Beyond the castle’s high chamber window, the city of Layman-upon-Waters. Spring sunlight glittered through the thick glass and cast rainbows upon Elliot’s cheek. The season had turned warm at long last, and today’s climb up the hill had been the first of the year where Elliot had been forced to doff his coat from heat. He didn’t envy the infantrymen he could see down in the courtyard with their thick plates of leather, pushing their sweaty bodies through a repeating cycle of spear thrusts.
The Castle Road had been alive with morning commerce. Spring had drawn the people of the city out into the daylight and pulled smiles from beneath the malaise of winter. Down in the Low Town, Elliot had been stopped by a goodly number of clients and associates of the office who’d wanted to share the seasonal cheer with him. Spring was infectious. It filled the city with warmth.
But Elliot turned from the window and into a much cooler pair of eyes. Hawthorne’s sharp smile held little of spring’s heat.
“You’re keeping good care of yours, I hope?” asked the tailor.
Elliot pursed his lips in a bid to dispel her mischievous teasing. He was getting a lot of good practice in today. “I am,” he said.
Hawthorne brushed her thick, black curls with her fingers. She didn’t sheathe her smile. “And what did I say for you to do?”
“Keep the fabric out of the light,” he recited with a sigh. “Keep it dry. Honestly, I haven’t even unwrapped it from when you delivered it.”
“That’s no good. It needs to breathe. You have to-…”
“You never said that.”
“-…expose it to the air once in a while or the silk stiffens. I insist you let it out for a few minutes when you get home.”
“Sure,” Elliot resigned.
“I’ll have your promise.” Hawthorne put a hand on her hip. She was wearing daffodil-yellow today in keeping with the season, and the pale fabric set off the rich walnut of her skin marvellously. “My art deserves care, Elliot. Don’t let your laziness ruin all my hard work.”
“I promise.”
It never seemed to matter to Hawthorne that Elliot had been partially responsible for her rising fame among the nobility of the city. She’d been one of the first recipients of the certificate of aegis, and she’d done so very well for herself in the months since.
But looking at the matter another way, Hawthorne was demonstrating to the city just how much good an initiative like the certificate could achieve. Lots of young Low-Towners had taken a chance on a life in the city thanks to her example. Elliot ought to forgive her teasing for that reason alone. If only she didn’t clearly enjoy putting him down.
Behind the changing screen at the far end of the sitting room, Thaddeus’ throaty chuckle. “And keep your windows locked too, if you don’t want the Rag Bandit to away with your new clothes!” he said.
This cut the smile from Hawthorne’s lips. She folded her arms. “I trust you are still working to deter that miscreant, Castellan.”
“Oh, yes. Our nightly patrols around the heights seem to have kept the cur at bay.” Thaddeus’ voice was made taut by his disrobing. “We haven’t had another incident in many nights now.”
Hawthorne rolled her eyes. “Good. If the Rag Bandit wants fine clothing so much, he can come and order some from me properly instead of purloining it. He can afford it, all the jewellery he’s reportedly taken.”
Elliot could hear Thaddeus brushing his hands down his new outfit, and a moment later, the old man appeared from around the changing screen.
“Oh,” said Elliot. “That’s rather fine.”
“It obviously isn’t finished yet,” said Hawthorne with a huff, approaching the castellan with a hand on her tailoring belt. “Raise your arms, please.”
Thaddeus’ new coat was sleek and long, billowing around his thighs. The sleeves were short but voluminous to allow for a layered shirt beneath, though Thaddeus was only wearing his sleeping clothes for the fitting. Elliot marvelled at the buttery yellow of the new gown’s luxurious lining as it caught the sunlight, the seafoam-green panelling at the chest and waist.
“Green and yellow,” he remarked. “The colours of spring.”
“And the colours of Layman’s livery, yes.” Hawthorne had one pin between her lips and another between her fingers. She tugged the fabric up under Thaddeus’ armpit and pulled the coat shut at his stomach. “I do know what I’m doing, Elliot. Well, this only needs a little adjustment. A touch off the hem and it should be short and airy enough to allow for dancing, assuming you’ll partake, Castellan.”
“I believe I have to,” Thaddeus chuckled, winking at Elliot over Hawthorne’s shoulder. “Dance at the Elf King’s Ball is as mandatory as it can be without anyone explicitly saying so. It’s a cornerstone element of their culture, you know. They say that-… ouch.”
“Apologies,” said Hawthorne, extracting an offending pin from his robe.
“They say that the elves danced as a means of communication before they learned speech and writing. And having met them, I can believe it.”
“Will you be dancing, Elliot?” Hawthorne asked.
Elliot shrugged. “As the castellan says, I have to. The coat you kindly made for me is certainly built for it.”
The tailor laughed. “Then you should keep an eye on him, Castellan.”
“Oh? Why is that?”
“Simply because I would hate to be pulled into a war with the elves because of Elliot’s proclivities.”
Elliot stiffened, a retort on his lips. But Thaddeus’ wide eyes muted him.
“Proclivities?”
“He has a reputation, Castellan.”
“I-I…!” Elliot spluttered. “I do not!”
“Reputation? For merry-making?” Thaddeus laughed. “That is well, surely! It is good for the people to see a government administrator who knows how to have a fun time.”
The old man held Elliot’s eyes, and Elliot found he couldn’t look away. Hawthorne’s chuckling filled the silence of the sitting room.
“We are done for today,” she said at last. “Kindly disrobe, Castellan, and I will have the changes made for our next fitting.”
“And you have my report,” said Elliot. The sooner he got out of his father’s searching eyeline, the better.
“Thank you, both,” said Thaddeus, stepping behind the screen once more.
When his arm emerged with his new gown folded atop it, Hawthorne bundled it up and made for the door. The tailor cast Elliot a final, victorious grin as she stepped out of the room.
“Elliot, a moment?”
He froze on the threshold.
“I am so proud of you for getting involved in the Low Town as you have done,” said Thaddeus from behind his screen. “Truly, you have done marvellous work for the people of the city.”
The old man laughed. “But I hope you aren’t spending too much time at Madam Lantern’s establishment.”
Elliot winced. He took the lightning tickle of his embarrassment and channelled it into, he hoped, a winning dismissal.
“As if you pay me enough to go there more than once a month,” he chuckled. Then he hurriedly took his leave.
But beyond the castle walls and back on the downward slope towards Low Town, Elliot stuck his hands in his uniform coat pockets and scowled down at his shoes.
Reputation? Him? Why? Just because he ended up naked on the roof of a brothel one time? Because of one raucous night out in the company of centaurs? Because even though he did go to Madam Lantern’s often for very chaste, very professional meetings on the state of the certificate of aegis initiative, he seemed to always end up in the bar with a girl like Melyssa or Asura or Sita on his arm?
“Ridiculous,” he muttered as he walked. “Ridiculous…”
He reached home, the Office of Municipal Integration in the heart of the Low Town, sooner than he’d realised, so lost in his own wounded pride as he was. Elliot shook the needless self-reflection from his mind, then stepped inside.
“Ah, Sir Elliot, welcome back,” said Jacque. The office apprentice was smiling from behind his desk, where he had clearly been mid-interview with a young woman Elliot didn’t recognise. “How was the Castle?”
“Fine, thank you. The castellan was in… good humour.”
“You’re Sir Elliot?” The girl working through her certificate application with Jacque stood quickly to her feet and faced him. She was fair, with curled ringlets of lovely red hair and a constellation of freckles along her cream cheeks. Her long skirt fluttered around a sizable set of hips. Or was that a tail hiding under her clothing? Knowing Low Town as Elliot did, it could have been either one.
The stars in the girl’s eyes took Elliot aback. “I… I am,” he said.
“Oh, wonderful! My name is Manta! I just arrived in the Low Town, but I’ve heard so much about you!”
Elliot winced again. She’d heard about him? What exactly had she heard?
Before he could inquire, Jacque leaned around his client with a disapproving frown. “Sir Elliot, you’re distracting our guest with your flirtation. Did you need something?”
Flirtation?! “U-Uh, no,” he said. “No, carry on. It was nice to meet you, Manta, but now I have to… go upstairs and air out a… a coat.”
“See you again, I hope!” Manta called to his retreating back as he fled up the stairs.
Elliot decided he’d have to ask Lantern what it was people were saying about him during their next meeting. He wasn’t so proud as to obsess over public opinion, but if the people he served thought he was some sort of… rake? That wouldn’t look good for the office.
Still, Manta’s beaming smile had been very flattering. Her blushing cheeks lingered in his mind as he opened the door to his bedroom. As such, he didn’t recognise the sight within right away.
One half of Elliot’s window was open, and so was his wardrobe. A black-garbed figure was crouched on the floor and was rifling through his garments, half-hidden behind the wardrobe door. A mess of Elliot’s discarded clothes and linens decorated the floorboards around them. As Elliot watched, stunned to silence and stillness, the figure leaned back with the ball coat Hawthorne had tailored for him draped over their hands.
The Rag Bandit, for that was surely who he was looking at, was a woman with a bob of sleek black hair marked with thick streaks of shock white on the left and right. She had big, shining black eyes like discs of polished onyx, and a tight, excited and very charming smile. Her eggshell skin was covered with a simple, sleeveless wrap of indigo fabric, tied at the waist with a cord and leaving her legs bare under a very short skirt.
And her legs were… bizarre. They were thin, ridged and shining black, with three clawed toes on each foot and a supportive toe facing backwards. Based on how she was crouched, the knees appeared to bend back instead of forwards. Her thighs were coated in fluffy clouds of jet-black feathers, and she had a matching crest around her neck and collarbone like a winter ruff. And where Elliot had assumed she was wearing a cloak, she actually sported a pair of wings from her shoulder sockets, white as snow with thick, black bands like a reverse colouring of her hair. She didn’t appear to have hands, so she was resting Elliot’s purloined coat instead on the big wings’ elbow joints.
The bird-woman examined Elliot’s coat with a manic smile. She moved the green garment back and forth in the spring sunlight from the window. The little sequins in the embroidering caused sparkles to scatter across her face.
“Shiny!” she whispered. “Lovely!”
“Uh,” said Elliot.
The bird’s head snapped his way. Her eyes were like saucers. Elliot could see his own shocked reflection in them.
“Oh no!” said the thief.
Before Elliot could call out, since he certainly didn’t want this wondrous encounter with the unknown to end, the bird hopped up onto her avian legs with Elliot’s fancy coat tucked under her chin. She crouched, turned and then leapt, ready to soar out the window and into the spring air.
Unfortunately, her trajectory took her headlong into the closed half of the window, rather than the open. The thick glass rang musically against the top of her head and bounced the girl back into the room, onto her feathered bum. Elliot’s new coat crumpled to the floor, and the would-be thief put up her wings to cover her crown, moaning and wriggling.
“Ow-ow-ow!” she said.
“Oh, shit.” Elliot knelt beside her. “Are you alright?”
“Mm-hmm,” she replied. Her voice was a high, crystal sing-song, sweet and musical. “J-Just a bruise, I think. I…”
Slowly, she turned her face towards him again. Elliot put on his best smile, but the girl only stared fearfully with her big, midnight eyes.
“It’s alright,” he tried. “I’m not going to turn you in. I’d like to keep that coat, but I’d rather learn a little more about you, if I may.”
She remained silent. Her pressed lips gave nothing of her nature away.
“My name is Elliot. Can I have your name?”
The girl swallowed, then produced an answer with visible effort. “M-M-Mag.”
“Nice to meet you, Mag,” said Elliot. “Can I now ask why you’ve been stealing everyone’s clothes?”
But further inquiry was curtailed by the sound of feet on the stairs. Thinking fast, Elliot reached over and pulled the quilt off his bed, then tossed it over Mag’s head. She squawked in surprise, but she was at least disguised as a colourful pile in front of the wardrobe.
Jacque’s knock was perfunctory; he dashed right in. “Sir! That was quite a noise! Are you alright?”
“All good,” said Elliot, still seated on the floor. “I tripped, knocked my hand on the window. No harm done.”
“Ah. That must have…”
Jacque’s eye roved past Elliot and onto the hidden Mag. He frowned, appraising the lump critically. Then he looked at the open window. The strewn clothing about the floor.
“I see,” he intoned with a rumble of disapproval. “Sir Elliot, apologies for intruding. Let me leave you to your very important work.”
“What? What do you mean?”
Scowling all the while, Jacque departed. Elliot followed.
“What do you mean?” he called into the hall. But the lad was already gone, back down to the office. Elliot closed the door behind him with a rueful sigh.
“Ridiculous,” he whispered.
Resigned to losing some of his apprentice’s respect, Elliot knelt down and removed the quilt from Mag’s head. Amazingly, she’d fallen asleep, her head lolling on one shoulder and her lips parted unceremoniously.
“Ah!” she spluttered at Elliot’s rousing hand on her shoulder. “What? I wasn’t…!” She pursed her lips at him. “You didn’t… turn me in?”
“Like I said, I’d rather learn why you’ve taken up larceny,” said Elliot with a smile. “I’m something of an employment specialist in this city. It’s a point against me if a skilled young woman has chosen crime instead of a steady job.”
Mag wriggled back and forth on her hips. She stared down at the tips of her wings, brushing against the wooden floor like a big pair of brooms.
“I need soft fabric,” she whispered. “F-For a nest.”
“A nest?”
She nodded. “A nest must be really, really soft. And it should be pretty. Boys won’t want to visit my nest if it isn’t pretty.”
That made some sense. The fancy gowns of the nobility were both aesthetic and comfortable, though the thought of ball dresses being used in a bird’s nest made Elliot chuckle.
“B-But I’m not expecting eggs yet!” Mag protested. “I just have to be ready for when I do have them! Mother always said I should prepare ahead.”
“That’s good advice. Is your nest in the Low Town?”
Mag nodded. “I found a room that wasn’t used.”
Unemployed and homeless? Elliot’s need to intervene only escalated.
“Then why don’t we go and ask some locals for spare fabric?”
“Hah? Ask?” said Mag. “They won’t give me!”
“They might if you ask nicely. Come on, I’ll do the talking. The office is quiet today anyway. I’ve already got some ideas for where to start.”
He stood to his feet and brushed down his trousers. Reaching past Mag and into his wardrobe, he pulled out a long cloak he’d never gotten around to wearing over the winter. The length ought to hide Mag’s non-human physiology well enough. He didn’t want any city watch to put the two and two of a bird-girl and a spate of robberies together.
“You may be better leaving via the window,” he said, draping the cloak around her shoulders. “Jacque might ask questions.”
But Mag remained seated, staring up at him. “Why?” she asked softly.
“Oh, he’s got this silly idea that I’m-…”
“N-No. Why are you helping?”
“I told you,” he said. “It’s my job. I’m here to support you in any way I can.”
Smiling down at her, Elliot winked, just as his father had winked at him. In response, Mag gave a little gasp. Her cheeks turned red, and she hid them bashfully behind her wings.
And Elliot wondered if he wasa rake after all.
* * *
After reconvening with Mag underneath his bedroom window, Elliot walked the Low Town streets with her close beside him. He did wish she didn’t draw so much curious attention. But the sight of a short girl with a big cloak around her shoulders and trailing around her feet, in the heat of spring even, was at least less strange than a girl with big bird wings. Mag came up to just below Elliot’s shoulder, and she kept her slim, aerodynamic body pushed against him as if afraid of toppling over. But her wide-toed feet took her confidently along the muddy road in hopping, dancing little steps. The pair walked south through increasingly tangled streets and between congregating groups of townsfolk enjoying the weather.
“I’ve never seen anyone like you before,” said Elliot when the road was quiet enough that they could talk without eavesdroppers. “Are you from nearby?”
Mag shook her head. Her sleek, feather-like hair brushed the curves of her ears. “My mother’s roost is in the south, but she came from the mountains south and east. She always said, going far from home is better when you can. Home gives you a foundation, but you build a nest from many materials.”
“So that’s why you came to Layman when you were old enough to travel?”
“Yes-yes. It’s hot here, but I like all the colours and the music.”
Mag began to hum through smiling lips, and Elliot smiled along with her. He knew that song. Asura would sometimes sing it as part of her performance at the Lantern. Ah, for that matter, maybe Madam Lantern had some scrap textiles for donation. She certainly liked shiny fabrics, and her outfits were the product of lots of cutting, based on how much skin they showed off. He added another stop to their itinerary for the afternoon in his mind.
“You have a lovely voice,” he said.
Mag giggled, hiding her lips in her cloak. “My mother taught me. I like singing.”
Passing beyond the gaming hall on the southern side of town, Elliot brought Mag to a white-plaster townhouse he knew from his work. Dorothy was one of the Low Town’s aegis guarantors, as well as a retired tailor, and she listened politely to Elliot’s false introduction of Mag as a newcomer to the area interested in needlework. The pair left Dorothy’s with a sack full of practice fabrics from the elderly woman’s recent scraps, as well as a promise of tutelage should Mag wish to come back some day.
“Wow,” said the bird as they travelled north and east towards the rest of town, her prize hugged against her chest. “She just gave me.”
“She wasn’t using any of it, so why should she hold onto it?” Elliot said. “As they say, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”
“This is trash? I don’t think so.” Tugging open the top of the sack with her teeth, Mag cast her bright eyes over the contents with a manic giggle. “Shiny!” she said.
“Were there many of your people around while you were growing up?”
“I have three brothers and one sister. They all stayed near the roost,” Mag explained. “Then my mother, and some of her friends. And my father came by sometimes. He’s nice.”
“Sounds like a fun.”
“Yes-yes. But only us. No…” Mag pursed her lips, hunting for the right word, then nodded towards a group of men taking their ease outside a local pub. “No not-us-people.”
“Humans?”
“No humans.”
“And that’s not a good thing?”
Mag tipped her head to and fro. “Mother said not-us-people are dangerous. She said we all had a big fight many years ago, and they didn’t forgive us after they won. But not-… humans make so many pretty things. And I like human music.”
Elliot suppressed a smirk. The phrase ‘human music’ was doing some heavy lifting.
“I like living here,” she finished. “I like this human roost.”
“I’m glad to hear it. If you need help getting involved with the community, you should let me know. I’m here to support you.”
Mag eyed him sidelong, covering another blush, and started humming again.
On the eastern side of Low Town, Elliot made up a story about the city needing bandage material to Gerald, the owner of the largest guesthouse in the area. Some torn bedsheets and a set of old curtains later, they were then following the old man’s directions to a collection of tents just outside the edge of town. The nomads sequestered there had enough rolls of fabric on offer to elicit many an excited gasp from Mag, though these cost Elliot a few coins of silver. It was worth the price and the weight of the rolls on his shoulder to hear Mag’s enthusiastic singing. After that, he led her west again.
“Hold on. Are there any males of your species living here in Layman?” he asked on the road.
“A-Ah. No,” said Mag. “I don’t think so. I haven’t seen.”
“Then how are they going to know about you and your nest?” Elliot asked, hoisting the roll of cotton on one shoulder.
Mag grimaced. She ducked down into her cloak. “I already said, I’m not making eggs yet. I have time to get ready.”
“I remember.”
The bird was silent for a couple of streets, and Elliot left the space empty. He needed his strength to carry his burdens, after all. But within eyeshot of the Dancing by Lantern, Mag’s shy voice emerged from her cloak.
“It’s not for me to find the boys. They have to find me. The right boy will find me when the time comes, Mother said, if I just keep singing at the morning. And then, if I like them too… I…”
She didn’t elaborate, and Elliot left her to her fluster. Mag held her silence all throughout his negotiation with Melyssa, even when the barkeeper mistakenly began preening Mag in preparation for hiring her at the Lantern. Mag’s round eyes watched the entertainers prepare for an early evening of custom while Elliot collected some assuredly washed quilting from Melyssa. Mag was singing the bars of the tavern vocalist’s warmup as they left, a perfect mimicry.
“Now,” said Elliot, “take me home.”
Mag’s nest was hidden away in the attic of a one-storey hovel built against the outside of the city walls. It was a part of Low Town Elliot hadn’t ever visited before, a quiet street with supposedly no name, and the little house was almost hidden between taller buildings on either side. Lines of washing connecting the adjoining homes tangled the airspace above like the web of a spider.
Mag brought him around the side of the hovel and pointed up to a round window in the side of the slanted wooden roof. It wouldn’t get much sunlight with all the surrounding blockage, suggesting the building was older than much of the rest of the street.
“I will take the treasure up,” said Mag, shrugging off her cloak and unfurling her wide, monochrome wings. “You come through the door and up the ladder. But be quiet so the woman doesn’t hear you.”
Elliot paused his unburdening. “What do you mean? She doesn’t know you’re squatting in her attic?”
“N-No.” Mag gave him a sulk of appropriate sheepishness. “But it’s okay. Her eyes are weak; she doesn’t see me. And she can’t climb the ladder to the attic, so she’s not using. Just stay quiet.”
Elliot grimaced. That sounded suspiciously like he was being encouraged to commit a crime. Once Mag had blustered up to the roof with a roll of fabric held in her talons, he moved around to the front of the house and carefully peeped through the ground-floor window. Sure enough, an elderly woman was sat in an armchair in front of a little fireplace. The ladder leading up to the attic was worked into the wood right on the opposite wall of the room.
“I have to sneak past her?” Elliot asked Mag on her return.
“Yes-yes. It’s easy,” the bird insisted, grabbing the rolls of cotton in her claws. “I’ve lived here for many seasons and she doesn’t know.”
“Can’t you just fly me up to the window?”
Mag ran her eyes up and down Elliot’s body. “N-No,” she said, and left it at that. “Just sneak through. Easy.”
With the last of the fabric delivered through the window, Mag remained in the attic, poking her head out at him. “Go!” she hissed. “Good luck!”
Elliot hesitated with his hand on the door handle. It felt wrong to him that anyone, especially a government worker, should take advantage of the disability of an elderly woman. But he also couldn’t think of how he would explain what he was doing in her house. There’s a cute bird girl living in your attic, and I want to help her build a nest to attract boys. No self-respecting homeowner would approve of such a story.
But his decision was made for him when, on pulling the door slowly open, the wood creaked. Then a playful spring breeze rushed past, causing the metal lantern on the ceiling to tinkle musically. The white-haired woman didn’t react in any way, but the spell was broken.
“Hello?” said Elliot, one foot inside. “Sorry to intrude. Can I come in?”
The woman turned her head with a smile that suggested his being there was no strange thing. She brushed down her cotton dress with a confident swish of her hands. “Certainly,” she said. “I’m always pleased to have guests.”
“Thank you.” Elliot closed the door behind himself and took a step forward. “Um, my name is Elliot. I was hoping-…”
“You’ll be here for Mag?”
He stumbled on the hem of a rug. “Y-Yes. That’s… That’s right.”
“I’m so glad. She’s such a sweet girl. She deserves a friend.”
It seemed rude to hold his distance, so Elliot approached the armchair. The elderly matron kept her eyes held on the unseen horizon, but he could tell she was tracking his movements through the little changes in her expression, perhaps through sound or the motion of the air.
“Elliot, you said? My name is Kathryn.”
“Nice to meet you.” When Elliot bent to a crouch, Kathryn raised a hand, brushing his coat with the backs of her fingers. “I’m surprised you know about Mag. She thought-…”
“You’re government?”
“Y-Yes.”
Kathryn’s lips pursed. As anxious as her tone made him, Elliot couldn’t help but be impressed that she’d figured out his employment through just the fabric of his coat.
“Don’t care much for the government,” she said. “The best years of my life have been these, where I’m beneath their notice.”
“I’m… sorry to hear that. Mag doesn’t think you know she lives here,” he added quickly to change the subject.
Kathryn chuckled. “I’m sure she doesn’t. But still, such a racket when she comes through the window! Can’t see how I wouldn’t have known someone was moving around up there. Have you heard her sing?”
“A little.”
“Such a lovely voice,” she sighed. “Her song every morning makes all the clattering more than worth it. I even make sure there’s food in my pantry for two in case she gets peckish.”
Elliot couldn’t help himself. “And how do you know her name, if you’ve never talked to her?”
“She talks plenty to herself. ‘Make sure you tie the bonds tightly, Mag! Maybe there’ll be extra fish in the river this month, Mag! Wouldn’t that be nice?’ So darling!”
He laughed along with her. So darling, indeed.
“Go on, now. Up you go. She’ll be waiting.” Kathryn patted his arm with a motherly smile. “Don’t let a lady wait, Elliot.”
“I won’t, thank you.”
“And treat her well if she lets you lay.”
He stumbled again, this time on the ladder’s lowest rung. Elliot wracked his brain for a suitable gentlemanly response. But in the end, he came up with nothing and retreated up to the attic in silence. Kathryn’s knowing laughter pursued him.
* * *
Mag was singing when Elliot made his way through the trap door and into the attic. She was sorting the different kinds of fabric from their haul on the wooden floor. She wore a wide smile as she redistributed the rolls and sheets with her clawed feet, and Elliot was happy to let her work. He examined her home.
The girl’s nest, built directly underneath her round window, was a thick, circular, patchwork cushion five feet wide and three feet deep, a real achievement of handiwork. The rainbow of fabrics making up the pile was dizzying. Sparkling sequins and tailoring glitter cast starlight on the triangular ceiling with just the scant sunlight permitted into the attic. Elliot recognised the bound sleeves of dancing dresses, balled-up formal shirts and filmy petticoats forced into shape. He could already see Mag curled up in the recession at the centre of the cushion. She’d be very comfortable.
But the nest wasn’t the only item of furniture. A small, water-damaged wooden tub sat in one corner, and the papers and empty inkwells strewn across the floor in another corner had the look of a writing area, maybe for letters home. He had to wonder how Mag used a quill without any hands. But Elliot’s eye caught on a set of unpolished shelves on the far side of the attic, and he strode over with a rueful shake of his head.
“This isn’t a good look,” he said.
The shelves were covered in metalwork valuables, shining with spit-polish. Elliot ran his eyes over silver candlesticks, gilded jewellery boxes, decorated mirrors with engraved lettering around the rim. Lockets containing charcoal illustrations of people Mag surely didn’t know. Mismatched earrings and gaudy necklaces. He hissed through his teeth on recognising a gold coronet worked at its centre with a fat ruby. That was Lady Pembroke’s, though she hadn’t worn it out in years. It cost about as much as the whole city, if the lady’s boasting was to be believed.
He turned to set his disapproving eyes on Mag and found her pouting rebelliously back at him from her seat on the floor, her song finished. The bird folded her white wings over her lap.
“I only took one from each house,” she said. “They had so many. They could give me one.”
Elliot put his hands on his hips. “However you legitimise it, you don’t have the authority to govern the redistribution of wealth. At least the clothing you stole was for a practical purpose. These pieces are just decoration for your little thieving den.”
Mag lowered her eyes, prodding dejectedly at her fabrics with the tip of one wing. “Shiny…” she grumbled.
Elliot sighed. In truth, he didn’t think there was much he could do about Mag’s earnings. If he took them himself and tried to return them to their owners, the Castle would have to ask questions. And he didn’t have it in himself to arrest Mag. He’d sooner take the blame from her.
“Are you going to steal any more valuables?”
Sitting back on her wings, Mag straightened out the old curtains from the guesthouse with her curved talons. “I have enough.”
“Mag,” he warned.
“No! No more stealing. Promise.”
“Then why don’t you give some of this away to Kathryn?”
Mag tilted her head at him. “Who?”
“The poor woman whose attic you’ve robbed. She could use the money, or she could give it away to others without inviting suspicion. I think it’s the best option available.”
“My shiny…” Mag sulked on the floor, her big eyes on the rack full of treasures. “M-Maybe I don’t need it all. The human can have a… a little.”
It would have to do. Elliot unfolded his arms and moved next to the nest, peering down at its craftsmanship.
“What needs to happen here?” he asked.
Mag hopped to her feet with a sudden surge of happy vigour. “Sturdy ones on the bottom,” she said, “softer ones on the top. Look, I sorted them sturdy to soft. I will fold them into the nest later. It will take a long time.”
“Can I help?”
“I think… Maybe…” Mag reached out one foot and prodded at the nest with her claw. She wasn’t looking at Elliot, but he could see red in her cheeks. “You can help with something.”
“Anything,” he said with a smile.
Mag stepped into the nest and settled down. She folded her legs beneath her and tucked in her wings by her sides. Elliot stared at the upwards ride of her indigo tunic, revealing her feather-lined rear and a little tail on the small of her back.
“I-It needs to be comfy,” she said, facing away from him.
“Is it?”
“For me, it’s comfy. It needs to be comfy for a boy too. Or he’ll go away.”
Elliot nodded, saying nothing. Mag trembled in the nest.
“So?” she whispered. “Come on!”
“Come on, what?”
“Get in!”
He chewed his lip. “I can’t really fit.”
“Not next to me.” Mag’s voice softened and tightened. “On… t-t-top of me. L-Like we’re… Like you want to… C-Come!”
“Are you sure?”
She nodded her head with a flurry of motion. “H-Hurry.”
So long as she was inviting, the prospect of proximity to the feathered girl was welcome. Elliot removed his shoes. He stepped into the recess of the nest with his legs on either side of Mag’s thighs, then slowly lowered himself down to a kneel. It was a squeeze. The nest squashed his knees against Mag’s feathery flank, and he had to hold himself over her with his hands on the sides of the fabric to keep from falling.
“Like this?” he whispered.
Mag grumbled in her throat. “I-I-I can’t feel you,” she stammered. “Come c-c-closer.”
Elliot licked his lips. He moved his hands onto Mag’s shoulders, eliciting a squeak from the bird as he did. He lowered his hips around the curve of her bum, causing her tail to pop up from under his crotch, then squeezed closer. Close enough to rub something erogenous with his cock, or so he assumed. It was hard to tell with all the feathers.
“Like this?”
Mag let out a gasping breath. “Y-Yes,” she sighed. “Like this. Is it… comfy?”
Elliot stroked her feathered shoulders. He leaned further over her and sniffed her hair. Between his legs, he throbbed.
“Yes,” he said.
“Oh. G-G-Good.”
She was warm, and Elliot let himself savour the feel of her body beneath him. They both kept their silence for a long moment, saturated with tension.
“B-But… a boy won’t be still like you,” said Mag eventually. “He will be… m-m-moving. S-So…”
“So I should move too.”
Elliot pushed his cock against Mag, and she gasped. Seeing she liked it, he did it again. Again and again, like they were… Well, Mag would probably call it mating. It felt nice. She was soft against his cock, a gentle massage for his increasingly stiff member.
And the nest was comfortable. Despite the mismatched materials making up its infrastructure, it accommodated his movements without complaint. It didn’t feel like he’d slip through any bindings either. Mag had done good work.
“M-Mmm!” she moaned. “C-C-Comfy!”
“Yeah,” he grunted. “This is nice.”
“But…”
“But,” he agreed with a grin, “it’s not quite the same as the real thing.”
“We need to test it more.” Mag looked over her shoulder at him with a rosy, lopsided smile. “W-W-We need to practise for when I am ready.”
“So I should…”
Elliot removed one hand from Mag’s shoulder and slid it down the curve of her spine. Then he ran his fingers through her feathers and between her thighs. Tucked away beneath all the plumage, wetness. A wetness that had already stained the front of his trousers.
When his fingers trailed over her slit, Mag cried out. She covered her mouth with the ends of her wings, but the avian appendages did little to muffle the sound.
“Y-Y-You should…!” she agreed. “I-Inside!”
Elliot tugged at his trousers and pulled them down. Mag’s feathery thighs tickled the swollen head of his cock. He put his hands on her hips and pulled her bum upwards so he had a better angle.
“Inside! Inside!” Mag was whispering deliriously. “I-Inside! Oh, Elliot! Ins-…!”
He was inside. Elliot pushed himself deep into Mag’s slit and fell atop her, cocooning her with his larger body. She writhed beneath him.
“Insiiiide!” she shrieked. “A-Ahh! Yes!”
Elliot thrust himself over and over into Mag. She squawked with each penetration, and her avian pussy squeezed him greedily. She was warm and soft, like a well-made nest.
“Mmm,” he grunted. “Mag. You feel… very good.”
“G-G-Good!” she agreed. “This is… s-s-so good! Ahh!”
One hand on her shoulder, his other on her hip, Elliot massaged her insides with his cock. He pushed himself against the deepest recesses of her. He breathed his pleasure into her hair.
“Faster…”
“Hm?” he asked.
“G-Go faster,” Mag gulped. “Test the… the nest! Please!”
Elliot, grinning all the while, did as he was told. He tightened his hands on her body, then began to rock Mag with a speedy rhythm. Mag shivered.
“O-O-O-Ohh!” she sang. “Oh-yes-oh-yes!”
The thick nest was muffling the sounds of their movements, but Elliot was fairly sure Kathryn could hear Mag’s melodic cries. Oh well. There was little he could do to stop himself now.
“Elliot! Elliot! E-E-Elliot!” Mag shrieked. “Yes-yes-y-y-… y-…!”
“Ah, Mag!” he gasped.
“Yes! Yes! Yessss!!”
Mag’s pussy clamped around his rod, and Elliot held himself at his zenith to coax the climax out of her. Mag tipped back her head, her big eyes rolling, and croaked out a silent scream into the attic. Fluid dripped around Elliot’s cock and stained the fabric of the nest. And then, with a puff of breath, Mag collapsed. She sank into nest with heavy, contented breaths, and she began to giggle.
“So comfy!” she laughed. “I made a… good nest…!”
“You certainly did,” said Elliot.
“But you didn’t finish?” Mag peeked over her shoulder at him. “You weren’t comfy?”
“I was, and I’m close.” Elliot loomed over her and kissed her crown. “I’m very close.”
Another giggle. “Then you should finish.”
“Can I ask you to roll over?”
Mag blinked. “Ah? Why?”
“I’d like to see your face, is all. Is that well?”
A blushing Mag slipped off his erection and tucked her limbs against her body, then rolled over with a little flurry of black and white. Her taloned feet scratched Elliot’s sides as she pushed them around his hips, and her big wings folded over her torso and blocked her from his sight.
“May I?”
Elliot took gentle hold of the wings and slowly pulled them open. Mag let herself lie spreadeagled in the nest recess. She stared up at him with wide, shining eyes.
“You’re so cute,” Elliot whispered. Then he took hold of his cock and slipped it back inside.
Mag’s lips tightened as she was penetrated afresh. Her avian knees pressed against Elliot’s sides. Her shoulders tensed, her hips writhed.
“Oh, yes!” Elliot gasped. “So cute… Mag…!”
Leaning over her and continuing to thrust, Elliot laid a hand against her soft cheek, then slid his fingertips down her long neck. He plumbed the feathery crest at her collar and slipped his touch into her indigo wrap.
He tugged, eyes askant, and Mag nodded with another sharp flurry of motion. Elliot let his hand run the length of her clothing and loosen the cord around her waist. He folded the fabric to one side and left her bare.
Mag’s red face was a stark contrast to the pale cream of her body. Below her collarbone and above her thighs, she was devoid of feathers. Her skin was smooth and sleek. Her breasts were small; it would surely have been hard to fly otherwise. But Elliot still took a handful of her with a hungry grasp and found her sweet beneath his touch.
Mag squeaked, and Elliot followed up his groping with another push of his cock. The bird sang as she was rocked through their dance.
“Good…!” she moaned.
“Yeah,” said Elliot. “Good!”
He raised his pace. Elliot slapped his hips between Mag’s feathery legs and enjoyed the wet press of her body. His breathing became shallow and hot, his touch firm and insistent.
“Good!” he gasped. “Oh, good! Mag!”
“Mmm!” sang the bird. “Elliot!”
“I’m about to come!”
Mag’s smile was sharp, a touch manic. “C-C-Come!” she insisted. “Go-go! Inside me!”
Elliot grinned his relief. He’d be hard pressed to pull out in time, the way she felt around him. Instead, he gave himself away to the pleasure of Mag’s pussy. He pushed himself deep. Then he let himself go.
Elliot fell atop his partner as a rush of semen filled her womb. He rocked his body slowly to squeeze out the extent of his fluid. She’d said she didn’t have eggs on the way, after all. He was safe to fill her up to the brim.
“Ah…” he breathed. “Mag…”
“Elliot…” she replied. Then she pecked her lips against his. Smiling through his fatigue, Elliot kissed her back. They languished together in the heat of the sun, the soft confines of the nest.
Some time later, Elliot was washing his hands in her tub of water and readjusting his clothing to professional straightness. Mag lounged smugly in her nest beneath the window.
“I did well!” she crowed. “A boy came to my nest and put himself in me!”
“You’re right,” laughed Elliot. “I’m sure you’re ready for the real thing.”
Turning from the water and wiping his wet hands on his coat, Elliot took in the proud, rosy smile of the naked Mag, sitting up in her nest. Her shining eyes searched him.
“What?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Nothing. But now I need to make the nest bigger. You gave me ideas.”
“Good.”
“Yes-yes, good.” Mag beamed. “When I’m done, come back and try again. You will be impressed! I will sing from the window, and when you hear it, you will come. Yes?”
Elliot grinned. He couldn’t wait to hear her song on the winds again, summoning him to her nest. He’d ditch work for it. He’d come running!
With Mag dozily sorting through her fabrics once more, Elliot moved down the ladder with a song on his lips. Mag would probably be perched at the hovel’s attic window, waiting for him to leave. He wanted to see her smiling face again. But before he could make it out the street…
“Elliot.”
He paused. Kathryn was facing away in her armchair. As Elliot watched, she raised a hand.
“Good work,” she said, giving him a thumbs-up. “Sounds like she had a good lay.”
Again, he wasn’t sure what to say to that. Elliot took his leave with Kathryn’s laughter in his ears, a different kind of song.
laymenstory
Ewan Stone 
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