Rilu

(Content warning: Child neglect and abandonment. Fandragon of a Team ICO fancharacter!)

---

Seeing cursed children never got any easier.

The flock crowded at the bottom of the nest mound, none but the parents willing to get too close. Emon sighed behind his mask.

The daughter was healthy and vibrant. Even her eyes had two tones: a rare and welcome good omen. But the two sons? No.

One dark with tell-tale pale underbelly, one horrendously pale with a deep, dark belly. The wings were fine, but the bodies, oh - he knew they would either never thrive, or if they did it would bring doom upon the clan, as Mono had.

Kyouko understood as well as he did. She carefully plucked the daughter out of the nest, fluttering down the mound and setting her where the rest of the flock could see. They tasted her and hummed as cheerfully as they could. She was lucky, blessed, and had been spared where her brothers could not be. Emon turned to the two cursed sons, letting his flock greet their newest real member.

He gently touched each on the head with his foreclaws, pressing them down until their snouts touched ground, then releasing them. The hatchlings were uncomprehending, but Emon knew the meaning.

They would keep their curse away from his family. If the Boneyard killed them, it was as his Mother willed. And if they should survive, against all odds? Well, then that was as his Mother willed, too, and with any luck, it would be Her will that it happen far from his clan.

Patriarch Emon turned and left his cursed sons in their nest, too small to climb out of it, and the flock moved swiftly on, his new daughter carried in her mother's jaws.

---

The hatchlings grew hungry, and they grew thirsty, and they grew hot, and they grew desperately, desperately lonely and afraid.

But before they had called themselves hoarse, a shadow cast itself over them, and the two huddled in the nest mound, the arrival of something new even more terrifying than the piercing loneliness and pain. It was a Wildclaw.

It was Kurnaz.

He stared at them, two pairs of red eyes staring back. He lifted his head to bare his teeth at Emon's clan as they vanished into the haze of the distance. One of the hatchlings whimpered; Kurnaz closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and spread a wing over the nest.

"Don't worry," he said, smoothing over his expression and with it his voice. "I understand now why Dormin was so insistent I go with the pilgrimage. Here..."

He nosed into his supplies, producing the first water they had tasted, along with dried fish, the first food they had eaten. It was scratchy, but they knew no better, and he gave them as much water as they could drink after, keeping his wing open as a shade, bearing the heat on it where the little hatchlings couldn't. They listened, fascinated, to his deep panting as the heat of the day pinned him, and it soothed them to sleep.

At some point the sun had mercy enough to set. Kurnaz folded his sunburnt wing, wincing. "Well. ...I believe Zola's territory should not be far off." He looked down at the hatchlings, who had woken at his voice. The lighter one chirped, making Kurnaz smile. He lowered his snout to the brothers, nuzzling them.

"I'll have to introduce you. You know... I'm not as good with names as Dormin is. But... but I think I know what the two of you look like.

"It's funny. I've never heard these names before. But they suit you."

He carefully picked up the darker hatchling, setting him on his back and feeling the little claws grip his feathers. "Hold tightly, Tuin. Don't worry." He looked at the lighter one, eyes soft in the night. "I'm getting you and Rilu to safety."

The moon caught the gleam of his claws as he trotted away, a hatchling on his back and a hatchling in his mouth.

---

Needs:


Bone Antlers
Archer's Quiver
Archer's Cape
Archer's Wing Cover
Ferocious Banner
White Linen Arm Wraps
Frostfinder's Arctic Pants
Pathfinder's Leggings
Inkwell Tail Feathers