The flash of fear in his eyes did not go unnoticed by Vaughn. The air in the hall was heavy with shock and confusion, and with nothing to cushion its impact dealt a blow harsher than the Wind. Kirill had recovered within a blink, all signs of vexation dismissed to reveal an anxious disposition that was quiet in waiting.

"Calm down boy," said the Himalayan, rising from his seat and starting down the aisle that separated predator from prey. "Do you know what you are talking about?"

"Yes—"

The headmaster placed a hand on his shoulder, showing him out of the hall at once. "Surely, you do not. Look at you! That is not an example of a rational mind." He turned to a student member of the council standing by the entrance, staring at the boy in shock.

"You, bring him to the infirmary. I will speak to him after he's calmed down."

She nodded quickly, doing as told and taking the boy's arm in an attempt to lead him towards the double doors but he refused to move.

"You're mad!" He cried, eyes red and wide. "Why can't you just listen to me? Someone died!"

Kirill did not look at him as he made a sign of dismissal over his shoulder, removing him entirely from his frame of attention, having turned his back on the boy. In the most disturbing calm and silence, he had returned to the high table and resumed the process of sating his appetite.

To place dinner—trivial and fleeting—before the words of a human being, let alone words heavy with the weight of a life, was disastrous if not inhumane. Vaughn did nothing as he watched the boy holler and cry and kick his feet; watched as another member of the council restrained his arms and dragged him out of the hall, resembling the towing of a car.

Beside him, Dmitri fidgeted in his seat, seemingly uneasy. "Feels bad."

"I see you have an extensively vast vocabulary, Ford." The vulture bit back a curt smile, which, however rare, would render his comment less effective than he would have liked it to be. His companion returned this with a pointed look.

"Yeah? I do. And I sure—"

He was unfortunately interrupted by a cold announcement, made by the headmaster himself, to take the 'disturbance' with a pinch of salt. "Back to dinner." He picked up his fork and knife, slicing into the steak before him.

His knife scratched the surface of the plate, scraping, scraping, uncomfortably scraping against the smooth whiteness; the sound travelling far within the walls for every eye could not leave the knife.

It was not long after the hall had fallen into an obligated silence that they began to yield. The pressure was immense, with members of the high table first picking up their utensils to the deputy headmaster, Faustes himself, finishing his last slice of meat and rising to leave. Murmurs began to replace the former silence, tentative movements here and there out of the blue nudging one another to concede.

Amongst clinking utensils and wary whispers, Vaughn concluded that he simply hadn't the appetite for predator-prey dramatics or the headmaster's theatrical meals. A single glance at his plate—half empty, nonetheless—confirmed this. He pushed it aside, wiped his mouth with a napkin and stood with the intention to leave.

"Sit."

He turned at once, stunned by the voice he would never think authoritative or hear it (ever) issue an order so curt. Jing had spoken without meeting his gaze or even turning to call after his back. She'd merely said it whilst picking up a steamed bamboo shoot with her chopsticks. Vaughn was partly confused but mostly afraid.

Turning to Dmitri did not help his situation. Both the latter's eyes and mouth were wide, open, and shaped into an 'o'. It was a strange and ridiculous expression that belonged in a children's cartoon with terrible taste.

He sat.

"So, uh," was the falcon's idea of breaking the silence. "What was that all about, you think?"

"Try this," Jing added a suspicious strip of what looked like leather slathered in chilli oil to his plate. The act had been so abrupt and uncharacteristic that Vaughn was left staring at the strip of thing he knew not what was, mildly frightened to send it down his digestive tract. "And continue talking."

He caught her drift only then, turning to Dmitri who continued to look hopelessly clueless. Leaving his dinner unfinished and displaying any sign of disapproval was only going to make matters harder to resolve. Leaving the boy unnoticed was likely to dissolve Kirill's perceived threat. "Don't you have anything to say, Ford?"

"Why does everyone always assume that talking is my natural state of mind and being?" Talked Dmitri like he would as always. After all, talking was his natural state of being. "But don't you guys think that, you know. You can't help but notice these kind of things."

Jing prompted him mid-chew. "What things."

"Like, you know," the falcon's face scrunched up a fair bit. "How he might've been treated that way only because he was prey."

Vaughn had to roll his eyes. "Impressive. I never knew prey were treated like slaves!"

"Hey," the other snapped dully, "I wasn't exactly stating the obvious, okay? Just, you know. I didn't think they'd dismiss them like that when things were getting all serious and shit."

"Well, you thought wrong, Ford," said the vulture shortly after, finishing the last sip of his raspberry soda. "Not everyone learns from their mistakes."

"Mistakes being Slayne leaving us?"

They turned to the cassowary who'd spoken, quite out of turn and quite suddenly indeed. The topic had remained a sensitive one despite the distance that time had put between the broken heart and a mind struggling to keep everything else together.

"Dude, you didn't have to put it like that," squirmed the falcon, allergic to sensitivity and serious conversations in general. "We're not going there."

"Where are we going, then?" Jing asked, far too serious for Dmitri's hopelessly low threshold for serious conversation.

___________________________

Luka Sullivan had never, in his life, skinned a potato or slice carrots into fancy flower shapes. While he had, indeed, taken a liking to the former due to reasons entirely unknown, the orange, tough and tastelessly crunchy latter remained quite beyond his...threshold for vegetables.

Io had Jiro's recipe book for 'How to Make Predators Eat Veggies ^0^/' turned to the page number eleven for basics, which included a full explanation and seemingly academic research of how visual appeal and visible effort from the chef played a role in increasing the 'edibility' of green and ugly vegetables.

The pair were huddled in the kitchen of the eagle's dormitory, giving one of the recipes a shot and by doing so conjure some sort of magic meal. Neither were particularly good at it, and the thought of combining one and one seemed, for some reason, quite the solution.

"Ow ow ow ow," yelped tiny as he backed away from the oil-spitting-frying pan, giving his forearm a comforting rub.

"Io." Luka dropped the knife in his hands with a clang and rushed to inspect the former's arm. Both were hopeless.

"Um, it's nothing," he smiled, sheepish after checking the sting on his arm. "Just a splatter of oil. Hurry—put the vegetables in."

"Oh," was all the eagle said in response, returning to the counter and lifting the chopping board to slide every chopped vegetable into the pan. Most of them did not make it into the pan.

Having observed this, Io scooped up the poor vegetables and filled the pan that was already full. Most of the vegetables were barely touching the surface of the pan, leaving them generally...uncooked. "M-maybe we should have separated the carrots and the potatoes," deduced his companion, re-reading the instructions. "Oh yeah. It's written over here."

They hadn't followed the instructions.

Luka produced a wooden spatula, glancing towards Io for any possible corrections only to see the latter staring at the potatoes and carrots as though it was his next philosophical dilemma, arms crossed, head lowered in thought while the carrots, uh, well the carrots and potatoes glared at Luka.

"Io?"

His friend snapped out of it, raising his head to meet the eagle's gaze with an apologetic smile of his own. "Sorry, um. I was just thinking if we should have went for the instant ramen instead...or if I should have helped you get some stuff downstairs at the dinner hall."

"I like this more."

Luka was, as usual, the kind of person who spoke his mind; a part of how he managed to retain its quiet peace in the first place. Io responded to this with a quiet sparkle in his eyes, which the eagle caught. Naturally, he did.

"R-really? Okay then. So, um. Let's check if the pasta's ready."

It was. Yet, it took the two a moment to realize that even if it was ready, the pan already filled with a mountain of vegetables was not going to have any space for an additional two portions of linguine.

"We could transfer it into a larger pan? Or a skillet," piped Io to a still Luka-with-wooden-spatula. "If you have that."

"I have a pot," he offered instead, unintentionally skipping the logical expression of 'I don't have a skillet but I have a...' which would have otherwise stirred a couple of misunderstandings had his companion not been Iolani Tori.

Victoria and Lyra were huddled in the former's nest—situated near the top corner of the living room, close to a window—as they watched the humans fail to fill their tummies. It was thoroughly amusing, and should Papercrane have been in her nest as well (on the other side of the room), she would have much to comment about their inability to cook, having witnessed the professional that Jiro was. Alas, cuddling with the latter had been her top priority for the past couple of weeks. Today was no different.

"Let's use the pot."

Luka searched for the pot; he produced the pot; Io took one look at the pot; he thought that the pot was a little overdone.

"Let's...not use the pot."

Luka returned the pot to its original place in the cabinet; as he was doing so, he spotted another smaller pot; he produced the pot; Io took one look at the pot; the pot was perfect.

"Let's use this pot!"

No form of literary description or lengthy prose could convey the sheer amusement of this interaction. It required the repeated use of one word, the prime word chaos had stemmed from—pot. Thankfully, Io did not bother to comment on the fact that Luka should have gotten the smaller pot out in the first place or else the latter would have had to explain his desire for increased interaction.

The eagle and the moon phoenix transferred every bit of vegetable and pasta into the pot before pouring a pre-heated, ready-to-eat, instant packet of carbonara sauce on top. Luka took this as a cue to finally put his wooden spatula to use.

"It's starting to come together," Io noted, pleased. His companion turned to him. "Sorry it took so long."

Luka could not understand why anyone would need to apologize for something as trivial as messing up dinner. It had been Io who'd voluntarily delayed a ready-made meal downstairs to suit the sudden change in the eagle's eating habits.

It had been nearly two weeks since Luka last had a meal of red meat. And it hadn't exactly made its way into his system.

The scent of flesh—both raw and cooked—summoned every inch of discomfort in his chest, stirring the most ugly and adverse notion within. It reminded him of stillness and blood; of crimson and darkness; a night without the moon.

What was once beating and alive—silenced in an instant.

Nothing he did could stomach the guilt and fear that flesh now seemed to represent. The layer of fat on bacon looked uncannily similar to the strip of flesh behind the heart that he'd swallowed and a slice of ham like everything else; red.

Yet, it was pain and guilt that would resurface time after time for not a single feather of regret was shed by the creature inside his cage. It was enough that he was alive.

Painful it was, but he was alive and Io was not alone.

Luka could not fathom otherwise. It was in times like these—quiet happiness over a pot and a flame, some carrots and potatoes—that he wanted so much to be alive. Both for his companion's sake and his own. Selfish reasons did not evade Luka Sullivan. He was human.

"I'm the one who's taking too long."

His friend turned to him at that, mild shock written over his features. He was about to say something. Luka could tell by the trembling of his lips.

He reached over to ruffle the other's hair. Io squirmed, sneezing quietly.

Thanks for everything, the eagle returned to their pot of pasta, narrowly missing the eyes of his friend that watched over him, who'd heard his voice from within.

*

As far as Io and Luka were aware, it was entirely possible to end up with nine portions of pasta by accident. They had intended for three.

"How did we get so much pasta?"

"Propagation," proposed his eagle friend, unable to admit that he'd unpacked three boxes of linguine instead of weighing three portions of it. The most Io would be able to stomach was one and a half. That would leave himself with seven and a half portions to finish. Not a huge feat but...

There was a timely knock on their door.

Eagle and moon phoenix exchanged a look of fair confusion and surprise before glancing down at their pasta, as though expecting to witness some form of shock from the inanimate strands of flour (hopefully cooked al dente).

Io was in the midst of pulling himself away from the magnetic draw of Luka's comfy couch when the latter pushed him back down, securing him in position with a fluffy pillow before going to get the door himself.

He was by the coat rack when he heard the familiar voice of his guest through the front door, who simply weren't the best at whispering or keeping their thoughts private.

"Skies, I regret doing that. I mean, what if they were busy doing the—you know...? Okay forget that, what's done's done. Shit. They're definitely at it. Because they're taking so long to get the door? Yeah? Or, maybe they went somewhere else. Oh. Right."

Luka was quick to assume that there were more than one of them since, well, Shri wouldn't be talking to herself if she were alone, would she? (She would, she absolutely would.) Not only was he intelligent enough to make the hasty deduction, he was also, conveniently, smart enough to ignore (or accept) the content of her speech. Luka Sullivan, the intellectual.

"Good shit of—skies," the osprey calmed herself in time to register that Luka was fully clothed. "I meant hi."

Slightly further away from the door, a quietly amused phoenix waved. She could almost hear the inward sigh and silent debate going on in the eagle's mind; clearly, he did not wish for his private time with Io to be interrupted.

"Come in," was what he voiced nevertheless, stepping back and opening the door a little wider for the pair to enter. Shri had jumped in surprise before murmuring something in her native tongue. Her Link remained open to Jing, who was genuinely starting to find everyone incredibly amusing.

"Luka? Is everything o—oh! Hi everyone," a tiny head popped out from the end of the hallway before another hand did, waving. "We were just about to have dinner. Have you had yours?"

"Oh, uh," Shri was shocked to see Io dressed. Everyone was dressed! Outrageous! "Hey Io. Nice place, haha."

Io laughed. "It's Luka's. Not mine!" He turned to his eagle friend, who sort of paused as though not quite registering that the room was his own when he'd somehow along the way started viewing it as shared territory. The pause was fairly long and Io, knowing Luka, offered to usher the guests into the living room while he questioned the ownership of his room.

"So...you guys have been deciding on homemade food quite a lot recently," Shri pointed out, hoping to extract juicy information from the unsuspecting moonstone. "What's up with that?"

Io poured each of them a glass of water. "It's, well...it's a long story," he brushed it off, "we did it once and I guess we really enjoyed it, so."

"You would, huh." Everyone turned to Shri.

It was then that Luka entered the room and looked at everyone looking at Shri. Jing broke the silence by commenting on the pleasant smell wafting from the kitchen, to which Io promptly thanked and brought them to the dining table, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed all of a sudden.

"Today's dinner! Luka's pretty good at skinning potatoes by the way."

The pair eyed the pot of pasta in the middle of the table, wondering if Io had somehow foreseen the arrival of guests with his Eye. It was a lot of pasta.

"Would you like some?" He offered in a sheepish smile. "We made too much...by accident."

Shri laughed. "It's fine. We just had dinner actually, that's where the—"

"I'll have some," Jing nodded, receiving a plate from Io before helping herself to a relatively huge portion of the 'pot potato pasta with cream and carrots'. Luka watched her transfer almost half of the remaining pasta and was quietly impressed. They sat on opposite sides of the table; Luka and Io on one end, Shri and Jing on the other.

"Is everything okay?" Io asked mid-chew, noting that the potatoes were pretty decent. "It's not every day that Luka gets visitors."

The girls paused in thought, wondering if the assumption that Io and Luka were always together—and by extension, therefore mostly found in his room—was really an assumption at all, if not the entire truth. In fact, they hadn't come to see Luka, specifically.

"Er, not really," Shri began, looking to the phoenix for help. Unfortunately for her , the latter was occupied with pasta. "We didn't come to see the, uh, him," she gestured to the Luka, "we just, sorta. Came to tell you guys about what happened over dinner...weird-ass-shit. Stuff. Bad."

Her thoughts would not collect in the form of sentences or language and she found herself struggling to express what had happened over dinner. Describing the event took several pauses and long, drawn-out silences of waiting while she thought of the next word to say. Jing did not help.

"So like, Kirill sat down and got back to eating—just, totally ignored him and some people started pulling him out of the door and like. Yeah," she finished lamely. "But yeah I think. Well. Someone died...again."

She left the thought unfinished, dangling in the air for someone else to complete. Shri didn't know what to make of anything that reminded her of the still, pale body under the light of the moon, blood seeping into the soil. The sight of it remained, forever, within; and the presence of his Avian, now by the side of another, seemed almost unreal—the one who'd left the surgical cut on Slayne's chest.

"I know, like. I know we never really. Cared about...I don't know. Someone else passing," she went on, speaking to Luka and Jing, primarily. "I'm pretty sure prey have gone missing and no one's really noticed. Not us, at least."

Slayne had, perhaps, been the very first tree in the middle of the woods whose fall Shri had heard so loud and clear. It reminded her of those she did not hear.

"Who do you think it is?"

Io twirled a strand of pasta on his fork, looking down at his plate. "I don't think any of us know just yet, Shri. And I haven't been able to hear voices as well as Jing just yet...but going by what you said," he continued to twirl but nothing more was going onto the fork. "Do we really need to know who it is? Maybe we don't really need to know who it is at all. Maybe the boy didn't feel the need to say it because a human's a human and it's enough that someone—anyone—died at all."

He'd lost his appetite the moment the words had left his lips and he knew exactly why. Not a single, breathing soul in the world knew the selfish choice that he had made. Even for Io, not every life seemed to weigh the same.

The sun looked at the moon.

______________________

"Hey."

The widowbird turned. He met the eyes of the hawk, leaning against the doorframe with a folder under his arm; tie loose. Tired.

"Quint," Callaghan drew away from the window and approached his friend. "Has the headmaster met the boy?"

Faustes shook his head, handing him the file. "He's on his way. The emergency meeting was probably as an excuse to avoid him."

They sat by the fireplace, where the coffee table was and the scent of chamomile tea caressed; the widowbird poured his companion a cup. The night was as harsh as it was quiet, leaving the rest of the world behind in the wind that swept across the island at every thunder of the sky. A storm was approaching.

"He wasn't mentioned?"

"He wasn't."

Callaghan was not surprised. He slid the teacup and its saucer towards his friend, raising another to his lips.

"It was only after everyone was dismissed that I could remind him," Faustes nodded in thanks, missing moments like these in private. "Someone else was around so he pretended to care."

"Ah," the widowbird was quick to catch on. "And knowing Verity, using the boy against Kirill in some part of her plans isn't entirely impossible either?"

Faustes turned to his companion, a wry smile upon his lips. "She takes every chance."

"Then I must check on the boy," Callaghan said in return, rising. The look in his eyes speaking of reluctance toward their parting; hidden by a pair of windows from the eyes of the world.

He was about to leave the room, having already set his teacup aside and crossed half of his companion's quarters when he turned, abruptly, as though a thought had struck his mind.

"Um. Will you—"

"I'll be here when you get back."

*

Wint Callaghan had, for years, considered himself a fair mystery. A book indecipherable, unreadable, incomprehensible by the majority of the human race. It took him quite a while to notice the ease at which the hawk could tell what was on his mind, partly flattered but mostly afraid.

He turned at the end of the corridor, descending a flight of stairs before crossing the bridge to the infirmary. He'd expected the headmaster's absence; or at least a short, uninterested dialogue between Kirill and the boy but was shocked to see (hear, rather) that neither was the case.

"It was a predator?"

The widowbird could hear ire in the voice even through closed doors. It worried him immensely, knowing that the vulture was not the best at controlling his anger.

"You should have said that first!" Agitation. Callaghan had the misfortune of knowing how close the headmaster was to being livid. "Useless pigeon. The inability to prioritize information—you brought this upon yourself."

Callaghan did not wish to be involved in anything concerning his current predator, especially if it meant siding that which Kirill was against. Already, he had experienced the consequences first-hand.

Yet, to remain a mere witness or a by-stander, inactive and robbed of individual agency seemed less than human at this point in time. He could not suppress the desire to intervene and so a hand reached for the door—

It jolted open.

Kirill stared at the widowbird in his way, stopping abruptly in his tracks and nearly crashing into the other had he not taken a step back out of shock. There was a moment, brief but sharp enough to carve an image of fury itself on the bars of his cage; Callaghan had caught the look of sheer ire and menace on the vulture's face, frozen in time, locked in his eyes.

It disappeared in a matter of seconds in which his eyes narrowed in on the unexpected visitor. Behind the headmaster, Lord Alfred shifted his weight to catch a glimpse of whatever that had made them stop in their tracks.

"What are you doing here."

The widowbird lowered his gaze at once, unconsciously reaching up to adjust the pair of glasses on the bridge of his nose. "Sir. I'd...I'd heard voices coming from the infirmary while I was passing by. Assuming something bad had happened, I—"

"As usual," the Himalayan vulture brushed his excuses aside, "you are terrible at lies." He started past the other and was halfway across the bridge before Callaghan could stammer a response, urgent strides against the flagged stone floor. Receding.

Gathering his thoughts and composing the erratic beat of the creature within, the professor peered through the gap in the double doors: the coast was clear. There was a lone boy sitting on the edge of his bed at the far end of the infirmary, head lowered, back against the world.

He faced a wall.

"Hello," Callaghan said as he approached, tentative. "Good evening. Do you remember me? Well—you might, if you are a first-year. That is, you might have seen me around more often. I'm the professor they put in charge of prey but, well, I've come to see how you were doing."

The boy turned, sideways. His eyes following the widowbird.

"Are...are you alright?" The latter was beginning to fear the absence of a response, wondering if the boy was far too traumatized to speak. "Will you tell me your name? If you wish to be alone, that is quite alright as well—"

"Umbra," he swallowed, turning around. "I-it's Umbra."

______________________

A/N: Luka's backstory will replace the chapter for next week...hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm for the first time, I'll try counting the number of people who comment and see if this thing still has hope. Wattpad approached me to publish the Baked series so I probably don't have the time to write this but I'm somehow still like: fuck that, look at this masterpiece that no one's looking at. But of course I can't fucking say that because lol the one that's popular is the one that is terrible and I just suck at writing in general.

I've realized that good things keep popping up whenever I don't try my best, and when I actually do, things just take a turn for the worse. Why is that so? Well, beats me. Back to writing crappy romance that I suck at.

-Cuppie.