Chapter Text
Early August
It’s cramped. It used to be cosy, but now it’s cramped, and everything in him is waking up and screaming to get out. He works at it, randomly at first, and then with determination and vigour, and when the first crack allows dim, cool, air to drift in, he is shocked, then curious, then hell bent.
The noises outside are getting louder, soft murmurs becoming distinct sources. He will never again experience the silence of the last sixty-four days. He doesn’t know it yet, but what he hears now – wet lulling, dry sweeping, slick sliding, will be the sounds of the rest of his life.
There is a small hole now, and the sounds are louder, his focus more acute. It is easier to get the work done, to dismantle his prison. He has complete disregard for the protection it has provided. He knows not what awaits. It doesn’t matter. He can’t stay here.
Now, he is free, and for the first time he becomes aware of the self that exists outside his mind. It is weak, unsteady, clumsy. He finds this objectionable, but then his annoyance is replaced with indignation, because something is touching him now, and why?
The it, he comes to understand, is another like him. Of course, he realizes: he is begotten. This is his father, who grooms him now, bending low, tucking a slick black head under his scrawny wing to right him, prop him, test him. He must move a bit now, he must learn to hold himself, because unmoving is unsafe. It is too cold to go far, so he stays tucked under his father, and he watches.
His wet feathers dry against the pouch flap's warmth, until he is light silver grey all over, puffed up with dense down. He has a white mask that covers his face, chin, neck and ears, and his black eyes are centred near his short, black bill.
It is dark and cold, but he has no concept that it could be anything but. He shakes, fluffs, preens, stretches. Body organized, he makes moves to see beyond his keeper, but his father will not allow them to be separated. He must brood at the elder's feet for the next one and one half lunar cycles. He protests, a squawk with little bite but plenty of attitude, and then he is nuzzled. He is not bothered by this.
He peers around his father’s hip, under a wing extended, and he experiences something peculiar, a sensation that the world is filling in around him, becoming whole, instead of the other way around, instead of him arriving, in it. His reflections are of a collective nature.
There are many like him, and more still coming, working their way out, joining this place. Each scene is identical. One tall, coveting one small, both surrounded by fragments of something previously essential. The larger scene surrounding these dyads is a little more varied, but not by much. He inventories concepts yet unnamed:
White, grey, black, blue
Cold, ice, snow, water
Clan, united
Gender, divided
Young, cherished
He is called Sherlock, and he is an emperor.
...
September Equinox
Hundreds hatch and the colony grows. Some of the fathers take great pains to come with their hatchlings on their feet and pay their respects. His father, Siger, Sherlock learns, is important, and his favour is sought even when none is necessary. They praise Sherlock, compliment his fine markings, the crispness of his white neck band and his fine black head cap. They note the nobility in the slant of his bill, the graceful length of his wings. Siger thanks them and extends his best wishes for their own offspring, none of whom Sherlock finds interesting in any way.
The mothers come back from the sea and save the hatchlings from imminent starvation by regurgitating krill and cephalopod down their eager necks, and when those first needs are met the mothers create a second, new need, to be touched and rubbed and fawned over. Sherlock allows just a bit of the cooing and snuggling, as even his feigned indifference isn't that thick, and Olive wraps her beautiful black neck around his short stubby one and promises him magnificence, blesses him with strength of heart.
Sherlock presses the side of his face to her breast and gestures toward brother Mycroft with the tip of his wing. She nods. At seven winters old, his brother already has a place on the council. Brother's life will be significant in other ways, he understands. Political, understated power. His own, Olive impresses upon him, will be another matter altogether; loud, influential, the evolving heart of the colony.
His brow furrows above his pursed bill. How could she know that? In turn, she kicks at the shards of the shell under her feet, flips the larger pieces over, glances at him to see if he is following her gaze. The shell is run through on the underside, marked with veins and spots of the most subtle colour variations. She interprets them now, for they tell the story of his future. She speaks of a long path, and of trust, and love.
In time, he will be able to read these stories about others, too, but he will not need shards of eggshell to do so. He will know them in the actions of his clan, in the stance they take at the edge of a floe, the depth of their dives, the height of their leaps. For now, though, he repeats his mother's words in his head, over and over, until he is sleepy from the exertion and the warmth of her pouch. When he sleeps that night he dreams of the long path, but does not see where it starts or ends.
Soon after his mother's return the colony gathers in front of the council for the first night of the spring equinox conference. The chicks gather at the front, a bubbly sea of grey and black, their parents behind them, one eye on offspring, the other on order. Sherlock avoids the rambunctiousness of his peers to study the assembled elders. Seven adults: four male and three female, standing at attention, a shared wingspan between each of them. They make for a handsome arrangement with their height, and broad whiteness, the vibrant orange of their chest puffs, mandible markings, and crowns. He knows only a few of them by name now. By the end of the three night conference he will know their names and roles, and, if he is lucky, their stories.
Lyra, the peacekeeper
Erebus, the hunter
Cetus, the healer
Mycroft, the planner
Pavo, the teacher
Vela, the storyteller
Siger, the leader
They stand in silent formation and wait for the colony to settle. In less than a minute one thousand pairs of eyes face forward, and the meeting begins. This first evening is for the chicks, and they learn what to expect the next few months as their parents take turns foraging and feeding. They are told to stay close to the adults until it is time to form the crèche, and they are given only one rule: to never leave the colony for any reason whatsoever until after the summer fledge.
Housekeeping taken care of, Pavo moves forward and gives them a brief geography lesson. They reside on Pobeda Island in the Mawson Sea, on the eastern side of the Shackleton Ice Shelf, on the eastern edge of the land mass known now as Antarctica, in the South Indian Ocean, at the bottom of the world.
She tells them who they are, and who they are not. They are Aptenodytes forsteri, emperor penguins. They are not, it is made clear, king, chinstrap, gentoo, or Adelie. They are the largest penguins in the world, the fastest swimmers, the deepest divers, and the only ones able to mate and hatch on the ice in the depths of winter.
They are survivors.