The Price of Freedom

[annarti.livejournal.com]

AUTHOR Annarti
DISCLAIMER All mine
NOTES WOO ANGST! Haela's the second person (first was Yan, of course) to have found an yrae stone. Good on 'er. This was written for school timed assignment thing. What you see here is actually the first draft. I lost the one I actually sent off to SSABSA, which is unfortunate because I actually put a lot of work into that. Meh, it probably sucks now, anyway XD;

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Yrae: î-ráy, A mythical blue bird whose origins are in the kingdom of Raykin. The sapphire at the tip of its tail is said to possess magical powers, which will pass to anyone skilled enough to capture it.

It’s more painful every time, so much I can barely stand it. Every time, it’s like something’s trying to rip my arms from my body, tearing me apart. There is so much pain in every joint along my arms, every rib in my chest. Like tiny arrows ripping out of my skin, the feathers pierce their way into the open air, every single one a jab of agony. I can feel every sting, every cut.

But the pain does not end there. Even while the fragile feathers are breaking their way out, I feel as though I am the rope in a match of tug-of-war. Twenty or more of the strongest men grab each arm, trying to tear them from my body.

It was nearly ten years ago, but every day since then I have relived those few deceivingly beautiful minutes of my adolescence. It was a clear night; the chill air bit at my skin as I wandered the silent, starlit streets of my hometown, Ni-Yana. As I did every night at the end of the week, I was heading for the local pub not too far from my house to fetch my father.

But I never made it that far.

At night, all sounds are amplified a hundred times over. A palm frond swishing in the faintest breeze, the padding of a stray dog away up the street, I could hear it all so clearly. Above my head I heard a faint whooshing noise, though even in the still, near-silent night it almost skimmed past my ears. Now, I wish it had.

I tipped my head up to follow the sound and my eyes widened at the sight that met them. Silhouetted against the pinpricks of silver light was the form of a massive bird, its wingspan at least five times that of even the largest eagle. Its neck arched elegantly ahead of it, its long, ribbon-like tail flowed behind it. At its tip, a faint glint of blue moonlight caught my eye, leaving no doubt in my mind that this was indeed an yrae.

If not for the clear stillness of the night, I would never have looked up, and the faint sparkle would never have been seen. Oh, how I wish that a gust of wind had muffled the sound of its silent feathers, or a yapping dog had distracted me from its graceful form.

Instead, being the naïve sixteen-year-old I was, I bolted after the bird. Only one person in history had ever seen an yrae, and that was a good 2000 years ago. That was the first king Raykin ever had, though only a handful of people really believed those stories. I don’t need to emphasise that I was one of them.

My eyes were constantly trained on the yrae as it glided effortlessly over the city, never flapping its beautiful white and navy wings. I flew past the pub, losing one of my sandals by the doorway but not even hesitating to stop and pick it up. It seemed that no matter how much effort I made, the motionless bird continued to gain distance. Now, more than ever, I wish that I had given up.

But I was a stubborn little girl and kept pelting after it. Never did it cross my mind how I planned on catching the mythical beast were I to catch up with it; I had one goal set rigidly in my mind, and nothing was going to sway me.

Just beyond the outskirts of Ni-Yana, just as I was about to give in, the yrae ceased its glide, tilting its wings forward and bracing itself to land lightly on a dusty boulder. Its back was turned to me as it bent its head up to stare at the waxing moon.

I grinned breathlessly, slowly edging towards the bird. It must have heard me stumbling through the cold red dust, but it didn’t move a muscle to escape. For what reason, I still don’t know. If only it had moved.

The tip of the yrae’s tail—the only part of it I was interested in—lay glittering in the sand. I crept up behind the creature and tentatively picked it up; still the bird didn’t move. I weighted the thumbprint-sized sapphire in my palm, gasping when it dropped from the long blue ribbon of tail like a coconut from a palm.

The yrae let out a soft ‘coo’, a sound only heard in the still silence of the moonlight, then began to faintly glow white. With a stunning flash that made me shield my eyes, the mystical bird disappeared. I would have thought it was a dream were it not for the glistening blue jewel in my palm.

That was when it first began. The bones in my arms stretched out and rows of brilliant blue feathers laced my skin, but the slight tingle I felt then was barely a shadow to what I faced now.

I had wings. Real, live wings. I couldn’t resist taking to the air that night, feeling the cool wind on my face, seeing Ni-Yana like no other person had done before me. I didn’t come down until I noticed the sky begin to lighten. The freedom was almost too much for me.

But when I touched ground near the same boulder and shrunk my new wings back into arms, I realised what I really faced. Our first king, the only other person to have held the magic of an yrae in his palm, was a tyrant. The only things he had ever been remembered for were his magic and the fear he had instilled in the minds of every person in the kingdom. Often, his magic and his tyranny were thought of as once in the same.

I stared back at Ni-Yana, my home, knowing I could never go back. I was either going to be considered a freak of nature or pure evil.

Where I stand now, glancing from the top of my cliff at the city I once called home, I wonder which really would have been the worst pain.