Guess who doesn't have common sense...This guy.
Alfred blinked and suddenly collapsed when he felt his brother cut the connection so suddenly. Nat blinked and reached to pull one of his wings straight before he could land on it wrong. "Are you alright?" she asked him quietly. Alfred gave her a shakey nod. "Y-Yeah...I just wasn't expecting him to cut the connection so quickly. That and I feel a little drained," he said.
Nat frowned. "There has to be a way to get rid of the pendant...Maybe you can't pull it out but it might be enchanted so someone else as to do it," she said. Alfred got up and pulled himselves over to the bars. Nat reached through the bars and wrapped her fingers around the pendant before pulling. Alfred felt a surge of electricity go through him painfully. Nat hissed and jumped back about three feet.
"Are you okay?" asked Alfred, sagging against the bars. He felt even worse than before they tried to pull the pendant off. She nodded, crawling back over to the cell door. "I'm fine...my fingers are just a bit burnt. I guess we learned that that's a bad idea," Natalia said. Alfred sighed. "I guess...How is it that he can do this though? Humans don't have magic. At least, none of the normal humans I know," he said.
Natalia frowned. "He claims that he's a shaman...a magical leader for a group of humans," she said. Alfred sat straight up, eyes wide. "What?! What is he?" he asked. "...A shaman. He said that his position allowed him access to rare magic books and spells us avians wouldn't have ever heard or dream of. One of them is supposed to allow him to get Ivan his wings back and the other supposedly created the pendant," she said.
"What's his name…?" swallowed Alfred. She was watching him carefully now. "Alecai. That's the name he gave us anyways. It's not like I really trust him, to be honest," she shrugged. Alfred rubbed his head. "T-That's the shaman, the elder, of the village next to us. H-He always seemed like a nice guy, b-but I guess that explained why our village elder told us to make sure he never knew about my wings," he said.
Natalia frowned. "He wouldn't have known about you….this all started when you were younger….maybe before you were even born." To be honest, she didn't know just how old Alfred really was. Alfred shook his head. "No it all makes sense. Villagers weren't allowed to talk to outsiders about me or Mattie. I couldn't show my wings to strangers or anyone outside the village. Our elder made certain of that."
Nat frowns. "Maybe he saw that there was something wrong with the other shaman, elder, whatever you want to call him. ...He was pretty unhinged after you and your brother got away. Mabye Alecai slipped up and let soemthing out. That, and if he decorates his old hut the way the upstairs is decorated, there's no doubt that he hunts avian," she said.
Alfred frowned. "He isn't in charge of the village anymore...There was something that happened and he was pushed out. I-I don't know what it was. He and a whole bunch of people were exiled from their village and banned from entring ours. No one would tell me why. It happened a year or two after they found Mattie and I," he said.
Natalia frowned. "He must have gone nuts or something. Alfred...Does your village elder know magic or anything?" she asked. Alfred nodded. "He's the only human who has access to the ancient books. He doesn't use it that often, only when it was absolutely necessary. Why are you asking?" he said.
Natalia rolled her eyes. "Don't you see? There's no telling how long you have before that pendant starts to seriously drain you or worse. We need to get out of here before that happens. We would need someone who can take off that pendant. Your Elder would be our best bet. You think you can help us find our way there?" she asked.
Alfred blinked. "We?" he asked. Natalia rolled her eyes again. "You really think I would just let you roam the forest by yourself with that thing poisoning you. Setting you free would be pointless. You'd just die or get recaptured. I'm going with you to make sure all of this finally ends. It'll be you, me, and Irunya. Ivan is out on another mission, he'll come when the shaman beckons," she said.
Alfred nodded. "Any chance we can get Mattie's wings back while we're at it? ...I don't want this to go to waste," he said. Natalia snorts. "Are you serious? That's a suicide mission in your state. Irunya and I are probably going to end up having to carry you there halfway through," she said. Alfred glared at her, looking a bit offended. "Of course I'm serious. I didn't get beat up and caged just for kicks and giggles," he said.
She sighed and touched his arm. "Your flock is coming for you, yes?" she said. Alfred hesitated before nodded. "Let them get the wings. It'd be hard for us to be able to escape from upstairs, especially since Irunya hasn't flown in awhile. If we escape just us, it'd give your flock one less thing to worry about. You'd be rescuing my sister, possibly even my brother, by helping us get out of here," she said, appealing to his hero complex.
Alfred sighed. "You really think so?" He was quiet as he thought what she said over. "I guess you're right. How are we getting out of here?" he asked. Natalia smirked. "I was thinking a full jail break. I know you're getting a little drained, but if I help you do you think you can help me knock out that tiny window up there and some of the cinderblocks around it," she asked. Alfred grinned and nodded. "I just need something to knock them out with, he said.
Natalia grinned back before leaving and returning with the key. "We have to be quiet while we do it. Go ahead and try to find something to knock out the basement windows while I free my sister. We just need a hole big enough for us to wiggle through one at a time. It's still early enough that he'd still be sleeping. He says the magic wears him out," she said.
The cell door slid open letting Alfred to be able to walk into the living space Natalia had called home for who knows how long. Alfred followed her to the other side and watched as she squated down at the other cell door and spoke in a gentle voice. "Irunya, we need to leave. We're finally going to escape this place, me, you, and Big Brother," said Natalia softly. There was a whimper and a series of whispers too soft for Alfred to make out.
"You think you can still fly? We're going to need to make good time okay? I might need your help getting the other prisoner out of here. Vanya is going to meet us later. He wants us to get out of here before the fight he and some other flocks are planning. We must go," said Natalia, throwing in a coulple of tiny lies in attempts to ensure her sister would leave with them.
Alfred found a nice mop which, once he ripped off the fabric part of it, served as a nice metal rod. The door flew open to the cell as Natalia was given a bear hug by her brother. "Vanya is going to meet us later? You promise? I don't want him to get hurt by that horrible man," she said. Natalia nodded. "I promise. We need to go. Now," she said cooly.
With that her sister turned and noticed Alfred. "Is this the other prisoner who we're escaping with?" she asked. Natalia nodded. Alfred grinned and held out a hand. "Nice to meet you miss. I'm Alfred. Alfred F. Jones. We're getting out of here and rende-vouzing at a nearby village. I know someone who can help all of us," he said. Irunya hesitated. "...More humans?" she asked.
"They're good people. They exiled Alecai to begin with and raised my brother and I. They'll help us. They're still my family," said Alfred. Natalia gave her sister a reassuring nod. Irunya smiled. "Then I'm sure this will all turn out alright. How are we getting out of here?" she asked. Alfred held up the rod. "With this and a broken window," he said.
The trio walked back into Alfred's cell and watched as he thrusted the rod at the window. The window immediately cracked. With another blow, it finally shattered and Alfred used the rod to knock out the broken glass. Natalia frowned. "The window's still not wide enough for our wings. The cinderblocks are crumbling around it. Think you can break them up?" she said.
Alfred rolled his eyes. "Duh," he said before hefting the rod once more. Cracks formed but nothing started curmbling. He frowned and tried a few times, finally getting chunks to fall away from the window. Natalia sighed. "This is taking too long," she huffed before taking the other end of the rod and helping him break up the stone bricks.
Alfred made a face but decided that her help was making quick work of the stones. After a few minutes, they managed to finish. "Nat, you go first and let us know if the coast is clear. I'll boost you up before I boost your sister up. That sound good?" he asked. Natalia nodded and watched as Alfred cupped his hands. She climbed up onto his hand, careful not to jolt his injured arm, and used his boost to grab hold of the windowsill.
Natalia manged to wiggle through the hole and peak around. "It's clear." Irunya was boosted up next, grabbing the windowsill before her sister helped pull her through. "Your turn now Alfred. Irunya and I will pull you up," whispered Natalia. Alfred nodded and jumped up, using his wings to give him a boost up. Once the girls had a hold on his good arm and he had a good foothold on the wall, they pulled him through.
"Thanks girls," he whispered to them when he was finally able to crouch by the opening they made. "What now?" asked Irunya. Alfred frowned. "We get out of there...but I may have kinda forgotten about the fact that this place as a lot of traps around it," he said. Natalia rolled her eyes. "I figured as much. Ivan usually uses the main one that the shaman has where he can watch Vanya's comings and goings. Vanya, however, clears a trail for me whenever we get a new prisoner," said Natalia.
Alfred raised an eyebrow. "You know where exactly that trail is?" he asked. "Of course I do," huffed Natalia, "Vanya marks the trail with sunflowers. We just have to follow them out of here," she said. Alfred frowned. "How do we know the shaman hasn't caunght on to this yet?" he asked. Natalia smirked.
"His traps aren't removed. Just avoided or disarmed. Ivan marks out the best way to get out and tells me what traps there are to look for and how to take care of them. I pass the information on to the escapees. Alecai can get bigger and better traps or as many traps as he wants, but since Ivan is the one who does the dirty work of putting them in place, it's pointless.
"He doesn't think Ivan would do anything that might jeapordize him getting his wings back or that might put Irunya in danger. What that bastard doesn't realize is that Ivan hates hurting other people just because he's told to. If he could get them away without them getting hurt or worse, he'll do it. Now, enough talk. We should get going before we get spotted. Vanya told me that the newest entrance is by that pine tree," said Natalia.
Alfred nodded. "Stay low and out of plain sight. Hurry to those trees," he said. Both girls nodded, Irunya looking a little afraid. Natalia sighed and pulled her sister behind her, the two of them quickly shuffling over to the pine trees. Once they were hidden by the branches of the tree, Alfred took a good look around to make sure the coast was clear and followed them.
Once they were hidden behind the tree, Alfred stretched a little. "Okay, are we looking for actual sunflowers, carvings of sunflowers, or sunflower seeds or something?" he asked. "All of the above. If there's a carving, we don't go that way because that trail has already been used. We're looking for patches of sunflowers, or piles of sunflower seeds, with no markings near them. After that, we keep an eye out for any traps until we find the next sunflower," said Natalia.
Alfred nodded before giving her a curious look. "Why sunflowers though?" he said. She frowned. "What do you mean?" "Why does he use sunflowers to mark traps?" he asked. "Vanya loves sunflowers. Sunflower seeds are his favorite snack. Alecai gives him the seeds to munch on when checking traps to try to keep Vanya from getting mad at doing the mans dirty work. Vanya figured they'd make a good inconspicious marking for a trail," said Irunya with a slight smile.
The plan isn't going according to plan. Oops
With the teams set up, Arthur and Francis started rummaging through the cave, looking for all the weapons they could find. Antonio also pitched in, flying back to his own stand where he sold battle axes. The Spainard also went to other nearby flocks asking if they had any extra weapons laying around.
Sylvia made Gilbert watch Matthew while she gathered bandages and salves for a first aid kit, which she forced Francis to bring with him. Tino helped Gilbert and Mathais sharpen any dull blades on the swords, knives, and axes Francis, Antonio, and Arthur find. The older Kirkland brothers were searching through the various spell books looking for any attack spells or potions that may be of help.
Matthew sighed as he sat and watched everyone. He felt completely and utterly useless. He wasn't contributing anything, especially since his head was starting to throb so badly that he couldnt' concentrate enough to contact his brother. This fact was something that bothered him a lot because he felt like there was something about his brother that was bothering. He just hoped his brother wasn't pulling any stunts or anything to try to get under his captor's skin.
Sylvia glances at her brother. "I'm sure Alfred is fine. I can go see if Arthur has a salve for you headache or something," she offers. Matthew shakes his head. "I'm fine...just worried. I just don't want anyone getting hurt," he said. Gilbert grinned. "Don't worry about it. Antonio said that if anything happens, the other people who loaned weapons are willing to come in and kick major booty," he said.
Matthew looked confused. "That's great and all...but why exactly is everyone so eager to help my brother and I? We have been gone for almost fifty years. And from what I've heard from Antonio and Arthur, and Arthur and Francis, there's some flocks who don't exactly like ours. Why risk their lives for us?" he asked, finally asking a question he'd been wondering for the longest time.
Gilbert grins. "Hey, we all fight. I mean, we're all centuries old, at least most of us are. When you're stuck with the same group of people for that long of a time you tend to get at each other throats. But when there's something wrong or something major goes down, we'll help each other out. That's especially in this case when it was a couple of fledglings with no defense. Ooh, and the fact that Ivan was involved got a whole bunch of people curious," he said.
Mathias looked up from where he was sitting with Tino. "And the fact that we now know that it was a human organizing all of this the whole time, and not Ivan, mans we got to get involved before anyone else gets hurt. When we thought Ivan was in charge of all this, we were sure that would make it almost impossible to stop him without people getting seriously hurt," he said.
"The fact that a human is doing all of this guarantees that we all have to get invovled because it's a threat to all of us. Who knows how many people he's told? It's forbiddened to let any humans get invovled in avian affairs. Heck, it's forbidened to let humans know about our kind. If we interact with them at all, we keep our wings covered," said Gilbert.
Matthew blinked. "What does that mean for the village that took Alfred and I in? There were humans there that knew about us," he said. Gilbert shrugged. "We'll probably hold a summit or something to try to figure that out. I don't know. That's something my brother would be able to answer. He tends to arrange those meetings," said Gilbert, shrugging.
Sylvia jumped in. "If they're as kind as what you said, I'm sure they won't be harmed or anything. There's really no reason to worry about them, especially since they took care of you two when none of us were able to," she said. Gilbert threw an arm around Matthew. "Don't worry. We'll take care of all this. You just focus on not throwing up on your sister," he said.
Matthew's face turned red as Sylvia scooted away. "H-How did you know I was feeling that sick?" he asked. Gil shrugged. "Syl's my mate and right now she's focused on how you feel. And yes Syl, you should probably get him a bucket. And ginger tea. I don't think beer will fix this," he said. Sylvia sighed and got up to go find those things.
Arthur walked over to his brothers. "You guys got enough potions made? Need any more jars?" he asked. Allistair rolled his eyes and threw an arm around his brother. "Don't worry lad. We'll get Alfred back. You can stop trying to micromanage us now," he said, giving his youngest brother a slight nuggie.
Arthur sputtered and squirmed out of his brother's grasp only to have a certain Irishman wrap his arms around him from behind. "Ah, Artie's coming to his brothers for comfort. It's enough to bring tears to my eyes!" he said. Rhys snorted. "You keep talking like that and I doubt he'll do it again. Let him go Reiley," he said. With a huff, Reiley released the now flustered and beet-red Englishman.
With all three brothers grinning at him, well, Rhys was smirking at him, Arthur could feel his face get hot. "J-Just...bugger off you arses," he said. Reiley grinned and ruffled his hair. "I love it when we make him all flustered. But in all seriousness, we're going to get Alfie back and we're getting Mattie his wings back. We're taking that shaman bloke out and then we're coming back and having what Alfie was calling a kegger," said Reiley.
Arthur rolled his eyes but found himself relaxing a bit. "Just as long as you keep the young ones out of the booze. But the potions, are you almost done? Are you sure we have enough?" he asked. Allistair held up a bag full of small round jars. "Aye, we have plenty. Enough that everyone should have at least three. The four of us will have a few extra jars on them, however. Everyone else is just getting the simpler potions that won't blow up or kill anyone if mishandled," he said.
Arthur nodded. "Good job. I gather everyone together and distribute them in a second. Before that, however, I need your help adding more wards and strengthening the barrier. I don't want to have to worry about those here while we're off. That, and I don't want to make it at all easy for anyone othere than us to be able to get in and out," he said.
The four brothers quickly agreed on which wards should be done and who should do them before flying off to different parts of the cliffs to start building up the barrier and apply the wards. Francis watched them as they flew around. "Once they finished builidng up the barriers, we'll need to help recharge them and be ready to fly. Tino, you and Mathias finished sharpening all of the weapons?"
Tino nodded and he and Mathais started passing out weapons, making sure that those who were staying behind also had a fitting weapon. Arthur nodded at everyone there. "Alright men. We'll take two separate routes. The wing group will come in from the north, that way he can see you guys coming. Two of you should be willing to fight while the other attempts to get the wings. The second team will come in from the south and sneak through the back," said Arthur.
"Oui. That sounds like a good idea. Listen up. If anything happens, get Alfred out of there first. He is our priority. While I would like to get Mathieu his wings back, Alfred's safety is more important," said Francis. Arthur nodded before a hard look got into his eyes. "And if you see any hunters, don't worry about leaving behind survivors. If you can leave Alecai to me, I'd greatly appreciate. But if it can't be helped, be sure to kill him. I don't want him to ecape without facing whtat he did to my flock," he said.
They all nodded and Antonio turned to Gilbert. "If anything happens, Francis or I will try to make contact with you. If we say we need backup, it's up to you call Ludwing. Tu hermano is organizing our plans B through Z. Don't be surprised if he stops by to check on you. He seems a bit worried about you and Sylvia. If you two need help, call Ludwig," said Antonio.
Gilbert got up and hugged Antonio and Francis. "Don't worry about me and the others. We'll be fine. Tino, Mathias, and I have been in our fair share of scruffles. And Sylvie and Mattie are tough birds. Just the other day Sylvia almost made Sadiq cry when he insulted her cooking. That and Elizaveta taught her how to spar," he said.
"We'll be fine. You guys just look after each other and try not to get hurt, okay?" said Matthew quietly from where he was sitting with his sister. Arthur and Francis both gave him a hung. "Do not leave the barriers. Don't come after us, no matter what you hear. Your brother will be fine. We'll make sure that he comes back safe," said Arthur. Francis nodded, kissing the top of of Mattie's head. "You just focus on getting better," he said. With that, both groups flew away.