“Quit flapping about. You’ll only tire yourself,” the whumper chides, and yet the whumpee continues to struggle. The elegant gilded cage rocks as they desperately tug on their restraints, twisting and yanking hard. With their wrists cuffed and secured above their head, their feet can barely touch the golden floor of their ornate prison.
Eventually, their thrashing dies down, and the whumper reaches through the bars to caress their jaw.
“Pretty little bird,” the whumper coos, “You’re all mine.”
Sofi was used to a comfortable life, however stifling and monotonous it might have been. But after his caravan was attacked, that all changed. He was stripped of his heavy robes and face coverings and tossed in the back of what appeared to be a cage on wheels.
The priests and guards had all been killed and there was no one to witness the capture and humiliation of the young oracle, trying to cover himself with his wings so no one would be able to look at him. Without the coverings, he felt small and exposed. He had never been outside of the temple before this.
The cage on wheels had arrived at at a compound, composed of half tents and half small buildings. He was taken to the largest tent, drug along by one of the horrible people who had attacked his caravan.
An enormous man walks around the largest of the tents, gaudy jeweled rings on his finger, waving them dramatically in the air as a harrowed-looking scribe writes down his words. He stops when his guards drag Sofi in. “Well, well, well. Look what we have here.” He squints his beady, greedy eyes at the trembling boy. “So this is the great oracle. Doesn’t look like much... but certainly pretty enough.”
He grabs Sofi by the hair with his meaty hand and turns his head this way and that, inspecting him like a new head of livestock. “He’ll fetch a pretty penny, this one.” He picked up a pair of padded cuffs and locked them on to Sofi’s wrists. “Can’t have you hurting yourself now can we?” He sneered, petting the soft blueish green feathers of the oracle’s wings, before grabbing him by the upper arm and pulling him towards what appeared to be a large birdcage.
“A perfect cage for a perfect bird”, he chuckles and shoves Sofi in and secures his cuffed hands up towards the top of the cage where his toes are barely touching the bottom.
Sofi has never fought back against anything in his life, but he’s been uncovered and humiliated and now this? He flaps his wings and struggles, trying to pull free, but it’s no use. He’s trapped.
The man reaches through the bars and strokes the strange markings Sofi has on his cheeks, dampened with frightened tears. “Pretty little bird. You’re all mine now.”