Birds of a Feather

Chapter 1: Trip on Tracks

1        .        Trip on Tracks

A rose is a rose no matter how you look at it. One can burn it, but never change what it was. That said, what would happen to a bird whose wings were taken from them? Would they even be called a bird? Life brings with it many great questions, and its all on how you look at it. Cerisse had always been a free spirit and even grounded to the earth, that never changed. She never dreamed of soaring through the clouds as moat birds did. No one--save for her good friend, Azur--ever questioned this about her. For all, the others knew, she was just a normal girl who had normal dreams. A true love. Marriage. Children. A family. It just so happened, however, that she was uncomfortable around other people. She could utter not one decisive word with anyone but her friend.

"Cery!"

Cerisse looked up from her book to see Azur looking around the clouds of finely dressed travels on the platform. She waved to her and followed her inside on of the cars. It was a trahiner, but not just any trahiner. A Sky-Vessle. It was a trahiner that rode on cloud-made tracks. Her friend was determined to get her over her fear of flight and heights whilst they make their way to a familial reunion. It was Azur's family. Her family gathered every half decade or so since various relatives were scattered throughout the farthest ends of the world.

The car the two were in was magnificent. Burgundy velvet carpet lined the floor. The small rooms that slid open were much large than the normal ones. One could fit twenty grown men comfortably inside. It was suffice to say that Azur's family was well off. Azur looked upon her family's wealth as a nusance, but Cerisse saw it as a gift. To be so blessed was a wonderful thing, but as the saying going, ones appreciation grows only with absence.

Azur was usually quite somber, but today she was positively jubilant. The smile she wore could tear her face in two. Once their luggage was securely put away, Cerisse set aside her bag and book, and looked to her pointedly.

"What?" As if she didn't know.

"You're plotting something. I can feel it in my hollowest of bones."

Azur giggled just as the engines of the trahiner roared to life and the whistles were blown. The scenery outside the window began to move past they and get smaller with each level of elevation the trahiner ascended through. Not daring to look out the window, she stretched her hand out and pulled the screen down.

"It hurts me that you think so lowl of me," she pressed a delicate hand to where her heart would be.

"Oh please forgive me," she said facetiously. "I have been seeing another who dragged me from land to land to land for the last six and a half years."

Azur shook her head at her friends bitter jokes, that were none at all humorous, though they never were. "Don't you want adventure, Cery. All you do is lazy about. I can't imagine a more boring--"

Before she could finish someone knocked on their door. Azur stood to answer it and opened it fully. Two men, maybe no older than them, stood side by side out in the hall. One had a pageboys cap with a simple, worn, padded jacket. The other had on a long trenchcoat that covered all but his iron-studded boots.