When we were young, Aunt Engreaves's room was forbidden. It was further back in those days, when the 'town' was smaller, and she had just renounced her position in the Defenders, protectors of our entire world, to run away into the woods and protect her expatriated sister and the marvelous Canira who had wooed her, as well as their half-breed children.

When Harrier and I were finally brave enough to take a peek inside, Harrier got two feathers and I got a nick in the ear. I can almost hear the pup-whine cutting the morning as I look out at Aunt Engreaves, who is retrieving her hawk from its perch. Behind me, Altair slides the last of our bags to the ground, where they lie heavy against the wall. I would kill for a space-bending bag, but most of the more powerful artifacts that mimic Canis powers come from sources too illicit even for Altair and I.

"We should leave," I say.

"Did he tell you that?" asks Altair.

"No, the voice has been quiet," I say.

Altair looks as smug as he can manage. "I told you that coming back here would be good for you."

"It can't be that easy."

"Yes it can. Maybe the hard part is just accepting the miracle."

"Fine, you when. Look, no matter what I do or don't accept, I'm going to go crazy in a confined space. I can't be here, Altair."

Altair nods, reflectively. "Let's go, then."
"Out?"

"To breakfast."

Harrier personally comes over and gets Altair a salad when we enter, which he gratefully takes. He crunches on the leaves while Harrier and I have a silent showdown. The feathers glimmer at her neck, swaying with the slight rise and fall of her chest, and as I follow the pockets of crystal the Dog Days has made of her every wound down her body, I notice one of her paws is almost encased in blue.

Her eyes are sad as she looks at me, and decrees, "I'm fine."

I don't like the way her crystals are edging up her leg.

Still, I lower my head and take the squirrel on the table, which is complemented by sparse honey. When Altair and I finish, everyone else is still clustered about the table (save for Aunt Engreaves). I turn, Altair rising as well, and the youngest of my siblings, Eneera, gets up, tail waving.

"Eneera, what are you doing?" asks Adiza, her voice cautious enough to hide the warning edge of distaste.

"Following my brothers," she responds. "I bet they brought in some cool stuff. From Weltva!"

One of the Canira-Canis hybrid pups leaps so quickly she almost throws the table over. "I want stuff from Weltva," she pleads.

"None of you are getting anything from Weltva." Adiza assures them.

"Can we have something... not from Weltva?" asks the other pup.

"I have some things that aren't lethal," I say, trying not to look snide as I stare my mother down. "I might as well spread the wealth around."
"We had an agreement, Hawk. You are not to peddle your stolen merchandise in my household, nor any adjacent property, nor the woods surrounding this property, nor to my family..." (I'll give my mother this--for someone who so dislikes my kind of activity, she has a wicked knack for bargaining.)

Slyly, I say, with a quick tilt of the head towards the pups, "Thank goodness I don't steal." As the parents begin to mutter amongst themselves, and Altair begins mouthing more 'sorry's beneath his breath while the pups burst into riotous excitement, I finish with a turn to the exit, "I con."

The pups bounce with me through the gardens, tails wagging, and Altair trods along. Eneera, with her snow-and-dust fur, sticks out from the mottled hues of her companions. Despite their size, they all teem with healthy light. Eneera has almost a red glow to her, like my father's fire, and when she sneezes (pup sneezes. I am not sentimental, but I missed them) embers emerge, dying out on the stone. I haven't the slightest clue what powers the others possess, as their Canira parent is an unassuming, mousy brown and their energy slight. Still, there is something there, lurking behind their eyes and across their faces, making Altair, who is now unadorned as I in terms of magic, look weak in comparison. Past lives, intermingled with magic, are theirs by birthright.

I find myself thinking about the white Canis we've met on the road. Two times coincidence, three times fate... it seems like a shame to leave things where we've left them, now. Yet I could stay here, stagnate, and all those wild acquaintanceships and perilous moments would... terminate.

I escort the pups into our room. Altair runs a hoof against the trinkets bag, rocking it under his hoof with a look in his eyes as if he fears the bag might explode beneath him (no such event has yet occurred, ever). I look his way imploringly, and he bends down to pull out the button before letting the contents of the bag spill out. Eneera and the pups race forwards and I step between them and the bag, staring at them as if to appraise their worth.

"Tell no soul what you see here," I say earnestly.

The pups nod.

"They'll be telling no soul what?" asks Adiza, entering the room.

Altair's nostrils flare, averting his head. He begins mumbling some explanation and I say, "Do you honestly think I'd give them anything dangerous?"

"Yes," says Eneera.

"No," admits Adiza. "But I want to be there to ensure that remains the case."

"You're ruining the spectacle, Adiza," I growl, and begin messing with the bag again, pulling out pebbles. Most of these are simple, gray and unassuming, and although style over substance has always been my motto when it comes to merchandise, I'll admit the plain but practical ones are my favorites. I pass a few to the pups.

Eneera squints. "What?"

"They're frost pebbles. Put one in your mouth."

She taps it and shivers. Then she takes it in her mouth and spits it out. "It's still cold," she complains.

"Hence the name." I say. "And we have sweets, as well. I know you've had your share of honey, but these are candied crystals we picked up in one of the cities. They're too much for my tastes, but perhaps you'll like them better." Eneera pounces on these. The other two, wilting daisies though they are, perk up when Eneera turns around with the bag, eyes shining.

"They sparkle in your mouth!" Eneera proclaims.

"I've other small things, too," I say, looking to Adiza instead of the pups. Altair smiles, nodding to me. Thanks, bud.

"Merely trinkets," sighs Adiza, relieved, and almost teasingly, she continues, "Have you risked your life on anything worth substantial value?"

"We also had Bliss on us, for a while there."
"Bliss?" asks one of the pups.

I nod. "Dulls your magic. You'll get a killing for it out in the world, but they'll just likely kill you for it."

"Hawk!" Adiza cries, distressed at three sets of three pairs of attentive ears and moreso at me. "And you didn't bring anything home? For your father? Engreaves? You know they're powerful, and both of them are in agonizing pain at sunsets."

Oh, Aunt Engreaves looked the part earlier. She looked absolutely miserable, letting that bird soar in loops around her head and entertaining the pups. Coldly, I respond, "You won't take anything I offer."

"On moral grounds," she starts.

Something clicks and I'm stuck in frenzy again, the question at the back of my mind loosed from my mouth. "How dare you preach to me about morality when there are bones outside."

"Bones," Eneera whispers.

Adiza bursts, crystals raising from her hackles in a shower of light and fury. Her teeth white as the moon, she cries out, "They're the bones of one of the Sentients who was under our protection, who died in a bandit raid. There was an attack and they had earlier agreed that if anything ever happened, we would... allow their protection, under the circumstances. We would all do the same. Hawk, there are groups out there who hate half-breeds, and with magic erratic as it is right now, there's a chance they might come for us. It is old Moonwalker tradition that the dead protect the living, as the living uphold the stories of the dead. Morals! I know more of morals than you ever will, Hawk."

I shoot back, "Since when do you follow tradition? Would you do that? Let your soul be strewn above ground for years, your magic and self resonating in on itself through an empty vessel for as long as time can draw you out..."

Adiza declares, "I would suffer the torment of a thousand lifetimes over to protect my family--"

"Stop." Something echoes beneath my voice, harsh and scratchy in my mouth.

Altair steps in, legs shaking and concern wide on his face. "Adiza. Please restrain yourself. I know Hawk is--he's abrasive, and he's been gone, we've both been gone, and you have every right to be angry, but don't let this come to blows. He's your son." I can hear I'm your son die in his mouth. "We'll go tend the fields, far on the outskirts as we can find ourselves."

Adiza says, "If you must leave, tell me forthright."

"No such plans," Altair fastens up the bag. He bows to Eneera and the pups, who've since been cowed into the corner. "We'll see you tonight, for dinner."

We trail out together. I watch Adiza kick the bags aside, deriving some small joy from the sealing magics we convinced some Canis twenty cities back to sew in. At least our things will be safe. I can't say the same for us (easy on the merchandise, ma).

Altair opens his mouth when we're out of earshot.

"What do you want me to say?" I ask. "Because I can say that, but it won't be a good enough explanation."

Altair lowers his ears. "You are singularly incredible, Hawk, in all of the worst ways."

***

The fields widen before us in the distance. My eyes fog with pain. No view has looked so good in the last two years. Every wide field or set of hills has called back to this visage, to this very breath and heartbeat.

Mahigan is working with the dragon, not far off (there's a dragon. In my town-- this town. It's strange even for us). We move around him, not wanting to raise his fragile hopes, and Altair opens the shed, saddling himself up to the plow. I take an axe in my mouth, which is dual bladed for the sake of balance, both blades light in my mouth. They were expensive, but I can feel the air energies in them, and power swells in me.

Pretty blade. She's in a sorry state, but look how beautiful she swings.

Altair rolls his eyes and tilts his head towards the further fields, and we venture off together, as a newly-unbalanced Fauna missing his most powerful weapon and a Canira about to learn himself powerless did years prior. The work is easy, the hours hard, and I could not chop enough wood in the world to make me forget Adiza's voice ringing in my ears.

I devote my scrawny weight into chopping, hauling, and pushing things that can not be conned. Still, though it has no will for me to bend around my pawpads, I get the distinct impression the earth is laughing at me. I can feel it in the whistle of crops in the wind, the teeth of the wood, and the way the wind brushes my fur, moving up to flick my ears.

When the work is done and the sun is falling down once more, carrying with it the baited breath of every suffering Sentient on the damned world, Altair struggles out of his plow, returning it to the shed. Mahigan is on the ridge, fur red as the sun, and his head rises as the sun begins to ebb the fire within him. Losing a third of yourself is painful, but he bares it so gracefully that I can hardly tear my eyes away. It is only when familiar green eyes stray too close to mine that I duck out of sight.

Altair trots after, looking satisfied. "Well?"

I am silent, but my lolling tongue says enough.

"Attaboy."

The woods grow denser, the fatter trunks crowding us out and the sharper bushes jostling us for room. As the path widens again, cut more cleanly from the wilderness, I see a dark shape circling overhead. It sees me. I know it does.

"Go on ahead." I say.

"Hawk." Altair begs.

"I need to see Aunna Engreaves."

"You're going to make up with her?"

"No, I want to see her. She won't see me. It's kind of a complicated deal and I'd prefer it if you kept it on the downlow."

"So you're not leaving. You just want to trespass on someone's privacy." He pauses, and upon reflecting on my dead stare, tilts his head back and says, "I'll cover you at dinner."

"You're the best," I respond.

He trails through the woods, and I creep through the trees until I'm directly below the ring cut by the circling hawk. Beneath it, under the last dying rays of sun, Aunt Engreaves crumples in the dirt. Her eyes clench with pain, her crystal flaring with light before going vacant, and she suppresses a grunt of pain. It occurs to me I've never seen her weep, but there is a soft sound that carries through the forest pooling out from around her. This is followed by a soft choking noise, and then, as she raises her head, she looks me right in the eyes, and whispers, "Hawk." When I shrink into the bush, she says a little louder, "Hawk."

I step forwards, tail between my legs, and the bird comes swinging down with a shrill cry. Engreaves walks my way, the hawk now safely at her shoulder, and pushes the few branches protecting me out of the way. Even without her magic, she is grimly terrifying... she might actually be scarier now.

"At least have the dignity to come forwards." she says. "It would be impolite to kill you before dinner."

Is she joking? "It's not you." I stammer out.

"Oh?"

No, you weren't supposed to ask follow up questions...

"I hate your bird," I spit out, harshly as I rebuked my mother, but is is less an act of malice than a desperate stream of consciousness. "I've always, always, always hated your bird. I hate the way it looks at me like it has more of a place in this family than I do. I hate that its beak clicks when it looks at my ear. I hate beaks! They're unnatural. Worst of all, I hate that you named me after it."

Her eyes swimming with pain, she says, "When you were born, Hawk, your parents were still living separately. Your birth cast your mother out of her pack in the southern deserts, the lands of dust and fire..."

My ear twitches. "I know."

"... and when I came to find you lying next to them, terrified of the future that had opened up before them in earnest, they asked me to name you. You were a thing bridging two worlds, perhaps already foreign to it, but even young as you were you were filled with the will to live, and like your Moonwalker kin, you were a different kind of winged. Nothing we have ever given you was supposed to be a burden, and I am sorry it has become such to you. Change the name, if you must. Whatever does not fit you, leave it. One can not hold a bird down while it is still unplucked," she says, the hawk's wings ruffling with anticipation of something, "and your family has neither the audacity to rip your feathers away nor the ability to hold you down."

"What do I do?" I whisper.

Aunt Engreaves licks her chops. "For now? Dinner."