Paul Kidd - The Council of Blades

"Wh-why can't I be… magical?"

The girl whimpered the words into Lorenzo's hair, clawing her little fingers through his clothes. With an anxious expression in his eyes, Tekoriikii nudged at her and made a whistling sound.

Lorenzo agreed.

"You are magical! We both saw you cast a spell." He tried to coax Miliana's face out of the shadows. "Hey-you're a sorceress!"

"No…" Miliana hung weakly in Lorenzo's arms, hiding away her freckles and her tears. "If I were magical-really magical, then maybe I might get a wish."

"What wish?" Bird and nobleman both hung close, locked anxious gazes, and tried to coax the girl out of her shell. "What wish, Miliana?"

Miliana emerged-small, brown, and crushed by one inarguable misery.

"If I had a wish, then maybe I could be pretty. Really pretty."

The girl hid her face away from Lorenzo and the bird.

"Someone beautiful. Just-just not Miliana. Just for one single day…"

The girl clung against Lorenzo's chest and wept. Locking tortured glances, Tekoriikii and Lorenzo quietly stroked at Miliana's hair.

"Princess Miliana is beautiful. And I'll prove you wrong. Tomorrow I'll show you just exactly what I see.

"I'll show you. I'll make you open your eyes."

"Glub glub!"

Sick, swaying, and miserable, Miliana's whisper barely carried to Lorenzo's ears.

"I'm just so frightened. So frightened…" The girl curled fingers into Lorenzo's tunic. "I wanted to be like my father. I wanted to be… to be… proud.

"But I'm just so scared of the… futility. The dances and the husbands." Miliana swallowed back another surge of nausea. "Don't let them put me in the finishing school. I'd rather die… I'd rather die… I'd rather die…"

Crying herself to sleep, Miliana hung like a rag doll in Lorenzo's arms.

Tekoriikii spared the girl a long, sad gaze, and then quietly led the way back home. Behind him, Lorenzo hoisted Miliana like a treasured child and wandered carefully back to the palace doors.

From his perch high up in Miliana's attic, Tekoriikii had most of the Mannicci palace under his muddle-headed gaze. Holes in the roofing gave him a splendid vantage point for viewing the central courtyards and the stables, the kitchen doors and the colonnades. He saw the slim, gray-headed Prince Cappa Mannicci escaping for his early morning ride before his wife could stir from bed and exercise her tongue. Soldiers marched and servants cleaned; bright bunting was wound about every object found readily at hand. All in all, the Festival of Blades had begun with a flawless summer's day.

Waddling happily across the floor of his gloomy kingdom, Tekoriikii bathed in beams of light and listened contentedly to the dawn chorus of birds. A marvelous new treasure had come into his life, and the bird need only close his eyes and sigh just to savor its gentle glow.

His journeys had first brought him to a treasure trove of people and places, songs and lights; it had brought him a bounty of shiny baubles, and day by day Tekoriikii's collection grew.

And now, most miraculous of all-the journey had given him a friend.

Hanging his head down through the broken ceiling, Tekoriikii watched the human girl in her sleep. She fed him food and taught him songs; she had shown him magic picture books, and recited aloud from the pages for hours on end.

And yet last night the little female had been so very sad.

Her lack of plumes was a terrible, crippling disfigurement. The male human Lorenzo kept a feather in his hat as though making up for the lack. Tekoriikii turned his head this way and that, regarding Miliana as she slept off her wine, and pitied her for her naked, unsightly skin.

She needed cheering-and Tekoriikii had just the thing!

With a bright burst of inspiration, the bird jerked his head back up through the hole. He warbled happily, and did a little dance to celebrate his own magnificent cleverness-Tekoriikii, the handsomest and smartest of all the birds!

Tekoriikii's sleeping nest consisted of green branches, leaves and twigs all lined with the finest silk taken from a massive set of underwear found hanging from the palace washing line. The bird upended a great sack made from a set of Lady Ulia's frilly pink drawers and spilled a dragon's hoard of jewelry out across the wooden floors.

Spread out in all their glory, Tekoriikii's gems simply stunned the eye. There were great rubies and strings of emeralds. Zircons and costume jewelry rubbed shoulders with sapphires and pearls. Bits of mirror and polished glass had caught his eye just as surely as platinum and gold. All in all, the bird's collection made an eccentric display.

Rooting happily about amongst a king's ransom in jewels, the bird pulled out a few choice pieces and hung them up from rusty nails to turn and sparkle in the sun.

Three offerings glittered before the bird's giddy yellow eyes: a looking glass, a rope of emeralds, and a single, gigantic rose-pink pearl.

In addition to being the most handsome creature ever to stalk the world, Tekoriikii was an educated bird. He knew that nothing could cheer a female quite so much as finding herself being courted and so, therefore, secret advances would make Miliana smile.

She must be given a gift-enough to let her know how deeply she was honored, for few females were ever chased by a male. It simply wasn't done. The flattery would raise her spirits, and Tekoriikii would be glad.

The bird considered his potential offerings. The mirror? Too bright and shiny. She must not be overwhelmed by the very nature of the gift. The bird peered this way and that at his own reflection, and moved on.

The emeralds? No. Too dull; too common. Although they sparkled, they were the same color as fresh new leaves and, that being the case, she might not value them. The bird regarded the gigantic pink pearl with pleasure, and then took the offering up into his bill.

The pearl had been regurgitated from his crop this self-same morning. With a brisk wash beneath a rainwater pipe, the gem sparkled bright as morning dew. Tekoriikii hopped down the broken hole in the ceiling and landed on the bathroom floor with a distinct, feathery thump.

Miliana turned over in her bed, groaning in distant agony. Beside her bed there lay a bucket as well as a pointy hat, which presumably was for use if the bucket should grow full. Tekoriikii crept toward the girl with exaggerated stealth, cunningly laid the pearl pendant on her pillowslip, then withdrew to gaze down at her in love.

Very, very small, and speckled delicately with brown; she should not let her lack of feathers distress her so. After all, not everyone could be a handsome firebird.

Tekoriikii drew the blankets up around Miliana's slender neck, clucked like a broody hen, then hopped back up into the ceiling to go about his own affairs.

The Palace of the Manniccis decked itself out gaily for the Festival of Blades. The ritual never failed to amuse Miliana, who thought the candy daggers and swords now being hung from all the roof beams were particularly inappropriate for a happy festival.

Passing along the courtyard, Miliana maneuvered oh-so-carefully, balancing her head atop her neck as though it weighed five hundred pounds.

Miliana had just been through the most unspeakable experience of her life. She had awoken to find herself still thoroughly drunk; the whole bed had been spinning, and the room shifted like a child's kite blown willy-nilly through the sky. She had somehow made her way to the palace shrine and had begged a blessing against poison from the family's private priests, claiming that she had eaten Lady Ulia's infamous blowfish casserole. Now, with her bloodstream purged but her body still feeling as delicate as glass, the girl took a quiet turn about the palace and tried to gather strength for the evening's affairs.