Chapter 1: Jealous Whines from the Barn
The afternoon sun had baked the orphanage yard into a soft, warm slab of gold. Little clouds of chalk dust puffed into the air as small hands scraped blue and yellow sticks across the worn cobblestones. Sister Margaret knelt in the dirt, her gray habit pooling around her, a fixed point of calm amidst the swirling energy of children.
“Oh, look at that, Maisie! What a splendid sun. So many rays!” Her voice, warm and round as the loaf of bread she’d sliced for lunch, carried across the yard.
Maisie, a tiny girl with her front teeth missing, beamed up at her, clutching a stub of yellow chalk.
From the deep, shadowed mouth of the big red barn, a low sound seeped out. It wasn’t a growl, not quite. It was a long, drawn-out whine that vibrated with pure, unadulterated misery. The sound slithered across the distance, sharp as a talon dragged across stone.
Sister Margaret’s smile didn’t falter, but her eyes flicked towards the barn for a half-second. She turned back to a boy drawing a lopsided horse. “And you, Peter! Such a mighty steed. He looks very fast.”
Scritch-scritch-scraaape.
The noise from the barn was followed by the audible sound of something sharp dragging down the inside of the heavy wooden door. A single amber eye, its pupil a vertical slit, peered through a knothole in the plank. It watched, unblinking, as Sister Margaret placed a gentle hand on Peter’s head.
Another whine, this one higher, more pathetic.
“All right, my darlings, you keep making your masterpieces,” Sister Margaret said, brushing chalk dust from her knees as she stood. She walked with purpose towards the barn, her beads clicking softly at her waist.
The amber eye vanished from the knothole. A shuffle of large, feathered limbs retreated into the gloom.
She pushed the creaking door open just wide enough to slip inside. The barn was cathedral-quiet after the yard, cool and smelling deeply of dry hay, old wood, and something else—a faint, musky scent like a bird’s nest in the sun. A shaft of light cut through the dust motes, illuminating the hulking shape pressed into the farthest stall.
Faelan had made himself as small as his five-meter frame could manage. He was curled in on himself, his powerful, taloned bird-legs tucked beneath him, his long, scaled tail wrapped tightly around his torso like a sulky serpent. The small, feathered wings behind his ears were plastered flat against his neck. His head, with its messy fall of blond hair, was buried in his arms, which were sheathed in gleaming red scales ending in wicked black claws.
“That is a truly tragic sound you’re making,” Sister Margaret said, her hands tucked into her wide sleeves. “You’d think you were mortally wounded, not grounded for terrorizing the hens.”
A muffled rumble came from the figure. “They were looking at me.”
“They are chickens, Faelan. They look at everything. It’s what they do.” She took a few steps closer. “You chased Sister Beatrice’s prized rooster into the pond.”
“He’s rude.” The head lifted slightly. Amber slit-pupil eyes gleamed in the half-light. “He struts.”
“And you,” she said, raising an eyebrow, “are currently pouting in a barn because you can’t play outside. Who’s strutting now?”
Faelan uncurled a little. The cream and white feathers of his lower half rustled. He was enormous, a mythical creature crammed into a mundane space, but right now he just looked like a scolded teenager. A very large, very dangerous-looking one. “You were praising them,” he accused, his voice a mix of human petulance and a deeper, resonant growl. “You said ‘splendid.’ You said ‘mighty.’ You didn’t say anything about my… my everything today.”
Sister Margaret fought the smile that threatened to break her stern facade. “Your ‘everything’ was busy trying to give the hens a nervous breakdown before breakfast. You don’t get praise for that.”
He let out a huff, a warm gust of air that stirred the hay at her feet. His clawed fingers dug into the dirt floor. “I could draw a sun. My sun would be better. It would be… accurate. I’ve seen it from above.” The small wings behind his ears gave a faint, proud flutter.
“I’m sure it would be,” she said, her tone softening. “But part of growing up, my fierce boy, is learning that attention isn’t a prize you snatch. It’s something given. And we give it most freely to those who aren’t demanding it every second.”
Faelan looked away, his tail giving a single, thumping lash against the stall wall. The jealousy was a physical ache in his chest, sharp and hot. He heard the faint, joyous shrieks from the yard and it felt like a personal rejection.
“They’re small and boring,” he muttered.
“They’re children,” Sister Margaret corrected gently. “As are you, in many of the ways that matter.” She moved closer now, unafraid, and reached out. Her hand, small and pale, came to rest on the scaled forearm that was thicker than her thigh. The scales were smooth and warm. “My attention isn’t a pie, Faelan. Giving some to Peter doesn’t mean there’s less for you.”
He was utterly still under her touch. The violent tension seeped out of his muscles, replaced by a desperate, quiet yearning. He leaned into her hand, just slightly.
“I heard you tell Maisie her sun was splendid,” he mumbled, his pride crumbling.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake.” She shook her head, but her other hand came up to pat the side of his feathered neck. “You are ridiculous. And you are grounded until supper for the pond incident. But,” she added, feeling him tense again, “your penance is not to sit here and invent new reasons to feel sorry for yourself. Your penance is to do something useful. The loft needs fresh hay. Neatly. No throwing bales about to make a dramatic point.”
A glimmer sparked in the amber eyes. A task. From her. It wasn’t praise, not quite, but it was a thread of connection, something to hold onto.
“Neatly,” he repeated, as if the word was foreign.
“Neatly. Or no apple tart after supper.”
He gave a slow, draconic nod, his long neck dipping. The whining had stopped. The scraping had ceased. The immense, hybrid creature in the stall had been given an anchor.
Sister Margaret gave his arm a final pat and turned to leave. “And Faelan?” she said from the doorway.
He looked up, a shaft of light now catching the gold in his feathers.
“Your everything is, indeed, quite splendid. You just need to learn to let it be seen without all the hissing.”
She slipped out, closing the door on his stunned silence. In the sudden quiet of the barn, Faelan stared at the space where she had been. Then, with careful, deliberate movements, he unfurled himself, his vast wings stretching until their tips brushed the opposite walls. He looked up at the dusty loft. Neatly.
Outside, the chalk drawings were fading in the sun. Inside, with a focus that was new to him, Faelan extended his claws, grasped the first heavy bale of hay, and began.