Aberrant: The Middle Children of History - Revisiting the past

[Wakinyan]

The long bumpy gravel road led to the home that he grew up in. It had been a very long time since he had lived there. The no hunting sign still hung off the tree near the main road. The rusted out mailbox still read Thunderhawk. Once Daniel had walked out daily to get the mail out of that old box but that too had ended a long time ago. out of curiosity a large paw like hand opened the front of the box and glanced inside. Nothing but a wasp nest now inhabited it.

People had left this place alone. There were many memorials to Wakinyan. At his statue, Wounded Knee, Inyan Kara. But there were no memorials to Daniel Thunderhawk. Wakinyan let out a long sigh as he closed the box and watched as a old pickup truck crested the low rolling hill coming toward him. Instinctively his body became one with the surroundings. Not out of fear, he simply did not feel social right at the moment. Even if the guy in the truck would have likely just offered him a beer on the warm spring morning for a blessing in return.

The truck sped past kicking up a shroud of dust. The griffin turned up the lane and became visible again. He padded long the rocky drive stopping here and there to recall things. How he had once played here or there. His grandfather built a sweat lodge there in a standing grove of maple it to long gone. As he finished the trek to his old home he saw it too was still there. Not in the greatest of shape. Overgrown and in disarray but it still at least had all it's windows. The addition to the home was newer than the rest, built right after he had erupted into his new body. Large enough to let him move around in comfort with a garage door to let him in and out.

Testing the door it was locked as he shook his head he remembered leaving the house key with Tina right after he had moved to Inyan Kara. He didn't really feel like breaking into his own home. So instead he made his way around it. Looking in windows seeing moments from his past manifest through his node. Seeing ghosts of himself, his grandfather and family. Some gone, some still very much here. Wakinyan flicked his ears as he turned away swallowing hard. Why had he even came here? Daniel was dead he just happen to carry Daniel's memories. He beat that thought away, Wakan had always meat for him to be what he was now. He had always been Wakinyan at that point in his young life he just had not realized it yet.

Turning away from the home he made his way across the overgrown yard. The ground dipped under his paw causing him to look down. The fire pit his granddad often used was underfoot, now also long grown over. To much past he decided, it was time to go before the past got the better of him.

He flew southeast over the once regulated No-Fly zone that had been imposed over him. He knew the destination was going to give his wife anxiety as was sure she was no doubt monitoring him through their renew link. Willing his body to cloak itself he reassured her as he continued on.

The skyline was different. New buildings here or there, humanity continued to build it's way into the heavens. Chicago was still familiar enough to him to zip down the artificial canyons without clipping any buildings and he took in the city streets and people. He hadn't checked it the Knights still existed. If they did he was sure they weren't the same Novas he had ran into a decade ago and even if they were it was fine. He was not here to cause trouble.

Invisible wings feathered him gently atop the giant Chicago Spire. Memories once again took him to the past. His battle with Carver when she was not herself. While he had been all to much himself. He stopped himself from manifesting the battle through his node. No need to alarm the buildings security with a replay of that old conflict. Wakinyan turned and looked out over the city northward toward Wriggly field. The street Carver had lived on the house he had snatch her from in front of. Shaking his head with a smile he looked west toward the center of town and the gleaming glass structure of the Windy City Knights. Where the rolling street battle had began causing the death of a bus full of innocent people and Jager nearly forced to kill him. His smile faded. Finally Wakinyan turned to the south and the rusted out factories still slowly decaying along the shoreline of lake Michigan. The water filled curve of the crater was still easy to see. A lasting scar the city suffered at his hands when he decided to fight Revenant for almost no reason at all.

The events where far older than a decade in the past to him. He had never intended to become such an enemy of this city yet in the few short years between his eruption and departure from his home he sure seemed like he had been.