It smells like Father here. It makes you pine.

You do not know that Father had been here recently, instructing your sister without your knowledge. It’s for the best, anyway. It would’ve given you a stomach ache if you had known. Now, only your heart aches because you miss Paaapaaa and you want him to see your treasure, your prize, your gift.

Onei sits upon your back, so docile and fluffy, so unlike Ker. He is a pale little bauble gracing the black of your coat, and it’s astounding how attached you’ve grown to him already. Those little cotton balls, you had allowed them in your head, and it’s amazing how he makes you feel. Nothing specific, mind. His mind is much too vague, much too new, to form solid opinions and facts. But he is so curious and there is a vibrance there that feeds the gaping chasm in your breast. He is not so boring, and you are not so bored.

So you explore, because he wants to learn and so do you, but his learning makes everything so colorful bright. The thistles, for instance, underneath the melting, re-frozen snow. You are both dying to see what a world can look like when it is not snowy and cold all the time. Winter is all the either of you have ever known. Onei is eager for the melt of spring, and suddenly, you find yourself eager as well.

You watch a shadow—no, wait, shadows are not brown. You are a shadow, truly, with only a speck of blue to mar your coat, yet shadows do have blue lining sometimes don’t they? They’re certainly not burned brown at the joints. But you do not care, because you approach anyway, watching them kinda sorta fly to your side of the river.

It reminds you of the scene in the Edge, and how that spittling of a boy had danced with death at the edge of a cliff. This one—this boy (now that you’re near enough to smell it) is not so small and has many, many more legs, so you’re not sure how old he seems. He’s certainly skinnier than Father and all the other adult males you’ve seen. Does that make him young, or unfortunate?

“Hello,” you say, eyeing the line of his broad wings as he shoots past you in obvious glee. You suppose it might be exciting to fly through the air—Onei is certainly impressed, cheeping animatedly from his perch at the young colt—although you yourself have never felt the urge to soar. You think it might become boring after a while, because there’s nothing up there, nothing but clouds and the sun and moon and stars—and you can see those from the ground anyway, so what’s the point of flapping? “Would you jump from a cliff?” you call out to the boy suddenly—a nonsensical thing to say, of course, but you cannot help it, because you’re becoming bored already and yet Onei wants to stay.

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He was certainly built of fire, you think to yourself. Bursting everywhere, throwing his limbs in a display of cocky, boyish energy you find yourself attracted to, a dull little moth fluttering hesitantly around a vibrant, explosive flame. He’s pretty large, too, with all the legs he has. And it seems as though he screams at the poor birds fluttering from the trees with victory, as though he achieved something that escapes you.

Onei peeps loudly. He says obediently upon your rump, and yet he flaps some himself, immersed in the display wrought by the boy. You yourself are compelled to stay, now, especially since he comes to look at you. Hmm, but what’s this? This is interesting, but there’s something annoying you—ah, yes, the fact that he realizes you are here, that your presence jerks into his vision instead of bleeding into it naturally and immediately. He should’ve noticed you before you arrived; he should’ve picked up your scent, your gorgeous golden eyes, and should’ve awaited your presence, laying prostrate as you walked towards him—as you deigned to walk toward him—

It’s something you didn’t know you needed until this moment. It’s an awakening in your breast, something stirring out of the dull boredom that dominates your core. It is a greed, a need to be—beheld.

You give him your most glittery eyes, so that he knows what he’s missed. You smile at him—but not too much of a smile, it’s a quiet one, it’s intrigued and satiny upon your dark lips. It’s becoming automatic now, this shift into a mask, whatever mask is appropriate for the time. Whatever mask is most fitting, whatever will capture the most interest, whatever will make them gaze at a glowingness in your—

"My mother has a bird companion. Gwahir."

Goddammit.

You give your most sparkly self—and yet his eyes fall onto the fluttering pale puff on your rump that is Onei. Is this boy blind? Not that Onei is ugly or lesser—he’s certainly a piece of your soul, so maybe this boy’s interest in him speaks of deeper things that he notices? Except you do not want that. You want him to melt at the sight of you. You want something shallow, because that’s easier to create, and control.

“Oh,” you respond delicately, because you do not know how to respond to that. You don’t care if his mother has a bird companion. You don’t know who she is, and why she should matter. And you’re upset he’s not looking into your beautiful, beautiful eyes—so it’s hard to play along, to play interesting when someone’s not interested. “They’re nice,” you try to build a conversation, “My…I’ve known lots of people with bird companions, I’ve always loved them.” My father has two harpies, my sister has her own eagle. But you cannot speak of a Father that is dead, and you keep your sister hidden for now. You’re selfish like that.

Your selfishness also manifests in the appearance of another, one who is female now, and ugly. You look to the approaching figure with mild eyes, gazing at the bone marking on her face—this seems to be a trend, and an ugly one, or perhaps there is a serial rapist flying about the earth with bones marked all over his hide—and weird pale eyes that do not have a color and sit strikingly upon an otherwise dark body. If it weren’t for the markings of her face, this girl would’ve been pretty, or at least acceptable. You suppress a sigh, bracing yourself to share company with this girl and the two shadows that follow her—

Oh dear.

Oh yes, oh yes little Enyo, those are wolves. Great black canine creatures with twitching noses and eyes shifting from place to place. You feel your heart quicken and Onei chirps in curiosity. That fear is back, that shame settles on your shoulders again. And here is this little girl (who isn’t so little), not only able to conquer a wolf, but to tame one. No, two. She tamed two wolves. You decide, right then and there, that you dislike this girl. You cannot stand it. You smile at her too, just as satiny and demure, and you do not like this girl.

They speak—to each other, ignoring you for a second, which is completely unacceptable. And they are using words you do not understand, which gets you livid, which makes your eyes widen with curiosity and interest. “Is that another language?” You are interested, truthfully, as much as you are furious. You’re always compelled to learn something new, and this is the ultimate of things, another tongue that one can speak, and still be understood. And like everything else you are ignorant to—you want it.

"How did you get your companions?” asks the boy of fire.

I simply stumbled upon mine, is the natural answer. But it tastes like ash in your mouth, to admit that you do not deserve the brilliant little bundle on your back. So you scuff your hoof and avert your eyes a little, looking for the right spices to make the story better. “His egg… it was abandoned, see,” you start, and you revel in the truth that you’re able to make tastier, “I found it in the snow, I don’t know how long it had sat cold. So I laid on it, or around it, and hoped that whatever was inside wasn’t…hadn’t…” Ah, there’s the lie now. But that’s okay. How would he know?

You smile back at Onei, who peeps just in time with affection. “And he hadn’t,” you finish grandly.

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