Chapter Text
1 // in my first youth
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In a future life, he hopes that he is reborn as a bird. What he wouldn’t give to see the world beneath him from up in the sky.
This is what Norman thinks as he makes his way through the bustle of city crowds roaring to life around him, its people stirring the concrete jungle awake. The sun peeks through the thin sliver of space between each building and fractures in every direction. Norman, who still flinches at the startling sounds of car horns honking at every turn, knows that he will eventually grow used to this place too, as he has every other place he has traveled to for the past two years. The human world, he now knows, is his for the taking. But at fifteen, he has long outgrown that curiosity to see the vast world laid out before him, an unexplored map with nothing but probabilities and possibilities.
That is because these past two years have been set aside for exploring those possibilities as he and his siblings scour every inch of living land in search of the promise made in their youth: to make it to the human world together. And for these past two years, they have been just one short of that promise. It’s entirely possible that they have escaped one cage only to be placed into another and he wonders if the concept of freedom truly exists in the first place. Still - this is what they had wanted, more than anything. So he clutches his cloak and continues on, because none of it matters until they are all together once again.
Yes - together, once more and forever.
Around him, everyone seems to be in a hurry as the people briskly and sternly walk to their destinations, crossing paths in ways that Norman discerns no pattern in. For one of the largest cities left untouched by war, he doesn’t expect the amount of civil chaos that he’s witnessed at such an early hour. As if by instinct, he scans his surroundings for a way out, a small reprieve from the constant buzz so that he could take a second to breathe and hear himself think. From his periphery, he catches sight of a line of trees skimming over some of the streetlamps and shorter buildings. His body acts before his mind can direct and Norman finds himself drawn to the oddity of nature existing in the middle of a man-made civilization.
When he finally emerges from the crowd, he’s met with an endless expanse of grass stretching far and wide before him, glistening in vibrant greens. Norman catches his breath at the sudden, unexpected sight. It’s as unbelievable as traveling between worlds, how he finds himself in the midst of slate structures only to be thrust into nature with a single step forward. Across the field stands a lone, towering tree providing shade for onlooking adults as they watch with tender eyes as the children enjoy their youth the only way they know how. Their laughter sends waves of joy to the occasional passing lovers who, in all of its contagion, smile at the thought of having once spent their youth with the same enthusiasm.
His heart aches with the sight, as it does when he sees what once was and what should be. The scene is familiar, a faint reminder of a distant time that he finds himself recounting more often than he realizes. Those memories of Gracefield remain untouched as they replay in his mind - mornings full of food and family that bled into afternoons spent chasing each other until the sun fled the sky. It is a youth that they cannot return to, a dangerous innocence traded for an equally dangerous reality.
Norman grits his teeth. The past is gone - he knows this well. But he also knows that they now have a second chance at life, at being young in the face of a world unknown. After all that they have witnessed, how could he not want it?
Without warning, something crashes into Norman from behind, a brisk force causing him to stumble forward as he lets out a gasp of surprise. When he looks up, he catches sight of a young boy running ahead with a paper kite in hand, its tail trailing across the dirt and grass. Not far behind, a tiny girl with wild, flaming hair calls after her friend before turning to Norman to mouth an apology, their eyes meeting for a brief second.
Norman’s eyes widen and his heart stops as the girl breaks her gaze and hurriedly makes her way towards the others. He shakes his head, knowing fully well that what he sees isn’t quite her , but rather, what he remembers of her.
His heart sinks. How he wishes that she were here to experience this new world with them.
It’s then that he instinctively clutches at the whistle dangling around his neck, bringing it to his lips in one swift motion and calls for backup with a long, drawn breath broken into three short staccatos. The whistle hums through the air, a desperate and urgent chime running with the wind. But its low sound is almost melodic, a far cry from the screech of the whistles traditionally used for signaling attention. It had been Norman’s suggestion when they first arrived in the human world, though many of the cattle children defaulted to using this system over the present technology.
In the minute that follows, Gilda comes running, emerging from the city crowds behind him. Gilda, who has grown into fourteen with the same, motherly grace she held as a child, almost collides into Norman as he turns to greet her with a smile.
“Did you find something?” She manages to say between huffs, her hands finding support on her knees. Norman offers her his canteen, letting her catch her breath before she looks up at him expectantly.
“You’ll see,” he says, so she follows when he gestures ahead, his cloak swaying beneath the rising wind.
They walk into the rising heat of the sun, away from the adults and the trees and towards the group of children gathered in huddled excitement, stopping short just within earshot. One of them - the boy who had crashed into Norman moments earlier - holds the kite over the crown of his head while the girl with flaming hair sprints in the opposite direction, red string lengthening between them. When the distance between them is enough, the boy lets the breeze lift the kite from his hands and the children erupt into roaring cheers as it disappears high into the sky.
Norman’s jaw goes slack at the sight, feeling like a child again with the same wide-eyed wonder against both the familiarity and the novelty of the world before him. And for the first time in what seems to be an eternity, he smiles.
Gilda sees this and places a gentle hand on her brother’s shoulder. “It’s like what we used to do when we were children.”
Before we learned the truth that would take away that innocence , he wants to say in return. Memories of an untouched time, a happiness that could only exist because they were together, complete, inseparable. It’s a youth that he longs to take back for themselves, to have a second chance at a life that was once nothing more than a cruel promise.
Instead, he turns to nod. “I’ll never forget the day Ray carried that huge yellow kite out of the house. The other kids fought over who got to hold the string first.” A pause. “Thinking back, I’m sure he used his deal with Mama to acquire it.”
Slowly, a sad smile tugs at the corner of Gilda’s lips at the memory as she lets her hand fall from his shoulder. She realizes why Norman had used the whistle to call for her. “It was for her tenth birthday,” she finally says.
In the corner of her vision, she feels more than she sees Norman tense in the silence that weighs heavy between them, the sounds of the children growing farther into the distance. He doesn’t turn to meet her eyes. “Yes.”
They stand, unmoving as the kite is swallowed by the cloudless blue above them. Despite this stillness, there exists a pull, an invisible tug at his heart towards what once was. It is the thought of what could be that he gravitates towards, like a lighthouse beckoning to him at sea. It is this thought that keeps him here, bound within the confines of this cage within a cage.
Gilda swings herself in front of Norman, taking both his hands into her own and startles him out of his thoughts. “We will find her,” she says, resolute. “Until then, let’s look forward to all the stories we’ll tell her.” She squeezes his hands before swiftly making her way past him and back into the city crowds.
He exhales a steady breath he didn’t know that he was holding, the tension in his body releasing with Gilda’s reminder and reassurance. She’s right - they will be together once again. And maybe then, just maybe, they can experience the youth they deserved to have.
As he follows Gilda into the crowd, he hears the shrill cry of a bird echo across the sky and thinks of what he wouldn’t give in that moment for wings to fly to her.