An experimental pull on his end of the line found no less give than the last attempt. Crossing off one contributing cause for the weight dragging down toes, not much more could be done besides poking at the next possible factor on his list. Where the previous risk had prickled beneath feathers, the newest stacked on top positively curled them—and yet sickening suspicion clung on and rendered choice a sad, sorry illusion.

Another step farther into the flames. He only hoped Bentley’s forgiveness came easy should he be stung twice on another’s no-good, pushy behalf.

"Are you able to pick it up? Or, caves willing, haul it? I can wing off and help guide you out so long as you hold on."

Naturally this would all fall to pieces if his helper did: instructions and a leash were worthless without an attentive ear or the body it attached to.

@Bentley

Bentley stared down, hesitating. He kept his head up and picking the bone up meant putting his head down, but maybe if he held his breath..?

"I'll... try," he agreed, but there was fear in his voice. He didn't really want to do this. He'd rather go back to the library, and curl up by the fire with a book. Adventure was one thing. He'd always wanted adventure but this had felt more like a nightmare.

With a deep inhale he tried to hold his breath, head plunging down with open jaws. It took him a moment to work it into his jaws, which was scary, because he couldn't breathe just then; a moment later his head snapped back up above the flowers. Frightened golden eyes picked East out in the sky, and Bentley began to follow, trusting the bird to keep him safe.

@East

Nerves wracked watching Bentley without being able to do much other than yell down orders and encouragement, but it came to reason that helpless observation couldn’t compare to whatever stress was brought on by conditions on the ground. When the sight of bone within canine jaws peered back at him, then his side of the job began. The vine cued East to end his concern-tainted hover upon slackening slightly due to the newly uplifted status of its catch. A downward thrust of wings returned tautness to the line and provided a pull that’d start the journey out of the field of nightmares. His flight was kept straightforward and even-paced, no fancy aerial tricks included.

Breaking the lead out of a hazardous situation by twisting and straining it to the point of snapping didn’t seem ideal. Furthermore, showing off to the landbound had no place in these circumstances.

Once the authority of good eyesight informed him the worst had passed, accompanied by a more dramatic slackening of the vine in his grip—a definitive all clear—touching foot on land ceased being a tense prospect. He alighted to meet Bentley where he would emerge from the flowers, ready to greet both him and his cargo.

"That’s good. You did great," he declared. It wouldn’t compensate much for the burden the retrieval had set on shoulders, but who knew what the appropriate cost for that truly amounted to. "Now let’s see what trouble we’ve brought out into the light."

Bentley was trembling, and his tail was tucked firmly against his belly. He slinked from the long grass around the tulips, dropping the bone with a haunted glance at East, and moved off some distance. He lay down, then, watching the flowers from afar: still in range to speak with the bat-hawk, but he seemed unlikely to want to, at the moment.

An air of fear shrouded him, his ears pinned and the whites of his eyes still gleaming.

CRIME NOIR

THE FLOWERS

It was cruel, perhaps, that the bone-which-could-be-lassoed was large, thick, and once belonged to a leg.

A leg was, maybe unsurprisingly, unlikely to have much evidence to it. A crime scene as a whole would have granted something; or maybe a skull, or ribs. That is, if there was anything to find.

As it stood, East could make several things out that might provide hints, nonetheless:

This creature had been bipedal at least some of the time. There was no sign of injury to the femur, but it did bear the marks of age: pocked and worn. This age had passed while it was alive. The bone showed no signs of having been gnawed upon or otherwise decayed after death: it had not been dead more than a few cycles.

A keen mind might deduce that the flowers had kept the scavengers away. Or maybe it was something else.

'A look at the full crime scene... was it worth the trouble, the hassle, the time? Would it tell our investigator anything he didn't already know? And what, even, were his options, really..? A gumshoe on the trail of mysterious deaths. Was it worth consulting that old bat in the Palace about the flowers? Or maybe burning the whole field down? Did anyone make a mask that could keep its foul pollen out? Whatever the case, 'ascension' seemed an unlikely fate, here...'

@East

Too much time wading around in the flowers had taken a hefty toll. Whatever nightmares Bentley had encountered continued to flicker in his gaze, phantom residents refusing to vacate the premises even after the field was left behind him. Blame or insult couldn’t be laid on the canine as he wordlessly padded away and fixated on the source of his torment. If roles were reversed, East wouldn’t have expected himself to emerge all smiles and wagging tails either.

He followed Bentley the living sacrifice’s wake for a while, breath sucked in until he witnessed him settling down, body gripped in terror. Only then did an exhale leave, no smart remark or reassurance quick to fill the silence. Those came from a place of confidence, defiance against surrounding hopelessness; in this situation, it lay barren, unable to quite fathom the complexities plaguing another’s mind.

Talons rolled around the bone abandoned on the ground. No other option available, he’d examine what offering up a once cheerful soul to destruction had bought. Looking down, the stab in his gizzard told him it had to be a rip-off.

If he’d been inclined to run a quiz show based off of this corpse’s fate, an undoubted failure would’ve been in his possession. Plenty of questions emerged from the piece they’d managed to secure, yet not enough answers paired with them, most ending up conundrums to add to a growing pile the caves and invisible narrators enjoyed handing off. Well-preserved, the part of the picture he had was unfinished but clear: old but recently deceased. The flowers, while they were seemingly responsible for the perfect condition, also had likely served as a deterrent for more than your average bone-picker. Unless they managed a glimpse from overhead, any potential snooper would’ve never noticed a burial spot, too busy being chased off by pollen-conjured visions to reach the field’s center or notice anything underfoot.

Whoever left this there had the inside knowledge to realize an excellent shroud for their crime. A name and face for this clever murderer? Nowhere in sight. Their victim’s? Gone too, the best chance maybe still in the field alongside the cause of death this femur lacked signs of.

And was there even a connection to the book’s contents or mere happenstance that had brought the body here? Any smart someone could have received a face full of pollen on a jaunt through the garden and eventually determined the culprit of their sudden specters instead of racing after power and glory. Had more cycles worn down the bone, a guess for the mystery victim could’ve been the second-to-last author, killed and robbed of their written guide before even departing for the mentioned tunnel adjoining the ocean cave. Unless the flowers could wind back time as well, however, this relatively fresh kill came across as no fit for any scribbler in the dust-covered, ancient pages.

Old as it was, how many owners less fond of sharing their thoughts had carried around this book before the Narrator dumped it on his head? Had any, writer or not, shared the information and later regretted it?

This thread of inquiry activated a well-entrenched habit whenever feet touched the ground and caution dug talons in. A long-lived Gembound could have a long-lived enemy waiting for opportunity to hand them a coveted object. Better safe than sorry should such wild speculation actually be borne out.

"Thanks for the tip," East muttered. Though the remark was partially dry, finding some of the ongoing narration’s suggestions more than a little foolhardy—Fire? And risk choking on smoke and pollen if an enraged groundskeeper didn’t wring his neck first?—there was at least genuine consideration given to the more reasonable ideas. He supposed that was the point of a Narrator: to offer as many stupendous chances to succeed as there were to eat dirt and pain.

Uncertain of whether any words would be heard or bounced off an unwilling, furred back, he rocked back and forth on toes over trying to approach Bentley. Good-tempered as the dog had proven to be on first meeting him, becoming a chew toy for stress relief didn’t seem impossible, especially not after all he’d been through. Instead he allowed a heaviness to weigh down his feet, letting it be the anchor to base his thoughts around. See if honesty and directness got him anywhere.

"Ben… staying here, you wouldn’t happen to know who this ‘old bat’ is, would you? I think someone in the Palace ought to know that a dead body’s been helping fertilize their garden. Maybe bring the bone along as proof."

He sighed.

"Look, you don’t have to stick around for all the gory details if you don’t want to. You can head back to the library. When I’m done, I can drop in and we can talk about better, nicer things. Like those at-mose-fears you were reading about? How that ties into the weather? Anything you feel like, swear on my stone."

He refrained from voicing a nagging concern. These flowers were grown on palace grounds. Why have them? Who’s to say the staff didn’t have their own sinister uses for the pollen?

@Bentley

Bentley hesitated, staring off at nothing. He turned a haunted gaze on East after a moment, blinking as he tried to focus; he didn't react at all to the Narrator's disembodied voice.

"Um... I don't know any bats," he began, then hesitated again. "Maybe Isra? She is the... boss, I guess. She runs the palace. She is old? But she's not a bat," he added, puzzled at the phrase.

At East's offer, Bentley pushed quickly up, a telltale glance over his shoulder (very like a kicked dog) at the flowers showing his continued unease. He normally wouldn't have just run off. Adventures sounded like fun, and he liked East. But the unsettling fear still churned in him, and being granted permission to bail out sounded too tempting to ignore.

Still, he was uncertain; he took a few quick steps and then blinked back at East. "...Are you sure? -It's okay if I go? You don't need more help? ...I'll be in the library if you do, but... you're sure?" he asked, quiet.

His tone was plantive, though; it was clear he wanted to be gone, far from this hell-garden he'd run into.

@East

More acquainted with isolation than company, any sign of acknowledgement from Bentley after all he'd been persuaded to weather carried an additional effect which took the hawk by surprise. An unnoticed vice grip firm around his lungs loosened the slightest as eyes fell upon him and a quiet response drifted its way over. Voice less liable to crack under strain, East drank in a fresh gulp of air, mindful to keep it shallow in case any scattered pollen had spread from the field in the wake of his canine companion's exit. Odd were any vestiges would be too thin in count to dent psyches substantially, but a mite of caution typically didn't backfire when it came to mitigating potential harm.

"Isra, huh? I'll still need your help bringing this back here for her," he said, a tap upon the recovered bone a gentle reminder of its presence, "but once you're done with that, let's say the cave ceiling's the limit for you. A swear on my stone is a promise here to stay. If my word is too fragile to keep, then may it shatter into a million pieces too many to piece together again."

"Besides," added East. "After all this, I wouldn't mind hearing about anything but flowers myself. I'll leave the books up to you. Your pick."

@Bentley

Bentley, despite being well-read (at least, by Gembound standards) was somewhat confused by East's words. The first bit was clear enough: East needed help bringing the bone to Isra. "Okay," he agreed, although reluctantly. He could drag the thing, or carry it, but he didn't want to go back into the flowers. In fact: he wouldn't, he decided. Even if East asked nicely. He felt a bit bad about that, but also relieved once he'd made the decision.

It was the cave ceiling being a limit for him, though, that introduced the first spark of confusion. He tipped his head back, peering up, squinting. "It is-?" How was he meant to get up there and, more importantly, why? It seemed more like the limit was the ground, but-... maybe he was misunderstanding. And East's word shattering and him swearing on stones was even more confusing, and Bentley shook his head, baffled.

The last part, though--all the rest fell away, immediately forgotten. Books. East would like to read. Immediately back on familiar, firmer territory, Bentley blinked and relaxed some, nodding. He was distracted at once by thoughts of which books East might like. He padded to the bone, trying to carefully maneuver an end into his mouth, but not before glancing to East thoughtfully and asking: "What sort of things do you like?" He meant in general, not necessarily books, but he didn't specify as much.

A moment later he was holding the bone (with obvious distaste), and setting off for the palace, though he glanced at East to be sure they stayed close enough together for him to hear a response.

@East

The meeting of two brains from different backgrounds was bound to lead to a miscommunication at some point. So far East had been fortunate enough to encounter two varieties of Gembound: those tolerant of his particular brand of jargon to the point of ignoring it in favor of the more understandable, plain language he spouted and the few actually capable of seeing the core meaning behind every phrase. To have his words interpreted so literally befuddled both sides of the conversation. He followed the drift of his talk that'd eluded capture upward to the ceiling in a perfect mirror of Bentley, blinking and at a loss as to what had caught the other's attention, until it finally sank in exactly why he'd been questioned. The revelation jerked his beak back to ground level, a soft chuckle falling from it.

"I suppose that is a far way to leap without wings," he remarked, but no enlightenment was offered. A faint hunch told him an attempt at explaining figures of speech would only tangle his words into a bigger, more unintelligible knot. No point in giving his furry acquaintance here a worse puzzle to figure out; his mouth wouldn't have enough space to cart around an extra problem that needed solving.

Time apart from polite company had lead to cultivating interests most might consider less than palatable. It didn't require exceptional social grace to realize not many wanted to hear the complete details of a Lesser's internal anatomy or the exact steps a corpse took on the path to decomposition. They'd rather hold onto their lunch than lose it after all. In Bentley's case, such talk seemed like it would only rattle his cage when the whole objective was to give him an escape from death-scented flowers and waking nightmares, so East quickly scrapped the most immediate subjects that sprang to mind and rummaged around for lighter material.

"Well." He drew the word out until it was reduced to a meaningless hum. Wings banked for a turn up ahead while he pondered. "I've never been the best, but singing has always been a decent way to pass the time. Just can't find the right words for a good tune usually. And I guess I like challenges too. Anything that can really make me think for a solution. Even better if it's against someone else."

Especially if the one he was besting was well outside of his weight class. Often at a size disadvantage, East had come to savor such small victories. If he couldn't outmuscle them, at least he could outwit.

@Bentley