Soft ivory feathers and swirls of white and brown refuse littered the stone floor in the top chamber of the tower. Gentle coos and purrs warmed his ears as Gigor shuffled through the aviary doling out honey-glazed nuts and globerries to his caged companions. A cruel thing, those cages, necessary as they were. He arrived at the endmost of the wall of pens where his Brightangel sat on her perch above the workstation awaiting her treats. Dozens of candles dripped wax from the heat of their flame on the station where he would tie the provided sealed letters to the hindlimbs of his darlings. Sending his dearest treasures out into the world of men whose hearts were corrupted with the stain of sentience pained Gigor. But, gods above, were their extended wings flapping through the heavens a marvel to behold.
“Good evening, my sweet,” he murmured in a gentle lilt. He held aloft the treats for the majestic white peace dove that knew his heart better than any man ever could. Brightangel purred with great strength of chest as she inclined her tender neck to meet his open palm.
The dove aviary was Gigor’s palace of respite and serenity. The symphony of the dove’s song never failed to swell his heart with emotion and adoration for the known gods’ little blessings. He did not possess such ardent love for the harpy and raven aviaries, though it would be dishonest to say his devotion did not extend to all winged creatures of the realm. It was much more preferable to confer with the angels of the heavens than to sour the tongue with the wicked words of men. Yet Gigor did find an earthly delight in reading the letters he was entrusted to dispatch on the wings of his birds.
Master Aviaries of Ileth were bred to be illiterate, simple creatures who lived solely to fulfill their Born Calling. The sentiment of ‘privacy of the words of noble lords is paramount to the Known Lands stability’ had been pecked over and over into his brain as a child. Bah! Absurd. Unbeknownst to his lord, he had spent countless hours in the aviary tower learning to decipher the strange glyphs of men alongside his father as a wee boy. Keegor had been a poor Master Aviary due to the wretched genius that plagued his mind. Always tinkering. Always experimenting. Never content with the humble and docile life of an aviary he had been born to. It had amused Gigor as a young boy to watch his father rave and rant in the candlelight and feathers of their elevated dwelling. That was until his experiments had reached the birds. His death was necessary in the end, and Gigor happily took up the post of Master Aviary in his place. As his mind wandered back to that long-ago time, he couldn’t find the little dropping of pity he’d once had in his heart for the man. No matter.
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There was a knock on his door.
Gigor walked back down the walkway of his captive darlings and opened the wooden door to find the young page boy. Despite the unintended, yet present, corrupted nature of the boy, his hair was reminiscent of a magnificent greyhawk Gigor had seen through his long-sight scope once. The memory sent a shiver of delight up his spine.
“My, my, our lord has been busy with his letters of late,” he said. “It’s a wonder his hand has not fallen off from the labor of it all.” He took the letter stamped with the silver wax seal bearing the house's sigil from the page boy’s hands. The boy nodded his head in agreement but spared no words for the Master Aviary. Good. The boy was learning after all. Gigor bade him to take his leave and hobbled back to his station.
A letter being sent to the Hrishelli Isles had come to his roost once upon a moon, and in it laid mention of a god of fortune. Some Hrishelli nonsense, he’d originally presumed. He smiled to himself in the amber light of his candles. That foreign god must have Gigor in their favor, as the ritual of spying on the northlands lord’s secrets was plentiful this winter. At least ten letters per day made their way to his feather-filled fortress, occasionally much more depending on the received responses. He did not dare to pry open the inbound letters for fear of his duplicity being unveiled to the wrathful lord he served. That man was far more cunning and shrewd than Gigor thought men ought be.
“The Stranger take my heart, Brightangel,” Gigor gasped, hand reaching for the comfort of his darling’s feathers. He read the contents of the letter over once more. Dark words, indeed. Curious that he had not been instructed to fetch a harpy for this one. Gigor was not the only duplicitous one in this castle it seemed. There was a small comfort in that, though. As sure as the velvet feathers that played beneath his fingertips.
He shook his head, troubled by his findings, and opened the false bottom to the lowest drawer of his workstation. In it lay the stolen cache of silver-dyed wax and signet ring of the ruling lord's house. Carefully, he scraped a small amount of the wax into the metal tin wax holder then placed it over the flame of the closest candle and awaited its melt. He hummed along with the doves as a frosted wind blew in through the open window overlooking the snow-covered earth far below his pinnacle of solitude. Such a beautiful night. When would he next see such peace outside of his turret? In large part, his heart was overflowing with pleasure that his doves would find their rest and stay here with him for what he hoped would be a very long time. For the harpy's time was imminent. War had finally come.