Author's Notes: And it continues. I'm not sure whether I should be proud of that. -sheepish smile-
Warnings: Janaff abuse.
Cargo- Chapter 2
The sky after the storm was a restless one, littered with a reluctant grey light and the last few trailing bits of blackened cloud.
Ulki watched it from between the branches of the tree he'd taken shelter under, trying hard not to overanalyze the sounds of the world stirring back to life around him.
It was a failed effort, of course; every motion loud enough to be deliberate caught his ears.
The first few wingbeats of a bird he deemed too small to be his partner were taken in by the scrutiny, as were the footsteps of something that careful attention revealed could only reasonably have four legs. Because unlikely as it usually was for Janaff to be walking, today the consideration was one that couldn't be set aside entirely. It was possible, after all, that the younger hawk was simply too tired to fly.
Having experienced the blind fury of the storm himself, it was a feeling that Ulki understood well.
After all, it had been a long time since the king's ears had been exhausted enough to struggle in order to remain standing, but that was the point to which his reserves had been drained. Toward the end, it had been all he could manage to keep aloft, much less determine which direction he ought to be going.
The thought had occurred to him more than once, since landing, that he'd managed to find shelter not through skill or power, but by stroke of raw, unthinking luck. It was an unsettling notion, and not only because Ulki had once told his partner, matter-of-factly, that the role of fortune in daily life was a negligible one and to believe otherwise was a trifle irresponsible.
Janaff had laughed at him, of course- an easy, good-natured sort of sound- but that dismissal so long ago did little to alleviate the part that understood how easy it would have been to be swallowed by the storm.
For either of them.
It was with a reluctant slowness that Ulki at last acknowledged the fact that he truly did need to rest before attempting any sort of search. Restlessness aside- worry aside- he knew logically that if Janaff had survived, the younger hawk must have found shelter somewhere. That he would be safe for now, until one or both of them had recovered enough to seek the other out.
And besides, Ulki reasoned as he settled grudgingly amidst the tree roots, as long as he kept his ears well open, he could search for his partner as effectively from the ground as from the air.
Pain came with the first glimmers of consciousness, a deep, slow throb that made his head feel as though it had been split in two.
It was a hurt sharp enough that, for the first several seconds, Janaff couldn't find the strength to be aware of anything beyond it. He simply lay still, eyes closed, and acknowledged faintly that every time his heart beat, he could feel the pulse in the tremendous chasm that must be running through his skull.
In a distant, half-awake sort of fashion, he wondered whether Ulki would be able to scoop his brains up for him, and if it was likely they'd find a beorc that could use a staff in time to get them properly back in his head. Before he'd determined an adequate answer for himself, however, the surrounding world had decided that it wanted to intrude its way into the pain.
The sound that broke through into his musings was of someone shouting- a deep, angry bellow, muffled by what Janaff could only assume to be distance.
And like it had pulled back some invisible curtain, the noise jolted him the rest of the way into awareness. All at once, he was conscious of the freezing wet of both clothes and feathers; of the fact that he was lying on his wings, and that one was screaming protest at him; of his arms, folded awkwardly beneath his back and aching from the strange position; of the ground below, hard and wooden, shifting in a rhythm that couldn't quite be called steady.
"Ow," Janaff croaked quietly. In that instant, he decided that however much his head hurt, it was worth moving it in order to get the weight off his wing.
The hawk opened his eyes reluctantly- shifted so that he could shove himself into a sitting position.
And discovered a moment later that neither sight nor arms seemed willing to obey.
Because the only thing that greeted his vision was blackness, punctured here and there by tiny slits of grey light, and a dim ache in one shoulder was the sole sign that his limbs gave of having received the request to move.
For several seconds, he lay blinking blankly up at the darkness that greeted him, uncomprehending. It occurred to him then, in a distant, unsettling sort of fashion, that this was a place he didn't know.
And crashing in the heels of that revelation came the memory of the storm.
The effort to rise held a hint of panic behind it this time- the drive of person who, waking from a nightmare, must sit up in bed in order to assure himself that it was only a dream.
But Janaff's arms refused him once more, with a sharp tugging at the wrists, and he only made several inches off the floor before falling back, too weak to rise unsupported. The pain when his head connected with the ground again was staggering- and for a moment he simply lay still, gasping, as he waited for the world to settle back into a place from which he could manage it.
It was only after he could breathe without his skull feeling as though it was going to explode that the hawk set about his goal again- more cautiously, this time.
He tested his fingers first, folding and unfolding them slowly to make certain that they would do as instructed. They didn't seem to be in any pain; were functioning as usual, though they tingled pins and needles at the sudden activity, evidently displeased at having been trapped beneath him.
The wrists came next, a gentle rotation- and before they'd gotten very far, he felt the tug again, a pressure that put a stop to the motion entirely.
Janaff frowned vaguely up into the darkness. Began, gingerly, to feel along the wrist of one hand with the fingertips of the other, seeking out the source of the problem.
When he reached it, the hawk's eyes crept open wider, even as his fingers continued in their search: thick, coarse rope was wound around both of his wrists, a tangle of knots sealing it in place, and a smooth band of what felt like metal lay slightly higher than the ties on his left arm.
It was the voice drifting down to him again, a roar of a demand, that pushed the pieces neatly into the slots where they belonged.
"…that they jumped ship before a storm?" the man was bellowing. "Not even a sub-human is that stupid, you half-wit! Obviously the whole ship hasn't been searched, or you'd have found them already!"
Staring sightlessly up into the tiny grey slits of light, Janaff knew quite suddenly that the speaker was a big man, in plain clothes and with no armor.
The feeling when the hawk's stomach bottomed out had very little to with the unfamiliar motion of the ship.
-end chapter 2-