The Bird's Song

I was born in a castle by the sea. Well, it was by the sea, but that's where the truth in that song ends for me. The 'castle' was more like a cave, and by 'by the sea,' I really mean 'on the sea.' The shoreline was rocky and windy, stars obscured by the dark clouds pelting my mother's form with cold water as she ran toward the cave. Aided by a young Shikkian she conned into helping her one way or another, they managed shelter, food from the sea and clean water from the sky to live on until morning. The moon was vacant the night she brought me into the world, and then left me to rot in it like I were last month's shoes. She stuck around long enough to give me my first meal that night and then to get some rest by the fire her 'friend' had built, and when I awoke, squinty-eyed and bawling, she was already long gone. The kind soul who had helped her was and is, to this day, a slave in the Coliflo holdings in the town a few miles east of the cave I've only ever re-visited once.

All this I've surmised from what I've been told with only my wildest imaginings and deepest dreams showing me what she might have looked like from Grady's brief description. I was told little of my biological mother by rule of the two Saiyans that adopted me into their household. A child, a blessing, for Saiyan Elite rulers who could have none of their own. Hopes of children dwindled for Wiz and Pea Coliflo. Unable to bear children due to an old war injury, Pea had come to terms with her predicament long ago and accepted it. Wiz, older than he cared to admit to come so late into fatherhood, always longed for children. When Grady brought this tiny, baby half breed home to them and told them of its birth in a cave by a beautiful, bewitching Saiyan woman, they took me in without a second thought. To them I was more than just an heir - I was more power to their name, something they could use to better themselves within the Saiyan Empire at large, especially if I proved useful. They were determined that I would earn my keep.

My primary care was left to others - to people who taught me how to fight, first and foremost how to win, and then others who taught how to dress and eat and laugh and speak. If someone caught me being too friendly with a slave or lower class citizen, I never saw them again. They just up and disappeared. Later I would learn my fledgling friendship caused their departure to another holding or deep into the mines. But what it boiled down to was that I was not to associate with any deemed inappropriate by my 'parents.' As a result, my childhood was a lonely one. Often I wandered and explored, roamed halls and woods and shores alike until they became as familiar to me as the webbing between my fingers.

Although Wiz Coliflo was often away on business, whenever he was home formed my fondest memories of One Shell Lane. He would always bring me trinkets from around the world, or Galaxies; wherever he roamed he'd come back bearing gifts and stories to go with them. A belt formed of rare gems found atop a frozen waterfall on another planet, brought home and forged with silver, wrought in a pleasing shape for his little princess. A bag embroidered with fine, gold thread he’d found in an abandoned village. These things and more I valued more than anything.

When Wiz was home, Pea would treat me well, but often ignored me which suited me just fine. Solitude left me free to do what I wanted without her fussing over me. It wasn't that she didn't love me or care about me, she was a busy woman running the household and holding her husband's position while he was away. It always made Daddy's homecoming that much sweeter, making us into one happy family even if time felt too short.

As long as I knew Daddy was coming home, nothing else mattered. I was a Daddy's girl through and through, yet another excuse for Pea to leave me be when Wiz wasn't looking. But my world shattered on the dawn of my fourth birthday.

I waited up for Dad to come home. Dressed in my best clothes, I sat kneeling on the couch by the window peering out like a pet awaiting it's owner’s return any minute now. My mom made a half hearted attempt to get me to sleep, but I ignored her. My Nanny, Nana Ban, was kinder in her attempts but I ignored them as well. "It'll be okay, Birdie," she'd said. It was one of my nicknames, shortened from the original one my father gave me because I liked to sing so much. Songbird, Bird, Birdie - little did I know that such a silly name that brought me joy would soon bring nothing but pain. "You can see your father in the morning. I'm sure he'd like you to be well rested for your lessons," Nana tried again.

Again, I ignored her. Daddy left on some secret government mission, some ‘perfectly safe’ political work, but this was my tradition; I sat and waited throughout the night of his return. After all, he’d promised to be home by my birthday. One time I waited for three days, falling asleep on the couch and waking with a detailed impress of the windowsill engraving on my cheek. If my mother brought me food I ignored her and ate it when I got hungry, after she left. If it were Nana I'd eat it then and there or risk her taking it with her when she left. But I wouldn’t move until he came back.

But this time he didn't come back.

I sat up waiting all night, rubbing at tired eyes and stifling yawns whenever no one looked my way. Finally, as pre-dawn light brightened into sunrise, I heard the familiar sounds of people approaching. Nana beat me to the door by seconds but when it opened a friend of my father's stood and greeted us. Fellow dignitary and co-worker of Daddy’s, he told me about an accident in space. Arcosians attacked Daddy’s ship, easily outnumbering his vessel. Wiz Coliflo did not make it out alive. I'm not too proud to admit I called him a liar, slammed the door in his face and didn't stick around to hear the rest. Maybe that was my weakness, or maybe he shouldn't have told a four year old that her father wasn't ever coming back home. Dramatic? Who, me? Nah...surely not.

After that, Mom shut herself in her room for weeks. She didn't keep me out, but her servants did. I think they didn't want me to see her like that and took over my care completely from then on. All I wanted was to see her, be comforted by her. I wanted her to hold me and tell me everything was going to be okay but that wasn’t who she was, and it wasn’t the Saiyan way, or that would be her excuse. Pea always believed Wiz was too soft on me, but she did love use both, in her way. That's what I kept telling myself, anyway.

Seeing one's mother finding solace at the bottom of a bottle rather than taking care of her own family isn't something you want to see. They spared me seeing her like that for as long as they could. Believe me, I know, because they couldn't keep me from her forever.

I snuck in during the third week. It was late at night during a change of shift. After pretending to sleep, Nana left me alone. I counted to five hundred before moving, creeping slowly from my bed, movements soft and cautious. Down the hall and to the left, I knew the house better than anyone, and that included both ‘parents.’ Every passage led somewhere familiar because I had followed them all, roaming and searching and finding secret doors and sliding bookcases and more. A light that never worked had a hidden hinge and I pried it open, hitting the button beneath. A grinding noise like large, stone clockwork sounded briefly but before anyone could investigate I escaped through the hole in the wall and sealed it behind me.

From there it was a set of stairs down, a passage around, another set of stairs up. The paneling in the wall of Pea’s room hid a door and I eased it open, stepping lightly on the plush carpet. I almost turned around at the smell, alcohol and rotting food greeted me by the ‘sitting area’ of the room. Plates with days- or weeks- old food and empty bottles littered the floor, chairs, table and vanity. It was like stepping through a minefield but instead of the ‘boom’ kind of explosions, a foot in the wrong place might just scar me for life, and not in the physical way. I should have turned back. Instead, I turned the corner and found Pea in bed, bottle in hand, and the look she gave me made me feel as sick as if I’d drunk the liquor.

“What are you doing here?” Her voice was gravelly from disuse and crying, the fresh tracks of tears the only ‘clean’ parts of her face. The downward turn at the corners of her lips spoke volumes.

I tried to speak. My mouth opened, but words didn’t make it out so I tried again. “I, um…”

Those lips, red and puffy from crying, turned into a sneer. “You, um, what?” She sat up a little and loomed closer. “You’ve been -hic- nothing but trouble since you -hic- got here, just an extra mouth to feed. Wiz was...Wiz -hic- the one who wanted children…” Fresh tears welled in her dark eyes but I remained frozen, rooted to the spot, wishing a hole would open and suck me into it. My own eyes burned with salted water of their own but she’d gone back to drinking and would no longer look at me. “Get out…filthy little half-breed.”

I took a shaky breath and let it out slowly. A step back, away, and then another breath. It was a mistake as the scents of spoiled meat, rotten vegetables and vodka assaulted my stomach through my nose and I gagged on it. The taste of bile in my mouth stayed with me long after I returned to my room, my sanctuary. And it would become a sanctuary in truth.

A week after that, Pea came out of her room. Life as we knew it at One Shell Lane was over and she made that clear by ‘shaping up’ the household. She became the hardened Sergeant she’d been with the Army and ran her ‘house full of rookies’ like she wanted to break us. I didn’t know that in losing my father, I’d lose my mother, too. She took over more and more of Wiz’s duties as time went on to the point I relished in her prolonged absences, although more infrequent than I liked, they offered freedom I couldn’t get when she was home. Alcohol had never run dry in the Coliflo household but its presence intensified and half a year later she started bringing home strange men.

That was around the time ‘Uncle Sam’ came into my life. It was late evening when he knocked on the door; a tall, imposing human dressed to over 9,000 all in white except for those sunglasses. Purple, like a grape, and he was wearing them at night. “If you’re looking for my mom...she left this morning.”

He only smiled. “And who says I can’t be looking for you, little bird?”

Adrenaline hit, my blood like lava in a volcano waking all at once, volatile and vicious. How did this stranger know that name? I shut the door and put my back to it, and just as my breathing began to slow there was that short, sharp rap on the door again. Tap tap tap…

Maybe if I ignored him, he’d go away.

Tap tap tap… Tap tap tap…

I opened the door and my strange friendship with Samael the demon began. He knew more about my parents, my real parents, than I could ever have dreamed of. According to him my father was a demon, and Rahab had sent Sam to watch over me. My mother, Mizuna, had met Rahab while fishing for food to bring home to her husband. She was an old acquaintance of Sam’s as it turned out, having made a deal with him for a way out of her marriage. For his ‘cooperation’ all she’d have to give him was her first true born child and he happily told her of Rahab’s loneliness at sea. Believing herself barren, a tryst with a water demon was no price to pay at all for her freedom of a loveless marriage and a ‘freak doll’ for a ‘poor excuse of a son.’ Her words, according to Sam. So she’d left me in that cave on this demon’s instructions and never looked back, because she wasn’t the only one to make a deal with Sam.

Wiz had wanted a child badly enough to deal with this devil, too. And Sam had promised him a powerful child, indeed.

Pea never met Sam and I preferred to keep it that way. I didn’t talk about him to anyone and only met with him while she was away. She abused alcohol like a kitten with catnip and I suspected she was doing other drugs by that point, too...but nobody listens to the four year old and four year olds learn to keep their mouths shut if they don’t want to get hit.

During our ‘lessons,’ he taught me to channel my Ki and taught me about the side of my genetics I shared with his kind. I learned more about my history, about myself, and what I was capable of than I ever could have under Pea’s careful instruction. And, to be honest, the happiest day of my life occurred nearly a full year after I met Sam. The east end of our house burned down with Pea Coliflo inside of it. With the information from Sam and the beat up old pod in the shed, maybe I’ll go find this ‘brother’ of mine. Pin, an odd name for a pseudo half-brother. Android he may be but that bothered me not even a little. And then, some day, I might just track down Mizuna and help deliver her to the same fate as the mother she’d helped deliver me to. Was I such a small price to pay for her freedom, just a pawn in her end game? I hope she found what she searched for, and I hope she choked on it. I also want to be there when it happens.