Flora picked up her skirts and walked back towards the door they had come through, but she stopped dead in her tracks as an overwhelmingly horrible sensation came over her. She clutched her chest, having trouble trouble taking in air. Flora didn't know what was going on; it was as if her body was in pain, but she didn't have any injuries. The phantom pain began to subside as she backed away from the door. Her body connected with something as she gulped in air.
Lifting her head she saw Prince Andrei behind her with a confused look on his face. "Is something wrong princess?" he spoke skeptically. He must have thought that this was a ploy of some kind to garner his attention.
Like before with Koffee, a word flashed through her brain, "help". She ignored the prince as she looked around the room for the source of the emotion. "Is Koffee alright?" She looked back at the prince's bird, but she was contentedly chewing on her rope. Maybe another bird was crying out for help? Oh gods, how was she going to make this feeling go away? Flora was still filled with a mixture of dread and pain as she walked around the aviary.
A faint sound came from one of the caged nests as she walked by, causing her to backpaddle. Flora squinted into the dim alcove, searching for something even she was unsure of. A gasp escaped her as she found the source of the suffering. In between the cage and the stone of the wall, a bird's wing was caught. Upon seeing Flora, the bird tried yanking out her wing from the gate unsuccessfully.
Flora jumped toward the gate, fumbling with the door as she cooed, "no, don't struggle. I'll help you, just calm down." As if it understood, the bird stilled, staring directly at Flora. She cursed as she tried to open the latch, eventually getting it undone. The door swung open, and the bird flailed its wings haphazardly with little energy, but didn't move from its spot. Flora pivoted and shouted to the prince, "your highness! Please come here; she needs help!" Focusing back on the creature, Flora gently caressed its head with a knuckle and whispered, "it's going to be alright. I'll help you."
The prince appeared next to Flora, a serious expression on his face. "May I?" Flora knew he wasn't addressing her as he reached toward the bird, gently examining the wing that was caught in the door. This time, Prince Andrei addressed Flora, "it looks like her wing may be broken." He went and retrieved some first aid supplies from one of the shelves and came back. "The problem is, I don't know if I can properly stint this wing. I will make her a makeshift brace for now, but as soon as I'm done, I'll need to find one of the keepers." The prince got to work, wrapping the broken wing with gauze and light splints. Every time he placed a new splint on the wing, the bird called out, but he would calmly soothe her, "I'm trying to help you; it's alright." When she was fully bandaged, Prince Andrei spun towards Flora and said, "This is all I can do right now. I'm going to find one of the keepers, so you can head back to wherever you were going."
"No." There was no way in hell Flora was going to leave without seeing the bird in better condition. She couldn't describe it, but she felt a special connection with the animal. The bird had called out to her for help, and she intended to see it through. "I'm not leaving your highness."
The prince only nodded as he left the aviary, returning after a long while with a short, stubby man with plain brown hair. He was dressed in brown leathers worn from both movement and surface damage. He wore leather guarders on his arms, both decorated with deep claw marks. The man approached the alcove scratching his chin and said in an accent, "so your highness did some splinting?"
"Yes, I did what I could for now. I need you to properly take care of the break."
The keeper nodded, and pulled off a pack from his back. He reached into it, and pulled out similar supplies to what the prince used, but he also had strange looking tools to utilize. "Your highness did vell splinting this wing. I just need to make a few adjustments." He finished up fixing the wound and turned toward Prince Andrei. "This vill take some time before she can heal, but now she needs some rest."
Prince Andrei nodded towards the keeper and then made to leave, earning a bitter glance from Flora. Was he really just going to leave like that? Noticing Flora's disdain, he said, "there is no one better to care for her than Dellon. There is nothing else I can do here princess, so I will take my leave."
The keeper, Dellon, bowed to the prince as he left the aviary. Dellon addressed Flora as soon as the door clicked shut. "His highness is right. I vill make her something to soothe the pain, and she vill need to rest. I suspect she vill be out at least until the morning your highness, so you might vant to leave for today." He bowed to her and then went to a work table towards the back of the room, pulling out a small chest with numerous compartments.
Not ready to let the issue lie, she followed the keeper over to the table he was working at. "How will I know that she is alright though? What if something happens during the night?" Flora watched as Dellon emptied some herbs out of paper envelopes and into a mixing bowl.
As he was grinding the medicine, he answered, trying to focus both on her and his work. "I've seen many broken wings your highness. She vill be just fine. If your highness is still concerned, I suggest you visit her in the morning." Dellon emptied the contents of the bowl into a small bit of water, passing Flora to go back towards the wounded bird. As he fed her the medicine slowly, he cautiously added, "she might be too bothered vith company around."
Although Flora understood that the keeper was trying to shoo her away, she was still concerned. "Do you promise she will be alright?" Flora needed verbal confirmation before she left.
Still feeding the bird, the keeper reluctantly answered, "nothing is for sure in this life, but I can close to guarantee she vill be alright until the morning." He gave her a sturdy look that Flora had seen before. Dellon was getting agitated, but he would never say such to a royal. Taking this as her que, Flora nodded and headed back to her chambers. She decided that she would be back at the aviary first thing in the morning.
* * *
Barely able to sleep the whole night, Flora tossed and turned. When the first rays of the morning sun peeked through her window, she threw off the covers and quickly washed up. Not needing Amelia, Flora threw on the simplest dress she could find in her chests. She would really need to organize those soon... It was difficult by herself, but Flora was able to lace her corset up by holding the ribbon with her teeth and contorting herself. The last things she did were throw on a pair of boots and fling on a cloak to keep her warm.
It took her quite awhile, but she eventually found the back tower with the help of servants she saw in the halls. By the time Flora was in the aviary, the sun had risen and was shining bright morning light into the airy room. She made her way quietly to the bird's cage, silently staring into the dark nest. The bird sluggishly opened it eyes, staring right back at her. Thank the mother, she was still alive. "I didn't mean to wake you." The bird shuffled its body a bit as if to say it was alright. She winced in pain with the movement. Like the day before, Flora seemed to feel a sense of what the animal was going through. It was as if there was a pain inside of Flora that she couldn't pinpoint the location of.
The sound of footsteps came from behind her as a lanky boy approached her. He fumbled a bow and asked, "my lady, vhat seems to bring you here?" The boy must have been in his teens, maybe only a few years younger than Flora. He had dark blonde hair that was on the verge of turning brown. His face was clean with acne, but his clothes were dirty, probably from his morning chores. His clothes were similar to Dellon's, but he didn't have the arm guarders that the older man had worn.
He definitely didn't know who Flora was, which she was going to take full advantage of. She had found that if people didn't know she was a princess, they tended to be more loose lipped. "I wanted to see how this bird was doing. She had a broken wing that one of the keepers fixed up."
The boy looked into the cage, sighing. "Yeah, she vill be ok, but she probably won't be healed up all the way."
"What do you mean? Can't a broken wing be cured with time and attention?" Flora was worried that the bird wouldn't be able to fly again. Would she end up like Koffee, waiting around for someone to carry her places or even worse, confined to a cage for the rest of her life?
"Yes my lady, but this one," the boy paused thinking of his next words carefully, "she is known to escape."
"But why would that keep her from healing properly?"
He shuffled his feet nervously, clearly not used to being questioned so brutally. "Vell, you see my lady, if a phoenix doesn't behave properly, then it's hard to justify devoting so much time to healing them." Anger rose up in Flora from the callousness of it all. He waved his hands in front of himself as he added, "well, she von't be crippled, she just von't be able to fly like she used to."
Even after the boy explained that the bird could fly again, Flora wasn't satisfied. "So you have the ability to fix her wing, but you won't?" Flora couldn't hid the ire from her voice as she continued, "why was she even put in this cage so haphazardly that her wing was LITERALLY broken from being slammed in the door? How can someone make a mistake like that?"
The boy only balked at her as he was on the receiving end of her rage. The boy stammered, "my lady, it vas probably an accident. The keeper probably didn't notice she vas caught. They put her in there because she kept disappearing." He looked at Flora hopefully, but his eyes kept darting from the princess to the bird.
Seeing how anxious the boy was, Flora couldn't help but feel a pang of guilt. He obviously wasn't involved in the decisions around the aviary. Most likely, he was similar to a stable boy, cleaning the aviary for the keepers. Calming herself, Flora still had to ask, "explain to me why she isn't going to be back to her original health. It's possible, right?"
He was still nervous, but seemed a tad bit more comfortable as he responded, "the keepers are very busy managing the phoenixes, so they von't have time to nurse her back to health." He glanced at Flora's face, seeing if she had a negative reaction. "Since she is a runner, it is just too much time to get her back all the vay."
Shifting his weight back and forth, Flora saw how much he wanted to end the conversation. "Alright, then tell me what to do, and I will take care of her." She was past being determined at this point.
"Uh... yes, yes my lady," the boy stuttered back, running to the shelves to get some supplies. He opened the cage and laid out the medical equipment.
Before he started, Flora asked, "now what was your name?"
"Pell my lady."
"Alright Pell, now let's get to work."