Hatchling

Compass Morality

Belladonna ran a thumb over the slightly scratched surface of the compass. The runes that broke and reformed themselves brought her some comfort but the constant movement made her bite her fingernails and she seemed unable to sit still, the constant tapping of her fingernails on the compass being proof of such.

The needle went still and she almost fell off the bed when she heard a faint tapping on the shutters. Her breath caught in her chest. She stalked toward the dark oak and closed her fingers around the edge of a shutter, the wood smooth under her fingertips.

Before her confidence disappeared, she hastily yanked the shutter open and was met with the face of her cousin. His amber eyes widened in shock and his mouth opened slightly.

Belladonna screeched and a couple of birds were startled from their perch, flying away to find somewhere quieter and preferably without any screaming twelve-year-olds. Their black silhouettes contrasted sharply with the orangey-golden rays the sun cast with its of dying light across the endless horizon.

"Oi!" The ginger waved his hands frantically as he swung his legs through the window. "Calm down, it's just me!"

"I know- but- who wha- how?" She sputtered, helping him through the window. "What are you doing here?"

"I followed the compass, idiot," he replied, glaring at her playfully before his face shifted dramatically. "You're lucky I found you first..."

He trailed off and Belladonna paled dramatically. "He set up a whole search party for you,"

"No way," she took a small step back. "You're joking,"

"No, there's my... Wilbur, Phil, Niki and Jack," he said closing the shutters behind him and leaning against them. "Everyone else is gonna join later, how do you think I managed to get here?"

"Oh Prime," She cursed pulling at her pink locks, some dark purple petals falling from her scalp. "Dad's going to kill the lady that's letting me stay here-"

"Who?" Fundy interrupted, gently pulling her hands away from her head and squinting slightly in a similar way her uncle would when he was trying to figure something out.

"Just this nice Avian-Elytran-Bird hybrid with red wings, I accidentally called her Aunt Terry once and she's never let me forget it," Fundy raised his eyebrows as Bella grimaced slightly before continuing. 

"She makes good vegetable soup and she looked after me when I was sick a while ago," she explained, waving her hands around before flinching unnoticeably and holding her hands together. "She's blonde with blue eyes, there's this random white streak that goes through her hair - I think it's cool - and she swears a lot too,"

"Oh... Nice," he says hesitantly, his cognac-yellow eyes narrowing slightly.

He remembers his uncle had red wings but didn't like showing them, opting to have them bound to his torso and when his father had been revived it had left a white streak in his hair. The last time he had seen his uncle he wore a haunted expression and the same startling white pierced through his golden locks. Surely it couldn't be connected? They couldn't be the same people. However, the cryptic message one of Phil's crows had given him rang clearly in his head.

Belladonna growing awkward with the stretching silence, shuffled her feet while looking at the ground. "So how have you been?"

"Well... first off Wilbur's- as usual y'know? Phil's upped the time spent sparring and whatnot - absolute hell I tell you - and your dad's depressed -? I don't know how to describe it." he muttered, untangling Belladonna's fingers and holding her smaller hands in his and swinging them back and forth slowly. " He's worried about you n' stuff, not eating or sleeping often enough (not like he slept anyway). He's gotten colder, which we thought impossible, and he thinks he's a terrible father like he failed you or something. I'm glad I managed to give them the slip- Prime it was getting irritating,"