Find Your Wings

The Green Rain

It started at the end of that one spring. When I was giving flight lessons to two fledglings. They had just left their mother's nest. Even at that point, I was still a snarky little beast, in his prime. Ditching them one way only to get them to use their tail feathers. Flitter hated when I would do that. She would say I'd put them at risk by making them hit a tree. That was pretty funny, actually. I knew she trusted me with her last nest.

Flitter was the one hummer who agreed to keep us under her eye. She was a dear female, loyal to Emerald, to a fault. But she was as soft as the brown feathers she had on her head.

She caught me as I was smirking down at those addled chicks of hers. She merely hovered over my head.

"How dare you, grasshopper!" she poked her beak at one of my antennae. "After all I have done for you!"

Her wing beats threw me off balance and I finally had to perch.

"Oh, come on... they gotta learn, hon."

"Oh Hopper, you never cease to amaze. You're becoming faster by the day. But, don't call me hon."she deepened her tone at me but I knew she was smiling.

"Yes, mother."

She shot me that look. You know the one. Where you know you did something wrong but you're proud of it? She's just tapping her foot at you. THAT. Only, I was smirking.
Seriously though, she was the mother... we never had.

My brow softened as I watched her hover over to her chicks, checking on them and giving them a few pointers.

"Mummy, he keeps going too fast!" I happened to overhear one of those little flyers.

"It isn't that he's going too fast. Maybe you're too slow?" Flitter laughed.

"How come they get to have all the fun?"

I couldn't help but chuckle. Typical kids. Sticking around them and their nests wasn't actually that bad. It wasn't always like this. It used to be just me and Molt.

"Geez, Hop..." came Molt's voice, almost too joyfully piercing for my taste. "Could ya go even faster?"

"Maybe faster to you. Genius." I replied with slick sarcasm. Of course, it went right over his head.

The both of us, we came from a pretty sketchy neighborhood. Before we were under the hummingbird's wings. It may come as a surprise to know that we made the mistake of living beside a giant trailer. There was a series of lavender bushes just by the wayside of the lawn. They were the only beauty we had there. I remember that wonderful smell.

We were a part of a group of grasshoppers... maybe 30 of them. But ... our mother. I never usually talk about her. For Molt's sake but I guess for mine as well.... She was a little neglectful. As in little, I meant she occasionally helped us forage. Other than that, we were usually by ourselves. Even on a good day. We were still waiting for our wings to grow in when ... it happened.

Molt would avoid me entirely because I was very aggressive in my own way. As I was like the rest of the clan; intrusive, violent... while he was very timid. Not that he wasn't tough though. He had seen the same things I had seen. But, he was the only nymph who stayed away from most of the chaos, so it didn't really rub off on him. Me, on the other hand, was the one who kept him far away. I admit it. I used to hit him and frighten him from time to time. He was never sure what to think of me. If he wasn't in the lavender that day, he wouldn't been able to warn me.

That day, the air smelled off. Really off.
I would really try not to think about it too much. We were so young back then and I was already regretting my treatment of the little nymph.

He wanted to take me away from that one bush before this green... rain came pouring down. I didn't know how to describe it. It hurt when you touched it, like termite acid. Only worse. It burned when some of it touched my leg. We couldn't breathe either and I couldn't see... so we both dug into the dirt, away from the lavender! We still couldn't fly, plus we didn't want to get drowned in this stuff.... We tunneled along through until he we reached a root... Roots meant water, so we followed it to a creak.... We bathed in the water, with our heads still screwed up by whatever that was.

What really scared me was Molt not being able to stay awake... so I kept making him drink. I never felt this scared before.

But I knew it was just the start.
It took us two days to wake up from the poison green rain.... All I could make out was that... it was only us now. Mother and the others ... never appeared or came back. We couldn't go back to the lavender. We would die too. I couldn't let any sadness hold me down. Not then... in front of Molt who was already a train wreck. We had to venture out and learn to fly as soon as possible. That was before we met Emerald and Flitter. The Hummers.
If it wasn't for that snake that surprised us, we wouldn't have met their flock. All it took was a good dive bomb to the head to make it dodge back. Since then, we were allowed to live near them. Those few years led down to them finally trusting me with their own young. I taught a few to fly just as Flitter taught us.

Flitter was about an inch bigger than me, sporting light brown and grey feathers. Though she had some light green and brown spots on her heart. She had deep brown eyes and sharp pointed beak. But she was the gentle one among the lot. I do believe my attitude rubbed off on her though. I wasn't always as... obedient, growing up. That spring, she laid two eggs during that late transition from the winter. Finally, they were fledged and learning to fly and learning to feed themselves. She had one boy named Flaps and a little girl named Speckles. Molt helped with the names, honestly. Molt and I watched her feed the two for the first time that day. She was proud of them, as plainly as I could see. Molt seemed extra touched by the scene.

"Oh - oh, they've gotten so big. Ya-ya know, Hop, it seems like yesterday when — Oh gosh!"

It spooked me when wind hit us close, but it was the leader of the flock, Emerald. He was the most colorful and biggest of all, being two more inches bigger than Flitter and most birds. His feathers gleamed in the sun, like a river rock. With feathers of deep moss green and pure blue, everyone could tell how long he'd been around. The rule was... when he came by, we had to leave. He only allowed us near when he was gone. We were his eyes and ears, supposedly. But we were only neighbors to them and knowing how territorial he was, we had to go the minute he came back. I would relay any happenings to him when I was told to speak. Molt was allowed to be near, more than me. At least I knew he was on good terms with them. I just had to be grateful to be alive.

I looked Molt dead in the eye, silently telling him to be careful before I flew away. I had this one area where I hung out. I didn't mind being alone. Granted, I liked it. The one thing I didn't know was that change was going to hit us over the heads again....