SA | Chapter IV | Right here

+11 AP (2 shaded FB, Full BG, 405 words) | +5 AP for Renata & +6 AP for Amber

Renata couldn’t believe this was happening. When she heard, she needed to get out. Get away from it all if even for a moment. She felt despicable, even if she had done nothing herself. But one of their own had murdered a child. A child! And to her it was like she might as well have done it herself. She always had felt responsible for those around her. The flock was her family and she made it a point to keep watch. To know them all. To make sure they were safe and they were sound. Her family was by now so big however that it was easy for some to be unseen. Jun was one of them. Renata didn’t understand. She always had seemed so sweet, so unassuming. Not at all a horse that would go and chase an innocent child into their death. Perhaps the flock was slowly falling into hatred, diverging of their path that strived for equality and slowly degrading into vengeance. Perhaps some sought other things than she thought they did. It was hard, very hard. She could understand after all. That pain, that fright, that anger. That feeling of injustice. But then what good would it do if they started acting the same way in reverse? It would make them no better.

 

Heavy rain had started to pour from the sky, as if lamenting what had transpired. Even the downpour could wash the unclean feeling from her skin. And even as she found a small pond to submerge herself in, to ask Cascade what she should do, the heavy feeling in her stomach remained. She didn’t know how long she laid there. It felt like hours, but it could have been minutes. The rain was still falling as heavily as before, soaking her skin, when from the foliage a familiar face appeared. Her heart clenched and she stood as her son approached. “Theseus.” She wrapped her neck around him as he pressed his head into her side. She held him, held onto him for dear life. Once upon a time she had lamented the curse she had bestowed upon her children, risking their lives by passing on their wings. But now she was grateful they had in fact not inherited their father’s fins. How cruel could the world be that just your species, could be warrant for such risk. How cruel could the world be with all its prejudice.

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Pre-chapter picture for Rena. I think she wants nothing more than keep her own children close right now.

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Art & characters (c) me