birds in the wood

Chapter Five

Talon guards the nest.

It guards where the little one sleeps. Jason. Jason takes the blankets from the bed and crawls underneath to make his nest. He wants Talon to nest with him. He tells it.

“You can sleep under here. With—with me. If you want.”

Talon does not want. Talon does what it is told. It crawls under the bed with him and lets Jason arrange it, under the blanket, on the edge of the nest, looking out across the floor. Jason curls up against its back. And lies still.

Talon lies still.

Talon does what it is told and Jason told it to sleep here. Talon does what it is told, but it does not sleep. It is not meant to sleep. It is meant to guard, to attack, to kill, but Jason has not told it to kill and Master has not told it to kill and there are no Owls here to correct its misbehavior.

So Talon does not sleep. Talon disobeys orders, and no one corrects it.

The little one moves in his sleep. Little one. Baby—this is the wrong name but it keeps coming back, echoing in its head like a voice in the maze. Little one. Jason. Baby.

~~and the other name Talon called it before~~

Jason moves. He turns over. The warmth of his body moves away. He leaves Talon cold.

~~it hates~~

Talon is cold.

It inches closer to the edge of the nest.

Jason breathes. He sleeps. He doesn’t see Talon move. He won’t see. If he stays asleep, he won’t see.

Talon slides closer.

Talon is meant to guard, to attack, to kill. Jason has not told it to kill, but he tells it to guard. He told it with words, after the Court—and he tells it with his body. His small, vulnerable body, flinching from Master, shrinking against Talon, asking it to hide him. Talon can hide him. Talon can guard.

It slides out from underneath the bed. It will guard the nest. It will guard the outer door. It will guard the windows. It will keep watch and see that no one attacks the little one while he sleeps.

The windows, over bed and desk, are closed and locked. Thick curtains hang in front of them. The cloth brushes against Talon as it slips between them. The cloth is soft. It blocks light from outside, and light from inside. It blocks anyone on either side of the window from seeing through. If an attack came through the windows, Talon would not see it in time.

The room is very high up. Under the curtains, next to the glass, Talon sees the lights of the city far below. The lights spread out as far as it sees, glowing, twinkling, like stars.

The word is sudden. Sharp. Like a knife through its hand. It is not meant to know stars. It is not—it has no use for lights except to see a target. It is not meant to know anything else. It is not. It backs away from the window through the thick soft curtains into the dark room where the nest is and Jason who it is meant to guard.

To guard. To attack. To kill.

It is meant to guard the nest. It is meant to guard the nest. It is meant to guard the nest.

Nothing more.

The room is dark and quiet and empty. Talon watches the door. It watches the windows. It circles the room, following the line of the wall. It does not touch the curtains again. It does not look out the window.

The door is closed.

It circles the room. It listens for any sound. It watches the shadows.

The door is closed and locked.

It circles the room. It does not touch the curtains. It does not touch the bed. It listens to Jason breathing. It watches his chest rise and fall.

The door is closed and locked and a chair sits under the handle to keep it from turning. Jason put it there before he made his nest.

Talon stands in front of the door.

No one has come through the door. No one has attacked them in the room. If someone did, Talon would kill them. Talon guards the room; the room is safe.

The apartment does not have a guard. If someone came through the large windows in the outside room nothing would stop them. There is no other talon. There is only Master-not-Master-Bruce and not-Master-not-talon-just-Alfred.

Talon is meant to guard. It guards Jason. Jason sleeps in the room—and the room is safe—but Master-Bruce and just-Alfred are outside the room. They have no guard. They have no Talon.

Its skin prickles. It feels something creeping up behind it and turns but the room is empty. It can see the room is empty.

It can’t see the rest of the apartment. It can’t see the thing creeping up on Master.

It moves the chair away from the door. Careful. Quiet. It will circle the apartment. It will watch and see that the apartment is empty and Master is safe. It will come back, it will, after it sees.

It opens the door, careful, quiet, and it slips out.

The hallway is empty. The other doors are closed. Talon tries them to see if they are locked. They are not. The rooms behind are dark and silent and still. Talon breathes in. It smells old wood.

It breathes out, and little clouds of dust swirl away into the air.

~~look dad i can see my~~

It finds one locked door at the end of the hall. It breathes in again and smells sharp spicy clean on the air moving away from the door. No smell of blood. No smell of death. No cold.

~~look dad it’s so cold~~

Talon is cold.

Not-Master-just-Alfred is here. He is safe. Master-Bruce is not here. Talon does not know where he is.

It slides through shadow and dust to the end of the hallway. To the stairs. To high ceilings and wide open floors and little points of light shining from the huge windows.

Windows are not safe. Windows are the quickest point of entry, besides a door already opened. Talon could easily slip through those windows or break through them and kill—

It stops in the middle of the wall. It freezes.

Kill Master.

That’s the end. That’s what it was going to think. But Talon does not think, talons do not think, talons do as they are told and no one told it to kill Master so it must be defective it is defective it needs to be corrected it needs it needs—

Something moves.

Talon flinches. It leaps away, up the wall next to it, which is not a wall but a shelf. It jumps from the shelf to the hanging chandelier, the highest point in the room. There it crouches. Silent. Watching.

A shadow falls across the floor. It bleeds from the staircase at the back of the room, where the windows end. It blocks out the faint light. Someone tall and sure moves slowly from the upper level to the lower.

Master.

He walks across the wide floor. He passes in front of the lights. Talon watches him. He moves slowly, shuffling his feet, without limping. He wears sleeping clothes: a long robe and loose pants. He carries something under his arm.

He moves through the narrow doorway at the end of the room. Then Talon can’t see him.

Master. Alive. Safe.

Nothing follows him. Nothing slips through the shadows with a knife. Master is here—awake, alive. Nothing hunts him. Nothing tries to kill him.

Except Talon.

It shrinks back. It is not going to kill him. It is not. It knows better. It knows. Talon does what it is told. No one told it to kill Master. It will not attack him like it attacked the Owls it will not it will not it does not ~~want~~

Master steps out of the doorway. He holds something in his hand. He walks back across the room, past the chandelier, close to the window. Talon tenses, because the window is not safe, something could—it would be easy—

Master freezes.

He lifts his head fast. Controlled. Like ~~a talon would~~

He looks up. He looks at the chandelier. He looks at Talon.

Talon looks back.

Master makes a strange sound and pushes the surprise out of his body.

“Talon,” he says. Then he is quiet. He pushes something else—tense waiting—out of his body. “Talon—could you come down from there? Please?”

This Master is strange. All of his orders are tests, disguised as questions, hidden in strange sounds and broken words. Talon does not think of this. Talon obeys. It flips over one metal arm of the chandelier and drops to the floor without making a sound. Then it goes to Master and kneels by his feet.

Master breathes out. It sounds—it sounds. Talon bows its head. It does not matter what Master does. Talon will submit. Talon will obey.

Talon will be good.

Master breathes out. Then he steps back and crouches down. Talon sees him bend his knees and settle his weight on the balls of his feet. It stays in position.

“Talon,” Master says. “Can you look at me?”

Another order. Another test. Talon lifts its head. It looks up into Master’s face.

“Thank you,” Master says. He says this often. “I’m not angry. You surprised me. When I saw you up there…”

Then he is quiet. He looks away. Talon keeps its eyes on his face. It has not been told to look anywhere else.

Master has blue eyes. He looks at its body. Shoulders, arms, legs. Abdomen. Throat.

“You scared me,” Master says.

Then he is quiet. He keeps looking. He keeps looking at Talon’s throat. He has a cup in his hand. Steam rises from it.

Talon does not flinch. It knows steam. It knows boiling. It knows the correction for talking out of turn is boiling water poured down its throat stinging burning melting scalding screaming

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Master says.

Talon does not flinch. It does not look away from Master’s face. It doesn’t know—it doesn’t—it doesn’t need to know. It is not meant to know. It is meant to obey. It doesn’t matter what Master does, Talon will submit, Talon will obey, Talon will be good—

“Talon,” Master says, and Talon looks back at him—back—from the ground, where it looked without being ordered, because—because—because—

“Talon—”

It looks at Master but does not see him. This is bad. This is bad. Its hands shake against its knees where it tries to keep them still. Still. Still. Be still! Its hands shake. Though it holds them in fists. Though it digs sharp nails into its thighs, be still, be still, be still, but it can’t, and it looks at the ground again, and now Master will correct it—now—

Master will correct it. Master will show it all the things it has done wrong since it came to him, and he will correct it. He will teach it to do better. He will fix it. He will make it better, so Talon is—Talon will—submit, even though it hurts, even though it will hurt, it will hurt it will hurt it will hurt please it does not ~~want~~

It does not want to be corrected.

~~please please please~~

Something falls over its shoulders. Talon does not flinch. For a second it stops shaking and then the strange texture on its neck makes it start again, wrong, stupid, shaking and shaking even though it knows—

Someone is speaking.

Master. Talon looks up. It was supposed to—look, to look, but—Master is gone. Moved. Somewhere close, because Talon can still hear his voice—

“And you’ll be in my heart—yes, you’ll be in my heart…”

He is—singing.

“From this day on, now and forevermore…”

Talon turns its head and finds him. He sits cross-legged—on the floor—hands resting on his knees. He watches Talon.

He sings.

“For one so small you seem so strong—my arms will hold you, keep you safe and warm…”

His voice is deep. Rough, but it follows the rising-falling of the song easily.

“This bond between us can’t be broken; I will be here, don’t you cry—”

He sounds like—

Talon grabs that thought and kills it and locks it away. Master-Bruce is singing. He is singing—in front of Talon. Looking at Talon. Calm and relaxed.

He is not angry.

“And you’ll be in my heart—yes, you’ll be in my heart—from this day on, now and forevermore…”

The singing stops then. Master looks at him with light blue eyes. Talon looks back.

“Are you with me, chum?”

A question. The sound at the end is strange. Talon does not understand.

It bows its head.

“Hey—” Master says. Then, “You can look at me if you want. It’s alright. I’m not going to hurt you.”

There is no one else in the large room. But Master keeps talking, which means he must be talking to himself, or to Talon.

It looks up. Something soft rubs against the back of its neck. Talon reaches for it and finds a blanket, a soft woven blanket hanging over its shoulders. It smells warm dusty yarn.

It rubs the soft blanket between its fingers. No one corrects it.

“Talon—” Master says. “Chum. I need you to listen to me.”

It understands then: chum is another word for talon. Master is speaking to it; Master wants it to listen. Talon looks at his eyes to show that it is listening.

“I am not going to hurt you,” Master says. Each word is slow and heavy. “I will never hurt you. No matter—no matter what you do. I don’t want to hurt you. I want…”

Then he stops. Talon waits, and waits, for him to say what he wants. This is another way of giving an order. When he says it, Talon will obey.

“I want you to be safe,” he says. “I want you… to be able to heal.”

This is—

Talon rubs the blanket between its fingers. It does not understand. It has taken orders like this before—orders to be. Be still. Be silent. Be good. But this—

Be safe. Be able to heal.

It doesn’t know how to do this.

“I know you’re scared,” Master says. Talon focuses its eyes on him. “It’s alright. To be scared.” Something like a smile curls the corner of his mouth. It’s not a cruel smile. It’s not a happy smile either. “But you don’t have to be. Please. You… you don’t have to… do this.”

Be safe. Be able to heal.

It doesn’t understand. Talon does heal. It already showed Master how fast it heals. But he has not used it for that. He treats it like… glass. Like he could break it if he hit too hard.

Perhaps Master has never had a talon before and does not know what it is meant for. Talon does not know what it would do then. It has never had a Master who knew so little.

“Do you understand?” Master reaches out. Talon looks away from his face—just for a second—at his hand. He stops and holds his hand in midair. “I—please. I need to know if you understand… what I’m saying.”

His words are slow and heavy. After he says them, he presses his mouth closed. Then he is quiet. He watches Talon.

Do you understand?

An order. A question. All of Master’s orders are also questions. Talon knows the answer. It knows what it is meant to do: bow its head, take the order, wait for the next.

It does not.

It looks at its Master. Master-not-Master-Bruce, who lets it stay with Jason, who lets it talk out of turn, who gives it soft blankets, who sings. Master who took the knife, but did not use it. Who held Talon when it bled.

Talon leans forward. It opens its mouth.

It says, “Yes.”

~~his voice~~

Its voice rasps in its throat. The word feels—strange, like the other words did, when it talked out of turn in front of the others. Master-not-Master-Bruce did not correct it then.

He does not correct it now. He smiles. It’s a happy smile.

“Good,” he says. “That’s—good. Thank you. Thank you, chum.”

Chum means Talon, but it sounds different. It sounds warm. Talon—

Talon likes it.

Master-Bruce breathes out. It sounds safe. He unfolds his legs and stands. Talon stands after him.

“Let’s—” he starts. Stops. “Let’s get to bed. Both of us.”

He leads it out of the large room. He leads it up the stairs, back to the room it left, back to the nest. He leaves it there, without orders, without any words at all. He smiles when he sees Jason sleeping under the bed. It’s a sad smile.

Talon folds itself back down under the bed. It still has the blanket on its shoulders; it adds the blanket to the nest. It covers Jason. The little one shivers in his sleep and moves closer to Talon. He nuzzles against its arm.

Talon’s mouth twitches. It makes a smile. Jason doesn’t see. He sleeps. Talon curls around him and looks out at the floor.

Talon is not supposed to like its masters. Talon is a weapon and a weapon does not care who uses it or how.

Talon likes Master-Bruce anyway.

⁂