Chapter 2: Hatching Day
"It's hatching! It's hatching!" OMIGOSH OMIGOSH OMIGOSH!" Zephyr yelped, dropping the broom she had been carrying and ran, pell-mell down to the den.
"COME! EVERYONE! IT'S HATCHING!" she shouted, pulling a strand of auburn hair behind her ears haphazardly.
"Yaaaayyyyy!" said a group of small children as they rushed past the young woman in her gauche orange knit sweater and messy ponytail.
An middle-aged woman with an irritated look on her face and a pout that suggested she smoked far too many cigarettes and left them dangling from her lips while doing so gave Zephyr a sharp look.
"Did you really need to shout it at the top of your lungs?" she said irritably as she crossed her arms, "Now the little feathers are going to go make a fuss. Our newcomer is going to need peace and quiet to get through the hatching process!"
"Oh, don't be such a spoilsport, Petra!" Zephyr replied, sticking her tongue out like a pouty teenager.
Petra rolled her eyes.
"Well, there's no use in pointing fingers. The cat's out of the bag," she said exasperatedly, "Let's go and catch up with the little feathers and set up a proper watch for our newbie."
"I'll go tell the others in town!" Zephyr said brightly, "After all, we haven't had a hatching day in ages!"
"Fine, but be quick about it. And take the bicycle or it'll take you all day, even with you running around like a chicken with its head cut off," Petra replied with a smirk.
"Roger Dodger over and out!" Zephyr said with an impish grin and she saluted Petra, who rolled her eyes as the younger woman ran from the room and slammed the side door behind her.
"And use your wing covers or you'll ruffle your feathers!" Petra shouted out the window as Zephyr grabbed the helmet from the hook next to the door and rushed toward the courtyard.
"Okaaaaaaay!" Zephyr shouted without looking back.
Petra made her way to the hatching room. The little feathers were all clustered next to the giant egg, if it could be called that, which lay attached to the floor boards as though rooted to the spot. The greenish gray shell was impossible to see through, but it had lightened in color and grown to an enormous size compared to the day that it had been discovered only three days before.
"I can hear something inside!" shrieked a little girl in a ponytail, flapping her tiny gray wings excitedly, "It went blub!"
"Let me try!" shouted a taller girl in braided pigtails, "After all, I'm older!"
"No you're not, Nina!" shouted the first girl, "You just hatched bigger than me!"
"Children!" Petra shouted to get their attention and the little feathers turned abruptly and went silent.
Petra was secretly proud of her ability to do this, but smiling now would set back all of her hard work, so she screwed her face into a strict-looking scowl and pointed at a sign that was placed on the door.
"Can anyone tell me what this sign says?" she asked in her best School Teacher Voice.
Several children raised their hands.
"Yes, Velocity?" she said finally, choosing a little dark skinned girl with fluffy pigtails in the front.
"It says, 'Quiet, Hatching Room," Velocity answered shyly, toeing the floor.
"That is correct. And what are you children doing right now?" Petra asked, pointing at a little boy with sandy hair that fell down in front of his face in tight curls.
"Uhhhh," he said thoughtfully, "Not being quiet?"
"Also correct," Petra said, "And what will you need to do if you want to stay in here for more than two seconds without being assigned extra chores around Old Home?"
The little girl with the blonde ponytail jumped up and down with her hand in the air.
"Yes, Nina?" Petra said evenly.
"We should be respectful and use our Quiet Voices," Nina said seriously, her voice hushed by several degrees.
"Exactly," Petra replied, "The others should be back from town shortly, so any of you who are having trouble staying quiet can go out in the courtyard to play, but do not go through the gate to the main road or you will lose all privileges for a week."
A couple of groans came up from the crowd, but they settled down quickly with a stern look from Petra's dark brown eyes.
A few children took her up on her offer of unsupervised playtime, but most of the girls and a few of the older boys stood transfixed at the egg as though it was about to open up and offer them a puppet show.
"Waiting for a hatching to begin can be a very boring process," Petra said gently, "Sometimes it can take days."
"But I heard it go blub!" insisted the little girl next to Nina, "Tell her Nina! Tell her about the blub!"
"Well, if that's the case…" Petra said skeptically, as she approached the giant egg and rested a hand against it.
Warm. So warm.
Blub.
"Hmm," Petra said, her eyes narrowing as she tapped softly on the egg's surface.
BLUB!
Her eyes widened.
"Step back children!" she warned loudly, all thoughts of quiet forgotten, "It's about to-"
CRICK-CRAAAACK!
A giant spiderweb ran jaggedly up the side of the egg and Petra found herself thrusting her hands out to either side of her body, her wings snapping wide as well and herding the children backwards towards the door.
Damn. And she had thought that she'd have more time.
"Quick!" she said to two of the older children, their eyes wide as saucers, "Get to the linen closet! We're going to need towels!"
They ran down the hall, their bare feet slapping loudly against the wooden floors.
"The rest of you will need to be absolutely still and quiet, do I make myself clear!" Petra hissed as she glanced back at the rest of the stunned children.
Everyone nodded and her shoulders relaxed by a fraction of an inch.
"Now, then," she said, rolling up the sleeves on her gray sweater and pulling back her lank black hair into the rubber band that she usually kept around her wrist, "This can get a bit messy if it's really time, so please stay out in the hall."
She hoped the silence that followed was a good sign.
There wasn't time to admonish anyone else, though, for at that moment the crack widened near the base and greenish gray water began to leak from the egg.
"I could use some towels! NOW!" Petra hollered down the hall.
"We're coming!" came the distant reply.
They were going to be too late.
Frantically looking around the room, Petra spied an old dusty quilt that had been thrown over the ancient bed in the corner.
It'll have to do.
She pulled it off the bed, coughing at the dust cloud that filled the air and then threw it down on the floor around the egg, watching with some satisfaction as it soaked up the fluid.
"We've got the towels!" shouted the two older girls, one of them banging her shin against the door frame and swearing under her breath as they skidded into the room.
"I heard that," Petra said warningly as the girl thrust the towels in her arms and then rubbed the red welt that had risen on her leg, "But I'll overlook it for now because of exigent circumstances. Thanks for bringing the towels, now please stand out in the hall with the others."
"Awww-but-"
"No buts!" Petra said sternly, "Or I will close the door and you won't be able to see anything!"
That shut them up and they retreated out into the hallway with the others, the injured girl limping slightly as her friend let her use her shoulder to steady herself. Petra silently made a mental note to tend to the injury when all of the excitement was over and done with.
The egg creaked like an old ship in a storm and then with a burst of fluid, the crack widened even further.
Petra could see a pale flash of skin moving behind the shell, pressing against the weak point.
"That's it, you can do it," she murmured softly, placing a hand gently against the crack, "Come on, now, listen to my voice."
"YOU….CAN….DO….IT!" came a chant of small voices from behind her and she couldn't bring herself to tell them to be quiet.
A large flake of shell broke off, leaving a small, fist-sized hole in the egg. Petra waited for the gush of fluid to subside before looking in.
A hand shot out of the hole, long pale fingers so bony that they were almost skeletal.
Petra yelped despite herself and flew backwards, landing with an audible thud on the damp floor.
Another hand was pushing at the hole, making it larger, and soon a dark head with long, dripping curtains of wet hair became visible, crowning through the remaining shell like a newborn.
The shoulders and chest had broken through before Petra was able to snap out of her stupor, pulling herself up and rushing to grab the newcomer under the arms. She pulled until she fell backward again with the full weight of the newly hatched and very naked Haibane on top of her.
Good lord. He's around the same age as me.
A deep groan emanated from his mouth as Petra listened to the ragged breaths grow steady. It was then that it really hit her that the long hair and delicate fingers was attached to an all-too-male body. He was very thin to the point of being emaciated, and as he turned his head to the side, his large, hooked nose practically whistled as he breathed deeply in an exhausted slumber. The impression his body gave off seemed to be that of a very wiry, snow-white crow.
Even asleep and naked, his features seemed to command a severe sort of presence. Petra realized that she was staring, but she couldn't bring herself to look away.
"Haha! I can see his butt!" shouted one of the boys.
"GET OUT!" Petra roared, more out of embarrassment than anything else.
Everyone scattered. Petra rolled the man on his side as gently as she could with his near dead weight pushing her down and scrambled to her feet to get one of the cloth towels. He was obviously going to need a bath after his ordeal, but transporting him to the bath was going to be difficult. All Haibane were exhausted to the point of sleep after hatching, so this was nothing unusual, but it would have been far easier if it was another child instead of a full grown man.
Oh well, it isn't as though we choose who comes to us.
She was busy wrapping the towel around his middle when she heard a noise behind her.
"Petra! I saw the kids- woah!" Zephyr was back, with two other older Haibane with her.
Petra found herself blushing, though she didn't really know why.
"It...there was a blub! And then crack! And…it...he...hatched," she finished lamely.
"Dang, and I had been hoping to see the whole process," said a tall man with shortly cropped green hair.
He held his hands behind his head as though he was trying to be casual, but Petra knew he was actually pretty bummed out about having missed it.
"Well, Cole, you're still in time to help him wash up," Petra said balefully, "And you, Zephyr, and Pyrrha, please go fetch some mops and soapy water. I'll need you both to clean up the hatching room while I tend to the little feathers."
"Awww man!" Cole pouted, "Why do I have to lug this guy around?"
"You were the one who said you wanted to be part of the process," Petra said a little huffily, "Congratulations. You've got your wish. I'm going to wash up first, so I'll draw the bath. But you will need to lug him there. Do try not to cause too much damage. This is his first day, you know."
"Why doesn't he have wings? Is he sick?" Pyrrha asked softly, nervously twirling the long, reddish gold braid that curled around her shoulder and nearly down to her knees. It wasn't her fault that she didn't know. She'd been at Old Home ever since she was a little feather and likely didn't remember her Winging.
It was just as well.
"None of us are born with them," Petra replied matter-of-factly, "But he will have them. Soon. Which is why some of us need to finish their chores so that we can get everything ready for the Winging process."
"All right, all right! I'm going!" Cole said irritably, pulling the still-unconscious man by pulling one arm over the back of his neck and steadying him with his arm.
"Ugh! For such a wiry guy, he's really heavy!" Cole grunted and Petra rolled her eyes so theatrically, she was surprised that they didn't produce a sound effect.
"Fine! I'll help you!" she said venomously, positioning herself on the other side and doing the same with the man's other arm. She became painfully aware of how sticky and covered in egg fluid she really was as a loose strand of her hair clung wetly to her cheek. Together they managed to get him into the bathroom and sat him down on the stone floor while Petra ran the bath.
She got some towels and washrags together and took them to her own room, which was right off the main common area and had its own extra bed and bathroom. It was convenient because of the location and because Petra often treated it as a nurses station of sorts if one of the little feathers got sick or needed medical care. Whoever had this room before her had left a number of packs of cigarettes and other assorted personal effects that Petra had taken to using as though they'd been made for her. She didn't remember anything about what her life had been like Before, but it didn't bother her all that much.
She regretted the smoking, though, which was why she had taken to snapping the rubber band against her wrist whenever she craved a cigarette.
Augustin had suggested it to her as an effective way to train oneself out of a bad habit but she hadn't really experienced much in the way of success, unless a red wrist was the intended result.
Other than the smoking, Petra was content. She had Old Home, the little feathers and the other Haibane who worked in town to keep her company.
And, now, a newcomer. Things were going to be exciting, that was for certain.
"C'mon, wake up!" Cole was saying irritably, lightly slapping the man's slack cheeks to no avail.
"Honestly, you're not even trying," Petra grumbled, pushing him out of the way.
She took the warm washcloth she'd been using and dabbed at the man's abnormally large nose and wiped some gunky residue from his pale cheek. She grasped his shoulder and shook him gently until he groaned and his eyes opened ever so slightly before snapping open, wide with fear.
Black eyes. Curious.
"Gwahhh!" he shouted, scooting backwards against the wall.
"You're safe! It's ok! Really!" Petra assured him, but he was looking around suspiciously.
"Where…?" he rasped.
"You're safe, so please! Calm down!" she repeated, fixing him with the same intense and unblinking stare that she used regularly on the children to intimidate them into compliance.
She expected him to go silent, or for it not to work at all, but she didn't expect him to start chuckling. Quietly at first, his laughter grew louder until it bounced off of the tiled walls, distorted and echoey.
"Oh great, Petra," Cole snorted, "You broke his tiny mind."
"You would like that, because then you wouldn't be the dumbest person in Old Home anymore," Petra shot back.
Cole snorted, his cheeks red with humiliation.
"I appear to be...underdressed," the dark-eyed man said raspily when he finally calmed down, "Also, I feel incredibly weak."
"Well, Cole here is going to assist you with washing up," Petra said pointedly, giving Cole a stern look, "And when you are done, he will see you to my room so that we can have a little talk and you can rest a bit from your ordeal."
"That would be...nice...but I fear I have rested for too long already," came the reply.
"Now, don't you push yourself!" Petra said fiercely, turning to the green-haired young man to her right, "Cole, if you have any trouble, just holler. I assure you that I am well-acquainted with difficult individuals."
The others shared a look before both nodded slightly.
"I assume that you will explain the...and the…"he said, trailing off as he pointed at Petra's dark gray wings and the ring that floated a few inches over her head.
"I promise," she replied, placing a hand on his knee, "But first thing's first."
She stood and rinsed the washcloth out in the basin twice before taking it with her and closing the door gently behind her.
Damn. A change of clothes were in order. No amount of soapy washcloths were going to salvage her outfit.
Swearing quietly under her breath, Petra made her way back to her room, hoping she had time to change before their newest guest was done with his bath.