Black Bird
Five Nations Territory (Modern-Day New York)
As he often did nowadays, Black Bird found himself in a dream. Whether it was a nightmare or not, he could not be sure—at least, not yet. He sat in a classroom at Harvard University, on the second floor. As he had never been, this place was a construction of his subconscious amalgamation, patched together from readings and rumors. He had no idea if it was close to the real thing, but that wasn’t important now. He had to focus—class was in session, and it was hard enough to pay attention.
The teacher stood in the front of the room, reading off his lectern in a tongue Black Bird couldn’t understand. Wasn’t he supposed to be speaking in English? No matter how hard he tried, Black Bird couldn’t make a word out of what the teacher was saying. He looked around the classroom—the other students didn’t seem to be listening, either. Not from lack of understanding, though—all of them were staring straight at Black Bird. None of them wore any features beyond their hair and ears—they were just faceless, uncanny figures of pallid white.
He tried to ignore their lidless gazes, looking out the window into the schoolyard. His eyes could not help but wander to the small cemetery, tucked away in a shadowed gnoll between two school buildings. He could not linger on it long—he knew what that graveyard was, who was buried in it. Besides, it was rude to stare. He turned back, trying in vain to read the open book of jumbled nonsense on his desk, ignoring the tombstones nagging at the corner of his eye.
His faceless classmates had turned back to the front, taking notes on the teacher’s nonsense lecture. Struck by an urge to conform, Black Bird followed suit, mimicking their motions as they scribbled on pieces of paper. Only, Black Bird didn’t have a pen. The heat of embarrassment rose in his throat—he was sticking out again. He looked around desperately for one, and noticed the red-winged blackbird, his namesake, perched atop a desk next to him. The creature held out its right wing, and Black Bird plucked a large black feather from it.
“Thank you,” he said, but the bird was already gone. Fear and grief gripped the young man’s heart. Somehow, he knew: it would never return.
Black Bird returned to his paper, pen in hand. Only, he still lacked ink. He looked around. The other students had already finished their first page of notes. He was falling behind. Desperate now, he plunged the tip of his pen into his cephalic vein. Blood spurted from his wrist, but he felt no pain. He began to write, rushing to catch up to the rest. The blood flowed freely, morphing from its usual crimson red to a milky white, until it matched the faces of his classmates. But this wouldn’t do—it was the same color as the paper now, and he couldn’t read his own writing.
Black Bird wracked his brain, trying to think of a solution. As he did, he began to notice the color from his own skin was draining, leaving with the blood from his wrist, like the life was draining out from him. He began to panic, and that’s when he noticed the stench. His blood reeked of mud and iron, so rank that you could smell it outside the classroom, out into the schoolyard, even from the tombstones and beyond.
Then, the windows shattered. The shards of glass shot into his classmates like the breath of his dragon pistol, scouring their flesh. The whoops of Snakes filled the air, and they crashed into the room, leaping through the windows, breaking down the door. They set upon the students, cleaving them with tomahawks. The students did not scream, or bleed, falling to the ground like empty husks of corn. Black Bird stood and fled, wracked with guilt, knowing that he led them here. Like hounds of hell, they tracked the scent of his filthy blood, hungry to finish the job. He responded the only way he knew how—he ran, like he always did. He leaped out the broken window, flailing helplessly as he careened to the ground below.
Black Bird woke up saving himself from his fate. He bolted upright, sweat dripping from his brow. He was, of course, nowhere near Harvard—he lay in a bedroll deep in the forest, somewhere in Onondaga territory. As he composed himself, panting, he noticed the girl Anne-Marie looking at him. Embarrassed by his outburst, he turned away from her, trying to ignore her gaze.
“Are you alright?” She asked.
“I’m fine,” he said. “It’s nothing.”
He could feel her amber eyes on him, and he hated the feeling.
“What do you dream about?” She asked him. This was not the first time he had awoken like this, shivering and afraid. Rather, it was constant—he could not remember the last night he had fully slept.
“What does anyone dream about?” He said, refusing to answer the question. The girl was more than curious—she was downright nosy.
Despite his better instincts, he turned back to her. The look in her eyes made him feel ashamed, and he began to grow annoyed. The last thing he needed or wanted was pity, and certainly not hers.
“I don’t remember them,” he lied. “I never do.”
Anne-Marie stood up from the log she was sitting on. She walked past the dormant firepit and sat down next to him. He scooted away, trying subtly to distance himself.
“Has it always been like this, for you?” She asked.
“Why do you care?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
Black Bird shrugged. He wanted this conversation to be over.
“Why do you always do this?” Anne-Marie pestered. “You’ll talk to me all day about plants and animals, or philosophy, or the tribes of this land. But whenever I want to know about you, you shut yourself off. What’s so important that you need to hide from me? Why don’t you trust me?”
“Why should I trust you?” Black Bird’s chest grew hot and annoyed. “We aren’t friends. We’re complete strangers. The only thing we have in common is our misery. Am I supposed to bare my soul to you, just because you have a passing whim to see it?”
“It’s not a passing whim! I want to know you. I… I want to help. You look so lost, so pained—when you row, when you sleep. Even after my ordeals, I do not suffer the way I see you do. You shouldn’t have to suffer alone.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Anne-Marie took a deep breath, looking away. Her feelings were clearly hurt by his words, though she tried to hide it.
“Forgive me,” she said. “I’m a fool to think we were already friends.”
“That’s your problem,” Black Bird shot back. He left his seat by her, pacing back and forth. A part of him tried to calm the angry fire in his heart, but his lack of sleep clouded his mind, inflamed his emotion. His apprehension spilled out of his mouth, self-doubt redirected to her. Catharsis through animosity.
“You are too familiar!” He chided her. “You haven’t even known me a month, and you purport yourself to be the guardian of my well-being! Who are you, to invade my life like this? To rob me of my despair? My wounds are fresh and bleeding, and you would open them again, just to congratulate yourself for trying to help! Never have you stopped and asked whether I want or need it.”
“Because you don’t know what you want,” Anne-Marie rebutted, standing to oppose him. “If you had your way, you would never tend your wounds. You would leave them to fester and rot, so desperate to avoid the pain of remembering. You’re right—It hasn’t even been a month. And yet I know you better than I’ve ever known any other soul on this earth.”
“You’re mistaken. You have no idea who I am.”
“I’m trying to learn, aren’t I?”
“And what if I don’t want you to? What if I asked you to stop? Would you listen to me, respect my wishes? Or would you plow ahead for your own indulgence?”
“Is that what you think of me? Just another stranger, with a passing fancy to observe your deepest-held secrets? You think I ask you these questions just to pass the time?”
“Why do you do it, then? Why do you torment me so?”
“Because I care. I see the way you tear yourself apart. I hear you cry out in the night, pleading in names I will never know. And I know that I can help. You think I’m a fool, that I’m naive. Well, I am—but not as much as you want me to be. I’m not trying to save you. I can’t fix your wounds—I’m barely surviving, just to tend my own. All I know is that your company is what keeps me going. We live in a frightening, evil world. We are both victims of its trials, harsh and uncaring. But we have each other, don’t we? Please—don’t torture yourself like this. You deserve more than the loneliness you think you want.”
Black Bird had had enough. He paced away from the campsite into the woods.
“Where are you going?!” She called out to him.
“To the loneliness I think I want,” he replied, bitter and sardonic.
He stomped angrily into the forest, until he no longer knew where he was. His heart and mind were aboil with a potent brew of emotion—sorrow, resentment, anxiety. He could not stand that girl, always breaking through the hard shell he had formed around him, intruding on the tender, pathetic thing within.
A part of him knew she was right. It was comforting, to speak to her each day, to have a part of him known by her. At the same time, he found that he always had to put on a mask around her, unable to show her every part of his true self. That mask protected him from that ordeal of being known, and the scrutiny that came with it. But it also prevented him from truly grieving, never allowing himself to give credence to his many losses. Now, they all came welling up inside him again, the wounds re-opened by her kindness. Unable to push them back down again, he collapsed to his knees, sobbing into the night.
It was dawn when Black Bird returned to the camp. Anne-Marie had fallen asleep, splayed across the log they had sat on together. He studied her for a moment, though he felt guilty at doing so, an odd voyeur to her subconscious self. Her face was peaceful and calm, and he could not help but feel envious. How was it possible, to endure what she had, and to be unfettered? Was he so weak, so fragile, to be in such shambles now?
Black Bird shook her awake. She came to, slowly but surely.
“It’s morning,” he told her. “We need to get moving.”
Anne-Marie yawned, and nodded. She began to pack her things in silence, and he followed. Neither of them said a word. Black Bird felt an urge to say something, to make amends. It built and boiled in him until the words poured out of him like water from a leak.
“I’m sorry about last night,” Black Bird found himself saying. “I’m dealing with a lot, but I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”
“I’m sorry, too,” she said. “I… this is my first time, you know, getting to know someone like this. I get excited, and overzealous, and I didn’t think enough about how you would feel. I need to pick my battles, I think, and be more considerate.”
The two shared a silence for a moment. For some reason, it never felt uncomfortable with her.
“Did you mean what you said?” She asked him. “About us not being friends?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve only really ever had one friend. I’m not certain on the criteria.”
“What, like there are rules to it? I think they’re whatever you want to make them.”
Black Bird shrugged, smirking a little.
“I guess we’re friends then,” he said. “Whatever it means.”
Anne-Marie smiled back. Together, the two stomped out the fire pit and covered it with leaves, trying their best to hide their trace. Once their campsite looked like every other stretch of the wood again, they made their way to the river, and began loading things into the canoe. Black Bird watched her, conflict tossing and turning in his heart.
“Did you mean what you said?” He asked her. “About… your passing fancy?”
“You mean my lack of one?” Anne-Marie laughed. “Yes, I meant what I said. I want to know Black Bird. The real Black Bird, not the moody little creature that skulks around the canoe.”
“So just the one that helps you learn things.”
“Not just that one. I want the one you’re afraid to show me, the parts you think I won’t like or approve of.”
“No you don’t. You think you do, but you don’t. You like me now because it’s convenient, because you’ve only seen the fun side of things.”
Anne-Marie stopped loading things into the canoe. She stepped over to him, grabbing his face in her hands and staring straight into his eyes.
“That's not true," she told him. "And I need you to know it won't ever be true. I like you because you’re different from everyone else I’ve ever met. I like you because your eyes sparkle whenever you teach me. I like you because you genuinely love the world, even though it’s been so cruel to you. I like you because you aren’t nearly as good as hiding yourself away as you think you are. And I like you especially because I know there’s so much more to like, parts of you that I haven’t even begun to know. But I want to, if you’ll let me.”
Black Bird's cheeks grew hot. How could she speak so brazenly like this? She was such a peculiar creature—at times, she was shy as a mouse, and at others, she had no shame at all. He had no idea where this sheltered girl got her confidence, and he could not reciprocate it, at least not with her.
“Hmph,” was the only response he could muster. He threw his sack of books onto the canoe, and pushed it out from the riverbank. Anne-Marie hopped in, smiling. Clearly, she was satisfied enough with his answer. Was he? It was too early to tell. Still, he supposed it wouldn’t hurt, to lower his guard a little with her. Or perhaps it would, but the hurt could be worth it. It did feel nice, after all, to have someone to share himself with.