“I want, more than anything, to go home.”
She should have added quantifiers like “while still young” or “with my pride intact” since I well knew the treachery of the court and the empress who ruled over it.
She added, as if she could hear my thoughts, “Alive.And soon, preferably.”
Smart lady.
When I still did not respond, she harrumphed, and something hit me in the shoulder.
“Are you dead?”she asked.It wasn’t a question of concern, but of petulant discontent at my lack of response.
I rolled farther away from her, putting my back to her to indicate that she, and thus her question, meant nothing to me, and she was dismissed.
“I should have known better,” she sighed.“A creature as ugly as you could never be the firebird.”
Yes, precisely.So please, leave me alone.
“You’re just a stupid misshapen monster,” she paused and added under her breath, “but I’m desperate.”
She visited severalmore times.Sometimes she came to sit on the bench quietly for hours.Sometimes she moved near my shelter and watched me.Through it all, I remained hooded, but now I could recognize her perfume, so even when she said nothing, I knew it was she who kept me company.Having discovered how private my enclosure was, doubtless she too took comfort in being away from the glittering, farcical spectacle of court life.
I missed my friends, those jesters who had made my days bearable, and wished it were Drook or Klessa who visited me now.They might have inspired me to care a little more about my days or have more hope about the course of my life, but they couldn’t know me now.And it was probably just as well.I would never want them to suffer for their association with me.
I didn’t think Princess Alaina would benefit from the association either, but at least her company came only because I was a silent creature in a private enclosure in an otherwise noisy place without privacy.She did not visit me because of who I had been when I simply wore a costume.And for the tsarina, there would be a difference.
Sometimes the princess read aloud, which was a nice change from the days of silence or the casual verbal abuse she sprinkled into anything she said to me directly.Sometimes it was Ilyichian, and I could get lost in the text.Other times, it was Altanian, and I settled in to listen to the cadence of her speech and occasionally pick out a word or two that I thought I knew.Altanian was not a language I had any confidence in speaking or writing, but then again, I was not confident in any language other than Ilyichian, despite my best efforts.But it still flowed beautifully from someone whose familiarity with it extended from childhood.
Most of the time, she picked poetry, usually on the side of sentimental if not outright maudlin, although the occasional philosophical discourse joined the selections.I instinctively slipped into listening and absorbing appreciatively as I had done with my jester friends during their nightly gatherings.Especially in this trying time, I found solace in the beauty of the sentiments, wisdom in well-turned phrases, and hope in others’ daunting experiences, even if they were but fictions to inspire and amuse.
“‘and when love be true,
not form or face or silver shines warmer through,
not the snowy Kind and Fair brilliance of old
nor the fear fire that blazes but dies in the cold.’”
A fanciful, idealistic poem from a vapid poet with no life experience or hardships endured.Wouldn’t it be nice if love did not depend upon appearance or wealth?But that wasn’t life.If it were, I might have a hope, but I had already realized that the tsarina dangled a futile method of escape as a way to keep me compliant, not as a way to be rid of her forever.Did it matter then if anyone knew about me?
The princess closed the book with a soft thwump and then sat there in silence for a long time.
“Firebird,” she said when her reveries were over, “if you can’t get me home, can you do anything else to help me?Please?”
It didn’t matter if I spoke to her, did it?Not when I was certain that the tsarina’s promise of a way out was false.Even if it wasn’t, it was impossible.By design.But I didn’t ever want to be Mikhail again, not like this, in bird shape, degraded beyond even what I had imagined were my lowest points.Perhaps the tsarina had truly done me a favor then in announcing to all that she had me executed.I didn’t want to be Mikhail like this, and I didn’t have to be.I could be the firebird.Or at least a pathetic imitation of one.And why shouldn’t an Otherland creature have the power of speech?
“Useless!”she declared while I was still considering my options.“I hate you,” the princess added.“You refuse to grant wishes.You have no responsibilities or obligations.You don’t have to keep company with odious people that you secretly loathe.”
I had to keep company with her, so I did not think her assessment entirely fair.
“You can just sleep all day.You have your meals brought to you.No one cares about what you wear or don’t wear.You aren’t under supervision every moment of your life.You don’t know how well you have it.”
No, of course not, because I only existed now in bindings so that I could fulfill the tsarina’s needs when she felt so inclined.
“The tsarina has talked about having a cage made so that you can live inside during the winter.I suppose you’ll have a taste of it then.”She groaned.“Oh, to be a dumb animal and not care.”
She fell into silence again, and I decided that she didn’t deserve me speaking to her.She was a spoiled, indulged, naive, petulant child in a woman’s body who lashed out at the only creature who could not lash back in kind.
“I hate it here,” she said, this time her voice low and husky as if she had been crying.“I’m surrounded by people who resent me.”When she started sniffling, that confirmed the tears.“I never knew I could be so alone in the company of others until I came to Ilyichia.I’m more alone now than ever.”Her voice dropped to a whisper.“I don’t want to be so lonely all the time.”
