ORIGIN

It wasn't too often the rickety bridge East built using words fell apart almost entirely. Most who crossed its span might've found their steps unsteady while treading over shaky metaphors, but they reached the other side with a near complete grasp of their conversation partner's thought process. For it to snap and plunge them into confusion was a scenario encountered less than one might expect for a bird speaking with a dialect crafted from his imagination, yet here this had happened twice over. Unlike Bentley, Isra didn't seem lost in an abyss of befuddling wordplay. His feigned carefree probe failed to hook an interesting tidbit from the mind behind that stern demeanor nevertheless. Guess he'd really done little more than wring amusement out of a lady of iron. Suspicions didn't always penetrate to a deeper, darker secret.

He did blink, though, at the unexpected leeway given. A visit turned into an extended stay was a rather generous exchange for a joke and tiny request. "That'll be fine. A couple of days should be the most I need for the move anyway. I'll make sure to keep the air clean; a meal's not much good if you can't keep it settled in your stomach, after all."

The hawk rose to the tips of his toes, then leapt. Outstretched wings caught the air and glided him above Isra—caution, of course, kept him out of easy striking distance of serpent-headed tails. "Lead on. All this chirping's dried my throat out worse than these bones."

Not an exaggeration. For all his clever talk, opportunities to exercise it against a living audience didn't come along much. More than infrequent use of his voice tended to parch it; good thing he preferred witty remarks over executing whole comedy routines, else he'd have choked on his tongue and Orion's dust ages ago.

In offering the choice of the house specialty or a custom order, Isra demonstrated foresight worthy of her role as Palace manager. Much as it would've plucked East's feathers to admit if he'd been remotely privy to her train of thought, in taste he was every bit the backwater bird a cultured Cepheus resident would've assumed him to be. Sautéed, braised, or broiled—among others, these methods of cooking would've sounded little more than the names of obscure rituals. And let's not even delve into the world of herbs and spices; the culinary heathen would've blinked at the mention, plain and raw the only sort of flesh known to slide down his gullet. Being a complete stranger to the purpose and layout of a kitchen didn't mean he was clueless to the attention any task demanded though. On arrival, he perched on the counter furthest from the chef absorbed in his craft, hopefully well out of the way of important preparations.

"That I'll do," assurance was delivered to Isra. An idle remark to her but a request for Nedies' ears as well followed: "A surprise ought to be fun." Of course, it'd be a different story if the surprise happened to be a freak accident or an assassination attempt, but he figured the worst hazard eating could offer was a nasty case of indigestion ravaging his gizzard. That'd be unpleasant, but it was a risk the peckish avian was willing take chances with. If this chef was responsible for the Ball's crowd-pleasing buffet, he'd dodge that pain more likely than not.

Not much use for an alias at this time. With the sheer amount of foot traffic the Palace received, he put high odds on his true name being lost eventually in a sea of other identities. Therefore, despite natural reluctance, he handed over his identity, tone breezy and casual. "My name's an easy enough one to net. It's East, the best direction to travel, if you pardon my bias."

Then, purely to pass the time, an observation headed Nedies' way. "Say, you must keep good track of your hands. Probably have to keep your mind sharp too, otherwise scratching your head would draw blood more than solve a problem."

Knived fingers. East might suffer the occasional headache from his stone, but trading its placement for that seemed a bad deal despite the utility it exhibited.

Watching those snake-headed tails whisk out of sight, he’d be lying if he said their hisses would be missed. To perch in their presence brought about concerning questions, most covering the boundary between true sapience and convincing echoes of consciousness. Vestiges of thought crammed into striking appendages, they should’ve been considered impulse given deadly form, yet that description wavered once accounting for the potential brains housed behind sharp fangs. Could they only copy their mistress’ words, or did an impish and cunning humor lay behind such unsettling mimicry?

Wing held close to avoid tainting the kitchen workspace with a gust of preening powder upon outstretching it, East ran his beak through mildly tousled feathers and groomed them back into sleek form. Nedies, doubtless, was about to dial up the heat for his meal. Not one to be outdone, he increased his charm in turn.

"Brought me over here, didn’t it? Looks like a pretty beneficial route to me: good eating and a little lunch conversation to go with it." For the actual dish, little more than a helpless shrug could be offered though the verbal response following it was at least somewhat encouraging. "Can’t say it won’t work. Believe it or not, one of those foot-thumpers is sooner likely to trample over my bones than me trapping one, so I guess we’ll see if meat’s taste improves with rarity."

Mind he’d been trying to catch rabbits for their pelts rather than to see if they pleased his palate, but the point stood. Enduring the long period of a broken wing being on the mend had affirmed to him the sad fact that master trapper and craftsbird wasn’t his calling.

"Gravy?"

Sounded like being six feet under, but he doubted it meant anything the same unless this part of the meal was quite literally to die for.

A bird as shadowy as the ruins he often lurked in, it likely wouldn’t come as any surprise that, far from waving a colorful banner and boasting hometown pride, a half-beat of hesitance followed Nedies’ first inquiry. While conversation had been light thus far, letting relative strangers know where one rested their eyes most seemed a poor policy for avoiding death. Too bad though. According to the ball he’d attended, already somebody possessed his home address. Any choice he had valuing complete privacy lay well outside of his taloned grasp. He could only determine now whether his shared location would be a detailed map or a vague sketch on a cavern wall.

"Compared to here, no place special. Just a bowl of dust and stonework going by the name Orion." As per usual, the description lacked a tourist’s dazzled compliments. The shine of overhead quartz lost its novelty once exposed to it on a daily basis, not that he’d ever been delighted by its presence to begin with. Stir in the arena occasionally used for bloodsport, and his birthplace appeared quite the family vacation spot. Safe to say familiarity was the sole reason East flew back to the old roost time and time again.

Speaking of which, a solitary life of survival required recognizing predatory glints. Not a single day had prepared him for noticing the unique spark of madness associated with more innocent obsession.

He cocked his head at the culinary term introduced. "No, doesn’t tug at any tail feathers, I’m afraid. I… take it I should?"

This clumsy step slipped right into the vast vortex of knowledge that’d silently opened underfoot. Any struggle against its ceaseless spin would prove futile, clueless remarks the fuel upon which it thrived.

"Military," East echoed, rolling the word around in his beak. It was a new one, organized forces heavy of foot and possessing a strong backhand not the most common of groups he’d encountered in the caves. Nevertheless, "Sounds about right." The rigid syllables upon the tongue didn’t soften any opinion that’d occupied it previously.

For the rest of Nedies’ cooking, he could have been watching an elaborate show as much as simply observing meal preparation. Of course, the main problem was most of the script might as well have been written in a foreign language incomprehensible to his bird brain which had yet to venture beyond the realm of pictograms. The explanation started off reasonable enough, despite the ingredients other than the rabbit meat being fresh, unknown concepts, but then that steadily unraveled into nonsense. Try as he might to pack away some of the terminology into his memory, most were swept away by the unrelenting stream of information before they could even be plucked out for safekeeping. Any clarifying questions were clipped and surface level at best in the rush to present them before one topic swiftly bled into another. Eventually, he settled on observational silence: less effort to let his eyes feast for a while before his stomach could as well.

And while not the most educated bird, this at least he could appreciate in greater measure. If there wasn’t the faint aroma of roasting meat to take in, then there was the effort to combine a variety of substances into a satisfactory whole. After the first few bewildered blinks that answered being granted the opportunity to sample the gravy, East eventually adjusted to the expectation of his own input being important to the process as well. A pity he couldn’t be of much help there though; a bird prone to swallowing his meals on the wing wasn’t exactly one to let their flavor linger.

These little taste tests proved enough to further whet his appetite. By the time the entire plate was assembled, it’d be a falsehood to claim he wasn’t mildly more peckish than before he’d flown into the kitchen. Being a bird of prey, much stock was placed in visuals, and the presentation set in front of him seemed worthy of a long stare. Cubed vegetables delivered bright pops of color to the neutral background provided by the sauce itself, elevating the rabbit beneath it all from a simple slab of meat for tearing apart to something not quite artwork to his eye, but perhaps approaching it.

He supposed the sprig was for added flair, and it did stand out when the rest of the vegetables were so slathered in sauce. That didn’t stop him from giving it a critical eye for a second, ever the carnivore despite tolerating this level of embellishment.

East laughed and wiggled one set of not overly dexterous talons at the offer of cutting up the meal. "That’ll be a yes for you there unless I grow a couple extra toes anytime soon."

Besides the even playing field all the guests at the Spring Ball had been placed on, none large enough to devour the others in a single gulp, that was certainly one alteration he missed: fingers. What they lacked in deadliness they’d made up for in cleverness, and caves knew which he valued more in a tough spot.

While he waited on that, already his attention had been drawn to the wine. After all, his slightly parched throat and the urge to banish a few of the ghastlier thoughts banging about his skull had been the start of him even being here with Nedies. Amidst the clink of cutlery against fine china, he dipped his beak toward the filled glass.

It’d barely been wet when the message was delivered. Definitely morbid when read aloud, but that was a given when dealing with the dead. Not much he could really do to make the matter of carting bones home for later, further in-depth investigation pleasant to others’ ears, so he didn’t bother trying. If anything, being asked whether he’d actually taste the cooking turned out the perfect alternative subject to steer into.

"That’s why I’m here, aren’t I? Those bones may be ready, but I doubt they know how to walk off anyhow."

His piece said, East reached for a section of the smothered rabbit. Once it was situated in his beak, next came resisting the urge to swallow instantly for the sake of his audience of one. He had to savor the first bite or two for at least a few seconds, else risk appearing the rude lunch guest, disappearing them down his gullet like any runt of a mouse he chanced upon instead of portions of a quality dish.

While no gourmet, in his inexpert opinion it was good. Although his taste buds weren’t particularly sensitive to subtle shifts in flavor, it’d take a numb tongue not to detect the blending textures and how they smoothly transitioned into each other. The vegetable chunks’ edges softened under the heavy sauce’s influence, and the rabbit felt softer still underneath, more tender than any animal whose life was dedicated to fleet-footed evasion ought to have been.

East grabbed another bite and paired it with a sip of the wine. They contrasted well, a fact he appreciated with a low hum. "My compliments to you. If rabbits actually slid down my throat this well whole, I wouldn’t have to bother with any of the smaller prey."