Adyr decided to leave his family as they were at that table, frozen in his mind as a quiet, unchanged scene, a reminder of his Human side, if any part of it still remained.
In the silent street, alone, the back of his uniform split at the shoulders in two long slits, the fabric peeled away, opening like a controlled tear along the seams.
Bones pushed out from his back with a wet, unsettling sound, forcing their way through skin and cloth. They spread outward in a smooth, organic motion like gigantic deer antlers until their length became wrapped in dense feathers, one wing black and the other white, forming into a pair of unnatural yet perfectly balanced wings.
He pushed lightly off the ground, his body turning weightless for a heartbeat, as though gravity itself had loosened its grip on him. His wings beat once, twice, and he shot upward into the sky like a streak of shadow and light cutting through the air.
As he was climbing higher, the wind whipped past him in harsh bursts.
