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Xelqua first sees its Person when its Person is four.
The leaves brush against its feather-scales, wind whistling and shaping the places it cannot see with its eyes. Its been coming here often, wrapping its snake-like body around the branches and Watching the far-off village.
It doesn't know why just as much as it knows why.
It was called here by the sound of rustling feathers, of bird-like laughter.
Its Person is here.
— — — — —
Xelqua first meets its Person when its Person is seven.
Downy fluff covers his skin, feathers of red-yellow-blue on his wings, no flight feathers yet but it is only a matter of a few years.
It is doing as it always does, Watches its Person from the remnants of the Void between buildings, flying through the branches of the trees and launching itself away when one of its Person's friends flick their ears and become to focused on where its sitting.
This time, its Person is the one who sees it from the corner of his eye. Xelqua knows this just as it knows that it is the last Void-flier.
It doesn't dart away this time. Its Person looks at it, his brown eyes meet the two purple eyes on its head, the eyes of its wings are tightly closed and the Eye on its chest is covered in smaller wings.
Its Person tilts his head, holds out a hand, and chirps at it.
Xelqua lunges, wrapping around the arm of its Person. It is tiny, no longer than an adolescent rat snake, and it fits perfectly on his palm when curled up. Its Person smiles. He knows that there is something about it that calls to him, even if he doesn't know why.
"Hi," His other hand comes up and a talon gently scratches the top of its head, "What are you?"
— — — — —
Xelqua learns a lot of things that it knew but didn't know.
Xelqua learns that its Person is named Grian. Xelqua learns that its Person is a parrot hybrid, Xelqua learns what a parrot is.
Xelqua learns that Grian's friends are… interesting.
One of them is a hybrid of something that once existed but longer does, with yellow eyes that glow in the dark and bark stretching up his fingers. He slows when the others look at him, but doesn't freeze. He is… comfortable, not of the Void itself but of something similar enough. Xelqua learns that this one is named Bigb.
One of them is a canary, and something ancient in Xelqua cries out in pre-grief when it sees the bright yellow wings on his back. Its Person and his friends look confused, tilting their heads or raising their eyebrows, or blinking at it. They are young, and they are children, and it will not warn them of the inevitable yet. Xelqua learns that this one is named Jimmy.
One of them is a human, or close enough to one anyway. With pointed ears and warmer than the rest, Xelqua thinks that he may have dragon in him somewhere. There is something familiar about him, almost. Familiar in the way that it knows who he would be the Person of, had the void-flier still been alive, had Xelqua not been the last. Xelqua learns that this one is named Martyn.
One of them is a wolf hybrid, but also a moth. With the wings, antennae, and two pairs of arms of a luna moth but the white fluffy ears and tail of a wolf. She is interesting, it may not have Watched much, compared to its nest-mates, but it has never seen anything quite like her. She feels the same as the Moon, as if she is simply a part of it that had broken off and woken up. Xelqua learns that this one is named Pearl.
Xelqua does not know what it means to like something, not entirely. It has felt like only part of something for all of its existence, like there was always something missing. But it has found that missing piece, and it thinks that it likes his friends.
— — — — —
The adults of the village that its Person lives in are… wary of it. They don't know what it is, and there is nothing about it in any books.
It does its best to look and act as nonthreatening as possible. Keeping its feathers and spines flat, keeping its extra eyes closed, keeping the Eye in the center of its chest tightly covered, chirping to mimic the sounds that Grian makes.
The adults don't seem convinced, but they seem to realize that it is not a threat to Grian or his friends, and let it stay with him.
Most of the Players within the town are avians, or otherwise winged people. Building up high into the sides of the cliffs that the forest surrounds. There are those without wings, and they seem to live closer to the ground, where the bridges are a little more stable.
Xelqua notes that none of them are old. The oldest that it sees is maybe reaching fifty years, none that would be old enough to have ever seen others of its species.
It also notes that neither Grian or his friends seem to have family here. None that share blood, at least. Grian and his friends seem to be raised collectively by all of the adults within the village, and so do most of the other children.
(It Glances, once, into the Code of the Server. Just once, because doing so more means that it may get lost and it cannot afford to get lost in the Code when it has finally found its Person.
There are two children who are related to anyone, both from the same parents. No one else has parents. A Server full of Codeborn.)
— — — — —
It grows as Grian grows. Once it was not much larger than a robin, now it perches on Grian's shoulder the size of a raven.
Grian is ten, now, and so are his friends. His wings have fluffed up and will soon start to grow flight feathers, though he will not be able to fly for at least another three years. He will start branching soon, and Xelqua will branch with him even though it can already fly.
The rest of the village has grown used to it, even if many do still find it weird.
Most important to it, is that it and Grian have begun to talk.
It had always understood what Grian said, or what anyone else had said. But Grian did not understand it, not past the body language that didn't always translate well.
But it learned avian body language, from Grian and Jimmy and the other avains around, and then it learned some body language of wolves from Pearl. The body language of birds and avians fit it better, with its feathers, wings, and tail, but the body language of wolves fit it with its ears and sharp-toothed snout.
That was communication, that meant that it was understood better than it was before. But it was limited.
It could share when it was relaxed, when it was frightened, when it didn't want Grian or his flock (as that is what it had started to think of its Person's friends as) to go somewhere.
But it could not talk. It could not help with school work, or answer the questions the kids had about it, it could not get as close to its Person as it wanted to.
But now it can.
It cannot form the words that Grian and his friends — his flock, because that is what they are too each other — speak, but it can bark and hiss and chirp and growl.
It takes times, sounds mean emotions, then mean people, then mean things, then mean words.
The Flock is fifteen by the time they and Xelqua can communicate as smoothly as they can with anyone else. Grian is the first, though the rest follow behind quickly after.
Xelqua is the size of a small dog, now. Legless body wrapped around Grian's arm more often than not.
Pearl calls Xelqua's name, and asks Grian a question. BigB call's for Grian, just to talk to Xelqua. They are treated as if they are one and the same, at least by the Flock, and Grian seems to love it as much as Xelqua.
The Flock are adults, early twenties and stronger than they've ever been. Grian has a lock of Pearl's shed fur on a locket charm on his wrist, sitting next to a yellow feather of Jimmy's, a shedding of bark from BigB, a tuft of Martyn's hair, and a purple scale from Xelqua.
The rest of the Flock has the same, Bigb has fur, feathers, and hair woven between his branches, Jimmy wears them wrapped around the tuft of feathers at the end of his tail, Martyn's wears them as a necklace, and Pearl the same.
Xelqua wears them as a charm bracelet, too, wrapped around the base of its tail.
It is part of the Flock, and the Flock is part of it.
It and Grian are one and the same in all but body, talking to one means talking to the other. Grian is Xelqua and Xelqua is Grian but they are still seperate, just the smallest amount.
There's a server called Evolution, Evo for short, that the Flock has been invited to. It is interesting to Xelqua, going through the "updates" of the Servers, one at a time.
Xelqua does not see the appeal in it, but it had been there at the start, and it had seen everything evolve already. But the Flock wants to go, and wherever the Flock goes, Xelqua will follow.
They are being Watched.
It does not tell the Flock.
But they are being Watched. Not by it, not by anything like it. Like a twisted horrid creation that tries so desperately to be what Xelqua and Grian will be one day.
It hisses and is growls and it scares them off, but it does not know for how long it will be successful.
It tries to convince the Flock to leave, but they are stubborn and Xelqua's favorite thing about them, about its Person, is now the most frustrating.
It does not tell them why, even as they ask.
It cannot.
It does not know why it cannot, but it cannot.
The dragon is dead, something that Xelqua hates to watch, even though it knows that she is not Her. The Ender Dragon is not Her, she is a false illusion, of simple code and no thoughts. But it still cries out when she dies.
And that is a mistake, maybe. Because it calls them. Maybe they would have come anyway, or maybe Xelqua had scared them off for good. But they are here, and Grian and Xelqua are in their grasp.
Watchers, they call themselves. Cloaked in the purples of the Void, and Xelqua locks eyes and they are the eyes of beings that have only ever been One.
It is in white hot blinding pain, and its screams mix with its Person's.
Wings tear through the flesh on his back, four more than what he was born with. Eyes tear through his thighs and palms and cheeks, the snapping of bones as his body is changed.
There's blood in his mouth, that is his and is not his. He tears muscle and sinew with talons.
His wings emerge, and his bones crackle. This time it is almost comfortable, nice. It feels like coming home, like something is correct again.
His wings spread open, red, yellow, blue, and purple.
Grian leaps, and knows with certainty that he is One.