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Taylor VS the Stereo

Halfway through a song, the small stereo that sat on Taylor's dresser stopped singing, and started making a strange, repetitive sound. It wasn't music, and it wasn't stopping, and he couldn't focus on making sense of his book when it was doing it.

There was no one in the room to make the sound stop.

"b***h?" He called. No response.

"Lithle!" No answer.

"Lithle b***h!" And, nothing.

But he knew she was in the house. Sometimes, sometimes she just didn't come when he called.

Sometimes she locked herself in the small room, and didn't come out for a long time.

So maybe he was on his own.

Taylor approached the object cautiously, hitting it roughly with his open palm. For a second, the music came back, only to go back to skipping, now at a new point.

Now even more irritated, he grabbed it firmly, and pulled it to the ground, where he could get a better look at it. The sound bounced a bit, then went back to skipping.

Huh.

Another slap brought about the same results, so it was time to take drastic measures.

Sitting silent, he studied the object in front of him. Looking straight down, he saw something shiny spinning inside. Maybe that was the problem? Carefully, he pushed each of the little buttons, each giving him a different reaction. Some practice and he managed to stop the music, then start it again. A bit more experimentation, and the skipping actually stopped.

Success!

Except, now he wanted the shiny thing.

None of the buttons let him get to it. He could see it in there, spinning, but he couldn't get at it.

He would have to break in.

Standing, he went back to his bed, where his wand lay, waiting. It felt felt familiar and comfortable in his hand. Returning to the stereo, he paused. And then, with one swift deliberate movement, he brought the wand crashing down on the stereo.

It took a few smacks, before the plastic began to crack. But he finally managed to make enough of a hole that he could fit his fingers in, and pull at it. Immediately, the lid came open.

Oh.

So you just pulled up?

Well, that would have been much easier.

But, on the bright side, there was the shiny he was after. Pulling out the disk, he studied it in the light, turning it over and watching the rainbows move over its surface.

Well, this was much better than music.

On Being Tough

It was an Michael day. Uncle Michael, Savius called him, but he wasn't supposed to. It was Michael, or Alpha, and Lithle said, 'Do what he says or I'll drown you, runt.' Which meant, try and stay out of the way. So he was quiet in his seat, while Michael drove, and shot him quick glances across the space in the car.

"You're a strange kid." The man said, with a shrug and a smile, so Taylor tried to smile too. It was the difference between Michael and Lithle. Both used the same words, the same voices, but Michael smiled. Not nicely, but he did. Savius didn't smile much, and Jer'ain's smile was full of cracks where Michael's daughter Earako was full of soft giggles.

It was something he didn't know how to understand. Why would one family be happy, and the other not? And if that was the way of things, why would they be friends?

"Strange?" He echoed, turning it into a question.

"Yeah. But I guess all the b***h's kids are strange." He paused, thoughtfully, "You could do worse, you know."

"Why?" It was a useful word he'd learned, and one that made sense without any complex grappling with grammar.

"She's hard, but she'll kill for you, need be. Most parents, they leave you outside in the cold, things get to rough. b***h'll have your back. You're just a little brat, but you'll want that, some day."

And... he had no idea what most of that meant. The words were easy, but the concepts were hard. This is why he liked animals better. Animals made simple sense.

"I no want her to kill." He replied, in his very best attempt at sounding like a person.

"What, you an idealist?" Michael chuckled and shook his head. "Hell, so am I. Listen kid. This world will bite you in the a**, and trust me, when you see what people are capable of, you'll be glad to have someone on your side capable of the same. Who's gonna defend you if she doesn't, you gonna fight for yourself, brat?"

"I a warrior." He replied, remembering what Savius had said.

"You're an idiot." Michael reached over and smacked him lightly on the back of the head. It stung, and Taylor pouted. That only made Michael grin again. "Listen kid, you don't want to be us. Trust me. You hold onto yourself, let the big ones shelter you. Savius, he knows what he's about. You don't need to go hard. You got yourself a wall to hide behind."

"You want me to hide?" There, he had sounded just like Michael, that time.

"Hell yes, I want you to hide. Listen, you don't have to face the bullets, then ******** don't. You lean on us. You stay good. That's what she doesn't understand. If no one stays soft, there's no point in being hard." He shooks his head. "Don't tell her I said that."

"Huh?"

"Exactly."

A silver ring, a bit of tinsel, a collection of gemstone jewelry, tinfoil, a gold pen, a polished stone orb, a broken CD, and 2.57 in change. Taylors hoard, and he kept it close, under his bed where he could pull the bits and pieces out to study beneath the light of the sun. No one looked for things there. Even when things went missing.

Today's addition was a fork. He'd taken it when Jer'ain had paused in the middle of setting the table, had walked away to stir the pot that bubbled on the stove. Now he sat under his window, turning the fork over and watching as it sparkled dully. It wasn't as bright as some of his shiny things, but he'd always wanted one of his own. Jer'ain always took them back when they were done eating.

Besides, this one could be his stabby thing. He was the only one in the family without a weapon. Here, now he was a warrior. Now he was armed. With his fork at his side, he would take on the bad guys. He would fight the wolves.

He made his best attempt at a feral growl, and did his best to stick the fork in his pants, like the swords that hung at the sides of people in books. The fork, unobliging, fell down his pants leg and stabbed him in the foot.

Ouch.

Huh. Picking the fork back up, Taylor frowned at it, running his fingers over the metal. Why hadn't it worked? He pushed the fork against his side, picturing in his mind what he wanted, and let it go.

It fell with a ringing thunk.

He was missing something here.

Over to his picture books he went, flipping through the images until the man with the white horse and the sword appeared. There he was. With his weapon. Just like Taylor. But he had... he had a...

The young gryphon had no idea what to call the thing he had. But it held the sword and went around his waist.

And so, back to the treasure pile he went. The orb, the jewels, the tinfoil, all useless.

Oh but the tinsel....

Yes.

It was awkward work, his fingers not yet skilled with such fine details. But it happened. He managed to tangle the fork up in the tinsel, managed to make it dangle there, shining on its shining thread.

Good.

Now if he could only get it tied around his waist.

This took longer, and he managed to stab his foot again, bringing the surprise of tears to his eyes. Still, he did it. He stood, the tinsel wrapped around him, the fork dangling at ready (though certainly not likely to be easily freed). Now, now he could fight.

And Jer'ain was calling, dinner was ready.

He would eat first. Then battle.

"Do not fall, little one
The ground is far, little one
The watchers wait, little one
with sharpened knives.

But I am here, little one
To sing this song, little one
And I have watched, little one
through all your lives."

Jer'ain's low voice was sweet, if untrained, and she ran her fingers lightly through Taylor's multi-toned hair as she sang. He was tired, but not yet asleep, his eyes heavy lidded, his fingers wrapped tightly around that wand of his, as if he were some other child holding a stuffed toy.

Oh but he wasn't. He was bright as sunsong, he was dark as kin. She could breath his colors, the colors that clashed and burned on her tongue and in her ears.

Oh, child. She thought. Always burn. With kindness, with hate. Just burn, and let me near the fire.

Jer'ain didn't burn. So she stood close to Lithle, to Savius, even to Taylor, and she reflected their brilliance in shattered rainbows, a broken mirror. But without them, she was neither dark nor light, she became glass, translucent and without meaning.

Oh, but Taylor. He was young, but she saw his eyes sometimes, when he was fresh waking. Something lingered. He had been different before, and something yet lingered. It was that which she hoped to nurse, to watch grow.

"I'm asleep." Taylor murmured, his gold eyes now hidden, pale lashes on dark skin.

"Alright then, little zombie." She bent over and kissed his forehead gently, readjusting his sheets, and walked out.

"Dream brightly."

The same feeling. He fell back into it. A deep, warm throated swelling of triumphant joy. His body was bigger now, he could feel the size of it. He was still young, he knew that too, but no longer a child.

He was in love.

It wasn't an emotion that Taylor was familiar with, not like this. He struggled with it. He was loved. Jer'ain loved him. Called him brightling, sometimes, instead of zombie. Savius seemed to love him. But Savius's eyes never seemed to match his face. They were always far away. Lithle didn't love him. b***h didn't love anyone. Uncle Michael? He loved Lithle, and Earako, and Tansi and... maybe everyone. But he was like Lithle, or like Savius. Sometimes Taylor didn't know whether to listen to the language of his words, or the one his body made. Fen loved. Fen loved in hard solid lines, he loved Lithle, and loved them. He loved as dogs loved, on his belly with his throat exposed. Love, Taylor knew, was fierce like anger. It was hurt mingled with protectiveness, touched sometimes with loneliness.

This was not that love.

His mind... the part that wasn't his... sang with joy and completion with desire and admiration. He loved dizzily, spinning ever upward in a fever pitch of want. Love was becoming, was giving. It was the loss of a part of oneself, and the taking of another in its place. It was becoming two... somehow. It meant never being alone. It meant your soul was braided into the soul of another.

Taylor tried desperately to find some balance between the two extremes of the emotion, and was left confused and scared again. He didn't want to be made two! It seemed... scary... to give like that. He whimpered, but only within his own mind. The beak he wore was singing, as his elven friend Luciena painted his feathers with swirls of gold.

"You are a great idiot, bird. I'll never understand how your kind does things." Luciena commented, without looking up from her careful brushwork. "Now raise your wing a bit."

"You elves are sad really. I've read your sonnets. Your love is all form and ritual. It's dance... not flight."

"We know better than to present our hearts for the breaking. If love is a game, no one cries at the end of it."

"If I could share this brightness in my soul with you, you'd understand how worthy true love is. Oh Luciena, you should see her. Her feathers are the color of leaves in autumn, and she flies as if she is the air itself."

"I have heard." The reply was wry with amusement, and also true. He had spoken often of his to be mate.

The conversation made Taylor dizzy with its rapid back and forth. Though he knew most the words, he could not find all the meanings. They were talking about love. And he was thinking about it, about love as Jer'ain felt it, or as Fen did, and love as he felt it now. The elf, Luciena, had another kind. Which meant four kinds? How many loves were there? And was his love like this love, all consuming necessary as sunlight?

He retreated from the scene, watching less avidly as the conversation continued, much as Michael and Lithle's conversations did, full of unkind words that meant nice things.

And then... it was time?

The clearing was where these bondings always took place, his otherself told him. And the trees glittered with the treasure gifted to this union, so that they seemed to have gems for fruit. In the center of the clearing, a pillar of jagged crystal, the windstone, and it was there that she waited.

She was life, his otherself believe. She was breathing. She was his mate, and so was the world, with feathers like the leaves of autumn russet and gold and brown. The world was her dry laughter. Her song was his nourishment, he could live on that alone. He would place the world at her feet, and bring her more. And she felt the same way. That was a gryphon's love.

Once again, Taylor struggled in fear. This was a bonding. A forever. And he had been taught not to believe in such things. There were to be no forevers, no ties that did not break. He knew this. And yet, here was his body, kneeling down before the windstone, which sang with crystaline clarity each time the air brushed over its surface.

The gryphons' voices were raised in a blessing song, and his mate was stealing glances despite her posture of supplication, mischievous even now, her eyes sparkling.

It was his sister who sang the last verse of the song, calling the winds promise to them, and then the stone glowed with a pure silver light...

gold light...

heat...

it was fading...

It was the same emotion? No... it was different. But it was? What was this? His mouth tasted of copper blood and there was a deep hollow hurt in his chest. Not new... no... this pain was familiar to his otherself. It was his whole existance. It was... sorrow? And yet... there was something... something like the feeling of flight, or of looking at his children...

Sorrow was easy. It was woven through the whole of his family, except Savius, and so Taylor took it in each morning, like food or air. Oh, the ache was new, and it was so deep and abiding that Taylor was not shocked to find his otherself's mind shattered and strange, his feathers in disarray and dirty. But it was not strange. He could understand it, thought that Lithle and Jer'ain and Uncle Michael and Earako would all understand it. Maybe even Fen.

There was a man. As tall as Savius, perhaps. He was brown skinned and green eyed. By his otherself's estimation, he was young. And he was a reminder of... something. The explanation would not come. It was harder to understand the thoughts and feeling of this new broken version of himself.

The man's name was Ileth. He was not the enemy. A surge of anger there, but no actual explanation. Just golden red rage. The enemy was what tasted like blood on his tongue.

Ileth was one of the People of Dream, and that, it seemed, meant he was a mage. Barely, Taylor was able to catch that bit of information. That, and his otherself liked him. There was a reason why. Something to do with memory and pain... but the thought shied away.

"And so, I had just begun my call when they attacked. I suppose you know the rest." Ileth was nervous and deferential, he was constantly ducking his head in a strange sort of bow as he spoke. His otherself thought it was funny. Funny like when Lithle would growl at Uncle Michael, and get only his laughter in return.

"You seek one to increase your magic... so that you might better fight them?" Pure dripping hatred on the word them. And so, Taylor assumed, 'they' must be wolves. Wolves were what was bad, always. He had been a Dog, then? Lithle would be proud. He would tell her he used to eat Wolves!

If he ever got away.

"Yes. If I am lucky, perhaps I will call one that is adept at such things. I am hoping, I admit, for a wolf. They have been seen in this area." Ileth still seemed nervous, but the subject clearly made him excited, he seemed to bounce in place.

"Very well." A pause then, as he considered further. "I will be your familiar."

Silence. Ileth was staring at him, mouth open, gaping like a chick. Love/hate/loneliness/memory and his otherself gave a hissing chuckle.

"Well, boy, don't just gawk. You'll do no better than me, I assure you."

"No... I... well... I hadn't thought to..." He stumbled and gasped and finally seemed to gain control of himself. "It is for life, you know."

"It does not mean as much as it should, that phrase." And that meant something, Taylor knew it did. But he didn't know what, and his otherselfs thoughts twisted away so quickly that he was left only with a feeling of anger and pain. "I will devote myself to you. And you to me. And we will kill them. Together. I have never known much of the Dream bound, but your people are not without interest."

"I will have to prepare the spell."

The spell involved a lot of chanting, and some candles, and also a killing a deer, which might have been more disturbing if Taylor hadn't been accustom to watching Savius hunt. The blood was smeared on Ileth, and on his otherself, and then that elated feeling. That flying joyous binding feeling. But dark this time. Tainted and twisted and full of hurt and anger, and joy within that anger. Joy about that anger. Glory in hate.

The blood burned gold.

It burned like fire on an eggshell, like a windstone's blessing.

Like sorrow.

It was fading.

After Taylor got dressed up in Jer'ain's clothes, they went and woke Savius. And when the Kestrel blinked at them in sleepy comprehension, shook his head, and patted the bed, they both crawled up and in and under the covers. And so that was where the three of them slept, curled up in the bed of the eldest, and Savius said idle, reassuring things, and Taylor fell asleep to the sound of his voice.

"Why? God dammit Savius, I told you to keep the brat in check." It was Lithle's irritated voice that woke him, and the bed was empty, and the comfort and closeness of the night before retreated into fuzzy memory while the fear of the memories he had witnessed grew sharper.

"Dad, take it easy, huh? The kid's scared." Savius's voice was quieter. It was easy and confident and Taylor wanted to pretend that he was here, and that things were still alright. Lithle... hadn't seemed quite so intimidating before, when he hadn't really been able to understand her.

But there was so much pain and anger in her voice. And it reminded him of something... of the memories, of the feelings there. He didn't want to be reminded of that.

But he had to tell her, didn't he? In the dreams he'd killed wolves. He'd eaten them.

"Bird, I don't have time for this. And I don't have the patience. Keep him out of my way." Lithle was quieter now, and if Taylor hadn't already crawled out of bed and made his way to the hallway, he wouldn't have heard.

"Heh. Look who's up." Savius had spotted him, and gestured him over despite his hesitance. "Dad, this is Taylor."

"Dammit, he's going to need new clothes." Lithle looked him over, frowning, and shook her head. "You're gonna stop stealing my s**t now, kid."

He nodded, looking for words. He wanted to tell her...

"And kid? We're gonna have to start training you proper."

And then she walked out. And he didn't have a chance to say it. Say anything.