Chapter 13
Szhe’ka
I turn to Red and place a hand on her shoulder. “Wait here.”
I don’t know whether I should be touching her or not so I take it off just as quickly.
She looks up at me, first confused, then worried but she moves her head up and down with an affirmative hum and bends down to hide behind a bush. I’m grateful she doesn’t argue this time, though I suspect it’s from lack of energy.
“You leave?” she asks, her harmony low and uneasy.
She is scared and I do not want to startle her any further but I must have a look around to make sure we are the only ones in the area. I have only been grounded for a few sunrises and as much as I hate it, at least I am good at finding places to hide.
It would be far easier for one such as her to stay hidden if not for her bright threads. My feathers blend into the night.
I walk away from her to survey the area properly and I only let myself take a breath of relief when I am completely sure there is nothing in our immediate surroundings that will harm us.
I announce my presence and Red gets up from behind the leaves, dusting off the broken bits that had gotten attached to her threads.
“We safe.”
As she stands there, dusting herself off, I settle down on the ground and wince at how uncomfortable it is against my body and wing stumps.
As I am adjusting myself, I feel Red’s eyes on me, and I look up to find her staring.
The color of her eyes makes her gaze even more stern most of the time, but now it has shifted from angry judgment to something entirely different.
She looks around us and then looks at me questioningly. “Wet ground. We sleep here?”
The distaste is thick in her voice. I don’t want to disappoint her but I am afraid it is all we have access to at the moment. We just need a place to rest till the sun comes up again and we can continue our journey to safety.
Her safety.
“My regrets. Safest wait,” I sing back, my song ending with a yawn.
It is infectious enough to catch Red and she only hesitates for a short time before settling on the ground a little distance away from me.
She curls her body inward so that she looks smaller than she actually is and her bright threads, having escaped from how she had them wound, are splayed behind her like a carpet of red flowers on the forest ground.
If I stretch my hand out far enough, I can reach out and touch her again, like I know I really want to, though I decide it’s not a wise decision. I already touched her and she let me, but from our short time together, I know she would rather have me as far away from her as possible.
Forcing my mind onto other matters, I begin to closely observe the ground I’m laying on, I can only imagine how uncomfortable it feels against her soft looking skin to be on the cold, wet ground when I have much thicker skin with the insulating layer of feathers and still want to wipe the moisture away.
I know that I will have to pick out the bits from my feathers when it is light and I can only hope it is easier for Red.
I am proven correct that she is uncomfortable when Red grunts, gets up, and folds her threads into some kind of intricate knot behind her head that shows me more of her face.
I cannot move my eyes away from her delicate features, each one so much smaller than mine that it makes me wonder how she gets anything done with them.
I come to understand that I’m deeply fascinated by everything this small creature does—how she can breathe, fit bits of food into such a small mouth or even see. She probably does all these things normally in a way that is natural to her kind. Still, it is all new to me.
I am especially surprised every time at the amount of venom she can shoot out of her for anything she does not like. It’s as enthralling as it is confounding and I don’t know why.
She is, in a word, enrapturing and I am a fly caught in her trap.
She notices me staring and I divert my eyes, expecting her to scold me but she does not.
Instead, she drops back to the ground with a sigh of exhaustion and folds into herself, this time facing me.
Her eyes are squeezed shut but her body is vibrating in some odd fashion that I wonder is normal for her species and I know that she cannot be comfortable.
I sing softly to her and her eyes open. “Come closer. Stay warm.”
She shoots me a tired look and I stretch both of my left hands out. Her eyes travel up and down the length of my arms but she just looks away, not giving me an answer.
I beckon again and her eyes look up to my face for a moment that feels too long. “Is cold. Please be warm.”
Without saying a word, she gets up and walks over to me.
She is so much smaller than me I have to quash a flash of fear that I will hurt her so I can reach one of my hands to grab on to her. I move to tuck her under my wing, forgetting for a blessed minute that I no longer possess my feathery down.
The pain from trying to extend them reminds me that there is barely anything of them left and a nightmare twinge of painful realization washes over me yet again. I am grounded for life and really will never fly again.
I wave away the thoughts of self pity and arrange her so that her upper body is supported by one of my arms and she is no longer in contact with the cold ground.
She takes over from me and continues to adjust herself until she finds comfort in curling into her body and placing both of her hands between my arm and her head. She only spares me a single glance before drifting off into slumber and I am left to peacefully study her once more.
While she is asleep, she looks much more relaxed, her body no longer curling tightly around itself. Her mouth is parted by sleep and her tongue sticks out slightly, making her look a little comical.
I am left to wonder what she would look like if she weren’t so angry with me all the time. What would her pleased expressions resemble? Would her happy songs flutter as much in me as when she approves of a decision I have made, however few times it has happened?
A short time passes and she begins to sing and breathe softly in her sleep. I think she’s attempting to talk to me so I try to talk back.
“What need?” I sing to her, concerned.
She stirs from her sleep and looks at me through bleary eyes. “What happen?” she asks, clearly confused.
“Nothing, sleep,” I tell her and for the first time ever, she listens to me without a discordant hum and falls right asleep, soft singing snores leaving her mouth after just a few moments.
Once I know she has relaxed again, I allow my mind to continue wandering.
How things might be different are all foolish questions anyway.
The hunters added to her and made her something more valuable, like understanding different languages and who knows what else, but they took the very thing that makes me who I am.
I do not know how much longer I will be able to survive without my wings.
The pain in them is always with me, however hard I try to hide it and I can only hope it doesn’t affect my plans with Ree to ensure Red is rescued.
My goal was simple; to get Red to safety, somewhere she could reunite with the rest of her sisters and they could support each other.
After that, I will never see them again and I will have to live the rest of my days on the ground like a graceless beast, with only the honor of former glorious flights to warm me.
It doesn’t feel good knowing that I am so young yet the apex of my life has clearly already passed, almost making nothing worth living for, besides the words of my promise, of course.
The sounds that Red makes in her sleep take me away from my troubling thoughts and I stare at her face and wonder what she is dreaming of.
I hope it is only good things and the kindness of the world that she has experienced before the hunters. That is always what I try to think about before I fall asleep as well.
Tonight, I make up a story in my mind instead of reliving what has already been. I imagine taking to the skies with my brothers one last time as we leave our aeries and descend, one last joint song and one last bout of chasing thermals.
As I occupy my mind with thinking of these simple pleasures, albeit mixed with a sense of failure and pain, I hope that the dawn will be kinder to Red and me.
We deserve that much.