Feathers

Shed

Sorren waited until it was dark out until she climbed up into her own bed. As soon as she laid down, the memory of being pinned under the Peregrine surfaced and she had to blink to force away the thought. She quickly rolled onto her side, out of the vulnerable position she had been in. His silver eyes haunted her, though she had not seen him since that day and she vaguely wondered what he had been doing for the past two weeks. Sorren was terribly nervous that he was concocting some complex trap for her and was glad she would be staying in the cave for a while. Even though she was confident she could out-fly them within Deepfell, she had not had the schooling and fight training that they had. With a shudder, she remembered how tall they had all been when she stood beside them the night they killed the Gagra and how strong. She thought that if she had not been there to warn them and had gone out of curiosity instead, there was no way she could have gotten out from beneath the silver-eyed without stabbing him.

Bear was right. All she had to do, was to stay in the cave for a couple of weeks and they would decide that, having not seen her for a month, they better move on. Though they might have agreed to go after her, they did not have to take her back specifically. Any Feral would do. She closed her eyes in the darkness, but found no solace there.

She was flying through the forest, a basket in her arms, the brush a green blur as she swept by. She looked down into it as if she she had forgotten what she carried and saw that it was a bloody pelt, freshly torn from the body of a deer. Sorren cried out and flung the basket away from herself, watching it tumble into the leaves below as she pumped her wings to slow her speed. She landed hard and leaned against a slab of black rock, breathing hard and staring at the red on her hands, fighting tears.

Suddenly, the boulder fell away from her back and she toppled onto the ground. Two stone doors opened like a giant gate, revealing a dark corridor with walls made of churning cogs and cranking gears, all copper and smeared with oil. It stunk of searing metal and unnatural smoke. Instinctively, she tried to retreat into the forest, but two Peregrines stood before her, as giant as the Gagra and wielding weapons. They grinned down at her with greed and the promise of torture. With a scream, she stumbled into the corridor and ran into the steam of the roaring machine. They were right behind her, looming like falling trees that she could not get out from beneath, laughing deeply and snapping their teeth like wolves. She could not spread her wings because the hall was too narrow and seemed as if it were compressing. She couldn't breathe in the fumes and was choking into a claustrophobic panic.

Two more shadows grew up from the ground, leering down with glowing red eyes as she skidded to a stop. She screamed as a Peregrine behind her plucked her up like a blade of grass. Then she was falling into a giant wicker basket, faces crowding above her with their pointed teeth and red eyes. Only one set of eyes was silver and the other faces disappeared as the basket swirled away from them. It was tipping, then, and she clung to the ridges for dear life, afraid to fall into nothingness or back into the machine, but she could not hold on and spun head over heels into another basket, this one made of metal.

No, she realized. It was a cage.

Sorren sat up and tried to subdue her rapid heart, her breath flying in and out. This air was fresh and smelled of pine and flowers and Bear instead of burning coal. There was a pelt in her hands, but it was not bloody, and she quickly recognized it.

"It was just a dream," she whispered to herself. "It wasn't real." She repeated it a few times just to make certain that she was really awake. Sorren scrubbed her face with her hands and lay back down. She stared at the ceiling of the cave, but everything was dark.

It rained the next three days from sun up to sun down, but she hardly ever saw Bear. He returned very late and night and was up and out again before she woke up. Sorren tried to busy herself cleaning the cave, sewing small holes in her clothes, fluffing Bear's bedding or even by whittling or making another basket, but it was still not anywhere near as interesting as the outside. To pass the time, she often napped, even though it made her feel weak and sluggish and want to sleep more.