Light of Heart (LGBT+) ✔

Feather Quest

She doesn't expect to find a hut in the jungle. She cuts through plants, wipes off the sweat on her forehead, and there it is: a minuscule hut in the jungle. It's brown and green, more plant and mud than hut, but she can see walls and a roof, a curtain of leaves and feather in the door opening. They're beautiful feathers, carmine, honey, teal, muddy grey but with a shimmer, woven into a hypnotising pattern. They're a thousand times more gorgeous than the ones she's already collected to sell to the feather artists.

Her hands itch. Could she? Not from the curtain, no, that's more trouble than its's worth, but if someone can make a curtain like that, surely they'll have more feathers inside. She could take one. Or two, or three. Nobody would miss them. This person lives in the middle of the jungle. They have time to gather more. She has to go back to the village and take care of her father. It's been five sun cycles since she left. Her brother is still there, but he looks more at the girl he fancies than at her father when he wanders off to the edge of the village, calling out for their mother and rubbing soil in his face.

When she steps closer, however, she notices the bird. The roof is mostly flat, but it perches on the edge, hidden behind branches and leaves, fading into the shadows. Its feathers are of the same muddy grey as used in the curtain, glinting in the sunlight that filters all the way down through the dense mass of vegetation. 'Muddy grey' doesn't do it justice. She wants to catch it.

"It's mesmerising, isn't it?" a husky voice utters. The person stands at the edge of the clearing – if you can even call it that – where she just came from. They're tall, and their hair is long. They look old, even though she can barely see any wrinkles.

When her words return, she replies: "It is. Is it yours?"

The person chuckles. "It's only mine if it wishes to be. But by the grace of the deities, it has been my companion for many years."

She doesn't answer. The person's presence complicates her plans, both to grab feathers from inside the hut and to catch the bird.

"What brings you here, young lady? Not many venture so far and find their way back."

"I will," she says, but it's not a conscious response. "But I'm not a lady."

The person shakes their head. "You are. Others might not see it, but I always see more. They didn't see me either, so I learned to see myself, and through myself, I learned to see others. You're a lady."

Elation wells up in her chest. "I'm collecting feathers to sell. Would you gift me some of yours?"

"And what will you give me?" They don't sound severe. This is just a bargain.

She hesitates. She only has what she needs with her, but those feathers will be worth so much more than the others. "What do you want?"

"Your snake tooth." She clasps the tooth of the snake she killed to prove her manhood. She can part with that. She drops the tooth in the seer's hand. They duck into the hut and come out with twice as many feathers as she's already gathered.

"Remember," they say, "you can kill snakes and still fly like a bird." And she's already floating.

***

Author's Note: This was written for the photo prompt from CeeMTaylor's blog! I had a lot of fun diving into the more fantastical side of things again, and these prompts might mean more frequent updates while I'm working on other projects.

I'm not totally happy with the ending, so if anyone has feedback, very welcome :).