Feathers

A King Falls

The center of the amphitheater, built of gray-white stone, was filled with thousands of mourners clad in dark colors, washing the space in the shade of their grief. However, their heads were not bowed in submission to the weight upon them, but turned skyward toward the source of their collective sorrow. In their center, rose a single pillar upon which rested a horizontal platform, longer than it was wide and on it, in a cradle of softened branches, lay a body shrouded in a thin veil of black and silver, the colors of the royal Peregrines of Incitatia.

The people wore their best, looking up to their fallen king as they always had in life; the slight wind toyed with the edges of the light fabric above, eager to carry him away into the sky. Victor had been loved by his subjects and they each felt his loss close to heart, their wings wrapped around their bodies instead of folded against their backs, a symbol of grief.

The fire bearer rose into the air between Victor and the castle, all eyes watching. He flew around the pyre once, arms outstretched, a small torch in the hand nearest the body and then neared the pillar by gradually circling inwards. He tried not to move his wings more than was absolutely necessary so that his passage would be quiet and would not disturb the veil. Out of respect, the crowd did not make a single sound, holding perfectly still as well. The whole world had frozen, as unmoving as Victor, as uniform as the stone that built the city, one body.

At last the flames licked the cradle and the fire bearer wrapped the thin ribbon of yellow and orange around and around the nest until thin columns of smoke began to rise up from beneath as the oiled wood caught. Positioned around the amphitheater at the highest points were the twenty Peregrines in existence, tall and sleek and of varying ages, dressed in their order, arms firmly against their sides. Their brother had fallen and they would perform the ritual that their fathers had done for their grandfathers and their grandfathers had done for their own fathers.

"Set!" One called out, faceless among his peers, calling them to focus. A few seconds later he cried, "Wing!"

In a formidable display, the Peregrine men opened their wings. On the inside of the circle, facing the crowd were white feathers with harsh black bars. An onlooker outside of the ceremony would see the huge sweeping arcs of the backs of the wings, dark as ink, painted as if they were destined to mourn the nearing extinction of their kind.

The caller then shouted, "Rise!"

Eighteen leapt upwards together at the command, forcing the wind beneath them and lifting their circle into the air. The only one that remained standing was Victor's younger brother, Bain, his face masked and expressionless. In his arms, Victor's tiny son, not eight months old, was wrapped in a blanket, sound asleep and oblivious to the passing of his father.

Bain watched the wind buffet the crowd, whipping hair and ruffling feathers, eliciting a quiet awe for the dedication of the order as they stayed level with each other, beating their wings in unison. The veil rippled and fluttered with the new gusts, dancing with anticipation as the fire grew rapidly from the added oxygen. The Peregrines were releasing their brother, stoking the flames so they obscured the form from view, devouring Victor's remains so that he could fly again. The smoke and ashes swirled and writhed in a controlled column, snaking upwards higher and higher, looking for an escape from the circle. The eighteen drew the new cloud up with them until they seemed like a dark ring in the sky and the people beneath were a dark pupil in the white eye of the amphitheater, still watching.

The caller shouted one last order and the Peregrines arched backwards and streaked downwards like bullets, the signature move of the race, the fastest dive on the planet. They rushed toward the crowd so quickly that the people had only to trust they would not be hit. At the very last moment and without any command, they drew up, straining against gravity and banking to their right, creating another moving circle together, the opposite direction that the fire bearer had gone. They rounded the crowd a few times before creating a sort of pyramid in the air upwind of the amphitheater, giving the wind strength as it moved through.