On the long journey, Vasan naps off a feast in their coracle, passing by the islands docks and running off into the lower, denser brush of the forest it spills out into.
The boat gracefully drifts off into a rolling stumble, dumping Vasan and their belongings into a mess of vines and branches. Though the crash jostled them awake, head feathers standing and arms and wings scrambling to keep to a hover until the weight of a half-full bag of fruit on their head nearly knocks them out. Their feathers darken, they lie face down in prickly branches, absorbing their situation and sighing before making any moves.
They get some bearings, albeit in a compromising position, suspended by vines. They fight the grasp of the foliage for only so long until the weight of their round boat breaks through the brush it had been caught in, and tumbles down onto Vasan in a flatter, denser, lower tangle, trapping them underneath, splashed by the swampy puddles that pool from the edge of the river. My swarms scatter, but try to stay nearby.
Another voice pipes up from outside. A low curdle rising to a screech piercing enough to hear through the walls of the boat.
"What the fuck?"
Vasan springs up at the voice, hitting their head on the top of the boat and flopping down a third time, and thuds their fist on the inside of the boat. “Hey! A little help?”
Some light cracks through the base of the boat, followed by a set of claws. It flips up, revealing a dark but sparkling figure, with reflections on their feathers a deep red, and a shining golden beak that takes up their entire face. Vasan tries to sit up, and wrestles with some branches trapping their legs, flicking their gaze between the new bird and their predicament.
The gold-faced bird rushes to help, pulling a blade from a bag and clipping to free us.
“Thanks...” Vasan groans. I click in gratitude.
“Are you ok, pigeon?” the gold beak dodges the thanks, their voice muffled when up close, “Your wings have more twigs in them than most nests around here, you bailed pretty hard.”
“Not the first time this week,” Vasan asserts and tries to get up. A branch pinches their ankle and they wince. The gold face snips that too.
Welcome to Kerkenos.” They greet and joke.
I click and buzz out a response.
“Great first impression.” Vasan repeats me.
“It fits. People all see how pretty and rich them docks look.” Their voice strains as they stand, the kind of strain you hear from someone who's been working too long. “That's all fake-out. Crashing and burning is a better first taste of this city.”
Vasan finishes dusting themself off. The gold mask turns away and Vasan pipes up.
“Where are you going?”
“I got work to do!” The helpful stranger looks back with a voice raised but still muffled, "I'm only here snipping some herbs and shrooms from the marsh, I gotta get back to the drugmaster." And with a reddish-pink glint off their wings as they turn, they vanish through some ferns.
Vasan finds their bag full of food and follows, pushing those aside to see their full kit sitting on the ground, a woven basket full of fungi and bundles of twigs. They clean the stems of a few plants they've trimmed into a lighter bag.
“You're an apothecary?” Vasan guesses.
“No. Just an errand bird for one.” They answer, “Why, you sick?”
Vasan replies, rubbing a place where their arm took an impact, “Well, in pain.”
The gold face flicks toward Vasan with a stalled stare through the blacked out eyes of their mask, “Oh, we got shit for that.”
“How much?”
"You askin' volume or price?"
"Both."
“What you got in that bag?” The stranger points, “Smells like fruit.”
Vasan draws it open and rufles around, amidst a mess of nuts and seeds they find one in-tact fruit left. They pull it out.
“Trade me one of those, and I got you.”
Vasan, not particularly in the worst shape, decides to see where this leads. They wait for my judgement, but I stay silent, and the pigeon nods and tosses the fruit. The Stranger catches it, sets it on top of their basket and closes their other bags, packing up their supplies as if to leave.
“Where are you going?” Vasan pipes up.
“I don't keep that shit on me, bird.” They scold with a headshake, “You gotta follow me up to the city. You good to walk?”
"I think so."
"Good to fly?"
Vasan shrugs. Vasan is a somewhat lithe figure, made of faint, spacey feathers, their strength in slim and dense muscles around their hollow bones. While they may look capable and athletic, they do not come across as someone who can take heavy hits as well as they do. The darker bird seems to be the embodiment of a scar. Scales with scattered scratches that speckle when struck with stray sunbeams, their body a barely bulkier build with burley brawn bulging in places that look once bruised and broken.
“We'll start walkin' first.” They scratch.
The stranger leads the way. Vasan evens out their limp to follow. The stranger removes the gold layer from their face to expose a fleshy snout underneath with shining eyes that shift between gold and red. They replace the fruit in their basket with the mask.
I have not yet seen an individual like this. More reptilian than bird, but with all the same mannerisms of the birds I've been used to observing.
The stranger bites into a fruit as they guide their new friend up through fallen leaning trunks that allow them to climb without flying.
As they exit the brush, they find a few feathered fellows flopped on the soft floral floor, flanking the sides of the open paths. They are disheveled and tired, but are not resting the way Drek tend to. Vasan avoids staring, tempted mostly by their concern for the silent, slack-jawed birds. They instead divert their eyes to the haphazard nests above them, shading the area from most direct light. A ray of sun falls on ones eyes as they close them, and turn over. A few of the drek's eyes follow the passing pair of pedestrians, their gaze lazy and slow. Vasan says nothing to them, and makes an effort to avert their gaze.
The stranger is less polite, guffawing and commenting, “Went a little too hard, it looks like.”
The pigeon stays silent, but their mind buzzes with concern and confusion. They hold their thoughts until the two reach a more lighter clearing.
With a mouth half full, they flit their head over to ask, “What's your name, by the way?”
“usakAsA anAnkhe” They give.
After swallowing, they repeat a broken version of their name, “Bent on the high heavens?” they guess at a nickname. “Vas'an ok?”
“That's what I go by.” Vasan answers. There must be a pattern to contracting names, here. “And you?”
[—: hradApthAr ]
[TRNSLTRT:H244D4P7H42::H244D4:23450N:D351510N::P7H42:VV1N6:F347H32:H3237H32383D2460N5:]
“Raptor” they squawk back.
“Nice to meet you, Raptor.”
“What brings you here?”
“Just trying to gain height.”
“Oh, ain't everybody?” Raptor side-eyes before taking point through some narrow passages, “Where's that bug taking you?”
“The Fifth Moon.”
Raptor stops, blocking the path, and looks back, lightly slack-jawed. After a moment of sizing this pigeon up against their claims, they open their mouth further to gingerly wrench another bite out of the fruit, raise their eyebrows and turn to keep walking.
“You're either a lot dumber or a lot more capable than you look.” They guffaw. “But more power to you, I guess.”
I kept my swarms out of the way for the time being, and let the two wander their way up to a higher tier of the forest villages. Raptor dons their mask again upon entering a populated place, keeping to the branches of the ground as a myriad of iridescent villages flock over them.
Raptor points off, up and left, to one thicker tree trunk jutting out from the gridded branches of the floor, and all of us gaze upon our destination.
Wrapped around and carved through a particular tree in the upper town's cage, draping vines and bright floral trimming scream out "APOTHECARY".
Signage is a difficult concept on this planet. Since expression is the truth that all of this life is built on, the trees, the plants, the vines, all have something to say. Signs, rather, are aesthetic blends of plants that call out the tones and meaning that would indicate an area. This is fortunate for me, as I can have as good an idea of the meaning of my surroundings as my host does.
Raptor leads Vasan to fly to a ledge above and behind the facade of vines. Raptor stands by another entrance, also curtained by vines.
“Wait here,” They rumble , vanishing through the vines with some ruffles and swishes. The vines weave themselves behind the bird, as they do when they detect someone unfamiliar.
Vasan waits. They turn to look at the view from this ledge, scanning some of the other trees. Upper Kerkenos was rather ornate, and the standards of design were visible from afar. Vasan saunters around the edge to see a better view of the neighboring village. Hanging nests sit from broadening canopies, knots and grafts disrupt the stable and mighty trunks that grow out through other layers of branching foliage. They focus on the glints of shining specks, other iridescent souls shifting their colors as they fly from building to building. Rounding the ledge further shows them a break in the forestation, and a window to the flat sheer of the horizon. Vasan takes a deep breath at the next sight that comes around the tree. The shimmering, eye-like rock floating ominously just over it, it's droning rumbling the undertones of Vasan's nerves. I begin to hum, though not consciously, at the sight of home.
A commotion within the apothecary tree carries on for a bit as the pigeon twists their leg back and forth to feel where the pain is, rolling their shoulder and their wings to do the same. They lower their self to perch on the ledge, crouching and taking in the sights.
Raptor shouts something back into the tree and emerges with a small bag, and shakes one small uneven stone from it.
“Take this.” The ruddy reptile offers, “Take only one a day if it’s new to you. If the pain doesn’t heal up easy, come back.”
Vasan opens their mouth to ask or comment, as they take the bag, but is cut off by Raptor shouting back past the woven vines into the tree.
“You can’t stay here.” Raptor rushes, grabbing a more rugged vine attached to a basket and handing it to the pigeon, “If you do come back, come back up here, and don’t let anyone know what I gave you.”
Vasan grips the bag in one claw and the vine in the other as Raptor prods them off the ledge and turns inside in one quick motion. The pigeon grips the vine with sore arms as they fall, their feet falling into the basket, lowering at a casually soft pace as they soak in the sights of the village again. On the way down, they swallow the small stone they were given.
They land, gracefully, behind the entrance, between two other woven ports, in a soft, mossy patch, and scan their surroundings. There are a few more drek sprawled out in the area behind the tree, which the pigeon ignores, like they had those in the brush, tucking their small bag into their larger bag and sauntering away.
“You got something?” A drek resembling a bowerbird bursts from a rickety bush, with lazy eyes locked on the pigeon’s bag.
“I just gave my last fruit away,” The pigeon admits, leaving out the pile of nuts and seeds they still had left. They pick up their pace, looking around for any possibly destination to escape to in their new location.
“No, no,” The bird stumbles to follow, “I can smell that srevo on you.”
This word, srEuo, is new to me. It seems new to Vasan as well, who only seems more distressed.
“Uhh,” They vocalize as their eyes scan. I pick up a nearby temple from the signs of another, non-probe beetle swarm. I click to move their gaze in that direction. The pigeon stumbles around some bumps in the ground and heads off.
“C’mon, the spirit of Kerkenos island is sharing!” the adamant bird tries to grab at the pigeon’s bag, who is quick to dodge and take off in flight toward the temple.
They do not stay in the air long. They wobble and fall to the ground, pace picking up, looking back at the bird they escaped from.
I click a simple status check, as Vasan still seems too injured to fly properly.
“I am a little dizzy,” they mumble out loud as they look up to the temple.
I notice their pulse gradually elevate as their metabolism slows, even after the perceived danger is long out of sight.
I ask how much pain they’re in.
“Less,” Vasan responds, “None, actually.”
I gather that their injuries are still healing, and they should still take it easy.
They nod. “I get why that drek wanted this stuff.” They gesture to their bag.
We stumble up to the temple and are greeted at the entrance by a robin.
“Welcome, pigeon!” They sing, their eyes flitting up and down, examining our state, “Oh dear,” their tone changes, “Are you hurt?”
Vasan nods, “I crashed here from a passing river. I’m trying to get to the fifth moon.”
A few other robins overhear and begin to gather around us. The robin gasps, “That is impossible isn’t it?”
Vasan shrugs.
The robin reaches into a pouch and pulls out a few tools for inspection, like a smooth lens, “Are you hallucinating? Under any influences?”
“I was given something for the pain.” Vasan admits, not wanting to continue that it was from a stranger.
The robin gasps, their look turning grave, “Then you are not of sound mind, are you?”
Vasan shrugs again.
“It wasn’t vine juice was it?” Another robin asks.
Vasan breathes an overwhelmed inhale as they shrug again.
The first robin inspects a the scuffs in their shoulder, “Have you broken anything?”
“I don’t think so.”
“You may have, but just do not feel it.” another robin chimes in.
“Do you need care?” The first robin asks, inspecting more scuffs on their wings and legs, one grabbing at Vasan’s elbow and measuring
I feel Vasan’s senses getting overwhelmed, especially as their mind clouds further from the effects of the concentrated substance running through their body, and buzz along more probes to swirl around the robins, the hum of their orbits drowning out the voices of the robins until they notice. I land a few probes on the places they are trying to inspect.
The group backs up and ceases their questioning. They stand back, allowing me to define a boundary around the pigeon’s personal space.
Vasan speaks, rather weakly, “I need to lay down.”
The first robin nods, and gestures to the others to find lodging. “We have a branch with many sufferers of the pain-vines we are treating, we can find you a nest and get you-”
“Keep me from them.” Vasan interrupts. “I’m not an addict. I’m just hurt from crashing here.”
The robin tilts their head, “People rarely travel here for reasons other than the vines.” Their tone slows, explaining slowly. “We will care for your problem whether you admit it yourself or not.”
I buzz one of my probes onto the forehead of the robin and click at them. Believe them, I say. They are ascendant. You will treat the pigeon well. You will keep them from danger. I detach, and leave the robin in awe for a few seconds before they change their tune.
“We will keep you from them.” The robin corrects theirself. “Follow me.”
Vasan stumbles along with the Robin as they pass by a woven vine door which opens for them. I trail a line of bugs along with the pair as they wind through the corridors of tightly packed trees, adorned with twisted designs and pink and yellow flowers with hollowed out knotholes, flowers covered by more woven vine portals.
Some of the doors were woven tight, others loose enough to allow Vasan’s dithering, blurring vision to see the drek within, sprawled out like the ones in the low lying brush bordering the swamp.
The walk is long, and a few more birds in clerical dress slip past the slow moving pair, one with a tray full of reel-like chips and a mug steaming with some tangy, earthy brew.
The two pass through a larger vine door at the end of the corridor, a fuller suite much larger than the small knotholes the other strung out drek were staying in, allowing some natural light through amber lenses and thin leaves lining one wall. The pigeon examines the room, weakly. The robin gestures them toward the nest in the corner.
The pigeon settles into a nest of live leaves and flowers and sets their bag aside, wincing as some of the pain sets in again. I plant my bugs along the walls of the suite.
The robin, with few words, takes their tools out again and examines them quickly, explaining they must return to their duties soon, but will send more care shortly.
Before they are done with their inspection, another drek barges in with a large vessel.
“Drink this water,” the drek instructs, “Whatever you have taken may be dehydrating you.”
Vasan nods and takes the vessel, dipping their beak and instantly remembering the depth of their thirst, feeling the length of the day they have had. The other robin backs off after some inspection and leaves Vasan to drink. The water is gone before the robin is.
“We will have more for you to drink soon, a-” Before the robin can finish, the other drek bursts back in with a similar tray of the reel-like chips, green seeds, and a steaming tea.
The robin gracefully takes the tray from the bird, thanking them, and sets it on a flattened stump next to the nest. Vasan eyes the steaming brew, which smells stronger, sweeter, and tangier up close.
“Drink up. It’s a Lotus tea. A detoxifier.” The robin explains, “The food are seeds and root from the same plant.” Vasan picks up the tea, still too hot to drink. “It will feel similar to srevos, because it will be pulling the excess out of your body.”
“What if i have no excess?” Vasan asks, hazily, “I’ve only taken this once.”
“It is still good for you,” The robin insists, and turns to leave, before turning back to continue, “May I ask how much you took?”
“It was like,” They glance over to their bag. I land a few bugs on it, indicating it is probably not best to pull out the rest of the drugs they were given, “a small pebble.” Vasan pinches their claws to approximate the size.
“Any concentration will be harsh on the body of a new user, as well. I would recommend you stay a night..”
The water is enough to perk Vasan’s senses back up, though their body feels the aches setting in. They nod.
“Make sure to eat up all of the lotus before you sleep!” The robin turns and leaves. The door vines re-weave tight as it leaves.
Vasan sighs. I buzz around their nest. “I’m still not used to all this attention.”
I ask if they have ever been to a hospital before.
“No. I didn’t expect all of this to be hidden in this church.” they pick up the tea, blowing into it to attempt to cool it. I land a bug on the side of the vessel and rapidly fan my wings against it to help. Soon enough they wave me away and take a sip, screwing up their face at the taste, but bearing it enough to continue.
“How do you know what a hospital is?” Vasan asks me.
I process how to reveal the truth of the multiverse required to explain. I tell them that just as I have been on this planet for longer than they would expect, I have seen other planets too, and that their societies have similar staples, like places that care for the sick.
“Other planets? Where are you from?”
I click that I have been to a place called Earth, closer to the sun, and a place called Eskis, further from the sun than here. I tell them that Earth is full of trees and rivers and people who build buildings made of stones and metals rather than plants. Vasan sits slack-jawed, staring at the fading light cast on a wall through the amber, they process this, nod, and they sip their tea, occasionally grabbing a lotus chip to snack on.
They ask for more details about earth. I tell them earth taught me much of what I know, that they build with stone and metals and sparks. I tell them the sparks can store information, and they can share it universally, connecting the globe through waves and wires. What truly amazes them, though, is that most of the world is static. Solid. There is a ground that can be settled on, and that the risk of falling is not as universal as it is on the pigeon’s planet.
“You can walk anywhere?” They ask. I answer yes, as long as you aren’t separated by water, which divides the land like the air does here. I add that people can float across the water on boats they built like the one that brought them here. I add that they have machines that let them fly, as well, but Vasan seems less interested in that fact.
“What is on Eskis?”
Bugs, I say. More clusters of dren, buzzing, watching, communicating. Building other dren from the rocks and metals in the orbit.
“Where is your home?” Vasan asks, their eyes getting tired the more of the tea they sip.
Here, now.
“Would you ever want to go back to Earth?” They ask the biggest question, chomping through the rest of their lotus snacks.
I tell them I cannot.
They ask why. I tell them they are falling from their golden age, and can no longer contact me.
Vasan seems disappointed in the answer. “I wish I could have seen it.” They polish their lotus tea, and lean back, similarly dizzy as they were after taking the stranger’s pill.
I tell Vasan that if the humans knew what was on this planet, they would wish they could see this too.
Vasan nods, solemnly. They are getting tired. The light has faded from the windows, the room only lit by the dim, pink glowblooms in its corners. We wrap up our conversation, and I let them drift away into a sleep.
Time passes. The light returns through the amber. The pigeon awakes next to a tray of more lotus seeds and tea, no longer steaming. They sit up and sip at the tea, feeling a similar tiredness that they had the night before setting in. They try to shake off the sensation as they slowly stand. They stretch their leg and shoulder, seemingly feeling only a dull ache, and their tongue clicks a few times, a mocking signal for me to rise and follow.
I ask if they are going to wait to continue care for their injuries.
“I feel fine.” they reply, “I’m not staying here.”
They run into a robin on the way out and repeat the same phrase. I form a buzzing barrier between the robin and Vasan as they make their way out.
Another familiar robin conveniently slips through the hidden entrance back to the temple just in time for Vasan to stumble past, and out the front of the temple.
The sound of drek singing in congregation masks the concerned pleas from the health care staff as they take off, around a bend of a few trees and back within eyesight of the large, apothecary tree.
Up at the top, on the ledge they left it from, sits a familiar pinkish drek seemingly on a smoke break, burning through something. The pigeon flies right for them.
“Pigeon.” Raptor greets them rather neutrally, expectantly.
“What was that you gave me?” Vasan ignores their question.
“Extra strength pain-vine concentrate,” Raptor responds, tapping ashes from their burning rolled herbs, “You better yet?”
“No,” Vasan keeps their distance as Raptor blows a lungfull of smoke at some of my probes. “I almost passed out as some bowerbird was trying to steal my bag. I had to hide in that temple like three trees from here.”
“They made you eat the lotuses.” Raptor guesses before taking another drag.
“Yeah, they made me feel worse.” Vasan tells them.
“You’re lucky.” They breathe smoke through their words, “Most people get addicted to those things. They keep you there a day then charge you, have you do labor for them if you have nothing to give.”
“Is everyone on this island addicted to something?” The pigeon posits.
“Welcome to Kerkenos,” Raptor repeats with a smirk, “It’s how this place runs.” Their gaze turns to one of my hovering probes, which they flick away, “How did you even get out of the lotus trap?”
“I just walked out.” Vasan replies, as if obvious.
“Just walked out…” Raptor repeats, as if ridiculous. They inhale some fresh air a few times as their eyes roll, and their mind churns.
“RAPTOR!” A voice booms from within the tree.
Raptor sighs, puts out their burning herbs on one of my probes, and turns away, “I’ll get you something else, hang tight.”
“I don’t know if-” Vasan starts to follow,
Raptor turns, giving a piercing glare, and repeats with the same rasp, “Hang tight.”
Vasan stays still as Raptor vanishes into the tree’s vine port once again.
The faint rustle of vines untangling catches Vasan's attention, but it's my clicking that urges them to go around the back. Curiously, Raptor isn't there, and the vines don't close for the bird. Their breaths and darting sightlines evoke curiosity, and I refrain from nudging them as they step inside.
Inside is a storage room. Baskets of whole roots, bundles of twigs and herbs hung up to dry, bottles of various solids and liquids, and some unintuitive looking tools that litter the floor. Vasan wanders deeper, afraid to call out inside, because they realize they are intruding, and can hear, and feel, the presence of other birds a floor below. Some raised bawking echoes from an off corridor, one of them the thin, scratchy voice of their new acquaintance. Vasan freezes, wondering if they can make it to the door before the voices close in, even if they can run on their aching leg.
I remind the bird that they can fly, and in a quick and somewhat disruptive swoop, they fly right into the net of re-woven vines that blocks the exit. They apply a bit more force and rip a few away, standing sidled to the back wall just outside the door. They take a relieved breath, carefully unwind the vines from theirself, and suspend their heavy breathing to listen.
“For the last time, Raptor, stop keeping that shit here. We are not selling those, they don't help any illness.” A smoother, but more authorative caw scolds them.
“Why do only care about aiding the pain of the already sick? Half the stuff we sell makes things worse.” Crates shift. Baskets ruffle.
“Why give a drug to someone who isn't sick? To someone who's whole?”
“If people were whole they wouldn't get sick, if people were whole they wouldn't keep coming back for pain-vine leaves.”
“What do you expect them to do when pained?”
“The only pain they have is of the mind and of the soul, and the drugs just make them tired and numb. You know what they did to me!”
The conversation stops and the moving and rustling continues.
The crowing voice continues, “It's not my fault you can't be responsible.”
“I can't be responsible?” Raptor sneers, “Are you not responsible at all for their addictions?”
“I'm responsible for keeping you and I fed.”
“These will sell way more and help way more than any of these brain-melting organ-fucking opiates we're peddling.”
“No one is going to buy a fungus no matter how medicinal, young starling.”
“You peddle lizard piss as a cure all and you're afraid of shit I've tested?”
The conversation drops again. Vasan sidles away to take deeper breaths, tapping me to assure I'm getting this. I quietly click.
“We need to survive, too, Raptor. You can play clean and worry about all that if you end up on the top trees. But we're fourths. And if you keep thinking like that you'll be stuck being a fourth!” The voice threatens in a tone that assumes it's taking the last word. “We sell drugs, not magical cures.”
“You sell drugs.” Raptor rasps. “I don't. I'm done here.”
“What?” The other voice caws. The stepping of foot-claws approach the door.
“I quit.”
“How?”
”Just walking out. Watch me.”
“Where are you going to go you dragon-faced fuck?”
“I'm going to the Fifth Moon.”
A pause. A hearty laugh drifts into some words, “Are you an idiot, or are you that full of yourself?” Raptor is laughed halfway out the door, shooting a fleeting glance to Vasan, and turning back inside with a sharp inhale before being cut off again. “You're right, the weeds have done a number on your brain, haven't they? Are you hitting the other four on the way?”
Raptor shakes their head, “Nothing lives on those.”
The laughter halts, then bursts out harder for a moment.
“If you're so serious, take your damn mushrooms, and get the fuck out.”
A loud snatching comes right before Raptor pops out through the vines again. “Done.” They nod at me, slipping a smaller bag of dried herbs into Vasan's hand before putting their mask back on and rushing past us. “Here's this, sorry to make you fly but you can take it when we get there.”
“And where's there?” Vasan asks, bagging the new bag.
“Wait!” A storm of stomping and a flurry of fluttering of large wings emits from the door, “Raptor, my mask!”
“We're flying.”
I do not want to see or hear the this figure, and neither does Vasan. We take off, before Raptor does, aimlessly spiraling before we find and follow them again.
The safest place is near the top of the island, on a tangle of branches too thin to build structures on, but dense enough to hide. We land there, I decide to keep my swarms scattered, as not to draw any attention to the now-fugitives.