A Heart's Crucible

Heavy wings swept lower towards the evening.

“You’re pooped,” said Joq, dropping beside Perdy and Zel.

Her friend’s feathers drained of vibrant colour, the telltale sign of a journey where they zigged and zagged, seeking safety. Joq urged her companions earthward. They rested beneath Popocatepetl, and Iztaccihuatl, the twin volcanoes, smoking in their ancient majesty.

Joq selected a rock-cut basin below a metre-high waterfall. A sapped Zarella scouted for a meal considering a tired Perdy napped on the Kazakh’s wings.

Zarella returned in her own sweet time, outlining a racy tale. She stole six burritos from a village wedding feast during the exchange of vows.

“I skipped the temptation to add a laxative spell to half the food and a love incantation to the rest.”

Yet a sulking face; the brunette missed a crowd. Joq, too, stamped her foot; their happy-go-lucky world lay overhung with darkness.

Fresh running water slaked thirst, and the burritos reduced their hunger. Joq noticed Perdy savour the tortilla wrap, munching the rustic cornmeal. The salty bite likely reminded her of a home-cooked meal in her stone oven in her secure glen. Zel smacked her lips — perhaps recalling Maite, the Caribbean Peri and her sea-green eyes. A lively friend who organised carousing parties under palms fringed by stars. Joq appreciated the beans; they were tasty and filling.

She acknowledged they lined their stomachs, yet her mind fluxed. Two strapping young men bathed farther away at the river bend. The usual Peri desire for antics sagged. Caught in a world devoid of fun, they stalled. Alongside Zel and Perdy, Joq scattered the half-finished meal.

Perdita kicked burrito scraps.

“Let’s search the local haunts of our companions.”

Her wing quiver gave away her deeper concerns.

“I tried,” stated Zarella.

“I spotted no friends or Peri mischief as I flew farther than I should when gathering a meal.”

Joq rose, decisive, “We must head home after we rest.”

Following a wing-tip touch, they snuggled low and closer than usual. Under the setting sun, Joq sat upright.

“I’ll take the first vigil.”

Zarella yawned and rolled. Perdita snuggled into her friend’s bronze wings after a wink. The babble of the waterfall kept Joq company.

∗ ∗ ∗

The Peri companions crossed the Atlantic in the following days by a less-used route tracking the North African coast.

“Too much desert heat. My make-up runs,” scowled a sweating Zarella.

Cool breezes buffeted them later on their northward heading. Joq wished her Celtic friend home, safe at Glen Coe. Perdita’s spirit lifted as she raced, her wings bright, azure and purple streaked. Joq and Zarella slowed their flight, allowing their friend space. Across rivers, past streaming waterfalls and the shoulder of a massif. In the van, the red-haired Peri swooped over moors and bee-lined into a birch forest.

“Cripes, sweetie,” Joq said, circling her friend’s roost.

The problem extended beyond Perdita’s head between her hands and knees bawling; tears pooled in the deeper greens and blues of her earasaid. A stone oven lay razed alongside unique driftwood art. A herb garden trampled, her tree nook burnt, and covered in imp dung. So smoky ash didn’t fill Peri nostrils; Perdy’s home stank of dead fish.

Joq and Zarella grabbed Perdita beneath her arms and whooshed her skywards.

The flaxen Peri offered a pat and a warning, “Perdy, you can’t stay here.”

Long hours led the trio East, where they camped on the sea-swept, windy Danish coast. The unfamiliar territory of Lakolk beach. Endless sand, where they huddled together in the tussock dunes.

“I’m not going home,” announced a firm Zarella, clutching her pink sari.

Perdita sobbed.

“I have no home,” tearful words.

Joq spread her buttery wings in an arc, sheltering her friends from a sudden sun shower.

“We need answers,” the Kazakh declared in time with plashing raindrops, “Answers so that we may go home.”

“We don’t know what we face,” whimpered Perdy.

“The world is huge,” said Zarella, spreading her bronzed wings in an arch, matching a rainbow framing the rocking blue sea.

“Endless places, offering hidey-holes and exotic fun.”

Her nail squiggled along Perdy’s ankle tattoo, but the touch didn’t cheer her friend. Instead, a glint of sunlight on Zel’s golden sari broach raised the redhead’s chin.

Joq gathered their attention using a swift tap of arms. She pointed southeast with her wings twitching. The disrupted fete, the message glimpsed before their hasty flight, and Perdita’s home trashed meshed in a direction.

“Scratched in the dirt at the sacred mound was the word seer. I’ve mulled; a meaning, we seek the Soothsayer of Idalion. We leave now.”

Zarella crossed her arms, and her leg coiled Perdy’s thigh, stalling possible flight.

“A fool’s trip,” she wagged a stern finger, “a dangerous maze where few enter and even fewer exit. We are not fighters or armed. Don’t go. Courting danger isn’t the Peri way.”

The redhead trembled as Joq and Zel sparred.

“Our world has changed; we must change.”

Joq rose and spread her wings.

“What! Combat!”

Zarella anchored her arms in triangles, propped against her slim hips.

“No,” countered Joq, rubbing her neck, “We hone our flippant skills and seek what tomorrow holds.”

She pushed her hands through her hair, attempting to convince herself alongside her playmates.

“Nonsense, my good friend. The Soothsayer uses a cryptic tongue.”

Zarella bounced, extending her height and letting her bronze wings reflect the sunlight into Joq’s eyes.

Steepling her fingers, “The seer will demand a payment, not gold, but a personal cost beyond your worst imaginings!”

Perdy, hunched cross-legged, said, “I don’t want to think beyond today. We never have. I’m not starting now!”

“God, what a nasty smell. A rotting rat.”

Zel sneezed.

“Reminds me of skunk, a yucky, vile waft,” said Perdy, holding her nose.

“Dead…” started Joq.

A filthy charcoal net whipped above her head.

The flaxen Peri pivoted low. A swerve and a dip, the combined usual successful moves avoiding stupid human attempts at capturing a sprite.

Perdy screamed. Zarella’s fawn eyes glazed in trepidation. The net snared Joq’s wing. She collapsed face first, smacking into the gritty sand. The force of the impact stunned her despite a burst of bright sunshine dazzling before unconsciousness hit.

Minutes later, she roused. Her wings fluttered. She sat up and rubbed a sore head.

Zarella said, “Nasty and strange,” brushing the sand from Joq’s buttery hair.

The flaxen Peri wobbled and shook the dry sand off her koylek.

“Oh, petal, you recovered fast,” said a cuddling, red-eyed Perdy.

“Well, the fiend is a mite ugly,” managed Joq, looking at the bat-shaped creature lying on the sand.

“Horrid imp, odd weakness,” stated Perdy.

She held her nose, and alongside Joq, they circled the black fiend. The creature lay stapled across the sand without fastenings. Zarella’s sari broach pin stuck through the membrane on his wing.

“Mmm, what we saw in the distance at the mound, swinging nets,” said Joq, flexing her wing in a damage check.

“Fast and fliers. Black as black, emotionless grey eyes and blood-stained teeth. I’m glad I wasn’t the imp’s next meal!”

“No, he tried to capture you using the net,” corrected the brunette.

Minus, her broach Zarella, adjusted her sari, employing a tug and a twist.

“I used the only sharp thing at hand.”

Zel pouted, eyeing her gold pin.

“Well, you missed a wacky tussle,” said Perdy, bouncing from foot to foot.

“I admit I screeched when the net nabbed your arm. But Zel reacted fast. Unexpectedly, the creature stalled and blinked under piercing sunlight.”

Rolling her shoulders, she continued, “Zel lunged and stabbed a wing and wham, the imp flopped, pinned by a broach!”

An alert Perdy scanned wide from her tippy-toes, “Joq and Zel, we should go to the seer.”

“Agreed,” said Zel, adjusting her sari on her shoulder.

Joq comprehended her friend needed her pinning broach as the brunette glanced at the creature’s teeth and claws. She twitched and considered kicking sand in the imp’s face. Instead, she felt piqued at her mussed hair, though she tempered her huff. The creature’s pocked skin reminded her of black rice. The splayed, exposed pinning made the imp look pathetic despite the sharp teeth. Joq noted the creature’s absence of a navel comparable to the Peri. A beast appearing from where? She mulled over the conundrum of sentient existence. Where did I come from? Why am I here, and where am I headed? — un-Peri thoughts — broken by Perdy gripping her shoulder.

“Don’t take the creature with us.”

“By heaven, no, but we will truss the imp; Zel needs her broach.”

Joq laughed whilst her companion untied and adjusted her sari. The sleek silk kept slipping off her shoulder.

Perdy, stirring, spotted an ebony blowpipe and rancid darts.

But the Celt insisted, “I’m not blowing through the gun; the wood reeks.”

“I’ll risk god knows what diseases for my broach,” said Zel.

The Peri bent, and her fingers sought the shiny weapon. However, her sari slipped off her shoulder. Joq and Perdy marvelled at Zarella’s flawless olive skin. Yet together, the three Peri raised their hands at a creature, ignoring feminine charm.

“Well, we have a problem when fetching skin cannot attract,” said Perdita.

“Sweetie, concentrate. No one is blowing the pipe. Sores surrounding the fiend’s mouth,” and Joq pointed for emphasis.

“Fan your wings while I hold the pipe. I’ll use a strip off my earasaid.”

Perdy’s fingers shredded and tore.

And an idea became a plan, blowgun, dart, cloth and flapping wings. And a low-level miracle occurred. They darted the imp on their third try.

“Bend your knees,” said Joq, instructing Zel, loading the dart as Perdy angled the blowpipe.

After several swishing flaps, this barb hit the creature and, following a brief convulsion, the imp appeared doped.

Perdy dropped the dart gun and the protective cloth. Joq bent and gathered the earasaid strip.

“My broach,” said Zel.

Joq plucked the jewel from the black wing.

“Net the black blot, honey,” said Perdy, grabbing the pin and handing Zel her gold clasp.

Joq tangled the creature. Yet mulled, God and Heaven played no part in their lives if they existed. She accepted luck and never considered divine intervention. Still, Joq sensed the need to plan — a Peri first — team organisation beyond the next moment of individual fun.

Joq relaxed, seeing a sedated, trussed imp under the Danish sun. Zel waltzed ankle-deep into a tidal pool. She washed her golden broach and pinned her sari.

Nothing smelt crisp in a tight circle on the beach, a furlong from the Dev, and a rotten odour clung. The Peri washed their clothes in the sea. Twittering and flapping, they fan-dried their clothes. They regathered in a tight circle, their hair dry and their dresses fresh.

Joq started, “On the breeze, I promise to journey together and seek answers.”

She held her palm open, and Zarella and Perdita repeated similar fast pledges. Finally, three friends pancaked their hands after completing the Peri promise on the wind. A light-hearted gesture made in their past happy days — vows never expected to be upheld. Yet, a trio of eyes locked and gave assurances. Then, swooping above the clouds, they bore southeast, seeking the Soothsayer.