Bird Brain

“Aila, come look at this,” Kuléo called out to her. He was watching TV news on their computer; Aila walked over and watched over his shoulder.

“The scientific community is up in arms,” a man on the TV said. “How we can allow this sort of thing into our halls of learning? It’s just superstition. It was debunked hundreds of years ago, right along with the luminiferous ether.” He chuckled at his own joke.

“Alchemy then isn’t alchemy now,” a Ka’aulele woman said in response. “What you practiced was just a nascent beginning. Humanity took it in a different direction than we did. We developed the mystical—”

“Mystical! Listen to her. What we need in scientific, practical universities is scientific, practical knowledge.”

“How do you think we got here?” she fired back. Aila found herself unable to repress a thrill of cheering-on for the bird-woman. They couldn’t possibly have picked a more iconic Ka’aulele–the looks reminiscent of a Polynesian woman, the slightly “exotic” accent, bright white wings.

The man scoffed. “Even your own people admit that you had nothing to do with that. ’A hole opened up in the sky.’ What kind of an explanation is that, anyway? Has anyone tried to study what it is?”

“What it is has a lot less to do with things than why it is,” she said.

“Oh, I see,” the man said with sarcasm. “While you’re busy writing new religion, we’ve been doing practical work. It’s too bad we can’t study both ends of it, but we’ve actually been doing some studies on this end. It appears to be some sort of wormhole phenomenon brought on by a high proximity of universes in N-space.” He wandered off into technical talk, and the bird-woman interrupted him.

“We think that it’s tied up somehow with where we came from; our alchemists say it’s very similar to our records of the energies in the Temples of Change. It’s changed our whole world; studying it is vital to us! And as a metaphysical phenomenon, alchemy is definitely the way to study it. You’re all so focused on studying it dispassionately. Have you wondered how the Song is involved? How can you all be so deaf to it? What does the aurora mean for both our peoples?”

The man laughed at that. “Next thing you know, you’ll be telling me it has feelings.”

Kuléo turned off the TV. “Disgusting,” he said.

Aila nodded. “It seems to me like they’re both missing the point in a way.”

“How so?”

“I’m not really sure,” she said, suddenly looking perplexed. “The whole argument just feels wrong, though. Like both sides need to turn 90 degrees and look at things a new way.”

Kuléo grunted noncommittally.

After a few moments, though, Aila’s face lit up. “Ah ha! What an interesting idea...”

“Oh?” he asked, curious.

“I was just thinking about what she said there about origins and Temples of Change,” Aila replied. “When I was young, I felt like I needed to have wings. When the Na’aulele came, I felt that I needed to be one of them. And I suppose I am, in many ways, but I’m reminded periodically that that’s not really the case. What am I, then? What are we? Why?”

Kuléo just watched her expectantly.

“I need to go back to the source. I need to see where it all came from, like she said. I need to find my bird kin.”

The next long weekend, Aila flew out of Montpellier to the west.

“I really need to do this on my own,” Aila had said to Kuléo when he seemed to assume he would go, too. “I need a... a flyabout.” She had giggled a little at the term. “I need to go until I meet myself.”

And sure enough, here she was again, flying across the open sky by herself, small pack slung beneath her chest with some clothes, water, and other lightweight essentials. She was wearing a shirt and pants that she’d helped someone in Nakuléiu, as they called the club for short, to develop: They were light and wouldn’t capture moisture, but still provided some protection against the cold higher up. They were comfortable, but not baggy, so they wouldn’t catch the wind. And as important as anything, they had pockets where one’s hands could rest during flight, as well as velcro along the sides of the shirt, to help with the same.

The whole outfit managed to look casual and normal in spite of its flight features. Her friend had a new version that had fabric that could be snapped between the legs to form something like a bird’s tail feathers, but she hadn’t had the courage to try it yet. It felt too much like it would throw off her feel during flight.

Aila wasn’t sure exactly what kind of bird she represented; she had never spent much time consciously pondering how different Na’aulele seemed to look like different birds, or why. But if the mythology was true, and she seemed to be living proof of it, they had once come from birds. Surely some quality or urge in her had caused her wings to take their black, blue, and gray form. A little research later, she found a type of blue jay that bore an uncanny resemblance; they only ranged along the west coast of the Americas, but she found a near relative to them, and headed out to find their grounds.

She needed to find somewhere she could acquire supplies if needed, but also where the birds were not too terribly near humanity, their normal activities undisturbed. She wanted wild birds to spend some time with. That led her out to an area near Montségur, the old Cathar fortress hill. She stopped over there on the way to her destination, startling yet more tourists.

Aila spent a little time wandering around the old castle. The historical information claimed that the castle was of a relatively recent vintage; Aila didn’t think it looked like it could be only two or three hundred years old, but that was the claim. The original had been built in the 1200s.

She found some unexpected inspiration there when she read about the woman who had helped cause it to be built. A woman with that kind of influence in that time was unusual enough; but there was a legend built up around Esclarmonde.

“She turned into a dove and flew away,” Aila read out loud, her voice barely a whisper.

“The holy spirit within her became a dove and flew away,” a man next to her said in English. He had a serene, peaceful look to him, and a calm voice; Aila couldn’t make a guess at his age. “I’m part of the church that holds that belief,” he said to her. “I came here to see for myself. A pilgrimage, I guess.” He smiled at that.

“That’s wonderful,” Aila continued in English. “I’m here for a similar reason, I guess. I want to find the origins of who and what I am.” She spoke with a heavy accent, but he seemed to understand her words.

They both looked out at the castle again.

“They were a peaceful people,” the man said. “Quiet and contemplative. They were rounded up at last into this castle and burned away. Then, when that wasn’t enough, the castle itself was razed to the ground. Sad, isn’t it? What people will do to avoid thought and introspection...”

Aila nodded, thinking of all the trouble she’d had over the years for that very reason.

“I wonder how your people fit into all of that,” he mused. “Perhaps Esclarmonde flew through your world on her way back, and left some of that grace.”

“Perhaps so,” Aila replied. She felt like she could trust the man, and she wanted to tell him about her history here in their own world. What would he make of that? Would it inspire him? But it just didn’t feel like the time or the place.

“Fuwa ka’ala,” she said to the man with a smile and a little wing-fluff. “It means ’fly high’. It’s a blessing for clear skies, bright sunlight, and tailwinds.”

“Thank you,” he said with a genuine smile. “May you find what you seek.”

“And you.”

Aila flew on westward from there, looking for the nesting ground she’d mapped out back at home.

What am I really doing here? she asked herself. Do I expect to drop down and be greeted like a long lost cousin? At best, they’ll probably be terrified of me, giant bird that I am.

Aila found a likely looking perch: a bit of flat rock outcropping near a drop-off. She spent the rest of the afternoon gathering up what she could find to sleep on–bits of grass, flexible twigs and branches, leaves. It was an attempt to build a nest; even if it wouldn’t actually work well as one with this little amount of effort, she wanted to go through the motions to try to put herself in the right mindset. It was one of those important lessons she’d learned through her five years of “casual” learning about the ways of magic.

“Being in the right mindset is half the working,” Dr. Halalo had said one time. “If you’re distracted, thinking about other things, or you’re upset, it can actually cause more damage than good even to try.”

Well, she wanted to feel her birdness, to be as close to them as she could. So she attempted to build a nest. She made a few false starts on the open ground on her little plateau, and eventually settled for padding a little hollow in a rock crevice near the ledge. Aila felt a bit more protected and warmer than she had on the ledge, for the temperature was dropping. She ate one of her trail bars that she’d brought in her pack, curled up with her wings around her for warmth, and drank in the quiet.

A mild wind was blowing. The last light of the day was fading away, and the stars were coming out. Aila hadn’t spent much time this far away from cities in her life; it was exhilarating to see all the pinpoints of light. When she thought they were done, still more became visible, until there was a great band of them across the sky: the Milky Way. She was cold and not entirely comfortable, but her trip had been an amazing experience so far.

She slept well, and woke to stiff limbs and visitors. On the edge of the little hollow she’d slept in, a bird was perched and looking down at her curiously, its head tilted to one side. The bird hopped along the edge, keeping its eyes on her. When she started to move, the bird took off suddenly, but landed a foot or so back, still staring at her.

“Hello, you,” she said to it.

It was only then that Aila realized it was a blue jay, just as she’d been looking for. It seemed to look at her wings as she stood up and flapped for balance, backing up a few feet more. You’re big, she could almost imagine it saying to her in her mind. The thought made her giggle a little. The little jay just tilted its head the other direction and continued to stare.

Aila didn’t want to feed the wild birds because it hurt their ability to live in the wild, on their own; but she wanted to do something to show that she was friendly, and to greet them. So she whistled something that sounded vaguely like bird song. The little bird made a croaking, scraping noise, and then repeated her whistled tune note for note. Aila tried to repeat its croaking noise, but her human throat couldn’t quite do it. The bird repeated her song again, so she whistled it once again.

At that point, the little jay started to hop away from her, and Aila was somewhat sad. But it turned around and looked at her again as if to say, come on then? So she stood up, grabbed her pack, and started to follow it. It flew at that point, flitting from branch to branch, looking back at her occasionally. When they got to the edge of a precipice, the bird took off toward another area. Aila was then able to dive off and fly toward it, and the bird took off flying again. Now they were flying together.

The bird led her to a tree on another plateau where there were several nests and many jays of the same kind. They all took off in a flock at Aila’s appearance, but they came back rather quickly when their cousin called out to them. Aila held her wings out for them to see, and before she knew what was happening, they had all flown over to land on her and check her out. She was suddenly being tickled all over by little bird feet and bird nuzzles, and started laughing and flapping her wings, which set them all whooshing away from her again, and back to their tree.

Aila spent the day with her new friends, watching what they collected for food and helping them collect it. They went for a particular kind of nut in the area that their beaks were able to crack open, and she tried some of them too, finding them to be quite tasty. Her hands were more agile at cracking the nuts, so she made many more friends that way, too. In honor of her new friends and of her bird kin in general, she vowed not to eat any more of her trail mix bars on the trip unless she couldn’t find anything else.

They surprised her again, later on, by using little pieces of straw as pokers to loose a squirrel’s hoard, then grabbing as much as they could and flitting away before the squirrel itself could catch them.

That evening she bid her bird friends adieu and headed back to her plateau. Aila knew enough about bird behavior to know that they were behaving strangely for birds around other animals, but she didn’t want them to think she was moving in on their area.

That night she once again marveled at the night sky, tracing out the constellation Cygnus with her finger, and lit an offering to the spirits of her bird kin. She’d brought a little bag of incense for this purpose: a bit of cedar and myrrh, and a symbolic offering of food by way of flour that Kuléo had let her grind from bakery wheat in a pestle at their apartment. A small aluminum dish and a piece of charcoal to carry the heat for the incense rounded out her makeshift altar. It had a pleasant evergreen smell, and somehow made the night even more peaceful.

The smoke and the smell from the incense, as well as the peace she already felt from a full day of activity and an evening under the stars, made her sleepy. She was sitting back in her hollow and had started to doze off...

Aila became aware again not too long later, but she was not in her hollow anymore. By the looks of it, she was not in France, or perhaps even on Earth at all. She was high up on the side of a very tall and steep mountain, and ocean lapped at the shore of it several thousand feet below. Water a more vivid blue than any she’d ever seen formed little crests and currents beyond that, and in the distance more mountain islands were visible. It was clear that a bright, golden sunlight was shining on other parts of the island, but the part she was on was cool and misty, almost foggy.

She tried to figure out where she might be or what had happened, or even where she had been, but her mind was as foggy as the air in some respects. In others, it had never seemed more clear.

Aila beat her wings a little in agitation at the state of her mind, and was momentarily surprised that she almost lifted off. She had to stumble a little and regain her footing. How could she do that? She’d never been able to take off from a stand-still on the ground. Neither could she remember why. So she tried it again, this time making a real effort to lift off, and she was up and away just like any little bird.

Some instinct led her a little way around the mountain until she found a clearing. She landed there more lightly than she’d ever landed, and the largest jay she’d ever seen alighted on a rock before her.

It wasn’t the kind she’d met at the mountains in France (the thought of which somehow made the world around her lurch until the bird croaked) but the kind that actually shared most of her coloration–a Steller’s Jay. It croaked again, which somehow made the world feel more solid around her, and tilted its head slightly.

“Hello, Aila,” it said in a pleasant male human voice. “I’m glad you finally came to see me.”

“Hello,” she said back to it, feeling more like a parrot than a jay. “Where am I?”

“Fuelu,” the bird said to her. When she looked confused, he added, “The Dreamlands.”

Aila sat down on another rock in the clearing and started feeling even more confused, like the world wanted to tilt again.

“We don’t have much time,” the bird continued on. “I mainly wanted to say that you are clever, you are resourceful, and you are a fierce defender of your flock. And for all that, you will always find a place among the Jays.”

“Thank you,” Aila said, still feeling slightly muddled. He croaked again, and her mind cleared a little. “This means so much to me,” Aila said to him, then. “I feel I don’t belong among humanity, and I don’t completely belong among Na’aulele. I thought maybe I’d find acceptance with my bird kin.”

“You do,” the bird replied. “Many and many times. Even as a child, you defended our kind. But our way is not your way. You carry our essence within your own, but you are not one of us.”

Aila felt a little despair at that. “What do I do, then?”

“When you are ready, your thermal will come to you. When your thermal comes, you will know what to do. You will rise up and up, little one.”

Aila realized at those words that her wings were out and she was already lifting off, a little bit.

“But... wait!” she called out, but the bird merely flapped a goodbye to her, and she was lifting off into the sky, higher and higher.

Aila woke to the sound of the wind on the mountain plateau again; the sun was just coming over the horizon. One of her wings had flapped a little at her sudden wake-up, but she subsided again as she got her bearings. She breathed deeply and gave a little whoosh of breath.

“So that was the Dreamlands,” she mused to herself.

Her little aluminum bowl contained the charred remains of the incense, and was completely cold at that point. She felt a little irresponsible at letting it burn while she slept, but it seemed like she’d had little choice; she seemed to have been brought there by Jay, as it seemed appropriate to call him. A representation of that whole genus of birds.

Aila felt suddenly weary, and longed for the comfort of her own home and her own town again. She felt that she’d found what she came for, and it was not what she’d hoped for. But truth was like that, sometimes.

She lifted off the edge of her plateau again and flew over to say goodbye to her little cousins. They were flocked around the tree as before, and as she approached, she did her best impression of the Jay croak. She received many in return.

Aila couldn’t help leaving a few bits of crumbled trail mix bar for them as she said goodbye, and lifted off once again, back to the east.

On her way back to town, Aila practiced her Jay sounds. She still couldn’t recreate the exact noise, but she’d managed to make an interesting sound by twisting her mouth in a strange way and breathing in at the right moment. She couldn’t do that for long either, needing to save her breath for flight, but she happened to be doing it as she was flying over a square in town, nearly back at her and Kuléo’s apartment. Aila heard a high pitched squeal, and looked down to see a little girl with her mother. The girl was pointing up at Aila and laughing with delight.

Aila circled down to land near the two, and they walked over to her. She was a little embarrassed at her state, having slept outside for several days, and no doubt a little stinky and disheveled. But the little girl didn’t seem to mind at all. She ran over and grabbed Aila’s outstretched hand, and looked at her wings with wonder. Then she ran back to her mother; the two waved and Aila waved back, and they walked away, the little girl skipping.

Aila was tired from her trip, and decided to just catch a tram back to the apartment. Along the way, she mused about how similar her encounter with the little girl had been to her own encounter so long ago. It put a happy glow into her heart that lasted the evening.

“Aila!”

Kuléo jumped out of his chair when he saw her come in the door, and ran over to give her hugs, wings, arms, and all. They were returned with feeling, though when she stepped back, he wrinkled his nose and squeezed it with his fingers. Aila smacked his chest playfully and promised to take a bath soon.

As she prepared for her bath, they talked about what had happened on her trip. She related her strange experiences with the birds and her journey to the Dreamlands.

“Wow,” Kuléo said in response to that, somewhat at a loss for words for a moment. “I’ve never even heard of the Dreamlands until now. What did he call it? Fuelu? It must be something Ka’aulele related.”

“I’m pretty sure it was on Hunéa or somehow related to it,” Aila said while she worked on combing tangles out of her hair. “Ugh! This is terrible!”

“I’m sure it’ll survive,” Kuléo said drily, earning a doleful look from her. “That sounds like a really amazing trip, though.”

“So what have you been up to this weekend?”

“I heard back from the group who wants to start the alchemy school. It sounds like they got their permission and their funding.”

“Really?” Aila asked him, a little surprised. “That’s great!”

“It is, it is... and what’s even more awesome is that I got accepted as a researcher.”

“That’s... great,” Aila said, trying to hide a moment of jealousy. Was she not good enough for the program for some reason?

“I know what you’re thinking,” he said apologetically. “And between the two of us, you’re the one I would’ve chosen. But they only picked students from the university it’s being hosted at, for this first round.”

“I’m sorry,” she said contritely. “I just... it’s what I always wanted to do.” Aila sat down in the warm water she’d drawn for the bath and let out a deep sigh of contentment. Her wings trailed over the edges of the tub, toward her feet. “Wait a sec. You said only students from the university it’s being hosted at, which I assume is not UM3?” She looked up at him quizzically.

He gave her a big smile. “That’s right. I’m enrolled as a research student in the new alchemy department at UM2, starting in the winter term.”

“That’s great!” Aila said with a laugh, turning back to her scrubbing.

“And since you’re already enrolled somewhere and enjoying yourself...”

“Yeah, I can see it. But I still want to be involved somehow.”

“And you can,” he said, lightly massaging her arm-shoulders. “But you’ll have to go through an interview process.”

Aila had stopped scrubbing for a moment to enjoy his attentions.

“Hmmm,” she said finally, opening her eyes again. “And no doubt have my connection with Dr. Halalo come out,” she said with a sigh.

“Ah well,” he said sadly. “Though perhaps you could get some help with that from a certain researcher who will be working in the group, one who might want to make it up to you for getting accepted first.”

Aila started working on her wings with a soft brush; the baths were one of the Ka’aulele-friendly features of these apartments. They had claw-foot tubs set in the middle of the black and white checker-tiled floor, along with Japanese-style overflow drains so that there was no need to worry if they sloshed some soapy water onto the floor.

“And how, pray tell,” Aila said, “would I enroll the help of said researcher?”

Kuléo took a handful of suds and started working on her other wing. “There are ways.”

Aila had gone absolutely still at his touch. He took the brush from her hand, which was still held up in the air where she had left it a moment ago. “Here, let me,” he said. He was gently, methodically brushing her feathers from the top down, from her wing-shoulder out. There was no sound in the room now except for the occasional splash of water on the floor and the quiet night sounds coming through the small open window. Pedestrians walking by five stories below, birds getting their last songs in before the day was all done, a breeze that rustled the leaves of the trees along the parkway.

“That researcher is doing a good job of making it up to me,” she said, a little more breathlessly than she would’ve liked.

“He’s only just starting.” Kuléo started washing her other wing, then, massaging the shoulder and scapular feathers, then scritch-scratching along the coverts near the front edge, working the soap in. He paused for a moment to see if he was having any effect. All he heard for a moment was shallow breathing.

“Why did you stop?” Aila whispered.

“I wanted to make sure the interview was going well,” he said with a mischievous grin.

“Ooooooo, you wicked, wicked bird-man!” Aila said loudly, grabbed him, and kissed him.

Aila was glad that the floors could drain all of the water that was suddenly being splashed onto them; it would not be the last time, that evening.

She was curled up in a bathrobe later, having had considerable help in re-sorting her feathers, watching their computer-TV. On one channel there was a story about a murder that had happened in Montpellier earlier that week; on a second channel, a program about nuclear bombs through the ages; on a third, pundits arguing for intervening in a war that had been happening in the Middle East for some time; on a fourth, a story about rainforest devastation and a call for ending it.

Eventually Aila quit trying to change the channel and just stared at the last one, not really even watching it. She felt calm and happy inside herself, but there was so much grief and sorrow in the world. She wished she had some way to end it, to bring people into harmony so they could all focus on the good things in life.

But how? How?

She wished she could wave her wing and bring the peace and joy of flight to anyone; not even necessarily wings, because not everyone wanted to be a bird-person. Just the peace and joy of it. It was an unmistakable feeling that she’d never found through any other means.

That led her to ponder her own path to joy, and where it had come from. Aila thought about the new alchemy school and the angry controversy that had surrounded it. But in her experience, alchemy had only ever brought her joy, at least when she was not burning her hands or hair in attempting it.

“Magic is a broader thing than alchemy,” Dr. Halalo had said to her one day. “And it’s not always ’supernatural’. The ’supernatural’ are just things that aren’t part of a person’s daily world, literally, and they jolt us for a moment into a state of clarity and higher wisdom. But even things like seeing a beautiful flower can do that.”

She thought back to the depressed, unhappy child she had been, and the joy and wonder that had been brought to her through magic of the “supernatural” kind. Could it not do something similar for everyone else?

What might people be and do if, instead of dwelling on their suffering, they could have their wildest, innermost dreams realized?