Birds of Paradise
@denofdesires
They called him “Hunter” now. It was a pretty good name. Better than the last few he’d had. He still missed his first name, the one that his mother had given him when he’d hatched, the name that his brothers had called him. But that was a long time ago, and his mother and brothers were gone, and he had no interest in hearing human lips butcher his true name. So “Hunter” it would be, until it was time to change again.
The forcasts had called for clear skies all night, but Hunter had gotten restless. He tried not to fly too much, too draw too much attention, but he couldn’t spend his whole life compressed into human form. So he’d taken to the sky, releasing his true form and drawing the clouds around him to conceal his flight. The lightning had come, attracted to him, and with it came the rains. He’d spent hours up there, letting the lightning spark off of him, soaring, stretching his wings, but all too soon he returned to Earth.
He had chosen a dark-haired form this time. Compact. His change was recent and his new body, still young. He stretched his human body once he was folded back into it, shuddering at the feeling of his true form pushing against the tight flesh of his human shape.
Humming, he took his clothes from where he’d concealed then and dressed. He ran the short distance to the boarding house he’d been staying at and slipped in, soaking wet - it would take time for the rains he’d summoned to dissipate - and slipped in, hoping to remain unnoticed.