Book 3: Chapter 7 (1/2)
Two small red birds were perched on the branches of a leafless tree. The branch was thick, wider than both of them combined. Between them, there was a stone plate filled with all kinds of bugs, dead and alive. One of the red birds reached forwards with its talon and picked up a centipede, stuffing it into its mouth. With a loud slurp, the squirming insect disappeared down the bird’s beak. It belched before trembling, puffing its feathers out. “I can’t believe Big Sis really left us like that!”
“But, Emile, you were the one who told her to leave,” the other phoenix, Susan, said. “You can’t tell someone to leave and then get angry at them for leaving.”
“Says who? It’s my right to be mad at her!” Emile snorted as he tossed another bug into his beak, craning his neck back to swallow. He clacked his beak after he was done and lowered his head to glare at his sister. “We’re on a new continent; Mom told her to take care of us! How dare she leave like that?”
Susan sighed, her chest deflating as her feathers pressed against her body. “When you tell someone, ‘Go away or I’ll peck your eyes out,’ you’re not really giving them a choice to stay. And she left behind the signaling bead for us to break if we were in danger or got lost.”
“Oh really?” Emile asked, his chest puffing up. “And where’s that bead now, hmm? Exactly.”
“You threw it into a waterfall, dummy,” Susan said, rolling her eyes. “I couldn’t even retrieve it!”
Emile made unintelligible noises as he munched on more bugs. “Whatever. It’s her fault. If something bad happens to us, I’m telling Mom.”
Susan sighed again. “It’s not Tafel’s fault that the pretty peacock rejected you. You didn’t have to take your anger out on her. Everyone faces rejection; it’s a part of life.”
A worm splatted against Susan’s face. Emile flapped his wings and shouted, “I’m not mad at being rejected! I’m mad at Tafel leaving me when I told her to! Look, you stayed behind, didn’t you? I told you to leave too, right? But you didn’t! You stayed. How come Tafel didn’t stay too?”
“Oh, I was going to leave since you were being moody, but Tafel told me to stay behind to watch over you,” Susan said. “And she gave me that bead, which you threw away. This is your fault.”
Emile made a face as he grabbed the edge of the plate with his talon and flipped it off the branch of the tree. There was a crashing noise followed by a loud scream. Emile and Susan froze as they stared at each other. They crept towards the edge of the branch and peered over, pressing their stomachs against the bark to stay low. Beneath them, a group of four-armed people were gathered around a fallen person who had bugs crawling over her face. One of the four-armed people raised his head and met Emile’s gaze. The man let out a strange grunt as he reached towards his waist and pulled out a bow and arrow. In less than a second, the man’s bowstring was pulled all the way back, an arrow nocked and pointed at the two phoenixes.
“Look at what you did!” Susan shouted as she dove to the side, dodging an arrow. She scrambled to her feet and pumped her wings, lifting herself off the branch.
Emile leapt into the air, away from the hunter, and spread his wings. “Less talking, more fleeing!”
***
When Tafel returned to the living room with a tray of cookies, she found Vur and Alora glaring at each other with a single cookie left on the tray between them. They each had a clenched paw raised in front of themselves. With a rapid motion, their claws flashed three times before stopping. Alora’s claws were completely outstretched while two of Vur’s claws remained curled up. “Scissors! I win.”
Alora’s head dropped into her paws. “No! Why!? You did scissors three times in a row! Why would you choose scissors again!?”