I was getting painfully excited, Mother! My hoof, my poor hoof that had been shattered so soon after my birth—well, it had started to grow! Not too fast, you see, nothing more than a sliver, with maybe some sort of film of healed skin that stretched over the more tender, sensitive parts—but I digress. What I mean to say, dear Mother, is that I was walking a little bit easier than before; that I was able to make my way with greater speed and confidence (although it was nothing more than a quaint little shuffle, really); that even Big Brother would allow me to be by myself sometimes, as long as he knew where I would be beforehand!

…Not that I utilized much of my freedom, though. Call me shy, but I wasn’t the kind of girl to gambol about with myself for hours at a time, dancing in the blistering heat of the Throat. Goodness, Mother, but it really does get quite hot here! Reginald says he loves it; even when the heat waves cause us both to sweat pools and we have to spend a great portion of the day underneath the shadows of the trees, he still claims that he loved the heat beating down on his back—that it gave him energy. I could see it in his eyes, too, his adoration of the blazing Throat sun. I always made me happy to see Brother so happy—but, oh Mother, I couldn’t really understand the happiness he felt for something that took your breath away and hurt your skin.

I saw him then, huddled underneath the deep shadow of a particularly large tree. I made my careful way to him, not in the least because both his presence and the shade would have provided some decent comfort; it wasn’t until I had gotten just a few lengths from him that I noticed his bowed head the intent way his eyes gazed at the something between his front legs.

“Brother…?” I called, curious at the sight—and it was at that moment that I heard it.

Peep, peep, peep…

“Oh,” I breathed to myself, for it sounded like a little chickling of a sort, the kind that I had seen in the treetops above, before the sun had become blazing. But Brother wasn’t looking in a tree; he was gazing down at what seemed to be a pile of dirt, so much so that he didn’t even turn at the sound of my voice; a rarity in itself.

“Brother!” I called again, the cool shadow of the tree washing over me as I came closer. He still didn’t move; not even his eyes made to flick beside me. I could see, however, that his muscles spazzed beneath a sweat-drenched grey hide; that he seemed painfully excited in a controlled, stoic manner. Peep, peep, peep… I tried to look around him, but the shadow was dark, and he was so bulky it took me some minutes to shuffle myself around.

“…Brother?” I tried again, quietly. This time he seemed to notice I was there, and his ear flicked in my direction.

“’Cari,” he breathed; and in that breath his voice trembled with something big, so much so that my eyes widened a little, “’Cari, come here…I’d like you to meet someone.”

Peep, peep, peep!

Carefully, I made my way around the point of his shoulder, and there, nestled between my Brother’s black feathers—was the pale remains of a porous egg, and something fuzzy and white that twitched and fidgeted in my Brother’s embrace. It nipped at the air with a great black beak that seemed heavy even as a babe; it snapped at me, at Brother, at the flies that buzzed around us. Peep, peep, PEEP!!

”Ka’Mate,” Brother whispered. I could hear his excitement clearly that time.



[Hatching thread for KA'MATE]

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