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Claw-Taps In The Dark

By: DankeDonuts

https://dankedonuts.sofurry.com/

The last thing I saw before the darkness shrouded my eyes was the hoods I hadn't chosen. One was rich red, rimmed with blue and violet trim, and topped with a draping crest of golden-yellow thread poised upwards by detailed knotting. Another, pale tan covered in tooled Y-shapes, had a top of multiple leather strips. The bluish-grey one was genuine snake scale, and its top was a plume of small golden feathers. Any one of them would have made a good match for my pale silver feathers, my darker wings, my jet-black beak. But I was now wearing the one that sang to me.

My handler pulled the ties snug around my jaw, and tied them together. Not content to simply let the knotted ends lay where they may, he pulled two forward over my shoulder to rest atop my breasts. "There we go," he said with a smile I could hear through the leather. "Pretty bird!" I keened my acceptance of the compliment. Shook my head to test the snugness, feeling a soft pressure against the yellow of my nostrils. I could smell fresh polish. He gave me just enough time to feel satisfied before whistling the command to mount his glove. Even in the dark, I knew by then where his forearm would be in relation to his head, held out sideways and slightly down, by the sound of his voice. Muddied as it was, its location was clear enough. The claws of my hands gripped firmly around leather much coarser and tougher than that now domed my head.

If I were a real, and much smaller, Peregrine, he'd have been carrying me back outside to the aviary that had been my home for the past few weeks. As it was, he held his hand out to the side. Leading me from the dressing room and through the inner halls of the House Of Pet's main building. And I held my left wing crooked a little backwards, giving space for his body. We'd practiced this form of walking many a time, but this was my first day wearing my own hood. The one that would be mine for months, maybe years, to come. The only piece of clothing I'd ever have need of in my new life.

He was taking me down a path I'd never walked before. I was utterly dependent upon him to get where I was going. He was whistling. Everything around me smelled clean and crisp. My head tilted back, driven so by the tall, stiff feathers atop my hood resisting a ceiling arch or some other obstacle. In surprise I lost a step. My birds' feet stumbled across the lush carpet, and it was only by grace of my long claws that I stayed upright.

Ralph could only offer a surprise yelp as I dragged him backward for half a step. It was only after we were both stable, and he whistled me to release arm for a moment -- which I spent preening my breasts -- that I understood the was much more. "You cut my leg!" he choked.

Every one of my feathers ruffled out in shock! I stammered, caught between wanting to utter the words 'I'm sorry!" and rapidly click my tongue in the 'no threat' sign. All I ended up producing was a weak moan of sympathy.

"No, no, it's my fault for not noticing the... thing." Ralph made a few cooing noises as though to calm a dumb animal. "You stay here a mo' while I get this cleaned up. Good bird."

I rrrawked my compliance, then listened to his footsteps fade away. Trying to gauge which direction he was going. Had I been through this part of the building when I first came to the island for orientation?

I craned my foot upward to my hand test it for blood. Nothing. I certainly haven't felt myself tearing through any pant cuffs, either. I had to ask myself if the whole thing had been staged. A test. Of my willpower. Of my commitment to staying in character. Or rather, of being the new me. A bird in darkness should, lacking visual stimulation, be more or less at ease.

Yes, at test! It had to be a test! It was a test, and I would succeed! Show everyone who needed to see that I had completed my training and was ready to 'graduate' to my play auction.

I lasted about five minutes. Five minutes of standing perfectly still. More or less. Well, maybe I fidgeted my wings a little. Playing with my head ties; pulling the back two up front over my chest, then all of them behind me. Rocking back and forth a bit. Making little noises, curiosity-filled caws, to hear out what would happen. Birds don't echo-locate, obviously. Certainly not with a leather dome over their ears.

Five minutes until I was on my hand and knees. Tapping my hands around the floor, a bit more frantically than I'd like to admit. Sweeping my wings out before my head like whiskers so I wouldn't collide with anything at speed again. Very un-birdlike, I know. In the moment, I didn't care. I didn't like not knowing where I was. What was around me.

There was nothing in my immediate area. Getting my toes back under me, I moved forward in a partial crouch. There came a sudden sharp sting against a wingtip. Left swipe, right swipe; something hard and thin. My hand, when it arrived, found there a chair leg. The smell of leather, older than my hood, coated in body odor and cleanser. Little metal studs were securing the stuff to the arm rests. I waved my hands about slowly, not wanting to slash anything else. One claws caught the edge of a table anyway. Pat, pat, pat. Atop the table, a vase. Inside the vase, flowers, small and thick and ruffled. They smelled very real. But I couldn't place the fragrance. I never was much of a girl for flowers. I slowly let my hands move back around it, and mu claws tapped solid wall. Above, a window sill. The glass was cool, and made a pleasant squeak.

The was an identical chair left of the table. More exploring led me to determine that I was in a roughly circular sitting area. The Chair-Table-Chair motif repeating several times. But how long had I been at this? Satisfied as to my surroundings, I made the gamble of trying to bee-line right to where I had been left to stand.

Of course, something was in the way. A tall step. Or maybe a little stage. Tap, tap, tap went my claws. It was metal. Tap tap tap. There was a pole to one side. My hand followed it up to a velvet rope.

A stage? A podium?

Slave to curiosity, I returned to the 'step' and reached past it. To find another. I found it's summit and clawed forward. Something was there. I reached for it.

And grabbed ahold of a foot.

"Skwwaarrk!" I blurted! If there was an echo, it didn't reach my ears. I skittered backwards. But no sounds of movement came closer to or further from me. Nothing at all. Tentatively, I made my way over again, hands to the floor but wings down and back out of the way. I found the circular steps again. And the foot right where I left it. It was cool, colder than the glass. The toes were large and oval-shaped, and there was no ankle behind it. An anthroform, then?

I found the ankle a good way higher up. A tall anthroform. Seven feet at a guess. Running my claws over the shin revealed subtle bumps of detail; the figure was sculpted for short hair or fur. Just here and there, enough to make clear it was a coat up and down the leg.

I had to re-orient myself, standing up upon the first step to get above the velvet rope, to continue my tactile exploration. Careful waving of my hands betrayed no hint of an arm. Keeping one hand to a pole, I continued feeling my way up the side of a thigh that I strongly suspected to be male. A bit more tapping, and yep, definitely male. Male, and quite a handful, judging by the two danglers that weren't hidden away inside a sheath. Above the package, a sculpted elevation of fur. That went up, and up, as far as I could reach in a thin lion. Best guess, the bottom edge of a lion's mane. But, with the figure so tall and somewhat separated from me, there was no way my hand would ever be sure.

There was an easier way to gauge that. My hands wandered sideways along the velvet, feet following. Seeking out the next pole in the barrier, and the next. If I could find the statue's tail joint, I could follow it down to the tuft, if there was one. Maybe even get my beak around it. I don't know the smell of a rose from a pansy, but I do know the taste of brass. Second Chair jazz trumpet back in high school.

A confident wave brought my hand back to the figure. Tap, tap, tap the sound of my claws hitting furline crevices down the back of a hip.

Click! Click! Click! The sound was sharp and hard and sounded like it came from everywhere.

I went perfectly still. My hand still cupping a metal butt cheek. Slowly, and with extreme embarrassment, I turned my head towards the sound, cocking it sideways. Sniffing the air, trying to interpret what information that gave me.

"Bad bird." Ralph's voice was stern and cold. It's distance hard to gauge. "No cuttlebones for you tonight." He approached me, commanded me to take his glove. Which I did, following obediently once more as I was led back to my enclosure. He didn't speak to me at all along the way. The only sound he made was a ruffle of clothing. Putting the clicker away.

I never did find out if that was really a lion.