Chapter 4: Feathers of Trust

Chapter 4 Illustration

Days turned into weeks, and Prince's life transformed in ways he could never have imagined. Daksha's wing was healing well—the splint had come off after two weeks, though she still favored it when moving. But more importantly, a friendship unlike any Prince had ever known blossomed between them.

Every morning, Prince woke to Daksha's soft humming—those strange, haunting melodies from her world that somehow made his small bedroom feel like a sanctuary. Every evening, they talked for hours, Daksha perched on his shoulder or the headboard of his bed, Prince lying back and staring at the ceiling as they exchanged stories.

Prince told Daksha about his parents—memories he had shared with no one else. How his mother used to dance with him in the kitchen when his father played old records. How his father taught him to identify constellations from their small balcony. How the car accident that took them happened on a rainy night when they were coming home from a movie—a movie Prince had begged to see.

"It wasn't your fault," Daksha said gently when he confessed the guilt he had carried for years. "Love doesn't assign blame. Your parents would want you to remember the joy, not the pain."

In turn, Daksha shared stories of her world—Veloria, she called it. A civilization of beings who had evolved beyond physical limitations, who could manipulate the very fabric of reality, but who had sacrificed their emotions in pursuit of perfect logic.

"Imagine a world of perfect order," she explained one night. "Cities that gleam with impossible architecture. Technology that can reshape matter, fold space, even alter time. But no music. No art. No laughter. No tears."

"It sounds... empty," Prince said.

"Yes," Daksha agreed. "Empty is precisely the word. They achieved perfection at the cost of their souls."

At school, Prince remained quiet, but something had changed. He walked taller. He met people's eyes. When Amar and his friends tried to provoke him, their words seemed to slide off him like water. He had a secret now—a friend who saw his worth, who found him interesting and kind and worthy of trust.

"You're different lately," his English teacher remarked one day after class. "More present. It suits you, Prince."

He had smiled, thinking of Daksha. "I guess I found my voice," he said.

At home, he was careful to keep Daksha hidden from his uncle, though Ravi rarely entered Prince's room anyway. On the few occasions when his uncle did knock on his door, Daksha would hide in the closet or under the bed, silent and patient until it was safe to emerge.

"He wouldn't understand," Prince explained apologetically after one such close call.

"Few would," Daksha replied with what Prince had come to recognize as her version of a shrug—a slight ruffle of her feathers. "Understanding requires openness, and openness requires vulnerability. Many find that too frightening to attempt."

It was remarks like these—casual observations that cut to the heart of human nature—that reminded Prince of just how extraordinary his friend truly was.

One Saturday, nearly a month after their first meeting, Prince suggested they return to the jungle.

"Your wing seems strong enough now," he said as they shared breakfast—toast for him, a selection of fruits and nuts for her. "And I thought you might like to see more of this world than just my bedroom."

Daksha's feathers brightened—a phenomenon Prince had noticed happened when she was excited or happy. "I would like that very much," she said. "This form... it longs for open spaces, for the feel of wind beneath its wings."

Prince packed a small bag with water, snacks, and his journal. Then, with Daksha perched on his shoulder, he slipped out of the house and headed for the jungle.

It was a perfect day—warm but not hot, with a gentle breeze that rustled the leaves and carried the scent of wildflowers. As they entered the dense canopy of trees, Prince felt a sense of homecoming. This place had always been his refuge, but now, sharing it with Daksha, it felt even more special.

"This is where I found you," he said as they reached the small clearing with the fallen log. "You were right there, on that patch of moss."

Daksha flew from his shoulder to the spot, her flight still slightly uneven but strong. She landed and looked around, as if seeing the place for the first time—which, Prince realized, she probably was. She had been too injured that night to take in her surroundings.

"It's beautiful," she said, her amber eyes taking in the dappled sunlight, the vibrant greens of the foliage, the small wildflowers dotting the clearing. "Your world has such... vitality. Such raw, untamed life."

Prince sat on the log, watching as Daksha explored the clearing, hopping from spot to spot, occasionally taking short flights to examine a flower or leaf more closely.

"Can I ask you something?" he said after a while.

Daksha flew back to perch beside him on the log. "Of course."

"You said you were exiled because you discovered emotions, because you questioned your people's way of life. But... how? If emotions were purged from your society, how did you find them again?"

Daksha was quiet for a moment, her gaze distant. "There were... artifacts," she finally said. "Records from before the Great Purge. Most were destroyed, but some were preserved in sealed archives, meant to serve as warnings of what our civilization had overcome."

"And you found these archives?"

"I was a Keeper of Records," Daksha explained. "It was my duty to maintain the historical archives, to ensure they remained intact but inaccessible to the general population. Only those with special clearance could enter the deepest vaults."

"And you had that clearance," Prince guessed.

"Yes. I spent centuries cataloging, preserving, never questioning. Until one day..." Her voice trailed off, her feathers dimming slightly.

"What happened?" Prince prompted gently.

"I found a book," Daksha said softly. "A physical book—an object so ancient that few in my world would even recognize it. It contained... poetry."

"Poetry?" Prince repeated, surprised. It seemed such a simple thing to cause an exile.

"Yes. Words arranged not just for information but for beauty. For feeling. I had never encountered anything like it. The words... they awakened something in me. Something that had been dormant, suppressed, but never fully eliminated from our genetic memory."

Prince tried to imagine it—a being from an emotionless civilization encountering poetry for the first time. The shock, the awakening, the revelation.

"What was the poem about?" he asked.

Daksha's feathers brightened again, and she recited in a voice that seemed to resonate with the very air around them:

"In the silence between stars, Where void meets light, I found the echo of your voice— A memory of warmth in endless night.

Time bends around your absence, Space curves to fill your shape. I reach across dimensions For what my heart cannot escape.

They say love is a weakness, A flaw in perfect design. But I have tasted infinity And found it less divine Than the imperfect miracle Of your soul touching mine."

The words hung in the air, beautiful and haunting. Prince felt a shiver run through him—not of cold, but of recognition. Though the poem spoke of experiences beyond his understanding, the emotion behind it resonated deeply.

"That's beautiful," he whispered.

"Yes," Daksha agreed. "It was written by a poet named Lyra, just before the Great Purge. She was among the last to be... corrected."

The way she said the word—corrected—made Prince's skin crawl. "What did they do to her?"

"They removed the part of her brain that could feel emotion," Daksha said matter-of-factly. "Later, as their technology advanced, they developed more sophisticated methods—genetic modifications, neural reprogramming. But the goal was always the same: to eliminate what they saw as the source of all conflict, all irrationality."

"Love," Prince said.

"Love, hate, joy, sorrow—all of it. The full spectrum of emotional experience." Daksha hopped closer to him. "After I found that poem, I couldn't stop. I began to secretly study all the preserved artifacts. Art, music, literature. I began to... feel. And once I started, I couldn't stop that either."

"So they found out and exiled you?"

"Not immediately. I was careful at first. But emotions change you. They affect how you move, how you speak, the decisions you make. Eventually, my colleagues noticed the changes. They reported me to the Council of Purity."

Prince felt a surge of anger on her behalf. "They betrayed you for being alive."

"They thought they were helping me," Daksha said, her voice free of bitterness. "In their understanding, I was suffering from a dangerous contamination. They couldn't comprehend that what I had found was not a disease but a cure."

They sat in silence for a while, the jungle alive with sounds around them—birds calling, insects buzzing, leaves rustling in the breeze. Prince thought about Daksha's world, about the sterile perfection she had described, and compared it to the wild, messy vitality of the jungle. He couldn't imagine choosing order over this vibrant chaos.

"Do you miss it?" he asked finally. "Your world? Your old life?"

Daksha seemed to consider the question carefully. "I miss certain things," she admitted. "Knowledge that I had accumulated over centuries. The ability to move through dimensions at will. The vastness of the cosmos that was open to me." She turned her amber eyes to him. "But I do not miss the emptiness. The cold perfection. The silence where there should have been song."

Prince nodded, understanding. Then a thought occurred to him. "You said you spent centuries cataloging records. How... how old are you?"

Daksha made that sound again—the one that Prince had come to recognize as laughter. "Time works differently in Veloria. But in your terms... I have existed for what you would call millennia."

Prince stared at her, trying to comprehend. This being—this ancient, interdimensional entity—had chosen to share her secrets with him, a nobody from a small town who talked to plants because he had no friends.

"Why me?" he asked, the question escaping before he could stop it. "Of all the people on Earth you could have connected with, why did you choose me?"

Daksha's eyes softened. "I didn't choose, Prince. Not consciously. When I was exiled, cast through the dimensional rift, I was in pain, disoriented. But something guided me—the last spell I cast before they stripped my powers. A spell of connection, of finding."

"What kind of spell?"

"I asked the universe to find me someone who understood loneliness as I did. Someone who could teach me about the emotions I had only begun to discover. Someone whose heart called to mine across the void." She hopped onto his knee, looking up at him. "The universe sent me to you."

Prince felt tears prick at his eyes. The idea that the universe—that anything—would specifically connect him to someone else seemed impossible. Yet here was Daksha, this miraculous being, telling him that of all the souls on Earth, his was the one that matched hers.

"I'm nobody special," he whispered.

"That," Daksha said firmly, "is the first lie you must unlearn if you are to heal. You are unique in all the multiverse, Prince. There has never been and will never be another consciousness exactly like yours. That makes you infinitely precious, infinitely special."

A tear slipped down Prince's cheek. He brushed it away quickly, embarrassed.

"Tears are nothing to be ashamed of," Daksha said gently. "They are sacred in their way—physical manifestations of emotion so strong it cannot be contained within the body. On Veloria, the ability to cry was one of the first things they eliminated."

Prince nodded, letting the next tear fall unchecked. "I'm glad you found me," he said simply.

"As am I," Daksha replied. "Now, shall we explore more of this beautiful jungle? I would like to test my wings properly, if you'll keep watch to ensure I don't strain them too much."

Prince smiled, grateful for the shift to a lighter topic. "Race you to that big tree," he said, pointing to a massive banyan about fifty yards away.

Daksha's feathers brightened to an almost blinding emerald. "You're challenging an interdimensional being to a race? Bold of you, Prince. Bold indeed."

And with that, she took off, her flight still slightly uneven but surprisingly fast. Prince laughed and ran after her, his heart lighter than it had been in years.

In that moment, racing through the jungle with an exiled alien parrot, Prince felt something he had almost forgotten existed: joy. Pure, uncomplicated joy.

And somewhere deep inside, a part of him that had been closed off for too long began to open, like a flower turning toward the sun.