The King and the Knave

“So what are you, exactly?”
 
The spirit, perched overhead in the branches of a nearby oak, paused in the middle of preening its feathered breast. It tilted its head, first one way, then the other, then flicked its wings in irritation. “What do I look like?”
 
“Uh…a bird?”
 
“Oh, very observant. I knew I picked you for a reason.”
 
He laughed, hard enough that his chest seized into a rattling cough. By the time he gathered his wits again, he found the spirit lurking at his side. It had winged silently down from the canopy to land on the grass beside him, and now it hovered over him, its shoulder towering well above his head where he sat on the grass. Its eyes blazed with an alien flame as it watched him, narrow and close.
 
“What?” He pounded his fist against his chest. “I’m fine. Look, see? Breathing mostly normal.”
 
The spirit’s eyes narrowed, its irises flaring toward gold. ”Mostly isn’t good enough. If you were content with mostly, I wouldn’t be here.”
 
He grimaced and settled down, re-planting his back against the bole of a tree. “It’s gonna have to be good enough for now. I can’t even walk yet. What makes you think I can breathe straight?”
 
“You could have surprised me. Though that's looking less and less likely with every minute.”
 
He sniggered. He was doing that more and more, he'd noticed. And every time he did, the spirit’s eyes flicked again, wheeling with reds and oranges and golds, like a bonfire brought to life.
 
Was it trying to make him laugh? Why would it care? If this was a horror, it was playing a long game. But then, a horror couldn’t share its power, could it? A horror couldn’t grant its magic to others. A horror couldn’t make a shaman.
 
Right?
 
He braced a hand against the grass and shifted himself forward. From here he could look up at the spirit more easily - could search its inhuman face, hunting for any other flickers of expression that mirrored metahuman ones. If he was going to be this creature’s partner, he needed to understand it, and quickly.
 
“No, but seriously, though,” he said. “You don’t look like any bird I’ve ever seen.”
 
“That’s because I’m not just any bird,” the spirit said with exaggerated patience. “I’m what all lesser avians aspire to be, in their blessedly stupid little hearts.” It dipped its beak, its voice growing solemn and sonorous. “I’m the hunter above all raptors. The singer above all songbirds. The fire-bringer above all corvids. I’m not a bird - I’m the bird.”
 
“And super modest, too,” he added with a wry smile. “Just. So humble.”
 
The spirit shot him a withering glare. “Modesty is a cage.”
 
“Which probably sucks to think about. You know, you being in the top percentage of birds and all.”
 
The spirit hissed and ruffled its feathers. “Why do I even bother?” it snapped, and winged its way back up into the canopy, leaving a puff of loose down behind.
 
He laughed. “No, wait - get back here. Don’t go off in a huff. C’mon, I’m sorry.”
 
“Are you?”
 
“Yeah? Why would I say it if I didn’t mean it?”
 
“You metahumans say plenty of things you don't mean.”
 
That drew his breathing up short. He pitched back slightly, one hand finding its way on instinct to grip at the front of his shirt. And there was the vice, closing in around his lungs again. There was the claustrophobic press of the bars. The automatic distrust. The wary daggers of eyes thrown his direction every time he entered a room. Every time he said hello. Every time he opened his mouth.
 
“You believed me the first time,” he said, and was startled by the bitter twist of his own voice. “What was the point, if you're going to doubt everything I say now?”
 
The spirit said nothing. He let his head fall back against the tree and tried not to let the lime-sour aftertaste of his own words curl him all the way down to his toes. When had he lost control of his words like that? For so long, they were the only power he had. Now he couldn't seem to wrestle them into the soft, polite shapes he needed. They'd grown thorny and sharp. He couldn't make them do as he wanted any more.
 
Finally the spirit huffed. It was an unexpectedly soft sound. It didn't quite make him look up - but he did tilt his head in its direction, just slightly. Just to show he was listening.
 
“I believed you didn't want to die. I'm still not convinced you want to live.”
 
He managed a thin, frail snort. “What's the difference?”
 
“The fact that you don't know is the entire reason I can't trust you yet.” The spirit's voice rang from even further overhead - far enough that, if he craned his neck, he knew he'd just get dizzy. “I can't teach you the difference. You have to figure it out for yourself.”
 
His laugh felt like lemon juice on a split lip. “Aren't you supposed to be the wise mentor here? Teaching me the folly of my narrow-minded ways?”
 
“No.” The spirit's voice smoldered with the embers of an inferno forgotten, but not yet smothered. “That's a city-folk tale. My job isn't to latch my talons into your ribcage and pull you out from the cinder-choked furnace of your own misery. You can burn yourself to ashes on your own time. My job is to help you rebuild from what bones are worth keeping when the blaze is over.”
 
“And how the fuck am I supposed to know what's worth keeping?”
 
But there was no reply. The spirit was gone. He could hear the rush of wind through its wings as it took to the sky. Would it come back for him? In all of its disgust for what little he had left to give, would it bother?
 
He let his eyes fall shut. It didn't matter. It didn't matter. If there was any meaningful difference, he couldn't look for it now. He wouldn't have the time or the strength to find it.
 
Not unless he did as the spirit commanded. Not unless he ate slowly of the roots and berries it foraged for him and drank sparingly of the cold, clean water it brought him, cupped in curved bark and broad leaves - carried by talons that could just as easily have rent his head from his body at any moment. Not unless he allowed it to nurse him back to health, step by painful, demeaning, humiliating step.
 
What other choice did he have?
 
…
 
…well. He'd had one other choice, before. But he had looked into the darkness that yawned beneath him and had chosen to step away from it. The empty still beckoned behind him - any wrong step could still send him slipping towards its cavernous maw. But now...now there was a glitter of red and orange and gold, the heat of fire, the glow of the sun on his skin. Maybe it would be worth it to stay here, for a while, at the edge of the descent, and enjoy the touch of warmth against his cheek, for as long as it lasted.