Face-Slapping14 min read
"I Tamed an Ice Bird and Broke a Prince — Watch Me"
ButterPicks16 views
"I can fly higher!" I shouted as I tugged at the ice bird's feather and laughed until my ribs ached.
My mother scowled like the sky before a storm, and my heart beat strange. I did not think about shame. I only thought about the wind and the bird and the feel of cold on my palm.
The selection for Skycrest Academy was today. The test was simple to say and deadly to try: stay on the back of the ice bird for the time of one incense stick. The bird hated humans. It sprayed ice at anyone who tried to touch it. It had tossed half the town into frozen puddles in past tests.
"I don't know how you did that," one tutor said later, holding the bird's edge of wing like a man holding a prize. "But you're accepted. Come with your token in a month."
"Accepted?" I kept smiling. Inside, my chest pretended to explode.
I felt eyes. "That is Queen Christine's child," someone whispered. "Her father was General James. Look at her laugh."
"Genetics won't help," Karla Stein hissed the next minute. She walked up in a blue dress and a smile that was meant to hide knives. "You got lucky. The bird can be tricky."
"Maybe the bird likes me more than it likes you," I said and flicked the loose ice from my sleeve.
Her followers smirked. "She has no qi. No cultivation. Cute, but a joke."
My mother tightened her lips. She wanted me to be quiet. My brother, Ford Elliott, kept whispering, "Lay low. Do not show off. Do not make trouble." I waved him off and smiled like a fool.
A tutor reached for Karla's shoulder and asked, "Karla, are you ready?"
Karla gave me a small, crooked smile. "See you next month," she said to me like a promise or a threat. I noticed she breathed like someone who expected comfort from fate.
After the test they called names. "Christine James, step forward." The lead tutor handed me a token and said, "One month until the opening ceremony. Bring your token."
I felt light. I felt my whole chest full of cold fire.
Back at home, my mother and Ford tore into me like a pair of small storms. "Why did you parade the bird over the city?" my mother hissed. "Do you understand what people say now? Do you want more trouble?"
Ford shoved a bag of clothes at me. "You have half a month to get ready. Don’t bring the family disgrace."
"Half a month?" I swallowed. "I need funds."
"You will get funds by staying alive," my mother said. "By not feeding your head with nonsense."
I laughed at that too. "Then I will go to the Moonlight Auction," I said. "I will sell things. I will buy my chance."
Ford's eyes widened. "The auction? The second floor is for members. You have nothing to show."
"I have something," I said. I had a worn space ring, a small forging tool, three little charms. I had more than people thought and less than I needed. I had stubbornness.
The Moonlight Auction burned like a market in summer. People shouted, vendors lifted cloths, and prizes sat under lamps like little suns. I wore a black veil to hide my scalp, and my heart did flips to see treasure.
"Who wants this gray egg?" called the seller. "From a scout group in Wildgrove. A map is on it. A map that could lead to something older than the law."
I leaned forward. The crowd leaned forward. The prince—Jett Lawson—leaned in from the guest box and said, "One thousand crystals."
A man in black at the back held his hand up and said, "One thousand gems."
I watched the prices fly. I watched the prince raise. I watched the man in black raise more.
"One million gems!" the man in black said.
We all stayed quiet. Even breath seemed broken. The prince's face went white. The prince struck his fans like a man who was used to getting his way. People turned to him for favor and shame.
"Who bids one million gems?" the auctioneer said. He expected his sentence to end a bidding war. The man in black lifted a pale hand.
My chest fluttered. I did not want the egg. I wanted the map. I wanted the map more than I wanted sleep.
When the auction ended, I counted my earnings. I came away with more than I dared hope: one hundred and twenty thousand gems after fees. I felt rich, careful like a fox. I felt dangerous like a child with a knife made of glass.
That night I sneaked to the academy grounds. I could not sleep. I thought of the ice bird locked in a small case in one of the tutors' rooms. I had felt the bird's mind when it shook. It had a voice in my head that said, "Help."
"Help me," the bird had whispered, and the sound had been as thin as a broken bell.
I brought my tools. I trained my hands to be small and fast. My heart beat like a drum. I hid under moonlight and slipped. I nudged a loose brick, opened a shutter, and crept into the room where the bird clacked like a jewel.
There were two men in cloaks bargaining there, talking on a low wire. "If you want more beasts, help us with ten captures. We will keep silent," one said.
The other shrugged. "Ten beasts are nothing where there's hunger for money."
I listened, and I counted. My blood ran cold. A tutor had sold the ice bird. The academy—my academy—sheltered people who sold creatures like goods.
"You stole this bird," I whispered as I slid a lock. The bird shivered. "I will take you home."
The room unlocked with a soft click. The bird's big eye found me. It curled and quivered. "You spoke," it said in my head, raw and small. "You are my friend."
"Stay quiet," I told it. "I will sign a bond."
I did not know if the law would let me. I knew only that I could not leave it. I picked up the bird's chain and ran like a wind.
They found out later. Two tutors sat in the main hall and fainted. Two more cried hard. The third elder, Marshall Bryan, sent a letter that made people sit. The academy called the fight of my life a test.
The bird stayed with me. I bandaged its wing, fed it icy berries until it started to hum. I found myself with two best friends—an orange-eyed butterfly spirit that I had from before and the ice bird who spat small, bright snow when she was frightened.
Weeks later the prince came to the academy grounds like a storm. He rode a white winged steed that looked like it had fallen from a painting.
"My fiancée is here to take the test," he said, loud enough for everyone to hear. Jett Lawson looked like he expected the ground to bloom.
Karla came to the stage in a blue dress. She had pretended to be weak earlier. She tried to let everyone believe she was gentle. The ice bird fluffed and snapped once; Karla fell, frozen for a moment, and then she was swept up by aides. The prince turned red and moved his horse closer like a man closing a door.
"You must take her anyway," Jett said to the tutors, like a boy who wanted a toy.
The tutors watched Karla's frozen hands. They turned to the video from the investment chamber. The man who had recorded the theft had left a trap. The prince's fake stone recorded a staged theft. A man named Erik Carvalho stood with the prince.
"We have proof," the prince said. He dropped a stone and the image showed men taking a beast out in shadows. It framed our academy tutors as thieves.
My stomach dropped. Someone had set the stage. People who cultivated fear whispered that someone was planting lies.
The third elder listened and closed his eyes. He was not a man to be fooled. "We will not accept this," Marshall Bryan said. He spoke slow. "We want the truth."
"Then tell me, elder," Jett said without bowing. "Who stole your beast?"
The man in black who had bid in the auction—the man who had paid the prince's price with gems—suddenly stepped forward. He was not the man I expected. He had a calm face, deep eyes that could look at me and not flinch; Gideon Coppola. He said, "I have nothing to hide."
I felt the crowd pull like a tide. The elder pressed his fingers. "We will investigate."
We all went on with tests. I slept in a tree near camp and ate hard bread and thought about the gray egg I had bought at the auction. It had hatched in my pocket the day we reached the forest. The shell cracked and out came a small, loud chick that called itself a "white heron." It fought with my butterfly and chirped like it owned the day.
"You're a heron?" I asked it, because I had to.
"Of course," it replied and looked offended. It believed it could be great.
"You act like a god," my butterfly said. The chick pecked at us angrily. We named it Gray because it was gray and odd.
The forest tests were dangerous. Some students wanted to capture beasts for credit. They planned and whispered. I saw them find nets and poison. I faked a stomach ache, tricked a soft tutor, and stole a map he held.
At dusk I went with my ice bird and my butterfly near the lake called Quiet Water. A giant scale creaked above the surface. The water shook and a beast with horns bigger than a man’s chest rose, eyes like green moons.
The gray egg cracked open at my feet. A flash of orange light burst and a scrub sprite popped out. It declared itself a "white heron," which made both my pets snort.
We moved fast. The beast slid back into the lake. I took the creature's little beak in my hand and the scrub sprite settled quietly on my shoulder like it had always meant to stay.
People tried to bully me in the camp. They banged my door, shouted. They called me names. They promised to steal my room and my bird. I made them chase shadows, tie themselves up, wake with pig-head masks. I hit back in small, mean ways, because I knew how to play the game.
Then they planned to take my room. They wrote threats and tied themselves up. They wanted a fight. I gave them a fight: sleep charms in their kites, a frozen pond for a prank. They woke like dogs and smelled of shame.
The worst happened when they tried to steal my bed at night. They sent a man to the door of the unknown room—2—and the man got a shout and flew backward as if struck by wind. They saw that and ran.
One boy, Dillon Benton, the leader in their pack, thought he could charm his way into the danger. He tried to grab me in the night. He fell off the ship. He fell into a bush far below and screamed.
"You could have killed him," a tutor cried.
"He tried to kill me," I said. "I tried to keep everyone alive."
Later, when we flew toward the academy, a burning arrow hit one of the academy ships and we were forced to jump and scatter across the canopy. Ice bird spread his wings and carried the weak and the lost.
On the ground, they pointed at me. "It was Christine James," they said. "She is dangerous."
I glanced at the boy who had helped me earlier—the small one who had stuck up for me at the auction. He looked at me with eyes like a net. His name was Dragon Xia? No, our friend list needed names from the list. He was a small boy named Ricardo Saito—no, Ricardo was an adult. I called him "little Ford"? No.
I call him "Alvie." He was a small kid who had been locked in a cupboard and I had dragged him out. He looked at me with trust, like the world could twist but he had an anchor.
I told the tutors, "I saved them. I did not hurt them."
That made more trouble. The tutors said stern things. But some creatures, left to their own will, left their masters and came to my side—little pets that wanted freedom. They piled at my feet. They wanted to choose.
"She made them make a choice," a tutor said. "She set a wolf to free. That is chaos."
I stepped forward and spoke to the gathered beasts in the language I had learned in small whispers. I looked at the tutors and said, "You let them sleep over a law and sell a bird. You hid theft. You said you would protect these beasts and instead you sold them."
The tutors flinched. They did. Someone in the crowd whispered, "She learned to speak creature-speech? The James line—"
Days later the academy held a review. Rumors ran like foxes. The prince storms and his men wanted to punish our academy. He wanted the bird back. He wanted a scapegoat.
Then the secret one—Gideon—came forward and showed a recording. The stone had been doctored by a man named Erik Carvalho and another named Ricardo Saito who had been bribed. The prince had paid Erik to set the stage to get the bird and to force the academy to look weak.
We had proof. The third elder—Marshall Bryan—raised his hand slowly and then struck the table. "The prince set a lie to take credit and to shame this school," he said.
The prince's face went from red to white to blue. He took a step toward Marshall and yelled, "You cannot say that about my family!"
The court spilled into the square. Students gathered. Tutors stood like pillars. I stood a little back with my two beasts and the newborn scrub sprite called Gray. Little Alvie sat on my shoulder like a crow.
I had waited, thinking of the years my family had been treated as a joke. I had thought of the way Karla had pushed me when I had nothing, the way the court had laughed.
"Now we speak," Gideon said in a slow voice and pulled out a stone that showed deeper footage. The footage showed tutors trading beasts like things. It showed other men binding a bird in chains. It showed an official in royal colors accepting a bag of gems.
"Stop!" Karla screamed. She pointed at me. "She stole my chance! She called me names!"
I walked forward. "You called me 'trash' in the yard," I said in a voice that cut. "You stole what was mine years ago."
She turned white. Her smile broke.
I pulled Karla by the collar. "You taught your men to steal what you wanted," I said. "You tried to ruin my life, take my betrothed, take my place. You used my shame as a ladder."
Karla's voice rose. "I am the prince's choice!"
"Not anymore," I said.
The crowd held breath. Someone recorded. Someone gasped, someone laughed, someone cried.
I unwrapped my arm and stepped back. I wanted them to see that she could not touch me. Her throat was red and her eyes were wild. "You are not my sister," I said. "You are nothing to me."
Then I did what they all feared. I struck her—not with words only. I slapped her across the face so that her powdered cheek smeared and surprised droplet splashed down her dress. The slap was clean, loud, and final.
"How dare you," she screamed, hands clapping her face. She staggered and hit the ground, her dress ruined. People recorded, and the room shook with noise.
"Stop!" a noble cried. "This is unseemly!"
But no one stopped me. The crowd had watched the prince and his men fake a theft. They had seen a tutor take a bribe. They had learned that Karla had cheated, had lied, had used her charm. The slap was the moment the lie stopped being private.
Karla crawled to her knees. "You—" she wheezed.
I pressed my hand against her cheek. I could feel the powder and the fear. "You will not use me to climb," I said slow. "You will not take a life for your vanity."
She screamed. The palace guards tried to pick her up. People recorded on phones and on stone tablets. The prince went white and hid behind a pillar. His men shuffled, a few wept like children.
Karla's father took the stage. He was a courtman and he saw the videos and he saw the recording. He thought of his name being ruined.
"Shame on you," a crowd shouted. "Shame on the prince. Shame on those who sell."
Karla's mask fell off. She clawed for help from the prince. He knew of the footage now. He could not climb down with dignity. His face leaked tears not of remorse, but of fear.
Then the punishment began.
Words came first. "You plotted to steal from your people. You broke the law you swore at your coming of age. You used a false recording to trick the elders and you betrayed the beasts you swore to care for."
Karla's eyes bulged.
"From this day," Marshall Bryan said, "You are to lose your place as the prince's chosen. All gifts from the palace are suspended. You are not to be given an audience. You will lose the unguents of favor. You will return your beast and you will stand in the market and plead forgiveness."
Karla fell. "No," she wailed. She ran out. The crowd gathered at the gate.
I followed. The street filled with people. The man who had been the prince's friend, Erik Carvalho, was dragged forward. He tried to laugh and instead coughed. The rumor and recording were all over. Men removed their masks and stood back.
They made her go to the bazaar. She stood there in the afternoon sun. The merchants spat, some threw rotten fruit. People shouted. "Shame!" "Traitor!" Karla sobbed like a small animal.
She lost the ring of family favors. Her title vanished. Her father came out and pretended he did not know her. He said, "She is sick. We could not know."
But the market knew. Men who had wished for her name to grow on their lips now turned their faces. They recorded videos of her kneeling with mud on her cheeks. They shouted. Someone put a band of silence around her like a circle of boiling water.
"Please!" she cried. "I will do anything!"
One old woman lifted a camera and said, "Repeat what you did."
Karla repeated nothing at first. Then she said a sentence a thousand times, "Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me." Her voice broke.
They stripped her of her office. They took her beast away and sold it at an open market. Everyone watched the price fall until it matched her shame. She begged. The crowd laughed. Her friends turned away like men who wanted to wash a blade.
The prince's wife—no, the prince had one too many schemes—left in a wagon. The prince begged his father. The father said, "You have done this to yourself."
Word traveled like wind. Karla wept for days. Her mother turned away. She was on the front pages for three days. People spat at her picture. Men who once promised her jewels now promised they wished they had kept their pockets closed.
That was the punishment. They had been cruel; they ended cruel. It was not gentle. It was the only justice I wanted to show. Karla’s power was stripped in the glare. She had pushed and lied and used people like coins.
After the crowd faded, the academy grew silent. Tutors conferred. The third elder looked at me and said, "You did not need to strike her. But you exposed a rot. We will fix it."
I did not feel proud. I felt empty. I felt like someone who had eaten and had to sit with the bones. My bird nudged my hand, and my butterfly fluttered like a flag.
"Gideon," the elder said, "you did not have to spend that money. Why did you protect them?"
Gideon stepped forward and looked at me. "I never liked thieves," he said. "I want to see this place honest. And because you freed that bird, I thought you worth the risk."
"You are wealthy," I said.
"I gave money because I do not like lies," he replied. His voice was plain. No flourish. "This is not charity. It is payment for truth."
"Why does that matter to you?" I asked.
He smiled like someone who had a secret. "Because I enjoy a clean board," he said. "And because the bird spoke to me earlier."
He left as a shadow. I watched him walk. There was a question in me that felt like a loose stone. I had noticed his eyes the day he outbid the prince. They looked at me like someone reading a book.
Weeks passed. The academy shifted. Tutors resigned. A few were punished more harshly. The senior tutor who had sold beasts was dragged before the council and forced to stand on a stage. He begged. He lost his house and his title. He was forced to marry a commoner and his peers turned their backs.
The academy changed slowly. The elders made new rules: no teacher may own a beast outside record, no auctions without council oversight, and any tutor caught selling creatures will be stripped and publicly humiliated as the traitor in the square had been.
I kept my token and went to the opening ceremony. I stood on the grounds with Frost—my ice bird—drinking cold air and watching the parade. Students looked at me differently. They whispered and some bowed. Ford watched from our box. He smiled, small and afraid.
"Christine," a soft voice said behind me. It was Per Finch, the old apothecary who had fixed my broken years. He handed me a little hammer and a thin book. "You will need these." He laughed like a man who knew me too well.
At night, I sat under a tree and looked at my birds.
"Did we do right?" Gray asked, tiny head tucked under his wing.
"We did," I said. "We made them see. We made them break a wall and clean a place."
"But they were cruel," my butterfly said.
"They were," I agreed. "But we did not become like them."
I swallowed and let the long cold settle. I had been a target and I had hit back. My name would be spoken. My father’s honor would be remembered. My mother came to me with food and her hands shaken. "You are my brave child," she said. Ford hugged me and did not ask for more.
Weeks turned to seasons. The academy taught me to bind beasts with respect and not money. I learned to make contracts that did not break spirits. I learned to heal broken wings and to read a beast's fear like lines on the palms of my hands.
Gideon came by rarely. Sometimes he left a parcel by the academy gate: a small herb for healing, a crystal to polish. He never stayed long. Once he left a note, "Do not trust favors that smell like gold." He signed it himself.
My oath had been simple: I would not be a puppet. I would not be a coin to be passed. I would place a hand on my ice bird and walk forward. I had a small crew now—Gray the scrub sprite who fancied himself a heron, the butterfly who was a lady and a wrecking crew in one, and Frost who loved me like a bird loves an icicle.
On the day I left the academy hall to meet the new class, I put my hand on Frost's crest. I breathed the cold in like a medal. I looked at the river that cut the grounds and at the flag with the academy's emblem.
"One day," I told them, "we will find the old egg. We will find the map. We will find our own way."
The sky opened and a breeze came down and Frost bent his head and pecked my fingers. Gray crowed as if it was our victory.
I walked forward and I felt the world would break and remake and be better for it. The life I wanted was not revenge. It was the work of waking up beasts, telling truth to men, and standing when lies tried to push me under.
My hand was still cold. I liked it that way.
The End
— Thank you for reading —