Feathers

“—it!”

Alice had just the time to drop onto the ground and curl up in a ball before the literal cloud of birds descended on her, their ear-shattering chirping pounding at her head while their sharp talons scratched at any exposed spot of skin, their beaks sliding on the smooth silk of her armored dress or painfully ripping at her hair.

As she laid there, assaulted from every side, the still-surprised biomancer found herself in need of a way to get out of that mess. A quick one too, if she were to judge by the way some of the fluffy creatures were attempting to enter through the underside of her dress.

Dammit! Why the heck did I get out of the house?

Using one of her hands to keep the edges of the skirt down and the other to bat away the countless birds attacking her exposed head, the increasingly distressed young woman started working on solving her feathery issues.

First thing first, she sent a focused Terminus towards her hearing receptors, causing the nerves to temporarily stop working in order to cancel the horrible noise that was preventing her from thinking clearly.

As all sound disappeared, Alice found herself feeling more centered and able to think, even if she was still surrounded by the murderous flock; her panicked, heavy breathing gradually slowing down and her mind clearing of the confusion that had been plaguing it.

Seconds later, another, more generalized, surge of magic flooded from her well of power and sank into her skin, numbing the countless pain receptors embedded underneath its surface.

As drastic as the action was, it allowed her to ignore the pain of the increasingly numerous cuts on her body as she started crawling back into the house she had just left, knowing that the enclosed space would most likely hinder the birds’ ability to fly and could possibly offer her some kind of hideout she had previously overlooked.

At the same time, the girl forced out of her mouth the small stockpile of Lumen she had managed to fit into her body, using them to clean her dress off the smelly remnants of egg and hoping that the lack of an odor would cause the birds to relent in their assault.

When it became clear that the birds were still attacking, however, Alice directed the glimmers to consume the thin layer of detritus that was covering the ground and then forced them to quickly grow in number as she got closer to her goal.

By the time she had reentered the ruined building, the small blob of glowing particles had become a bit larger than a cat and was moving on the ground less than a meter in front of her, also attacked by the birds that were probably attracted by its movement and light.

That gave her an idea.

As warm droplets of blood ran across her skin, flowing out of countless, small, weeping wounds, Alice moved up the stairs on all fours, almost climbing onto each of the tall and thin steps, her head bowed to prevent the ferocious little sparrows from pecking her eyes out.

When, less than a minute later, she reached the upper floor, the young woman got up on her feet and sprinted to the ravaged nest of the first bird she had met, leaving behind her the small portion of the flock that had already managed to follow her up the stairs.

The second she was in the destroyed room, the girl frantically grasped at the smelly eggshells that were the remnants of the creature’s ruined clutch and piled them onto a single slab of particularly plump moss she had ripped off while moving through the living room.

An instant later, just as the first pursuers were entering the room through the door and window, the bleeding biomancer hurriedly placed the large, reeking chunk of moss on top of the blob of Lumen, which, on her orders, held it exposed to the air without actually consuming it.

A quick mental command later and the mindless amalgamation was quickly slithering out of the room, only a thinning tendril of particles keeping it connected to its mistress as it wetly bounced down the stairs.

The change in the flock was instantaneous.

The moment the frenzied cloud perceived the powerful smell of the broken eggs, the vast majority of the birds went on to attack the luminous decoy, electing to ignore the bloodied creature they had once been so enraged at and leaving only a few stubborn ones pecking at it.

For her part, Alice ignored the remaining attackers and instead focused on controlling the lure out of the building, using both her mental image of the room below and the weak feedback coming from the thinning connection in order to move the blob out of the door and into the open square, more and more magic flooding through the tether the more it stretched and the farther the blob moved.

As soon as she managed to lead most of the swarm out of the upper floor and the house, the girl scrambled to reactivate her sense of hearing and then made short work of the few stragglers with her mace and knife, watching in disbelief as the tiny creatures kept attacking up to the very end, heedless of their clear disadvantage.

When the final bird dropped dead onto the moss with a barely-audible thump, its bones shattered by the impact with the heavy mace, the girl found herself alone once again.

Hearing no sound coming from inside the house, she had the Lumen blob turn into a harmless, non-glowing puddle of inert mucilage that instantly mixed with the mossy ground, disappearing from sight.

The shrill cacophony outside of the building started gradually fading and Alice stumbled back to the room she had used as a temporary base, slumping against the side of the clean sleeping hollow as she slowly recalled the substance towards her body.

Only when the last particle had come back did she allow herself a small sigh, staring at the weakly-glowing specks now illuminating the dark room, their light escaping through the open window into the not-so-dark night. The sun had finally disappeared as she fought and a few early stars dotted the indigo sky.

“Hemostasis,” she spat out with a wince when a small flow of painful sensations started slowly seeping into her brain not-so-subtly reminding her of the many wounds she had incurred.

The young woman touched the top of her head, feeling at the small patches of missing hair where the birds had ripped it away from her scalp.

While quite painful, the small scrapes and shallow cuts caused by the sharp talons and hard beaks of the birds were not life-threatening, their owners too weak to be a true danger.

In a way, it was even worse.

She sat on the edge of her sleeping spot for a long time, silent as she knit her wounds close and used the Lumen to eat away at the grime covering her.

One hour later, Alice stared at the dozen small forms she had just finished laying on the spotless surface of her stone ‘bed’, her head still hurting after the racket it had been subjected to.

She knelt and reached for one of the birds, feeling the softness of its plumage under her digits as she picked up the incredibly light carcass, its weight barely perceptible in her palm.

The girl could hardly feed herself for a day with all of the corpses there and, even then, without cooking them they would probably be a very unpleasant meal.

Such a waste.

The little creatures had been one of the first things in the caves that hadn’t tried to attack her on sight, they had just defended their broken eggs afterwards.

“That fucking monkey,” She muttered, a small flame of anger burning in her stomach and chest at the sole memory of the creature, it’s large eyes and puckered lips taunting her in her mind.

“It will become my dinner if it’s the last thing I do.” She promised herself before shaking herself away from the thought.

She had other things to do before that, more important than fulfilling some useless desire for revenge.

And the first one will be making sure the birds are not going to be wasted.

With a resigned expression, Alice started plucking the feathers off of the first dead bird, carefully piling them up in one spot when she was done.

By the time she was finished cleaning them, the girl was left with twelve, tiny bodies and an honestly incredible amount of very soft feathers.

She proceeded to use the knife to carve open the small animals, removing their heads, feet and bloody insides as she cleaned them up to the best of her ability.

Before eating them, however, she elected to at least make an attempt at cooking their meat.

If she could just find some wood and dry moss, she was sure she would be able to start a fire, she had actually been able to do it once, as a kid during a summer camp.

And I’m sure I can do it again. The only difference is that this time, dad won’t get called by the manager afterwards. She thought, a small laugh breaking the silence as she recalled the many times he had recounted that story.

It wasn’t even that big… maybe I shouldn’t have used that kid’s sculpture as fuel though.

Leaving her memories and the prepped birds on the side for a moment, the girl quickly cleaned her hands and then felt at the fuzzy, new material she had available, gears turning in her head as she thought of the many uses it could have.

Just the thought of her silken sack being filled to the brim with soft feathers and turned into a pillow was so alluring that even her sour mood started improving; at least until she actually thought of the quantity she would need for the idea to be feasible, then the small smile on her lips turned into a frown.

I’d need to slaughter hundreds of the tiny things… and it doesn’t feel right just to be a tiny bit more comfortable.

Unless… her mind suddenly went back to a YouTube video she had once seen, where people in Iceland went from small island to small island to pick up the shed feathers of some very fluffy bird that would use them as padding for its nest.

Mmhhh… that’s a possibility.

Following that hunch, Alice grabbed her weapons and headed back to the nesting room, finding it unsurprisingly devoid of its previous owner, the broken nest empty and cold.

She knelt on the ground and inspected the structure which, composed of dry twigs, soft feathers and moss, was possibly as wide as half a meter in diameter, a surprising amount of space for a such a small occupant.

Seeing no point in wasting a good opportunity, she went back to her room and quickly cleared its floor from the wet layer of moss covering it, using the Lumen to pick up and remove the last remnants of grime that had hid the smooth stone beneath.

As soon as the surface was ready, the girl started grabbing entire armfuls of the tangled materials of the nest and then proceeded to spread them onto the ground, only stopping when she had managed to cover the entire available space with a messy layer of dry detritus.

And now, let me see how much I can actually control these things. She told herself as she started concentrating on the connection with the glimmers that were still coating her body, slowly extending many small and glowing tentacles into the messy remnants of the nest.

Slowly, as she poured more and more of her barely-replenished energy into the substance, the connection with each tendril became clearer and her brain started cataloguing the countless sensations that flowed through them as an extension of her tactile senses, as if dozens of new hands had suddenly grown from her body and plunged into the mishmash in front of her.

Already, Alice could feel the hard and dry surface of the twigs and the crackling brittleness of dead leaves, the scratchy sponginess of old moss and the ticklish softness of plucked plumage.

Using the smaller tendrils as hands and the larger ones as pathways, she started carefully organizing the different materials into different piles until, just as her well of warmth started feeling a bit empty, the young woman found herself staring at the four large mounds she had created.

She couldn’t avoid a smile from reappearing on her lips as she felt at the fluffy stack of somewhat dirty feathers that lay in front of her, the lightest and smallest of the bunch menacing to take flight with her every breath; she used the Lumen to move them aside, her eyes already scanning the pile of twigs for the materials that would serve her current needs.

After all, Alice had slightly bigger birds to grill.

Fortunately, it didn’t take her long to find a flat piece of bark and a straight and sturdy stick from the pile she had created. While it wasn’t as thick as she would have wanted, she could still work with it.

She finished the rest of her preparations and finally got to work.

Sitting cross-legged on the cold stone, Alice used the point of her knife to carve the smallest of divots into the piece of bark and then placed one end of the stick into it, tentatively spinning it between her palms while holding it upright to get a feeling of the process.

As she got used to the movement, the girl gradually increased the speed of the torsion, using it to heat up the small spot where the stick and the bark met, a look of pure concentration on her face.

Minutes slowly passed as she worked; her hands growing sore from the constant rolling of the smooth stick between her palms and her muscles trembling from the constant use.

Alice, however, didn’t relent and, with the help of her regenerative abilities, kept going until a weak smell of smoke started filling her nostrils.

Without missing a beat, the girl picked up the bark and let the incredibly tiny embers that had been smoldering in the divot fall onto a small ball of dry moss she had created in advance.

Holding it in her cupped hands, she softly blew fresh air into the ball, constantly pushing away the white smoke that billowed from it until, after a couple of seconds, a tiny flame suddenly appeared from within the dry moss, quickly starting to consume it.

As soon as she saw the small blaze, the young woman hurriedly placed the starter on the ground and piled a number of small twigs and tiny amounts of moss onto the ball, gradually increasing the kindling in size and amount as the fire started gaining strength.

Less than thirty minutes after the first appearance of smoke, Alice found herself sitting in front of a flickering fire of twigs and moss, slowly adding more fuel while keeping the flames low and contained, trying not to uselessly waste too much material as she worked to obtain enough embers to be able to cook.

When she felt that the fire was hot and steady enough, the young woman grabbed the same stick she had used to start the fire and, after cleansing it with her glimmers, skewered a couple of the tiny birds, carefully keeping them as close as possible to the fire without actually touching the smoldering embers.

The position was uncomfortable and she soon had cramps in her arms, legs and butt; Alice, however, didn’t relent and kept turning and turning the meat over the fire, the exterior of the bird slowly turning darker as the thin skin of the creature started getting a nice char on its surface, small, sizzling beads of fat starting to fall into the fire and causing small gouts of flame to erupt from the embers, licking the meat for an instant or two before fading once more.

As the minutes passed and the smell of fire-cooked meat became more intense, the girl caught herself drooling more than one time.

When the first birds felt ready, she could barely let them cool down before taking the first bite, her body almost melting as she tasted the crunchy and slightly oily skin of the bird and as her teeth effortlessly mashed the somewhat dry white meat beneath it.

It was a flavorless and tiny meal but to the tired girl, it felt like a feast.

When she was finished with the first two, however, Alice found herself hungering for more while, at the same time, wanting to avoid the horrible position she had been forced to take while cooking them.

As she searched for an alternative way to cook, her eyes suddenly landed on the flanged mace that was resting beside her, its shiny surface reflecting the red embers of the fire.

A lightbulb lighting up in her head, she quickly grabbed the shaft of the weapon and plunged its head into the embers, eagerly waiting for it to heat up before placing a couple more birds right between the uppermost flanges, smiling when she heard the delicious sizzle of seared flesh.

Her focus no longer occupied by the cooking process; Alice took the silken sack she had filled with moss just a few hours before and placed it under her butt, her eyes lost into the fire as she mindlessly used the Lumen to slowly clean up the many feathers she had harvested, directing the glowing particles to only eat the grime and dirt coating the precious plumage.

By the time the last feather had been cleaned, the girl had already stuffed them into the mossy pillow, electing to slowly replace the material as she acquired it.

The two birds had also finished cooking and she eagerly grabbed both morsels from a wing before placing two more onto the fire.

Blowing softly on the steaming food, a quite comfortable Alice Desare started planning the next steps of her journey.

My main goal is to get out of here and reach some kind of society, that’s for sure. She thought as she took the first bite, immediately opening her mouth wide open to let the heat escape the incandescent chunk of meat.

To do that, I’ll obviously need to explore the place, possibly find the closest window or opening in the wall to check what is actually outside of the dome.

I’ll also need a good source of food and a base; this one is decent but it has too many entrances to actually be defensible. She told herself, getting up on her feet and approaching the glassless opening to gaze into the dark expanse that extended many meters below her feet, a soft breeze moving her hair as she stared at the dark shadows beneath.

That, along with finding more resources, also means exploring, which subsequently means that I might find something worse than monkeys and small birds.

A small frown on her face, Alice returned to the spot near the fire, her mind recollecting the many creatures she had met and fought in the caves.

Correction. I’m absolutely sure to find something much worse, which means finding a way to improve my chances of survival is paramount.

“I do have some very good equipment right now,” she said, eyeing the mace in the fire and playing with the hilt of her knife at the same time, “If I manage to find a suitable tree when I reach the ground level I’ll most likely be able to make some kind of javelin or spear as an extra throwing weapon but, aside from that, I’d say that my armaments are pretty okay. Therefore, my focus must be on my body and the ways I could improve it. I’ve already admitted that I’ve been resting on my laurels with all the upgrades and improvements and that needs to change, which sadly means that I need to finish the redesign of my muscular system as soon as possible,” she concluded with a grimace, thinking of all the hours she had already spent creating and recreating new drafts, each one getting stuck in the same place.

I have the shape and design in mind but even with those, my Instincts keep telling me that there is something missing, that there is something to be added that could really work well with everything else…

Dammit.

Throughout her journey in the caves, she had had multiple occasions to observe and study the muscles of many different creatures, discovering the way they worked and gleaning at least a bit of insight on that deceivingly complex system, enough to develop a very accurate idea of the ways they would interact between themselves and the rest of her systems once she made those changes.

Despite all that, she was still stuck on the microscopic level, the muscle fibers she had observed unsuitable for her body, their composition sometimes too different altogether.

If I really can’t find my answer I guess that I’ll have to make do without. I might be able to further improve on it in the future after all… even if I would prefer not to leave things halfway through.

As she carefully balanced her options on a mental scale, the young biomancer slowly munched on the brittle bones of the bird, occasionally using the Lumen to smooth the shards as they travelled into her stomach, ready to turn into precious calcium for her still-hungering bones.

She adjusted the pillow once again as she slowly closed her eyes, her brain already ironing out the last wrinkles of her improvement plan.

By the time she found herself in her mind room, Alice had finalized the enhanced design of her muscular system and was left with a single problem.

Where the heck am I going to find all that meat?

*****

This chapter is officially sponsored by Alex L.! Thank you for your support!