Feathers

Sun Bathing

Bain turned his head to look at his friend as he leaned on the table, his shoulders by his ears. Rutiger seemed unsure if that had been the wrong thing to say, but then Bain started chuckling and he quickly exhaled.

"Let's just find this Feral and make sure he never gets the chance to take my place. If he does, well, then we can talk about killing him."

Bain took the cloth from Rutiger and began to twist his bloody hands in it, wandering over to where the map lay open on the ground, held at each corner with a stone. He crouched and scanned for any new x's. It seemed that she had indeed been evading them, the only new one was far east. A few recent o's had appeared at the corners of the parchment.

"Let's start marking where we see bear tracks, too. I have a hunch that my Feral might have a bear for a friend. Do not, under any circumstances, kill any bears, but record where there are footprints or other signs."

Link's gut twisted uncomfortably. Bain knew and that shortened the time he had left to make a decision about Leda. Not about Leda, he corrected himself, about his own life. Now that Bain would be actively looking for tracks, it made Link feel even worse for having covered up several the day before.

"Eventually," he said slowly, adding an x and a few dots to the map. "We will figure out the places she goes to regularly and then we will need some sort of plan to attack. We should start doing drills and thinking of any variables that might happen. We will have one opportunity and that is it. Ideas?"

"Of course, we will each need to be positioned equidistant from each other, moving in from our hidden positions so that she cannot bolt any direction," Arthur said. "That is rudimentary to any and every ambush."

"She obviously has not fallen for any of the traps, so a surprise attack like that will be the only thing that will work," Link added. He did not feel like helping too much.

"Then we jump on her!" Rutiger plopped his fist into his giant palm with a laugh.

"No, Rutiger. You would crush her. Besides, she is quicker than you. We all know that," Arthur grumbled.

Rutiger frowned, his eyes narrowing. He seemed to get a few inches larger, still sensitive about his public shaming. "Fine, then. We will put on this season's fashion and overwhelm her with glitter and shiny buckles. I'm sure she has never seen that before! Surely, she will just fall over in awe!"

"You wouldn't know how to put your own pants on if someone didn't do it for you," he snapped back.

"Arthur, you're begging to get your head shaved in your sleep. I know you've got loads of fancy wigs anyway. Look, you've got one on now! I'd pick something else, a ponytail doesn't suit you well. Makes you look like a girl."

"This is my real hair and it does not!"

"Enough you two," Link sighed.

Bain's lips were pressed tightly together to keep from laughing.

Arthur, still indignant, pushed Rutiger aside. "I would not expect you to understand why I do things the way I do because you are simple and closed-minded. After all, you haven't been outside of Incitatia's reach to experience cultural diversity. Why, when I traveled to Jedjin, I witnessed their guard capturing a thief. They ambushed him much the same way you said, closing in around him, but they threw a net over him so that he could not fly straight up. Your plan did not account for that!" He pointed a finger in Rutiger's face.

"You didn't let me finish," he snarled. "Our positions could have been up high so when we closed in, we would come down at her. She couldn't go up."

"Oh, Rutiger, you are so brilliant," Arthur huffed sarcastically, rolling his eyes.