Owlflight

“Vain bird,” Snowfire told him with mock severity, and took himself back down the path to his ekele, leaving Night-wind and Kel together on the sunning rock.

He had no doubt that Kel was waiting to get Nightwind’s advice about how the gryphon should handle the boy, and not for any specious reason about drying feathers. That was fine; they should, ideally, have different approaches. After all, they couldn’t both play “elder brother.” Let me see; Starfall obviously is better suited to the role of “respected elder” - and when Dar’ian sees that a mage is the highest statused person in our group, that might make him change his mind about magic. Nightwind may be waiting to see if he accepts her as “mother surrogate” - it would be better if he made that choice. I think he is a little too clever to accept her if she puts herself forward in that role, and I know she knows it could be trouble if she tried to force it on him. The gryphon being the gryphon, he will no doubt take the role of “mysterious wonder” or “entrancing enigma” and play his appearance for all he can, to work in advice we could not give.

As he continued to plan out several possible approaches to take, he reached the door of his hut and carefully parted the curtain of vines. The boy was huddled up on his pallet with his face to the wall - and somewhat to Snowfire’s surprise, the owl, who was normally rather aloof, had come down off his perch and was on the ground beside the boy with one wing stretched over him as if Hweel were sheltering a nestling.

The owl turned his head and fastened his great golden eyes on Snowfire as the Tayledras entered. Instead of words, Hweel Sent emotion, a complicated flavor of distress and protectiveness.

:Boy hurts. Inside, loss. Shelter lost, caring lost. Pain, but no blood.: Hweel finally articulated.

:I know,: Snowfire replied simply. :I’ll do the best I can for him.:

Hweel relaxed immediately, as if certain, now that Snow-fire understood and had promised to help, that Snowfire could solve all of the boy’s complicated problems. Sometimes Hweel’s absolute trust in his bondmate’s ability to solve any problem was as irritating as it was touching, but Snowfire took great care never to convey that irritation.

Hweel relinquished his place on the boy’s pallet, waddling over to be lifted up to his perch, and once the owl was back where he belonged, Snowfire took up the place Hweel had vacated. He touched Darian’s shoulder carefully.

“Dar’ian,” he said, quite calmly. “I came to see if you were feeling any better.”

His immediate answer was a sniff, but Darian at least sat up. “N-no,” the boy replied, his voice hoarse.

Snowfire suppressed a chuckle, which would have been taken amiss. At least the lad is honest! “I’m sorry to hear that; no one wanted to upset you, least of all Starfall. He is quite personally distressed that you were made so unhappy by our questions; his last words to me were that he is not accustomed to having children run from him in tears.”

Darian rubbed his reddened eyes and sniffed again, but looked up at Snowfire with mingled surprise and disbelief. “Why should he care? It doesn’t matter how I feel - “

“But it does,” Snowfire interrupted. “It matters a great deal. Adept Starfall is a great favorite among the children of our Vale; he is accustomed to being liked for his kindness as well as respected for his wisdom, and it makes him feel badly if someone is hurt by his actions or words.”

“I’m not worth worrying about,” Darian mumbled, looking down at the ground. “There’s no reason why he should think about me. There’s no reason why any of you should think about me, you’re all important people. You’re all these amazing warriors and mages, you can do things that nobody back in Errold’s Grove would believe, and I’m - I’m just the worthless troublemaker nobody else wants.”

Snowfire nodded to himself mentally as the boy’s words echoed what Nightwind had already surmised.

“I’m sorry to hear you say that, since I don’t in the least agree with you. I truly hate to spoil a friendship by beginning it with a quarrel,” he replied lightly, and was rewarded once again with Darian’s glance of dumbfounded astonishment.

“How can you say that?” the boy asked, incredulously. “There isn’t anybody in Errold’s Grove who’d believe their ears if they heard you say that!”

“Why, what would they say?” Snowfire asked, ingenuously.

“That - that I’m ungrateful, disrespectful, and I don’t know my place,” Darian said, in what was very nearly a growl, turning his gaze away from Snowfire’s face and back down to the ground.

Snowfire made a noncommittal sound. “And why would they say that you’re ungrateful?”

“Because after all the effort they’ve gone to in order to make sure I had someone to take care of me, and have food and shelter, and the trouble they’ve gone to in order to see that I was going to learn a useful trade, I’m not grateful, and I don’t know my place,” Darian muttered, his voice full of resentment.