Wild Wings

Better But Not Well

Rowan woke up the next morning a little groggy. She sat up and got out of the bed she was on, testing her leg. It felt fine enough to walk on, so she stood from the bed and proceeded to walk outside, which is where she heard talking. 

"We should check on Rowan, she's been sleeping for a while." 

The teen sat at the table the crew was using, shocking everyone. "How long was I out?" 

Koki answered as she gave a plate of pancakes to Rowan. "The whole night, it's around eight in the morning now. How are you feeling?" 

"Least I can walk now." Rowan took a bite of the pancakes and hummed at their taste. "These are really good." 

Jimmy Z smiled as he poured some extra syrup on his own stack of pancakes. "Thanks, they're my grandma's recipe. She had a lot of recipes for baking, so I try to make her creations often." 

Rowan gave a sad but light smile. "You're lucky. Wish I even knew my grandmother, or any member of my family for that matter." 

Martin, who was sitting next to Rowan, raised a brow. "You don't know your family." 

"No, heck, none of my friends know their family's either. Since we can remember we've been each other's family, brothers and sisters. That's why you all found me the way you did, I sacrificed myself so they could live." 

A few birds flew over the crew, Rowan looked at the birds with longing eyes. As if she wanted to fly with them. 

"Well, we should remove your stitches. With how fast you heal, it might be impossible to get them out once your fully recovered." Aviva was right and took a sip of her orange juice. 

Rowan chuckled and nodded. "Alright, but after breakfast. I haven't had pancakes in a while." 

Chris finished a bite and looked to the girl. "How long is 'a while'? Do you and your friends move around a lot?" 

Rowan looked down at her food and nodded. She stayed silent the rest of the time she was eating and while Aviva and Koki helped remove her stitches. Koki lent her some new clothes from when she was Rowan's age. 

A teal t-shirt, some jeans, a pair of ankle high converse, and a grey jacket. 

"Your injuries are almost close to only being scars, it's amazing." Aviva was amazed that someone could heal so fast. 

Rowan was looking at the silver scar on her arm. "Aviva, Chris said you found something in my arm. What was it?" 

"A microchip, a tracker version anyways." 

This opened Rowan's eyes a bit. Of course, one or two members of the flock would have a tracker. She knew she was the oldest of the flock and probably the second candidate for a tracer. But the first had to be Max, she was the leader, where she went the rest followed. 

"Rowan, you, ok?" Aviva touched the teen's shoulder and Rowan flinched. 

Rowan took a deep breath and nodded. "I'll be fine. Just shaken a bit, and still processing what happened." 

She then left to explore the Tortuga; Rowan has never seen anything like this giant turtle ship. She wanted to see if there were any places to escape if necessary. 

The main room had huge screens, and a balcony overlooking the center. 

Rowan jumped and used the walls to parkour her way to the balcony, not knowing two people were watching. 

"Did you see that?" Chris asked his brother, to which Martin nodded. "It's almost like she wasn't injured at all." 

"Should we talk to her?" The two made their way to the balcony and outside, Rowan was nowhere to be seen. "Where'd she go?" 

They walked past the door and looked around; Chris was the first to spot the girl on the Tortuga's roof. 

"Found her." 

Rowan was looking out at the horizon, the tree line, the birds that flew. It was almost as if she missed the sight of nature or something else. 

Martin and Chris sat on both sides of Rowan and looked where she was looking. "What are we looking at?" 

Seems Rowan already knew they were there as she didn't jump or flinch. "The birds." 

Chris smiled and looked at some of the birds that were flying. "Yeah, looking for any specific birds? Cardinals, gold finches, or maybe mockingbirds?" 

Rowan smiled a bit and shook her head. "No, just watching how they fly. You two ever wonder what that's like?" She was asking not only out of curiosity but to see how'd they answer. 

"We've flown before with different types of creature powers, it's pretty cool." Martin was the first to answer, and it made Rowan scrunch her nose in a way of confusion and anger. 

"Creature powers?"

"We have these vests that Aviva invented, and discs we use to have the creature powers of an animal." Rowan still was confused. "It's better if we show you. We'll be right back." 

The brothers then went inside, and Rowan looked back at the sky. Sighing to herself as the wind blew her hair. 

"Max, I hope you and the others are okay." Chris and Martin soon came back wearing vests with paw prints on the chests, and gloves. 

"Ok, you asked about flying so..." Chris pulled a disc out of his pocket, a picture of a falcon's head on it. He inserted the disc into the paw of the vest and that's when Rowan noticed he was holding a feather. "Activate Peregrin Falcon Powers!" 

The vest glowed a bright green and Rowan had to shield her eyes, before opening them and seeing Chris was now a falcon. Or a man-sized falcon, in a way. 

Rowan circled Chris and lifted one of his new wings, they were like a normal bird's wings, right where the arms should be. 

"This is both weird and incredible." Martin went next this time, but he had a Blue Jay suit instead. "And you two can fly with these?" 

Chris nodded with a smile. "Yep, the science of it is pretty easy though." 

Martin smiled at his brother and nudged him with his elbow. "Yeah, just the normal things such as-." 

Rowan shook her head and dropped Chris's wing. "That's not what I meant when I asked what it's like. I was wondering how it feels to fly, not the science." 

"How it feels? Kinda windy, but cool." The girl shook her head at Martin. "No, like, when you close your eyes as you're flying, and you take in everything. The wind, the freedom, what's it feel like?" 

This startled the brothers. They were expecting to be asked more on how the power suits worked, or how they could fly. Not this. 

"To be honest, we don't know how to answer that. Usually, we're saving creatures, so we never really thought about it." 

Rowan seemed to have understood. "Ok, I'm going to get something to eat. I'm hoping for some mango." 

Chris then pointed something out. "You just ate." 

"I have a quick metabolism, and healing as quick as I did, I'm gonna be eating a lot." Rowan then flipped off the roof and went inside as the brothers deactivated their suits. 

"She is a mystery." Chris scratched his head. 

"I don't know, I kinda feel like an uncle." Martin shrugged.