Critters of Bright Valley Short: Wren’s Hatching Day

Edited by Frozen-Doopliss

Art by Kendell2

It was a clear and sunny day in Bright Valley, the birdies were chirping, the bees were buzzing, and Blush the rabbit was dodging Wren’s spell rings left and right.

Mitty and Ditty’s garden sported a new fountain, with a pentagon shaped base, and fountain heads at four of the corners. Beautiful statues of a fox, a seal, a zebra, and a panda endlessly released a stream of water from their mouths into the basin to repeat the cycle. All the statues were in pretty poses like they were dancing with dreamy expressions on their faces with closed eyes.

But there was still room for a rabbit statue in the last corner. Blush was proving frustratingly uncooperative in this endeavor.

With years of experience, Blush agilely avoided the glowing green runes circles Wren continued to cast her way.

Wren was excited at yet another near victory in her grasp. Her spells weren’t just blind attacks however, each one was herding Blush closer and closer to the edge of a cliff overseeing Pea Soup Sea, and Blush was no Felidae, she wouldn’t automatically land on her feet. A perfect target for Wren’s magic.

Blush landed right on the edge of the cliff, balancing on the tips of her toes. But she was still smiling at Wren. The witch raised an eyebrow feather.

Blush made a show of balancing on the edge. Blush pulled from behind her back a slew of professionally done drawings and paintings of various stages of life of a gray feathered hatchling. Wren gasped and readied to blast Blush.

So that was what the seal had shoved into the rabbit’s paws before being made into a perfect, happy decoration.

Blush wagged a finger, and held the pictures over the cliff. Now Wren noticed what Blush had a while ago. A bank of the Timeless Fog had formed right beneath the edge of the cliff. Anything that fell in there, could up anywhere across time and space. A newspaper, in the clutches of her old classmates…

Blush was carefully balanced, the slightest hiccup could send the picture out of her weak grasp and into the Fog.

Wren stomped her foot several times. What was a fog bank doing here anyway? Was the Timeless Fog taking sides now?! That wasn’t fair!

Mitty and Ditty innocently whistled and nudged out of sight the new gardening supplies they’d wished for that’d previous come out of that fog patch.

Wren sighed, defeated, spun her wand, and transformed Faith and the others back to themselves. The Critters cheered.

Blush threw the hatchling pictures into the air above the fog. Wren cawed and quickly flew to catch them, her use of wind magic not being precise enough to snag them all.

The Critters took this chance to make their escape, Blush blew a final raspberry before leaving.

Wren ignored them, catching all her hatchling pictures and landed safely. Mitty and Ditty flanked her as she looked at the old family mementos. The world rippling in the creepies’ minds’ eye as they flashed back to that time.

~ ~ ~

A bird’s eye view moved slowly through the fog. You could imagine casual rock music playing for it. Gradually the fog revealed narrow rocky mountain tops with little patches of grass. On each peak were towers with slanted roofs on top of slanted roofs on top of slanted roofs. This gave the peaks the impression of hands reaching up from the darkness. Whether it was the fog or height, the ground wasn’t visible. The peaks and towers were carefully detailed like static backgrounds as the view moved in closer to them.

Bridges were sparsely connected about, for the poor souls and Felidae denied the right of flight, natural or magical.

You couldn’t tell if it was daytime or night. Yellow-orange light shined from within the windows. Lanterns were plentiful.

The view closed in on a rather squat tower on one of the bigger peaks. Fences, golems, and protective runes formed an impressive but not unwelcoming sight.

The view faded to the squat tower’s interior, showing off white walls painted with happy looking pumpkins, skulls, moons, and spiders.

Felidae, Avians, and Bats went about, wearing white cloaks, ponchos, neckerchiefs, etc, but all bearing the same red symbol of an egg held by catpaws.

There were also pairs of adult Creepies, the view of them stopping right at the shoulders. Many of those going in carried eggs. The white clad Creepies also carried newborn kittens and bats whose eyes were still closed wrapped in cloth that hid their tiny features.

The precious cargo was deposited in rows and rows of nests. There were no names on the nests, only serial numbers. One of the nurses marked the status of each nest as occupied, or unoccupied, on a chart.

Couples who had entered empty handed, met with one of the nurses, who bowed to the visitors and led them to the nests set aside for kittens and pups whose eyes had opened, and eggs that’d hatched.

They’d be given one of the same tribe, but not the same type. Bluejays would leave with swans, and robins would leave with humming birds.

The nurse then took the records with a set of names on it, and burned them. No favoritism was allowed in the merit system of Corvus Mons. Illegal tutors ran the risk of being turned into golems.

Toward the back was another clutch of eggs. Every day they hadn’t hatched moved them further and further to the back. Including a faded turquoise egg with brown splotches.

A couple of ravens, adorned in jewels just fancy enough to be noticed (that, everyone knew, was raven tradition), entered the nursery. A bat nurse bowed to the pair and led the way to the clutches.

At the same time, two crow nurses checked the date on the turquoise egg. They double checked the date. They tapped the egg a few times. They shrugged. They made the proper marks on their clipboard, they weren’t technically supposed to do that until they were finished, but it didn’t matter.

They picked up the turquoise egg and carried it toward the oval garbage chute in the corner of the room. The chute was supposed to be locked when not in use, but nobody complained.

The adult ravens observed the hatchlings. Their eyes zeroed in on a swan, but the bat nurse raised a wing to block out the view, and went over her clipboard.

No one paid the crow nurses any mind, why should they? They weren’t doing anything special. The crow nurse carrying the egg wondered what to have for lunch.

A Felidae nurse with a white bow on her tail hoped the crows didn’t drop the egg, she’d be the one expected to clean up the mess and she had an outing with her kittens planned today.

The two had a brief bump into a miniature tigress Felidae, unimpressed that it took two nurses to clear out one nest.

The crows brushed her aside. One of the mana crystals that lit the nursery flickered. The nurses stopped and looked up, annoyed it might be cracked and need replacing.

It flickered again, along with the other light crystals on the ceiling. This got the attention of everyone in the nursery.

The ravens’ magically powered jewelry began flickering too.

The egg quivered in the nurse’s claws. The nurse looked at it in innocent confusion.

The nursery darkened. The egg’s quaking became worse.

The medical mages on staff were hit by a wave of wooziness.

The egg darkened even as it felt steadily warmer. A green glow shimmered within. The crow nurse holding the egg leaned in closer for a better look.

The levitating hatchling mobile lost power and hit the floor.

Half of the hatchlings cried in alarm, others giggled at the show. Some curiously peaked over their nests at the glowing egg.

The other crow nurse grabbed her stupid friend, and violently pulled her away as they fled. The egg fell, being caught by the miniature-tigress, who quickly placed it down upright before running too.

The bat nurse spread her wings, shielding the nests. Some of the babies tried to see around her.

The egg shook like it was in an earthquake. Green sparks crackled around the egg. The shaking stopped and the egg went dark. Before any creepy could react, the pieces of the egg shell exploded. One shard embedded itself in the wall, the crow nurse who’d been carrying the egg only just barely managed to duck under it. None of the pieces hit the bat nurse nor her charges.

The lights returned to normal, the mobile began floating again.

Standing on her dainty little claws, was a gray fuzzed hatchling with green eyes. Part of her shell covered her head like a cap, while part of the lower half covered her like a diaper (which everyone knew was normal for hatchlings).

The hatchling gave a death glare to everyone around her.

The two crow nurses hugged each other, bug-eyed, their backs pressed against the nursery walls. The Filadae looked up where they’d ducked and covered, and like the bat nurses were both terrified and in awe.

One member of the raven couple slowly raised his claw, and pointed a jeweled talon at the new hatchling.

The bat nurse nodded frantically, and picked up the hatchling like she was carrying a live grenade, and placed it in the waiting claws of the mother raven.

The hatchling angrily glared at her new parents, whose dark glare back was reflected in the hatchling’s eyes.

“You’re going to work very hard to top that little one.”

~ ~ ~

Mitty carefully placed the stack of papers twice her height down, afraid of upsetting her silver-eyed mistress almost as much as being late to answer the masters of the house’s call.

Ditty, meanwhile, made sure the magically neutral target dummy was set correctly before hurrying from his own mistress’ target range.

The two arriving at the same time looked up at the masters of the house and bowed. The kitties didn’t fail to notice the hatchling in the Lady of the House’s claws. The hatchling looked at the kitties appraisingly.

~ ~ ~

Mitty carried her little mistress on her back, her mistress waving about her toy wand. Mitty made a pretend neigh, while Ditty waved his arms about ‘fearsomely’, wearing a fake crown and dragon mask. Behind him ‘Prince Bluey’ the plush bluejay doll awaited to be rescued.

~ ~ ~

Wren and the kitties’ thoughts returned to the present, of course she knew about stuff that happened before she hatched and right after, there were lots of creepies there, maybe some part of her remembered herself, maybe she didn’t, what difference did it make?

Wren sighed and rolled up the sketches and paintings and sat up. She looked sadly at the empty fountain. The kitties looked sadly at their lady before standing at corners of the fountain and making pretty poses.

Wren shook her head and the kitties stepped down. A huge feral birdie flapped down to the fountain. It spread out its wings and made a wild chirping declaring the fountain its territory and woe to any who dared challenge it. A swirl of Wren’s spell rings, and the animal became one with the fountain, water forever springing from its stone beak, knowing only tranquility and fulfillment.

The kitties gave the new fountainhead a good polish before hurrying after their lady and returning to the keep to cook some nice frog legs. There was always next time.

~Fin