There were a lot of things Carrick didn’t want to do that he was forced to do. Like school for example, he thought he was smart enough. He’d proven it time and time again with the amount of money he was now sitting on. Either by gigs or some street conning. He proved he was smart. However until he finally graduated he was forced to go to school. Forced into class. All except one. Be it a time to fly or he had a ‘job’ to do he always found a reason not to attend her class.

Carrick actually took pride in it, being able to come up with a reason to miss everyone one of his Bio classes, except for test days. He still did the homework. Amethyst was good about grabbing extra for him. She was also pretty good at asking him why he didn’t attend the class. Carrick being Carrick always had a reason. All of them could be summed up in truth by the teacher. Liz. His ex-girlfriend. Someone he used to date. Though to her it was a long time ago.

Someone Carrick still had no intention of running into. That being said he stood at the biology room doors. His tail twitching behind him and the start of a growl forming in his throat. It was clear he didn’t want to be there, by his slitted pupils or the way his smile almost looked like a scowl. Carrick needed to be here though. He reluctantly knocked on the door arms folded. Making sure not to be looking directly at the face that appeared. He didn’t want to feel that way again. Hurt, broken. The shifter however needed his ex’s abilities.

So here he was. Finally showing up to class that ended hours ago. If he wasn’t inside he’d have started smoking the cigarette that was tucked behind his ear. ”Need yer help.... please.” he said arms still folded making it clear he didn’t have a lot of options.

The last class of the day was over and the hallways around the classrooms were doubtlessly empty, but Elizabeth’s classroom was not. The last class was a biology class and they had been dissecting frogs, which inevitably meant there was a huge mess to clean up. It wasn’t a problem though - she’d taken that into account and intentionally had given the class more time to dissect and perform their little identification lab because she knew she didn’t have to clean up quick before the next class arrived.

But now that meant she was cleaning up almost everything herself. Oh well, it was worth it to her. Dissections were one of the coolest labs she had planned for the kids, in her opinion, and were the classic biology project. Not to mention it always amused her seeing the students’ reactions to having to cut open dead frogs. Some freaked out and couldn’t handle it, a couple conveniently weren’t there that day, some were begrudging about it and gave minimal effort, and some dove in and had to be reminded to wear gloves.

Liz still chuckled to herself as she tallied up the reactions on her chart. She’d made a table of predictions on how each student would react and she’d been pretty accurate about most of them. True, there were some surprises, but she’d been doing this experiment long enough to get good at how different kids were going to react.

She was just finishing that up before she could forget who acted in what way when there was a knock on her door. “One second!” she shouted, hastily scrawling down the responses for Suki and Ryan before dashing to the door and pulling it open.

“Oh, hi Carrick,” she said in surprise. It was strange seeing him at her classroom, since he always evaded her actual class. She couldn’t really blame him though - it made things easier for her as well to not have him in class as well. It was just so awkward, you know? Then she frowned. Wait, Carrick only came to class on the most important days, when he had no other choice. And that he approached her after hours?

“What’s wrong?” she said, her mind starting to race. “What happened?”

The shifter cringed and avoided eye contact when she appeared, mixed emotions swirled around in his head only to be drowned out by the sounds his beast form chanting his favorite line when he was around women. Carrick’s tail was the only clear indication about how he was feeling about the situation, irritated.

”Why do ya always thing I did something wrong.” the shifter asked knowing the answer. His mismatched eyes shifted upwards to the look of concern on her face and he scratched the back of his head in response trying not to growl over the situation. Why did she get to be concerned for him. She lost that right a long time ago when she ghosted him.

”I’m fine and I didn’t do anything wrong so ya can stop thinking I did something awful.” she worried, she always was the worrier. Carrick tried not to think about it much more as he waved her to follow him.

After his wings ruffled, he added, ”I don’t need ya. Need yer powers. Found something I can’t handle on me own without ‘em messing me up good.” he wanted to make it clear he didn’t need her.

Liz shook her head. “I don’t automatically assume you did something wrong,” she said in rebuttal. Although that was always a valid option. Her eyes danced in counterpoint to Carrick’s as she alternated between eye contact, expression reading, and watching his tail. She changed her approach accordingly.

“I’m just worried that something has gone wrong,” she said, choosing to stop arguing. This wasn’t the time to debate anything, not in the state Carrick’s tail betrayed him to be in. Clearly something was wrong though - he wasn’t being nearly as aloof as normal.

“Is it Amethyst then? One of the other students?” she asked, accepting his assurances of his own well-being in a heartbeat. Again, it wouldn’t be fruitful to argue and besides, she doubted Carrick would ever ask her help even if he was on his deathbed. She came out into the hallway and shut the classroom door behind her, not bothering to lock it. Kids weren’t likely to be snooping these hallways this time of evening and besides, if anything did happen, she could track the culprits down later with Zorro.

But now focus on Carrick’s issue. She didn’t bother pointing out that by reason of needing her powers, he absolutely needed her. He was already on the defensive enough, he didn’t need her threatening his pride or status - the Lord knew how hard it must be for him to keep himself and his alternative selves in check as it was.

“Lead the way, then,” she said.

The shifter was already walking before she told him to lead the way, he didn’t really want to sit around and discuss why he needed her powers he figured showing her would be easier than talking to her. His tail flicked with irritation the more he thought about what he wanted to say to tell her but he only managed, ”Nothing to worry about. Just need ya ta calm something fer me.” he said curtly.

”No, nothing ta do with Amethyst. She’s great, fantastic even. Best girl ever.” he said not wanting to discuss his current girlfriend with the old one. His eyes shifted backwards to make sure she was still following. ‘Old’ he snickered to himself while his tail changed the way it was swaying. It was like he was toying with a kill.

”It’s outside though.” he said getting to the nearest window and climbing out of it. It was a very Carrick way to enter and exit the mansion. One he was pretty sure wouldn’t be repeated by the now teacher which was fine it give him something else to complain about later.

Now Liz was starting to think that Carrick had done something. He couldn’t handle something, it could mess him up, and he needed her to calm something? Did he torment a cat up a tree or something? Get into a turf war with some ravens? She knew the campus ravens very well - Carrick was definitely in over his head if he was messing with them.

Some tension drained out of her as he said Amethyst was alright. Okay, that was good. No students were hurt or in danger. At least not yet. Carrick’s fate still hung in the balance and her decree on the matter was not made better by his reticence. Some things never changed. Carrick still didn’t talk when he could be more irritating by being silent. But Liz knew better than to press for more details - it was like trying to interrogate a cat. Useless.

“Of course it is,” she said as he announced a very generic destination. She somehow managed to not roll her eyes when scant moments later, Carrick climbed out a window. Of course he did. She’d bet anything he was doing this just to annoy her even more.

“Just stay there and I’ll come around like a mature person,” she called out through the window. “If you leave that spot, I’m not going to help you.” She wasn’t going to play games. She was going to win them or just abandon everything in disinterest. She knew how to behave like a cat as well.

Several minutes later, Liz had found a door and tromped over to the window.

When he climbed out of the window he looked back at his ex-girlfriend now least favorite teacher and dropped his jaw. ”What?” Carrick shouted as he watched her disappear. He knew she meant it and he knew she’d take her time which was more infuriating than anything to him. He waited till she vanished and he let out a frustrated roar followed by a line of curses from every language he heard before.

Who was she to tell him what he can and couldn’t do. He paced ignoring her request kicking anything that was sticking out of the ground. After kicking a few rocks he sighed and folded his arms and leaned up on the building till she arrived. ”Well, good thing this isn’t urgent. Pretty sure someone could ‘ave died by the time it took ya to get ‘ere.” he said frustrated.

”We good now or ya want to waste some more time. Not like the grounds have foxes or other things that would love ta eat it.” he frowned threw up his hands, his tail flicked and his feathers ruffled. ”@@@ @@@@@ @@@@@” he cursed to himself and pulled the cigarette from his ear and put it in his mouth opened his wings and took off low to the ground so she could follow him.

When he got to the group of trees and spotted the bird of prey tangled in a balloon string he let out another curse and roared trying to scare away a fox that was sniffing close to where the creature was bound. It was her fault they were late. Any later and he probably wouldn’t have had a reason to be there in the first place.

Liz met Carrick’s folded arms with a matched set of her own. She arched an eyebrow. “And if someone were in that dire of a situation, I would certainly hope you would have said so earlier,” she said imperiously. He was not going to get by turning her refusal to engage in his childishness into an undesirable quality. He might not have grown up, but Liz had had seven and a half years of dealing with guys just like him.

She rubbed her hands on her arms. “That is up to you,” she said indifferently. “If you wish to keep playing, I’ll leave you to it alone. But if you’re ready to act like an adult, I’m ready when you are.” Aloofness and blame-passing was Carrick’s typical approach to life. Let there be consequences.

The zoopath frowned as the vulgarities spewed from Carrick’s mouth and it only deepened when she saw the cigarette. This was not the same Carrick she’d dated. It...was a bit heartbreaking. And irritating. Like almost everything the boy did.

When he took flight, Liz followed along, outwardly cool and collected, but inwardly concerned and anxious. What was that comment about foxes? She lowered her psychic floodwalls and allowed the web of life to begin pouring in and as she approached the treeline.

About the time she heard a roar, Liz also picked up on spikes of fear and panic stabbing into her from that direction. She picked up the pace and seconds later felt and saw the situation. A bushy red tail vanished into some brush. A hawk was caught up in something. And it was scared and furious and seething with frustration.

“Please tell me you didn’t do this, Carrick. I...I really need to hear you say you didn’t do this.” She turned her stare to the winged boy even as she made mental contact with the bound bird.

A low growl echoed from his throat shifting his attention back to Liz glad the fox seemed to get the message. It was his fault, he couldn’t get the thing freed in time and then he went to Liz for help. He should have just dealt with it on his own. Maybe use a stick to keep the claws and beak from breaking into him again.

She was a teacher, but also an ex. So he had to do this carefully, ”**** you.” his slitted eyes darted over to the bird of prey all bound up. ”In what world am I one to toy with animals in me human form.” he asked and quickly added the bit about his human form. While both forms often liked to play with their food Carrick’s human part had no interest in it often finding it cruel.

The now younger shifter held up his finger tips covered in cuts and scrapes the bleeding having stopped some time before he went to see her. ”Been sitting out ‘ere fer hours trying ta figure out how to calm the thing down. It doesn't belong on the ground!” he said gesturing to it clearly frustrated about everything. ”I even debated shifting and ending it.” his eyes welled up. He wasn’t going to cry in front of Liz. Even if he wanted to because of the current situation or because what she made him feel when she left.

Carrick swung his head to the side and roared this one more from frustration than trying to scare anything. ”I found ‘em like this! Heard it’s call, but yer right! This is something I’m clearly capable of. Me being a dumb beast all I can do is scare and hurt things.” he punched a tree and regretted almost instantly. ”Fer **** sakes!” he shouted at himself shaking his hand.

Relief flooded Liz and some tension drained from her shoulders, even as she felt a headache coming along. Carrick was still Carrick. If he didn’t turn into a gryphon, Liz suspected he would have been a porcupine-shifter in another life, always so prickly.

“I’m sorry, I just needed to verify,” she said diplomatically, holding up her hands in surrender. She knelt down several feet from the bird and stared at the hawk. It mostly corroborated Carrick’s story. She caught glimpses of Carrick’s face, but no particular emotions attached to it than general wariness. But above all else was overriding panic and pain. She sucked in her breath and the pain hit her, before she could block it out.

She began pouring out thoughts and feelings upon the bird. Comfort, security, serenity. Impressions of the wind beneath their wings, the feeling of the sun’s heat soaked up by your feathers, finding a stout branch on a steady tree and covered in shade. A sensation of having a full belly.

Confusion and desire swelled within the hawk, along with fierce pride and a primal need to hunt, but those also started getting buried beneath the weight of her psychic downpour. <<Easy now, easy. I’m here to help. So is he,>> she told the bird, flashing images of her and Carrick to it, overlaid with more of the comfort package she was broadcasting. <<Easy now.>>

Slowly the bird began to settle down, fighting every step of the way until it could no longer muster the urge. “Hreee?” it shrieked one last time before finally growing still. The pain was still there - Liz couldn’t take that away - but she could flood the bird with so many other feelings it would be a single current in an ocean.

But then roaring ripped Liz away from focusing on the bird.

Liz looked up at Carrick just in time to see him strike a tree with vengeance. She rapidly fought to remember what he’d been saying and there was a stabbing in her heart. Carrick was still Carrick. Beneath the prickly exterior was a boy who had lost so much and fought through so much more. And she was a bit to blame, herself.

Liz did not immediately say anything. She didn’t know quite what to say. As a teacher? An ex? An adult? Where was the line?

“You are not a dumb beast,” she finally said, her voice low but certain. She paused and glanced down at the hawk, having to pour out even more peace and tranquility to drown the new levels of terror and fluttering and pain. “You did the right thing. The hawk is hurt somehow, but thanks to you, he’ll have a chance to have a life now.” She paused again. “I...I’m sorry for jumping to conclusions.” This time she spoke from the bottom of her heart.

He’d get over the pain. It was something he was accustomed to. True different from shifting but it was pain all the same. One of the hands was bleeding for a different reason now. His top two knuckles on his hand split and he shook it trying to get the pain to recede. His pupils dilated more and eventually turned to cat like slits.

”I’d like ta argue.” he shook his hand now. The comment was more to himself than her. He was brash, loud and angry often and he liked to blame his shifted forms but they could take all the blame. He was currently more made at himself that he missed her communicating to the bird. It was something he always envied of her. To see the recognition in their eyes as they call down. Liz was a friend... to the animals she communicated with. Not him.

They couldn’t be friends again. Not after the way she left him without so much of ‘goodbye’. His tail flicked in irritation when he thought about it. He looked back to the tree he just hit and wondered if it was time for round two. He looked at his non-injured hand and then to the tree again. The Irishman didn’t hear no bell.

”Somehow? Glad I grabbed the biologist!” Carrick rolled his eyes, this time his comments were directed to her ”Little bird got caught up in it. Probably tried to fly and ****ed his wing good up in response.” he said looking at the little hawk who looked significantly calmer than when he first found it.

”Not what the other two are saying.” he said rubbing his hand. ”They think I should have killed ‘em.” he giving his hand another shake. The blood already trying to seal the split knuckles. ”Can’t have much of a life if ya can’t fly again.” he said stubbornly.

Irritance flared in Elizabeth, but she caught herself in time to hold back a retort. He didn’t change. Carrick never changed! Try to reach out to him and get your hand bitten! Every time. Liz impulsively blasted her fury at him, although she knew he wouldn’t feel it. Just like she couldn’t feel him. He might have wings and a tail, but he was no animal.

Just an uncommunicative, deflective, bitter man-child. But Liz would be the better person, no matter how much she wanted to lay into him.

Liz reigned herself in, raising her psychic levies until virtually everything but the hawk was blocked out. It was an effort to keep so much at bay while also keeping her own thoughts and feelings contained, but it was a good exercise in derailing her energy from anger at Carrick to something more productive.

Elizabeth stilled. She cocked her head at him at the same moment and angle as the hawk. “They are wrong,” she declared, the hawk chirping in chorus. She knew exactly who “they” were. “True, flightlessness would limit the bird’s quality of life in the wild. Yet in captivity, or under the care of humans, it can outlast even the greatest fliers of its time. And that is just an animal, not even one that is self-aware.”

Liz pulled her hair around to one side of her head and knelt. She fixed Carrick with a piercing stare. “But the hawk would not know that. Fortunately, we know better, do we not?” She kept the stare for several seconds before returning her gaze to the hawk in question. “But as you said, it is good you grabbed the biologist. Now give me a moment to do my job.”

Liz shifted her weight to a hip and smoothly transitioned into lying on her side on the ground, her head pillowed by one arm. The other reached out to the pacified bird and the moment flesh met feathers, the woman’s mind had migrated.

His head swam for a moment as both of the voices in the back of his mind took offense to her saying they were wrong. Neither thought they were wrong. Even Carrick thought she was wrong. To have the ability to fly all your life and then have it taken away from you? Forced to the ground. Carrick didn’t like thinking about what would happen to him if something happened to his wings so instead of getting into another argument he rolled his mismatched colored eyes.

”Not much of a life.” he said loud enough to hear but still under his breath. Trying to ignore the way she pulled her hair over her shoulder. Carrick reluctantly had a flashback to a younger Liz doing something similar when she was helping him study for the same exam she gave him now. His feathers ruffled and he shook the memory out.

”Sure, lie down have a nap.” he said turning and tempted to swing at the tree again but just punched the air. He didn’t roar this time or yell. If she was napping she’d probably be grumpier than usual from him waking her. That and he knew the birds life depended on it. ”Fine. Just hurry up.” he said not wanting to be around his former girlfriend. The less time he spent with her the better.

While Elizabeth’s human ears probably wouldn’t have caught Carrick’s words, the hawk’s ear did. The zoopath was not amused, but she really didn’t know where to begin trying to figure out how to react. Because nothing with Carrick was ever straightforward - the boy did his best to obscure his true feelings with lies, evasions, rudeness, insults, aloofness, and generally every trick in the book to avoid accepting that he might be wrong.

The hawk couldn’t roll its eyes so Liz had to settle for imagining herself doing so.

<<Enough of this,>> she thought, focusing her attention on the hawk. <<Show me what happened.>> And she sank into the bird’s mind.

It was rather straightforward.

The hawk had been swooping to catch a mouse, but at the last moment the mouse had detected him and dodged. The hawk had missed and when it tried to gain air, it flew into a balloon string that had been stretched between some branches. The hawk had gone down and memories of pain flared up. The hawk had tried getting up but in doing so, had only tangled himself up in the string.

Then Carrick had come through and he did exactly as he had said. Later, the fox had started investigating, but by that point Liz could handle the narrative herself.

Not even a minute passed before Liz was sitting back up, brushing some leaves and grass off her. She tossed her head sharply, dislodging her hair machinations and allowing it to bounce back into a mane around her. She pulled herself to her feet and rubbed her hands together before wiping them on her jeans. “I’m done with my nap,” she said ever so sweetly. “Are you done pouting?”

She dropped the smile and crouched by the hawk, gingerly reaching to pick it up and dowsing him with joy and happiness. “He’s got a broken wing for sure and the other is also in pain. Might have a sprained talon, some dirt in one eye. Some difficulty breathing, probably exacerbated by panic and shock. I’ve got him pacified for now, but it’s a placebo at best.” The hawk screeched as she picked him up, even despite her endorphin-promoting joyblast. She cradled him carefully, trying her best to avoid the most painful spots and keeping her connection to him open for constant monitoring.

“We need to get him to DocProf,” she told Carrick. “He’s in bad shape, but if we go quickly, the Doc should be able to reverse all of the damage.”

Liz began striding purposefully back toward the mansion.

While it was only moments, seconds more than likely it didn’t feel that way to Carrick. If it wasn’t for him wanting to make sure the smaller apex predator of the sky was going to be alright he would have left a while ago. She didn’t tell him to wait if she did he would have been long gone. Very rarely could anyone convince him to stay put.

”Not sure, seems like a good day to pout.” he said throwing his hands behind his head and keeping them there while the scowl on his face continued to look anywhere but Liz as she started to walk back to the mansion. ”Well, good thing I wasted me time grabbing ya instead of Doc.”

Carrick followed but his usual strut was a little bit slower so he had the option of not talking to Liz if she said something that upset him. It wasn’t her fault that he didn’t think ‘Doc’ first before her. She was supposedly the animal expert. His tail flicked behind him in irritation as his knuckles throbbed from having a disagreement with the tree earlier.

”That yer professional opinion, teach?” he rolled his eyes and followed occasionally trying to look over her shoulder to see the bird. He wouldn’t admit it but he was worried for the little creature.