"So," said the older one as soon as they were alone. "What's your name?"
The boy he addressed spared him a harmless glance before returning his eyes to the darkness under his table. The newly-acquainted pair had been spending the afternoon in a foreign summer house, one they'd never before seen or entered, for the matter. They had been told—mere hours ago—that this would be their new home.
"Do you ever speak?" The condor laughed, a light in his eyes. "Dad's been trying to get you to talk since lunch."
He turned his head slightly, wary eyes alternating between the ground and him. The one who would soon become his step-brother. There, swirling in his eyes, were clouds. A haze of fear and uncertainty that fogged over his vision, muting colors; brewing darkness.
From a young age, the vulture had a capacity for the abyss that would come to lie within his cage. It was only a matter of time that it did, and he, for one, could see its imminent arrival.
"How about this," Jae-min extended a hand to the boy who was seated at his desk and had 'Macbeth' opened to page fifty-six. "I'll start. I'm Hwang Jae-min, Viktor. Call me whatever you like, as long as you're comfortable with it." His smile was boyish, almost playful—characteristic of a teen that was, against all odds of his status as a scavenger, well-received by many.
It had been his first time attempting to strike a conversation with someone almost six year younger than himself and he found that it was no easy task. Nevertheless, the condor lived for a challenge. Those born of his kind were mostly the same.
All except this timid one before him, who froze at the hand he had offered.
"You...don't do handshakes?"
The boy shook his head all of a sudden, and took Jae-min's hand. It was a very brief, almost terrified point of contact.
"Why won't you tell me your name?" He felt obliged to ask again, curious yet mildly disturbed by the vulture's lack of effort. Or was it? Could it be that he was simply shy—if not, embarrassed?
Jae-min glanced over his shoulder to inspect the fledgling's Avian once more. A black vulture.
"You don't like your name?"
At this, the boy nodded vigorously, turning to look at him for a longer moment before resuming his interest in shoes and floors.
"You're really quiet aren't you," Jae-min laughed, resting his hands behind his head before leaning backwards and letting himself fall onto the bed. "Upset about anything?"
As he had expected, there came no response from the boy and the condor would not raise his head to look at him. He went on without a plan, almost free of expectations of a reply.
"Are you afraid?"
"I think you might be, although I'm not too sure what it is you're afraid of."
"Sometimes, we fear nothing. It's just there. Fear. All the time."
"And sometimes we fear nothing. Emptiness. Absence of everything else."
He stopped here, turning to look at the vulture for a reaction. The latter appeared surprised.
"What?" Jae-min laughed. "Didn't expect that from a carefree seventeen year-old shit?"
The boy bit his lower, as if guilty.
"Not your fault," he dismissed his uncertainty, confirming it himself. "I hide it pretty well. My fears, I mean."
The vulture angled his body to face the teen, twisting around in his chair.
"I fear that your mother will not like me. That my dad will propose to her anyway," Jae-min shifted on his side to face the wall. "That you wouldn't want me as your brother; or that this thing would end as soon as it started."
"I fear all that."
He paused for a moment, as if to collect himself before carrying on.
"Do you?"
Jae-min waited for an answer.
It came in a whisper.
"Always."
Almost like the voice of a bird trapped in its cage.
Jae-min sat up, turning to face the boy with a new smile. "What's your name?"
"...Evaughn."
"Yvonne?" The condor blinked. "Y-v-o—"
"No," the fledgling snapped indignantly, lips forming a pout. "It starts with an 'E'. E-v-a-u-g-h-n."
"E?" Jae-min repeated, eyes musing quietly. "E?"
"Yes."
"It's so long."
"No it isn't," the vulture said in protest, taken aback all of a sudden when Jae-min closed the distance in a stride and took, from his desk, a sheet of parchment and a quill.
"E-v-e," he wrote. "You're Eve. I'm Jae," he penned once again, in a messy cursive. "Now we're equal."
________________________
It was within the silence of the night that Vaughn could hear something coming from the room at the top of the stairs he'd only just began to ascend. The vulture stopped in his tracks to listen closely, catching on as soon as he identified the fainting room for what it was. His feet carried him a little closer, ears latching onto every word he could hear.
The vulture stood outside without a sound, waiting for the one who spoke to speak—again.
"Can you stay?" Came the muffled voice of a sparrow; or at least not for now, he wasn't. Not a sparrow. The door—left slightly ajar—closed shut with an abrupt click of its lock, muting the voices beyond and leaving Vaughn rather disappointed with the absence of mystery. The unravelling of it, to be precise.
He'd always been a child of interest whenever the unknown was involved, only sometimes a little too afraid when it comes down to the matter at hand.
Always too afraid.
"Eavesdropping?" Someone said from behind and the vulture turned with wary eyes. On guard.
"And you might be...?"
"An insignificant shrike. To scavengers like you, at least," Reux drawled with a wry smile upon the other's prompt, making obvious his sarcasm. "So. Eavesdropping?"
"Hard to say," Vaughn began harshly, turning on his heel to leave the scene. "There was nothing to hear."
The shrike snorted with a laugh, extending an arm in the vulture's path to stop him in his tracks. "You don't sound too bad, my friend. It's kinda hard to believe that you're the one with consecutive wins in the Season games." The tactless remark did not seem to sit very well with its receiver, causing him to turn with a pointed stare.
"Is it?"
There was a moment's pause before Nox came swooping from above, baring her wings that spanned the corridor and claws poised before Reux's face in a bare fraction of a second to scare—a screech and a scream. The latter jerked back in a fluid motion, ducking before the vulture could recover and drawing his blade as he did so. All, with a smile.
"Not bad," the shrike held his stance, aware that the fight was not to his advantage with an Avian much larger than his own. His forte, he knew, held elsewhere. "Didn't think you were so...easily provoked."
Vaughn did not like ill-premonitions, especially if he knew they were going to plague his mind for the rest of the night. This therefore meant that the shrike was far from good news. Absolutely nothing about him was fair and amiable. There was no pretense. Not even in his eyes.
"So obedient all of a—"
The door opened.
It did not take a genius to know that the eagle who stood in the doorway was not happy. Reux returned Luka's glare with a careless laugh, putting on a sudden air of nonchalance as he falsed a glance over the eagle's shoulder. "How's the sparrow?"
"You don't need to know."
"And you need to be here?" The shrike retaliated with a raise of his brow—a threat so low, it was disguised within a question. Disrespecting the predator's show of territory, Reux attempted to enter the room by pushing past him but was met with an unkind resistance. Vaughn didn't quite understand (or care for) what he had witnessed in those mere few seconds of tension and hostility. He took this as an opening. A sign for him to leave.
Victoria dived with a burst, gripping the doorframe with her claws and leaving a terrifying scratch in her wake as she spread her wings to land a harsh blow on Reux's back, knocking the air out of his lungs within a single movement.
"Leave," the eagle warned once more—raising his voice. Vaughn, already half-way across the hallway, could hear him.
He thought for a moment if he should report this to instructor Reyes, or anyone from the Order since the shrike was, for all intents and purposes, part of it. Just like his step-brother, Vaughn never understood the purpose of having youth members in the Order, discrete or not. It was a mere exacerbation of elitism amongst their age group; and the scavenger never fancied ideas along that line.
He should tell someone.
"That's not very nice. Ordering someone else around."
"I'm not very nice."
He really should be telling someone.
_______________________
The vulture's idea of 'someone' could not get as vague and misunderstood (not to mention wrong) as spilling the beans to the very person he did not wish to speak to.
"Stupid birds fighting on the fourth floor. East building, left wing," he'd reported very quickly to Viktor, who had excused himself from the staff meeting moments before. As soon as he saw Nox flying past the window of the conference room he was in.
He raised a hand to allow his brother a pause. "Very specific, 'stupid birds'. Fighting? Fourth floor..." the condor sighed all of a sudden, seeming to have caught on. "Don't tell me it's—"
"The sparrow? Yes," Vaughn did not hesitate calling out his enemy as long as he would have nothing to do with the incident. "It's always him."
Viktor was having the vulture bring him to the scene, albeit reluctantly. So much for avoiding inconveniences. This was not goig to make his night any better. "Viktor, it's just the fourth floor on the left wing, what's there to miss?"
"A first hand account. I'd look like a fool if I entered Tori's temporary room to see nothing. Who was he fighting?"
The vulture released an indiscriminate sigh. "The sparrow wasn't the one fighting."
"A second ago, you said he was," the condor pointed out, merciless. "I see you like to contradict yourself, Eve. Never knew that."
"Tsk," Vaughn clicked his tongue at the sound of the endearing name Viktor had created for him years back. "I meant he was part of the...conflict. In some way or another."
"I just want to know who did the fighting."
"Sullivan...and some shrike. He started out with me."
Viktor came to a sudden stop in his tracks, causing his step-brother who had been tailing behind to bump into his back. "Shrike? The one under Kirill?"
"Doesn't matter," Vaughn grumbled under his breath, rubbing his nose which he'd accidentally rammed into the other's back. "He's nothing."
"He provoked you. For no reason," they started round the corner, a rising urgency that fuelled speed. "That's starting a fight."
"What's so strange about that? People want to punch my face all the time, I get it," the vulture didn't hold back on the truth, finding each step he took heavier than the last. There was no guarantee that such involvement of self could have been avoided, even if he had decided to leave the matter alone and let the eagle and shrike do what was foolish and unecessary, fate would—in some twisted manner—land him somewhere in between.
"Just because you're the son of a scavenger-turned-queen?" Viktor read his mind within fractions of a second, lowering his gaze to meet Vaughn's. "I'm always here if you need help," the former said with a smile, reaching out to tousle his brother's hair.
*
Luka was not in the best of moods all evening. It had started out with the noisiest disturbance outside the door he'd only just closed to confirm Io's request. For him to stay the night—how delicate his words were and how pleasing it was to the ears, so much so the eagle wished to hear them again but was unfortunately interrupted by whatever it was outside that pickled his evening with a sour taste in his mouth.
It all progressed to yet another stage of anger and annoyance as soon as the eagle opened the door to silence whatever disturbance that stood beyond it, given the aggressive nature of that horrendous shrike and his provocative words that riled a fire from within.
Watch over that sparrow of yours, the latter had said with a smirk before leaving like the coward he was, leaving Luka burning in silent fury as he shut the door, wishing he'd never have to open it again only to realize that he was wrong.
Io did not miss the tensing of the eagle's shoulders and the hardening of his features at the sound of a knock on the door, a lunar smile crossing his lips as he did so. "At least they're polite enough to knock," he reasoned jokingly, prompting the other to open the door. "Can you get it? Sorry to trouble you...my feet won't move."
"It's okay. Stay here." Luka went to check on the all-new interruption, wondering if the evening could ever rest.
The sight of Viktor behind the door came rather unexpected, but soon understandable with the company of a certain sulky vulture lurking behind. He must have told the professor.
"What happened?"
Luka frowned, staring past Viktor's shoulder and focusing on Vaughn at once. "What are you refering to?"
"I was informed of the use of violence. Did you participate?" The substitute professor from Falrir's order did not delay getting straight to the point. Luka was careful with his response, unsure what Vaughn had told the condor for him to make it sound as though he was a willing and active party.
"I acted on self-defense," the eagle explained shortly. "The shrike barged in."
"Did you tell him to leave?"
"Twice."
Viktor released a tired sigh. "You've got to help me with the details or Kirill's going to make it so that you will never see your friend again," he referred to Io with a jerk of his thumb. "He plays favourites, and that shrike's one of them. Besides..." The condor's gaze rested on the fainting couch barely past the doorway before returning to his student.
"I wasn't informed you'd be staying overnight. And by the looks of it, you are."
Vaughn had managed to convince himself along the way that the eagle and sparrow had spent more than enough time together in the day (and every other day) so that he could avoid the grasp of guilt—or so he thought he could, until he saw the dulling of a spark in Luka's eye.
It was obvious, even from afar.
The consecutive confrontations made by Viktor gave the eagle yet more reason to release the cumulative flare within, unable to pull the reins on a heart that was burning.
"You want me to leave the side of someone who's just been attacked?" His voice was dark. "Can't you tell he doesn't want to be alone?"
Vaughn looked to the figure resting on the couch, noting the layers he had over his frame—as if he was in shock before and this way the only way to quell it. The professor frowned.
"Do not speak to me in that manner. You don't seem to understand that I am here to help, which I can only do if you tell me what is going on."
Luka was being uncharacteristically stubborn at such a point, confusing the people around him and wearing them out. "How can we trust what you say?" The eagle confronted, a hardness in his tone as he made a jarring point of truth. "You side the Order. The Order that was asked by V to come and treat Io like a thing for you to scrutinize."
"Just weeks ago he was pointing a gun at Io's head," Luka gave the vulture zero credit for his humanity, merciless in his pursuit to make obvious a fundamental mistrust. "If Io were to trust anyone, it wouldn't be him or you—"
"You're missing the point!" Viktor was having none of his accusations, determined to defend a position of his own. "Yes, the Order sent me. Yes, Verity wants your friend dead and yes, this vulture has made terrible mistakes but you're missing the god damn point."
"Faustes was right—you are little shits," he went on quietly, almost as though he was teaching. "And it's only because you kids forget that the people you meet are as human as you are. Just something you should know since you're all so caught up in your own narrow minds."
"So don't you dare group me with any dumb concept you have of the Order because I am a fucking human and I have a fucking mind of my own," Viktor raised this with venom in his voice, characteristic only of a condor; led by the power of experience he had over the three.
"Be ashamed of yourselves because the only other person in this room who knows this is years younger and more mature than all you little shits," he addressed not only the eagle but his brother as well, who stood aside slightly stunned by the sheer movement of his heart upon Viktor's words. "And if you're so intent on helping this person who is lying on the couch and looking up at the three of us like we're fucking idiots, then tell. Me. What. Happened."
A cold silence ensued. Dark.
Io raised his hand that appeared to the three so weak that it was trembling. He was feeling the weight of the day that weighed upon his shoulders, dizzy from thought and reason—having gathered every bit of the two to overcome a terrifying heat.
"Io?" "Yes, Tori?"
"I..." he paused to close his eyes, "wasn't looking at you three like you're idiots, though."
*
"A sparrow?"
Io nodded vaguely, trying his best to keep his eyes open for the few minutes of questioning. He had, by some miracle, managed to reduce Luka to a glare (aimed at Viktor, of course) and thus enable him to keep his words of anger under control. All by offering the eagle a seat beside him on the couch.
"I will look into it. Is that the blade?" Viktor leaned down to inspect the knife Luka had retrieved and placed on the coffee table. He picked it up. "A throwing knife."
Luka tensed as soon as the condor placed it in the pocket of his coat—it being the only piece of evidence they had of the attack. Viktor caught on without much of a warning.
"Relax. Kirill and I are of the same rank, I'm not obliged to report a thing to him," he explained, dismissing the eagle's concerns within a single sentence. "I have a team of my own. They are reliable."
Eager for the conversation to end and the tensions in the air to cease, Vaughn started towards the door to prepare himself for a quiet (and hopefully unnoticed) leave but was unfortunately stopped by a sharp eye.
"One more minute wouldn't kill you," Viktor held out his arm to block the vulture's path, receiving an indiscriminate groan and hopeless sigh. He turned to Luka having dealt with his brother. "As for you, I will be needing you to return to your room for the night," he said very slowly, not wishing to upset the latter but doing so anyway. Luka appeared fairly disgruntled.
"I've sent an Avian for Jane. She'll be coming to stay the night," Viktor added with a note of finality, directing this specifically at a certain protective friend. "This is so that Tori's safety will be ensured, even if his heat comes back in the morning which, accounting for his dual Avians, will."
"No arugments, right Sullivan?"
Luka was not particularly swayed from his stand; not until Io tugged at his sleeve. "He's right. You should go to your room and rest...it'll be bad if my heat comes back in the morning. I don't want to cause any more trouble for you." The eagle paused in thought.
"So?" Viktor prompted once again. "Arguments?"
He couldn't have any even if he did. Not only had Io bothered to reassure him, but the fact that Jing was, by far, the highest-ranked Winged among those in the facility, would provide—objectively speaking—most security. "None."
The professor nodded satisfactorily. "Tori," Io forced his eyes open. "Join the class if you're up to it tomorrow. Jane will have a cure prepared." He nodded, snuggling under the coats and feeling as though he could start dreaming at once.
"Good night Io."
"See you tomorrow...Luka."
_____________________________
The general emotion that swept the class upon Io's arrival at the training hall was one of shock and disbelief. This however, did not include the consideration of the class next door, which was none other than Kirill's very special group of elite youth members from the Order.
"What's this?" Reux could not restrain the smile that threatened to surface. A wry, condescending turn of his lips. "A prey in heat out of their room? I wonder who allowed this."
Io's presence was considered as both a disgrace and disruption to the traditional rule that every Winged was familiar with and would adhere to. Regardless, Kirill's class was far too too distracted by his mere presence to realize the jarring fact that laid—clear as day—before their eyes: he carried with him no scent.
The sparrow was suppressing his heat like no other prey could have done, and Dmitri's first concern (just like everyone else's) sped past his lips before he could stop himself.
"Whose cure did you administer?"
The Hearts looked on intently, having gathered around the boy to observe the rare specimen he was, waiting for his answer. Jing stayed behind, watching from afar.
"My own," he blinked back with a lunar smile.
___________________________
A/N: I honestly didn't expect it myself either, but don't you think Io's kinda cool? :> Well, I mean. Luka needs to watch out because more people would be scrambling for cool + cute sparrow now. I suppose we know that it's got to be the idea of someone none other than Io himself—some unthinkable idea of drawing his own blood at night and then using it in the morning when his heat comes.
It represents his ability to 'self-heal', or in layman terms, introspect. Io is the kind of person who can (or has learnt to, based on his difficulties in the first book) save himself. He is very individualistic, but at the same time understands his inability to exist without the perception of others. His 'existence' is a combination of Self and perception of his Self—therefore making him neither of the extremes that most books portray their protagonists as, or at least don't mention.
Io understands that he is afraid of 'heights', but this fear (although still present) can be overcome by his ability to catch himself from the 'fall' that 'greater heights' might come with. His knows that when he begins to fall, he (himself) will be there to catch him (himself). This has to do with Io's heart and mind.
While most of us humans tend to experience a war within—a war between our hearts and our minds—Io has the balance of harmony and discord of both. His heart remains fragile, and easily broken (in fact it is, in pieces still) but his mind is always there to mend it, which is why Io's mind is so strong and so prominent in his character.
Io however, is probably the kind of person who would say (despite having a balance of harmony and discord) that one does not need a balance of harmony and discord in our Selves. It's okay! It's okay even if we do not have it. There is nothing wrong with having too much discord, too much sadness and too much pain—it is only human to harbor such emotions. This is what Io has been trying to say to Jing, who drowns in her own emotions and yet tries to deny them, thus making them worse.
Alright I shall not continue to bore you about Io; there's something else I need to mention! Hwang Jae-min Viktor.
The following is an extract from Viktor's monologue (the part where he basically tells Luka to get a grip on his protective tendencies over a certain tiny sparrow), and the main gist of what he wants to say:
"So don't you dare group me with any dumb concept you have of the Order because I am a fucking human and I have a fucking mind of my own," Viktor raised this with venom in his voice, characteristic only of a condor; led by the power of experience he had over the three.
You can ignore the latter part :> the speech is what's important. If we go back to the symbol that Falrir is (as I have explained in the short backstory 'Where butterflies go when it rains'), we can conclude that since Falrir is representative of God in the world of the Winged, then his Order would therefore be those who believe in the religion that he represents. His Order his his church, or his temple, or his disciples—or anything you wish to interpret it as.
If we allude Viktor's speech to him being a believer of God (Falrir), it applies to how someone who might believe in Jesus Christ/Allah/Mother Mary should be seen as an individual, someone who has a heart and a mind independent of his or her religion and most importantly—human.
While we tend to treat Christians/Muslims/Catholics or any other religious group as an entirety, as a whole, we have to keep in mind that whoever we are addressing is essentially as human as we are. Having a preconceived notion of how a certain religious person acts/behaves would be forcing onto them a personality of religion—reducing them to a mere follower without a mind.
Yes, there are certain believers that are of such, but does that necessarily mean everyone in this world adheres to such an assumption? Obviously, no; this is what Viktor is trying to teach Luka and Vaughn (although the latter remained mostly silent), and also what Viktor knows Io is aware of. This is why he tells them off by saying Io is the one who understands this and yet he is the youngest of all of them.
If you would like to enlarge this issue, I suppose it would please/shock you to hear that this extends to our current society, characterized by religious fundamentlism and extremism, exacerbated by the social divide and acts of terrorism that we all have felt the impact of. We live in fear—how? Humans ourselves.
If only we could understand that we are, ultimately, individuals with a mind of our own and a heart that remains human and desperate and lost—if only we could see beyond our beliefs and out differences.
The truth is that we can't. Being humans have also allowed for flaws, for us to become blind to a greater truth and it is this very paradox that causes our lives to suffer. It is, essentially, the suffering of a human that we are born to experience. Quite a sad and beautiful concept.
See you soon,
Cuppiecake.