Owl's watch was going well, Falcon had disappeared a few minutes before check on Eagle. He was looking better than he had the day before, his temperature had spiked for a few hours in the night, but other than that nothing had happened. Falcon had reported his wound was doing better and that Eagle should be waking up sometime soon and hopefully they could move him to the apartment they've been staying in. Eagle's eagle had joined the group a little into Buzzard and Peafowl's watch, so they had given him a can of tuna before the eagle sat at Eagle's side.
"He's waking up!" Falcon reported and Owl turned around. Luckily the horde had dispersed hours before at the beginning of Owl and Falcon's watch duty.
"Finally Sleeping Beauty's up," Owl muttered under her breath. It was nearing midday and if Eagle hadn't shown signs of waking up they would've just moved him to the apartment anyway.
"Hey Eagle, I need you to focus on me alright? Do you remember anything from last night?" Falcon asked, holding his hands up as if he were surrendering. Falcon was unarmed, except for a single knife on his belt, because he "didn't want to spook the newbie".
"Wh- where am I?" Eagle asked, his eyes wide and his voice full of confusion and a small note of fear.
"Eagle, can I call you that? Never mind, I'm Falcon, this is my twin, Owl. The girl in pink is Canary, the one with dyed hair is Peafowl and this is our leader, Buzzard." Falcon told him, gesturing to each of the group in turn.
"Why are you calling me Eagle?" Eagle asked.
"We have a rule here, no real names, instead we use bird nicknames. Owl came up with yours because you were unconscious and we needed something to call you. By the way, what's your eagle's name, because Eagle's eagle is annoyingly hard to say.
"Terrorem, his names Terrorem." Eagle told him.
"Terrorem, Latin for Terror," Owl commented from behind Falcon.
"You know Latin?" Peafowl asked.
"Mhm, both of us do, I told you this like last week, we both speak Greek and Latin. Learned it for fun on Duolingo because we were bored and our parents were too busy arguing over our older sister to give a shit about us." Owl replied, tossing one of her many knives into the air.
"You have an older sister?" Canary asked, her eyes wide with excitement.
"Mhm, well did anyhow. Marie moved to France to get away from our family, didn't want to follow in the family traditions, and didn't exactly like me and Falcon, said we were stealing her 'inheritance' which she wasn't eligible for seeing as the only way to get it is to continue the family traditions." Owl replied, tossing her blade into the air once again.
"Your family..." Buzzard trailed off, unsure whether what he wanted to say was appropriate.
"Sucks? Yeah, welcome to the Nightingales, one minute you're the pride of the family, the next you're worthless because you didn't get a perfect score." Owl replied, scoffing.
"Enough about our family, Eagle, is it okay if I check on your arm? It's a bad bite and it's infected, you shouldn't be doing any sort of physical activity but as soon as I'm done looking your wound over, we gotta get out of here." Falcon said, drawing attention away from their questionable family and back to what mattered, the injured human being in front of them. Eagle nodded, his body tense like a spring about to be sprung, but he held out his injured arm.
The bite looked better, the skin around it looked more like skin with barely a yellow tint to it, and the bite was scabbed over. Falcon seemed to smile at its progress before he put more antibacterial cream on it and wrapped it again.
"There, you shouldn't use your arm much for a few days, preferably a week but with the world how it is now... well, I won't get my hopes up. If it's alright with you we're going to move to our current base, would you like to come with us? Not permanently of course but just for a while? Just until your bites healed at least." Falcon blurted out, anxiety seemingly pouring out of him.
"What my lovable twin is trying to say is that you're injured and need rest, but we can't rest here and if you're alone, you won't be able to rest either. As such, he would like to invite you to stay with us until your wound heals and if you'd like, longer." Owl piped up, drawing Eagle's attention from Falcon with ease.
"...Sure," Eagle replied, unsure.
"Good! Canary, bring me Eagle's things!" Falcon said, turning to look at Canary.
Canary leaned down towards hers and Peafowl's bags before pulling out Eagle's bag and weapon which had been propped up with their things. She handed it to Falcon who handed it to Eagle. "Owl cleaned up your machete so it should be right as rain!" Falcon commented as Eagle inspected his things.
"We should get moving, we're burning daylight and the pets are getting cold. Owl, which route should we take?" Buzzard commented for the first time in hours.
"Hm, at this time of day, I'd prefer route 3b, but the old pharmacy got over-run yesterday, that gang from East Side shot a Walker and that Mimicry from Second came after 'em, it was a slaughter so it's still practically a death sentence. And route 3a is covered in too much rubble for me and Falcon to use our bows efficiently, we'd be going blind and last time that happened you almost lost your arm because you were stubborn–" "Like you're not the same way!" "–Yeah but we're not talking about me, Buzzard! Anyway, the fastest route open to us would be route 3c which takes at least twelve minutes and we'd be in Sprintstalk territory, that and the gang from the Walmart, which is like the dumbest move we could make seeing as they have military-grade weapons from that military base." Owl told him.
"So where would we go?" Buzzard asked, annoyed by the rant.
"Falcon, give me the map," Owl ordered, pulling out three markers from her belt, one was red, another blue and the last was black. Falcon handed her a map covered in random lines.
"If we cut through here, no, that wouldn't work..." Owl muttered, using her finger to trace lines only she could see.
"What is she doing?" Eagle asked, whispering to Buzzard who had moved to sit beside him for a better view of the map.
"Owl's got the city memorized, she'd mapped the entire city on that thing, red means danger, like buildings are falling or there's something there that would obstruct Owl and Falcon's shots. While blue means enemy territory, like the Mimicry's hunting grounds or the gang from East Side. Black means safe routes, any route we can go through without issue at any time. We used route 4b to get here, but it requires using both arms to traverse safely and with your wound, Falcon won't let you." Buzzard explained.
"How did she memorize the entire city?" Eagle asked, interested.
"Last time we were in a big city we took a wrong turn and Owl almost lost Falcon to a horde. If Canary hadn't grabbed him, well, he would've been a corpse by now. She decided to memorize the city so she wouldn't lose him if we were in the same situation again. She scouts each path and accounts for injuries, zombies, and even other survivors, and accounts for just about anything that counts as a problem. She's invaluable now, her mapping skills keep our group alive." Buzzard explained, almost beaming with pride which was a change from his normal stoic behavior.
"We'll follow route 4a to this road, then we'll head route 5c and here at the rundown apartments, we'll head 2d, if we're lucky we'll be home by noon if we're careful. Newbie, I need you to let us know immediately if your wound hurts, pulses, or even itches, alright? We can't take a risk of your wound opening on the way because we'll be juggling right in-between Mimicry and Sprintstalk territory and if even a drop of blood spills we'll be corpses in minutes, got it?" Owl told him, her gold-like eyes sharp as knives.
"Got it," Eagle responded, seemingly understanding the precariousness of their situation.
"Good. Pack up, Buzzard you're taking point right? Falcon, no bows just yet. I'd like to save them for an emergency if possible." Owl ordered, folding up her map and shoving it into a compartment in her belt before walking over to her black backpack and hefting it onto her back.
YOU ARE READING
Temporary Hiatus! | Wings | Fleeting Feathers Book 1
Action+ Co-written with Meteoritezr + First rule of living with the Flock? No names. Nothing real anyway. You don't survive with your humanity, you shed it, or it sheds you. Zombies were said to be impossible, that they'd never happen, well obviously whoe...
