Firefly | Shelha Series 5 | ✔

Chapter Seventy-Nine: Left Behind

Dusk, Ryatzi and Silversand never told Sethral what they had done to Buckthorn, and Sethral didn't ask. She just knew that Ryatzi had not been lying when he had ordered Buckthorn to let her go if he wanted to be let go, and that when Halo led them to a fallen tree and from there to a stream to drink, Silversand slipped away to wash her metal claws. When they were done at the stream, they went back to the canopy. Halo bounced about scuffing out their trail as they walked until Phoenix collapsed, which wasn't far. Taz found a secure dip in the ground and let the Pyrya cuddle up to him again.

"I'll keep watch," said Silversand.

"Will you be watching?" said Loki. "You can't stop crying."

"I need something to do so I won't cry all the time!" Silversand burst into tears. "I don't see how you're not crying. Why are you getting mad at me?"

"I'm trying not to cry as well, okay? But not all of us dissolve into waterworks when we're still petrified of danger out in the forest."

"Guys," said Ryatzi.

"I'll take watch," said Loki.

"You can't just take it over from me like that!"

"You can both watch," said Fletch.

"He's saying I'm not good at watching," sobbed Silversand. "But I tried all of our year apart to be better, and I don't want to feel like I'm useless again."

"You're not useless, Silver."

"But I let Bluejay sneak up on us. I couldn't warn Wing."

"Silver, nobody could," said Taz shortly. "Stop putting the blame on yourself, watch if you're going to, and go hunt if you're not."

"Now you don't want me here either!"

Taz started to get up, but Phoenix grabbed him and started crying. He lay down again. Sethral pulled out her thistlecloth, but Phoenix screamed when touched and instantly devolved into a panic attack.

"Don't worry, Seth," said Taz quickly. "It's not you; it's everyone."

It was too late. Tears blurred her eyes as a scene replayed: the fear in Phoenix's eyes as he told the twins in every nonverbal way not to touch him. She should have known.

Taz had curled around the Pyrya and was trying to get him to breathe, but it was like something as sitting on Phoenix's chest. He couldn't move, and even the crying stopped as he struggled harder and harder to get air. Even Ryatzi didn't get attacks this bad. Silversand was curled up under another tree, sobbing. Loki was stone-faced, sitting on watch. Sethral's heart stopped dead. There was a Coppertail walking towards them through the forest.

She scrabbled for a knife, a stick; anything. The shadow was shorter than Firebrand but taller than Taz, and it moved with the steady footing of a killer. Sethral tried to scream, but her voice had frozen. Before her shaking claws could land on a weapon, the outline resolved itself into Dusk. He set a moth down beside Taz and left again.

There was a scream from across their camp as Whipper woke up. Sethral couldn't even move her legs. She willed someone, anyone, to intervene if the Forester started pummelling Firebrand again, but this wasn't one of those times. Whipper broke down and just wanted to be hugged instead.

"I want to go home," he said, over and over. "I want Wing. I want to go home."

It was too much. Hearing him say it was like standing in an echo-cave, sending her back the message in her own mind stronger and louder, until she couldn't take it anymore. Sethral started to cry again. She wanted to go home, but then it got tangled and 'home' meant the South Forest, not the Far South, and then having Wing became a necessary condition. Wing made a place 'home'. And the more she thought about it, the more she realized Jay did, too. How long had she thought this way? Even half a year ago, 'home' had still meant her clan.