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 Posted: Sat Jan 07, 2006 7:30 pm
"Calytae, don't you dare."
Cadence huffed, managing to look both annoyed and anxious at the same time. She was watching a very strange little boy, who was at that very moment hanging to a tree limb that hardly looked like it could hold up a sparrow, much less the weight of a growing boy.
Calytae giggled, making the bough creak and strain as she shimmied along to the end of it. "You'll catch me!" he yelled back, not seeming to mind that snow was dripping down the back of his coat.
"I'll do no such thing!" she grumbled, but she hovered beneath him anyway, just in case. She knew how clumsy the hummingbird boy could be. Even with those great gray wings to hold him up--but they always seemed to be getting in his way, tripping him up like unlaced shoelaces, always leaving bits of down and fluff on her bed and in his hair.
"Nuh-uh, liar liar!" Calytae giggled again, deciding that hanging upside-down would be even more fun than rightside-up, and thus trying to hook his knees over the tree branch. More snow on Cadence's head. More feathers, more laughter. The world upside-down looked fun, too!
Still looking vaguely mutinous, Cadence leaned back against the tree, only keeping one eye on her hyperactive charge. She wasn't sure what would drive a child to climb trees in the middle of a city street, trees that were probably owned by the city and looked bedraggled and dead and dangerous, probably illegal to climb trees over the sidewalk here, but that hadn't deterred Calytae. At least he would get tired of it soon, he always did, nothing could hold that attention span for long.
Still... she almost, almost smiled, sort of maybe, even though she was cold and worried and didn't much like being on the street with the cars rushing by in morning rush-hour traffic. She could hear Calytae chattering away with some wren or starling or something up there, happy as usual, and it put her at an awkward peace. No one was minding them, even the few that passed by, or the people in the tiny apartment houses facing them on either side.
The Bird Cage wasn't far away, but she had no true desire to visit the noisy petshop, and who knew... fate had a way of throwing Birds at her, anyway. If trouble was going to happen, she preferred it to come to her, rather than she to it. Too bad that she never heard the birds sing the same way anymore, without that twinge of wonder if they were--
"Gah! Calytae!" Cadence jumped about a foot, brushing away the snowball that had just landed on her shoulders. Calytae just crowed with delight; she'd never get used to that trick!
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Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2006 8:42 am
[ Message temporarily off-line ]
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