Link to part one: here Wordcount: 1,099 Part: 5/9
Synopsis: Jasmine tries to talk to the shy confusing creature.
“Hey,” I said. I took one step toward him. What do you say to a thunderbird? “Don’t fly away. It’s okay. It’s alright.”
It remained perfectly still, eyes unblinking, ear-crests laid back level with the crown of the head. I came to the edge of the crater. Should I go down? No. It could certainly bite. I just needed to keep my voice going.
“Did you hear me call you, in the storm? Did you see me? Could you hear me over the thunder…Thunderbird?”
Finally, the eyes blinked. It tensed slightly all through its body and emitted a brilliant whistle, louder than I could shout. It ended quickly and the crests fanned upward. Unlike in the avian form, the crests were actual ears, but ornamented with sweeping glossy feathers to a rather Mercurian effect. The ears swept forward a bit away from the head, quivering slightly. The expression on the thunderbird’s face hadn’t changed since it heard the chip of glass fall.
“Thunderbird….” What to say? “Tormaigh said I should talk to you. You know how to get me back to my world? You can get me home? Tormaigh said you would.”
The ears flicked back alongside the head and it sprung lightly to its feet. The bird pulled itself up incredibly erect, more so than a human probably could. It stood high on its toes, keeping the spurred heels far from the ground. It crossed one foot over in front of the other and tipped its bony shoulders back, lowering its chin and flaring its crests. I could now see that the long mane was composed not of hair at all, but of fine sickle feathers, like a rooster’s cape. The eyes were even bigger than they had been before. It chirped again. Apparently, human as it looked, it retained a bird’s vocal chords.
It was scared of me. How do you convince a bird you’re not scary? Keep talking. “It’s okay. It’s okay, pretty bird.” Pretty bird. “You know who Tormaigh is. Tormaigh is your friend. Tormaigh is my friend. It’s alright.” I stepped toward him.
The eyes glimmered.He turned, and sprung into the air.The air filled with white light and I dove away. Thunder clapped, sending wind in all directions and when I could see again. The bird was flying into the horizon, avian again.
I sighed and my head dropped. This was impossible. I made my way out of the fulgurite grove and into the emptiness again. The storm was dissolving now, or rather, it had probably followed the bird. It was more devoted than I was. I needed to talk to Tormaigh. There had to be an easier way to get home.
But, in spite of my better judgement, I didn’t try to call Tormaigh for a while. I wandered aimlessly around the glass prairie first one way and then the other, as lost mentally as I was physically. Tormaigh was certainly wrong. This wasn’t any place I had ever been before.
I couldn’t decide whether there was any reason to keep the fulgurite grove within view. The bird didn’t seem to have any real intentions of returning there. But there was something comforting about having a focal point in the vast expanse. Slowly I gave it up, drifting out into the open again, searching the sky. He was just going to keep flying away. There was no sense in this.
Back at home, the only ways to tame a bird that I knew of involved offering food. There was no food here, not that I could see. I would probably starve myself before I had time to worry about finding food for him. Except it was well past my breakfast time and I wasn’t hungry at all, or thirsty. So no food. But what then? What could I use to distract him from his flying-away instincts?
Bells. That was why Tormaigh had mentioned them. I needed to find some bells. I scowled across the empty land. Did they really grow out of the ground here? I certainly hadn’t seen anything growing yet. I was going to have to see if I could summon Tormaigh. I had a question for him—or ten. For a minute I stared around wishing he would appear before I started talking to him. “Tormaigh? Can you hear me?”
“Hmm?” He was standing on my right staring out at the horizon.
“You need to tell me where to find bells,” I said.
He smiled. “Bells.” I blinked impatiently at him. He turned to me. “They grow by the water.”
“What water?” Now we’re getting somewhere. This place has geographical features. He pointed into the distance. I aligned my eyes with the point of his finger and squinted. I saw nothing but the hazy blue horizon. He let his arm drop to his side and we faced each other. “I don’t see it.”
He veiled his eyes and looked back at some distant area. “It’s like a backwards mirage. If you keep walking that way, you’ll eventually come upon it.”
“How far?” I asked.
“Maybe fifteen minutes.”
I sighed. When I looked back at him there was an expectant smile in his eyes. He had an odd face. I couldn’t say in what way. That first time I saw him, I recognized him, but the memory of that familiar person who shared his face was gone now. He nodded and pointed again toward the invisible body of water.
“Alright,” I said. “But I really hope he likes the bells enough to come to them even when I’m there.”
“You might find he’s already among them,” he said.
“I’ll just end up scaring him away with my approach, then.” My voice dropped. “Oh man.” Tormaigh had disappeared. What made him think it was socially acceptable to do that at any point in a conversation was beyond me. Especially since I really didn’t know him very well.
I gazed out at the “backwards mirage” he had indicated, and drew in a long breath. Off to the bells then, I supposed. I put my hands in my pockets and set out for the dark haze on the horizon.
I had no internal clock at all since I came here. It didn’t do me much good to know it was a fifteen-minute walk from my starting point. I tried counting steps, because counting seconds didn’t work. But I lost track. Eventually, I sensed a change in the level of the ground, and the smooth glass became increasingly gritty. I looked out ahead of me. In the space of a couple of paces, everything changed.