A small bird by Aprilertuile  

Tyelkormo was just walking in the woods, his hunting bow and a knife on him as always just in case, but he didn’t anticipate the need to hunt. It was just a bit of wandering for the sheer pleasure of it.

Huan had gone with him, as ever, thought right now, he had gone running a bit farther away beneath the trees.

Tyelkormo wasn’t worried: the day was clear, and there was so far no sign of danger. If Huan needed help, he’d call him or run back to him. 

The morning was still a bit fresh, but not cold, it was early in the day still, and the day would grow warmer, though not yet overly warm as it would in summer. Tyelkormo enjoyed the season, the fast paced awakening of nature, the generous plants coming out from their slumber, the flowers that started to pop up in the grass and on the trees.

He could see the light of Laurelin play wonderful designs of light ray in between the tree branches, showing clearly the new life coming back to this area of Valinor.

There really was nothing as beautiful as walking through the woods in spring.

Tyelkormo was eyeing a particularly fetching tree, considering the merits of climbing into its branches, when he heard Huan call to him.

The young elf started walking toward his animal companion. He wasn’t running but he was definitely walking faster than before.

Thankfully, it hadn’t been a signal of alarm, more like a ‘I found something interesting, come and see’.

Huan was lying on the floor next to a tree, and he didn’t raise his head when Tyelkormo joined him, though his tail was wagging in happy welcome.

And Tyelkormo saw indeed.

Between the dog’s paws, clearly shivering of cold, was a baby bird very clearly not of age to fly.

It was spring but the weather was really not that good for such a young bird.

“Where is your nest little one?” Tyelkormo murmured, curious.

But the bird didn’t answer, chirping mindlessly what was a sound of pure ‘I’m here’ ‘Find me, I’m here’, and not something Tyelkormo could build on.

The young elf chirped softly, reassuringly. It was a little blue tit, he could tell. Those birds were so cute...

There was an answering chirp from above and Tyelkormo looked up with a focused face.

“Aha! I think I found the nest, Huan!”

The dog barked happily and Tyelkormo picked up the baby bird, before starting to climb the tree. He was very careful to keep the hand that held the bird relaxed. He didn’t want to injure the poor animal that started slowly to get warmer in his hand.

In the nest, there were two other young, and an adult.

“That’s a very small clutch my friend, and quite early in the season too.” Tyelkormo noted, chirping at the bird.

The young elf put the baby bird back into the nest, the parent answering in outrageous and angry thrills at him:

“Perfect clutch, perfect time.” With some added expletives about him being featherless anyway so what would he know of those things.

Tyelkormo cackled at that. He knew birds could be quite the adorable judgemental little assholes, and this one made no exception.

Most birds reminded him of his brother Makalaurë. A beautiful voice, beautiful adornment in the form of colourful feathers, and the ability to say the most beautiful things or to hide insults in the strangest ways.

Tyelkormo was sitting on a sturdy branch, his legs balancing to a music he could almost hear, even as he was listening to the bird telling him of the best places to find caterpillars for its chicks. And they needed a lot of caterpillars, because the chicks were always hungry.

A chick that wasn’t hungry was either a sleeping chick or a dead chick, the bird told him.

Funnily enough, Tyelkormo was sure his own mother had once used similar words to describe her children.

Tyelkormo looked down on the floor to find that Huan had already gone ahead probably, and shrugged, turning his attention back to the bird.

“And which caterpillars do your chicks prefer, small beautiful one?” He chirped, happy to keep talking to the sociable bird.

Blue tits were always sociable birds, always singing to one another, be it in friendship or in alarm.

“Small, juicy and fat.” The answer came.

Tyelkormo chuckled at that. He should have known.

The elf was nodded along, chirping short answers and little questions until one had the blue tit trying to tell him how dangerous the woods were.

Which, fair, the woods could be dangerous particularly for a being the size of a blue tit:

“Not long ago, really not long, my chicks were just round little eggs, just round eggs...”

The repetitive format of the bird’s speech made Tyelkormo think of some of Makalaurë’s songs.

He’ll never be able to see his brother as anything but an airhead songbird if that continued.

“It was almost bright light, very bright...”

Tyelkormo translated that as either Laurelin’s dawn hours, or about lunch time when Laurelin’s light was at the brightest.

“When suddenly a giant beast came to my poor little nest.”

Now what could be considered giant for a blue tit...? Tyelkormo wondered, offering just a few mindless chirps of attention.

“It was furry and dark, eyes like a light bloom but dangerous and full of blood.”

Tyelkormo blinked at that. Light bloom tended to be bird speech for the tree’s flowers and leaves. So... Luminous eyes perhaps? The colour of blood? Hm... Perhaps a bit of an exaggeration there.

“It came by surprise, hissing with teeth bigger than me. My poor little eggs. I had to fly away! I had to fly high and far, and I flew and flew, and flew high above.”

Tyelkormo had no doubt the bird flew away, but doubted strongly that it flew so high and far, birds, really… 

“I am good at flying. Well you wouldn’t know of course, featherless that you are, poor thing.”

Tyelkormo giggled at that.

“I’m fine as I am, fast flying one.”

“Finally, finally the monster left, I saw it leave with my own eyes, and I could come back to my nest. My poor little eggs were so frightened. Those were all I had left. The monster ate the others. It ate my eggs! But it left! I could finally come back and my little eggs survived!”

Tyelkormo was listening intently, taken by the tale of the chicks breaking the eggs and coming out, until he felt a hand curl over his ankle, over his boots and tug softly. Not enough to make him fall but enough to pull his attention.

He yelped at that and glared at the being just under his branch:

“You make a strange bird, I don’t think such a small nest would suit you, Little Hunter.” Oromë commented with amusement, even as Huan was starting to play with other hounds on Oromë’s trail.

“I’m afraid I’m more of a hunting bird than a songbird, my lord.... And I dare hope I’m a tad less chatty.” Tyelkormo answered amused, letting the Vala pull him back down on the floor.

“Just so you know, the predator in this one’s tale had been a cat.”

“That would match the description, yes.” Tyelkormo said with a laugh. 

“Really?” Oromë asked with a raised eyebrow.

He was more than familiar with bird-speech and if crows and ravens were good conversationalists, song-birds were just terrible gossip prone to exaggerate everything.

“You get used to translating the birds’ descriptions, you know.” Tyelkormo noted with a toothy smile.

“The cat ate two eggs before it was distracted by a mouse on the ground.”

“It’s still a very small clutch then.” Tyelkormo remarked for the Vala who nodded.

“Their first one, the hazard of it you know.”

“I wish them well then...”

“Oh I wouldn’t worry too much, the nest is really in a nice place and he didn’t lie about the caterpillar amount in the area.”

“How long have you been listening, my lord?” Tyelkormo asked with a raised eyebrow.

“I was curious about what Huan was alerting you about.”

“Ah! You can talk of birds, my lord, but you’re as nosy as they can be.”

Oromë laughed, frightening the small blue tit above that flew away.

Again.

Tyelkormo briefly wondered what exaggerated story the small feathered thing would tell about this encounter. He almost wanted to stay to know.

Oh well. Perhaps he could come back soon and meet the bird again. He would certainly have more tales to tell then.

And in the meantime, the small blue tit could witness from the sky, the young elf running away with the Master of the Hunt and his hounds, their voices mixing with the dogs’ barks in the air of this fine spring day, before they were joined by others, loud laughter warning the animals around of the presence of the Hunt.

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