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  Without stopping, his wings flapped hard against the air, blurring into shadows on the ground. First blood broke; it coated his feathers like an infection, and each feather touched, started to free fall and dot the ground.

  “Are you okay up there?” Reuben asked.

  Daniel wriggled in the sky under the reign of his tempered wings, convulsing his body as if to tear them from him. His mother held a hand to her mouth as she gasped and told herself that it was a stunt. A drop of blood touched the grey slate ledge, and the moments went by in slow motion as his mother looked from that to her son whose wings were now flapping hard against each other. His left wing flopped to his side and swung on a ligament, becoming loose and flying off over into the forestry of the Lowerlands. The soft sound of its crash against the branches brought Daniel back to the searing pain on his back as he spun around in circles.

  “Daniel,” his mother said.

  He dropped, the remaining wing batted against the up thrust as he fell from the sky. He landed on his knees with a thud and several snaps from his body; he let out a small cry before falling quiet.

  “Daniel!” His mother rushed over to him and knelt by his side. Her hand hovered above the large fleshy cut on his back showing the muscle tissue beneath it. She sniffled and wiped her eyes on her blouse. “Hush,” she said, and bit her tongue, she couldn’t feel anything from him, he wasn’t healing, he would’ve started already. “Hush, baby,” she said, stroking his hair.

  “This seems to be a sign that his power wants to kick in, it’s a shame that blood must be shed for it to happen,” Reuben said. “His death is more likely.”

  “Can you help?” she whimpered.

  “I cannot intervene, and neither can you.”

  “He said he’ll know how to handle this change.” She sniffled and wiped her nose on her arm.

  “If he pulls through, he’s accepted, but if he dies, then my condolences.”

  “You- You- You’re not staying?”

  “No, Mrs Satoria, I have two more boys to see in the local area,” he said, materialising his coat over his arms. “I do wish you the best of luck.”

  “What – should – I – do?” she asked, her breaths now hooked at the back of her throat. “What should I do?”

  “Be there for him. Everyone has their purposes – some are born twice to live, while others are being sacrificed for the first lot.” He shrugged his shoulders and gave a crooked smile. “Adieu,” he said before tipping his head at Daniel’s mother and disappearing.

  She burrowed her head in her arms and burst out into a sob. The wound on her son’s back had started to bleed and coat his skin, even the smallest of cuts and grazes started to open up and bleed out into the dent he’d landed in. She shook her head and covered her eyes, taking one peek through the space of her fingers, she couldn’t stop looking. The wing on his back propped up like a white flag, rotting at the tip; the feathers dropped from the bone, and the bone crumbled over his sallow skin.

  “Do this,” she said, and wiped her eyes again. She combed a hand through her hair and tied it back into a ponytail. “You can do this.” She inhaled, and then sighed, wiping all the tears out of her eyes.

  “I can help,” she choked, and picked up her son’s t-shirt. She wrapped it around her hand and held it above the wound on his back, cooing as she dabbed at it softly. “It’s going to be fine. Everything will be fine. You’ll go to school and live in the Upperlands, everything will be better.”

  “Mum,” he said, his voice weighed down with phlegm. “We win?”

  She sniffled and her eyes started to well. “Yes son, you won.”

  “It h—hurt.”

  She opened her mouth to say something back and instead smiled. She rubbed the back of her hand against his arm and felt the goose pimples layer his skin. “No.” If her memory served her well, which it did, she knew that she wasn’t to alert him. She closed her eyes and firmly placed her hand on his arm, but there wasn’t enough will in her blood to teleport them both. Her hands shook as she plied them from him. “It’s already in motion,” she whispered.

  She clambered backwards to her feet and pulled her son’s blood stained t-shirt from her hand. “Eric” she said and sniffled, looking out over the canopy of trees in the Lowerlands. “Eric!” she shouted, throwing the t-shirt.

  She looked down at her son and the small black bugs that had started to fly around him. She rushed inside and scrambled up the staircase to her bedroom. As soon as she reached the room she pulled at things with her energy; the drawers in her dresser flew across the floor, and the doors of the wardrobe swung on their hinges. She pulled at everything until she found a small blue suitcase and took it to the side of her son. She wafted the bugs away with the back of her hand and unzipped the case.

  “It’s going to be fine, sweetie,” she said, combing a hand through his hair. “I can patch you up, ease the pain and speed the healing.” She glanced inside the case; full of bandages, vials of liquid, and needles. It also carried the memories of lives she had saved with it.

  “Is this – is this a – a dream?” he asked.

  “You fell and hurt yourself, honey. I’m helping,” she said and wiped her eyes again.

  She wriggled a hand into a white glove and picked up a needle. With her other hand she sparked flames and sterilised the metal until it started to glow, she then collapsed the fire in her palm and picked a vial of heavy sedative from her collection. She filled the needle with it and let it hover beside her while she tugged Daniel’s arm free from his side. He groaned at the pain, and she hushed him gently, as she tapped his wrist thrice. She found a vein and plucked the needle from the air, rubbing his skin before she injected her him.

  “It’ll all be over when you wake.”

  Chapter Two

  Daniel woke to his mother blotting his forehead with a warm cloth. He blinked at the dust and sleep in his eyes before seeing the silhouette of his parents above him. While he continued to blink, the dim orange glow of the candle light upon his parents’ faces came into focus. He tried to raise his hands to his eyes to rub away the irritation and woke something else. He winced inside his duvet as the pain of a thousand splinters breaking off into his skin shuddered through him.

  “He’ll be okay,” his mother said cresting a smile.

  “Thanks to you,” his father said.

  “Well, it’s a gift.” She grinned. “Do you remember when we met?”

  “Yeah, all I went to you for was a bug bite.”

  She smiled and looked into his eyes. “You know I lied about how fatal it was. I just wanted to see more of you.”

  “I’m glad you lied to me, even though for about a week I thought I was going to die.”

  She grinned and then bit her lip.

  “Did you really?” he asked.

  She nodded, and then dipped to Daniel’s side, taking the cloth from his forehead and rinsing it in the bowl on the bedside table. “My mother told me that one day I’d know, and it was then.” She wrung the cloth out and patted it back on Daniel’s forehead. “I shouldn’t have pushed him, Erik.”

  “We can teach him here, Jac can teach him stuff. He’s still ours. Do we have to give that up?”

  “He was accepted, Erik. For a better life.”

  “He still needs a full recovery.”

  Daniel gasped like it was his first breath; he dug his fingernails into the mattress and ground his teeth together. The damp cloth slipped over his eyes and he gasped harder.

  “Mum? – Dad?” he called out from his aching throat.

  “Oh, baby.” His mother threw her arms around him. He hissed and tried to wriggle out of her grasp, until she pulled away taking the cloth off his head. “You’re okay now.”

  “Just try not to move too much,” his father added.

  “We think it was the change.”

  “Change?”

  “Full power – adolescence.” His parents spoke, one after the other.

  A shiver rippled through
him and he sighed. “Really?” he asked with a huge smile. He pushed himself up in his bed. “Can I go out then?”

  “Where are you going? It's almost midnight,” his mother asked.

  “To tell Jac.”

  His parents shared glances and then looked at him. Daniel knew that look a little too well; they were out to disappoint him.

  She shook her head. “Get some rest. Okay.” She smiled and kissed him on his forehead. He nodded and they said ‘goodnight’ then left him, closing the bedroom door.

  He settled back into bed and flipped his pillow over to get the cold side. He closed his eyes but the candle light kept waking him. He turned away from it, and closed his eyes again. He started to count how long he’d been holding them shut for before needing to start again. “Stupid,” he groaned and opened his eyes.

  He pushed the duvet off and forced himself sit upright again. A slow throb jabbed at his jaw and another started to gnaw at his joints and hammer at his pain threshold.

  His organs knotted inside himself as he threw his legs over the side of his bed. He touched the concrete floor, and hesitated before putting pressure on them. The cold ate into the soles of his feet, and slowly numbed the pain.

  He closed his eyes and a breeze trickled down his spine. He glanced up to the open window and his head spun from the tilt. He sat in the spot, dazed for a moment, and then he drew a breath and stumbled over to his wardrobe. He bit down on his lip as he held himself up on the wardrobe.

  He pulled out a black hooded jacket and put it on; a t-shirt wasn’t worth the effort. He hobbled over to the washing basket and took a pair of grey jogging bottoms out. He froze as his mother shouted from the bottom of the stairs. “Honey, do you want something to eat?”

  His throat went dry and started to ache like two pieces of sandpaper rubbing together. “I’m gonna sleep.”

  “Well I’ve left some in the oven, for when you get hungry.”

  He sat on his bed, and put on the grey jogging bottoms that he’d wore that morning; pitied with dry blood with a tear at the left knee. Quietly he changed, and then blew out the candle and climbed on his bed. He glanced at the small rectangle window above his bed and cursed; before today he could’ve shifted into a bird and flew out of the window.

  It happened fast. Strange but familiar. He felt his muscles constrict and then his throat tighten. He wriggled on the spot, and when he opened his eyes, he was another form altogether, an eagle; the follicles of his skin, now thick illustrious feathers, and his bones has turned thin and hollow.

  He flew from the ledge of the window, and before soaring over into the Lowerlands he noticed his landing spot and the dark discolour of his dried blood. He looked down, and swayed closer to the ground, dropping. He landed, shifting into his normal form.

  “What happened?” he whispered to himself.

  The feathers that had fallen from his wings and coated in his blood were now stuck to the ground, squirming in the wind. He knelt to take them back, but they disappeared at his touch; turning into a fine powder and escaping into the wind. He creased his forehead and stood, staring up into the sky. The recall of events happened in slow motion. He jumped backwards, watching himself fall from the sky to his chin. His stomach tickled up to his chest. He swallowed hard and pushed at his abdomen with his hands.

  He pulled his hood up and shook his head, then took a few too many steps backwards, as he looked to his left and noticed the candle in the front window glimmer against the glass. He pushed himself over the cliff headfirst from his shaking legs. The up gust combed back his hair and choked him, keeping him shaken as he tried to shift. He covered his face with his hands and felt the air now glide with him. Swooping across the tree tops trying to find a clearing.

  Each night was darker and harder to find the right spot to land. He dropped from the sky in mid-shift; his legs formed and dangled, touching the floor while the rest of his body elongated and thickened, absorbing feathers, and rippling out in his own clothes.

  “Jac!” Daniel shouted.

  He kicked a few rocks with impatience, and then called out for his friend again. He headed out of the clearing with a map inside his head to Jac’s hut. A snap sounded close by. He stopped, and turned around, several more sharps sounds followed.

  “Psst. Dan. Psst,” Jac’s voice came from behind him.

  “Jac, what are you doing behind there?” Daniel grinned, looking at the bush where Jac was. “Come out.”

  Jac cocked his head, and the hustling bushes hushed. A soft purr rose from an animal behind Daniel. He turned his head and caught a glimpse of a pair of bright green eyes emerging from behind the bush. He coughed slightly, trying to inhale at the dryness in the back of his throat. His chest trembled as he attempted to take another deep breath, trying to reassure himself that Jac would have a plan.

  “Stop turning,” Jac whispered and gestured for him to come closer.

  His feet shivered in the dirt as he walked towards Jac. His ears pricked as the soft purr became a loud and coarse growl, and then snapping its jaw into a howl.

  “Run!” Jac shouted jumping out from behind the bush and reaching out for Daniel’s hand.

  Daniel turned his head and stumbled at the sight of the huge panther, its claws dug in the ground and its body poised to pounce. He tried to push himself up and run away, only pushing himself along the ground, backing up into the base of a tree.

  “Dan?” Jac gulped, rushing back to the bush.

  Daniel jumped to his feet, but not his feet. He was swollen inside something foreign, something thick and yellow with clumps of orange fur. On all fours, his hands were thick paws. He cooed a light growl and flexed the claw feature of his animal, glancing up at the panther; it was mid-jump and landed on his back, sinking its teeth in.

  Daniel was in the form of a lion, and Jac watched in awe as the lion gnawed the air in pain and bucking its back legs. The panther lost tact and swung by its claws, flying off into a tree, smacking its back. Jac cursed at the panther and enveloped his hands in fire, pelting flames at it that and singeing at its fur.

  Daniel roared and cut them both off. He charged at the panther and chomped down on his leg, he let go as the blood touched his tongue, and he was unsure whether he liked the taste. The panther yelped as the fur started to erode around the wound. There was a shared gasp, with the only movement coming from the whimpering panther as it escaped. Daniel shifted back, now sitting on the floor with blood on his lips.

  “What was that all about?” Jac asked, flailing his hands around in the air.

  Daniel cracked his jaw and wiped his lips. His jacket had been ripped around the bottom. He was about to take it off when he realised that he wasn’t wearing a t-shirt. “That’s new,” Daniel snickered, “and I thought you might be able to tell me about that.”

  “I heard you,” Jac replied, “then I heard somethin’ else.”

  “You mean you weren’t hunting?”

  “If I was stupid enough,” he grinned. “Y’know me, I only go after birds, rabbit and the occasional deer.”

  The smile on Daniel’s face faded. “Maybe it was hunting you. You have been taking its food.”

  “But it shifted back after you bit it, so it wasn’t a panther.”

  “Then you must’ve pissed someone off.”

  “First I’ve heard.” Jac shrugged. “Best head off though.”

  Jac lived in the forest, more specifically, he lived in a tree. He’d declared emancipation from his parents when his adolescent energy came through and they were somewhat relieved considering the several other children they had. He rarely ventured out to visit his family, or even society, the only person he talked to was Daniel, and it had been like that since they were little and Jac had caught Daniel’s hand before he slipped down the trunk of a tree.

  Daniel fanned himself with a large leaf. There was a rule within the forest, and that was the taller the trees, the thicker the forest you’re in, and Jac had built his hut in some tall trees. Although Jac
knew where he lived, he’d planted clues on the forest floor, for when he got lost, or he had to venture out at night.

  “It looks different,” Daniel said watching Jac pat tree trunks. “You sure you haven’t moved.”

  “It looks different because its night and I don’t travel at night,” he said. “So, why are you here?” he asked admiring the trunk of a tree, and then patting it.

  “I got my full power.”

  “Shit. Really? That’s awesome, and you can still shift?”

  “Looks like it.”

  Jac nodded, and then turned to face the tree. He rubbed the trunk with both hands and hummed in concentration. He pulled away a few flakes of bark, revealing grooves in the trunk; several rectangle holes. He cracked his fingers and then pulled himself up the first, bouncing up the rest of them until he settled on a branch at the top.

  “I can’t see them,” Daniel said feeling around for the grooves.

  “Instinct. It’s what energy is based upon,” Jac called down, then disappeared into the silhouette of the tree around him.

  Daniel closed his eyes and pulled himself up from the first hole, finding his fingers reach to the next and then clawing up the rest, slower than Jac had done it. “I can’t see. Where now?”

  “Up the next branch and then along until you walk into the door,” Jac replied.

  He reached up and grabbed the next branch, pulling himself up and trying to stand. He centred himself and started to walk along holding on to a branch at his side with his other hand feeling around in front for the slate of wood; Jac’s door. He smacked his hand against it, and the door swung open.

  “Half of me hoped that you’d have moved, but no, this is pretty much the same place,” Daniel chuckled.

  “What are you gonna do now – with the change an’ everything?” Jac asked lighting a lantern and smiling into the growing orange.

  “I came here to tell you about that as well.”

  “If I know your mum, she’s gonna push you into school, and your dad, well he’ll follow,” Jac continued.