This is a rewrite of sorts, taking elements from the show and novel (ex. Shade's inquisitive personality and critical thinking make a much needed return) and it cuts out a lot of the show's filler. They're joined by my original character, Sparrow, a hoary bat (Greywing) they find on the way. After a bit of joking I wanted to challenge myself to tackle the trope of 'What would this story be like if I threw this one extra person in? What would change?'

This nonsense is the result. Crossposted from AO3.

A dull ache still thrummed in Shade's wing, leaving him irritable and prone to snapping, but it did nothing to dampen his eagerness to move on. Sure Zephyr's lessons were interesting, they might even become critically useful and in different circumstances he would have wanted nothing more than to learn about this strange world he was born into. Even the human music washing up into the cathedral's hidden rafters was compelling and, he thought, even heart wrenching. Shade wanted to follow Marina, to visit the humans again and listen to their lilting song.

Opening an eye, he saw her bustling around with Zephyr, sorting piles of dried herbs the older bat had gathered during the autumn. One such herb, ground into a poultice, had been rubbed onto an ugly tear in his wing membrane, and was currently the only thing standing between Shade and the desperate pursuit for his colony. Zephyr explained that it would fight any infections, the sickness that could rot his wing right off, so he put up with it. The faster he healed, the faster they could leave.

He was lucky to have these wings, he remembered, stomach churning. Barely a night ago, pigeons had tried to viciously peck them off. "Crawl back to warn your colony," they'd told him. Earthbound forever. Doomed to starvation. Pure hatred burned in him, like the fire that had consumed his home.

But we escaped, he thought. Because we were smarter than those stupid birds.

Now if only he could sleep.

Then he heard it, through a pause in the human song, a murmur from below.

"Huh?"

Marina and Zephyr were silently working, not even muttering to themselves. Shade dropped down to the next beam, claws gripping the wood tightly. He cast an echo into the darkness.

"Marina," he said nervously. "There's something down here." Shade's attention snapped back to the shadows left by each wooden rafter, lest the thing, whatever it was, come alive and strike. "What if it's another pigeon, spying on us?"

"You're seeing shadows. You see enemies everywhere, Shade. Just rest already."

Another murmur. Shade descended again. This time he could hear it clearly: a raspy, shuddering breath, and see it, definitely winged.

"Let us see what Shade sees," Zephyr said. "Go on."

Zephyr's curiosity unnerved the young bats, yet also offered some comfort. If he saw the future, then he saw what waited for them and surely it was harmless. Marina unfurled her wings, landing on the final rafter, a story above the shadow.

"Oh, no," she said, wincing. "It is a bird, isn't it?"

"I can't really see- she's a bat!"

"Never underestimate the power of a kind act, even to those who you imagine are your enemies. You two carry her up," Zephyr said, dropping between them. "It looks like she may have hit her head."