“Your father has other duties. He would not survive the journey again,” Fritz said impatiently, waiting atop the roof of the clinic in the cold, frigid mid-winter air. He was eager to leave. It would only get colder before the Spring.
“But… we haven’t gone without him before,” Uliam protested, hopping from one foot to the other nervously. “What if he can make it just fine? He’ll think we left him behind and try to come on his own!”
The elder hybrid snuffed and shook his head.
“He has your mother and others to be with. He will not come. He is better off here. Now come on, boy. The blizzard is coming and if we get caught in it, then WE will die.”
Liam wasn’t so sure. It wasn’t that he DISLIKED his “uncle”. They had been spending quite a bit of time together lately. Fritz found it trying, but Liam was learning a lot from him. More discipline, for one. How to defend himself properly. Fritz did not put up with a lot of nonsense. The structure was something Uliam had desperately needed.
His mother and father were always two leaps away from disaster. Loving him or not, they couldn’t always provide what he needed.
Fritz had been hinting that he wanted to leave for some time. The island off of Costa Rica that the three of them had traveled to had been warm and humid. Much better to live out the winter in with less of a chance that they would freeze. Fritz had wanted to return there. Had felt the pull. And he wanted Liam to go with him.
“Are you sure?” Liam asked once more, staring at his uncle uncertainly. “You’re bringing your phone, right? Just in case?”
The white-scaled hybrid gruffed at him. For all of Charlie’s patience, his doppelgänger did not have much of it to spare.
“Yes. Now come. I will not wait for you longer.” Fritz needed his phone on him anyway. Just in case Alan needed to get in touch with him. The man was fairly independent. He didn’t need Fritz around, he was sure.
Fed up with waiting, Fritz went ahead and took on his larger form, spreading his wings and leaping from the roof on the course he remembered well from their last venture. Liam danced a little on his toes again before finally shifting himself into his own darker, sleeker form. He was not a powerful flyer like his uncle, but he could keep up.
He took one last look at clinic, as if hoping to see his father. But he knew that he wouldn’t. Charlie was off elsewhere. Doing… something. Somewhere.
Uliam let out a little worried snuff before beating his wings to trail after Fritz and the two disappeared over the waters of the Jersey shore.
