Chapter 13

Pterano's Reunion

After confirming that the others had made it back safely, Petrie and Pterano soared towards the cave the young flyer called home. Touching down on its outer ledge, beyond a corner obscuring them from the vision of its occupants, Petrie panted. It had been a while since he'd done such vigorous flying in one day. Pterano on the other hand was barely winded: a testament of the fitness his lifestyle yielded.

"Wait here. I'll go clear the air with Mama," Petrie instructed.

Pterano nodded before nonchalantly covering his ears with his wings.

Petrie stared quizzically. "Um ... okay, then ... I'll be back."

With that, the young flyer disappeared into the entrance.

Pterano waited a moment before counting down: "Three ... two ... one."

The incensed voice of a female flyer erupted from the cave. All coherency was lost to her inarticulate screeching. Even with his ears firmly concealed, his head lightly throbbed under the high-pitched wailing. A female flyer's scream was renowned as a fairly effective deterrent against many a sharptooth raiding their nests. In other words, poor, poor Petrie. Finally, her voice coalesced into something intelligible.

"THAT DECEITFUL, DISGRACEFUL, BROTHER OF MINE IS HERE!?"

Pterano chuckled grimly. He knew his sister too well.

Petrie gave no response.

"WHERE IS HE?!" she screamed.

"What?" Petrie asked.

From the sound of it, she was shaking him. "I ASKED YOU A QUESTION!"

"WHAT?!"

"DON'T YOU DARE RAISE YOUR VOICE AT ME, CHILD!"

"It the shouting!" Petrie replied loudly. "Head spinning! Me no can hear you anymore!"

His mother released a guttural snarl. "That GOOD-FOR-NOTHING-SCOUNDREL made me shout my poor baby SENSELESS!"

Pterano frowned. He took full responsibility for his past, but come now! She couldn't blame him for everything under The Bright Circle!

"Where is he?!" she demanded, marching out of the cave. "If he's anywhere REMOTELY close to my baby, I'm gonna-!"

Pterano spread his wings. Oookay, time to leave.

The dull thud of a body diving to the ground reached his ears. He halted his escape ... for the time being.

"Let GO of me, boy!" Petrie's mother shrieked. "You better not be clinging to my ankles when I take off!"

"But Mama, he The Daybreaker!" Petrie insisted.

His mother blinked in confusion before staring down at her son. "What did you say?"

Petrie blinked up at her blankly. "Me hearing still coming back."

The female flyer exhaled in exasperated exhaustion. She had a plan. Step 1, find Pterano. Step 2, verbally (and physically) persuade him to keep at least half a valley's distance from her and her children. His banishment may have ended, but that didn't mean she would let him anywhere near her family. It was a simple plan, one which she had to put on pause because of this 'Daybreaker' nonsense. What was a Daybreaker, anyway? More than likely some made-up title of greatness with which he had endowed himself ... or perhaps he had gathered a following with that silver tongue of his. He'd always been good at garnering misguided trust from the gullible. Perhaps they had bestowed him with their highest rank, namely 'The Daybreaker'. It sounded like a position, after all. All this was nothing more than conjecture ... but possible. It would be much harder to throttle him into meeting her demands if he had followers. Trust her brother to complicate things! Now she would have to get him alone where no overzealous disciples could save him. It would be difficult, but not impossible.

"Okay, I think my hearing's back," Petrie announced. "Mostly, anyway ..."

"What's this 'Daybreaker' business?" she cut to the chase, folding her wings.

Petrie nervously fiddled with his claws. "Red Claw attacked us today. We had to fight him."

Her eyes widened.

"Well, Littlefoot, Cera and Chomper fought him. I couldn't do much. Uncle Pterano helped."

Her eyes narrowed.

"He-"

"I bet he got you into that situation in the first place!" she barked.

"No! He saw Red Claw about to hurt me and dove right into him! Used The Bright Circle to blind the sharptooth, knocked him down with one hit! He helped us force Red Claw off a cliff! If only you'd seen it! Littlefoot says he heard Red Claw call Uncle Pterano 'The Daybreaker'! Uncle scares sharpteeth! He has a reputation with them!"

She massaged her brow. "It's worse than I thought ... Petrie, why didn't you help defeat Red Claw? Did you even try?"

Petrie shrank, ashamed but uncertain of what she was getting at. "Um ... I tried ... but that did not go well."

"And why do you think that is?" she pressed.

Petrie shrugged with a shake of the head.

"Flyers. Can't. Fight. Bigbiter sharpteeth," she stressed. "Not directly, at least. We can drop rocks on them, sure, but in a claw to claw battle we're too weak and we break way too easily. You'd be wise not to ever face Red Claw head on, Petrie, and Pterano? ... I don't know how he did what he did, but your uncle has been known to consort with disreputable types. Take Rinkus and Sierra, for example. If anyone can make a deal with a sharptooth to look like a hero, it's Pterano."

Her son began to respond, but his argument died in his throat.

Pterano sighed. Well, that settled it.

Petrie's face hardened in determination. There was nothing he could say to sway her, so he decided to show her. Grabbing his mother by the wing, he led her out to the ledge at the nest's edge.

"Petrie, what are you-?" her protest was cut short by a gasp.

At first she didn't recognise the flyer, his wings raised for takeoff. The sternness in his eyes; the lean, powerful muscles; the air of a seasoned warrior times his size. He was almost intimidating. This ... this wasn't Pterano - not the brother whose name she had dragged through the mud. But this was Pterano - a Pterano she had never met.

Slack-beaked, she looked him up and down. He appeared weathered, older than he actually was, yet his eyes were sharper than ever. She spotted crooked bones that had never quite healed right, especially in his legs - exactly what she would expect of a flyer who tried to fight sharpteeth. On second thought, not quite what she'd expect. Death would be more expectable than anything else. What manner of flyer could survive countless close encounters with mighty predators? Yet here he was, and he had saved her son.

"B ... brother?" she asked as though uncertain.

Pterano lowered his wings and looked her in the eye as a paradoxical softness entered his piercing gaze. "Greetings, Terrie."

She threw her wings around him. Pterano blinked in surprise as tears welled up in his eyes. Hesitant to believe what was happening, he didn't dare hug her back. Well, that might have had more to do with the way her wings completely engulfed him.

After a few moments, Terrie pulled away, beaming up at him as she held his face like a precious treasure never to be relinquished.

"Welcome home, brother," she smiled with watery eyes.

Still more to come! Next, Spike and Ducky need trainers of their own, but who? Crazy shenanigans ensue as they find their mentors and their motivation.

So, what do you think of Pterano's closure? Thanks for reading!