Young Writers Society

“It was part of a class exercise,” Clarise said, gritting her teeth. “We were pretending as if he were a Swan!”

“If there was already a Swan there, then why should he pretend to be a Swan?” Adelore asked. “The whole situation sounds absurd. I wouldn’t kneel to him if I were her either.”

“It made perfect sense at the time,” Clarise snapped.

“Let’s play a game,” Adelore suggested sarcastically. Then he flapped his arms and made a deranged honking noise. “Look! I am a beautiful Swan! Kneel to me!”

As he straightened back up, he glanced around briefly – only to burst out into laughter when he saw Alonso.

Alonso looked disheveled, to put it mildly. Downy feathers stuck out from his usual black poisonous feathers so that he looked less like a terrifying Black Swan and more like a fuzzy mess. But the worst part about it was his head. A clump of downy feathers popped up at the very top of his head, making it look like he had some sort of gray feather hat on.

“What? Haven’t you seen a Swan molt before?” Alonso said grumpily.

Then Alonso swore as Tiziano lurched and jerked his wings quickly. “Watch where you’re going, you dumb chicken! You nearly barreled into that tree!”

“See, this is why being human was a terrible idea,” Cynasi muttered, trying to push Sergius away while he preened her hair. “How do you even stand on these pathetic legs? You look like a crane walking on stilts, and cranes are ridiculous. Now a Swan is elegant! You look at a crane and think of stilts, but nothing can rival the elegance of a Swan swimming in a lake or soaring overhead—”

“I said be quiet!” Cyrus hissed. “I didn’t ask for a discourse about cranes!”

“Well, it’s true,” Cynasi muttered. “Cranes are ridiculous. And humans are even more ridiculous. They make even cranes look elegant, and that takes some doing. Why, a crane is just a grebe with stilts for legs. And a grebe is only a fancy duck. But a Swan—”

Sergius began to honk happily at her and began flapping his wings again. Another vase fell and smashed onto the ground.

"This is why Swans shouldn't be inside a house," Cynasi continued. "We belong outside, not cramped inside. Why, what is this vase doing here anyway? Humans and their ridiculous decorations! Now, a Swan isn't so worried about aesthetics because we don't have to overcompensate for our lack of feathers—"

Worse yet, Sergius was at his heels, honking contentedly at the snow around him. It was cold up in the mountains and Cyrus shivered, clutching at his cloak. He glared at Sergius.

"Will you shut up?" Cyrus hissed as Sergius honked delightedly at a frozen ball of moss. "You'll get us all destroyed at this rate! Isn't it bad enough that we have to do this in the first place?"

Sergius wiggled his tail feathers.