[i]Ludo stared hard at his brother. “Going out again? Your trial isn’t that far off, Orm. You should be preparing, like me, not prancing around in the forest.” Orm had no reply, save an involuntary twinge of his lips, then he was out the door. Prance? No, no. Orm was going to fly. Only yesterday had he unlocked the secrets of the owl, and now he was one. Well, not yet. But soon.

Rort and Ludo watched Orm depart, his form rapidly diminishing. “Big brother?” Rort began. “I feel sorry for Orm.” Ludo only shook his head, slowly. 

“Don’t.”[/i]

[center]---[/center]
Orm circled high above the [i]Valencia[/i], beady eyes of yellow and black eyeing the sailors boarding it carefully. The majority seemed to be drunk or hungover, and he was certain one or two were trying to mend the latter with the former. Not to worry, provided they weren’t the violent sorts, and kept their foul drink far away from him. It all tasted either too bland, or felt like fire creeping down his throat, threatening to spread itself to his heart and lungs and stomach. All in all, drinking alcohol was not the way Orm preferred to spend his twilight hours, or his daylight ones, for that matter. He remembered the time he and his younger brother Rort drank themselves silly on their father’s beer. It was not a pleasant memory. When Dram, their father, found the two, they were both beaten harshly and without question. Rort blamed their discovery on Orm’s “curse”, and the two went their separate paths ever since. 

Shaking himself from his reverie, Orm thrust himself into a rapid descent, his white wings cutting through the air like a hot knife through butter, the wind singing in his ears. Closer and closer the vessel grew, before he pulled up, and landed with two feet on the deck. In the blink of an eye, the seagull was gone, replaced with a man. Adjusting the hat atop his head, Orm began to amble towards the quarters below deck, even as the captain gave the order herself. Finally reaching the communal bedding area, Orm claimed for himself a proper cot stowed away against one corner, noting with some disappointment that it seemed as though it would be rather quite shorter than him, if the cot were a man. 

Returning back the way he came, he eventually came back atop the deck, immediately carrying himself to the railing. Staring into the water beneath him, his hands clasped on the wooden railing tightly, Orm tried to ignore the wandering eyes he caught wherever he went, sailors being a particularly nasty breed, when it came to jibes and insults. That knowledge aside, however, the same soft smile never fell from Orm’s face, rather, Orm the Albino as he had come to be known.