Author's Note: Hi, everyone! As a new author, I'm not the best, but I hope you somehow find this story at least a little enjoyable. This story is something I never meant to write, but it's here now. Believe it or not, it was actually a friend's idea. We were in gym one day in February, and as a fellow PoM fan, she started blurting out all this random stuff about how there should be a gal penguin. Then she turned to me... Ever since the school year had started, she had been teasing me that I was just a female version of Skipper; the way I talk, the way I act... And for a while I was called Skippy in reference to that. That eventually turned into me being called "Skippae". And Skippae eventually made her way into this story....
WARNING:This story contains Skilene, which I proudly happen to support. If you don't like Skilene, you shouldn't read this story. And please no burns on this pairing in the reviews. Thank you!
The Penguins of Madagascar belong to Dreamworks Animations, Viacom, Nickolodeon, Tom McGrath (eek, it's Skipper! :D), Eric Darnell, and a bunch o' other guys. That does not include me. I disown them 'cuz pple just won't give them to me! XD
*PREFACE : THE HAND OF SORROW*
"New York City? What?"
The young major stood before General Gentoo, a bewildered look plastered upon her face. "Why?"
He signaled her to follow him, and she did so. He hopped onto a high rock, and watched over the snow covered zoo with dark, focused eyes. Then there he stood, for what seemed to be forever, lengthening the quietness and the tension to the point where you could almost call them immortal. The silence, the tension, had to die; The major needed answers.
She frowned and prodded his shoulder.
"General, I don't understand..."
Gentoo slowly looked down at the short Isabelline female, and raised a brow.
"Major, do you remember, when you were a chick, who used to watch over you?"
The major contemplated this, a thoughtful flipper held up to her orange beak. "My parents?"
Gentoo shook his head "no" and swiveled it back around to stare out at the penguin habitat, at all the birds before him. The rockhoppers, the fairies, the yellow-eyes, royals, kings...
"Not just them, major. There was another chick, older...You remember him?"
The major turned to the others as her superior had, cocking her head in puzzlement and trying to recall this "other chick". Try as she might... her past was blurrier than she had thought.
"No... I'm afraid I don't, sir."
Gentoo nodded, tiredly leaning against a rock. The elderly penguin's arthritic bones were paining him...He caught himself and stood back up again, refusing under any circumstance to show a solitary sign of weakness. He looked back at the major.
"I thought you wouldn't. This-this "other chick", major... He was your best friend, like a brother to you. There's not one place he would go that you weren't there beside him. This "other chick"...he was your cousin."
"My cousin?"
"Yes. Hatched here at the Pittsburgh Zoo same year as you were, older by a few months."
The major listened, watched with her intense blue gaze... Her cousin...
"What happened to him?" she breathed.
"When he was almost three years old, he was lost to us..."
The general waddled over to a corner of the exibit and stopped at a tall, red brick wall. The major watched in shock as he dusted off what seemed to be some sort of cover-up... because what was behind that cover-up was charred brick. But... char only came from- No. That wasn't possible. Was it?
"A few years ago, the zoo caught on fire. You don't remember this because you were too young. The people don't know this because it happened in the middle of the night. Your mother, Molly, your Uncle Henry and your Aunt Sonya helped me put it out, helped me fight it. Helped me take on the flames from the sight of Hell itself that night...And Sonya and Henry... Sonya and Henry were your cousin's parents."
He paused.
"In the very midst of all the flames, all the smoke, your cousin was trapped against this wall. Sonya rushed to the location, saved your cousin...But there was a tree, big old birch here, caught on fire. It fell to the ground and seperated the two. Sonya- our dear Sonya- was burned to death. Couldn't escape even if she tried. We found her body, a shriveled up husk...where I'm standing right now."
"Henry was devastated, heart-broken- We all were. But none more so than him. And when he found that his son was missing, he went out searching. Didn't stop for months. Finally, he gave up, told himself that his son was dead. He was never the same after that. And he still regrets having never shown that chick any respect, due to his own conceit. He never seemed proud of him, never seemed to really love him, because he thought it was a sign of weakness. And a strong colonel like him should not show weakness ."
The major shifted her weight to the side uncomfortably. No wonder Henry was the way he was... Her gaze fell upon the male penguin, so many feet away. He stood under the shadow of an overhanging rock formation, glaring out at anyone who dared come across him. All he was was skin and bones and ruffled feathers. Old battlescars tattooed his aging body.
"...But what does any of this have to do with New York?" she asked the general.
He turned his head away and sighed, a long sigh, tired... and said in an almost unaudiable voice, "Your cousin is still alive, and that's where he is. He's ranked a captain, has his team of three men."
"..How do you...? But, shouldn't Henry-"
"Henry doesn't know a thing. Your cousin's just gotten himself into a spot of trouble here lately and that's how I know. He's made quite a few enemies..."
Gentoo breathed out deeply, a cloud of fog forming from his warm breath in the cold winter's air. Hesitation was hinted in his voice as he began to speak again.
"Major, listen... I used to be your cousin's mentor. I was also general when he was hatched here. I'm not sure how many mentors, how many superiors he's had by now, but that doesn't change a thing. By Penguin Code, it is every mentor's job to evaluate his apprentice and his team when that apprentice turns six years old. If that chick is hatched one place with one mentor, but is transferred to a different area, his hatchplace mentor will always be the one to evaluate him, no excuses. Only when that mentor is dead, ill, or injured, may a different mentor or penguin from the apprentice's hatchplace carry on the evaluation."
"Major, I'm half a year late. Because I'm too-"
He cut himself off. His pride stood in his way, and he struggled to let the next few words escape.
"I'm too old, too arthritic, too fragile... to go to New York City. Too far away, and even if I got there, it'd be too dangerous. A place like that is no place for an old man like me. And that's why I'm sending you."
"For an evaluation of your apprentice? Of my cousin? If you'll pardon my choice of word, General Gentoo, I find it... petty, that you are keeping the secret of his life from his own father. Henry has the right to know his son is alive, does he not?"
Gentoo's brown eyes widened, but whether it was in anger, or shock, or something inbetween, the major could not tell. The old bird merely looked down at his webbed feet with a shamed expression.
"Yes, yes he does. But it's better he not know until- until we are sure about... certain things... just to be on the safe side."
"I... respect that, sir." the major lied. Gentoo knew that this bird was alive all along, and never told the father, who did nothing but wallow in depression for these past three and half years. What a waste of life, she thought. A legendary colonol put to total waste. It made her sick.
"What was this bird's name and what was his general appearance?" she asked trying to hide the disgust for the bird she once respected.
A glazed stare crossed the general's face, his brown eyes soulless, and if he hadn't spoken, the major would have thought him dead.
"Sonya and Henry never did decide on a name for him.... Used to get called "Runt" a lot by Henry, "Nino" by Sonya. You called him "Peanut Butter" for some reason. But I still remember him, the way he looked, very clearly... Spitting image of his mother... Ask Henry."
And with that, he waddled away, leaving the major alone in the cold, wintery breeze that engulfed all of Pittsburgh. As his silhouette dwindled behind the rocks, snowflakes began to fall from the sky, dancing gracefully, ever so gracefully, until one by one, they fell quietly to the ground.
There was a silence...
"...Henry... Let's go see Henry..."
The child without a name grew up to be the hand To watch you, to shield you, or kill on demand The choice he'd made he could not comprehend His blood a grim secret they had to commend He's torn between his honor and the true love of his life He prayed for both but was denied So many dreams were broken and so much was sacrificed Was it worth the ones we loved and had to leave behind? So many years have passed, Who are the noble and the wise? Will all our sins be justified? -"Hand of Sorrow" by Within Temptation
A/N: And the best band in the world helps round off this prologue! Go WT! Ahem, anyway, Chap. 1 should be up by Monday. Chap. 2 should be up in... say, three to five days.
Skipper: Thirty-five days?! o.O
Me: NO. 3 to 5 days! :P
-Penguin out! R&R, plz!
P.S. As SeleneMarie pointed out in the reviews, Skipper says "Numbre" uno at the end. The proper way to say that in Spanish is "Numero". His mistake was purposely written... Skippae will eventually bite his ears off... Wait, penguins don't have ears... :?