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Cardinal Companion (14) : In the dismal whites and blues and greys of winter, the bright red splash of a cardinal is a welcome difference. It’s not uncommon to see birds out and about, and it’s easy to spot these especially after a fresh snow. Wild birds typically mind their own business and don’t really care about you–except, this one does. An unusually curious cardinal finds you the subject of interest in its day, and oddly enough–it feels familiar to you. You can’t explain it, but the moment your eyes land on it, it feels like coming face to face with someone dear to you. The cardinal isn’t afraid of you and feels comfortable enough to approach you, or maybe even land on you. Perhaps it’s even brought you some small gift. The more time you spend with it, the more you pick up on its unique habits, which seem to have an uncanny resemblance to someone you’ve lost. Sometimes the cardinal even smells of them, or has similar traits. The cardinal doesn’t ever stay for long but when it leaves there is an undeniable feeling that someone very important to you has paid you a visit.
The metal of the iron fence that she was leaning against was cold on her bare fingertips. Arianna had gone out early that morning in order to pick up some last minute gifts for the family that she'd found herself a part of including the two newest additions of Annabelle and Elsa. The twins, Rhona & Lavender's daughters, were just the sweetest babes around. Arianna did not really have much to compare baby dispositions against but these two had seemed smitten with her, Annabelle especially. It was endearingly cute. If anything Arianna could probably admit to herself that the little girl already had her wrapped around the tiniest of fingers: hopelessly wrapped up.
The coolness of the metal though grounded Arianna back to the present moment as she watched from across the street as it seemed like a family was in the process of moving into a new house. The house might have been new for the family but Arianna's memories of the laughter and lighter moments from within those four walls threatened to wash over her. It was a good thing that she had managed to salvage more items from within over a period of weeks before the city had finally changed the locks. Things rescued included most of what she had had to leave behind in her initial flight and most of her mother's keepsakes collection. Random pieces of furniture had been placed into storage but there had been some items that had been left behind. Even as the excited shrieks from the children reached her ears did Ari turn away. The time of making memories in that home was over for her, and it brought a sense of melancholy to wash over her.
Could she have done more to save her folks? The thought, unbidden, had come back to haunt her time and time again. As a senshi whose sphere was of healing, she had lacked the ability to charge in headfirst and snatch back the starseeds that had been stripped away from her mother and father. The days after that disastrous moment had been spent either on her feet as a senshi, running herself ragged around the city or at her parents' side, willing them to get better. Nothing had helped and her parents had passed on. It hadn't been fair. Maybe though it had made the transition to join the Court much easier but Arianna was still very much capable of feeling the sharp pain of loss that she had endured for almost five years now.
Even as she turned away from the scene of the family moving into what had been her childhood home did Ari feel the start of moisture well up in the corner of her eyes and she hastily wiped the tears away. No, she wouldn't cry. Not now. Her direction changed though to a nearby wooded area as a place that she could take refuge in until her emotions were once more in check. Her vision blurred once more and she gave a sharp sound of frustration before ducking her head down so that no one could see the tears that were coming unbidden. It wasn't fair that things had turned out this way. She had her Court family but why did she still feel like she needed at least a part of her old life back? Was it because she never had a chance to really say goodbye to her parents? Had they lived, she would have had to put them through the uncertainty that came with losing a child but at times it seemed like this was just as hard for a child to have lost her parents.
At least this time Arianna kept her wits about her. She wasn't running after some haunting tune that only her grandmother had known and sung to her but it was sort of similar in the fact that she had darted into the woods. Taking a moment to orient herself Arianna sat down on an exposed, and blissfully cleared off, log before allowing the tears to fall. It was better to cry out here than it was to break down in front of others. The sounds of the forest although dim, began to at least offer some encouragement to the heartbroken woman and she once more wiped at her eyes before making a soft sniffle here and there.
If there was one thing that Destiny City still had working in its favor, it was that nature was never too far away for someone to run in the direction of if they needed a quiet moment in which to ground themselves. Arianna's gaze drifted around the snow-covered clearing before birdsong reached her ears. The sight of birds perched in the branches above offered a little bit of a cheering up effect before her eyes widened. A bright red cardinal had descended from a branch to land on the snow. It pecked at the ground a few times before cocking its head to stare directly: at her. Wings shuffled and sounds were emitted from twixt its fair beak before it hopped closer to her. Arianna froze even as the cardinal opened its wings to lift off of the ground in order to perch on the hand that she had dared to reach out. "How very odd you are, hey, quit that." A gentle peck on her bare fingers was the cause of her small outburst and Arianna was amazed that even the shifting cadence of her voice had not caused the cardinal to fly off in retreat.
Instead the bird shuffled along her bare hand before proceeding to clamber up her coat sleeve in order to rest on her left shoulder. This definitely wasn't something that Arianna would have thought possible. Wild birds didn't act this way. Even as the cardinal gave a sweet and soft trill directly into her ear did Ari feel as if she knew this bird. Strands of her hair were methodically shifting around as the bird seemingly was attempting to brush away invisible creatures that could have nested there ... almost exactly like ... no. Oh no. This memory was one that Arianna had treasured from a long time ago when she had just been a small child. She'd been Izobel back then but she had been too little to properly grasp a brush and her mother had taken to brushing out her hair every evening and telling stories of what happened to little girls that didn't at least try to brush at night. She had said that invisible creatures would sneak in at night and create the tangles that were so hard to work out in the morning because they chose to nest there and wanted nothing more to stay. It was their pull on the knotted hair as they were wrenched free that caused people pain. Of course Izobel had believed her mother, until she was old enough to realize it had been a lie, but told in a way that had been entirely believable.
And now this bird, this cardinal was trying to preen her hair exactly in the same manner that her mom would have begun the process except with a brush. Arianna closed her eyes for but a moment to enjoy the familiar sensation before she hunched over with the sudden onslaught of emotional agony that overwhelmed her. She tried to gently shoo the bird off her shoulder and away from her but the bird simply hopped over her hand and went back to the task it had started with. It was persistent. Every time that Arianna went to swipe at it, it would simply sense the change in her movements and adjust accordingly. Was this some form of new torment for her then? For how long she sat there Arianna wasn't quite sure but eventually it seemed like the bird was finally satisfied with its job and fluttered back to rest on Arianna's palm. A loose feather was jutting out from a wing and Arianna gently reached towards it before it simply fell into her grasp and she gulped. Taking the feather the young woman gently began to stroke the bird with it before she broke down in tears. It was too much. Even the area in which she had found refuge had begun to smell like the perfume her mother had liked to wear.
Words came tumbling out of her mouth in a torrent and she felt then, to her horror, that she couldn't stop them. She found herself apologizing; over and over again, for the mere fact that she hadn't been able to save them: her mother and father. She hadn't been at their sides when they had passed away. She hadn't been able to give them a proper funeral. Just everything that one should have been able to do ... she couldn't have. Questions would have been asked and she most likely would have been carted off to be placed somewhere that wasn't with Rhona.
"I don't know how I could ever be forgiven. I shouldn't be forgiven."
The sudden pressure of a bird's wing pressed against her cheek and Arianna looked down to surprise that the cardinal had managed to shuffle up the chest of her coat to find a tenuous perch on the opening of the pocket situated just above her left breast. The wingtip lowered down her cheek in the familiarity of a caress before resting against her lips. It was obvious that this bird was trying to tell her to stop speaking nonsense. Even as its black eyes locked onto her own did Arianna feel as if this bird was trying to say, in its silent actions, that she was forgiven. Was she even crazy for thinking the possibility that this bird was somehow her mother coming back to her just for that very reason? The feather that she had stroked the bird with was joined by one more small item and this time Arianna had no way to explain how a ring would have just been dropped into her hand ... especially this ring. How long had she spent searching for the ring that her mother had inherited from her grandmother? It had not been amongst the keepsakes that she had snatched from her home, and if her mother had been wearing it the night of the attack, well then she had had no way to collect personal items after her parents had died without arousing suspicion. The ring itself had been in the family for years and was handed down from mother to daughter when the latter turned eighteen. Her eighteenth birthday had been the first birthday she'd had without her parents around and at the time she hadn't even thought of the tradition of the ring being passed down into her possession. Fingers traced over the ring's outline even as she stared back at the cardinal with a sense of awe.
The facts were slow to line up but with the ring in her possession Arianna began to breathe just a little bit faster. Even if this bird was simply that, a bird, was it a sign from above that her folks wanted to know that they didn't hold any ill will toward their only child ... that she was somehow forgiven ... absolved for any part, either real or simply imagined, that she might have played in their sudden departure from the land of the living? Fresh tears welled up in her eyes even as the cardinal suddenly flew off. The ring and the bright red feather were the only signs that Arianna hadn't simply imagined the whole encounter. Her heart felt lightened as well, as if some of the guilt she had carried with her had been carried away by the departing bird.
The tears continued to form even as she slipped the ring onto her left ring finger before she brought it to her lips to kiss it. A simple gesture of extreme gratitude and the words that spilled forth from her lips next spoke of just how touched she had been by this chance encounter.
"Thanks, mom."
