Link took Leda's hand like it was a baby bird and held it up and away from her body. "Your other hand goes on my shoulder and mine goes here," he said, slipping his fingers against the doeskin dress at her waist.
"Our music is made with reed or bone pipes and our voices. I have heard music in the Lower Quarter, made with boxes and strings. I saw people dancing and jumping around like they were chickens," she laughed.
"It must have been some kind of celebration then," Link said. "Or they were just drunk. But Peregrines live in the High Quarter, in the Palace. We are expected to know many things, from how to fight and win, to how to treat a beautiful lady."
She looked at him with her sweet brown eyes. "Do you think I am a beautiful lady?"
"I do," he said, pulling her against him.
"When they teach you these things, do they teach you how to chase Ferals and catch us?"
He stiffened for a moment and looked down at her. Her tone had not been accusing, only curious. "No, Leda. As terrible as you think we are, we only want to give our mates the best lives we can. I do not agree with the way things are done, but we cannot let our race go extinct. There are many females in Incitatia that would like a Peregrine to be their husband. We are bound by the responsibility to our species to take Feral wives and not Flock Avians, because they could not make a Peregrine son. Many of those females are jealous of Ferals, you know."
"You are making this up!" She slapped his chest lightly before putting her hand back on his shoulder.
"I am not. There have been one or two Peregrines that have taken two wives or even let their Feral wife go after she bore him a son so that he could remarry," he said. Link could not help but be completely honest around her.
"Did the Peregrine keep the child?" There was worry in her eyes.
Link nodded. "The Feral did not want the child she had been forced to carry. It was the only way she thought that she would ever see Deepfell again. She also knew that the Peregrines would stop at nothing to keep the boy because he was like them."
"Oh," she said.
"Come, no more talk of sad things. I promised you a dance and a dance you shall have."
"We do not have music, Link," she looked at him sternly. "You cannot dance without music. Well, you might try, but you would look like you were sick with the wild mushrooms!"
"Sure you can. Or you can dance to any sound that is there at all, like the trees or the birds or the wind. You can dance to music that is in your head even. But, you are right, this is a proper dance and we should have proper music." He grinned broadly. "So you will just have to sing for us!"
"What? Me, sing?" She stared at him incredulously.
"Yes, I have heard you before, when you are on your way to come see me."
She pursed her lips and frowned. "Well, I don't know."
"Please?" He leaned in and kissed her cheek, something he had been wanting to do for a long time. Her eyelashes fluttered and her mouth fell open in shock. She quickly tried to hide her smile, but the color that filled her face belied her emotions.
"Alright," she agreed. Leda sucked in a deep breath and let it out, drawing herself up straight. As she began, Link slowly stepped back, pulling her along with him. Her voice was quiet and soft, but the rhythm of the song was easy to find and move with.
"In the dark, I did awake.
The stars were burning bright.
The mist was thick like downy feathers.
The Hind, she waited in the night.
I followed her, through the trees.
She ledrfttt me on and on.
She was the color of the moon,
running from the dawn.
The Hind, she leaped and bounded,
swifter than the sea.
She led me to the Otherside,
sweet and soundlessly.
When my feet could go no longer,
and I fell down to cry,
she carried me upon her back,
right up into the sky."
"That was beautiful, Leda," he said as he slowed them to a stop. It was a haunting melody to be sure. It had torn away the forest from beneath their feet, leaving them on a cloud, high above everything. Link felt nervous, but did not let it show on his face or in his movements. His hand slid to the small of her back and rose a few inches, pressing her closer until their chests touched. She did not say anything, did not resist as his head bent and he pressed his lips lightly against hers. He pulled back, their eyes meeting.
Leda knew her relationship with Link was different. No Peregrine had ever spent time with a Feral in the forest and not tied her up to ferry her away to the city. She had never seen any Peregrine without their shoes, either, but Link had not worn them any time that he had visited her since their run.
"Can I show you something?" She asked.
He blinked and nodded, wondering in the back of his mind if she was offering to remove her shirt. Link quickly reprimanded himself for thinking such things.
She let go of one of his hands and turned, pulling him off through Deepfell with the other. He could only guess at where she might take him. Perhaps it would be a hidden pool where they might go for a swim together. He hoped she would let him kiss her again.
She walked on and on for a long time without so much as a word. Link began to worry exactly where she was taking him. He had never been that far south in Deepfell and was not sure he would be able to return to his camp by nightfall, if he could even find his way back at all. The black rock that the forest seemed to grow over was slowly disappearing, the hills less steep and the ground somewhat softer underfoot. Almost abruptly, the sparse undergrowth became nearly impossibly dense and she had to release his hand to wind through the thorny branches and curling stems of the plentiful bushy plants.
"Leda," he said, irritation in his voice, all thoughts of a romantic day now gone.
"Shh," she hushed tersely.
He frowned, his eyebrows pulling together in confusion. She vanished into the green and he hurriedly stumbled after, afraid that she was trying to lose him. He was about to call out once more when he seemed to pass through a wall of leaves and almost fell when the resistance of the brush suddenly abated. He broke ungracefully into a clearing. Leda was waiting for him, half turned away.
Rising out of the ground like a dark chess piece, was the single remaining tower of some fort or small castle, now in ruins and overgrown with moss. The stone of it was dark, native to Deepfell, chiseled to fit perfectly with the blocks around it so that no mortar would be needed. It was wider than it was tall, probably due to the effort it would have taken to lift the large stones very high. It was obviously quite old, the crenellations were covered in bird droppings and thin tendrils of ivy spread over it like veins seeking to absorb it back into the ground. There was a window near the top with most of the panes of glass still intact.
Link moved closer to stand by Leda as he stared. "What is this place?"
She sighed. "I am not sure. My people believe that it is haunted by the spirits of Ferals that died here a long time ago and so they do not come here. I have never heard of Ferals living in a castle. We like our dens and tree homes. I think it is rather peaceful here, though I do not come often. I was hoping that you would know of it, or that you could read what is written above the doors."
He followed her closer to the structure, a shadow standing on its own. The two large doors were shut, the wood brittle-looking and chipped, with a long diagonal slash across one. Smaller stones made an arch above them, carefully placed together so the lines between them would be faint. In them, words were carved, blackened by age and dirt.
"You can't read this?" He looked to her.
"Ferals have no reason to read. We learn from our parents how to speak, but only a few of them know how to read the books the Flock Avians write. When we trade, we do it for things we may need, like strong medicines or metal weapons, sometimes even for cloth or stronger rope than we can make. What would we do with books, Link? They do not fill your belly or keep you warm in the winter unless you used them for a fire," she said almost defensively.
"Oh," he replied. "Well then, it says, 'Welcome be our feathered friends, whether Ferron or... Peregrine." He looked at her as he said the last word, catching the confusion there.
"Peregrine? What is a Ferron? I don't understand," she shook her head. "Why would Peregrines be welcomed here, in Deepfell?"
"This is a very old place. It could have preceded the division between Flock Avians and Ferals. I will have to ask Bain, he knows a lot about history, being royal and all," he said, scratching his chin.
"You would bring him here?" She seemed worried.
"If you were alright with it. You would need to stay away from here until he caught a Feral," he said. Just as he finished, he winced and felt his face color with heat.
Her eyes turned down to her toes and watched them scrunch and straighten in the grass. The silence was uncomfortable.
He cleared his throat. "Well, let's go inside. Shall we?"
She looked at him in alarm and then at the foreboding tower. "Inside? But what if there are spirits in there? We will disturb them and they will be very angry!"
"No," he said, smiling. "We will just say hello." He strode forward as she stood dumbfounded in place, aghast. She, no doubt, thought he was foolish, but he did not know how else to recover the situation after he had said such a callous thing.
Just as Link's hands closed around the door handles, she raced to him and clung to his arm. By the look on her face, he could guess that her curiosity outweighed her fear of whatever was inside as long as he was with her to keep her safe from it. He was almost surprised that it was unlocked, but he had to throw his shoulder into the crack between the doors to get them to move far enough on their rusty hinges to let them through. The noise they made was chilling. He could sense her hesitation.
Little particles of dust swirled in the shafts of sunlight that outlined their shadows. It smelled of mold and dampness, the air thick and musty. The floor looked to have only been trespassed by creatures with tiny little feet, and fine layer of soot had long settled over the debris from some fire that destroyed everything, blackening the walls and making a skeleton of a once-happy place. Link could see the shapes of dark bones protruding beneath armor and the dull glint of lost weapons under piles of wood and gravel.
"You know," he said, turning, hoping Leda would not see the bodies. "Books are good for a lot of things..." He stepped over a fallen beam and peered at the wall where the remainder of a burned tapestry hung in rags. He saw her head follow his movements away from the soldiers. "You can record your history for one thing, songs, stories, and battles you've won. But you can also learn how to do things better, like building or cooking or even hunting." Link could make out the vague representation of a Peregrine woven into the singed fabric.
"I suppose," she said softly.
He spotted another set of doors, the tower had only been an entryway of some sort, directly across from the ones he had just opened. Link pulled one out and it scraped across the floor, loosening soggy pieces of the bottom. Light from outside made its way in through tiny holes in the wall of blasted stone that had collapsed into the dining hall, bringing the roof down to lean against the tower. He could see one end of what had been a very long table and the smashed remains of a chair, all charred to cinders. Here, the rain could get in and the floor was covered in a sheet of dark soil, most likely composed of the remains of the building and furniture. A few blades of grass poked up here and there, mushrooms dotting decomposing wood like little seashells.
He saw a rusting piece of metal, brown and orange, half buried in the wet dirt. Link squatted and grabbed it with two fingers, pulling it away from the muck. To his surprise, it was some kind of old gauntlet, but not like the ones he had seen before. Though only the portion that covered the back of the hand remained as the fingers had long since broken down to dust. It was obvious that there had been a single thin blade welded onto the first three knuckles as if to stab an enemy with each blow. What kind of battle had taken place here? Link tried to remember if he had ever heard or read anything about this kind of warfare before, but nothing came forward.
He wiped the mud from it on the side of his pants, staring at the stain absently. There had been a time when he would have been quite cross that he had done such a foolish thing, but now felt nothing at all. They were just pants.
"Link," Leda called from within the tower. "Would you come look at this?"