Owlflight

But perhaps he was doing Snowfire an injustice. Justyn was hardly the best teacher in the world, and as a practitioner, he was even worse. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if he was studying with someone who actually knew something.

And even if it was just as tedious and boring as it had been with Justyn, well, wasn’t that a small price to pay to be where he was actually wanted?

And Snowfire says he wants me for a brother? Me? They want me to be a real Hawkbrother?

He made a real effort to contain his excitement, but it surely showed. He stifled his urge to shout, and somehow managed to turn a grave face toward the Adept.

“I would like to stay, very much, Elder,” he said at last, with a little bow to Starfall. “I am honored that you ask me, and I certainly accept! I promise that I will do all that I can to help everyone here, and I will try to be more patient in learning magic.”

Starfall smiled, and motioned him closer. Taking his hand, the Adept placed a pendant into it. It was a hawk- talon, mounted in silver; the mounting was decorated with a blue moonstone and strung on a beaded chain. “Welcome to k’Vala, then, little brother,” he said warmly, as he closed Darian’s hand around the talon. “You must wear this as a token of your acceptance into the Clan, as Nightwind does. You both bear the talons of my father’s great suntail hawk-eagle, Skyr, who shared my father’s labors as a Healing Adept and went to white at the age of only four. I know that you will be worthy of the token, even as Nightwind is.”

Snowfire took the talon from Darian’s nerveless fingers and put it around his neck. Darian looked up at him, trying to find the right words to thank him, and failing completely - but Snowfire acted as if he had already said them.

“You have labored long and hard already, and I am not minded to begin your lessons with one today, little brother,” the younger Hawkbrother said as he clasped and released Darian’s shoulders. “Why not go out into the forest for a time? It will cool your mind and help you think.”

If there was one thing that Darian agreed with, it was that he needed some time to think this over. He nodded. “But - do I need to have someone with me?” he asked, hoping that the answer would be “no.”

Snowfire shook his head. “That horse that we stole is in need of exercise,” he suggested. “Go take it about for a while. You will be safe enough, riding, and you won’t have to worry about dyheli chatter in your mind.” The corner of his mouth twitched a little, suggesting to Darian that although the remark was intended as amusement, Snowfire had suffered “dyheli chatter” in the past.

As he hesitated a moment, Starfall nodded at the entrance to his little sanctuary. “Off with you, young one. I am the one most needful of your elder brother’s skills at the moment. We have some tricky work ahead of us before we can rest this day.”

Perhaps yesterday such a dismissal would have made Darian sullen and resentful, suspecting that they were getting rid of him so that they could discuss him. But now - now he had no such feelings. If Starfall said they had work, then they had work, and he would only get in the way. He stammered his thanks to both of them, and turned and ran, his heart hammering with so many mixed feelings that he couldn’t sort them out properly.

He already knew where the horse was; in the pasture, being guarded by the dyheli herd and kept from straying. He guessed that the tack would be in a hut he knew was used for storing things with no immediate use, and sure enough, it was. He hadn’t saddled many horses in his life, but with the help of two amused dyheli who kept the nag from running off half-equipped, he managed to get all the gear on in the proper manner. It wasn’t that the horse was at all ill-tempered, it was more as if it expected bad treatment; it didn’t fight him, but if it could get away without being saddled and bridled, it would be very happy to do so.

The horse sighed with resignation as he clambered into the saddle, his stomach aching reflexively as he recalled the last time he’d ridden the beast. But it seemed tractable enough, and it moved out of the entrance to the valley at a calm walk.

Darian was used to finding his way in the Forest, and had no fear that he was going to get lost. He set a general course southward, but otherwise let the horse have its head, and it ambled on beneath the trees while he let his own thoughts wander. They tended to stray into mere contemplation of his surroundings; it was so easy to let his mind go blank as he admired a golden shaft of sunlight piercing the green gloom, then saw with surprised delight a single flower basking in its warmth like a precious jewel displayed for his admiration. It was more comfortable to contemplate the majesty of the enormous tree trunks rising in a never-ending vista of columns all around him than to contemplate his own future. And the liquid notes of birdsong dropping tranquilly down through the boughs were infinitely preferable to the discords of his past.

Everywhere he looked, he saw things that his parents would have drawn his attention to, if they had been there. Summer was not a time to trap for furs, so his summers in the past had been spent in exploration. Here in the hills, wonderful and magical spots seemed hidden in every valley. Sometimes it was a sparkling stream burbling over a stone-filled bed. Sometimes the stream poured down the side of the hill in a series of exuberant waterfalls. He caught sight of a pair of does with their fawns, grazing in a tiny pocket of meadow, surrounded by moss-covered boulders. Once they passed a fallen tree that supported an entire community of plants and ferns on its decaying, moss-covered side.

All was well for some time; the horse, given no commands, chose to eat as much as he walked. He meandered from one sparse bit of grass to the next. The grass beneath the tree canopy was thin and tended to grow in widely-spaced, wispy clumps; thick growths of fern and moss were more common here than grasses, and the horse disdained both. Darian let the reins hang loose on the horse’s neck, engrossed in his own increasingly