One fine summer day
Lena

"Do you know what this is?" Vision was a miracle, these days. He saw it, knew it, but did not move, watching, waiting, while the terrified hawk was held before him. His jailer smiled, grim, grip remaining firm on the poor creature's neck. "It is a raptor, boy. A bird of prey."
He said nothing; he only stared. The pain of watching was unbearable, but he knew he must watch, or cause the bird more suffering. Bright-eyed, it searched the room, trying to escape. He had tried that too.
There was no escape. "It is a fine creature, isn't it?"
Under the weight of his body, pressed up in the small of his back, his fingers twitched, sparking with numb pain. His hands had been bound for days. He wondered if they would fall off. The bird shrieked, shrill, unknowing of the danger that had caught it about the throat; how like him, not long ago. Perhaps that was the point of this little exercise, to show this boy looking up floor, bound, beaten, and broken, his fate.
He had never once talked, only screamed and cried and whimpered, like an animal protesting its cruel master.
"Hey, now. Look here, listen closely. See the wingspan of the bird?" Wonderment seemed to fill his wide, innocent eyes-- still innocent, despite the pain-- and the set of his teeth on his lower lip, mouth barely agape. "It could fly with the dragons, this bird, were it to fly free." The hawk had calmed, now, and only shivered as the man gently held out its wing for inspection. Red and brown and white, it was, a mish mash of muddy colors that reminded him of blood.
Somehow, he understood. The bird was going to die, here and now. It would never fly again. He closed his eyes, turning away, not wanting to see.
A sharp crack preceded the hawk's outraged scream. Wincing, he rolled onto his side and curled into a ball, shuddering as the hawk defied the man who had snapped its wing. Another snap, and a soft thud-- the bird writhed and screamed on the floor, mad with pain, not too far from where he lay.
He wept until the bird's cries ceased.
"Do you understand, Serge?" asked the jailer, voice very soft, as a gloved hand grasped his shoulder hesitantly. He bit his lip to hold back a sob, but it wracked his body all the same, and the dry dirt ground scratched and shifted as his keeper knelt down beside him.
Neither of them said anything, though he was very grateful for this last kindness of company. After a time, he lost the will and the energy to cry, and lay spent on the floor. Some dungeon this was, and some dungeon master. He had known-- perhaps even before they'd taken him prisoner-- what they would do to him and where they would take him, but he still wished, deep in his heart, to know why.
He wondered how he would die, today; for he would never know why.
As if reading his thoughts (chaotic and senseless as they were), the jailer ran one gloved hand through fine blond hair, making more of a mess than there had been to begin with. "The order is to hang you by your wrists above the courtyard," sighing, frustrated, the other young man dropped his head in his hands. "It seems a proper way to kill a bird," came the tortured whisper, while pale eyes of a knight who would never be flashed in the dim of the barn. "To help it fly."
He said nothing; he had said nothing from the moment they'd arrested him, nothing at all. He would die saying nothing, and that seemed to be driving his jail-keeper insane. That hurt him more than any torture, for this man had been-- should have been-- his friend. They both knew that. They didn't want to hurt each other.
Neither had a choice in the matter. "I...I brought something," said the knight finally, unlacing a pouch from his waist. "In case you wanted to...to try to escape, later." Two tiny knives, dangerously sharp and small enough to fit in the fold of one's hand, gleamed on the floor before his face, where the jailer had dropped them.
He watched them, and wondered for a moment if it would be worth this new life, to take them.
"If you don't want to escape, Serge, then I..." the boy faltered, only a boy, not the man that their travels had turned him into. "I just want you to know that I'm sorry, and my name is Glenn, not master, and...and..." A fist hit the floor near his face, startling him. One of the knives jumped into the air; where it came down, neither saw. He shifted, rolling over and attempting to sit up, while the jailer only watched, helpless. "Dammit, Serge, I...please. Just...I want to hear about the other world before you die. I want to know what you did! I want to remember!"
His lips curled of their own accord into a tiny smile. Almost imperceptibly, he shook his head.
Glenn leaned forward, face desperate, eyes pleading. He knew-- it was clear, in that uncertain crease of his brow-- that there had been more between them than could rightly be put to words. He wanted to know the words anyway.
Laughing without sound, resigned to his fate, the boy with innocent eyes and ocean-swept hair twitched his numb fingers one last time, and smiled at his jailer, even as the missing knife sliced through his bonds. There wouldn't be much time to do what he wanted, and he moved back against one of the wooden walls of the barn, lying against it as if weary. Glenn fought tears of some keenly felt injustice, and didn't comment, finally standing back up with an agitated sigh.
This was the moment.
He fisted the knife in his hands even as he brought them in front of himself and slammed hard, up, into his ribcage and further with the force of his failing strength. Several soft snaps informed them that he had, if nothing else, broken his ribs, and he felt the searing, welcome, familiar pain of something like dying.
He wasn't sure if it was really dying, as he hadn't felt really alive since he'd arrived in this strange new world.
Glenn didn't cry out, or move towards him, but watched as reluctantly as he had watched the hawk. He laughed wetly, the blood pouring down his chest and soaking the gray of his clothing. His lungs were full of unfamiliar fluids, and he knew that if he had ever wanted to say anything to Glenn, now was the only time to do it.
"I kissed you that day," he whispered harshly, even as the tiny blade's tiny cut ruptured, while his frantic heart began beating itself to death. Glenn was watching, horrified and frozen. He was glad Glenn was watching; anyone else would have tried to find something to say. "It was summer."
They strung him, already dead, above the courtyard.

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