There were birds everywhere. There were birds. All over his workshop. ALL OVER HIS SHOP. Sitting on paintings, sitting on the mantel, sitting on his work table cooing and most worryingly of all, pooing. They hadn't been here yesterday. They hadn't been here today. They hadn't even been here this morning and yet now they sat, and did aforementioned other activities. His mouth opened and closed, unsure what to say because what in God's name could a person say to such a discovery other than "AHHHHHHHHHHH"?

"Ahhhhhhhh! S-Salai what is this!" he assumed it had to be Salai because Salai was the only person who could have possibly done this being that Salai was the only person in his workshop other than him though the young man was pointedly absent.

He didn't want to move too much lest he incite a frenzy of flying feathers but he had to open a window or a door or something so he could usher them out of his workspace. As he slowly approached the closest of the birds he wondered if his apprentice did things like this in order to get attention or perhaps because he thought he was being clever or maybe it was even that he simply wanted to drive Leonardo to a premature death.

The dove made a sound when he captured it in his hands, tilting its head from side to side. Surely he hadn't meant to cause trouble-Leonardo had often spoken of freedom and how it made him sad to see birds restrained from flying after all. In a way it was a sweet gesture. If not a troublesome one.

He smiled, "let us get you outside, then you can fly around all you like."

It flapped away into the sky, joining the clouds so that he couldn't see it anymore even when he shielded his eyes from the sun.

"Maestro."

Leonardo turned quickly towards the voice to see his companion sitting on the roof, swinging his legs nonchalantly, "Salai, how did you get up there?"

"Climbed. Could you not do it as well if you tried?"

"Perhaps if I tried but I am not so young as I once was, Salaino. I shall leave such things to you," the artist waved his hand to motion for him to come down-Ezio the little devil was not and he could not help but worry for such a fearless boy.

"Catch me."

"You are not so young as yo-" he couldn't get the rest out before he was jumped on though old as he might have been getting his strength had yet to leave him. Still the air rushed from his lungs at the impact and it took him a moment to get his breath back to scold the curly haired demon.

Again he proved too slow and Salai kissed him once, smiling proudly at himself for stealing such a thing, "not so old as you think, Maestro."

"That is how rumours get started," he couldn't bring himself to snap but he could manage to sound displeased.

"It is not a rumour if it is true," Salai wiggled out of his arms to plant his feet on the floor and stride to the door, casting a glance over his shoulder with the satisfied smirk still on his lips, "tell them the devil tempted you."

"And what of you, then?"

A laugh, "what about me? You would not let them hurt me, would you Leonardo?"

"You know I would not. But I have little influence over the law, Salai," he followed-what had he done to deserve such an apprentice? Walking inside reminded him of the problem at hand. Birds everywhere.

"Was this your doing?" he spoke when the other man didn't. A bird fluttered onto the boy's outstretched hand as if to confirm his suspicions and leaned into the fingers petting its head. Such an image should be painted, he thought but he doubted the restless creatures in front of him would sit still that long.

"Who else would it have been?"

"And who will it be cleaning up after this?"

"You said you hated to see birds caged, Maestro. So I set them free," the dove flew from his hand then to land on the mantel with one of its brothers. Salai met his eyes easily, daring him to punish him.

"An admirable thought but why my workshop?"

The brunette shrugged, his lips still turned up in that infuriatingly charming smile of his, "if I did not bring them home how would you know that I had done it?"

By the money missing from his coin purse he supposed. He sighed, "come, let us set the rest free then."

"That is your venture, not mine, Maestro," Salai flopped down on the chair by the fire, always challenging though Leonardo rarely saw fit to rise to it.

"If it is your doing then it should be you who cleans up the mess."

"Would that not restrict my freedom, Leonardo?"

It would. But everyone's freedom had to be at some points. It would take God himself to convince the boy of that, however. And that was how Leonardo Da Vinci came to spend the good part of an afternoon clearing birds out of his workshop.

Just a small fic I wrote on an idea I had. :'D Salai was my favourite part of the Da Vinci Disappearance.