Sweetcherrie finds Troy

[Sweetcherrie]

The letters on the paper had started dancing before her eyes. The target group had hooked up with the other marketing terms and the SWOT analysis she made was surely drunk. Sweetcherrie closed the case she had been studying and pressed her fingers against the temples of her forehead. This client wanted the impossible and had trouble to formulate his wishes. She had been trying to fins a middle way between costs and needs, but it had become later and later, and she still hadn’t found a solution. She closed her laptop and looked at the clock, it was already almost midnight. She decided to go for a walk in the Pen keep gardens, and hoped that some fresh air would clear up the fog that had taken over her brain. She flicked the lights off, and firmly closed the door behind her. She walked through the dark halls of the penkeep and walked into the gardens. For a moment she thought about which path to take best, and decided that she would go towards the lake. She pushed a few low hanging branches out of the way and firmly stepped on. The gardens were magical even in the dark; a strong scent of flowers hung in the air, and the screeches of different owls sounded through the night. She hoped not to walk into someone, she loved every pennite, but tonight she just wanted to be alone with her thoughts. It was a warm summer night and the air was humidly weighing down on her. Crickets were joyfully singing their song and the occasional frog joined in for backing vocals. When she reached the lake she sat down on the side and dreamily stared over the water. Thousands of stars reflected in the wrinkleless surface with the moonlight to guide them. She dipped her finger in the water and watched the circles that were slowly growing bigger. The water felt warm and it was tempting to go for a nightly swim, but firstly she didn’t have a bathing suit, and secondly she didn’t exactly trust the lake in the Pen keep; who knew what creatures lived in there. She was in a mellow romantic mood, and on one hand she wished that there was someone to share it with, but on the other it was nice to have some time to herself. She plucked a grass stalk and put it in her mouth, it even tasted like summer. She lay down on her back and stared at the stars, they seemed to wink at her in turn, and she wished that they could give her the answer to her client’s problem. She listened to the crickets and some bubbles that had found their way to the surface of the lake, and slowly she felt her headache go away.

 

Sweetcherrie knew she had to go back soon, and find that solution because her client would expect her to present one in the morning, but she just lazily lay in the grass, not feeling quite ready yet to go back. Suddenly she heard a sound of snapping twigs, but when she lifted up her head to see who it was, there was nobody there. She didn’t worry about it too much, since she had arrived in the Pen keep she had seen and heard so many weird things, and although some of them had been somewhat frightening in the beginning, she had quickly learned that she was safe here. The sound repeated and she wondered if it was some sort of animal that was making this noise. She got up and cautiously walked into the direction the sound had come from. Coming closer to a big bush the sound became louder, all of a sudden she smelled smoke and seconds later a blinding flash made her stumble backwards and fall down graciously on her bum. Temporarily blinded by the flash she tried to make out what was happening inside the bush, which was now blazing with fire. She shook her head and looked away from the light fro a minute. With a shock she realised that whatever animal was in that bush, it was now in danger of getting burned alive. Sweetcherrie quickly took of her shirt and started to smother the flames with it. Soon her shirt was nothing more but a black rag, but the fire seemed to be tamed. She took a closer look and saw a little brown bird sitting in the middle of the ashes. It was squeaking happily and it almost sounded as if it was screeching “mommy”. Egg shelves were lying next to the little bird and a mother bird was nowhere to be seen. The tale feathers of the brown bird were of a glowing red colour with blue, flaming tips at the ends. Big blue eyes were looking up at her, a glow of infantile trust was glowing within them and the little chick was clumsily trying to get up. Sweetcherrie’s heart melted when she saw the effort it took for the little bird to stand, and she moved forward to help it on its feet. The bird rubbed his head lovingly against her cheek, and flapped happily with the short wings. In its enthusiasm the bird knocked Sweetcherrie of her feet again, and stumbled in her arms. There it settled close to her, and with some joyous squeaks closed his eyes and fell asleep. Tenderly she placed her arms around him and got up from the floor, careful not to wake the little one up. She had no idea what to do next but decided that she would take him back to the Pen keep, and hopefully she would meet someone that could help her. Maybe some of the other pennites knew what sort of animal it was and what it ate, because he would probably wake up with an empty stomach. When she entered the Pen keep, she hesitated for a moment, Peredhil would probably know what to do with the bird, but she really didn’t want to disturb him at this late hour, and Gwaihir would probably also be able to help, but she didn’t know him too well. Sweetcherrie frowned and looked at the sleeping brown pile of fluff in her arms. It was an adoring sight, but she had no idea how to take care of it, and didn’t even know if it would still be this cute when it grew up.

[Sweetcherrie]

She stood there for a moment hesitating what she should do, and finally decided that she would take the bird back to her room. She still had some fruit, and maybe it would want to eat some of that. She walked back to her room; with one hand she made a fluffy nest of pillows for the animal, and softly put the bird down. The beautiful head stirred for a moment, but it only rolled itself up and kept sleeping. She looked at her clothes, and was surprised to see that, although the flaming feathers of the young bird were still weak, her clothes were not burned. She shook her head in surprise, and looked back at the sleeping bird. He was still softly glowing, and she wondered again what sort of bird it would be. Her eyes fell on her laptop. The ventilator was softly buzzing to save the laptop from getting overheated, and she decided that she could always try to find some information on the mana Internet. She had only recently managed to get it installed, with a little help from Pillow, and she hoped that the connection would not let her down. With the sound of twinkling bells the screens started glowing brightly. Her old laptop moaned under the job she asked it to do, but stayed faithful nonetheless, and seconds later the Pen keep logo started dancing as a 3d hologram in front of her. The swords slowly turned in the air and seemed to reflect light. She still had to get used to the fact that she didn’t have to work with a mouse and had already moved her hand towards it when she remembered that she could just think of what she wanted and the program would pick it up.

 

“I would like some information on bird species, please.” The swords turned faster and disappeared, instead a list of bird pictures with their names behind it appeared in front of her. It was a funny sight, the birds were all walking or eating, and some of them were even sound asleep. She didn’t see a bird that looked like the one she had found and decided that she probably needed to be more specific. “Bird species that have fiery feathers, please.” She told the computer. A 3D image of her bird appeared in front of her, it lazily spread its wings and rolled up like the bird in her room had done. This bird however looked different than hers, it was bigger and it also seemed to have more flaming feathers, “Phoenix” it said next to the picture. Sweetcherrie wondered what exactly a phoenix would eat, and immediately the computer started gauging up information.

 

“Phoenixes are extremely rare, some peoples even believe that only one exists at a time. Nobody has ever seen phoenix eat or drink, and they still live for hundreds of years.” At this point Sweetcherrie stopped reading, and looked at the sleeping bird. It would live for hundreds of years; it appeared that she would be stuck with it for a long, long time. At least it didn’t need food. She sighed and continued reading. “The phoenix is believed to posess great magical powers.” A picture of an adult phoenix appeared and showed how it could be trained in healing, defence and attacking. “When the bird dies, it makes a nest of myrrh and sets this ablaze, from the ashes a new phoenix is born.”

 

“So that is what I saw,” Sweetcherrie thought, and asked the computer to show her a young phoenix. The computer showed her a picture and it looked exactly like her bird. She shut down the program and walked over to her bed to lie down. She kept staring at the bird until her eyes slowly closed, and drifted away into the kingdom of dreams, forgetting all about her meeting with the customer tomorrow.

[Sweetcherrie]

The next morning she woke up bathing in sweat and wondered if the Pen keep’s mana flows had stopped providing for the air-condition system installed in her room, until she saw the firebird lying close next to her. It had been two weeks already that the phoenix had lived with her now, and each morning she woke up with him lying next to her on the bed. She kept sending him back to his own corner, where she had made a new sort of bed for him, but each time he crawled back on her bed. It had amazed her how much the bird had grown in this short time. From the little chick she had found he had grown to be already hawk sized. When Troy’s wings spread from tip to tip almost three feet already, and she wondered how big he would be once he was full-grown. She sighed, as she shoved the bird to the side and went for her morning shower. With the warm water pouring over her she quickly lost her sleep. She was just applying shampoo to her hair, as suddenly she smelled something funny. As she opened her eyes, the shampoo dripped in it and started stinging. Sweetcherrie grabbed for a towel and rubbed the soap from her eyes. She turned around to see where the smell had come from, but noticed that she could still hardly see. Everything was blurry, but this time it was because the whole shower was filled with steam. She opened the door further and let some of the steam escape.

 

When she stepped back in the bathroom to look what had been the cause of this a very wet and steaming phoenix jumped in her arms. “Troy! What are you doing in here?!” The phoenix shivered in reply, and she stumbled back as she was flooded by mental images of fear. Dark images filled her head, and for a moment she was lost in the terror that Troy flooded over her. The images only to a second to appear and were gone almost as fast. Sweetcherrie shook her head, and found that she was sitting on the floor with Troy on her lap. “Now, how did you come in here? And how on earth did I see what you were thinking?” She mumbled, but the phoenix only shook his wings and splattered water all over her. She got up from the shower floor, almost slipped because of all the water, and sent the Phoenix out the shower. After locking the door she stepped back under the shower and rinsed the shampoo out of her hair. While she was drying herself she wondered what it had meant that she had felt the same as Troy. Could it be that they were mentally connected? Would that be the explanation to why touching him didn’t burn her, but did burn everybody else? Absentmindedly she walked out the bathroom, almost falling over Troy lying just behind the door. Her laptop was still on from the night before and it took her only two minutes to find out that it was indeed possible to connect with a phoenix’s mind, but only when you were close to him. She looked at the phoenix that had put his head in her lap, “Well, you’re certainly close to me. I wonder….Dana would probably be able to help me to explore your mind, at least she knew how to open her own mind.” She realised she was speaking out loud, and flushed slightly. She decided to go see where Dana was, and hoped that she wanted to help her. She put her shoes on, and walked out the door with Troy on her heels.

 

The sun was burning on her shoulders, and there was hardly enough wind to even move the leaves on the trees. Troy was hopping behind her, and Sweetcherrie wondered when he would become a bit more graceful. So far he still looked like a smaller version of an emu when he walked, only he had more beautiful colours. He set the whole place on fire if he wasn’t careful enough, and got overexcited, and she was pretty sure that no emu had ever done that. In the distance she could see Dana sitting at the side of the lake. Sweetcherrie knew that the girl was meditating regularly, and hoped that she didn’t disturb. She silently approached and just wanted to say something, when Dana already opened her eyes, “Hello, would you like to sit down? Just give me a second, when I meditate I normally weave a protective shield around me.” She flicked her hand, and made an inviting gesture for Sweetcherrie to sit down. “What brings you down here today?” Dana looked at Sweetcherrie, and she felt the dark eyes penetrate hers, almost as if Dana was looking into her soul. “Err..I wanted to ask if you could help me with Troy, I read online that it’s possible to connect with his mind, and I would like to learn this, and you immediately came to mind, and-“ Sweetcherrie realised she was rambling and stopped talking. Dana’s face however turned into one of her rare smiles, “If you are patient enough to learn, then I will take the time to teach.” The rest of the day Dana taught her the basics of meditation, and by the end Sweetcherrie felt so spaced out that she felt as if she was walking on clouds when she walked home, Troy happily hopping after her.

Edited June 25, 2005 by Sweetcherrie