He sighed profoundly as if the weight of the world was on his shoulders. Fortunately for him, that time was over. Now no one expected Fang to help save the world. That was old news. He scanned the screen, leaning on his hand and staring at the words blaring at him and framing a small white escape from the darkness of his room.
The initial buzz of excitement about winged people had finally died considerably so that now Fang only got around twenty emails a day, excluding the dozen trivial and byte-wasting emails that his flock sent to bug him. He scrolled through the list of results he had brought up with a search engine. This was how he was monitoring the world's reactions to his race of bird people. He sighed and leaned back in his chair, looking over an advertisement for skin cream.
Then something caught his eye. And this wasn't an everyday occurrence, either, because Fang had seen enough in his twenty-something years that he wasn't surprised at many things. But this made him stop mid-yawn and lean forward. He clicked on the images link and scanned for the image he had just seen, when suddenly, he saw it: a flying person.
He frowned at it and studied the photograph carefully. Fang had spent so much time looking up pictures like this that he knew when a new one appeared. Usually it was some kid photo-shopping an existing picture and trying to pass it off as another batch of bird kids.
But this one was really new. And not just new, but new! Fang, being the intelligent birdie he was, studied the background as well. The blur of a person was flying through a city street, pretty high up. This photograph must have been taken right as they were taking off; because of the way the creature's wings were positioned.
"Blonde…" He read the caption, frowning "Pale…"
He looked to the side at another photo, a very badly done picture of a much darker person about two hundred feet from the camera and glancing back, probably being chased. Fang tilted his head and gave it as hard a look as he had looked at the blonde. It was hard to make out.
Yes, he looked at it a lot. It was what Fang did before making his decision.
He got up suddenly, making hardly a sound, and left the room, heading for the hall.
"Hmm?" Max grunted and rolled to face Fang. She had gotten so pretty over the years, and her short, feathery hair only had to be blown out of her face. "Fang?"
He looked urgently enough at her that she sat up immediately. He left the room and motioned for her to follow. She moved down the hall and stopped at the open laptop on their kitchen table.
"look." He said quietly.
"Yeah?" She said, sliding into the seat and examining the picture. "'Zat another Photoshopped pic?" She asked, looking up at him. He shook his head and leaned forward to point at the screen.
"We never wore camouflage like that, and none of the flock open their wings that way."
"So?" Max said crossly, rubbing her eyes. "The kid's good at Photoshop. A lot of people are."
Fang gave her a hard look. "This is on a news site. From this afternoon. I don't think you can Photoshop something before it's picture has been taken." He said irritably. Max brushed it off and stared harder, trying desperately to see through the sleep that fogged her eyes.
"So… you think that these two…" She began.
"Are real. Yes."
"But the school… Didn't we…?" Max frowned.
"Yes, Max. But look, these two must be fourteen or fifteen." He explained to the half-awake avian American. "They may not have spent their whole life in the school. Maybe they were saved somehow when the School went down."
"Yeah. Maybe." Max said, shaking her head slowly. "I'm going back to bed. You look into this more, and we'll discuss this over badly done eggs in the morning."
Fang couldn't help smile as she gave him her seat and kissed him on the cheek.
"Yeah." He said to himself as she went back to bed. "Maybe."