I wrote this fic years ago under the name of HikaruTsubasa, left it to rot for five years, then found it and went "Hmmm, I could totally rewrite this better." and that's how the fic was revived. Yayyy.
Chapter 1 – Setting Sail
The wind blew the salty tang of the sea through the bedroom window, blowing through the curtains and ruffling the hair of a sleeping girl. Yendis was a port city, and though the family of four did not live anywhere near the centre of activity, they were still close enough to have things rust at an abnormally fast rate.
The girl curled up further in her blanket, shivering slightly, but all she managed to do was change into a position where the wind had… easy access. To the nape of her neck. Further trying to avoid this resulted in her falling out of the bed. The wind, satisfied with its mission of "wake the girl up", settled to a mild flutter. The girl's disorientated hand reached for the air once, twice, and maybe four or five more times before she finally managed to find her cell phone. She flicked it on.
The display read 8:43am.
She blinked. She had to leave at nine.
She scrambled up, got dressed in record time, charged down the steps, and slipped. The combination of smooth stairs and improperly worn socks continued to be a disastrous one.
Fortunately, the stair she slipped on was the third from the bottom. Unfortunately, her father had witnessed the rather magnificent fall.
Ever the playful joker (though he'd rather not be tarred with the same brush as one of his old acquaintances), Shalnark suppressed a snort at his daughter's ungraceful tumble.
"Careful there Shira," he said, a glimmer of amusement in his eyes. "You're going to get eliminated from the exam before you even get there."
Shira snorted in derision. "As if, Dad. Not when I've inherited your brains!" she proclaimed triumphantly as she flicked her fringe out of her eyes, stalked past her father, and promptly fell over a large china tortoise.
"Ow!" she yelped, cradling her shin. "Since when was that dumb thing there?"
"My brains aren't the only thing you've inherited," Shalnark remarked blithely.
"Daaaad, shut up." Shira bit her lip and tried to hold onto the last vestiges of her pride, which lasted for all of two seconds before she smelt a delicious aroma coming from the kitchen. Her heart fluttered as if struck by Cupid's arrow, and indeed, Shira's only constant love affair was with food. More specifically, sweet food.
"Dad?" she asked, saliva near dripping from her mouth.
"Yes, darling ditzy daughter of mine?"
"Is that…"
"Blueberry and chocolate pancakes?" Shalnark laughed. "Yes it is, and it's your favourite, as I know."
Before the words had fully left his mouth, Shira had vanished into the kitchen. – only to promptly reappear with an enormous pile of purple-ish pancakes piled high on her plate. She carefully set it down on the table like she was handling a newborn baby, then sat down and started eating voraciously.
Perhaps that wasn't the best comparison.
"Shira," cautioned her mother, with her own pile of pancakes. "If you eat that fast you'll regret it later-"
"And if I eat slow I might miss the exam! What a dilemma!" shouted Shira, not slowing her pace at all.
"Mum, what's a dilemma?" asked her little brother, his tender young age of seven years giving him an unnatural curiosity towards complex words.
Shizuku adjusted her glasses, and explained. "A dilemma is a belief that one's actions are all preordained, and there is no escape fro-"
"Muuuum," Hiro grumbled. "You told me that one yesterday, that's fate."
She blinked. "Oh. So it is."
"A dilemma, Hiro, is a situation where it's very difficult to decide what to do because all the options seem equally good or bad." Shalnark talked fast when he explained things, generally through his enthusiasm for the subject (or more likely, enthusiasm for educating others).
Hiro's eyes widened in surprise. "So… Shira thinks that the Hunter Exam is just as important as eating lots and lots of sugar?"
"I doubt that very much," said a new voice from the front door. A slender figure stood there, silhouetted by the sunlight. A mildly cynical grin played across her features as she brushed a hand through her fringe. No-one commented on her timing or her rather strange pose – such things were often inherited.
"Itoko! Is it already time to leave?"
In response to Shira's exclamation, Itoko stepped out of the glare, revealing her short and fluffy hair that looked like someone had dumped a cat into pink dye. Her gold eyes matched the look to perfection, as did her mannerisms.
"The boat leaves at ten past nine, Shira." Her tone was measured, but still contained a tinge of annoyance. "Grab you gear and get movin- whoa!"
Shira, as it turned out, had been more prepared than expected. A decent sized backpack was already nearly hitting Itoko's face as the other girl charged helter-skelter out of the door, carefully adjusting the straps holding her throwing knives in place as she ran.
"Come on Itoko! We've got to get to the harbour!" she shouted, hair ruffling in crazy directions in the buffeting wind. "Bye Hiro! Bye Mum! Bye Dad!"
Her family waved at her retreating figure. Shalnark watched his daughter run, a faint trace of nostalgia wrapping itself around his heart.
"Hey Itoko!" Shira's voice called out, still loud despite the distance. "Hurry up or I'll say bye to you too!"
Itoko, however, continued at her leisurely pace. After all, she still had time. All the time in the world.
The wind picked up again, gusting through the port city and making strange howling sounds amidst the buildings and wires. Like a trickster, it made fragile objects topple, flipped skirts, collapsed a soufflé, and blew dust in every direction. But it eventually died down, and all one could hear was the faint whistling of it humming through the struts of the Great Harbour Bridge.
A figure stood atop the vast structure, watching the busy port. After a moment, the figure vanished, leaving nothing but a faint gust of wind.
Whoa that ended up being a lot longer than the original chapter, though 1000-ish words isn't that much. And yes, there is a lot more plot than the original which was pretty much going to be just ~yay second gen romp through hunter exam yay~, from what I remember. If you want to find the original to compare, it has the same name (Hunters' Children) and is by HikaruTsubasa. I may rewrite the other two fics on that account as well, by the way.