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“Blue,” Hendley said.
Blythe grimaced as if this admittedly rather concise description was causing him physical pain. “What kind of blue? Can you be more detailed, please?”
Hendley peered through his binoculars again. He’d traded two buckets for them, which had been a bargain – and slightly superfluous nowadays, but it never hurt keeping one’s hand in and besides, it was simply more fun. Anyone could go to the shop and buy something: not a lot of people could track down a guy who knew a guy who knew another guy who happened to have a pair of binoculars to trade.
And these were high quality too. Guy who traded them had used them for plane spotting.
Most birds tended to be a little smaller in stature than planes, but then, planes tended to be a bit further away so it all evened out.
“Hendley?” Blythe asked. He sounded nervous.
Hendley wasn’t sure what that was about: not like he was going to up and walk away, was it? “Kind of dark blue? But not too dark.”
Blythe hummed. Reading regular books had become difficult, even the ones with pictures in it. Hendley did what he could but even he couldn’t miracle up books a near-blind man could read out of nowhere, especially not books for bird lovers.
“Oh, and it’s got a yellow crest,” Hendley added. As far as birds went, it was okay. Nothing he’d want to see on his dinner plate.
Blythe hummed some more. “It is very kind of you to accompany me, you know.”
Hendley scoffed. “Kindness, nothing. My pleasure.”
“Become a bit of a birder yourself, have you?” Blythe asked, sounding at once shy and sly, like he knew damn well Hendley couldn’t care less about ‘our dear feather friends, the birds’ but like he also couldn’t quite believe that Hendley had offered to tag along simply because they were friends.
Hendley shrugged, even though Blythe probably couldn’t see the gesture. “Eh.”
Blythe chuckled. “I’ll convert you yet. Such fascinating, beautiful creatures, birds.”
“Stranger things have happened,” Hendley said. He supposed that he could have pretended – he certainly was no stranger to a bit of deceit, for good or for ill purpose, but with Blythe, no. It would have been unconscionable. “So what are we looking at here, then?”
Blythe smiled – at that ‘we’ as much as at the invitation to show off his birding knowledge, Hendley dared say. “I’ll give you three guesses.”
Hendley groaned.