Sorry I haven't updated in so long. But i was at camp, and then school started, and i've been stressed, and school kind of seems to suck out my creative energy for fun stuff like this.So here it is, enjoy.
Kyo-Aizawa-I know! Hawksong and Snakecharm are my favorite books, too. Well, those and anything else by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes and A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray, but that's irrelevant.
Lupusregina-I know! I was sad when I couldn't find any Hawksong fanfic.
Kara Adar-well, here is more. Sorry it took so long to do but you know…school started again.
Disclaimer- I definitely do not own Hawksong, sadly. Well I own Jabir, Shani, Tarun, and Yamal. Oh, and Eman. But I don't own any other part of it. Besides the plot. Which is kinda cheesy, but hey, who doesn't love cheesy fanfics?
I got up and walked to the door of Tarun's room, then knocked on it softly. "Tarun?" I said.
"Come in," he replied.
I walked in and shut the door behind me. Thank the sky it was dark (only one candle was lit, and Tarun was sitting on the bed cross-legged), otherwise I might not have done what I did. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and tried to decide whether I should approach this in an avian fashion (formal, polite, with reserve) or in a serpiente fashion (informal, without reserve, not as polite). I decided to just spit it out and be done with it.
"Tarun…I…heardwhatyousaidtoyourbrother." I spit out the sentence like one word. Then I continued, still speaking fast because I was so unnerved. "Andiwanttotellyouthatifeelthesameway."
I could hear him stand up. "Little raven, I didn't want you to hear that, but hoped you would." I could hear the smile in his voice.
"Well, I did. And…" I stopped speaking because Tarun kissed me gently. I put my arms around him, and we just stood there.
"Shani, I know that we both come from different worlds, but…will you be my mate?"
I think that I was as shocked by these words as he was, but I responded in a simple word: "Yes"
I moved in with Tarun, my pair bond. I think that his brother was a little…I don't know, maybe disgusted about the fact that a raven and a python could love each other. But it was possible, and he seemed to accept it. I'd had to go back to my small house near the Hawk's Keep to get the few possessions I had (just some clothes, an old ring of my mother's, and a book of my father's). I also sold the house in the market to my childhood friend Ganesa.
"Everyone assumed that you were dead!" she exclaimed when she saw me.
"I'm not dead, just…moving out farther away from the Keep. The war is over, so it's safe to own land out there. Besides, I might…" I trailed off. I wasn't sure whether or not to tell her that my alistair was a python. I didn't know how she'd accept it.
"Yeah, it's great that the war is over now, isn't it? I mean, I'm still a little unsure about the fact that a cobra can love a hawk and a hawk love a cobra, but anything's possible, isn't it?" She seemed so accepting to the idea of it, but then again, she could have been hiding under her mask of avian reserve, which I didn't need to hide under with Tarun. It had always bothered me that we avians denied our feelings because of the reserve.
I decided to tell her. Ganesa had always been good at keeping secrets, so I trusted her. "Ganesa, actually I'm moving because…well it's a long story. But I was hurt really badly in battle, and a python brought me to the house he'd inherited from his cousin, neither of us knowing that the other was on the other side of this war. In short, he helped me get better, and I fell in love with him. He's now my pair bond."
She looked shocked for a moment, but then regained her composure. And smiled. "Congratulations, Shani. But…is everyone going to accept that?"
"No," I admitted. "But can you keep it a secret for the time being?"
She nodded. "You have my word on that. Oh, did I tell you? I'm through with my apprenticeship as a nurse! I'm actually a nurse!" The sparrow seemed excited. She'd dreamt of becoming a nurse all through her childhood, so this was a big deal for her.
"That's really good! Tarun learned some stuff from his cousin, who was a healer, so he's kind of a doctor."
She made a confused face. "Tarun?"
"My pair bond," I clarified.
"Oh, okay."
The conversation ended there. "I have to go. Fly with grace, friend," Ganesa said.
"And you too, Ganesa."
I left the market, trying to attract as little attention as possible. It was a little embarrassing to have someone come up to me and say "Shani! I thought you were dead! What are you up to?" because I wanted to say, "Well Tarun rescued me and we fell in love…who is Tarun, you say? Oh, he's my pair bond. A python." But I couldn't. We'd both decided to keep it a secret for a little while, since we didn't know how people would react.
A few weeks later...
What is wrong with me? I thought. I kept getting sick, and my skin was cold. That's one thing for serpiente, because they're cold-blooded. It's another thing for avians. We're warm-blooded. Tarun didn't know what was wrong, either.
"This is like no sickness I've ever seen," he admitted. "Maybe it's an avian thing."
"I'll talk to Ganesa…maybe she has a suggestion…" I attempted to get off the couch I was sitting on, but…next thing I knew, I was laying on the floor. "How did I get here…" I murmured.
"You fainted."
This was bad-really bad. Avians don't faint. Our hearts and lungs work fast enough to get oxygen to the brain. "But avians don't faint," I replied slowly. What is wrong with me? I thought once again. "I have to go find Ganesa. She's a nurse. She'll tell me what's wrong with me."
"Shani, you're not going there alone. We don't know what's wrong. I don't want you to die out there." Well, that was blunt.
We were still arguing about that when I heard a knock at the door.
"Tarun?" It was Yamal.
"Yamal, come in," Tarun replied.
Yamal walked in. "What happened to her?" he asked (rather bluntly, in my opinion).
"We don't know what happened to 'her,'" I said icily. I hate it when people refer to me as 'her.'
I saw another serpent, who I assumed was Yamal's mate. "So it's true. Yamal wasn't bluffing when he said that his sister-in-law was a raven," she said to me.
"It's true. My name's Shani," I replied. She hadn't said the words in a mean way, so I tried to be nice, even though the words hadn't been…nice themselves, I guess.
She smiled. "I'm Papina," she said. She turned to Tarun. "Hello, Tarun. How goes the healing business?"
"Fine, thank you." His reply sounded almost…icy to my ears. Maybe he didn't like her, or something.
"Tarun, Mother said that she wants to meet your mate. No, she doesn't know that Shani's a raven," he added as Tarun got a slightly panicked look on his face, "but she's going to find out, somehow."
"Well, we're not going anywhere till we know what's wrong with Shani," he replied. "And Mother seriously does want to meet Shani? You know how she is…" he gave a slightly apologetic look to me "…about avians."
"It's okay, lots of avians won't accept you as my mate, probably. Ganesa does, but she's probably it," I said. "Everyone's still in shock that we're not in a war anymore."
"True," he said. "But…you don't know my mother."
Also true, I thought. "Well, we can't do anything until we find out why I am so weak. Let's go to the Keep now. They're letting serpents in, right, since the war is over? None of you will look that conspicuous."
"We will if we are with you," Yamal pointed out. Tarun and Papina nodded in agreement.
"Well, screw it. I am sick of it all, and I really would like to know what is wrong with me. Screw what they all think of me. We are going in." I attempted to get up, but Tarun wouldn't let me get up.
"Did you arrive here on horseback?" he asked. Yamal and Papina nodded. "Can we borrow the horses?"
"You guys are coming with us," I interrupted. Everyone looked at me in surprise. "What? You're my family-the only family I have left, save Ganesa."
"I thought Ganesa was your friend," said Papina, confused.
"She is like my sister. We grew up together, but I joined the army and she became apprenticed as a nurse, since the avian army doesn't-didn't-like sparrows as fighters. Their human and avian forms tend to be unsuited for fighting, since they are so lightly built."
"Oh," she said, understanding.
"All right, let's go," I said, standing up. "I'm fine, Tarun. Really." He still was really concerned for me, and I was touched. I hadn't felt this loved since…my parents were still alive, and I was a chick.
We arrived at the Keep midafternoon. The other avians seemed a little wary of the raven walking with the two pythons and the corn snake (a/n: is that an actual serpiente breed from the book? I think it was mentioned once in Snakecharm, but I don't know), but they were too avian to say anything.
"Ganesa!" I said when I arrived at her apartment in the third floor of the Keep. She lived with some other nurses-they had their own small suite.
A crow came to the door. "Ganesa isn't here right now. She's at the serpiente palace, tending to the Tuuli Thea."
"What happened?" I asked. Living out, secluded from the Keep kept us uninformed of current events.
"Her alistair was attacked, and she got cut from the would-be assassin's knife earlier today. She will be staying there for a couple of days."
"Thank you," I told the crow. She just eyed Tarun, Yamal, and Papina behind me and sniffed. After she shut the door, Yamal said, "Unusual behavior from an avian."
I sighed. "Well, we'll have to go to the palace, I guess."
"No. We'll just talk to one of the nurses here," Tarun said.
"None of them know that one, I am alive, or two, that you are my alistair. It would cause a bit of a stir," I tiredly replied. I leaned back against the wall.
"Shani, we need an avian nurse to talk to you. We don't know what's wrong," Tarun said. He knocked on the door.
"No, Tarun-" I said. The same crow that answered the door last time opened it.
"Yes?" she politely asked. I could tell that she was nervous around the serpents, though.
"We really need your help, ma'am. Shani-my mate-" the crow cringed slightly at these words, then seemed to realize what she had just done. –"is sick, and needs a nurse to check her over. We don't know what's wrong. Please, help us."
The crow sighed. "Oh, all right. Come in here, girl." I followed her in. "You all can wait out here. If she's sick, you don't want to be catching it, do you?" she said to my serpiente companions.
Once we were in the room, she said, "Spit it out girl. What are your symptoms?"
I took a deep breath. "Well, I fainted earlier today, and-"
"You've never fainted in your life," the crow continued.
"Right." Who was this cynical crow that seemed to doubt my every word? It was kind of nerve-wracking, but I kept up my shield of reserve. I took another deep breath. "My skin and blood has turned cold. And I'm very weak. And I had trouble shifting into my raven form yesterday. I don't know what it is."
The crow sighed. "Child, I do not know why you have not come up with the answer for this one yourself." She closed her eyes. "That serpent was telling the truth, he is your mate?"
"Yes. The other two are his brother and sister-in-law."
"Then I believe that you are carrying his child."