Chapter 19

Lolly dropped the heron by the tree and sat beside it. "Caught this. We're all to share it. There should be there to keep us going until we can each catch something on our own. These things come to the river down that way to eat, so if you want to catch your own, that's where they like to be." She shook the water from her pelt. "Be careful, though. The water's deep and you can't breath in it. I don't think they'll come back today, anyway. I scared them off to get this one."

Lolly began preening herself to dry her feathers faster and to give the other chicks the first dibs. Her growling stomach complained and her instincts were telling her to keep it all for herself and give them the scraps, but she focused on her grooming until these faded.

Flocke, awake by this point, (he was startled when he realized where he was laying and quickly moved away) was impressed with Lolly's catch. He doubted he'd ever be able to catch it at his current size. It was more likely to fly away with him attached to its leg, trying his hardest not to fall off...

That thought amused him greatly. He waited to see if anyone else was going to eat (even though he was starving). Skah and Ghost seemed to still be sleeping, so he looked to Larimar.

"Larry? You gonna eat?" he asked politely. He really just wanted to dive in and forget about the others. But he held himself back in favor of making his friends happy first. Even though that heron was starting to look delicious…

"I'm...yeah, I'll have a bite." She had two delicate bites from its breast. Hoping her belly wasn't bulging like she thought it was, she moved back to allow Lolly and Flocke to eat. I wonder how Lolly caught this thing. It's so big! She made a note to herself to ask Lolly how she did that later. I'll have to try all the hunting stuff I learned later. Maybe I can also work on jumping. I can't wait to show Skah and Ghost how good I am at that!

Flocke didn't pay much attention to the fact that Larimar barely ate anything. The moment she left the bird carcass, he literally dove for it. Had he been bigger, there would probably have been complaint about how much he was eating. However, because he was small, he took just about as much as he should if he were normal sized and wanted to share. He stood back from his breakfast and clucked his beak in satisfaction.

"Thanks Lolly!" he cried out happily. "I'm really full now!" And wasn't that a relief? He sat back over by the tree and decided to do some morning preening for his feathers. After a few moments, he found his white feather again. It seemed to be holding up nicely, and was still as soft as the first day he found it. He wouldn't deny, he was becoming overly attached to it. He was starting to doubt he'd ever let it go. Taking it from his wing, he began to preen it as well. It was just one feather, but he ended up preening it for about five minutes before placing it back, and deciding he was ready for the day.

"Eat all you want, but leave some for the others" Lolly reminded her friends, though it wasn't really necessary. She finished off the part of the breast Larimar ate off of and then fell back. She'd sated her hunger enough to wait for any scraps Flocke, Skah and Ghost would leave. "I wonder if they've ever caught anything like this." she wondered aloud. There was a lot she didn't know about these chicks. She decided to ask Larimar what she knew since she'd been the one to meet them.

"So, you never got to tell me how they ran into you. Did they tell you how they came to be alone?"

Larimar hesitated. She wasn't sure whether or not Skah would like it if she told them about his mother's death. She kept it as simple as possible. "Matoskah's mom died not too long ago, and Ghost's left and never came back. I guess they wandered around together for a while before they found me in the stream." Despite the male chick's hostile demeanor, she couldn't help but feel a great sorrow for him. Is it better to not know your mother at all than to see her die?

She noticed Flocke's feather. It didn't look like it was one of his, and treated it with much more care than his own coat. "What was that?" she asked curiously after he had tucked it out of sight.

Flocke was startled by her question, and for quick moment, considered whether or not he should tell her. 'She's my friend. Of course I'll tell her!' he thought.

"I found it. It was in that really... bloody?... yeah bloody. It was in that really bloody nest when I went to look at it. There was nothing else inside. So I took it. It... makes me feel safe. I... I think it might have been my mother's." he finished off quieter than he had started. The more he thought about it, the more sure he was that the nest he got the feather from, had been his. It saddened him a bit, but he was also happy that he knew. He knew his mother was most likely dead, so he no longer had to live in a false sense of hope. He was also happy that he knew what color his mother was. It wasn't a wing feather like he had previously thought. No, it was a downy feather from his mother's breast, meant to keep her hatchlings warm. Now, it was being used to comfort her only surviving chick.

"I'm also pretty sure she was white." he finished there. He knew what his mother looked like, even though he'd never met her. He didn't know the color of her eyes, but he knew the color of her plumage, and the sound of her voice. That was enough, and he was going to make sure he never forgot.

"That's very beautiful, Flocke." said Lolly. "It's good that you have something to remind you of your mother. Sort of like me and my-" She suddenly got a pang of dread. Her eggshell! She left it behind back at the tree Flocke had been sick by. It wasn't really necessary, and she wasn't one to be sentimental over personal possessions, but it had come in handy from time to time and it was the ONLY thing she had.

There were no feathers in her nest. No red stuff, no voice she could remember. The scent was faint when Lolly had come free of her egg, panting under a pile of twigs. Any other eggs in her nest had been taken whole; apparently hers had been hidden. Her mother must have been killed far from her nest or else driven off quite some time before Lolly had hatched, since her egg had been a bit too cool when she'd hatched. The only thing Lolly had from her raided nest was a golden bowl-shaped bit of eggshell that fit on her head.

"How long could I even have kept it around anyway?" Lolly sniffled bracingly, but despite saying this she bounded off in the direction she thought the tree was. Or perhaps it was the other way? She paced back and forth trying to get her bearings.

"Lolly!" Flocke called after his bigger friend. He knew what she was looking for. It was the only thing she had from her nest. "I know how to get back to the tree!" Sure, he'd gotten sick later that morning, but he remembered which area of the stream they had been near, and where they had emerged from the forest. He was sure that if they followed a general direction, they'd find it sooner or later.

"Lolly! Let's look together!" he cried as he chased after his frantic friend.

Lolly sniffed and nodded, barely keeping herself from sobbing. Why she was acting so silly over such a thing she didn't know, especially since she was usually so practical. Still, she let Flocke take the lead eagerly, hoping that she wasn't taking her friend off on a wild goose chase.

All the trees looked similar to her, and when she climbed up high to get a better view she didn't catch any glimpses of gold. The scents were all mixed up now and her mind was blurred, so she wasn't thinking clearly enough to retrace their steps.