McLovin

Hate was not like his siblings. While they sought to take love, to draw from it's strength and make it theirs, he wished only to give it. And so he loved. Tirelessly. Unrelenting. Persistent. His parents, his siblings, his friends, and his clan. For visitors and travellers and strangers. None was spared for him.

His mother scoffed, called it a weakness. Still he loved. His sisters taunted, nipping his wings and pulling his tail. Still he loved. His father spared him not a glance as he returned from hunting. Still he loved.

The question came to him one day, unbidden, as the cold winds ruffled his still nest-soft feathers. His siblings had pushed him from the nest once again. He hadnt wanted to wake his mother. But it was ok, because he loved them. It wasnt their fault. The nest was too small for them all to fit now, with the winter creeping in his mother and father were too busy finding food for them all. He would be fine. He loved them.

'Who is loving me?' He shoved the ridiculous thought away, ruffling his feathers against the sudden chill that blew down his spine. The wind making his eyes sting and water. His family loved him, obviously, in their own way. He wasnt crying. They didnt like it when he cried. The thought persisted. Well into the next morning, still it taunted him. Hurt worse than all the times his siblings had bitten or scratched. Like a thorn in his side, the thought cut deep, bleeding emotion. Who was loving him?

Surely someone out there would think him worth of their love. Could he find them? He watched his mother and father snarling at each other for the second time that morning from over the edge of the nest, his again now that his siblings had gone to play tag by the river. Without him. No one was watching him. Slowly, he crept from the nest, toward the treeline.

He would find them.
They were out there, somewhere.
Far beyond the shackles of his home.