Stella

Stella is a hard person. She has the build of a woman borne of labour or fighting or perhaps jail. Her shape nondescript, more a triangle. Her arms were large and muscular and looked as if they could handle themselves in a bar brawl. Stella was dressed in black steel toed boots, black jeans faded grey where she would lean against things, a black t-shirt with a not very nice slogan imprinted across the chest. Her face and arms are tanned the leathery tone and skin condition of a person away from this place.

Stella was not a person you could feel immediately warm to. Until you looked to her shoulders. On the right a large majestic white Cockatoo. It sat lording over all it saw from his perch subjecting himself only to Stella. It nuzzled and nibbled on her ears. As she prepared to enter a coffee shop she reached to him, scooped him onto the back of her weathered hand and touched his tail. He deftly lifted his tail and left his stool with all the other bird stool in the parking lot. A kiss and he moved back to his perch.

On the left shoulder a moulting Myna bird. Never has a bird loved a person as this tiny fellow loved Stella. He sat in rapt attention to her every word, every gesture. Her attention to Cockatoo did not affect him. She was his life. All other things were incidental.

Stella is a hard person, with a soft spot for these beautiful birds.