Birdie

Journal 10,
Entry One

Dear Diary,

Edwin and I are not as we once were. And if I am to be honest with myself, I think that is what terrifies me most. I know his life has been a struggle and that he is doomed to be this way, but it is getting more and more worse each day. If I am to place blame on anyone, it is his sister. After their parents had parished, Edwin had told me that had been when his madness had set in. He had felt it and welcomed it. It took away his thoughts of his parents and he could just lose himself in something else. His sister however, was less than accepting of her brother's plight. She often yelled at him, using his new odd behaviour against him or even humiliated him in front of others.

Years ago, when I had first met Edwin, it had been at a market. He had been buying mechanical parts for a machine. He had introduced himself, told me who beautiful I was. It was flattering but what really drew me in were his eyes. They were so beautifully green and clear. He courted me and I learned about his life. He told me that there were two loves in his life- the piano and working with cold metal. Nearly a month later he'd told me he'd found a third love- myself.

Edwin and I married soon after, and after a short year, a new love was added into both our lives, our darling little Elena. During the pregency, I had felt my husband slipping into madness. I saw his habbits change and revert back to the way they were when I had first met him. He'd been mad then, just a bit, but he'd told me that his love for me had freed him of it. However, as time drew on, it returned. His beautiful eyes grew dark, hazy. Unfocused. All that changed when Elena arrived, however. He became normal again. He was once again the man I loved.

As Elena grew, she and her father's relationship grew stronger and stronger. It was so amazing to watch at first. I loved seeing her little face light up as she followed her father through the halls of this manor. Oh, how I loved to hear those giggles fill these empty rooms. But today I noticed that the giggling has ceased. It doesn't happen as often and I know why.

Edwin has stopped playing the piano. He's stopped chasing Elena through the mansion, stopped giving her piggy back rides, stopped reading her bed time stories. He has stopped doing everything. He just sits down in that forsaken workshop for hours on end each day and night tinkering with his scrap heaps. Often times, he doesn't even come to our bed. But the nights I do see him, I see him as he was years ago. He mutters to himself, his eyes...they are so unfocused.

In all honesty, I am not quite sure why I'm reliving my marriage up to this point in these pages. I've written about nearly every day of my life in these journals since before I met Edwin. Perhaps I have written it all down for me to see once more how my life is now and what my decision has to be. Things in this house are growing cold and quiet.

My family is slowly falling apart.

- Odette

I close the diary and stuff it under my pillow. I shut my eyes tight, lay back and pull the blanket tight around me. What am I doing? I ask myself. I am a theif and I am invading someone's personal life. But, on the other hand, I've discovered three crucial things with reading just one diary entry. Not only is Elena a real, physical being, but she is my Uncle's daughter. My cousin. Not only that, but he had been married before to a woman named Odette.

The thing that is most scary is the fact that even she noted how mad he is. She felt him grow away from sanity and she fears the worst because of it. I'm tempted to open the diary back up and read a few more entries, but I tell myself not to. It's getting late as it is. I turn and blow out the candle. I snuggle back under my blankets and try to shut out any racing thoughts before lulling myself into a sleep.

But one manages to surface; I would sleep better with Pierre next to me.



Tinsley awakens me by drawing back the curtains and letting the sunlight flow into my bedroom. She turns to face me, the sunlight illuminating her from behind. The light shadows her pale skin but shines through her translucent wings. Generally, faeries tuck and fold their wings by their shoulder blades and keep them laid flat against their backs, but Tinsley's are protruding slightly. They are the same soft yellow as her eyes.

"Goodmorning, Skye," she chimes with a rather large smile. Her eyes are lit up and happiness radiates from her being.

"Goodmorning, Tinsley," I reply, sitting up slowly. She giggles and scurries out of the room only to return a moment later with a pretty dress in her arms. She hands it over it to me and I examine it carefully. It's a strapless pale blue dress that has ruffles starting at the waist and ends at my knees. She bites her lip.

"I am also going to do your hair today, if that is alright with you?"

"It is fine, but," I pause and narrow my eyes at the faery. There is something that she isn't telling me. "What is going on here?"

Tinsley blushes. "I'm not supposed to say anything, but Master Stillson has a day planned for the two of you. He instructed me to help you look your best."

Heat raises into my cheeks and butterflies rumble around within my stomach. Pierre has a day planned for the two of us? Is this a date? "Did he say when we would depart from the manor?"

She shakes her head. "He just said to tell you to be ready, and that he may find you when he's ready to leave. He has got a bit of work to finish up with your Uncle first before he can take you anywhere."

"Alright then," I agree. Tinsley leads me to the bathroom down another hallway on this floor and draws me a bath. I undress as she waits out side and after I've slithered into the water, I call her back into the room. The water is warm, the bubbles cover my skin up to my collar bone. I do as she instructs and hold my head beneath the water to wet it. When I surface again, I lean my head against the tub and let my hair hang off the side. Tinsley pulls up a stool and sits upon it, strating to run a brush through my long brown hair.

It's an odd feeling to be pampered on. Back on our farm, we had slaves, sure, but they were the kind that worked in the feilds and stables. Here, Uncle Edwin has servants who did the housework and waited upon your hand and foot. Apparently, pampering is another one of their many services. Tinsley's slender fingers are careful in my hair and she brushes it through carefully.

However, with my silence, Tinsley notices that something is on my mind. "Is everything alright? You seem to be lost in thought."

I am lost in thought and everything is definitely not alright. There are a number of things racing through my mind that have been taking my attention for awhile now. Elena. Pierre and I's romance- if you could even call it a romance. My Uncle's madness. Paladrome's words. And now, Odette's diary. Everything seems to just pile up around me and I'm being barried beneath something much bigger than I truly understand.

I need to get somethings off my chest and I decide to start with the least complicated of my problems. "This woman in the market yesterday. She said something that really dug under my skin."

"Was it something rude?" Tinsley asks fiercly. I smile at this. A true friend is always willing and ready to protect the other.

"Heavens no," I assure her, "It was something simple. A compliment, even, if you want to think of it that way."

She runs the brush through a knot in my hair and I whimper slightly. "Well, what did she say to you?"

"The woman had odd marks on her, like a warrior would. She told me that I reminded her of herself- a warrior, a fighter. It seems so harmless, but I can't help but feel like the compliment had an underlying meaning. Something more. Maybe even something that has not even happened yet."

"Why does this bother you so much? It seems really sweet to me," she remarks. I sigh and adjust myself in the bath water. I close my eyes.

"I'm not really sure. Perhaps I don't feel much like a warrior. Woman aren't designed to be fighters, but the way she spoke... The way she stood... This woman had a warriors stance and silver-tongue. She was inspiring, but it scares me that she sees me as a warrior. Powerful, ready to kill if need be."

"I can see how this troubles you, and it might trouble most girls," she says and runs the brush through my hair one final time. She sets it on the sink and stands. "If it's any consolation at all, I think that you're a warrior too. In more ways than one."

She exits the room and allows me to dry off and wrap myself in my towel before she enters again. She barely taps my hair in a few places before it lifts itself up by some invisible force and works its way into place. I like to feel of it, magic working with my body. When the magic has had its way with me, I gaze at it in the mirror. My long brown hair has been positioned in a firm bun with locks of hair the spiral down the bun and onto the back of my neck. My bangs have been parted at the center, pulled back, and held in place in the middle of the strand so my bangs still hang off the sides of my face. Holding my bangs in place are two beautiful blue butterflies. They are still upon my head and don't move a muscle at all as I shift back and forth to get a better look at myself.

"Tinsley, it's absolutely divine." My voice is quiet and though my hair is divine, I've stopped looking at it and have began to study the features of my face. Though there is only one face in this mirror, my own, I see them both staring back at me- my parents. My mother's slim eye brows, her pale, creamy complection. My father's red lips, his slender nose, and his gorgeous blue eyes. I have the shape of her head, but I hold my beauty with his modesty. I cover my mouth slowly and puch back tears. I miss them terribly.

Tinsley merely curtsies and leaves me again and allows me to prepare my outfit myself. I pull the blue dress up my body and smile. The ruffles lay much more flatly against my body than I had anticipated and I have to say that I quit like it. With a big grin, I twirl myself around the bathroom, the skirt of the dress flowing out into a big circle- the butterflies in my hair never moving. I come to a stop and glance at myself on last time, glance at my parents. I gaze in my blue eyes -my father's blue eyes- and they seem to speak to me. Do me proud, they say.

I calmly exit the room and descend down the staircase. I barely reach the bottom when a voice calls out to me. "Skye, Skye! Come look!" Uncle Edwin's excited demeanour sends excitement through my own viens and before I know it, I am racing down the stairs and into the foyer. I scan the room but no one is inside. "Outside! Come look!"

I speed through the double doors that have been left wide open and out into yard. Both my Uncle and Pierre are standing near the fence in the backyard. I wander over to them, leaning carefully over the wooden fence. There is a mechimal confined within the fence, the metal creature is only about knee-high. It has large pointed ears and a perfectly sculpted snout. My Uncle has painted it a soft brown with white spots along its back, a white tail, and black hooves. Its eyes are as dark as wet dirt and its nose is a glistening black. It is the fawn I 'd seen him constructing a few weeks ago.

"Uncle," I remark in awe and place a careful hand on his shoulder, "It's absolutely fantastic."

He covers his mouth in glee as he watches his creation. The fawn stumbles around in the grass for a moment, its nose low to the ground as if it could smell something, anything. Then it lays down awkwardly and rests its head against its own leg. "I figured it out," Uncle whispers. "I had been worried that something as big as a fawn wouldn't function the way a smaller mechimal would. But I found the right conbination of gears, the right technique. I could creat a replica of nearly any animal if I truly wished it!"

I wrap my arms around his middle and squeeze him hard. He glances down at me, eyes wide with surprise. They focus for a fraction of a second and I can see something deeper than I can comprehend in them. It is something beautiful, yet woeful. He puts his arms around my shoulder and squeeze tight, just like any father would. That's when I realize what I had seen in his eyes- fatherhood. In that breif moment, he'd thought I had been Elena. "I'm proud of you," I say into his shoulder.

We pulla way from each other with a smile. Pierre grins and steps in my direction, his silvery hair shining in the sun. He nods his head like a gentleman and turns to my Uncle. "If you do not mind, sir, I was going to escourt your niece around Everstile. Perhaps even grab a quick lunch."

"Oh, that will be quite fine," he nods to the faery. "Oh! But please do bring home some copper piping. I may need it later."

"I shall do so, sir," Pierre assures him before striding over to me. We wave goodbye to Uncle Edwin and we set off on our way. The weather is perfect, so we decide to take the effort of walking to Everstile ratehr than taking the carriage. It's truly not all that much farther away, a half hour journey on foot. Once we arrive in Everstile, Pierre truly does show me around the city. He takes me to the upperside of town where the rich usually live. The houses and other structures are tall, taller than I could have imagined and are usually made with black marble or stone that is the very color of ivory.

As we walk along the beautiful avenues, I turn to see the beauty that is King Avedin's castle in the distance. It looms over the rest of the city, making Everstile look tiny in comparision. It's giant gray towers rocket toward the sky, looking as though the two meet at some point. The giant stained glass cleverly placed in the center of arch of the castle's roof shines like a beacon throughout the city. If the sunlight is to hit it just right, it flashes beautiful rays of color onto the city. This is the case today- shades of green and blue and everything inbetween delighting the city folk.

Pierre and I finish sight seeing and pick a restruant to eat a quite lunch. As we eat, I toke notice of the high class humans who stare at us- a human and a faery. By the looks on their faces, it is not something they enjoy seeing. I hide my face as best as I can as we eat but I glance at Pierre several times to find that he doesn't pay the on lookers any mind. Following his example, I eat my lunch with him proudly.

After lunch, we head back down to the lower section of town. The market place is busy as ever, but we weave through the people with ease. We travel to Paladrome's shop and enter quietly. Today, the ginger haired warrior is sitting atop the counter, dressed in a slimming green sundress. For the first time I can see that the tatoos start on her feet, run up her ankles but then cease to exist until your gaze meets her arms. She nods at us both.

"Is SIlversmythe already through his order? I won't have his next shipment in for days-"

"No," the faery boy interupts. "We need some copper piping is all."

She nods and waves a hand at Flintlock, sitting on his stool behind the counter. I lift my hand and give him a short wave but he just glares at me, but not unkindly. He then leaves to go through the curtain in the back to fetch the copper piping for us. Paladrome flicks her finger at us, indicating us to come toward her. We do as instructed and she pulls a piece of paper off of the counter and hands it to me.

"Mister Dusk's Grimm Carnival is going through the city in a week," she explains as I take the flyer. On it is a large top hat with a blood red ribbon, surrounded by demonic looking rabbits and black cats. Underneath is the very title the woman had spoken. "Are the two of you going?"

I look over to the boy with the lavender eyes. They flash his approval and I nod slowly. Flintlock returns and relays the piping to Pierre. Paladrome smiles and says, "I just wanted you guys to know because I will have my own little stand at the carnival and you should stop by."

"We'd be delighted to," I tell her. It's the truth. Though her words have haunted me since yesterday, an invitation to a carnival is very pleasant of her. I smile big, Pierre nodding in agreement.

"Well, if you go, bring that Uncle of yours with you. It'll do him some good to be a bit more social," she says, her voice soft and kind.

"I'll try my best."

We exchange farewells and my escourt and I are on our way again. His hand has clasped mine and our fingers have become laced together. My head leans lazily against his arm and he smiles down at me. "I hope you had fun today."

"I did," I tell him. "It's so weird, though. I grew up thinking that the city was evil and scary- but today I saw some of the most beautiful things. And if it weren't for the city, I would have never met you, or Tai, or Paladrome. Some many kind people are here."

Pierre's eyes light up with satisfaction. He'd had a marvelous day planned for us and it had gone just as he'd wanted it to. The best part, though would have to be now, holding his hand and walking so close to each other. His skin may be ice cold but he makes me feel warmer than I ever have before. Nothing more is said as we stroll through the city and back onto the trail that leads home. The entire time we walk hand in hand, I look up at his pale face and watch his eyes. There's something in his expression that makes me feel serene and wanted.

Pierre, I think wistfully. Can you not see that I am falling for you?