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[ CITY OF EIKRISE ]
I decided to skip breakfast. Not that I ever adhered to it before, much to Joco and Majordomo's consternation. If I wanted to eat I'd simply eat a big meal, later, of course. No, what I thought I needed right now was to go out and get some fresh air. I wasn't going far, so I didn't need to inform anyone. Besides, it was morning. Hale was still sleeping in come eight'o'clock, as were a lot of the Psyops and the front workers.
Like a ghost, I had phased through the walls by changing my density and rose up until I was in the city above our Bunker, Eikrise. Eikn's Beacon.
Down below, I saw the city busy in the morn, mortals sprawling about. My eyes fluttered over the bright pumpkin and shamrock and basil roofs and spires. Cars moved through the streets, people went to work by foot and by the metro. I was unseen, of course, standing atop the roof of the Felwischer factory. I took in a deep breath, sucking through my teeth and exhaled. The wind was cool today. The sky was hardly dotted by any cloud. It was peaceful.
[MAJORDOMO] "Hey, look. A bird."
Ah? I looked down and yes, there was a bird here, making a nest on the edge of the factory roofs. A cuckoo bird.
'Hehe...'
I crouched down and observed the feathery little thing, how it danced about to assemble its nest from sticks and thistles. Unlike humans, it could see me, all thanks to the common perceptions of animals being able to see what men couldn't. Like how a dog barks at seemingly nothing in empty spaces, or a cat mewls at the invisible. This bird wasn't afraid of me, not at all.
'It's cute.'
It looked up at me. It tweeted and prodded the nest. It was all alone...
'Hmm...'
It wouldn't make it on its own, especially not having chosen the factory of all places for its nest. I decided to give it a friend.
'Here you go, little one.'
I opened my palm, and a male cuckoo hopped out of it, that I made then. The two cuckoos stared at each other for that moment as I regarded their lives, and then bounced closer to elope. I saw their beaks touch.
'Let's move you somewhere safer, kay...?"
And with the consent of these birds, I chose to pick up their nest and move them from the factory, away from all those grinding industrial sounds and smoggy fumes to a tree, a nice one elsewhere in the city.
'Hmhm...'
'...'
As I had set the birds in their nest down on a sturdy branch, I couldn't help but stare into the distance past the leaves. My vision went wandering to a rooftop spire so far, far away. The peak of a chapel dedicated to Eikn. The thing atop it...
[JOCO] "What kind of bird is that?"
[MAJORDOMO] "Iunno, I ain't ever seen a bird shaped like a guy before."
'Which means it's worth checking out. No human is so comfortable balancing themself out like that....'
