Armitage x Songbird - The Flow

An old, belligerent Zalani merc jumped upon his table in the merc’s common hall, and began loudly recounting the tale of Lady Lenore to anyone in earshot.
Jaxx & Armada let out loud groans, accompanying the many others that rose around the room. Those that hadn’t finished their plates quite yet were doomed to sit still and suffer the retelling. And the winged codger knew it.
Armitage suppressed a chuckle. He actually quite liked the tales, though he’d never admit it.
The aged gargoyle took his time, explaining in grandiose detail how the Lady Lenore was lost in a Phlogiston. His ancestors had piloted her into the vast clouds of negative energy known as the Dark Regions.
“They can still be found there to this day!” he shouted, but then lowered his voice, leaning in for the finale. “In The Weird…”
Another series of groans echoed throughout the hall.
“It’s true I tell ya! The ghost ship is there, and it’ll take ya’ soul aboard if ya’ get too…” he tried to continue, but everyone had returned to their conversations, drowning him out.
 
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
 
Armitage sat in the bowels of the ship again, amongst the darkness of the Flow, stewing. Once again.
He hated these Gond forsaken Phlogistons. No light. No flame. No sound even, and that didn’t even fuckin’ matter! You just feel like you can’t even speak, or the whole place will explode.
But, that’s how Armitage preferred it… isn’t it?
“Bah!” he shouted, throwing the half eaten watermelon he was munching on across the room to splatter across the wall before him.
Armitage felt like he was going to explode.
“Alright then! What is it, Armitage?” he said, rising to his feet and holding out his arms.
He began pacing back and forth in the small room.
“The memory? The fact that in your aging years nobody gives a Gond damn what came before them, so they don’t even want to hear the end of the story?” he murmured, still pacing.
“Pffff” Armitage snorted, settling down a bit. “That old bat was a fool. He was so washed up he didn’t even have a cr…”
“A crew.” he finished, feeling a phantom weight settling upon him.
Suddenly, abhorrently, he was back in Liza’s Big Drop, sitting in a room with a bloat that made absolutely no sense. A plucky pirate, a wanted blob, and a skittish deer.
“I don’t even have a crew anymore Liza!”
And there it was. The sand in his gunpowder.
The scan across the room at those disappointed faces. He wouldn’t have made it off of Toril alive without those three, and he hadn’t even considered sticking with them.
A low hum floated through the air, paired with a set of quiet, tentative footsteps. The tone was calming, yet cautious. Songbird was watching Armitage with large, honey-colored eyes. His gossamer wings fluttered anxiously behind him.
“Ah, the deer.” Armitage grumbled. He regretted saying it almost immediately, and the feeling only seemed to irritate him further, despite knowing that the man would have no idea what he was talking about.
You’re just lashing out because you’re having a fit and talking to yourself in the dark like an imbecile.
“Well? Come on in if you must.” Armitage said, exasperated.
A tremor ran across Songbird’s frame at the tone in Armitage’s voice. Nonetheless, the fey stepped into the openness of the lower deck, eyes darting to the mess of watermelon against the wall before returning to the ground.
He tried to find the words, he really did, but the weight of Armitage’s gaze had him strangely tongue tied. A pitiful tone rose in his throat.
Armitage watched as Songbird entered the room, docile as ever. The fey’s concerned glance toward the watermelon dashed upon the wall made Armitage wince.
“Gond, I’m not gonna fuckin’ hurt you or anything.” Armitage said, stomping over to a stack of crates and sitting down.
Calm yourself down, Armitage. You’re gonna make him faint for Gond sake.
The wooden crates strained and creaked beneath him. He gestured to another stack, sitting opposite him. “Come on and sit down, I got something I need to say.”
Songbird approached – rather, he flew – gently, wings fluttering behind him. He took a seat on the indicated crates. Though his posture remained hunched and curled inward, his eyes were sharp. An unreadable expression flashed across his face before settling back into his mask of docility. Everything in his body language screamed distrust. But he sat.
“You ever say, or do, something that you thought about for days afterward?” Armitage asked. “Something that just kinda got under your skin and stuck with you?”
He raised an eyebrow, “Wait, you can speak, right?” he asked, now questioning if he’d ever heard anything other than a hum. “Is your language some kinda humming?”
Amusement flickered across Songbird’s face for a brief second before disappearing. A peek up that resulted in meeting Armitage’s eyes caused the fey to look away quickly.
“I can speak.”
His voice was quiet, like a whisper on the wind or the rustle of leaves in the trees. He hesitated, then added, “Yes, I have.”
“Alright then,” Armitage said, feeling a bit better knowing he wasn’t prodding at a mute this whole time. “Let’s hear it.”
He spread his large hands out in front of himself and made a little “push-push” motion, much like you would when trying to coax a child.
A tilt of his head. “Hear what?” Did the Giff want him to sing?
“Ooooookay.” Armitage said, shifting his weight and placing his hand on the crate, ready to push himself up. “Good talk kid, this has been…”
In his effort to stand, he caught the fey’s eyes again and they just looked so genuine. Seeing it caused Armitage to settle back down with an exaggerated sigh.
“Look, I… I’m fuckin’ trying here okay?” Armitage huffed. “I just wanna apologize for not recognizing all of you back at Liza’s. As a viable crew, I mean.”
“It’s just been getting under my skin, like I said.” Armitage said, a grin forming at the corners of his mouth. “Kinda like you are, right fuckin’ now.”
The fey replayed the conversation in his mind at double time to find what he missed.
Oh.
 
As if he were a flower, Songbird wilted, shrinking back down into himself. It hadn’t been noticeable at first. His body had been slowly unwinding, almost relaxed, during their stilted conversation…no longer. His wings pressed firmly into his back, limp against it and draped haphazardly over the crate he was sitting on.
“Sorry.”
Quieter than he was just a moment ago. And even quieter still he said, “I tried to run away.”
As soon as the words were spoken into the still air between them, Songbird regretted them. His lips pursed together while he bit his tongue. Long, slender fingers traced idly across the collar that sat upon his neck.
Did he leave? Would he be allowed to? He suppressed a tremble, though his wings fluttered weakly at his back.
Armitage was confused at the words, until finally noticing that what he’d mistaken for a fancy “necklace”, was locked far too tightly around Songbird’s neck.
His irritation, which had been fading, morphed into a wave of pure rage for a moment. Him lamenting not acknowledging the crew suddenly seemed trivial in comparison to “I tried to run away.”
Nine Hells… that’s what stuck with him?
“Fuuuck me.” Armitage said slowly. It was all he could manage.
He could see that Songbird’s demeanor had changed entirely. He needed to be much more careful with his words around this fellow. That was going to be difficult.
“Not like, literally!” he spouted out. “Gond man, look, I can see you’re uncomfortable. I am too. Neither of us wanna be here, but… I think maybe you’re in a better place here than where you were?”
He knew that Armitage wasn’t being literal. But he also knew better than to correct someone above his station.
Unsure if the Giff wanted a response to the rest or if it was rhetorical, Songbird was quiet. When the silence started to stretch into something bordering on uncomfortable, he spoke.
“I hope so.”
“I uh, I hope so too… Buddy.” Armitage stammered.
He cleared his throat and resumed the act of getting the fuck outta here.
Armitage stood and grabbed his pack from the floor. He felt like lighting up a blitz stick to share with the dejected creature in front of him, and that fury returned once again.
He could picture that man’s face on the beach… But he couldn’t afford to get wrapped up in somebody else’s bullshit again.
Armitage awkwardly reached out a hand to pat Songbird on the shoulder, but thought better of it.
“I’m like, glad you can speak.” Armitage said clumsily, as he turned to leave. “Goodnight, Songbird.”
Songbird tilted his head as he watched Armitage climb the stairs and disappear to the upper decks.
What an odd thing to say. Plenty of people had told him before that they liked his singing or the sound of his voice when he recited poetry. But he had never heard of someone being grateful that he could speak.
His eyes drifted over to the splatter of watermelon. Red juicy flesh dripped down the wall, making squelching plops as it landed on the floor. Songbird made a face. He dropped to his knees and started cleaning the mess. Before he left for the upper decks, both the floor and wall were spotless.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Hours later, the conversation still on his mind, Armitage had a sudden fear that Songbird might still be just sitting there, simply because he’d told him to. And so, he made his way back beneath the ship, just to check. He had to clean up the watermelon anyway.
“Yeah, at some point you have to clean up your own messes, Armitage.” he groused as he entered the room. “You can’t just throw a fit and expect someone else to pick up the pieces.”
No sign of the young fey was to be found, or, he noticed, of the watermelon.
Songbird had clearly already cleaned it up.
“Huh.” he said, staring.