Unlikely

Avians

It was midnight before any of them arrived back safely to the house. River quickly took her role as leader, ushering everyone up to bed. Once they were all safe and sound in dreamland, she found a seat on a large window sill, glaring at the moon. She sat there for hours in silence until the moon dipped below the hills in the background and the sun began to rise above them.
River finally got up as she began to hear the sounds of morning time in a crowded home full of children with wings. The yells for people to get up, the shouts at people to hurry up, and the sounds and smells of breakfast in the next room were comforting to her, almost like a lullaby to a crying child. She sniffed the air hungrily. It smelled of burning toast and bacon, and of delicious sunny side up eggs. River chuckled quietly to herself and followed her nose into the next room to supervise, hoping there was no fire yet. That seemed to be a reoccurring thing in this home.
She walked into the kitchen, a buzz with noise even though she could still see the sleep gnawing at the members of her flock. After a quick survey, she found nothing aflame and settled into her spot at head of the table. Next to her sat Vexen, shaking his head silently as Gold and Jayden came down the stairs, bickering about something for the hundredth time. River pulled into her mind, shutting out the noise as she gathered her thoughts.
She couldn’t help but hate this house, the way that they lived in luxury. She almost wished they were back out on the street, where some might say they belong. Not because the house itself was bad, in fact if it wasn’t for her she probably could learn to love it. But she could never forget who provided all of this for them. All of the bills paid, the food was provided, as was bedding and anything else they could possibly want. It was perfect, but it came with a heavy price. She now owned all of them, not that she wouldn’t have found them eventually anyway.
It was part of the agreement that River’s flock had with Aisha. Aisha similarly had had an agreement like ours with Vernon. But at Aisha’s time there were more than one flock. Now, they were the only ones. At least, the only ones that Aisha had bothered with. River knew that as long as there were scientists willing to screw with DNA to create the “super being”; there would always be people like her and her flock.
River pulled herself back into the real world in time to see Vexen get up and grab himself a plate of food. He waltzed back over to the table and held a piece of burnt bacon in front of her face. She smiled and snatched it out of his hands before he could take it away.
“Guess we should get going,” Vexen stated in between bites of the final piece of charred toast. River was about to protest, saying she hadn’t eaten, but she vaguely remembered the plate that she had devoured as soon as Vexen had pushed it in front of her. She nodded in agreement and shoved the flock out the door lovingly. Vexen hung back behind her and snickered as she fought with Gold about going to school for the millionth time that week. Once River finally won and all the children were outside Vexen turned to her and asked a simple question, “Car or sky?”
Without hesitation, she replied, “Sky. I could use some control right now.” Because that was exactly what flying was to River. A sense of control in a screwed up world. Sometimes all it took was the feeling of the wind in her face and her wings flapping rhythmically to regain that sense of control.

She ran down the driveway, finally reaching a decent speed to let her wings spread. She did just that, and around her she could hear her flock doing the same thing. Goldie, being the showoff she is hurtled up above them. She stayed there for a while, mimicking flocks of birds that passed by, much to the amusement of the others.
River could see the slight twitch in Gold’s wings, reflected in turn by the rest of her flock. She released them with a slight wave of her hand, and they all joined Gold in a rush. River slowed, giving them space for what she knew they were about to do.
Goldie was the first to drop. She angled her wings down and plummeted to the ground. The others followed her lead, shouting and whooping as they whizzed by River. The ground rushed up to meet the five of them, but River remained cool and collected. At the very last second they pulled their wings up and hovered there for a short time, inches from the cold unforgiving ground. You could almost see the disappointment on its face.
“Come on you nimrods. We’ll be late if you keep this up,” River instructed. She sped through the sky, leaving them all in her dust. Vexen however was, in a matter of seconds, ahead of her. The other four were still trailing behind, struggling to catch up.
At last after twenty long minutes of flying, the school came into view. They continued to race across the sky until they stopped, bobbing up and down over the school. Quickly their groupies found them and stood beneath them, praising them and awing at their wings. Vexen dropped the short distance he was at and landed lightly on his feet. Gold, Jayden Trish, and Kingsley (better known as King) did the same.
River left the flock in Vexen’s hands and dove off the roof, her wings folded neatly against her back until about the moment of the would have been splat. She swooped, twisted in mid-air and continued flying, gracefully grazing the grass with the tips of her fingers and staring at the white puffy clouds that now blocked out the sun.
She bored quickly of this though, and right as she was about to right herself and land, she ran straight into Isis.
“Watch it you little winged abomination!” Isis exclaimed as she picked herself up off the ground.
“Great. Can’t stand on your own pup?” River spat as the whole wolf gang came strolling up. “Guess not. I’ve got better things to do right now, so why don’t you guys go sniff each other’s butts or something?”
Vincent, the wolf second in command, held their leader back as River walked away. She made it just about to her locker when she was confronted again by Isis, this time alone.