#kenkus

Their next earliest memories were of Bards.

Vague, hazy memories returned first. Their first pinfeathers, and the way their parents had used both their beaks and their hands to help them along. Family bathtime, especially important during molting season, and the way they all preened each other after— so careful to make sure each feather was comfortably in place. Drying off together, all fluffed up and warm and safe.

Kenku were a cursed folk, and they would never forget it. But that didn't mean they had to suffer for it.

Community parties were bright, vibrant affairs. Bards were common, weaving stories and songs, teaching communities new words and phrases. Cricket remembered one, a few weeks before they had been taken. The day had been stormy and cold, but the night was clear. It had been a double new moon, one of the darkest nights of the year, but the stars always shined so brightly.

They lived in a smaller, poorer community in one of the outskirt towns. Communities took turns hosting the Dark Nights, Bright Lights festival to commemorate each double new moon, and this time, it was their turn. The community had gone all out— hosting the festival was an honor, after all. Worries loomed, though— that the impending storm would keep folks from coming, discussions were held over how much food was reasonable in proportion to cost, or even whether they could afford to host at all, based on how crops were looking.

But Kenku are Kenku. They love a party, especially when it can be an excuse to help. Kenku are known for their trickery, after all. And what better trick than to try to help folks without it being noticed?

Their next earliest memories were of community, and the value of cooperation.

It ended up being the largest festival their community ever hosted.

The typically night-long festival lasted for three days. Everyone brought in food from neighboring communities and recipes from far off travels. They gained new crops and learned how to help them thrive, and even built some simple greenhouses— something they hadn't had the resources or blueprints for previously.

When everyone finally left, it seemed that nearly everyone "accidentally" left something behind. But no one could be bothered to come back for that big cooking pot, or their old tool set, or all those "old scraps of fabric" that happened to be more than enough to make new quilts for everyone in need.

This was how stubborn communities supported each other without stepping on toes. Because Kenku are know to be prideful folk, after all.

This inner world, though, is known only to Kenku.

"The outsiders made up their minds about us before we ever had a chance," they remembered their father saying one night. "They thinks us thieves, they think our lack of words means a lack of intelligence. But they are wrong." Cricket listened to the array of voices, woven together effortlessly, as he spoke.

"[Thieves]," they repeated, head tilted.

"We steal voices, so they assume we steal everything else. We are intelligent, so they assume we scheme. Let them assume."

Kenku were a cursed folk, without voice or wings and most of them unable to imagine new things. But that didn't mean they had nothing.

Far from it.

One night, Cricket asked their father why the outside hated them so much, if bards existed to travel and share. Couldn't the bards explain it?

"Kenku are outcasts, my dear. Our beloved bards who bring us song and dance and voice and ideas are the bravest of us all. They face an unkind world. They do not sing and dance out there, they would be captured. Instead they travel, under cloak and pack, and listen. They listen and watch and sneak and read, and bring all of that back to share with us."

Cricket absorbed his words. Words spoken in voices that had long since passed. Voices passed down through generations.

They absorbed words in all the songs they heard, capturing voices along with the sounds of the instruments that accompanied them.

"They say that we're accurs-ed/ They say that we all lie/ But if you ever met us/ You'd know we'll share our pie"

"Voices come and voices go/ And there are some that linger/ No one here is truly gone/ When we share their voice together"

"I sing for you and I sing for me/ And for all who came before us/ We claim these voices as our own/ So why don't you now join us?"

Simple rhymes, simple melodies, dozens of voices, but they had heart.

The melodies trickled back as Aspen preened their feathers that first night, but it was weeks before the words returned. It took a few months before their mind and voice and feathers were all whole enough to really begin thinking about the bards again.

"The bravest of us all," their father had said, and having now faced the outside world, they agreed.

They began to wonder if there was a way for them to find other Kenku, to begin sharing their own stories. Maybe one day they'd become a bard themself. Maybe they could be brave, too.

Masterpost