The next day’s dawn was as beautiful as the previous sunset had been, but the gentle light spilled over the hilltop unobserved since Aidan and Serapha were both sound asleep. Serapha snored ever so softly in her small bed in a modest room on the lowest level of the house. Aidan was not snoring, in fact he wasn’t even breathing, and to the casual observer he would have appeared dead. This didn’t seem to bother his wife any, for she was snuggled up next to him, one arm draped comfortably over him, and her own breathing was deep and untroubled, as were her dreams. After some thirty yeas of marriage she was well accustomed to her husband’s eccentricities, including those resulting from his vampirism.

Several hours later the house began to stir. Arthur Flash was the first one up, excited and euphoric over the successful horse purchases his half brother had made. Damien followed not long after, and the two were soon in a world of their own, discussing the potential of their future herd.

Flame Song got up next, dressing silently so as not to disturb Aidan. The cheerful chatter from the kitchen, which lay directly above her bedroom, woke Serapha not long after. She yawned and considered crawling back into bed. As deep underground as she was no hint of sunlight came in to disturb her sleep, but she remembered her father’s promised ramble and decided she might as well rise early.

Alan had joined the family for breakfast, and Serapha was almost finished eating when Aidan stumbled out of the master bedroom, blinking and yawning. He hadn’t bothered to dress yet, but as always he had his sun medallion around his neck. He stretched and blinked again in the bright light that now poured in through the open front door. Oil lamps provided a warm illumination, but in good weather the welcome glow of sunlight usually lighted the upper portions of the house. With the medallion protecting Aidan from harmful light there was no reason to keep the door shut.

Serapha waved a cheerful hello, and Aidan grinned and waved back. “Good morning. Or at least as good as any morning can be.”

“It’s a very good morning today! Can we go as soon as I’m done?”

“Go?” asked Aidan innocently. “Go where?”

“Dad!” said Serapha in a scolding tone, and everyone laughed.

“Sure, Shade. We can go this very instant if you like.”

Serapha wolfed down the rest of her breakfast and before long the pair were meandering across the low rolling hills of the northern tundra. Serapha was dressed warmly, for though spring was far advanced, the air still had a chill. Aidan hadn’t bothered with more than a light jacket. The cold didn’t bother him.

Either one of them could have taken to the air and flown, covering miles with ease, but both chose simply to walk, a slow rambling pace that was going nowhere in particular. They spoke together of this and that at times, pointing out some particularly interesting flower, or talking of day-to-day trivialities, and at times they simply walked in silence.

Serapha took one of those moments to really look at her father. Few people can see their parents objectively. There are too many memories, too many ideas and ideals from childhood in the way, but Serapha tried for a moment to just look at Aidan. Physically there wasn’t really anything remarkable about him, other than perhaps his small size. He and she were of a height; his sky-blue eyes exactly level with her matching sapphire ones. They had the same hair too, midnight black so dark it was almost blue, though Serapha’s reached to her waist where her father’s was cropped short, and they both had the same fair skin, but Aidan’s pale complexion lacked even the faint hint of a tan that brushed Serapha’s cheeks. They were built much alike as well, both slender but fit. And, of course, they both had the same angel-white aerian wings.

Serapha had heard the story of her birth, how she’d shapeshifted in the very moment she’d been born, changing from the half firecat, half aerian from that was her birthright to a near carbon copy of her father, as if she’d decided even then to admire and imitate him. She loved her mother dearly, of course, but there was a special bond between her and her father, the like of which she’d never shared with anyone else.

The sun was halfway up into the sky when Aidan peered towards the far horizon and said, “You know, I’ve never been out to those hills to the north. There’s nothing much up there, no reason to go, but I feel like exploring somewhere I haven’t seen yet. You game?”

Serapha smiled. “Why not? It’s not as if we have anywhere else to be.”

Without further conversation they took to the air, matching white wings beating rapidly as they fought for altitude. Once they reached a good height to glide they soared in silence, wingtips almost touching, over the tundra. At first glance the land below looked empty, barren, but if you knew where and how to look it was bursting with life. The migratory herds hadn’t reached this far north yet, though they would soon, but mice and rabbits, hawks and owls, foxes and the rare wolf pack, all these made their home there. There were also stranger things, things with a hint of magic and myth about them. Ice worms and tundra yeti, the occasional kobold, and very rarely an ice dragon, intelligent, aloof, and deadly. Further north, where the land ended and ice brooded over a seemingly bottomless sea, there were seals and polar bears, penguins and whales, narwhales and sea unicorns, and rumors spoke of a tiny colony of merfolk who had adapted to the cold of the northern pole. Serapha’s keen aerian eyes caught a flash of mottled white and tan; an arctic fox halfway out of his winter coat, but she saw nothing larger as they flew toward the northern hills.

They spent the next few hours poking around in the rough gullies and unexpected folds of the hills. They weren’t particularly high or imposing, but there was still plenty to explore. The sun was directly overhead when Serapha flopped down on a handy patch of grass with a contented sigh. Aidan smiled and dropped next to her.

“Maybe we should head home,” suggested Serapha. “I’m starving. Lunch was a long time ago.”

Aidan nodded and smiled. “Yes, and longer ago for me, though I’ll be fine until tonight if need be. I’m rather enjoying myself though. I haven’t wasted a day like this in a long time. Perhaps we could hunt up something?”

Serapha considered. She was half firecat, and that meant she was half wild predator, but she was more comfortable being aerian and eating cooked what the others in the family had hunted. Still, there was something… liberating about hunting your own supper and eating it when you caught it. She looked up at her father and smiled. “Why not? I haven’t hunted in ages.”