Broken Wing

Yesteryears

How it all Began

Hello and welcome to the fourth chapter of Yesteryears. I've been planning this chapter for a while now, but I wasn't exactly sure how to go about it. Anyways, this chapter will focus on how Kai and Starling first met. Quite a bit of it was inspired from helping babysit my two youngest cousins (I have 26  in total) who are five and seven years old. It's kind of neat watching how their minds work and I enjoyed writing something through the eyes of a child.

Disclaimer: I do not own Storm Hawks, and never will. They are the property of Asaph "Ace" Fipke and made by Nerd Corps Entertainment, however I DO own Kai, Rose, Myna, the Shadow crystal and this story.

"Speech"

"Thought"

Sound

One month had passed, and Kai was still plagued by nightmares on a regular basis. Starling had given him a present that she had hoped would help him sleep at night, and thankfully, it had seemed to help.

She was surprised by the way he treated it though. It was a Lunar crystal with the Interceptors insignia carved into it, a little trinket that she had bought from a kiosk stand for a few coins. But the young boy treated it as though it were his most prized position.

"I can't really blame him though, if I were in his shoes I probably would have built a temple for the thing. How he was able to function with so little sleep is beyond me." Starling was currently relaxing in her house. It turned out that her parents had left everything that they had to her when they died, or at least that's how the lawyer explained it. The dummied down version he told her was that everything was now hers and that she wouldn't have to pay any bills.

He had been right about most of it. Everything was paid for, but he neglected to mention that there was one bill to be paid.

His.

Over a year had passed since then, and while she had been furious with the man at first, she no longer knew if she would attack him or thank him should they ever cross paths again.

Flashback

He had basically taken every bit of gold that her parents had left her. So while she did have a house to live in, she had no money to pay for anything else like food. She flat out refused to be adopted, wanting to keep her family name, but it was hard to find work.

Terra Mesa was unique in that it had a bell shaped demographic. Nearly the entire terra's population was over thirty, added to that there were five males for every one female. So, facing these statistics, who would hire a ten year old girl to do anything?

She also had very little in the way of education, since her parents were home schooling her, so this made things plenty difficult to begin with. Then there was the fact that she was ten, a girl, and was skinny enough that if she stuck out her tongue and stood sideways she looked like a zipper. Not exactly working grade material.

Still she tried her best. At first the only jobs she had been able to get were mowing lawns, raking leaves, and every now and then she was given the chance to clean a house. She knew that most of the people had only hired her out of pity, which did sting a bit, but she took what she could get.

About two months later though, things were starting to look rather grim. The few scant few coins she had been able to save didn't last very long. She was in trouble and she knew it. That's when it happened.

Another raid.

Terra Mesa was on the boarder between the Atmosian's and the Cyclonain's. So raids were quite common, especially with terra Bogaton being less than three hours away. The Sky Squadron of terra Mesa, the Interceptors, did their best, but usually they were badly outnumbered. So while they were able to prevent any major damage, they weren't able to prevent all of it, and, it just so happened that this was the case.

The attack was only fifteen minutes, but in that time they had managed to destroy several buildings and three people had lost their lives.

While returning home a week later, Starling noticed something on the wall of the grocery store that caught her eye. It was a request add, apparently someone was looking for a full time babysitter. She memorized the address and went home. Early the next morning, she got up and made herself look as presentable as she could, wanting to make a good first impression. She knew that there was little chance of her actually getting the job, but she really needed it, and had nothing to loose.

The house was a little bit bigger than her own, but not by much, just a simple two story house with a modest yard. Taking a deep breath, she knocked on the door.

Nothing happened

So she tried again.

Still nothing happened.

"I guess their not home." Just as she was about to leave the door opened to revealing a woman with short strawberry blonde hair that appeared to be in her late twenties. She seemed to be in a rush however and upon seeing who it was that knocked, she scowled.

"What do you want? I'm late enough as it is, and I don't have time for handouts if that's what you're looking for." The woman said harshly.

Biting back her tongue, Starling replied as civilly as she could. "You put out a request add for a sitter, so I."

The woman cut her off. "You don't seriously believe that I would hire a child to babysit do you?"

Once again, she held back her tongue. "Mam, I have lived on my own now for almost three months, and I have been able to take care of myself just fine." She was silently thankful to have worn long sleeves and that she had not tucked her shirt in; otherwise the woman would have pointed out her rather thin and almost fragile frame. She was svelte to begin with, but after two months of having very little to eat, she was downright scrawny.

The woman eyed her top to bottom and after a minute sighed. "Very well, I'll give you one chance." The woman then stood aside allowing her to enter.

Thanking the woman, she entered the house and removed her shoes.

"He's eating breakfast in the kitchen at the moment. The bathrooms are upstairs along with his bedroom, don't let him have any sugar and make sure he's in bed by eight. I should be back around nine." The woman then left the dazzed girl without another word.

"Mommy?"

Starling heard footsteps running towards her and guessed that this was the woman's son. "Please, by the Oracle stone, be different than your mother." Starling silently prayed.

Then she saw him.

He stopped in the middle of the hallway upon seeing her and froze.

Neither one moved, neither one spoke. They just stared at each other.

Indeed, he was nothing like his mother.

For one thing, his hair was jet black, and his eyes were a deep blue color that Starling had rarely seen before. Deciding to break the ice, she approached him while trying her best to remain pleasant. She remembered that just because he didn't look like his mother, it didn't mean that he wasn't anything like her.

"Who are you?" He asked tensing.

She stopped when she realized that she didn't know what his name was. In her rush to leave, the boy's mother hadn't told her.

"I'm Starling. It's nice to meet you." She said holding out her hand.

The little boy looked at her hand and then looked back to her face. "Where's mommy? She said I had to go with her today." He asked still keeping his distance.

"Your mommy asked me to look after you while she was gone. So I guess you could say that I'm your babysitter." She said still trying to keep herself calm. Only now did the entirety of the situation dawn on her. She was responsible for taking care of a child that was only a few years younger than herself for an entire day.

He took a few steeps forward, but then stopped. The way he was acting reminded her of her neighbor's cat, very cautious, and somewhat nervous. So, not really knowing what else to do, she decided to act the same way she did with her neighbor's cat, and hoped that it would work.

Very slowly she walked towards him, being carful not to make any sudden movements. The young boy stayed where he was, not moving a muscle. She could see that he was thinking, sizing her up and trying to figure out whether or not she was a threat. She could see that his eyes were darting around, but they never left her for more than a second, she also noticed that the closer she got to him, the more he seemed to tense up, which worried her. She decided not to push it and stopped when she was still several feet away and held out her hand. Once again, he looked back and forth between her hand and her face.

Slowly, he reached out with his own hand, and shook hers lightly. "I'm Kai." His voice was so soft that she was barely able to hear him speak.

"Well Kai, I'm a little new at this, so I might need your help ok?" She asked still smiling.

His only response was a slow nod.

"Ok, think, he's what, five? What did your parents do when you were that age?" When she came out of her thoughts, she noticed that the young boy was staring at her eyes, something that people had been doing quite a bit lately and it was starting to annoy her, but she knew that she couldn't just yell at him. "Is something wrong?" She asked trying to get him to stop staring.

He shook his head for a moment then looked back at her. "Star ok?" He asked.

She had expected any number of things, but that was not one of them. "What?" She asked getting down to his level. That's when she saw it. It wasn't until she had gotten closer to him that she noticed his eyes. They looked blue from a distance, but up close she was able to see that they were a raw red color. She leaned forward so that she was slightly closer and noticed that there was something wrong. Once again, it was his eyes. They looked, hollow, vacant, almost empty. It was something that she found to be all too familiar.

They looked exactly like hers.

"Oh no." Thinking back, she began putting the pieces together. She knew that he must have lived on Mesa for several years since no one had moved to the terra as far as she knew, yet it was only now that his mother had requested a sitter. Combined with her snippy mood it became pretty obvious. "His father must have been one of the three that died in the raid last week."

"Star ok?" He asked again shaking her arm snapping her back into reality.

She was about to answer when her stomach growled, causing the small boy to jump. Cheeks red with embarrassment, she decided to change what she was going to say. "I am a little hungry."

The little boy was now laughing, which slightly annoyed her, but she remembered that she had to make a good impression, since, as her stomach had so aptly reminded her, she hadn't eaten since the day before yesterday.

After he stopped laughing, the little boy grabbed her hand and pulled her in the direction he had come from.

"Where are you taking me?" She asked.

"Tummy hungry?" He asked laughing.

Sighing, she answered. "Tummy, very hungry."

When they reached the kitchen, she went straight to the fridge, which she was very pleased to find fully stocked. There were now two main problems however; one was that she couldn't just eat to her stomachs content, and two, she didn't know how to cook. She did notice that there was plenty of bread however, so she decided that it wouldn't hurt to make a few sandwiches.

A few turned out to be seven, only one of which was later eaten by Kai.

The rest of the day was fairly quiet. Starling was thankful that the child's primary interest seemed to be reading, and that he was very well behaved. They had talked for a little while, and she helped him with any words that he didn't know. She had decided that the boy was indeed nothing like his mother.

How wrong she was.

Minutes turned into hours, hours flew by, and before long it was dark outside and they heard someone at the door.

"Why is Kai not in bed? I told you his bed time was eight-o-clock." The mother asked.

Starling got up and was going to speak to the woman, but she wasn't even given the chance to defend herself.

"That was the only thing I told you to do and you couldn't even do it? That's what I get for trusting a child I suppose. Get out, you're fired!"

She couldn't move. She tried, but she just couldn't. It was like something was holding her in place. She was angry; she was upset, she was hurt, she was so many things that she was just plain confused. She tried to move again but found that she was still being held in place, she also noticed that she felt….warm? Looking down she saw a mop of black hair.

"No."

Looking down, the mother saw that her son was holding onto his (now fired) sitter. "Kai, go to your room." She said in sweetly.

"No."

Starling was surprised at how firm the child's voice was.

"Kai, go to bed. This does not concern you." During this little interchange, she had yet to break eye contact with Starling, who was still slightly stunned.

"Yes it does." Starling noticed that his grip had tightened considerably.

"Kai, you will go to bed this instant, or you won't be allowed to go to the library for three months." His mother had finally broken eye contact with the still shell-shocked girl.

She felt his grip loosen and his arms drop from her waist. "He did try." Though upset at the loss of what had seemed to be a dream come true, she was impressed by the young boys actions. She turned and was about to leave when she heard him speak once again.

"Then Star stay?"

Spinning around she saw that the little boy had only let go of her to turn around and face his mother. He was looking straight up at her with a fiery determination that matched her own.

Throughout the entire day, Starling had watched as the timid little boy became increasingly more open and expressive, but she was still convinced that it would be a number of years before he would stand up to anyone, and that he would probably be a frequent target of bullying.

"What?" His mother asked.

Starling noticed that the mother's fire seemed to die down slightly from confusion.

"Mommy said, go to bed or no liebarry. No liebarry Star stay?"

It took her a few seconds to understand what he was saying, but Starling caught on before his mother did. "He's trying to make a deal with his mother, the library for me." She couldn't help but smile. Though extremely simple and very childish, he was trying to barter on her behalf. Something he had, the library, for something he wanted, her.

"Sweetie, I don't think you understand." Starling was surprised when the little boy cut off his own mother.

"No liebarry, Star stay. Star stay, no liebarry." Then he did something that nearly made both Starling and his mother's jaw drop.

He held out his hand to shake.

Starling was once again the first to come out of her stupor. "He's put her in a rather tight spot. The way she worded it, he thought that she was making an offer, but if she tells him no, then he probably wont be willing to make any bargains with her in the future, or at least for a few years."

The boy's mother apparently knew this as well. Starling could have sworn that she saw the flames in her eyes increase ten fold, and she knew that they were directed at her. It was strange though, for some reason, they didn't affect her as they had earlier. She could still move, she didn't feel any pressure on her chest, and she was able to breathe normally. Out of the corner of her eye she caught a glimpse of her reflection on a wall hung mirror and was shocked by what she saw.

She was smiling.

It wasn't a large toothy grin, nor was it a wide happy smile. It was a just a simple, small, smile.

Looking back, for a brief second, she saw what looked like a torrent of fire coming at her, but it was being held back by an equally fierce wall of flame.

"I guess he does have one thing in common with her after all." She thought slightly amused.

Dropping down to his level, the boy's mother looked him directly in the eye. "No library as long as she stays." She then held out her hand, and was surprised when he took it without a second thought and gave it a firm shake.

The woman then looked back and Starling and smirked. "Well, you heard him. It looks like you might be keeping your job for another few days." She then looked down at her son. "She stays, but it's still time for you to go to bed."

He still didn't move however.

"Kai, I promise that as long as you don't go to the library, she will be welcome here." She said slightly exasperated.

The little boy nodded then looked back to Starling one last time before heading up stairs.

Flashback end

That had been over a year ago, and both parties were still living up to their ends of the bargain. Kai had yet to set foot in the library since that day, and in turn his mother had allowed Starling to keep her job.

It was almost comical now that she thought about it. His mother had been sure that he would only go for a few days before ending the deal. A few day turned to a week, a week became a month, then months. He never once complained about it though.

She still remembered how after the first two weeks, she hugged him and cried. It scared him at first because he thought he had done something that made her upset, but she explained that she was not crying because she was sad, but rather because she was happy.

There was no way for him to have realized it at the time, but he had saved her life. It had taken nearly a month for her to make a complete recovery. Her frame had become so thin that her clothes barely even fit anymore, and her muscles had degenerated from the lack of protein. But gradually, her strength returned and her complexion improved.

There was just one thing that bugged her though. "I still don't know why he did it. Why did he stand up for me in the first place?" She had asked him several times, but he would never give her a straight answer, always finding a way to change the subject or flat out refusing to answer. That had been the only negative, aside from that there were only positives.

She was still hurting from the loss of her parents, she was alone, not having anyone who cared for her, weak from having nothing to eat, and to be perfectly honest, she had been scared, she honestly didn't know what was going to happen, and was scared of what could have. Yet by pure chance, she came across someone that was in nearly the same boat as herself.

He had been hurting from the loss of his father, who in time she found out had been the one raising him while his mother worked; he was alone since his father had been the only friend he ever had, he had been weak due to no longer having someone strong to stand up for him, and he was afraid that he would never have another friend.

That day, they had made a silent promise to each other, a pact for life. They would heal the others wounds as best they could, and they would never allow the other to feel alone. He would help her stay strong, while in return she would protect him.

But it was the last part that they were the most thankful for.

They both swore that no matter what, they would never allow anything to come between their friendship. As long as he knew that she would always be there, she knew that she would never have to worry about what would happen, because he would always be there.

End Chapter.

AN: I know the ending was a bit sappy, but I can personally vouch that there is no better feeling than knowing you have a friend who will always be at your side. Now, as for this chapter, the main thing I'm trying to do is provide explanations for the observations of the Storm Hawks in my other story, Broken Wing. This chapter could be considered the companion chapter for Radarrs Reconnaissance; the previous chapter is connected to Finn's Findings. Anyways, please review! Til next time, Ja Ne!