Steven woke early, his bones aching with need. His time had finally come. His mother saw it when he came from his room and whispered that it was too soon.
He couldn't stop moving. His eyes kept shifting, constantly taking in the kitchen, which seemed smaller than it ever had before. He kept touching things, feeling them, taking in their shape, and then pushing them aside distractedly.
It was more intense than his father had prepared him for. He kept moving to the windows of the house, searching for the locks. The muscles in his thighs tightened as he walked the paths high above the ground.
He walked them often now. There were preparations to be made. He had to be taken from the register and marked as an adult. Word was to be sent out to the other houses. A celebration was to be prepared.
The wait seemed unbearable.
- - -
The party was loud and dizzying. Steven found himself spun from person to person, given advice, told tales, and listening to suggestions of places to go and families to talk to. His mother sat at a table tucked away at the back of the room, wringing a handkerchief and watching him worriedly.
His father boasted loudly about his son being the first of the broods to make his way into the world, seeming undisturbed by the fact that that night was Steven's last night with his family.
Steven found a moment in the confusion to break away and sit with his mother in the back. She smiled tightly at him, eyes bright with tears.
It hit him then, just what he was going to do tomorrow. Fear began to seep in under the itch in his skin. His whole life had been lived in the care of his mother and father, and he'd always shared a room with his brothers. He'd always been surrounded by surrogate parents. Tomorrow that would be gone. He'd be on his own and unable to return. He would have to find his own home and make a new family.
Or he'd have to continue to live on his own, and that almost certainly meant death.
Everything in him twisted at the thought, and Steven wished he could curl back into his mom and hide his face against her and have her hold him. But that comfort was denied him now; he was an adult.
- - -
Steven had to go to the flying edge alone. His said his good-byes on the door step of his parents' house, and then made his way across the high paths. Sooner than he expected, Steven found himself standing at the edge of the only home he'd ever known. He looked down and took in the land. Then, he took a moment to prepare himself.