#wingfolks have their arms on the front of their body so their wings have more room to move

[tendertenebrosity]

Aedan, Part Who Even Knows

So, I did say you likely wouldn’t see any more of these guys, but I was rereading my draft and this bit is polished enough for me to feel comfortable sharing. Here is some birdperson comfort! New followers, you can find more about Aedan in his tag. 

Shae approached the fire. If she’d been trying to sneak up on it, she thought wryly as she climbed over a dead branch and landed on another with a loud crunch, she would have been very disappointed.

So it was that when she rounded the bole of the big tree and found herself face to face with the fire, Aedan was already on his feet and staring in her direction.

She came to a graceless stop, stumbling the last few steps as her dress hem caught on a tree root. “Aedan,” she exclaimed, her voice trembling with gladness and relief. Then it seemed to stop, as if everything else she had to say was bottled up behind a stone in her throat.

He was scarcely recognisable. His big brown eyes blinked at her, familiar features in an otherwise drastically different face, wan and smudged with dirt. Deep shadows under his eyes and yellow-brown bruising and swelling painting his throat, his fine cheekbone, the hollow of one of his eyes.  He looked tiny, smaller even that she was accustomed to him looking, fragile and sodden with a blanket draped over his wings and clutched at his throat with tight-clenched fingers. His hair was dark with water and twisted into rats’ tails.

He looked like he was ready to flee at the sight of her.

She had to say something. Something, before he took off into the woods and she never ever saw him again.

“Oh my God, Aedan, I’m so sorry,” she said. “Please - Aedan - don’t run away. I’ve come to find you.”

The fire crackled between them, sadly, flickering low around the branches Aedan had stacked to keep it burning. Aedan stared at her like he didn’t understand what she was saying.

“Aedan - you look awful - let me help you,” she said. “It’s okay. I’ve come to get you.”

She took a step towards him, without thinking, and he took a step backwards, clutching the blanket tighter.

“Don’t,” he said jerkily. “Just - don’t.” His eyes darted, up and down, behind her, behind him as if wondering if he could get away.

Her heart plummeted, to see him so small and hurt, and frightened of her. She spread her hands, very carefully, and eased herself back a step.

“Where’s - everybody else?” he asked, eyes glancing behind her again.

“Just me, Aedan,” she whispered. “Just me. I came to bring you - home. I came to try and fix it.”

He shook his head. Water dripped from the leaves and branches around them, a quiet patter to fill the silence. Thunder rolled gently in the distance.

“Is… is Lucas… dead?” he asked, his voice hollow.

Shae’s heart twisted. “No,” she said, her voice small and thin. “No, he isn’t. He’s hurt. But they don’t think he’s going to die.”

Aedan didn’t move for a long second, and his eyes seemed to be fixed on something in the distance past Shae’s face. “Oh,” he whispered. “I’m… I’m glad.” He took a deep breath, and she could see his chest rising and falling.

He was silent for another long moment.

“Aedan…” Shae said. “Can I… look, I have dry clothes and blankets and things back in my saddlebags. And food. Why don’t I go and get them, and we can build your fire up a bit, and… and I can help you, okay?”

His mouth twisted and he looked upset. “Help me?” he echoed. “Shae, I’ve been - the last three days have been… you locked me up! I thought I was safe, I thought we were family, but things changed like that and - and - ” He tried to snap his fingers, fumbled and lost hold of the blanket, let it slither to the mud. His voice was starting to rise, cracking and falling over itself. “Lucas broke - he said - he was going to kill me. He would have killed me. Why should - why are you -” He gestured wildly, one of his wings coming out at last to join in the gesture. “What are you even doing out here by yourself?”

Shae stared at his wings, misery sitting in her stomach like cold mud. His wings. One of them was bound to his back with filthy bandaging, the cloth mussing up and fraying the feathers where it held them tight against his body. The other was open, but dark with moisture like his hair, and so bedraggled she could see strips of the forest floor through the gaps between feathers. It hurt her heart to see them like that, beautiful things he’d taken such care of, part of him in a way that clothes and hair weren’t, unkempt and immobile.

“I came to find you,” she said, faltering. “I - I thought - ”

“Why would you want to help me?” he asked. She could see his mouth twisting for a moment, and then he was crying, tears mingling with the water running down his face from his hairline. “Aren’t I just… just some bargaining chip to you? Just a token of, of an alliance that it turns out isn’t even worth the paper it’s written on?” He rubbed his eye with the heel of one hand. “I-if the treaty’s worthless what’s that make me? Aren’t I j-j-just another wingfolk, your enemy, barbarians, vermin? Lucas called us v-vermin, why are you out h-here tramping th-through the woods for some creature if I’m n-not even useful for making my family do what you want...”

“Aedan!” Shae begged. “No!” She wrung her hands in front of her, wanting to go to him, wanting to touch his wings, wanting to bundle him up into her arms, stroke his hair the way she knew he liked. She had never wanted to touch anybody as much as she wanted to touch Aedan now, with a force that startled her.

He stared at the ground, tears dripping from his chin. His arms were folded, hugging himself, thin shoulders shivering. “I don’t know if I’d be able to stop you dragging me back to the castle anyway,” he said bitterly. “Wouldn’t get very far if I tried to run, would I?”

“I’m not going to drag you anywhere!”

“Really? So if I told you to turn around and go back without me, you would?”

“I - ” Shae swallowed. She buried her hands in the hair at her temples, stared up at the rain-soaked canopy for a long moment while she thought. “Yes,” she said. “I don’t - please don’t do that, though. You won’t make it through the forest and out the other side by yourself.”

“Made it this far,” he mumbled, staring at the ground. “Must be halfway, right?”

“I don’t… know,” Shae said uncomfortably.  “Look… since I’m here, can I go and get my stuff? You look freezing. And you must be hungry.” She coughed suddenly, trying to clear the wobbles that kept trying to creep into her voice. “At least let me feed you before you leave, if you’re going to.”

“I…” He rubbed absently at one shoulder, and shrugged. He didn’t meet her eyes, didn’t even look up, but he nodded at the ground. “Yeah. Okay. I guess.”

Shae exhaled shakily in relief. “Great!” she said quickly. She backed up a few steps, held her hands up like Aedan was a wild animal that might startle at sudden movement. “I’ll be back soon, all right? Don’t go anywhere!”

When Shae returned, leading the horse very carefully across the uneven ground, Aedan had pulled some dead branches close to the fire to dry out. He was sitting on the thick, coiled root that was protruding from the ground, sodden stringy tail feathers out behind him, hunched up and staring into the fire.

“Hey,” Shae said, out of breath, her saddlebag over one shoulder. The root was long enough to seat a couple of people side by side, and she pointed to the space beside him. “Can I sit there, Aedan?”

His eyes flicked up to her. He shook his head slowly. “You can sit over there,” he said, pointing to a rotten log at least a metre and a half away, at a right-angle with him and the fire.

Shae nodded, a lump in her throat. “Sure,” she agreed.

She knelt and began to spread the contents of the pack out, keeping them as dry and clean as she could, relieved to find that the waterproof material of the packs had kept everything dry. She shook out the set of Aedan’s shirt and what passed for pants for him out. “I brought you these, Aedan, do you want to get out of your wet things? In the meantime I’ll start boiling water and we can have tea. I brought this, um, travel cake, I don’t know if you’d have tried it before but it has dried fruit and honey so I think you’ll like it….”

Aedan tipped his head slowly. “You brought a set of my clothes?”

“Well - yeah,” she said. “I figured, if you were only dressed for hanging around at home reading, you would still be in those…” She squinted across the distance at his shirt. It didn’t seem to be done up right - the tie around his neck was done, but she realised that the part that was supposed to fasten around the small of his back had to be left loose because the bandaged wing was in the way.

He didn’t make any move to come over to get the clothing, so Shae stood up, stepped around the fire, and draped it over the end of his root along with one of her blankets. He watched her wordlessly as she approached, and as she retreated.

He looked exhausted. He looked sore. She found herself looking at the livid bruises around his throat and feeling a black tide of anger against Lucas rising up in her chest.

Lucas might not get better. Lucas could have died. So it felt in some way disloyal for Shae to be this furiously angry at him, to want to shake him and ask him what was wrong with him, to want to never speak to him again so that maybe he’d understand what an awful thing he’d done.

She started to busy her hands with the little pan, pouring her bottle of water into it and fishing for the store of tea leaves she had brought.

“Did you tell Lucas I would be on the roof?”

She started, nearly spilling the tea leaves. “Um,” she said, thoughts racing, staring at her hands. “When do you…”

His voice was low and angry. “When? Stop it, Shae, you know what I meant. Lucas told me that you didn’t care about what happened to me, and he knew exactly where I’d be, out reading on the roof like I always am in the mornings when I’m not in the library. I trusted you. I trusted you, and he said you told him where to find me!”

“I guess I did,” Shae said, wincing. “But it’s not like that, Aedan, I didn’t mean for - I didn’t know he was going to hurt you.”

She gathered her courage and looked up, over at him where he sat on the root.

He was looking back at her with wild, hurt eyes. “He’s your brother. Don’t you know him best? What did you think he was going to do? Didn’t he say?”

“No!” she protested. “He just said – he just said that they needed to find you, in case – I don’t know, in case you were in on the attack. He didn’t say he was going to hurt you. I just thought we’d lock you in a room or something until we knew what was going on!”

He let out a disbelieving breath. “Oh, just that, then,” he said, and his tone was very unlike Aedan, bitten off and sarcastic, tight with hurt. “Not to worry! Just going to lock me up!”

“I’m sorry,” Shae said, closing her eyes, wanting to shrivel up with shame. “I shouldn’t have…”

“Did you really think I had anything to do with killing the King?” he asked. “Why would I do that? Did you think, what? That I was a spy, that I was going to hurt you? I wouldn’t have! I liked the King, he was never anything but kind to me, and even if he hadn’t been, I wouldn’t have hurt him!”

“I know!” Shae said, lifting her hands to her head. “I know that now! Now that I think about it. But at the time, I just…  we just didn’t know if we could trust you! And Dad was missing, we didn’t know - everything was so confusing, and I didn’t know I felt about you when I thought about it, and I just - thought - there was so much I needed to do and I thought I could figure out what I felt later!”

She put the tea down, sat back in the dirt, wrapped her arms around her knees. Everything was a tangled mess inside her chest. Dad. I miss you. You’re never coming back.

Aedan was silent, over on the other side of the fire. When she looked over at him, blinking back tears, she saw that he had his hands over his face.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, his voice thin and muffled. “About your dad. I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened but it was wrong, it’s not fair, I’m so sorry. He was… he was a good man, he was a good king.”

She nodded, her throat tight. “Yeah,” she whispered. “He was. Thank you.” She wiped her eyes.

They fell into awkward silence again. The fire crackled. The little pan of water was starting to boil, and Shae moved it off the fire, for something to do with her hands.

Aedan’s hands crept out and took the clothing she’d put on his seat. “Look, thanks for - thanks for thinking to bring these,” he mumbled. “And everything else, too. I know you don’t want to hurt me, not really. And Robb didn’t, either. It’s just… it’s all so complicated, Shae.”

She latched onto that gratefully. “Yes,” she said. “It is.”

“I’m going to - go put these on,” he said nervously. “Don’t, um, look over I guess.” He stepped up onto the root and over, walking a few steps away.  

Shae stifled a rueful little smile, as if Shae catching sight of Aedan minus his pants was really something that needed to worry them both at this point. She kept her gaze carefully on the fire.

He returned, and when she looked cautiously over at him he was toweling his hair dry with one of the blankets.

He paused, looked at her, looked at the fire. Then he ignored the root he’d been sitting on, took the extra few steps around the fire, and settled carefully on the end of Shae’s log,  leaving a space between where he was and where she would sit when she came back from the fire.

She held out one of the thin metal traveling cups to him, giving off fragrant steam. His eyes flickered, and he gave her a hesitant, tremulous beginning of a smile. He put the blanket aside, leaving his hair a birds-nest of braids and knots and tangles, and reached out to take the cup from her. Their fingers brushed, his cold and soft, and she shifted her grip away from them as she handed it to him.

Then she eased herself backwards and up onto the log, leaving a few hands-widths between them. He had his hands wrapped around the tea and his shoulders hunched over it, pressed against his chest. Shae took her own cup and sipped it, more for companionship than because she really wanted tea. The taste was soothing, though.

“You need to eat,” she said, firmly, unwrapping the waxed paper from her travel cake. “When did you eat last? You look horrible.”

He gave another, stronger smile. “Um. I found a few things,” he said. “I do know some woodcraft, you know. Unfortunately a lot of the plants here are different so it wasn’t as helpful as I was hoping it was.”

He took the cake from her hand, and didn’t speak at all for the next minute or so as he ate it, every crumb, silent and intently focused on it in a way that made it clear just how hungry he’d been.

“Shae…”

She looked up and over, her heart skipping. “Yes?”

He was staring into the flames. It was getting darker, and the leaping shadows made the bruising less obvious. “I would have liked it if you had trusted me,” he said slowly. “I trusted you.” He put the empty cup down, and crossed his arms, gripping his elbows. “I thought that we were, you know… I liked you, and I thought maybe you were coming around to thinking better of me. And I trusted your family, Robb and Lucas. And I trusted Wizard Tamsin when she said I’d be safe here. I trusted my family.” He hunched forward, hugging his arms to his body. His voice was a whisper. “I guess I’m just an idiot, aren’t I? Because it turns out I shouldn’t have trusted any of those people.”

Shae bit her lip. “Aedan… no,” she said. “You’re not - an idiot. You just want people to be good, you think the best of people. That’s a good thing. It’s something that I like a lot about you. You should have been safe to trust people.”

Aedan hummed wordlessly. He had his arms wrapped around himself tightly, like he needed to feel them, like he would fall apart otherwise. She could see the shivers wracking his frame, and the urge from before resurfaced harder than ever, to wrap her arms around him.

“I’m really sorry, Aedan,” she said softly. “It’s complicated, you’re right, but I should have done better by you.”

He nodded, shivering still. “Okay,” he said. “Okay.”

She hesitated. She didn’t want to reach out, not if he didn’t want her to. She settled for leaning back and opening her posture slightly, leaving a space that he could fit if he wanted to. She opened her arm, hesitantly, slightly, trying to make it obvious to him but at the same time not obvious so that if he wanted to ignore it she could put her arm back down and they could both pretend that she had never done it.  

His eyes slid over towards her, and for a moment they were unreadable. Then he unfolded his arms, sat up a little straighter, and edged over, inch by inch, until his side with the broken wing was pressing into the space she had left for him.

Shae drew in a slow, shaking breath, and let her arm come around to lie across his shoulders. He was ungainly under her arm, all shivering and wet feathers and joints that she didn’t want to jostle.

“Is - oh, your wing - I’m not hurting it, am I?”

He shook his head. “No. No, it’s fine.”

He pressed closer as her arm closed around him, and then suddenly with a choked noise he turned in the circle of her arm and let himself fall forward against her chest, face buried in her shoulder.

Shae felt, very definitely, as though she did not deserve this. But she put her other arm around him, too, snugged him closer against her hip, and leaned her head down on his. His hands and arms were caught between them, pressing against her front, and she could feel the water from his wings and hair soaking into her dress.

It wasn’t comfortable. It wasn’t even all that warm. But they sat there, as darkness deepened around them and Shae realised they really ought to be caring for the horse and setting up more of a camp, since they wouldn’t be heading out until morning. Aedan’s shivering slowed, and stopped, and he stopped pressing his face into her neck quite so desperately.

His left wing had relaxed and was drooping in front of them, half-open, the feathers drying out to a more familiar and comfortable cream and brown. Shae shifted position, reached out and gently ran her finger and thumb down the vane of the first primary that came to hand.

Aedan at first tensed, looked up. When he saw that her hand was what had touched his wing, he relaxed a little further into the embrace and sighed. She could feel his breath stir the air close to her neck.

“You know,” Shae said, and her hand continued picking and stroking gently amongst his feathers. “I brought some stuff for your wing, from Martin. Clean bandages, something for pain. Want me to get them out? ”

“Yes,” he said, into her shoulder. “Please.”

[tendertenebrosity]

Aedan Part 2

Under the cut for length! Hopefully the various relationships aren’t too confusing. 

The main hall was drafty and cold; no fire was lit in the hearth, and wintry grey light poured in through the window. Lucas was leaning over a table covered in maps and papers when they arrived, looking like he had just recently arrived home.

Aedan had never really spoken one-on-one to Lucas. He’d tried, multiple times - each time he’d gotten a curt, impatient answer, if he got one at all.

But, well, he and Aedan had sat down to the same table for dinner almost every night for months now. Aedan hadn’t done anything wrong, so surely everything could be worked out?

Lucas looked up, seeming preoccupied, at the sound of the door. As he saw Aedan, stumbling along between the guards as they crossed the hall, he turned to face them. His face shifted with an odd mix of expressions. Relief; followed by fury.

Aedan only had a few moments to note those expressions, because as soon as they were within two paces of Lucas, hands shoved him between the shoulders and a foot swept his feet out from under him.

He pitched forward, yelping with surprise as much as pain. He landed heavily on his hands and knees in front of his brother in law, his wings half-unfurled.

From here all Aedan could see of Lucas were his boots, crusted in mud. “Where was he?”

“Outside his window, like you said.”

Aedan’s palms and knees stung fiercely with the impact, making him bite his lip. He pushed himself up off the ground, his face flushed with pain and embarrassment.  “Lucas,” he said hesitantly. “What’s happening?”

Lucas’ hand caught him halfway through rising off his knees. It cracked across Aedan’s face and knocked him backwards.

“I don’t know, you little freak,” Lucas snarled. “Why don’t you tell me?”

“What?” Aedan gasped, his hand going to his face. Past it, he could see Lucas step forward again, and he threw his hands down and scrambled backwards. “I don’t understand!”

“Why don’t you tell me…” Lucas continued, his voice low. His booted foot came down on one of the feathers of Aedan’s tail, making Aedan yelp and stopping him from moving backwards. “…what the rest of your filthy kind have done with my father and his men?”

“What? The king? We haven’t done anything to him!” Aedan protested.

“Oh, yes, you fucking have.” Lucas’ voice was shaking with barely contained fury. “Don’t lie to me.”

The door at the other end of the room opened. Aedan turned, craning his neck to see who it was without pulling on his tail.

Shae’s other brother, Robb, strode in, looking exhausted. He blinked and took in the tableau, a frown creasing his face.

Lucas acknowledged him with a nod, but didn’t let Aedan up. “Your uncle’s been planning this for months, hasn’t he? Even before he signed that worthless rag the wizard called a peace treaty.” He glared down at Aedan, his hand clenched in a fist against his thigh. “More fool us for thinking animals like you could be bound by treaties like civilised, intelligent beings!”

“No!” Aedan said. “It can’t have been us, you must be – Robb, please -”

Robb heaved a huge sigh. He propped himself against the wooden table, fingers curling over the edges of the tabletop, and studied Aedan intently.

“Can you – Robb, this must be some mistake – ”

“It’s not,” Robb said quietly, his eyes meeting Aedan’s. “We’re very certain. There are a few survivors.” He looked up and addressed Lucas, over Aedan’s head. “None of them saw our father fall, or any of his inner circle, either. They’re just gone.”

Aedan’s heart stuttered in his chest. Hearing Robb say it, like that, calmly and factually – he believed it. They had broken the treaty. Aedan’s uncles, his father – they had attacked the human king and his people. Maybe killed them. But they said they wouldn’t! They signed the treaty, they sent me here!

Aedan thought he saw Lucas’ head come up a little. “Then they could still be alive,” he said, turning towards Robb, a light in his eyes.

Robb gave a tense shrug. “Could be,” he said. “I just don’t understand what the point was. Windblade must be expecting a retaliation. They didn’t even gain anything much of value in the skirmish.”

Aedan drew his legs up and away from Lucas, twisting to sit more naturally. His head still hurt; his heart was beating rapidly under his ribs. He pushed his hands through his hair, trying to sort through the implications. He hadn’t been home for so long; what had changed in that time? Why would his Uncle Aelric, the ruler of the wingfolk, change his mind so suddenly? His fingers probed the painful place over his temple and came away sticky.

There was fighting again. People had died; more people would die in the coming weeks. The careful work that Wizard Tamsin and both rulers had done was all for nothing?

“They’re up to something. We’ll find out what,” Lucas said, through clenched teeth. “And we’ll get them back.”

Aedan felt a flash of understanding, even pity for Lucas. All three of the king’s children loved him dearly; that had been plain to see, despite how awkward Aedan’s presence had made things.

Lucas turned his gaze back down to Aedan. “And all we have to go on for clues is this one.”  

Aedan flinched, his wings flaring instinctively, the feathers on his shoulders rising. “I… I don’t know anything,” he said. “I’m sorry. I can’t help you find the king.”

“Oh, you’re not as sorry as you’re going to be, trust me,” Lucas said. He advanced on Aedan – so quickly, two strides and he was there before Aedan had time to think. He grabbed Aedan by one wing and one arm and hauled him to his feet, yanking cruelly at both shoulders.  Aedan yelped, his feet kicking, trying to get them underneath to take his weight. “Don’t tell me you ‘can’t’. You’re going to help us, all right. You’re going to tell us absolutely everything that has even a shadow of use.”

“I don’t – I can’t –” Aedan gasped for breath. “Stop it, you’re hurting me!”

“Hurting you?” Lukas demanded. His face twisted. “Fucking right I am. I’ll do worse.”

Aedan was yanked upwards even further, dangling by the grip around his upper arm – he twisted and flapped, his wings sending hopeless bursts of wind through the room - then he was thrust backwards, to sprawl on the floor for the third time.

He rolled sideways, over a wing that ached and throbbed, to look up in fear at Lucas.

Robb cleared his throat, from where he was still leaning against the table. He looked hesitant. “Lucas…”

“What? Feeling sorry for it?” Lucas said. He stabbed a finger towards Aedan, his lip curling. “Don’t. This little monster was sent to spy on us, Robb.”

“I wasn’t!” Aedan cried out. He pushed his hair back from his face with shaking hands, and looked imploringly up at the two brothers. “I swear I wasn’t! Listen – Lucas, Robb, please, I’m really sorry about your father, I didn’t know, I definitely wasn’t spying on you…”

“That,” Lucas said, “Is exactly what a treacherous little spy would say.” On the word ‘spy’, he drew his foot back, and his boot slammed into Aedan’s side. “Now, isn’t it?”

Aedan curled up around the white-hot pain of his stomach, making breathless choking sounds. “Please,” he wheezed.

“You’re going to regret your family’s treachery more than you think possible,” Lucas told him, implacable. “Make it easier on yourself. Where did Windblade take the people he captured?”

Aedan dragged in a laboured breath. “I can’t tell you,” he choked. “I don’t know!”

“Wrong answer!” Lucas snarled. His booted foot aimed at Aedan’s stomach, again – Aedan’s arms got in the way.

Aedan dragged in another breath, tried to throw himself away, and ended up lying on his back with his wings temporarily spread, trying to get the strength to stand or at least roll over and get his back to Lucas. He flagged, wings falling exhausted beside him for a moment.

Lucas planted his foot on Aedan’s right wing, hard. Aedan cried out, trying to struggle to his feet. The frantic beating of his non-pinned wing sent all the papers on the table flying and made Robb and the others step back, but Lucas covered his face with one arm and held firm, grinding down with his boot and all of his weight. Aedan subsided against the floor, gasping for breath.

“All right, let’s see,” Lucas said. “Six limbs. You have six chances to tell me what your family’s up to.” He put a little more pressure on Aedan’s wing. “First chance now.”

“What?” Aedan whimpered. “I can’t – wh-what are you – why would I..?”

“No? All right, then.” Lucas bent down with a grunt, shifted the position of his foot, and wrapped his hands around the wrist joint of Aedan’s wing.

“No,” Aedan gasped, realising what he was doing. “No, no, no, don’t, stop it, please, no...”

“Lucas, wait –” It was said from the sidelines, too late.

Lucas pulled the wing upwards against his foot. It resisted, and Aedan yelled, trying to throw himself to the side, his hands scrabbling at Lukas’ booted foot. This couldn’t happen. It hurt, it hurt, it hurt…

Perhaps he imagined it, but there was a horrible, hideous crunching noise. Immediately, pain hit him - worse than being kicked, worse than anything he’d ever felt or imagined feeling - and he thrashed mindlessly, screaming. He was dimly aware of his other wing battering the ground, dirt and stone under his knees, the world flipping and spinning around him for a few seconds.

When he came back to himself, he was lying facedown, his uninjured left wing caught beneath his body. His right wing was only hot, dizzying pain, splayed out to one side. There were people talking, raised voices, behind him.

He dragged himself up to his hands and knees, choking back sobs.

“ – like this, Lucas, you’ve fucking lost it. You’re not thinking straight.”

“Dad and the others could still be alive out there, Robb, if you can’t –”

“Yeah, well, maybe, but this isn’t going to get you one step closer to them!”  

“I’m doing what needs to be done, Robb, if you can’t stomach it you need to get out of my way! Go sit in another room with your ears plugged if you have to!”

“Like hell I will. Go take a walk, Lucas. Calm down.”

“I don’t need to calm down, you need –”

“Tough. Get out of -”

There was a brief scuffling noise. Aedan knew he should be trying to get away, should be crawling, but he just – couldn’t. He crumpled down with his forehead touching the floor, his breathing ragged, making awful high-pitched noises that he couldn’t seem to stop with every breath.

He heard Robb’s voice again, closer. “Lucas, if you weren’t so angry you’d see it doesn’t even make sense. If Aedan knew what was going to happen he’d be pretty stupid to still be here.”

“He was probably lying in wait to take one of us out.” Lucas’ voice was low, surly.

“And he just walked out to greet Donal?”

Aedan swallowed, stopped making the high-pitched noise with an effort, tried to breathe normally. He shouldn’t draw attention. He felt so dizzy. Nausea surged in his stomach, in time with the throbbing of his wing. It’s broken. He broke my wing. I can’t fly. It hurts so much!

If Aedan turned his head, he could just see Robb. He dropped into a chair by the table, rubbing a hand over his face. “And you shouldn’t have - Shae is going to be appalled when she gets back.”

“No, she’s not,” Lucas said dismissively. “She doesn’t – ”

“He’s her husband.”

Lucas made a wordless noise of disgust and anger. His voice, which had subsided, rose again. “Don’t fucking call him that.”

Aedan made himself breathe, in and out. Shae. His mind, filled with pain as it was, pulled that idea close. Shae would be back soon. Shae would help him, she wouldn’t let Lucas break his other wing, Lucas listened to her.  

“You think Shae liked that stupid sham?” Lucas demanded. “She told me to leave it, so I did, but I never understood why she didn’t make more protest. Even if the monsters were genuine about wanting peace – which, oh, surprise, they aren’t - you expected our sister to marry this creature? You want her to take it to bed? Ugh.”

Aedan swallowed a sob. The words monster and creature fell into his mind like stones into water. Shae didn’t think of him like that. She couldn’t.

Robb sounded uneasy. “Well, even if she wasn’t – Look, I get the impression she’s fond of him, even if it’s not a real –”

“Robb, she knows exactly what I’m doing. She told me where to find him.” Lucas sounded impatient. “Trust me, she’s fine.”

“No,” Aedan said aloud, involuntarily. He rose up onto his knees, his world spinning. His wings wouldn’t fold; he left them crumpled into a pool of quivering feathers around himself. His heart pounded sickeningly in his chest as he looked up at the two humans. “No, she wouldn’t – you’re wrong, she w-wouldn’t… ”

Lucas grabbed a fistful of the back of his shirt and wrenched him upwards. Aedan cried out as the movement woke more head-spinning pain in his wing. “What?” Lukas snapped. “Thought you had her charmed, did you? Makes me sick.”

“Lucas, I said stop!” Robb snapped.

Lucas used the handful of shirt and feathers to push Aedan away, raising his hands in an exaggerated show of letting Aedan go. Aedan slumped forward again, collapsing onto one folded arm, unable to prevent the agonising jarring of his wing. He lay there, choking for breath past sobs and trying not to throw up. His head was splitting – his wing was agony – Shae had told Lucas to do this?

“Get rid of him, then,” Aedan heard, through the rushing of blood in his ears. “If you don’t have the guts to let me deal with it.”

A corner of Aedan’s mind heard ‘get rid of him’, and shrieked at him to get up, to run. But he couldn’t focus on it. He couldn’t even spare any more focus to grapple with the thought that Shae hated him.

All Aedan wanted in the world was for it to stop hurting.  

The hand that touched his shoulder came out of nowhere; his good wing twitched and shuddered weakly, but he couldn’t throw the grip off.

Firm, but clumsy hands took Aedan by the shoulders – changed their mind, and tried to grasp him under the arms instead.

“Come on. Get up,” he heard. Robb’s voice. “Let’s get you out of here.”