#She keeps birds, of all kinds – the big, the small, and the inbetween – and they live in cages and in terrariums, in vast enclosures. She keeps them behind bars, both filigree and wrought-iron; she keeps them behind glass, but only ever the clever ones (the simple ones simply thump thump thump until they break their wings or snap their necks or worse). They are pretty things, the birds that she keeps, with wings the color of soot and sky, of jewel and cloud, of rushing water and fiery depths. In a myriad of voices they chatter and sing, and only she, their keeper, understands the song. They serve many purposes, the bird keeper’s birds; they are company and decoration and passing obsession. They remind her, with their jet black eyes, impenetrable and wet and flat as stones, of what it means to keep and to be kept, there difference that lies therein, and that she should be one and not the other. No longer a bird, but a keeper, remember. And she does, she remembers; she does. #the bird keeper's birds #alternative universes #lady vengeance #a bird no longer #mockeries
