Chapter Text
Treize had not come home from hunting on schedule. The lady Catalonia had gone beyond annoyance with her son to frantic worry hours ago, pleading with her youngest ward to check the grounds, trusting him to know the favored territory of the sport better than she did. He’d agreed, not wanting to upset her more, and to assuage his own worries.
Well after sundown, Milliardo finally found him, sitting alone in the small stable by the gamekeeper’s house, dark except for the beam of a flashlight left pointing futilely towards the ceiling. There was no point asking why he hadn’t answered when called; Milliardo had never seen his friend cry like he was crying now– both palms shoved against his eyes, lips pulled back over his clenched teeth, sobbing for breath.
He did not say your mother is furious like he’d intended, or any of the forbidden expletives he’d concocted while crossing the field, grass burrs sticking in his socks, dearly wishing he’d eaten dinner before agreeing to track down the wayward heir. Lowering his lantern, he simply asked: “what happened?”
“I lost her,” Treize choked, “I set her down to fix her tether, and I lost her. There was a hawk overhead, it scared her and she flew–”
The lure lay abandoned at his feet, still baited with a scrap of quail or rabbit; a small satchel of gear sat open, the glove and a container of gorey tidbits left out in disarray.
“...Won’t she come back when she’s hungry?” Milliardo suggested helplessly.
Treize shook his head. “She won’t know how. It’s night, she’s not fully trained yet…” He balled fists into his hair and curled up against his knees. “It’s my fault. I tamed her! I’m responsible for her! Now she’s lost, and scared, and alone– I may as well have killed her myself!”
Milliardo lunged to his side to prevent his friend from striking himself rather savagely on the forehead, but Treize would not be comforted. Comforting others had never come easily to Milliardo in any case. He held Treize’s shoulder as he recited a litany of his apparent failures.
This wasn’t right.
A flame lit in his heart, filling his chest with a boy’s sense of gallantry that burned away hunger and impatience.
He stood up; “I’ll go look for her,” he said, grabbing the flashlight.
“It’s pitch dark out! I’ve looked everywhere!”
“I have good eyes,” Milliardo said proudly, and ducked out the door.
Late autumn grass, dry and brown, stretched to the treeline, all branches bare against the night sky. Clouds blanketed the moon, making it a cool night, not a frozen one. He could stay out as long as he needed to, and dark though it was, the leafless trees would make it easier to see a stray kestrel if she were sheltering up in the branches.
As the meadow came to an abrupt end against the border of the forest, the night sounds changed from the singing wind to the rustling of brush and groaning timber. He was not afraid. This forest was a tame one ( ...but how tame? ), and besides, his heart still beat hot with chivalry.
A snapping twig sent a jolt up his spine and he whirled, breath hissing over his teeth.
Nothing. No wild boar, no wolf, no assassin. Just a branch giving way to the wind. Ashamed that a mere noise had made a fool of him, he hardened his resolve. There were far worse things in this world than being alone with the night.
“I am not afraid of you, ” he told the darkness, and switched off the flashlight.
Moments passed in quiet. Without the harsh beam of light to rely on, his eyes attuned to the subtle world beyond color– a secret world, sculpted of grays and contrasts, outlines and movement. As if rewarding his bravery, the moon came out.
A ways down the hill just a few trees past the forest’s edge (not, in fact, that far from the hunting grounds), he saw a dense little patch of feathers sulking in the crisscrossing canopy.
“There you are,” Milliardo said under his breath. “Troublemaker.”
He approached carefully, each step light and calculated for silent passage through the dead leaves until he reached the tree. This was his graille: The kestrel, a minute and near-weightless scalpel of a huntress, too small and close-ranged for telemetry gear but apparently strong enough to disappear when she put her mind to it. She untucked her diminutive head from her wing and looked down on Milliardo with incurious disdain.
He reversed a few steps from the trunk and held out his arm expectantly.
“Here!”
The bird remained motionless.
“Step up!”
Nothing.
He clicked his tongue and raised his arm emphatically: “Come down!”
Her shining black eyes blinked sideways at him, and then swiveled away.
… Why didn’t I bring the damn lure! His eyes squeezed shut in a grimace. Why didn’t I bring her food? Or a glove? Or a phone?!
The flame that had led him on this quest began to gutter. Why didn’t I ask him to come with me?
He examined the tree the bird was perched in and sank with despair– if it had been an oak or a yew or a service tree he might have scaled it, but she’d chosen a silver birch, with a wide, straight trunk and only a few mid-sized branches that would not bear the weight of an eleven year old. And even if he could have climbed to her, what would he have done then? Grab her out of the tree with his bare hands?
The sensible thing would be to go back, retrieve the falconry kit and let Treize know where he’d found her– but what if she flew away again in the meantime? Would he be able to find her again if she went further into the woods? No. He couldn’t go back, not with his goal directly above him.
“Fine.” He sat down grumpily, his back to the tree. “Stay up there. I’ll wait. You have to come down eventually.”
The kestrel did not reply.
He kept his eyes locked on her, hardly blinking, until she eventually tucked her beak under her wing once more and went to sleep. The sounds of the wild gamepark continued their mysterious drone all around him– but to hell with mysteries. To hell with all of it. He hadn’t eaten dinner. He’d rushed out without thinking and now he had no way of reaching his quarry, but he’d be damned if he gave up now. A hundred gram bird would not get the better of him!
–He only realized he’d fallen asleep when dawn came and the dew that had collected on his pale hair dripped cold onto his face, shocking him awake. Milliardo sprang up abruptly and searched the branches, heart pounding…
She was still there, languidly stretching a barred wing over one foot, apparently just waking up herself. He watched as the fastidious kestrel finished her morning preen, then she swiveled her head and looked down at him expectantly.
Underslept and running on adrenaline, his mind felt somehow both empty and sharp. Taking a breath, Milliardo clenched his cold hands and held up his arm once again– this time holding an imaginary morsel of food between his fingers.
“Here,” he whistled, “come get breakfast!”
A gentle flutter of wings– a simple, short swoop from branch to arm, and eight, cruel little hooks bit into his skin. He exhaled.
She’d come back when she was hungry after all.
“Sorry for tricking you,” he said wearily as the kestrel nipped and scratched his empty fingers in frustration, “there’ll be plenty of food when– ow! –when we get home.”
In the light of day, it was clear she really hadn’t strayed far at all; neither as helpless nor as dependent as her inexperienced falconer had feared she was.
The Lady Catalonia had slept even less than he had, thinking perhaps she had lost not one but both of the children in her care over the course of the night. She met Milliardo with fury and relief in equal measure, making him swear never to run off alone again or she’d put a telemetry tracker on him herself.
“–Brynhild! ”
Treize, red-eyed but overjoyed, wept discreetly as he received his little huntress back from his friend’s arm. “You saved her.”
“Of course,” Milliardo replied, as though he had never once conceived of the alternative.
The older boy kissed his cheeks again and again, leaving them damp with his tears. “I’m so sorry… you went through all this trouble when I’m the one at fault...”
“I don’t mind.”
He’d saved the bird his best friend loved. She’d drawn blood and left holes in his sleeve, but it didn’t matter. He was filled with a pride only knights could know.
