A Man and His Chicken
In the darkest point of night, a figure slipped from his perch at the top of a tall, shadowed structure and jumped off the edge. A flash of orange whooshed momentarily from the figure's back, slowing his free-fall to a slow descent, white lab coat snapping in the generated wind. The figure pushed back his goggles as he silently made his way to a grassy oasis in a desert of dirt. A small white shape huddled in corner awoke and meandered towards the figure's lap as he sat down to pull the shape in and hug it tightly.
Lalna loved his chicken. Clucky, he called her.
He had boldly and excitedly announced her return to the rest of the group, after the reappearance of the old factory, now in a state of deathly disrepair. This announcement had been ignored for the most part, with a few harsh words about slacking off uttered in his direction by an irate Honeydew. Ignoring the not-uncommon demands for his prompt return Lalna kindly scooped Clucky up, tucking her safely away in his newly-found safari net for the journey back to base.
It had been a long move, although one that surprisingly hadn't actually exploded in their faces, for once. In their new world, a world of sun-baked mud and dirty cliffs reaching towards the sky in jagged lines, he built her a home. It wasn't the most glorious of places, well, just a bit of grass and fencing really, but it was a place she could call home.
It was a place he could keep her safe, a place he could check on her every morning and know she was there. Protected from the wandering mobs-the zombies, skeletons, spiders; from the dangers of the wilderness around them-the endless ocean, the sharp drop-offs; from the occasional hungry dwarf.
Because she was his chicken. She had been his friend, his companion from so very long ago. From before the holes, before mars and moons, before cakes and cookies. From a time where he spent his time making roller coasters for eggs instead of space lasers. Where Xephos made maddeningly random walls of simple machines instead of complex computers connecting miles of machinery (although he stressed over it just as much), and where the most dangerous tool Honeydew had was silly golden armour and a wooden stick in place of the newer jetpack and atomic disassembler.
Sometimes he wished he could go back to that time. A time where secrets were still secrets, and where they were more easily kept. A time when things were simpler, when a man could sit and hang with his chicken. Although the new company kept him busy, constantly throwing him into unexplored science and magic (which was something he always welcomed), he wished for a break sometimes, a chance to...do something quiet, like golf. And quiet was something not often found on a small island shared with a hyper dwarf and a scarred spaceman.
At the latest point of night, just as the sun began to creep over the horizon, a figure slipped between fence posts and over cracking mud, edging towards the semi-built form of a giant letter H. A jet of flame propelled a white coat away from the confines of gravity and into the lightening sky. The soft hollow ringing of footfalls on metal was heard as a shadow vaulted over various bits of gently humming machinery and into his vacated spot, the impromptu metallic seat now chilled in the crisp night air. All the while, a small white shape watched the figure's flight before turning away, facing towards the sunrise and her morning duty.
Cluck!