Tiny footsteps followed behind me, walking quietly over the millions of tiny little stones and rocks beneath us.

Too quiet for the long nails attached to them.

She like her parents had webbed feet. But they also had long, sharp, talon like claws at the end of their toes. Ones that were curved and long enough that they dug into the ground as they walked.

“You’re making it hard for me,” I said to it.

“Hard?” she asked.

I did my best to not glance back behind me at the flamingo. “You following me. It makes it hard for me to be who I am,” I told her, explaining it a little.

“I follow you for a reason,” she stated simply, as if that answered everything.

“Following me will only lead to your death,” I warned.

“Yes. They’ll eat me.”

I slowed to a stop, and took a small breath. One I regretted.

The air was cool. Cold. Too cold.

The flamingo wasn’t using her heat ability at all. She was not bothering the world in anyway… other than her incessant bothering of me.

Turning around, I faced the flamingo. Now that she was fully healed, and not limping or stooping in pain, she stood her full height. Her bobbing head was higher up than my own, and she tilted her head down at me as she waited expectantly for what I was going to say… or do.

“What are you doing?” I asked her.

“Following you,” it answered without hesitation.

“Why?”

“To get to my parents.”

“Why?” I asked further.

“I…” for the first time it hesitated, and shifted on a leg. It raised up its left foot, as if to stand on one leg, but then put it back down and shuffled her wings. “I don’t know,” she finally decided on an answer.

I gulped at its obvious discomfort. It looked confused, weary, exhausted. Yet at the same time wasn’t sure why. As if it wanted to be, but wasn’t.

It truly didn’t know what to do. Not because it couldn’t comprehend it, but simply because it wasn’t sure what else to do.

It knew following me, to her parents, would lead to her doom. They had eaten all the rest of her siblings. Had tried to eat her. She knew they’d not fail to do so next time.

Yet still she followed me, in hopes of finding them anyway. As if it was instinctual for her to be with them.

Very childlike. How many humans, how many non-humans, acted the same way? Even those not children at all sometimes did this.

It made her seem real, somehow. Not some monster, or puppet, but instead a real person. A being. Something with full control of her own thoughts and emotions.

I hated that.

“Do you know what you are?” I asked her carefully.

“A monarch. Like you.”

I shook my head. “I’m not a monarch. I have no heart,” I corrected its misconception.

The flamingo lifted its head a little in shock. “What…? Then how? How are you so strong? How can you hurt my parents?” she asked.

I turned, to return to walking. I knew I wasn’t heading in the right direction, though we were headed east like she said they had flown off towards. The air was too cool. The world too untouched. Although we were walking along a vast plain of rocks and stone, the ocean was still nearby. I could smell it on the wind. The cold wind. Plus I’d seen birds, both those that belonged near an ocean and those that didn’t, in the sky aplenty.

Her parents were not nearby. Nowhere near.

“Hey! How? How are you so strong then? Wait…!” the flamingo’s voice grew excited as she hurried after me. A shadow danced to my left, and then she appeared to my right. She flapped her wings excitedly next to me, and drew closer. Close enough I was almost half tempted to lean backwards away from her as her face drew near my own. “Wait! Does that mean you’re a god? Are you? Really? A creator? A master?” she asked.

“What…? No. I’m not a god either. I have no divinity, can’t you tell?” I asked. She being a monarch should have been able to tell instantly.

“Huh…? Oh… hm…” she calmed down a little as she studied me as we walked side-by-side. It was honestly a little unnerving to walk next to her. She was my height, a little taller really, but she was very light. Her footsteps made her sound as if she was tiny, something far smaller than she was. Plus even when she moved quickly she didn’t displace much air, or cause any weird drafts. As if she wasn’t as big, or as heavy, as she really was.

She broke rules. Her mere existence broke the laws of nature.

Plus… well…

She was a giant pink flamingo. Walking and talking with me. It was weird.

Mother would have loved her though.

“I cannot fathom you. I heard of you from my parents. They spoke of you, together. Of how you’d show up soon. They had known of your coming. So I had assumed they had sensed you, where I could and cannot, thus my assumption!” she happily told me all about it, and bobbed her head a little in excitement. It seemed although a monarch, and fully sentient, she was still a bird somehow. So weird.

“I don’t believe they can sense me,” I said carefully, and didn’t like how I had sounded more hopeful than certain.

“Oh of that I believe. They noticed your approach too late and began to eat us! Such a terrible thing your presence wrought! But…” the flamingo tilted her head, as if to ponder something deeply as she went quiet.

Great, was she trying to guilt trip me? Because it was working. A little too well.

“But well, I suppose eating us all had been their plan from the beginning. An inevitability. Destiny!” she said happily, as if glad to realize it.

“You want to be eaten?” I asked it. Was it not as sentient as I thought it to be?

“Why of course not! That had hurt terribly so, and they hadn’t finished! The others had screamed so horribly as they swallowed their hearts…” the flamingo shivered as she spoke, and in doing so bumped into me. She felt soft, and warm. Although she didn’t exude the heat her parents did, she was still hotter than a bird should be.

As the flamingo ruffled her feathers as she remembered the pain she recently endured, I did my to ignore both her words and the vivid emotions she was displaying because of them.

“Do all things hurt so when eaten?” she asked worriedly.

“Yes,” I whispered an answer, afraid to say anything more.

She hummed at that, and went to pondering it. She seemed bothered, as if suddenly realizing something important that she should have noticed a long time ago.

She was no monster at all.

How was I going to kill her now?

While walking in silence for a moment, I tried to weigh my actions and choices. Monarchs were anomalies. They were… wrong. They ruined this world. Destroyed it.

She would too, eventually. Right? Surely?

Had there ever been a monarch that hadn’t?

“Vim, what are those?”

I blinked and turned to follow the direction she was looking at. Far off in the distance, near the edge of this rocky plain and near some trees, were figures. Multiple figures were walking, slowly.

“Humans,” I said as I studied what were likely nomads of some kind. They were all carrying supplies and luggage, and had some kind of pack animal following in their footsteps.

“Oh my! Humans!” the flamingo stepped forward and I blinked in surprise as I watched the thing begin to flap its wings.

Was it going to go to them? Why?

I panicked for a tiny moment, but then pushed aside all emotion. I prepared myself. To rush forward. To leap. To grab the huge bird by the neck, as to snap it and then dig out its heart.

But the flamingo didn’t rise into the sky. It didn’t continue forward, and instead came to a stop even as its wings ruffled and flapped. “Humans! Look Vim!” she said excitedly.

A little relief washed over my cold body as I sighed gently and nodded. “Yes. I can see them.”

“How fascinating! I had heard they were almost extinct!” the flamingo said as she raised her head higher, and tilted it at an angle. As to see them better.

The humans in the distance were now pointing at us, most likely noticing her. She was a vibrant color amongst the dull browns and grays around us, plus she was still flapping her little wings all excitedly.

Stepping forward, I stopped next to the bird and studied her. She couldn’t take her eyes off the humans.

“They’re not extinct. Their numbers are in fact growing rapidly. It won’t be long until they outnumber all others, if they don’t already,” I said to her. I bet her parents had taught her such information. It wasn’t hard to understand where their beliefs had come from.

Her parents had their intense heat around them at all times. They likely believed humans were almost extinct thanks to never seeing them. Any humans who drew near or they got close to, likely died instantly. Falling to the ground from heatstroke or worse.

“Are they that numerous? Why have I never seen one before then?” she asked, still fascinated.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Your parents.”

“Ah. Yes. Ate them, I suppose,” The flamingo nodded quickly, as if my words had made perfect sense.

I opened my mouth, to say something, but stopped myself. I glanced at the monarch, and wondered if I should ask or not.

I had to. Right?

“You don’t want to eat them?” I asked the creature, and gave it the option to die here and now or live for another day.

“Hm…? Why? Are you hungry?” she tilted her head my way, but not her neck. It was an odd sight.

“No…?” I shifted a tad and hesitated. Me? Eat a human?

“Do I need to? Do monarchs need to eat humans to survive?” she asked as she looked back to them.

“No…” I said again, feeling a little defeated.

“Then I don’t want to. Can I talk to them? Do they speak? Can they reason?” she asked several questions as she grew excited again.

Smiling at the strange bird, I felt my shoulders relax a little. I had grown tense in the moment, since I had thought I was going to have to kill her.

Although a monarch… although something, someone, I should kill…

I didn’t want to.

She was just a child. A baby. So far.

“You can try if you want. But don’t be surprised if they run away, or attack you. Humans are still scared of those like us,” I said to her.

“Why?” she asked as she looked at me, focusing on me harder than she had before.

“We remind them of their nightmares. Of gods and demons that had hunted them for sport. That had tormented them, and have been doing so since their creation,” I explained.

“Oh… I see…” Her wings slowly stopped flapping as she lowered her head, suddenly going glum.

“Though… in my experience, you can still find a few who don’t run away or attack. Humans, for as weak and short lived as they are, can be very diverse,” I said as I stepped forward, though not towards the humans. Instead I headed back towards our original path.

“Div-what?” she asked as she hurried to stay with me.

“Diverse. There are many types, and each are different and unique in their own way. Like… these stones. Although they seem similar at first glance, if you inspected them closely you’d likely not find two exact same stones in this field,” I said with a small gesture to the millions of rocks all around us.

“Oh…! Really?” she found that interesting as she quickly lowered her head, turning her beak as to inspect the rocks closely.

She was a monarch. If she suddenly go the desire to spend years doing exactly what I suggested she’d not only be able to, but would likely not find it odd.

Monarchs were created by beings that had been just as eccentric. Just as strange.

Just as divorced from normalcy.

“These are stones,” she said simply as she studied one of the larger ones near her feet.

Uh… “Yes. Rocks. Or well… some would call these pebbles, I guess,” I said. Most of the rocks we were walking upon were small.

“Pebbles!” she said the word for the first time, and did so happily.

Right. A child. Recently born.

I shifted and realized I had assumed she had been born with all the knowledge of her parents. She had been able to speak, rather well, so I had just assumed…

How did that work? Monarchs could be granted their knowledge by their creators. By the gods that made them. But a child of monarchs… did they have to be taught, like any other creature? Or did they inherit their knowledge and instinctively just know?

“Your parents… they had taught you? About humans?” I asked carefully as I tried to find some answers.

“No. They talked to each other about stuff. I listened.”

“They didn’t talk to you?” I asked.

“No?” she tilted her head at me as she lifted it up away from the ground, returning to standing up at full height.

I see. So they really had only given birth to children for a singular purpose. I had of course already believed so, but this only further proved it.

Had she then known how to speak upon birth, or had she simply picked up the ability of speech by listening to them? How would I even go about proving it one way or another?

Studying the bird who tilted her head and looked back at the humans, I realized this was an opportunity.

One to learn more about my enemies.

She was a child of a firstborn. A powerful monarch, with the powers of a god. Powers great enough that even I had failed to slay them on multiple occasions.

Not only would I be able to learn about them through keeping her around, she may also be able to lead me to her parents… or maybe even reveal to me a weakness of theirs. Even if she didn’t realize it.

“Oh my! Look!” the bird perked up again, her wings fluttering as she did. I followed her attention and found her watching a lizard.

She hurried over to it, and I watched as she lowered her head to study the fast moving lizard. It was trying to run away, clambering over the tiny pebbles as it tried to flee the giant pink monster it thought was attacking it.

The monarch didn’t kill, or eat, the lizard. Instead she only studied it as it ran away, or at least tried to. Every so often she stepped forward, to keep up with it.

Yes. She was just a child.

A powerful, reality-bending child, but a child all the same.

“That’s a lizard. It looks like a common horned lizard,” I said. It had tiny little spike looking things on it.

“Lizard…” the monarch whispered the word.

She seemed enthralled by it. It was so strange. She was a monarch. Monarchs were either usually completely animalistic, acting on pure instinct, or they were strange golems acting without thought or instincts at all. Some acted as if they had no soul at all.

This monarch was neither acting on instinct, nor a creature without a soul. She was inquisitive. Aware of the world around her. Without any obvious unnatural desires, or acting as if following orders without thought. She was aware of pain, having felt it herself, and didn’t like it.

A monarch, yet not.

“It’s not sentient. Not like us. Though it’s a being of life all the same,” I told her.

“Yes. It looks scared. Of me,” she said as she lifted her head a little, though kept her eyes upon it.

How fascinating. She recognized terror even in something so small. Terror directed to her.

“They get eaten by birds all the time, so it makes sense,” I said.

“I see. Should I eat it?”

“Are you hungry?” I asked.

“No.”

I shrugged at her as she glanced at me, and then she stopped following the lizard. She stepped away from it as if losing interest and she flapped her wings once at me.

“What is it?” I asked.

“My parents. Fled from you, as that lizard does me,” she stated.

Ah…

I nodded. “Yes. I had been hunting them. To slay them,” I said honestly.

“Why?”

Did she blame me then? For her sibling’s deaths? For being abandoned? It made sense, and it wasn’t wrong either in a sense.

“Your parents use their abilities recklessly. Killing and tormenting all life around them without any mercy,” I said.

The flamingo held my gaze with yellowish eyes, and I waited for her response. Her next few words could upset me, so I needed to be careful here.

I wanted to slay her. To destroy her. As I did all monarchs. But the idea of using her to learn from her, and learn more about their kind, was very enticing. Even if my parents would have not been happy with the idea.

“Their heat,” she stated.

I nodded. “That intense heat is not something… they can survive,” I said with a gesture to the lizard, and the humans in the distance. They were still walking, but even from here I could see them staring at us. We were likely a very hot topic right now.

“The fish. They had boiled too. When my parents returned,” she said, understanding.

“It would be one thing if they used their abilities to defend themselves. But they do not care for the pain or suffering it causes others. So… I am trying to stop them. I am going to try… no, I will, kill them. I will slay them, and end their lives as they had ended your siblings and so many more. So that no one else will be able to suffer their unnecessary cruelty,” I said.

“So… it is wrong to kill?” she asked.

“Do you want to die?” I asked her back.

She stood up straighter, and blinked at me. Or well, it wasn’t a real blink. She didn’t have eyelids like normal. Instead it had been something of a film, or thin layer of membrane. A bird-like blink. “No,” she said after only a brief moment of thought.

“Then surely no one else does either? Just as you wish to live, so do they,” I said with another gesture to the humans. “So do I. What right does anyone, your parents especially, have to take such a desire away from someone?” I asked her the same question my own mother used to ask me.

“Our creators gave us life to fulfill a task. Are we not supposed to complete it?” she asked without hesitation.

A very interesting rebuttal. Considering what she was.

It meant she had either overheard her parents speak of their god’s divine authority, instilled or placed upon them, or somehow had known of it instinctively. Usually children of monarchs were mindless beasts, animals, and not so sentient. Maybe that was why they were all so destructive… maybe they still felt their creator’s directives, their orders, even if instinctively.

If that was the case though, why did none of them do anything except kill and destroy? Many of the monarchs had not been originally sent out to wage war. They had been servants. Tools. Not weapons, not originally.

Still I hadn’t the time to ponder too deeply, or for too long, here. I had to choose my words carefully with this monarch, if I wanted to keep her alive.

“Just because one created you, does not mean they can’t be wrong or misguided. Your parents birthed you, thus they were your creator. Yet they did so only to eat you and your siblings. Does that mean they have the right to decide if you should live or die?” I asked.

“What of ownership?” she asked.

“You mean a parent can claim ownership of you by being your parent? Thus having authority over you?” I asked.

She nodded.

“That could be argued, I suppose. But we are not beings of simplicity. We all have our own thoughts and desires. Our own needs. Many children grow up to become completely different than their parents. Choosing different lifestyles, beliefs, and desires. So I ask you instead, do you wish to carry out your creator’s orders? The task given to your parents, whatever it was, are you saying you wish to fulfill it?” I asked her.

She ruffled some feathers as she shifted her wings, and then she shook her head a little weakly. “I don’t know.”

“What was the task?” I dared to ask.

“To burn. To melt.”

I noted she didn’t specify what. Which told me exactly what their god had wanted melted and burnt.

“If you did that. If you burnt and melt everything… there would be no rocks to walk upon,” I said with a gesture down at our feet.

She glanced down at them.

“No little lizards to flee from you in fear,” I said with a point to the distant lizard. It had slowed in its fleeing, but it was still hurrying away.

“No humans to find interesting,” I said as I pointed at the group. They were a little closer, though not because they were approaching us. They were simply passing us by, staying along the edge of the forest as they did.

“And…” I then pointed to me. “Then there’d be no me. No one to talk to, or ask questions to,” I said gently.

The flamingo pondered my answers for a good while, and I patiently waited for her to do so. I stayed still as she tilted her head a few times in thought.

“And no me, since my parents would have melted me too,” she concluded.

I nodded. “A very likely scenario. After all they had not birthed you to aid them, or to propagate. They birthed you as to eat you. To increase their own power. To wage war and fulfill their tasks,” I said.

“Yet the god…?”

“Gave you, your lineage, a task. Yes. An order. You had been created for that purpose. But… it’s up to you if you complete it. If you follow it.”

“I don’t feel the need to melt anything,” she stated.

“Then don’t.”

“Will the creator punish me?” she asked.

“Even if they do, what is so wrong with that?” I asked back.

She blinked in her own way and frowned at me, and I found myself very amused. She tilted her head again, this time so sharply it was as if she was trying to look at me from upside down.

The flamingo hummed ever so softly as she pondered, and I couldn’t help but smile.

Look mother. She not only understood my meaning, she seemed to find it appealing.

“Plus… if your god ever tried to punish you for being more than you are… Just come to me. I’ll not let them hurt you. I promise,” I said, deciding to spare this little bird. At least for now. Until she proved me wrong.

“You would face a god?” she asked, her eyes going wide.

“I would. I have,” I said.

“Yet are not one?”

“No. I’d be a poor god. I am but a man.”

“A man…? Like them?” she asked as she turned to look at the humans, who were growing distant.

“Well… no…” I hesitated. That was hard to argue since, well…

“You do look like them!” she noted, realizing it finally.

My eye twitched, I sighed, and returned to walking.

I’ll regret this one day.

If I somehow didn’t already.