In hindsight, I should have posted this yesterday, because the thing I did post implicitly takes place after this one. And, well, if you were wondering what a Freenbird is, this scene explains.
Also, just to clarify, Freenbirds are not named after the song Freebird. If anything, they’re named after iconic Wrestling faction of the Golden Age of the Territory Days, the Fabulous Freebirds — which is what I’m referencing in the title.
Whom, as you’ll recall lived in a pretty rough neighbourhood, the aptly named “Badstreet USA”, which famously got even worse the further down the block you went. And, naturally, being some bad dudes, the Freebirds not only lived on this street, but lived in the very last house on the right…
Ahem.
That being said, Freenbird is primarily because of the fact that “freen” is the sound they make, which was one of the most annoying animal sounds I could think of…
Copyright J.B. Norman
“It’s a bird cage,” Lucia notes. “I — did we just get cheated out of our payment?”
She sighs.
“We did, didn’t we?”
She sighs again.
“I hate this city.”
Apolline reads the note affixed to the bird cage:
“In lieu of monetary emolument for services rendered, please accept this gift of a purebred Freenbird, the crowning achievement of the Freenbird breeders’ trade and representing the careful selection of several of finest Freenbird lineages now existing in Realmgard.”
She sets down the note and frowns.
“Well. That’s unexpected,” she says.
Lucia, Petra, Apolline, Alda, and Roland all look at the bird.
It’s got the bright, variegated colouration of a tropical bird and it’s about the size of a slimmed-down pigeon.
The bird looks back at them, curiously cocking its head and making a few perfunctory chirps and trills.
“Oh, wow!” Alda says, staring into the bird cage. “A purebred Freenbird like this is really valuable! Just getting one as a gift is amazing! That client must have really liked you. And been super, duper rich.”
“That’s something,” Petra offers. “But I’d rather get paid in money. We can’t eat him.”
“Well,” Lucia muses. “We could.”
“Lucia!” Alda gasps.
“What? I’m a cat!”
“And it’s her,” Alda notes.
“Huh?”
“The bird,” Alda says, pointing to the cage. “She’s a her. See? Female Freenbirds have two long, blue tail feathers. The males have three short ones.”
“So,” Roland asks, peering into the cage. “Why are they called Freenbirds?”
Right on cue, the bird flutters up to the little perch hanging in the cage and looks right at them.
“Freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen!”
Lucia shudders at the piercing, high-pitched whine and resolves more than ever to just eat the thing.
“That sound.”
“Freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen!”
Lucia, shoves her hands over her large, furry ears in an attempt to block out the terrible screeching noise.
“It’s horrible! Are we reconsidering the eating it angle yet?”
“Lucia!” Alda cries. “We cannot eat her!”
“I promise,” Lucia offers, “that I will not eat it. Within the next fifteen seconds.”
“I’m going to let her out of the cage,” Alda says.
She stares gravely at Lucia.
“But you have to promise won’t try to eat her, okay?”
Lucia doesn’t answer.
“Okay?”
“Yeah. Fine. Whatever.”
Alda opens the cage. In a blur of bright feathers, the Freenbird flutters out of the cage, circles the room and promptly decides to roost right on top of Lucia’s head.
“Ugh.”
Lucia winces as she feels the bird tugging at her hair, then settling itself down once it was apparently got Lucia’s hair just the way it likes it.
“There’s a bird on your head,” Roland notes, pointing with a sausage-thick finger.
“Yeah,” Lucia mutters. “Thanks, Roland.”
She glances down at Alda.
“How do I get it off?”
“Well, Freenbirds like to be warm,” Alda answers. “So she probably wants to roost on, um, you because your hair is the warmest. We might be able to convince her to get off your head if we can build her an even warmer, more comfortable nest.”
“Hey, Lucia,” Roland says, struggling to get his words out through his giddy giggling. “Nice hat.”
Follow me here:
If you’ve enjoyed my content, please consider supporting me through Ko-fi or Patreon, or through Paypal by scanning the QR code below:
Follow Realmgard and other publications of Emona Literary Services™ below:
Subscribe to the Emona Literary Services™ Substack newsletter here.
And check out my full-length stories here:
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The author prohibits the use of content published on this website for the purposes of training Artificial Intelligence technologies, including but not limited to Large Language Models, without express written permission.
All stories published on this website are works of fiction. Characters are products of the author’s imagination and do not represent any individual, living or dead.
The realmgard.com Privacy Policy can be viewed here.
Realmgard is published by Emona Literary ServicesTM
