Page 15

Crispin

O h, what a joy to fly .

Crispin rose through the air, free from the clutches of gravity at last, a feat previously denied to him by the ancestors who’d signed that blasted treaty.

He could forget almost that what he was doing was banned.

But, in fact, that simple thought gilded his flight with a naughty bit of forbidden pleasure.

He wasn’t used to naughty bits of… well… much of anything. It had been a long, dry spell since the last time he’d?—

Something huge and dark enveloped him like a cloud, and for a brief instant before he blacked out from the pain, he thought it was the cloud, come back for him again. But who will save Leo?

Crispin sighed, floating in that happy space between sleeping and waking, content to just stay in bed a few minutes longer. Surely Minkis could fend for himself for a bit. There were acorns in the nut bowl, and plenty of water in the glass pipette that hung near The Door.

His bed felt uncommonly comfortable today.

But something was poking him in the middle of his back. He shifted, trying to find a good spot without waking up too much, a delicate balance.

It was rather cool too. Had he left the door ajar when he’d gotten home? If so, that was clumsy of him. I’m not usually such a half-wit….

Sharp pain lanced through his shoulder, bringing him fully awake.

“Fuuaaaark.” He blinked, trying to reconcile what his eyes were telling him with what his brain knew to be true.

He was home in bed, safe and sound, and yet—he realized with growing alarm—he was staring at the toe-ends of five gigantic fuzzy baby-blue slippers.

“You finally awake?”

Crispin turned his head, bringing him face-to-face with a creature only a little shorter than he was. The similarities ended there.

It was covered with royal blue fuzz—much deeper in color than the slipper things—which extended partway down a pair of wings that enfolded it like a cloak, ending in bright white edging.

It had six legs, two curving antennae, a couple sharp mandibles, and big blue eyes that wouldn’t have been out of place in a human face, except for their size—about as large as his fist.

“I… um… yes.” It was far from his most elegant response. “I seem to have injured myself.” He reached back to touch his shoulder and found crusted blood where his right wing should have been.

“Yes, so sorry about that. Molly snapped it off when she grabbed you.” It blinked, but its eyelids closed from the sides instead of from top to bottom, like most creatures.

Molly? At least it didn’t hurt too much.

Crispin shook his head. Where are my manners? Ignoring the pain where his wing had been, he extended a hand. “Crispin Eladrin Moss’caladin, at your service.”

The stranger spit a bit of something black and sticky into his open palm. “Morris Mucklin. Pleased to meet you.”

Crispin stared at the goo, unsure if he should wipe it off, or lick it, or…. Staring at Morris, he decided to just close his hand, which made the splooge, well, made it splooge itself out the sides of his fist.

Morris seemed satisfied with that.

Crispin vowed to wipe it off—surreptitiously, of course—when he had the chance. “So… where are we, then?” He turned to look over his shoulder, and wished he hadn’t. There was nothing but green sky there.

Above him. Next to him. Below him.

He grabbed the edge of the… what was it? It was made of branches and leaves and clumps of green moss. He turned back slowly to his new friend Morris, the situation slowly dawning on him. “This is a nest, isn’t it?” He swallowed, hard.

“Right quick you are. Usually takes the dinner a bit longer to realize its predicament.”

“Yes, well, thank you. Mother Fae always said I was….” Wait, what? Something stuck in his craw. “I’m sorry. Could you repeat that last bit?”

“Which bit?”

“You didn’t say dinner , did you?” Crispin stared at the fuzzy slipper tops and finally saw them for what they were. Eggs. Strange blue fuzzy eggs, to be sure. But eggs, nonetheless.

“Ah, right. It does tend to freak out the new arrivals a bit.” Morris blinked again. “Molly always leaves the explaining to me while she’s out, flitting about. Me wings are a bit… vestigial.” He lifted them up, and they did seem far too short to carry his weight.

That’s not important right now. Crispin’s most urgent goal was extracting himself from his current culinary destiny. He had no desire to be food for anyone. “Well, yes, I can see that. And it has been an absolute delight meeting you and the… children.”

Had one of the eggs just shuddered?

“But I really must be going.” He turned again to look out over the edge of the nest. Something was happening to his right shoulder where his now-missing wing had been, but he wasn’t quite sure what. It felt… squirmy? He didn’t have time to figure it out just then. More important things and all.

He stretched out over the edge of the mossy branchy surface to look down.

Down down down down down.

The nest was cradled on a shelf along a bright red cliff face, studded with bits and pockets of verdant growth and a few other nests like the one he was currently sitting in. It was a nearly vertical drop, hundreds of feet down, ending in a roiling layer of fog. Or clouds? How high up are we?

He turned back to his host, determined to put that long drop out of his mind. “So do you always chat with your… meals?”

Morris shook and wheezed in what might have been laughter. “Oh, I won’t eat you. I prefer bugs and berries. Molly always brings me back a bit of something special.”

Crispin sighed with relief. “Oh thank the seven gods of solstice.” With luck, Leo and Thea would find a way to rescue him, and then they’d all be on their merry way. “I really thought you meant I’d be your dinner.”

Morris huffed again, flapping his little wings. “Oh, I can see how you would have gotten that.”

Crispin laughed with him. “Yes, I was quite worried?—”

“My dinner. You. Imagine that.” He shook his head, his eyes watering.

Now Crispin felt a little offended. Why wouldn’t he make a perfectly scrumptious dinner?

Not that he wanted to be eaten—by giants or by giant moths, and why was this becoming a running theme?

—but he liked to think that, if someone did actually eat him, he would provide a satisfactory, perhaps even exemplary, dining experience.

“No, you’ll be their dinner.” Morris pointed at the fluffy blue eggs, which were most definitely starting to quiver.

Fear gripped Crispin again, sliding her icy fingers under his world-appropriate onesie.

He suddenly missed Leo—as messy and lost, in both senses, as he was—and even Thea, despite her new habit of playing strange Earth songs and not actually doing her job.

“I, um, see.” He most definitely did not see, but he wasn’t going to give his host the satisfaction of noting his fear.

“So, we have a few more moments before the birth.” Morris settled in, staring raptly at the eggs.

“Life gets a bit boring for a house husband like meself. Why don’t you tell me a little more about you and yours to fill the time?

Molly should be back soon and will need her frumbles licked clean, but until then I’m all ears. ”

Crispin refrained from mentioning that he didn’t see any ears at all on the strange little creature, and he had no desire to find out what part of Molly a frumble was.

“What are you, anyway?” He started to work his way around the nest, hoping against hope that there might be a cavern entrance at the back, or even a Crispin-sized crevice he might wedge himself into in a probably doomed effort to keep himself safe from the coming mothpocalypse.

“We’re ferykens, often mistaken for faeries from afar. But we are clearly superior.”

“Wait, did you say faeries?” Maybe there was an easy way out of this mess. “Do you know Cerillia Ailedrin Moss’caladin?” His mother had explicitly forbidden anyone from harming him.

Morris cocked his head sideways. “Don’t know that I do.” He watched as Crispin rummaged around the back of the nest. “No way out there, I’m afraid. Wouldn’t do to put a nest where food could just run off, after all.”

Crispin blinked, conceding the point. “I don’t suppose we could work out some kind of trade? Like… maybe you let me go, and I find you some even better food?”

“You know of some better food?” Morris’s wings seemed to brighten.

“Well, not here. No.” Damn his honest streak. “But once I get home—” He rubbed at his itchy shoulder, surprised to find a bony nub there.

“’Fraid it’s too late. The missus has returned. Oooh, and she brought a little something with her.”

Crispin looked up to see the dark form that had grabbed him descending on the nest. Mrs. Morris—Molly—was truly an awesome sight, like a cross between a moth and one of the fire dragons of Ferkin Four.

No one knew what happened to the worlds of Ferkins One through Three, but it was widely assumed that it was the dragons’ fault.

She carried something in her claws.

“Leo!” he managed, just as the human—his human—was unceremoniously dumped into the nest. “Leo, are you all right?” Crispin rushed to his side as the darkness settled over them.

Morris rushed to his mate’s side as she perched on the edge of the nest, strangely delicate for her huge size. “Welcome home, my love.” He extended a long blue tongue, and Crispin got a wildly unfortunate look at her frumbles before he forced his gaze away.

“Leo, wake up!”

Crispin’s human lay there, peaceful as an angel, somehow suddenly beautiful to him. It was like a fairy tale. Unsure what he was doing, he leaned over to kiss… well, maybe not his prince. His human. Their lips met and?—

“Hey, what are you doing?” Leo pushed him away, sputtering. “Take advantage of a guy while he’s down….” His gaze went to Crispin’s shoulder. “What happened to your wing?”

“Molly here broke it.” He pointed to the big blue moth thing—feryken—who was apparently enjoying being cleaned, based on her low throaty rumbles and quivering mandibles. “Sorry, Leo. I got caught up in the moment.”

Leo blinked. “S’alright. It wasn’t half bad.” He looked around the nest. “So what’s the sitch here? It took a lot of work to get your friend over there to come down and pick me up too.”

“The sitch…uation is that we’re about to become comestibles for the progeny of our fine fuzzy friends here.”

Leo stared at him. “What?”

Crispin sighed. “The moth babies are going to eat us.”

“Ah.” Leo’s eyes widened. “Oh. Well, that’s not great.”

“No. Certainly not great at all.” Had he really, just moments before, found this clod attractive?

“So let’s get out of here then.” Leo pulled Thea from his pants pocket. “Will this help?”

“Oh thank the Red Dukes of Vespertine.” And he would, the next time he saw them. He took Thea, cradling her in his hands. “Can you get us out of here?” He waited breathlessly for a response.

A song rolled out of her, catchy and danceable, but not the assistance Crispin was seeking. He sighed.

“Wait, no, I know that one. It’s ‘Jump’ by the Pointer Sisters. One of my foster moms was sweet on them.”

“Seriously? We must be a few hundred feet above ground, if not more. And I can’t fly, remember?”

“You’ll be able to soon.”

Crispin stared at him.

“Your wing is growing back.”

He reached over his shoulder to touch the growing nub. And so it is. He’d forgotten about that part of awaannisa anatomy. Not that it would be wingish enough in time for an escape.

With a small puff of fuzz, the first egg burst open, revealing a white squirming creature with alarmingly sharp teeth.

Molly and Morris had stopped their mildly pornographic activity to avidly watch their progeny.

“Trust me?” Leo met his gaze and took his hand.

Better than being moth food. “Yes.” At worst, they’d be instantly killed when they smashed into the rocks below. At best….

He didn’t know what best looked like in a moth-food vs. smashed-to-pieces situation.

“Come on then, dude.” Leo led him to the edge of the nest, climbing onto the rim. “Let’s jump!”

Crispin, against his better judgment, tucked Thea away and took Leo’s hand.

Was it his imagination or did a spark pass between them?

They jumped, soaring into the green sky and then quickly falling away from the edge.

Molly swooped after them, her form blotting out the sun as the clouds raced up toward them.

Crispin’s heart tried to pound its way out of his chest and he prepared to die. He squeezed Leo’s hand, strangely satisfied that they would leave the world together?—

And then, in a flash, they were somewhere else.