The Hatchery Ch. 2 Excerpt

Janet bent her head low to avoid the door frame as she stepped out of the dimly lit store, she yawned and blinked a few times. She stretched trying to get out the kinks out of her back and hind legs. Slowly making her way down the alley she walked past the long line of customers that had been waiting all night out side the store. Snippets of conversation were heard discussing which version of the latest Magecraft product they were going to buy and why they thought it was better then the competition. She tried to ignore them, she was too tired to think about her job and the sales pitch she had to memorize for when she got back to work.
Stoping abruptly before a cart ran her over, she yawned and rubbed her eyes. Moving into the light traffic on Main Street was not difficult in the early morning; as most cart vendors were already set up before the sun rose and most customers were not out of bed yet. She walked slowly out of the Mage district. Her hooves felt like lead. She tried to pull her fingers through her hair but they kept getting caught on tangles. She hadn’t even thought about her appearance when she went into work last evening, knowing she was not going to see any customers.
“Janet!” Someone called to her she stumbled slightly trying not to run into a street vendor. “Janet how was the night shift?”
“We just finished.” Janet barely was able to open her mouth to answer, she needed a bed to fall into quickly.
“Oh that’s great, are you going to buy one? I heard we got a discount.” She finally attached the voice to a head and body, it was her way too chipper roommate.
“Maybe tonight when I return for work.” Janet was impressed she was able to connect two words together in her fatigued fogged mind.
“Sleep well and make sure you eat something,” Janet barely caught the apple tossed at her, “I’ll see you later tonight.” The smiling face disappeared from her vision, which was turning hazy, her sleep deprived brain finally gave her a name for the voice. Quincy, Her best friend and roommate in the capital while they sort out their problem of running away from the Academy.
She winced as her mind flooded with thoughts and she pushed them aside too tired to feel depressed about her life choices or why she felt like smiling every time she saw Quincy. Slowly and steadily the streets became a little wider, trees started showing up on the street corners and finally she was at the door of her apartment. She barely registered throwing her bag on the desk near her bed before she sank into the pillows and immediately went to sleep.
+++
Janet mouth felt like sandpaper and her stomach growled at her. She had been dozing for quite sometime convincing herself that she hadn’t actually slept hours and that she had ‘just’ laid down. She heard a buzzing sound above her and opened her eyes, immediately regretting it as the bright sun streamed through the window. She sat up rubbing her stomach and licking her lips she looked over at her desk.
The bag she had worn to work was haphazardly thrown on to her desk. She reached for it, not wanting to get up just yet and pulled it onto her bed. She pulled out the runerock that was buzzing at her and stared at the hologram that flashed in front of her face for a few seconds. Placing the runerock on the pillow next to her she pressed the slowly spinning crystal which began to spin quicker turning green then blue. She stared for sometime at the flashing hologram waiting for the next rune to show up but nothing happened.
She sighed swiping her hand over the hologram and seeing a flashing indicator. She reluctantly got up and walked into the small kitchen and dining area of the 2 bed room apartment. She placed the rune rock on a designated surface for the magecraft and pulled out a small pouch from the cupboard above her. Placing three strips of brown bark on the surface that the rune rock was on she tapped on the surface twice and it started to glow red-orange. She immediately felt the heat and the bark began to melt.
She rummaged through another cupboard and pulled out some crackers and began to eat them. The apartment began to smell like pine and she smiled turning back to the rune rock. The three strips of bark were bubbling slightly and had turned into globs of green substance. She swiped two finger through the melted bark and rubbed it onto a small ridge on the runerock.
She again pressed the runerock and it repeated its previous green and blue sequence then it changed completely to a symbol of her family in particular her mother. She frowned and pressed the runerock. She picked up more of the bark substance on her fingers and as the hologram began to expand up she moved her hand around in the shape of an oval. Instantly the substance froze in mid air, suspended above the runerock. Inside the oval began to morph and change turning into swirls of black sparked with shimmering magic inside its bark border. She saw the magic swirls form into a shape and suddenly her mother’s face appeared within the floating oval.
“My eldest, you look…” She could imagine how she looked to her mother and tried not to grimace.
“What is the pleasure of your call mother?” She quickly got down to business.
“Oh, my darling their has been a coup!” Her mother’s shrill voice made her shiver but her words immediately had her awake.
“What? Is my brother ok?”
“The child who stole you from me, that little shade, she killed her own mother!” Janet again attempted not to wince at the shrillness of the voice as she tried to get information out of her mother.
“Ka’ren? She isn’t a shade, mother, she is one of the few of us who has magic capabilities, we should be proud of her.”
“My child you have changed so much...she killed her King! The General just informed us!”
“Eb’non wouldn’t have allowed that to happen, what happened to my brother!” Janet repeated her question raising her voice trying to make her mother understand her worry about her own brother.
“Darling you brother was useless, he never amounted to anything...”
Janet bit her tongue and squeezed her hands tight pressing her fingernails into her palm, trying to hold back the litany of hatred she wanted to spit at her mother, “You...”
“He died, probably didn’t even help his own King...now you must come home my daughter, the General will close the border by the end of the month. She is preparing for war.”
Janet tried to understand all the information her mother was telling her, but all she heard in her head repeated was, he died, “My brother is dead...Eb’non is dead...”
Janet grabbed onto the counter and tried to not fall down as she felt her chest tighten and tears began to fall.
“Child did you hear me? You need to leave the Academy now or you wont be able to get back before the borders close.”
“I am not going home,” Janet stated trying to speak through her tears.
“You must, the General has said that our enemies are everywhere...”
Janet tried to block out her mother’s rambling and concentrate on what mattered. She slowly breathed in and out trying to calm herself and keep herself under control, she needed to be able to discern the facts from the over exaggeration her mother usually spoke. Her brother was dead and the General the new ruler of the clan was closing the border and would not let in even her own people in a month.
“Daughter are you listening to me?”
“Janet are you awake? I bought a pizza for us to eat together.” The voice of Quincy broke through the cloud of teary thoughts and she looked away from her mother. Quincy was a friendly face she didn’t know she needed until that moment.
“Who is that?” Her mother asked.
“Mother I will...”
“Wait mother may I speak with Janet?” A voice behind her mother asked.
Her mother looked unhappy but didn’t say no, Janet’s younger sister suddenly took the place of her mother inside the rune rock oval.
“Carol...” Janet let herself release some of her sadness and anger as she saw her younger sister, she looked so much like Eb’non.
“Please come back Janet, I’m worried for you.”
“Carol I...”
“He was murdered...I know he was. Janet, you are right he loved the King...he would never let her be murdered...”
“What are you...?”
“Carol you have no right to tell your sister such lies. Go and check on your brothers, we need to make sure they bring in the right amount for market tomorrow.”
“Mother what is she talking about, was he murdered?”
“Of course not the General wouldn’t lie...” Her mother didn’t sound convinced especially when she seemed to be distracted by something out of her view.
“I will return home mother.” Janet made her decision
“Thank...”
“Not for you but for my siblings, especially for my brothers.” She stated and before her mother could respond she swiped her hand through the floating oval and the connection ended. The bark substance turned into ash and fell down on to the counter and the rune rock.
“So you are leaving?” Quincy asked.
“Yes, soon, my family is in trouble and there has been a coup, the General has taken over she will close the borders soon.”
“I’ll pack, we can go to the store...”
“Wait what are you doing Quin you are not coming...”
“Of course I am we are in this together, till the end.” They said with conviction
“We never discussed...” She shook her head
“It doesn't matter, I am your friend and I want to help you take care of your family.”
Janet was too overwhelmed with the death of her older brother to try and convince Quincy of not coming with her.
“We need to pack food for at least a week and we will need to call in a favor at the Barrentor. It takes over a week to descend if we don’t take an elevator, Stor’Ny is the closest town with an elevator and it will get us closest to my clan’s land.”
“I will go back out to get food and collect our pay for the last week. Do you need anything else?” Quincy asked.
Janet thought quickly through the list in her head she was creating for the trip. “No we will leave tomorrow morning, we can not take the elevator at night its too dangerous. We’ll need to spend a night at Stor’Ny. I’ll deal with the apartment expenses.” Her adrenaline was keeping her from collapsing, allowing her to not dwell on what her sister had told her about her brother’s death.