As his mother and elder brother talked, Iskra frolicked alongside them, caught in some self-arranged game that wasn't apparent to anyone looking at him. He was attempting to hop from rock to rock, or shell to shell, or anything that wasn't just sand. In cases where the stretch was rather long, he attempted to glide on his outstretched wings, treating the sand like
lava.
His game halted as they did however, suddenly aware that something was
wrong. It felt the way it did when a storm rolled in. The air was
tight, like it wasn't just air any more, but made out of something thick and heavy and
dangerous. Iskra didn't like it.
Hesitantly he looked over Ampere and Zèklè, worried eyes skipping back and forth between the two as he noticed the gradual changes in their body language. Zèklè was
always happy, which Iskra loved, but even more than that, he managed to make mom happy too, which was the best ever! So what was happening now, to disturb all of that?
Carefully Iskra began to approach. He didn't want to, he wanted to go back just before, when there were smiles and easy conversation and softness, but he couldn't ignore the tension now that he was aware of it, like giggling at a funeral even if you weren't mourning the one being buried. He crept forward, body low and tucked, steps hesitant but coming all the same. He caught the tail end of Zèklè's explanation, and he heard everything Ampere threw back in Zèklè's face.
Then she was gone.
Just,
gone.
The urge to
stay with mom bade Iskra to run after her for a moment. He collected himself swiftly after the shock of her departure, breaking out across the sands in as fast a gallop as his little legs could carry him, baby wings shuffling uselessly at his sides as he bleated out her name hoping the wind wouldn't steal it away (but it did... or she ignored him)- but she was gone. Iskra pulled up, gradually slowing until he stopped, his gaze tracing her and the green parrot in pursuit until the sky swallowed them. Tears threatened at the edges of his eyes, while his limbs wiggled with weariness that his heaving flanks punctuated.
"She's never just left me before," he murmured, still blinking at the sky. Whenever Ampere set off without him she always made sure he was under the watchful care of someone else in the herd, or his siblings, but she had never just
left without any sort of explanation, or reason, or clear indication of who he should stay with. Suddenly afraid, Iskra spun around, dashing back towards Zèklè (who may have already been very close if he followed too). Iskra ran to his elder brother, trying to dash beneath him like he did his mom, where it was usually
safe, and warm, and nice.
"It's okay Z," Iskra attempted to comfort (both of them), clearly choking back tears as his nose sniffed excessively.
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