~Rupture~ Another Story By Me

[iluvorpingtons]

First: Please don't kill me for not continuing my other story, Tempest, for...forever! I seriously have no idea yet where to take that story, but I have several plans and I will post the next chapter to it soon.
Anyway, this story will probably be way shorter, but I liked the idea. It's a rewrite of a story I wrote a long time ago (but didn't post).

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Prologue
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The two birds walked beside each other. The colors of both creatures' feathers stood out in the snowy landscape. Both felt the growing pain in their scaly legs from walking so long. Birds like them weren't meant to spend so much time so close to the earth, at least as far as both of them were concerned.
The first bird, a red-tailed hawk with patches of white on her feathers, paused as their conversation did. "Well," replied the harrier. "None of us expected the future to come so quickly."
She was far out-shined by the second bird, a radiant, swan-like animal with feathers as red as rose blossoms. His dark eyes glittered in the fading light. A crest that curved upward rose on his head as the hawk clenched her talons tightly. "No one did," muttered the phoenix.
The hawk pulled back her wing, revealing a heavy book that smelled like mildew.
"You know I can't understand that." The phoenix moved aside as if he feared the yellow pages.
"I know," said the hawk softly, "But some can. It's not safe now...not even with me. I doubted how well you could protect this, but..."
The bird beside her started to say something. She glared at him for a second before cutting him off. "There's him now, the one like me. I don't trust him. I don't trust anyone anymore."
"Not...not me?"
The hawk looked away, her golden eyes pained. White fire danced along the tips of her dark talons. "You know I can't."
She placed her foot on the codex, a garbled language slipping between her claws as she ran it over the first page. "Too late," hissed her voice. She glanced at the phoenix with fear before grabbing the left corner of it in her talons.
"Effemy, don't."
The hawk tore out the page, the paper crackling and ripping loudly in protest. Her movements became quick like the winds. She shoved the ancient book towards the phoenix. "I think I've already stolen too much time."
Clenching the page like an old friend, Effemy closed her eyes and disappeared in flash of white.
"Yes," murmured the phoenix to himself. He grasped the book with resentment. "We have."

...​

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[iluvorpingtons]

Chapter One: The Bird in the Mirror

There we were again, asking to be killed as usual.
The sunlight was hot on my dark feathers. I glared at the two birds standing beside me. The first was a dark red-tailed hawk. She had fierce golden eyes and mahogany plumage. The second was an American kestrel who was looking nervous. His dappled breast was covered in something dark, maybe juice or blood. We were using both. We all stood around a huge assortment of objects ranging in rarity from our own feathers to emeralds and diamonds. The hawk, Hawk (Yes, that's her name) was still chanting while the rest of us had stopped. I held a mirror in front of my black and white face, watching for some sort of sign.
All of us were faint, tired, and feeling like our lives sucked.
"Hey, Aleth," Breeze, the kestrel, said with worry. "Should your book be glowing like that?"
"What?!" I tore my eyes off the mirror and lifted my talons off the codex, which was starting to steam. Hawk stumbled on a line. I cursed and glowered at her.
"Hawk, STOP!"
She looked at me like she was thinking, dude, really?
Too late. I threw the book, smacking her in the face. She turned to me, light dancing in her eyes. "Seriously? I had it down you huge--"
"Just...be quiet for a second." I slumped against the trunk of the tree, exhausted. Panting, I looked at my reflection in the mirror. It was definitely not a pretty sight to anyone. Huge clumps of white feathers had fallen off of my head. Burns and sores shot pain through my head every time someone else preened it for me. Not like that happened often. One of my pale green eyes was spinning like crazy, another thing in the world I couldn't control. But the half-dead face of a twenty-nine year old bald eagle still stared back at me defiantly, daring me to admit I was the worst-looking bird in the world.
"You okay?" Breeze looked at me with real concern in his eyes.
Hawk, of course, said nothing of the like. "He's too blubbery to be bothered by any of this."
"At least I'm not insane," I snapped, wiggling a claw at her face.
Hawk looked at me distastefully, a few flames gathering at her talon-tips. I spun around, pretending I didn't care. "Bad spell," I muttered, cursing again. "We didn't have the proper ingredients. Much less proper caster who can actually read the spell."
"Not everyone has an IQ of 30," Breeze said, shrugging.
"694," I growled. "30 is, like, below average."
"Oh."
The lips behind Hawks beak curved in a smile. "Would have been 700 if I hadn't distracted you."
"By lighting my-- Forget it, I remember." I sighed, remembering a sad, sad day that including much shrieking and laughing. "Let's hit the sack, we're all diurnal falconiformes, huh?"
"Speak English, please."
"LEAVE--ME--ALONE. Got it?"
The two birds dispersed, leaving me alone with my reflection. It looked at me with hateful eyes as if it were about to shout at someone for disturbing it. "Stupid...me." I hissed. I slammed my foot into the mirror and watched my image shatter.

 

[iluvorpingtons]

No one?