Lexicon:Modern/Broek

Broek
Stage	Modern CLT
Pronunciation	/ˈbɾɔɪk/
Part of speech	Noun
Etymology	from Middle brōkē, from Proto brok
Related words	Vaelith, Frontier Office, Braes Roed

Broek — the message bird. Black, clever, and trained to fly a known route between fixed points.

Notes

It does not home. A Broek goes where it has been taught to go, which means the route is the thing of value and a bird that knows three of them is worth what a good Vaelith costs. Training takes years and the bird outlives most of the people who trained it. It knows faces. A Broek will refuse a stranger at the receiving end and wait, sometimes for hours, for someone it recognizes, which is the whole of the security arrangement and is considered sufficient. Routes are held by the waystation keepers and the Frontier Office rather than by any city, since the birds fly the roads and the roads belong to no one. A message goes at the speed of a bird between two stations and at the speed of a rider between anywhere else, which is why news moves quickly along the roads and slowly everywhere off them. Kept as household birds as well, where they learn a good deal more than anyone intends and repeat it at the worst available moment.