Ch.17: The Pawn Woman

177 20 34
                                    

Edited: May, 17, 2020

============

Some branches rustled furiously and out flew a whole flock of black faceless birds. They were living silhouettes. Each flew into the other until they became one big bird. At last, they flew into the forest like a shadow melting away.

Deel tripped on his feet. "I see something! I think a house!" He said in excitement and ran farther ahead. Getting lost in a place they knew nothing about was not going to be good. Pinti bristled in annoyance at him for being so careless and went after him. She tried to keep his gray t-shirt in sight, but it was hard when he kept disappearing and reappearing beyond scraggly branches or tall bushes.

At last he stopped. Ahead of him was a flock of bright yellow ball-like birds with dark orange eyes and bright blue feet. They were pecking at some tree roots jutting out from the ground. Deel was staring at the birds with a blank expression on his face as if he wasn't looking at them at all.

"Deel?" She reached out when he squeaked and lifted his head.

"Galag is gone? Dead?" He said in a quiet voice. His eyes were big in shock as if realizing the fact for the first time. "He gave me these." Deel took out three purple pills from his pocket. "For good measure."

"What are they for?" She asked.

The birds let out a collective squabble then, startling both her and Deel. The strange ball birds had looked up from their meal. Their eyes bulged and then they exploded making feathers fly everywhere.

"Whaaa—!" Deel shouted and grabbed onto her arm. As they watched, yellow feathers paired up with each other two by two and flew away.

"Impossibilities, like Galag had said," Pinti whispered.

A cackling noise like laughter came from behind. There were different birds now and they had wings like daggers and a beak on each end of their body. The two beaks opened and cackled, making their bodies shake from side to side. They flew up and disappeared into the clouds.

"I don't like it here!" Deel whined and scrambled off towards the moss curtain. "Thereanbold! Thereanbold! Where are you?" He cried. Pinti was tempted to call out, too. The moss curtain was right there, but they didn't seem to be getting any closer. If this was some kind of Sorcerer trick, she wished Thereanbold would cut it out. They didn't have time to be messing around with this.

The second time going through also brought them back to where they started. Pinti hoped 'third time's the charm' would work, but it didn't. They came to the same upside-down sky and ground situation as the first two. It seemed pointless now to try again, but they couldn't go the opposite direction. It was just a rock with sky on it. When she swat at it, it was like hitting concrete. Their only option was to go to the moss curtain.

On the fifth time, she was getting impatient. "Heizak! Just let us go through, stupid Crup! What the feigat is a Crup anyway!"

"Hey," Deel bounded over to a tree trunk, half hidden behind a tall bush, "look, tiny houses." He disappeared inside the bush. Pinti threw her arms up in exasperation. Why wasn't Deel taking this seriously? They could be doing this for an eternity while the rest of the world went into Edgling chaos.

"Deel," she called, "we should go. Not like going would do us any good, but we don't have time for—"

"Come look, Pinti! A little castle!"

Deel's excitement made her itch to see what it was. In fact, it made her itchy all over. She had to know what he was looking at.

That's why Huamanoas say, 'Curiosity kills the cat anthro'. Pinti scowled at the near accuracy of that sentence. Inside the bush near the base of the tree trunk were some ruins so small they looked like a child's plaything.

Lunar Heart, Shadow Bound ✓ [when the moon lies]Where stories live. Discover now