The air tasted like ozone and wet limestone. Rain wasn’t falling so much as the grey atmosphere just wept sheets of oily disappointment onto the slate roof. We sat surrounded by architectural bones—jagged parges and raingutters that wept copper tears. Dr. Beaumont, bless his overly scented lapel, kept nodding encouragingly. ‘We discussed the subterranean fears, Cassian. The feeling of falling, yes?’ I draped my massive elbows on my knees, feeling ridiculously bulky, acutely damp even through centuries of slow-mo moisture. ‘The void, sir. The general neglect of civic planning.’ Beaumont scribbled ‘External Hostility’ on his damned notepad. He shifted, adjusting his posture to better view the lip catching the downpour. Every ligament in me—formed as, believe it or not, a devotional critique of urban rain drainage—was taut. Then it arrived. Little noisy, filthy lumps, executing a sloppy aerial choreography just past your right ear. Three of them. Pigeons. I recoiled a full linear foot, the grand, stylized claw of my wing striking a cascade arch with little more than a nervous slap. I didn't growl; I physically winced. They congregated on the gargoyle niche statue above Beaumont’s head. I tried to melt back into the rough, wet stone, feeling deeply exposed, something a medieval protector designed to discourage was behaving less grand protector and more arthritic hamstick fearing corvids. “There, sweetheart,” Beaumont whispered, not looking up, “just acknowledge. The little… things. What do they represent?” They weighed nothing. They mattered nothing. They shouldn't be this delightful sort of visceral terror requiring counsel forty meters below a viaduct. “Pathetic,” I shed, voice rough dryly. “Utterly pathetic, doctor. Wings tipped by spite-crumbs.”
Signal: weep
Mood: uneasy