobbled, gasping and finding that Pride's slick feathers did not help much in this situation. The air whipped between mine and Pride's body for a split second, catching on my jacket and stomping on my stomach as if it was never going to leap again. Pride reverted back as I just barely managed to loop the rope—non-threatening but still strong—around one of Renegade's large talons. The bird screeched an earsplitting sound, echoing through the field from below and dancing through the winter stripped trees.
"BACK UP PRIDE!" I felt my single clutching hand rip out a handful of feathers in desperation as suddenly Renegade was not flying away from us, but flying into us. The tables turned quickly, and I narrowly avoided getting my wrist slashes in a bloody battle between two dominant birds. Renegade caught Pride off guard however, and we descended too quickly, making due for a rough and sudden landing with my hanging on for dear life. I snarled, still gripping the end of the rope that connected the Bravairy to the Staraptor.
My feet had mere a second to touch the ground before Pride was rising like a black fallen angel into the sky again, and Renegade recoiled with a shuddering attack. I wasn't sure just what hit us then, but it felt like a cross between a tornado and death. Feathers flew and blood exploded from my shoulder as a beak snapped the skin back to leave a fleshy pink and spurting wound. I screamed in panic, but was far too sucked into the adrenalin to feel anything. There was no pain as the air fight reached the clouds again.
Vertically in the sky Pride and Renegade battles each other, a fluster of moving and harmful talons while I huffed and puffed, trying to force my lungs to adjust to the sudden altitude and finding it very, very difficult. I tugged on the rope with one arm—my bloody arm—and felt rope burn sizzling under my palm. Had I been a smarter individual I would have brought my gloves for this, but I hadn't expected to be holding the weight of such a creature myself.
My body felt like it was being split in half as Pride jerked one way, flapping madly trying just to keep my steady so I wouldn't fall, and also trying to fight back as Renegade overpowered him in strength. Renegade made the hasty decision to retreat at that moment then it seemed, seeing as though Pride was losing and submitting. This was the worst possible thing that could have happened to me, seeing as though the two immense birds went opposite ways, and the rope hadn't enough slack from where I held it and it was tied around my shoulder—cutting into the wound and making it worse. I gasped as Pride vanished from beneath me, and within an instant I was dangling by my own hands from a rope eighty or so feet in the air, gasping because the numbness of adrenaline wore off and the pain was splitting.
I choked on my own blood as it trickled down from my shoulder to my own face, my legs circling as if they weighed forty pounds each. Though I had never been strong in the shoulders particularly, I thanked my lucky stars that my lanky arms had climbed numerous things before, and even in this situation I was able to drag myself upwards. My bones rattled with effort as I held my breath, avoiding the huge clutching claws of Renegade as my weight dragged him off balance from flight. He was screeching in horror, whirling around and heading back in a large loop. From a ways off I could see where Jake had risen and was traveling like lightening to my rescue.
He was such a docile bird though; I couldn't bear to see his beautiful shape mangled beneath the talons of this beast above me.
"NO JAKE!" I screamed at the swellow. "NO!"
Renegade launched an attack that sent my bird hurdling towards earth in wobbly, disorienting flaps. I was splashes with hot, thin bird blood, my head spinning as I saw Jake crash to the ground, staining the snow a terrible crimson. I cursed, straining and pulling my hand up just enough to latch it around one of Renegade's nails. The bird slashed at me with tits remaining foot, landing awkward blows on the top of my head as I reached up to grab a handful of feathers from the backs of his wing. The bird wailed bloody murder, flipping upside down and splitting the sound barrier in its speed. The air grew tighter in my lungs and before I knew it I was holding my breath, preparing to make the final lurch up onto the bird back.
A familiar screech cut me off however, and from extreme heights I saw another of my faithful birds rising to my rescue. My heart leapt from my chest as I recognized the chestnut bird with graying feathers long before she even reached us.
"MAMA BIRD NO!" I screamed at the top of my lungs as Renegade rounded again, finding its challenger. "STAND DOWN! NO! MAMA NO!"
iNO!/i
I screamed so loud my voice actually cut off, and knowing that the Pidgeot would never stop when her baby was in danger, I did perhaps the most idiotic and stupid thing.
I let go…
Rope zipped out of my fingertips, and blood floated past me in lovely crimson drops as my weight pulled down with the help of gravity. Lovely, painless gravity. I had always imagined birds to be the only creatures able to defy gravity, whether or not it had to do with air pressure and light bones or whatever. I still liked to dream.
Free falling was the second most exhilarating thing I had ever experience—only second to cumming under Morty's hand for the first time. In all honestly it was the equivalence of an orgasm; shaking, withering, crumbling muscle and aches and blood…so much blood that fell as I managed to peek at my gushing, wet shoulder. I would need stitches for sure, but all that could come later… after I hit the ground.
iMama Bird… Mama don't fight for me/i I thought as tears slipped their way up out of my eyelids and glittered past me like bubbles would underwater.
I didn't try to fight free falling in the slightest.
I actually liked it… Only I wished I would grow wings and fly myself, in order to save an innocent life from being lost in a snowy field of blood. My mind settled on thinking of Pride, and where he had retreated to. To Jake who would always be a fearful but brave bird. To Mama Bird… who would die for her baby in a heartbeat.
I thought back to my life as I fell, all of about a split second. Things flashing like lightening because there was only so many memories to be remembered. My neck rolled with the wind, hair wiping past my face in a bloody clumped mess. I thought about my father, and every single word of advice he had given me in this short lifetime we shared together. I thought about how much it hurt when he passed, and how much I wished he had been there every moment of this crazy journey I took to become a gym leader. I thought about how often my mind went back to him and begged for forgiveness to this guilt ridden life I was living. I felt emotions stir inside me that I hadn't in a very, very long time.
I thought about Morty… and how much I loved him and wanted to be with him and how much it killed me to know that I had been the one that ruined what we had together. I thought about the first time he kissed me, and the first time I kissed him. I thought about the numerous times he had made me laugh or called me Sweetheart or begged for sex. I pictured his face in my mind… losing the battle of consciousness to the lifting weight below me.
I must have hit the ground already… I must have lost the battle called life and was rising with an angle to the skies where I would be a bird for the rest of my days. I felt as though I was falling backwards, suddenly, a piercing squeal ringing in my heart and vibrating violently from the depths in side whatever heart beat below me.
The ground was no where beyond my foggy vision now, and all I could feel was blood lapping at the tear in my jacket and spilling over.
Another screech.
Then another, this time pained with agony.
My eyes lolled, fighting the darkness beyond my lids until a flash of chestnut feathers was there again, straining against my limp shape.
Mama Bird hadn't the strength to lift me anymore… there was no logic that involved this to be happening… and yet it most certainly was a Pidgeot below me, and Mama Bird's voice near my ears.
I forced my eyes open into slits, lashes fluttering as a span of wings made for a sprawled out body to lay, carried me in swift movements. We were rising and falling now, descending with the weight of the wind and carefully, ever so carefully touching ground. Mama Bird's face appeared before me, and I suddenly realized that everything I had been thinking was wrong.
Mama Bird had not carried me down to earth, but another Pidgeot had. Certainly not wild… but…
"FALKNER!" I familiar and distant voice called out to me as I rolled into the snowy ground, shaking and fighting in and out of reality. My eyes dodged the faces around me until I could see them looking to the sky where a very powerful Bravairy was making his escape.
I saw Pride out of the corner of my eye, preparing to lunge and bring the bird back to me, so that we could try and break it another day.
"St—Stop." I rasped as Mama Bird pressed her face against my side, breathing heavily in panic. My throat was raw from where my screams had silenced it before. "Le—let him go."
Pride stopped and looked back at me, eyes intense as blood dripped off him in thick blobs. The sight was mortifying itself, and Jake was nowhere to be seen.
"Falkner! Oh shit Falkner!" I couldn't pinpoint just who was calling me, but I knew whoever it was had addressed me at some point before. My head lolled as I watched a mere speck in the sky disappear, knowing that suddenly the problems in my life didn't seem so vital.
The Braviary I received at the beginning of Autumn was no bird to be broken. I understood that now. I understood that it was never going to stoop to captivity. It was a wild spirit; it belonged in the world as a warrior. I swallowed a mouthful of blood and parted my lips to rasp a slight sigh.
I envied Renegade because that's exactly what he was… he was a renegade and he was free. His wings would never be clipped.
My heart ached as a sudden pair of frantic emerald eyes loomed over me, applying pressure to my shoulder wound and panting. The noises around me died out at last, and I lay there in peace with agony wishing that I was free as a renegade.
For the first time I realized that I was far more trapped than I thought I was…
Blackness engulfed me…
And my wings were clipped.
