Thunderlight

Selfish

"Hey, hey, sing for us, little birdy! Tweet tweet!"

The jeering laughter from down below is nothing new. The mercenaries have been at this for about two hours now, and any anger Montgomery could possibly feel has already been felt. All he can do is sit in his suspended cage, chin dropped against his hand, and glare at the bars separating him and freedom.

Maybe, just maybe, he shouldn't have announced his intentions to overthrow their boss in front of their base.

After the krokorok came and punched his lights out, there was a scuffle between them and the mercenaries. Bela tried to mediate the issue, but it was to no avail. The mercenaries couldn't be reasoned with, and Montgomery was beyond pissed. It seems Hilda was, too, because it took ten mercenaries to finally take her down.

But in the end, they were beaten. They were outrageously outnumbered and no one came to their aid. Even when it was clear that Bela would be getting locked up with them, she didn't fight. All she did was fret about how she'd be able to help her people if she was all locked up.

They locked up the maractus mother, too, in the same cage as Lenny and Bela. Lenny's natural friend-making instincts kicked in and he's gotten to know everything about her now that they're "cage buddies"—Lenny's words, not his. Her name is Agnes, she's a mother of four, and she likes to grow vegetables. Montgomery could be irritated at Lenny for pestering this poor woman about vegetables of all things, but listening to their conversation helps him drown out the mercenaries.

"Chirp! Chirp! Come on, don't be such a quiet little birdy!" One of them taunts. He'd roll his eyes if he wasn't already sick of doing that. "If you're in a bird cage, you might as well sing!"

"Maybe he can't sing. Maybe he's sensitive about it," the other sneers. In a mocking, derogatory voice, they say, "Poor little baby."

Montgomery frowns. He's actually quite good at singing, thank you very much!

Not like he'd sing for these chumps, though. He's sick of giving these guys the time of day, much less wasting energy on them.

They must notice that he's ignoring them, and that seems to irritate them. He could almost smile vindictively if he didn't feel so dead inside. If they're so upset that he won't entertain them, they can go find something else to do. Don't they have, like... mercenary things to do? Or something?

The two mercenaries mutter amongst themselves for a few moments. Their tone goes from disgruntled to excited in a frighteningly short time. Warily, Montgomery dares a glance down at them. One of them races off to the center of the room, where the big pile is, and rummages around. Then, with a red cloth in hand, they jog eagerly back.

His red cloth.

Holding his bandana, they wave it cruelly in front of him, just an inch out of his reach. He doesn't make a move to try and grab it; he knows that will just end in them yanking it back and him looking like a fool. But it doesn't mean he doesn't feel a bitter, burning rage toil through him as they put the bandana on and do poor imitations of him. Most of them involve him crying like a baby.

They seem to squeeze all the satisfaction they can out of that before taking the bandana off and tossing it away carelessly. Montgomery swears he feels his blood pressure spike when the cloth touches the ground.

"And what about you, lady?" One of the mercenaries says. "What's your deal?"

For a bewildering moment, Montgomery thinks they're talking to Hilda, whose body and rage are barely restrained by the flimsy cage they've stuffed her into. But when he follows their eye line, he sees they're grinning at the maractus, Agnes. Which makes much more sense. He can't imagine these idiots are dense enough to try and commit suicide via pissing off Hilda.