Skipper's point of view:
I am surronded by pearly walls and a gruff, harsh voice comes from outside the solid barrier, followed by an angelic, softspoken voice that I would never forget or regret hearing. So anxious to break out, I squirm and push more than I had ever done so before.
My flipper punches out a large portion of the atmosphere of my world. I keep struggling to obey that instinctive urge to escape. Soon my warm and cozy cacoon is filled with the flowing rush of frigid air ..... oxygen. With my head, I but the top of my orb and I peep my head out.
The heavenly voice calls out to me. "Open your eyes, Skipper." Skipper? Is that me? It just feels right. I open my sealed eyes for the first time. For the I reveal a world of both agony and pleasure. Light beams down from the sky on me. At those first minutes the world seems amazing and inspiring. Having enough with the sky, I look levely around me.
Several of my own kind is huddled around me, staring at me in my hatchling feathers, admiring me. My attention shifts when I hear breathing from behind me. I turn with the slippery, slick ice under my webbed feet. Nearly landing on my tailfeathers, I catch myself, gripping onto the penguin behind me's feathers.
He grunts and pretends not to notice me. A woman steps toward me and picks me up. "Hi, Little Skipper!" She brings me closer. Her feathers bring a warm comfort to me, unlike the cruel sense of shame I get from my father. "Say 'hi' to your daddy, Skipper." She says rocking me in her fins.
Before anything else boggles me, something important begins to happen. Everyone moves and leaves an open path. "Put him down," dad bellows almost in a threatening tone. With her eyes wide and staring at the path, she sits me down and backs away staying low.
A stranger with glittery gray, instead of black, feathers strolls through the pathway regally, uncovering a gray goty and bizzare yet intreging markings on his wrinkled face. As he passed each penguin bows. I start running to meet the stranger, but my dad restrains me with his foot.
Everyone except my father bows, including my mom, but my dad greets him with a hardy flippershake. "Great elder, here he is." My dad groans gesturing to me. I am too ocupied at the moment picking my beak. The grosque penguin's jaw drops and my father hides his face in shame. Excuse me. Am I doing something wrong? Remember I am only a few minutes old. I don't know many manners ....... well any manners. "Skipper, get your flipper out of your nose, now!" My dad instructs, so I do as he says. A green slimey thing sits on the tip of my flipper. What should I do about it?
I stick out my tongue to taste it when dad exclaims "Get rid of it!" so I do the first plan that comes to my mind. I take my grubby flipper and wipe off the slimey substance on the elder's feathers. What a big boy I've become these past minutes! Learning where to put the green stuff that comes out of my beak, especially in front of the elder! Good on me! If I do all this now, I can only imagine what I'll be like when I'm an adult!
The old penguin's crinkled face fills with disgust as he smacks me with his flipper. "Ah, keep this filthy beast away from me, your highness!" He cries. Hey I'm trying to give you a present! Jesh! Can you say ungrateful. "I am so sorry about his behaviour!" Dad replies.
"I'll move to the physical part of the test." He says picking up my right flipper poking my stomach. Shaking his head, he stares at it jiggle. Hey! How dare he judge my jiggling. It's not like I'm being inspected! Geesh!
"Okay, let me just say, I have never in my years of being elder seen a hatchling so ....." He stops and I finish the sentence in my head; strong, brave, attractive, fit, and of course clever.
"Unqualified to take your place as king! He's probably daydreaming off in his own little world right now! I can't pass him, meaning he can't go to school with his peers. There's nothing I can do. He could even attract a seal or gull right now with all that blubber and slow stubby legs. Maybe ..... just maybe the oracle can help change my mind." He concludes. "Alright, but we can only hope some gulls swoop off with him." Dad chuckles harshly and soon his guest chimes in.
I quiver from the sickening sense of being unwanted. Why am I unloved? I don't deserve it, I guess. A strange new experience occurs, as a watery substanced drizzles from my eyes down to my cheeks and I tug on my father's flipper, when the blunt forgein penguin departs. "Dada?" I whimper wiping my eyes. "Shut up!" He says slapping me. My mother cries out in hysteria at him in his face. "How dare you slap your son and say you wish for him to die!" She yells, before getting thrown to the ice, next to me, by my father.
"Don't you yell at your king, wretch!" He exclaims, threatening a kick to her head. With all the courage I can muster, I step protectively in front of my mom and see if she's alright. My father glares, muttering something impossible for me to understand, and seizes my flipper setting off with me.