the Aviary
the gilded cage opened and streams of life drifted outward.
the eyes of the peacock watched intently and knew freedom was at hand.
fire burned all ‘round promising to ignite and threatening to consume,
still the eyes of the peacock watched.
Kayce Hughlett, at Diamonds in the Sky With Lucy
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the Aviary
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Minato watched the boy as he slammed the door behind him and pressed his back against it. He had bright eyes and skin that glowed, and a heavy discoloration of blues and black across his face that Minato didn't comment on as he called him over.
Minato set the large bird cage of worn gold back on top of the stack of boxes he had just taken it from, his fingers entwining about the bars in a calm way.
In the distance, dogs began to howl.
- -
Kyuubi bit his new owner, fluffing his feathers in such a fit that his cage rattled in his fury.
Naruto ignored the angry cries and continued adding more water to the bird's dishes, minding that his blood didn't taint anything.
Behind him, awakening calls started to usher from rows and rows of cages cast in solid iron.
- -
"Go to sleep, now.." Minato whispered, and wrapped a blanket around Naruto - smiling at the way that blonde hair dusted the boy's face.
He kissed the top of the boy's head, and left the room quietly, his hand brushing across the door in a way that swung it almost all the way closed. The light from the next room cut into the darkness from that small opening left in the door, around Naruto in a way that should have been frightening.
- -
Minato's voice was pleasant as he lead the officer to the other end of the house, pushing chocolate cookies into the man's hands one after the other until it was all he could do not to drop them.
Naruto could still see them, at moments, as Minato slid the gun out from behind his back.
- -
"You have chocolate on your chin."
Minato looked up in surprise as he set the last board into place.
Naruto was standing in the shadows the lamp cast, his blanket cast about him like a robe. Naruto's mouth lifted as his cheeks turned upwards, and he knelt down beside Minato to kiss the stains away.
- -
Kyuubi's wing was battered from slamming against his cage, small tufts of broken feathers wedged impossibly in the cracks between.
Naruto lifted the lock and the bird fell off it's perch into his open palms, dark dark eyes still seeing even as the body submitted, still fighting..
- -
There was a wall of warped boxes surrounding him, but Naruto still saw the boys from his school walk into the shop, laughing in a way that made his bones crack with tension.
He was on the other end of the store, where dust mated in a way that only age brings. The rusted cages around hid his hair in perfect matrimony of old gold.
His eyes followed them as they started down a row of cages, animals stacked upon animals in an act of balance and shrieking feathers.
His eyes narrowed like a cut when their voices grew.
- -
When nine years had surrounded him, Naruto was walking behind the school while a wind whispered over his feet, and headed for the rusty set of swings he still remembered.
Several small golden fish danced intricately, almost intimately in a puddle of mud that stretched for twice the width that Naruto was tall.
He stopped to watch them, tails weaving in a chorus of movement, and he wondered if they knew what their world was.
- -
The fire was spreading like a fever, blazing in a damning way.
Minato shoved Naruto across the room, and wrestled with the latch on the window. Naruto watched him almost in disinterest, leaning against the sill.
He studied the way Minato's eyes of blue so so dark kept glancing behind them, and thought they looked like a sky split in two.
"I won't forget you."
Minato turned so sharply that his finger slipped off the lock, and gazed at Naruto as birds began to scream in the rooms around them, already doomed.
His nerves steadied, and he ripped the broken lock off the latch and threw the window open. Naruto was thrown out into open air before anything else could be said, falling into a form of flight as he spread out his arms to catch the wind.
Naruto landed on a bed of leaves, the smoke following behind him as if a cape. In his mind was still the way Minato's hand slid across his own, like a whisper..
Above, Minato rose from the edge of the window and grabbed his gun, darting around the pieces of his home as the fire spread into that very room. He walked swiftly through it all, the flames in their frenzied dance almost seeming to part around him.
He would live forever in Naruto's heart, immortal.
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Hope is the thing with feathers
that perches in the
soul,
and sings the tune without the words,
and never stops
at all.
Emily Dickinson
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