It would seem, however, that Ha-Rin and Chief Seong had different opinions when they arrived. Chief Seong waved off whatever guard was on duty, carrying a collapsible wheelchair into the penthouse. Ha-Rin strode in with a quirk of her eyebrows. Hrafn was loathed to think that she could sense the tense atmosphere the moment that she walked into the penthouse. But when she turned her gaze to him, it seemed that was the case. She observed the living room that only held his presence before she turned her focus down the hallway.

“What did you do?” She demanded, her voice cold.

Hrafn looked towards the ground. “I will not be attending our gathering outside.”

Chief Seong sighed and looked down at the wheelchair.

Ha-Rin’s lip curled up in almost a sneer. “Too guilty?”

“Perhaps.”

That left the two humans with surprised looks. 

“If it’s all the same to you both, I will be up on the roof. Haneul is in his room. Please enjoy the evening, I cannot smell rain in the air so it is bound to be a pleasant night for going out.” He pushed his way past them, trying to keep the rampant burning in his throat from leaking out. For the love of every star in the sky, he was not some fledgling who could be so easily damaged by a simple person neglecting him. The thoughts in his head ran errant and amuck, he could not look either guest in the eye.

He didn’t notice the sound of dress shoes against the floor. Haneul’s voice suddenly cut cold and curt through the air. “You’re not coming?”

“I did not expect my presence to be welcome,” Hrafn said. 

“After Ha-Rin and Jiu set up all these plans, I would hope you come with us,” Haneul egged on, his face a blank sternness.

Hrafn blinked owlishly. “Ha-Rin and who?”

“I have a name, thank you very much.” Chief Seong shook the wheelchair with a feigned pain. “Is that so hard to believe?”

“In all this time, I don’t believe you’ve been introduced with a name besides your familial one.” Hrafn said, shaking his head in shock. “Your name is Jiu Seong?”

“Do you have a problem with that, bird?”

“After these months of knowing you explicitly as Chief Seong, I doubt I will recall that your name isn’t ‘Chief’.”

And like that the rigidity broke. 

Haneul and Ha-Rin burst into laughter, leaning on one another for support at the absolutely appalled look on Chief Seong’s face. In the back of his head, Hrafn wondered if earlier had been some sort of sick hallucination caused by the atmosphere of this planet. But even as Haneul’s laughter died out, he wouldn’t look Hrafn directly in the eyes, and Hrafn knew that things would still be soiled between them. Despite that, Chief Seong guided him to the wheelchair and helped him tuck his wings against his side and back, careful not to hurt his damaged wing any more than it did.

Even with the awkward contorting of his limbs, he was surprised to find that his splinted wing didn’t hurt…well, it was as uncomfortable as any of the other five, but no extra pain. In fact he couldn't remember the last time he had felt pain in his damaged wing. 

Ha-Rin draped a blanket over his shoulders, covering his wings and the back of the wheelchair, and then another over his legs, hiding the awkward shape of his lower legs and the talons extending from the open face of his boots. They told him this was the expert disguise they’d come up with to help him maneuver through the world without hiding. 

He did not see it as “expert”, but Haneul at least seemed impressed.

“My cousin works at one of the local hospitals. They’d ordered one of these wheelchairs for an Olympic basketball player who’d nearly snapped his knee off during a game,” Chief Seong said, guiding them all down from the lobby of the apartments to the parking garage. 

“What is basketball? I’ve yet to come across that in my observations,” Hrafn hummed.

“Y’know that surprises me. Being a warrior and all, wouldn’t you be a little bit interested in sports?” Ha-Rin asked.

Haneul winced. 

“My occupation is not a recreational one, Ha-Rin. I do what I do out of necessity and because I excel at it. Not because I enjoy it.” Hrafn stared down at his lap. He did not chime in with the chatter for the rest of the time.

Once Chief Seong was certain no one would approach them in the parking area, they removed the blankets and helped Hrafn quickly pile into Ha-Rin’s vehicle. The back of the van was spacious enough that he could lounge back with his wings nicely folded over his shoulders. She instructed him on how to move with the vehicle so he would not be tossed needlessly while they were transported from their current location. He assured her that he’d seen his fair stint of uncomfortable back and forth in space on open-deck ships. An enclosed cargo bay would hardly cause him any trouble.

After all three humans stared at him as if he’d sprouted an extra set of wings, they closed the doors to the back of the van and hopped into the front seating area.

As they drove away from the dimly lit garage, Hrafn sensed a growing agitation and excitement in the pit of his stomach. From the windows in the back doors, he watched as they withdrew from the little box of space he’d known for the past months. The world blossomed before him in a vibrant glare of neon lights and setting yellow sun. Buildings he’d seen eye-to-eye in the penthouse now towered before him like the canyons of his planet. More and more vehicles joined them on the road as they all flowed together in tandem, like ice flows drifting along water. Even with the sounds of happy banter and music from the vehicle, Hrafn’s ears twitched with every sound and peak of noise from the city. The noises had always seemed so distant from the balcony—never truly there. But here on the road, there was a hum that echoed loudly against his eardrums. His fingers itched.

Bjarnstar never lived so loudly. 

He found it pleasantly refreshing how alive Earth was. Meotl was loud but in a different way, the geographic surface shifting with haphazard volcanoes and frequently moving plates due to a gas undersurface. The people were rambunctious and clumsy, their din an entirely different sort. Grating and almost irritating.

On Bjarnstar, there were hardly any residents outside of the artisans that stayed on the surface. So many of them left their world once the cold season returned. Whether it was merchants sailing from their sun system to the next with signs of life or he and his soldiers who wandered out with anyone in need of protection. Their world often sat in frozen silence, alone and abandoned until it gathered back close enough to the sun for the planting season to begin.

But Earth. Oh how he dearly wished for his planet to live like Earth. 

People walking because they could and wanted to, the crowds everywhere and anywhere. He would fight for that. He wanted to fight for that. His claws dug into the palms of his hands and he cursed under his breath. It seemed that his list of things he wanted to fight for, ironically, grew longer.

And I consider myself a pacifist, he thought wearily. 

He wondered, leaning his head against the cool metal of the vehicle wall, what aspect of his life had disgusted Haneul. Surely it hadn’t been the confession, no that had seemed to be what the human had actually wanted. He supposed there were three options then. One, it was Trunadur’s death—perhaps it seemed selfish and cruel-hearted that he sacrificed his right hand and best friend for his own quote-on-quote safe passage. Two, it was that he had been the center of an attempted murder—he was certain that was probably not the most reassuring of information that had been passed the Haneul. The poor man probably wondered if Hrafn was some sort of ruthless fugitive. Or finally three, it was the fact that his own council had been the ones to try and assassinate him—that probably raised several red flags for Haneul in regards to whether or not he fancied a fugitive tyrant. 

Hrafn sighed dejectedly and gave up. Since it pained him so much to think about Haneul, he refused to do so. 

Instead, he tried to think of his home—Trunadur and his mate, Sigrún, flew above an ice field…they shouted to him and stalled in the air, waving at him and yelling for him to catch up. Beside him, Arri shoved him jovially and told him to hurry along. They both wore wartime armor, back from their youth when they’d been nothing more than mere captains of regiments and not ruling leaders. The ice below them glittered like silver and the white sun shimmered along the horizon. Sunlight filtered through feathers and the wind tangled locks of hair.

Laughter filled the air, and yet it wasn’t any of theirs. The visage broke and he was brought back to the present. It was human and carefree, the jovial sound. And shoved in the back in the van, tucked away to be hidden, he’d never felt more alien. 

Trunadur was dead. Arri wanted him dead. And Sigrún…celestials, he couldn’t recall the last time he’d seen Sigrún.

He truly was alone, wasn’t he? 

But before he could fall further inside his own head, the van came to a halt and he finally noticed that the light of the city had faded along the horizon. The doors from the back opened and Chief Seong waited in front of the opening with the wheelchair. He seemed very expectant.

“Haneul and I are going to park the van and meet you guys at the site, Hrafn. Go with Chief Seong for now so you can help him set up.” Ha-Rin said from the front.

Hrafn hadn’t thought she or Haneul had left the van yet, he’d been right. “Of course.”

He slipped from the van, surprised when granules of sand seeped up between his talons and into the soles of his boots. He stared at the darkening outward horizon where the endless navy sea slipped back and forth along the coast. If Chief Seong hadn’t started nagging at him to sit quickly in the chair, he probably would’ve stood and gaped for a little bit. Like everything on this planet, the ocean roared with vibrancy, a thunder that loomed at the edge of his hearing like slow wingbeats. His heart longed for his people— 

—as greatly as it longed for something of this world...or rather someone.