Sunset ^beta

All Marcille had wanted was a nice omelet for breakfast.

Nothing fancy, just a simple omelet. Ham and cheese, ideally, but she’d settle for just cheese. There were many things that could be said about her time in the dungeon—many probably better not said—but one thing it had left her with was an appreciation for the little things in life, especially the food-related ones.

Instead, however, she got toast and an apology.

“There was an incident,” the servant who brought her the food explained. “With the chickens, and also the eggs.”

Marcille paused, the toast halfway to her mouth. “An incident?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know the details,” the servant said. “The poultry-keeper was in a terrible state when he came to the kitchens this morning, and he couldn’t explain himself well.”

“That doesn’t sound like an ordinary mishap,” Marcille said, setting the toast back down.

“No—he’s usually a level-headed sort.” The servant hesitated a moment, then added, “I’m sure he would be grateful if the Court Magician were to look into it, if you don’t mind me saying so.”

Marcille did her best to suppress a sigh. “Of course—after breakfast.”

Falin meandered down to the dining room half an hour later—she was not a morning person—and listened patiently while Marcille half explained, half complained.

When Marcille mentioned checking in on the poultry-keeper, Falin immediately offered, “I’ll go with you.”

“Are you sure?” said Marcille. Falin’s face fell, and Marcille hastily added, “I mean, I’m always glad to have your company, you know that, I just don’t want to waste your time.”

“It’s okay,” said Falin. “I don’t exactly have anything more important I’m supposed to be spending my time on. And honestly, I’d like to do something at least a little useful. I’m not used to—” she waved her hand around her, as if to take in the whole castle— “all this.”

So Marcille had a second cup of tea while Falin finished her breakfast, and then they headed to the chicken coop together.

—

The chicken coop, as it turned out, was in an advanced state of disarray. Feathers, blood, smashed eggs, and footprints of panicked chickens covered the ground.

“Whatever it was, it only took two chickens, which isn’t very bad,” the poultry-keeper explained. “But, well, you see the mess it made. I don’t think this is the work of an ordinary fox.”

“Is there any other wildlife around here that you think might be capable of this?” Marcille asked, without much hope.

The poultry-keeper shook his head. “It could be a human up to some mischief, maybe,” he said. “But there are dogs about that would bark if they saw someone they didn’t recognize, and I trust the lads who work under me. And it’s harder than you’d think to slaughter and walk off with two chickens if you don’t know what you’re doing.”

“Wouldn’t the dogs also bark if they saw some other kind of threatening creature?” Marcille asked.

“If it was a regular animal, certainly,” the poultry-keeper said. “But if it were able to hide or disguise itself somehow, or get in

“So you think...” Falin began.

“I know it’s rare to see a monster this close to the castle,” the poultry-keeper said, a bit sheepishly, “but all of the other explanations seem just as unlikely, you know?”

“But how would a monster get here?” Falin asked.

“Oh, I have an idea,” said Marcille, and stormed off to see the king.

—

“Marcille,” Laios said gently, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Marcille snorted. “So it just so happens that we have a monster wreaking havoc in our chicken coop, and there’s one person in this castle who is known to love monsters, but he’s got nothing to do with this at all?”

“Uh, yes,” said Laios, “that is what I’m saying.”

Falin put a hand on Marcille’s arm. “I think he’s telling the truth.”

“I know,” Marcille said, deflating a bit. “I’m sorry, Laios. I guess I just wanted there to be an easy answer to this.”

Laios sighed. “Honestly, I almost wish it were me, too. But I don’t know if I could even get close enough to a monster to bring it in. You know how they all run away from me now.”

Marcille’s regret for being too hard on Laios vanished instantly. “Don’t sound so disappointed about it!” she snapped.

Falin’s grip on Marcille’s arm tightened just a little. “Since you know so much about monsters,” she said, addressing Laios, “do you have any ideas about what kind of monster it might be?”

Laios tilted his head, contemplating. “Well, probably something pretty big,” he said. “And something carnivorous or with a strong preference for meat, rather than a monster that’s more opportunistic. There’s plenty of trash to eat around here, and getting into the chicken coop would take effort.”

“I’m not sure that narrows it down much,” Marcille said.

Laios considered for another moment, then asked, “Were there tracks?”

“Tracks?”

“You know, like paw prints, or marks of a snake slithering through the dirt, that kind of thing.”

Marcille frowned. “No, I don’t think so. At least, I don’t remember seeing anything besides chicken tracks and human footprints.”

“That should help, then,” Laios said. “You’re looking for something that wouldn’t leave tracks, even when messing things up all over the chicken coop. Or a monster whose tracks would look like a human’s or a chicken’s.”

“I wouldn’t have thought of that,” Marcille admitted.

“See, so it’s a good thing you came to talk to me, after all!” Laios said brightly.

He seemed so pleased about this, and so unbothered by how the conversation had started, that it somehow made Marcille feel worse.

“Next time this happens, we’ll just ask you for help normally, instead of jumping to conclusions, won’t we, Marcille?” Falin said, equally cheerful.

Marcille hoped there wasn’t going to be a “next time”, but she decided it would be prudent not to say so.

—

Marcille figured she should check the chicken coop again to make sure she was remembering correctly about the tracks, so she and Falin headed back there.

The poultry-keeper’s apprentices were there, feeding the chickens, and Marcille realized that the everyday comings and goings around the coop would soon obscure any traces of what had happened last night. If she wanted to look for anything the monster might have left behind, she would have to do it now.

Well, she had been asked for help in her capacity as the Court Magician, so why not apply magic to the problem? She had a detection spell she could probably use for this, with just a few tweaks. She closed her eyes and began to chant.

She was making the modifications up off the cuff, but as the spell flowed out of her it felt right, which was good. Finishing the chant, she opened her eyes and looked around. The coop looked mostly the same, but there was a silver haze surrounding something she had taken to be a chicken feather. She picked it up and examined it closely. It was a white feather, and it did seem bigger than a chicken’s. A bird monster, then—that would make sense. It could drop in on the coop from above, and it wouldn’t necessarily leave footprints, though there was some question of how it had smashed the eggs and caused so much general disarray if it had simply swooped in and grabbed a chicken in each foot.

Marcille’s musings were interrupted by the sound of Falin’s voice. “... seen anything unusual?” she was saying.

“Me? No,” said the first apprentice. “I get here bright and early, but I don’t stay around in the evenings. I’ve caught Tino here sleeping in the henhouse, though.”

The second apprentice—Tino, apparently—crossed his arms. “You would too if you had a baby sister who cried all night long,” he said.

“Don’t try to pretend you’re not just crazy about birds,” said the first apprentice. “I remember when you found that fledgeling that had fallen out of the nest—”

“Shut up, Markul,” said Tino. “That’s got nothing to do with this. Anyway, I wasn’t there last night, all right? I didn’t see anything.”

“Well, thanks anyway,” said Falin. “Let’s head back to the castle, Marcille.”

Marcille could hear the boys still squabbling as they walked away.

—

“So I think it’s most likely a bird monster of some kind,” Marcille explained, holding up the feather she’d found.

“Right,” said Falin. “Yes, that does seem likely.” There was an odd note in her voice; Marcille couldn’t place it.

“I know Izutsumi loves to hunt those, so I thought we could go ask her about it—maybe she brought in something that wasn’t quite dead?”

“All right,” said Falin.

“And I promise I won’t start out by yelling this time,” Marcille added.

This light self-mockery would usually elicit a smile from Falin, or perhaps some teasing in return, but this time she just said, “That’s good.” She didn’t sound especially pleased about it, though.

—

Despite Marcille’s best efforts, Izutsumi was, if anything, more offended than Laios had been. Marcille hadn’t even finished her question before Izutsumi’s ears went back and her fur started bristling.

“You think I can’t tell if my prey is dead or not?” she said. “I might play with them a little, but I don’t bring them back here until I’m done. I don’t want to—uh, destroy this place. I live here too and all.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Marcille said. “Maybe at least you could help me figure out what kind of monster this is? I found this feather in the chicken coop.”

Marcille held the feather out to Izutsumi.

Izutsumi took it between her fingers and examined it closely. Then she sniffed it. “Hmm. Mostly smells like mud and chickens at this point. And the appearance isn’t very distinctive—this just says it’s bigger than a chicken and has some white on it somewhere.”

“Well, at least we know it’s a bird,” said Marcille.

“You know it has feathers,” Izutsumi said. “It might not be a bird. Or not completely a bird. It could be something like a cockatrice, or a ch—” Izutsumi glanced at Falin. “... Or something else.” (Clearly she’d thought better of the slightly tactless example, if not quickly enough to smoothly substitute something else.)

“But there also weren’t any tracks,” said Marcille, “so it being able to fly seems likely.”

“Mm, in that case I’d definitely look at monsters that are more bird-y first,” Izutsumi agreed. “And another thing—I may not have brought it in, but I think you’re right that someone did. I’ve never seen a monster even approach the castle walls.”

Marcille turned this over in her mind as she and Falin left Izutsumi’s chambers. Someone must have brought in the monster—but who? She’d already asked the two people she knew to have any sort of interest in monsters. But the castle grounds were home to hundreds of people, with others coming and going daily, and Marcille hadn’t made a real effort to get to know most of them. Suddenly she felt wholly inadequate to the task in front of her.

But if she didn’t have an idea of who had brought the monster in, at least she could try to figure out what kind of monster it was.

“Falin, I’m going to the library,” she said. “I’d like to look through Laios’s collection of treatises on monsters and see if I can figure out what we’re dealing with here. Do you want to join me? I know it’s been a long day, so if you just want to get some rest....”

“No, I’ll come with you,” Falin said. “I’d like to be helpful.”

She still sounded a bit off, but now didn’t seem like the time to ask about it, so they headed to the library in silence.

Once there, Marcille located the monster collection—it was, unsurprisingly, substantial—and divided the books into two stacks on the table.

“You take those,” she said, pointing to the stack nearer to Falin, “and I’ll take these. Look for anything birdlike that’s known to be aggressive.”

“Got it,” said Falin.

Marcille flipped through the pages of the top book from her stack. “Here’s one,” she said “the stymphalides. They destroy crops and livestock and will even attack humans... oh, but they’ve got razor-sharp metal feathers that they launch at their prey. The feather we found is just a regular one.”

They sat in silence for a while, leafing through their respective books, and then Falin said, “Here’s another, a bird of prey called the zhen... no, they’re poisonous. The chickens weren’t poisoned, right?”

“Well, they wouldn’t be unless they ate the zhen, would they?” Marcille mused. “But if there were toxins on the feather we found, I think Izutsumi would have noticed.”

“What about harpies?” Falin suggested.

“I think they’re more scavengers, aren’t they? I’ve heard a lot of stories of them stealing people’s food in dungeons and leaving them to starve, but I’m not sure if they kill directly. Maybe it could be a roc?”

“Those are big enough to carry off a horse, or bigger—look, it says here the flapping of their wings can create cyclones. I don’t think a chicken would be more than a mouthful for them.”

“... Maybe a baby one?” Marcille tried.

Falin frowned. “What would it be doing here without its mother?”

Marcille heaved a deep sigh. “I don’t know. I guess I’ll keep looking.”

Marcille doggedly worked through the stack of books, but by the time she got down to the last few in the pile, her eyelids were growing heavy. But she hadn’t found the right bird yet, so she had to keep going... she had to keep going... she had to....

A hand touched her shoulder; lips brushed her cheek. Marcille opened her eyes (when had she closed them?) to find Falin standing over her. She peeled herself out of the monster treatise she’d been face-down in. She hoped she hadn’t drooled on it.

“We should go to bed,” Falin said. “It’s late. You won’t be able to make any progress on this tomorrow if you don’t get some proper rest.”

“You’re right,” Marcille admitted, and let Falin lead her to their bedroom.

—

The next day, breakfast was toast again, and now the bread was clearly at least a day old.

“More problems with the chickens?” Marcille asked.

“Seems like it,” the servant who was working this morning agreed. (It was a different person from the day before, a woman this time; Marcille didn’t know her name. Was she the sort of person who would bring a monster onto the castle grounds? Marcille had no idea.)

Falin stumbled down even later than usual (understandably enough; they had been up late) and seemed, once again, subdued. Once they finished eating, Marcille said, “Why don’t we go back to our room? I’d like to talk.”

Falin startled visibly, with an expression like she’d been caught red-handed at something. Marcille hated to be the reason for that, but at the same time, she wasn’t really sure what she’d done.

“All right,” Falin said flatly.

They went back to their chambers. Marcille sat on the bed and waited for Falin to sit down next to her.

Falin, however, remained standing. “Let’s get this over with then,” she said.

Marcille blinked. “Get this—? I just wanted to know what’s wrong. You’ve been acting strange since yesterday.”

“Oh, I thought you found... I mean... I’ve just been wondering... what if it’s me?”

“Falin, you’re not making sense. What if what’s you?”

“What if it’s me killing the chickens? What if there’s something monstrous in me still and I didn’t realize, and I’m going out at night and killing chickens, and I don’t even remember it? The feather you found does look like mine.” Her voice hitched a little at the end of this, and tears glittered in her eyes. “Izutsumi thought of it too—she didn’t want to say so, but it was obvious.”

Marcille’s thoughts spun furiously. Could it be Falin? Surely not. She seized on the first counterargument that came to mind. “But the tracks—”

“Would look just like a human’s,” Falin said. “My brother mentioned that was a possibility, right? And the poultry-keeper and his apprentices had been in and out before you came, so it wouldn’t be that noticeable.”

“We share a bed,” Marcille tried next. “I would probably notice if you were going off at night to steal livestock.”

Falin shrugged. “It’s not like you wake up every time I get up at night to use the privy. And maybe my sleepwalking monster-self is very stealthy.”

Marcille played the last card available to her. “You’ve been... the way you are... the whole time we’ve lived here, and the problems only started yesterday. Why would this suddenly be happening now?”

“I don’t know,” said Falin. “But there aren’t a lot of beings like me out there, are there? I mean, there’s no one like me, really. So maybe there’s a lot that we don’t know about how it works. And maybe that’s the best explanation for why the facts don’t seem to fit any of the avian monsters that we know or have records of.”

“Maybe,” said Marcille miserably. If this was Falin’s monstrous side coming out all of a sudden, then this was all her fault, and either way the anguish the woman she loved was experiencing right now was all her fault, for bringing Falin back the way she did. But what could she have done? Refused to try? That had never been an option.

She sat there for a moment, doing her best to hold back tears, when the ray of an idea pierced the fog that filled her mind. “Let’s put something on the doors and windows tonight,” she suggested. “Something like a seal that you would have to damage to get out—paper or wax or something. If in the morning the seals are all undisturbed, then you know—we know—it’s not you.”

“And if they are disturbed?” Falin asked. “Or if the attacks stop happening once they’re in place?”

“We’ll deal with that if it happens,” Marcille said firmly.

—

Marcille should probably have gone back to the chicken coop to look for more monster traces, but with the worry for Falin that was gnawing at her, she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Most of the day, outside of meals, she spent pretending to read. If Falin noticed she’d been staring at the same page for ten minutes at a time, she didn’t say anything.

When night fell, Marcille prepared paper seals for every door and window that led out of their chambers and glued them carefully in place. Then she and Falin got into their nightclothes and climbed into bed.

For good measure, she wrapped her arms around Falin. Falin felt warm and solid and human. She was fine, right? Marcille hadn’t made an irreversible mistake back there in the dungeon. Falin was human—mostly—and she was fine.

Marcille repeated something like this to herself until she fell asleep.

—

Marcille had half expected to wake frequently in the night—whether or not Falin actually went anywhere—but despite fretful, fragmentary dreams of Falin covered in blood, she stayed asleep until the sun began shining in through the window above their bed.

She could still feel Falin’s weight on her arm, which had gone a bit numb. She did her best to extricate it without disturbing Falin, but the other woman mustn’t have been sleeping as soundly as usual. Falin’s eyes sprang open, and she dragged herself out of bed. In stocking feet and nightgown, with her hair badly mussed, she ran around the room checking all the seals.

“They’re all in one piece!” she proclaimed finally. “Let’s go check the chicken coop.” Her hand was already on the door.

“I think we should get dressed first,” said Marcille.

“Oh,” said Falin. “Right.”

They skipped breakfast and headed straight for the coop. The poultry-keeper and his apprentices were all there, attempting some hasty repairs on a section of fence that had fallen down.

“Did it happen again?” Marcille asked them.

“Yes indeed,” said the poultry-keeper grimly.

But Marcille had barely needed to hear the answer. The coop looked like a storm had hit it—a very small, very localized storm.

A storm. Something clicked into place in Marcille’s mind. The flapping of their wings can create cyclones. But if it’s only a baby....

It would be here without its mother, and Izutsumi had said someone must have brought it in. And Markul had said something about Tino caring for baby birds, and Tino hadn’t wanted him to talk about it.

“Tino,” said Marcille slowly, “do you know something about all this that you’re not telling us?”

“W— what?” said Tino, springing to his feet. “Why would I?”

“You like birds, right?” said Marcille. “You like to care for baby birds who are lost. And maybe one of them wasn’t a normal bird.” She once again pulled the feather she’d found out of her pocket. “Maybe it was the bird this feather belongs to.”

Under the stern gaze of the Court Magician, Tino, who couldn’t have been more than thirty—no, he was a tallman, so what was that, thirteen?—broke down and burst into tears. “I didn’t know!” he said. “It was big for a fledgeling, but not that big. It just grew so fast.... You’re not going to hurt it, are you?”

Marcille, whose plans had very much involved hurting the roc, wasn’t sure how to respond, but Falin put a hand on his shoulder, leaning down a little to look him in the eye. “Here’s what we’re going to do,” she said. “You and me and Court Magician Donato here are going to take your bird outside the castle walls. There’s lots of magic out there, and it should have plenty to eat. If it doesn’t come back to bother our chickens, then I promise we’ll leave it alone.”

Unless Izutsumi finds it on one of her hunting trips, Marcille thought, but of course she wasn’t going to say that.

Tino wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “Okay,” he said.

Once the three of them were well out of range of the chicken coop, Tino whistled a few notes, and the roc came to him. It was already too big to sit on his arm or shoulder, but it followed him closely as the group made their way out a less-used back gate and into the surrounding hills.

“You have to go,” Tino said to the roc. “Fly away, do you understand? Go on, go!”

Marcille wasn’t sure whether rocs understood any human language, but whether Tino’s meaning got through to it or whether it just spotted a tasty-looking hare, at last it pulled away from them and soared off into the countryside.

It had seemed surprisingly domesticated. Marcille hoped it would be all right in the wild. Except that was silly, because it was a monster. If it died out there, so much the better. Right?

Beside her, Falin was watching the roc go, smiling faintly. When it became a speck on the horizon, she turned to Marcille. “Well, all’s well that ends well, then,” she said. “Shall we go home?” She held out a hand.

Marcille took it, and together they headed back towards the castle.

It was a good outcome, she supposed. The threat was gone, at least for now, and hopefully Laios’s power would keep it from coming back. The woman she loved—while perhaps a tiny bit monstrous—had been proved not to be sleepwalking to massacre chickens. She had avoided earning the enmity of the poultry-keeper’s second apprentice.

And maybe tomorrow she could finally have that omelet.