Dance of the Dying Feathers
Author's Notes: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/2038625
The mask was ancient. Cracked and tattered, far past even being describable as well-worn, quite thoroughly descended into decay. A useless, almost quaint holdover from a long-dead age.
But it still had strength.
Its wearer was not ancient. Oh no, he was filled with all of youth's virtues and shortcomings. Barely a man, by the talk on the street. Too spineless and eager to please, too relentlessly perky. This one had a warrior's short-trimmed haircut, but none of the warrior aspect: no lone wolf complex, no coldblooded practicality, no hunger for violent glory.
Yet he, too, still had strength, in his own way.
He'd had the strength to woo and, more surprisingly, wed the daughter of high priestess Am-Loch, securing himself a beautiful, intelligent partner along with a hefty kick up in social rank. He had achieved this feat by reciting mediocre love poetry for one hundred and fifty days in a row at her window. There were some suggestions that perhaps she'd simply gotten tired of listening to him, but for his part, the young man was confident in their love.
The young man was named Qae-Zel, and he, as he put it ever so self-mockingly every once in a while, lived to serve. It was this devotion to pleasing others that led him to this abandoned, cobweb-riddled temple. To pick up a mask of old times, and to dance the old dance.
The Saraband Vermeil.
The name would have matched the mask, only the mask had long ago faded from its early bright crimson to a dull, splotchy pink. Qae-Zel hoped it wouldn't hurt the power of the dance any. The birds that were defeathered for the masks had long ago gone extinct; there would be no new masks. It would be a bitter disappointment, to go to the trouble of translating the instructions on the walls, and practicing them over and over till his legs ached, and in the end come out with nothing to show for it. Not for his sake, of course... but Am-Sia's.
For Am-Sia, his beautiful wife, his morning sun and evening star, he danced, body twirling, steps as exacting as a scientific equation over the worn flagstones. He danced for hours, the bird mask hot on his face, sweat rolling down his skimpy robed frame.
And as he danced, he remembered, with every step, the reasons for it. An inner mantra, that serve to drive him onwards, far past the meager limits of his ordinary stamina reserves.
"You know, it's silly, but I've always wanted to fly."
Step, step.
"I don't know, I just like the idea of soaring freely in the wind... above all the troubles of the world."
Step, pivot, step, twirl.
"Well, birds do it, don't they? If they can, why not us?"
Twirl, step, bob.
"Oh, don't mind my silly little dreams. If you could do THAT, you really WOULD be my little godling. But we're all human in this room, so we might as well learn to live with ourselves."
Step, pivot, step.
"Just... it's nice to dream about impossible things... sometimes..."
Step, step.
STOP.
He ended the dance precisely at the point the instructions called for, body quivering with tension, panting steadily, afraid to move, afraid to even blink, for fear that it would ruin the Saraband Vermeil's power.
Long moments passed, and nothing happened. Disappointment settled in Qae-Zel's throat and stomach like ice-cold stones, and he let out a sigh.
Well, that was that, then.
The old stories were just old stories, and only that. In them, the dancers were said to become whatever they wished to be... bodies melting as liquid into ravenously dreamt of forms and shapes.
But he wasn't changing.
And there was nothing to be done about that.
He took the mask off, contemplating throwing it to the ground profanely, but set it down gently instead, with another sigh. His back turned on the mask, and the dancing circle, and the instructions carved into the rocky walls like educational graffiti, and he took a step towards the exit.
That was when his back exploded in searing pain as though molten daggers had been driven into his shoulderblades. With an agonized cry, he dropped to his knees, trying in vain to grab the affected area and discern the cause of it. And then his back exploded in a far more literal fashion, a sickening splurch of flesh and cloth ripping, blood spattering in a wide arc all around him. He screamed outright this time, a pathetic screeching sound, falling on his hands and drenching himself further in blood, trembling like a leaf in a storm.
There was some kind of... weight... on his back.
Something straining his muscles and stretching upwards and outwards in arcs.
Through eyes tear-filled from unaccustomed pain, he looked behind him, and the tears instantly became ones of joy.
Sprouting from his back, gleaming gold and green where they weren't stained with blood, were two large wings. Qae-Zel grinned and hoarsely thanked the gods for the gift, and stumbled to his feet, going into a staggering jog. He had to show Am-Sia! He could give her what she wanted, now. The dance worked. It worked, and her impossible dream would be a reality!
It was the first time anyone had successfully danced the Saraband Vermeil in over seven hundred years.
#
There was no joy like her joy. Nothing so perfect, so pristine, so totally overwhelming. Almost childlike, but only in the way that everyone wished they could be children a second time. Like a second wedding day all over again.
She was heavier than he expected, and the clouds were wetter than either of them expected, but these things did nothing to turn aside the essential exhilaration of the moment. The verdant trees below, the brightly-plumed birds they traveled beside, the people that looked like insects from such a great height, the wind lashing furiously through their hair... it was all anyone could have hoped for, and more than either of them had seriously believed they would ever experience in their lifetimes.
Eventually, his wings strained under the burden, and he begged for a rest. She allowed him to land, although what she did after that wasn't exactly conducive to taking one's ease. Ornate sheets with silver trim had nothing on grass as far as a comfy bed for lovemaking went, Qae-Zel thought.
Afterwards came the questions, of course. He answered them all with total honesty-it didn't occur to him to lie to his star-eyed wife, and if it had, he would have been shamed at the thought.
"They really are so beautiful," she whispered huskily after the interrogation was finished, running delicate fingers over his plumes. He shivered a bit at the unusual sensation. "I can't believe you really figured out how to step that dance, dearest. Was it hard?"
"Nothing is hard compared to the thought of you sacrificing a dream for simple practicality," he glibly replied.
Am-Sia laughed, a sound that to Qae-Zel was more melodious than the finest bells and harps. "So we toss aside what we think is real, and just take our dreams, like that?"
"Nothing is out of reach. You just have to want it enough, that's all. After all, I married you, didn't I? Who would have seen that coming, my darling?"
"No one at all, least of all me," she agreed, grinning as she snuggled up to his chest. "How long do you think it will take for me to learn it?"
Qae-Zel blinked. "Learn what?"
She laughed again. "The dance, silly little muskmelon. Isn't that why you did this? To show it to me, so I could do it as well?"
"I, uh, hadn't thought that far into it, actually." He let his eyes roam over her body lingeringly with loving devotion. "But you're the one being silly. Why change perfection? Everyone around acknowledges you flawless of mind, body, and spirit!"
"Now now, Qae-Zel, you know better," she said, her voice gentle but near-solemn, channeling the demeanor of her high priestess mother. "We are none of us truly perfect. Only the gods are that. With mere creatures of flesh, there is always room for improvement."
"Perhaps so.... but when it comes to you, I'll never see the need for it."
"Qae-Zel, please, tell me," she pleaded, her dark eyes focused with a hunger not dissimilar to the look of lust they had glowed with so shortly back.
He hesitated, then hugged her willow-slender body close. "Are you certain this'll make you happy?"
"How certain are we ever of anything?"
#
It was many long, strenuous weeks before Am-Sia completed the dance. Though it took her longer to grasp the intricacies involved, once she did, she performed more fluidly than Qae-Zel had been able to, continuing smoothly where Qae-Zel would have hesitated, and flowing from movement to movement like water so that he could barely tell them apart. And when she felt the pain of the transformation, he held her and comforted her as best he could, and at the end of it, as she stood shakily on her feet with her new wings spread about her like a rich cloak of eagle-brown, he kept one arm close to her and she leaned against him. Her wings fluttered, hesitantly, tremblingly, and then with more enthusiasm.
They flew together hand in hand till it seemed as though they would touch the sun itself, before alighting on the branches of one of the oldest trees in the jungle, a gargantuan thing with more green-leafed branches than there were people in the world. From this viewpoint they overlooked the rest of the jungle and their city, with equal parts joy and awe. Qae-Zel saw Am-Sia's gaze lingering in particular on the people below, going about their lives.
"Everyone must know about this," Am-Sia breathed softly, her voice almost worshipful. "Everyone."
"I suppose we can't exactly keep it our little secret," Qae-Zel said wryly. "It's a bit noticeable."
"Qae-Zel, this could change the whole world. Think of it! Everyone becoming exactly what they want. No longer having to live with being fat, or ugly, or something else that isn't what you are on the inside."
A crimson parrot fluttered up and perched close to them, staring fixedly, head turning this way and that. Am-Sia laughed a little at the sight.
"Look at him! He looks confused."
"Wouldn't you be, if you were him?"
"You will have to get used to us, little birdling. Come a few weeks from now and there might be even more winged humans sharing your home."
Qae-Zel frowned slightly, uneasy but unable to put a finger on why. "Are you sure it's a good idea? Telling everyone how to dance the Saraband Vermeil?"
"Why shouldn't everyone have the opportunity we have had to make our lives better?"
"But... well, the ancients must have had some reason for not doing it often, surely."
"The ancients were bound to a strict, stagnant caste system that labeled almost all the populace as being unworthy of a decent loaf of bread, let alone the Saraband Vermeil. These days we are more enlightened, are we not? Let us share this gift with the world, and have everyone know the joy we know!"
Qae-Zel hesitated a moment, then nodded, smiling. "Yes, you're right. Let's let everyone know how to dance and change and become what they want to be. Who knows, the world may become a better place for it."
"I know it will, dear Qae-Zel."
#
The jubilation was unceasingly, merrily chaotic. Overnight, Qae-Zel and Am-Sia became celebrated on a level almost equal to that of the high priestess herself. Nowhere was the revelation not treated as a miracle. No one had any words but the highest for the couple who had revived the Saraband Vermeil, it was said, by dint of the female half's spirituality and the male half's strength and determination. Nothing held more importance in the eyes of the public than learning the dance, and dancing it. Even the high priestess herself blessed the endeavor.
At first, Qae-Zel taught the dance directly. As the supplicants grew more numerous and he found himself exhausted by the needy swarm, he taught them to interpret the instructions on the temple wall instead, and learn the dance on their own.
It went slowly, of course. Even slower than it had for Am-Sia. If the dance had been easy to do, it would have never died out in the first place. It was beyond enervating, beyond time-consuming; it gorged on one's being and demanded more until one had given one's all to it. So it took a while. But almost no one gave up, and eventually, Qae-Zel would see, while walking through the streets or soaring above them, the crowds begin changing. Just a few, at first. All the more eye-catching and fantastical, those first few were, for being rare and sticking out. Then they grew more common, and the eye would start to accept them as the norm, while seeing the unchanged humans as somehow being drab and plain. Eventually, as months passed and the almost cult-like enthusiasm for the Saraband Vermeil spread even to neighboring cities, the unchanged humans became almost a rarity, seen mostly in the pilgrims who came to dance that greatest of all dances, and then left to return to their home cities, wearing new bodies.
And everywhere, people rejoiced.
They sang with beaks, and waved with paws, and frolicked with serpentine bodies. It became gradually more difficult to tell the city from the jungle by sound or sight, but this seemed to bother no one. Work and common drudgery dropped off, as did observance of religious rites, much to the displeasure of Am-Sia and her mother. People felt they had more important things to do. They were too busy enjoying their rebirths to bother with anything so mundane as farming or cooking. Guard duty? The very thought was laughable.
And then, the soldiers came.
#
Qae-Zel winced at the screams of those caught underneath the oil he poured from the city wall, then wiped sweat from his brow. They just kept coming, like termites. Laddermen, swordsmen, archers. Even a small siege crew with a ballista procured from the Sun Lord alone knew where. The walls were strong and tall, but so were the enemy soldiers. Chaulians with thick elephant-hide armor, gem-tipped spears, and far more discipline than the defending soldiers cut their way through fur and feather, scale and fin. Fliers were shot down by a hail of arrows. Those with bestial appendages were put to death at spear length, unable to bring claws or teeth to bear. The city was forced to fight like the human beings they no longer were, and Qae-Zel thought it only a matter of time before the walls fell.
All for the mask, of course. Even the instructions on the walls were no longer necessary... the Saraband Vermeil was known to plenty of people by now, no longer a secret rite, but a tool for the open use of all. No mystery, no respect, no awe, no fear, no power. Just another thing to assimilate into society and make use of. No, the only thing left from the old days that was truly needed now was the mask. There were no others of its ilk, nor would there ever be again.
Qae-Zel had thought of destroying it, but Am-Sia and the high priestess had advised against it. The invading Chaulians wouldn't likely take their word for it being destroyed, and would simply continue the invasion and then ransack the city totally once it was overthrown. And there was no way to tell how their own people would respond to such an act, either. People more powerful, wealthy, and cunning than Qae-Zel had been slain by mobs for much lesser reasons before.
Far too many broken ladders and cauldrons emptied of hot oil later later, nightfall came, and Qae-Zel returned home. He should have slept, and truthfully didn't know why he didn't. His body felt ready to fall apart, but his mind was feverishly alert, and he couldn't close his eyes without imagining disquieting images of vague monsters behind his eyelids. So instead, he and his similarly insomniac wife sat on the roof of their home, staring out at the all-encompassing green mists of the jungle.
"No one would know there was an army out there by simply looking or hearing right now," Am-Sia remarked.
She was right. Even the army's campfires were too shrouded by the cloudy air to see as anything brighter than what could easily have been slightly distant fireflies.
"Even the best soldiers need to sleep sometimes, I guess."
Am-Sia's eyes narrowed in that coldly wrathful way he recognized from those rare times when she felt called upon to use her station to rebuke those without shame. "Mankind is a hateful and brutish entity, always striving to destroy itself. The Saraband Vermeil is free to anyone who wants it, and even that is not enough for these cursed Chaulians. Of all the beasts of the field, humanity is the quickest to violence, and the most unwilling to eye plainly the costs of it."
"They're just doing what comes natural to them," Qae-Zel countered mildly. "People see new power and it makes them afraid. So they want to take control of or destroy that which they fear... fleeing isn't really an option for something like this. You've seen how it's spreading around, to every city, every village. Everywhere where there's people, they want to be different from what they are. Can we really blame the Chaulians for being scared of that?"
"They fear needlessly! All people want is to be happy. They're dancing to be happy in ways they couldn't be so before. That's all."
"Happiness for one person often excludes the happiness of another person, however," Qae-Zel mused grimly, eyes falling to the stone roofwork, smooth, precisely-carved blocks.
Only because humans make it so. We don't have to be human anymore," Am-Sia said smugly.
He looked over at his wife, seeing a strange look in her eyes, somewhere between excitement and deviousness. "What're you talking about?"
"We have form, what about function, Qae-Zel? Shouldn't birds act like birds? We could just fly away from all this nonsense--leave all the petty foolishness and selfishness and complications of humanity behind."
His mouth went dry at the magnitude of her suggestion, something so great that he could hardly believe she, the daughter of the high priestess, was even suggesting it. "You want to abandon the city? Our society? Thousands of years of accumulated culture?"
"And look where it got us," she responded simply, waving a hand to encompassing the enemy camps outside the city.
Qae-Zel chewed his bottom lip, thinking.
#
The transformation was so painful that at first, he had thought he would die of it.
But he didn't.
And Am-Sia didn't.
He still thought like himself. He'd been wondering if he would or not. Am-Sia still thought like herself as well. He could tell, in the way she looked at him with bright eyes, and tilted her head, and nestled up against him lovingly. He truthfully had no idea what kind of bird he was, but he was much smaller than Am-Sia, who had become a magnificent brown-gold eagle.
It was insane. Horrible and wonderful, exhilarating and terrifying. They were something else, something wholly new and different, something unbound by what they had been.
He tapped his beak playfully against Am-Sia's, and looked meaningfully to the exit. She gave a quick bob of her head, an avian equivalent of a human nod, and blinked one eye. He imagined her grinning, but beaks lacked the ability.
It was time to fly away.
They would leave their old life behind, like a bad dream fading upon waking in the morning sun.
Or at least, that was the plan.
What they had not planned on was being caught by a Chaulian net before they even reached the end of the temple causeway.
They struggled futilely against thick, weighty ropes with a mad flurry of wings, the sounds of chaos all around them. Battle of the cruelest, one-sided sort, filled with the screams of the dying and cries of panic.
The Chaulians had decided to strike during the night after all, and had broken through to take the whole city by complete surprise.
They struggled till they had the strength to struggle no more, then finally went limp, gazing with grief and despair into each other's eyes. They were being taken back to the Chaulian camp, along with another prize: the temple's bird mask. With disgust, Qae-Zel listened to the soldier being praised for his efforts as he presented the prizes. He watched Am-Sia's talons tremble in either rage or fear. He hoped and suspected in rage.
The Chaulians knew they were dancers, not just ordinary birds. It was the blood that had given it away, and the discarded clothes in the temple. They were to be sent to a great Chaulian lord.
As pets.
Impromptu cages of sturdy branches were made for them. Days passed in these cages while the city was secured. They saw none of it, being held in the camp outside, and fed fish, fruit, and seeds by menial servants. Terror and anger were replaced by simple boredom as they waited for something to change, for an opportunity. Even for suffering, for at least that would be better and have some purpose behind it. But they simply... existed.
Then they were sent to the far off land of Chaul, where it was cold and the air was thin. They were admitted into a manor of stone filled with colorful weavings and elegantly-carved statues of spirits and gods, and received larger, more ornate cages of precious metals, but were no less imprisoned.
Even as something other than human, it seemed there was no escaping humanity.
It took a full cycle of the seasons before Qae-Zel became accustomed to his new life and had decided to be as happy as he could be regardless of circumstance. He stopped trying to escape or assault the Chaulian noblemen and the servants. He played with their lord's children, and made signs to indicate that he understood their speech, and did tricks for them.
All of this, Am-Sia watched, still and cold as a statue herself. It seemed to him that he often saw contempt in her gaze. He wished desperately to speak to her, but all he could do was look back pleadingly, and try to touch her through the bars of her cage when he was allowed close enough.
The dance had freed them from the restrictions of humanity only to grant them the restrictions of birds, but Qae-Zel could not feel bitter for it any longer. Their choices had brought them to their current state. They had tried to run away from the cares and troubles of life itself, and been slapped down for the effrontery. No matter what form was taken, function would always have hardship in it. That was what made life life, rather than death.
And so he made the best of it, and abandoned both despair and bitterness for wry contentment and a quiet, subdued grief that was almost like a joy. All hopes for the future, he dropped from his mind, save for the hope that one day, Am-Sia would look at him with love again, and try to be happy with things as they were, despite countless injustices and imperfections.
And to his pleased surprise, one day, when he was playfully 'riding' the house dog, he saw her looking at him with-was it that look? Qae-Zel abandoned the dog and fluttered over to her cage, poking his beak between the bars tentatively.
Am-Sia's beak leaned against his firmly, and her body against the bar, and her eyes closed.
Qae-Zel shut his eyes as well, and they leaned as close to each as they could, feathers lightly brushing against each other through cold unfeeling metal. And despite everything, for that brief moment, Qae-Zel was so filled with joy he would have wept, had birds had the capacity for tears.