“So you boys gathered all this?”
Milli was, sufficed to say, a little awestruck. This day had not been going along like a typical day. First, she had been hunted by a hawk. Which wasn’t actually that odd. Being a hare and all, one gets used to that sort of thing. But, this time, she hadn’t been anywhere near shelter. And then, another weird thing, she didn’t die. The cause of her lack of dying was probably weirder than her not dying.
She never thought she’d encounter hares that actually bested hawks. So the creamy brown female had been there, running for dear life, quickly losing hope as the shadow came over her… And then she heard and awkward, surprised shriek, and when she turned around, the hawk was on the floor, looking flustered as two males circled it in a flurry of reddish brown fur.
It had been rather cool.
She still didn’t understand exactly what had happened between her running and then turning around, but the two hares seemed to be…distracting the hawk. And then one of them even dared to come up behind it and yank off a feather. At that point, the bird seemed to give up, spread its wings, and took off.
“Yepyep! Well, mostly me.” Iva was saying, back in the present. The younger male huffed irritably. “Jus because you’re so old, pops.” Said Tai, scowling. Milli couldn’t help but giggle slightly, before hopping slowly along the den. It was very wide for a normal den, because it had been dug with the intent to keep the feathers preserved. Yes, feathers. The walls were lined with them.
It was really quite clever; the den was dug into a hill, with the entrance tilted downwards to avoid as much rainwater as possible, then tunneled to two or three chambers. One for each of the males, and then their apparent “trophy” room. There were many kinds of feathers, though most seemed to come from the typical kind of birds, the ones that hunted hares. “I’m definitely impressed!” The two males hardly seemed modest. They seemed to expect her to be impressed.
“Someone had to show those birds.” Said Iva, nodding. It was his job to remind them that yes, maybe hares were food for them, but sometimes, things were different. Sometimes he’d even find a repeat offender. It was awesome. In fact, he was even starting to get targeted less, which made him proud (and amused).
“If you want,” Milli blinked, looking away from all the feathers to the younger of the two. “You can keep the one we saved you from. As a souvenir.” He offered nonchalantly, but Milli was excited about this.
“Really? You don’t want it?”
Iva seemed less certain than his son. He’d been collecting for longer so he was a bit more possessive. But he shrugged and nodded. “Yeah, sure. I’ve got those anyways.” He still didn’t seem convinced, but Tai stepped in front of him to block his not-exactly-happy face.
“Yeah! I’m sure you could even find someone to make you an earring, or a necklace, or something.” He nodded happily, and Milli smiled gratefully at him.
“Thankyou! You two are too kind!” Saving her and gifting her in the same day! Tai plucked the feather from the wall where it had just been tucked in and pushed it towards Milli, who left it at her feet until she was done looking at all the others.
“So how did you end up with an ostrich feather?”
It was easy to see Iva’s size increase as he puffed up with pride. “That was an interesting one.” He smiled, hopping down the den to the large, rather ugly pair of feathers, one white, one black. “I snuck up on it at night, as the male was taking his turn on the nest. I grabbed one of his black feathers and pulled hard! He was none too happy, believe me! Stepped on me once or twice!” Milli gasped appropriately, because being stepped on by such a large bird had to hurt.
“And how did you get away?” She pricked her ears curiously.
“Well, first I dove between them eggs. It didn’t want ta step on me when I did that, so it had to bend down and peck at me, right?” It was rhetorical, but Milli nodded anyways. Tai, on the other hand, seemed slightly bored, like someone who had heard this story millions of times. He probably had.
“So it came down to peck at me, and when it did I shoved an egg at it. It broke through the shell!” Milli gasped. “Oh my!” If the peck could break through an eggshell like that, it must have been a really hard peck! “So, of course he was freakin’ out a bit. What would his mate think? He stopped trying ta kill me and instead just sat back and becan to waaail and wail.” Milli nodded. It must be horrible to kill your own children!
“I felt bad for the bugger, I mean, it was kinda my fault.”
“It wasn’t kinda your fault, it was definitely your fault.”
“Shut up, Tai. Anyway, I sat there for a bit, all guilty, and then I hear something from the eggs. They were peeping! He hadn’t heard! I said, hey, ostrich, your eggs are hatching!” He looked up, as if he were talking to the great bird at that very moment.
“Turns out, the only reason he could peck through that egg was because the chick inside had already weakened it a bunch! And you could hear all the other chicks, peepin’ about in their eggs.” Milli softened, because it seemed like this would have a happy ending after all.
“I told him I could head it, turns out he had bad ears! He was so happy, he forgave me for the whole mess and even gave me one of his white feathers to go with the black one!” Said Iva, also seemingly happy with the good ending. “So I waited ‘til that egg hatched, to make sure the chick was fine, then I said good bye and left.” The male concluded.
Milli took a few moments to take it all in. “That’s a wonderful story!” Said Milli, almost daze. She looked at the feathers full of wonder, then kept glancing around at all the feathers. She almost wanted to hear all of the stories, but… She supposed she had been enough trouble already.
“I’m afraid I must go! Thank you so much, again! For saving me, and for the feather and the company!” Both males nodded and smiled, a bit awkwardly, seemingly unaccustomed to such treatment, and politely offered to see her out. She picked p her feather and hopped out the den, said goodbye once more, and left.
Iva and Tai sat at the entrance of their dens, watching the female go. “Nice girl, that one. Not like your mom.” Tai rolled his eyes at his father’s comment. “So, are you ever gonna settle on a sotry about how you got the ostrich feathers?”
Iva frowned. “Shut up, boy.”
