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Here's what he sees before he dies: the face of his beloved behind the muzzle of a gun that's pointing right at him. Her skin is pallid under her dark hair, and she's saying something he doesn't understand in a language that he'd swear he knew.
He has only a split second to search her eyes for something, some glimpse of tenderness, some sweetness like the taste of her mouth, but all he can taste as he steps towards her is the blood in his throat.
The ground hits him hard.
There's still music playing somewhere; the band's gone silent, but the bass backing track echoes in his ears. Oh, he realizes. That's his pulse. That's his heart, spasming, pumping everything messily onto the floor.
The last thing he sees are her delicate ankles. She's leapt from the eyrie (the one they built together, out of that tree they felled together. She was so small. He told her he'd cut it down himself, harvest the branches himself, build the thing himself, but she matched him, step for step, branch for branch, plied the saw in a tug-of-war with him that made her eyes gleam like a wild thing's, sleek as a stoat when the sweat matted her hair down against her head. She was so strong. He didn't understand then, but he does now.) and she's still got that gun and now she's firing at everyone else, at his friends, at his family, at everyone he thought meant something to the both of them.
He wants to say, “Tammy, do not—” but each breath is choked out with a bubble of blood.
All his words are useless froth.
*
Rick is talking, and Tammy is pressed against Birdperson's shoulder, arm around his back, gently rubbing the feather vanes between her fingers. She's not very good at keeping his feathers in order; she can't line the barbs up just so, but it takes young bird people years of maintenance and practice before they can do it, and it's so little effort for him to fix it that he doesn't mind.
She'll practice and she'll learn, and he'll learn how to brush her hair and when it grows he'll help her braid it into those elaborate fishtails she likes so much.
“...and if he loves Tammy, well, then I love Tammy too.”
The tenderness that rises in his chest is a warm breeze.
His heart is fit to burst.
*
Tammy is talking to Summer, holding hands with her and telling her his last name. She still doesn't quite have the pitch of the second note down, but it's better than when they'd first met. She couldn't whistle at all then. She still calls him Birdperson instead of his real name, because that's how he'd introduced himself and how, she says, she thinks of him.
“Like a pet name,” she'd said, and kissed him hard enough they hadn't bothered finishing their conversation.
*
Greetings are made, alcohol is poured and drunk like water, there are four dozen different gifts arrayed on a table, most of which he knows he's never going to need or use. It's kind of everyone to bring them anyways.
Planet Squanch is hot, the sort of hot that sends rivers of condensation down champagne glasses to pool on the tables and drip onto the fronts of dresses and dress shirts. His gloves make it hard to hold his drinks, but Tammy gets three flutes of champagne in him before they've even said their vows.
“It's a party, sweetie,” she says. She tips her drink at him and winks. (If he'd been watching her throughout the reception, he would have seen her dribble the rest into four different potted plants bit by bit; every sip she takes is matched with two sips poured into an unsuspecting flower arrangement.)
*
His mother coos softly at him under her breath as she smooths the ceremonial facepaint over his nose and under his eyes with her thumb. His sister carries the breastplate, woven grass and reeds, over to him and settles it on his shoulders, and then makes a show of ruffling his head feathers so badly he has to fix them in the mirror.
The feathered headband goes on last, the tip dyed red for hearts' blood, for loyalty and tenderness and vulnerability, and everything that melding means.
Tammy corners him in a hallway before the guests start arriving, when his facepaint is still fresh and wet on his cheeks, and, standing on her toes, she peppers him with kisses, gets red all over her lips.
“This is it, B.P.,” she says, and takes his hand in hers.
“I can't wait.”
***