Chapter 2: First Flight
It was a beautiful night. Clear of clouds and full of starry diamonds, with a slight breeze blowing across the sea of Hoolemere. Rare was such a night like this, especially in the Other World. Since I didn't know one bit about flying, tonight would be my first lesson in know how to branch(1) first. Fluffing my wings in anticipation, I couldn't wait to experience the feeling of the wind underneath my wings. Taking a glance around, I saw many other owlets who were either still new to flying or had a chance but wasn't able to continue practicing.
Boron, the current monarch of the Tree, landed on the branch and gained the attention of every owlet here. A few more owls landed behind him, seasoned eyes surveying the group in front of them, walking in like they knew what they were getting into. "Listen up." His booming voice was easily heard by the owlet at the back of the group. "As you know, for some of you this is your first time branching so we are going to take this nice and slow. And don't worry, these fine owls will help you if you need any guidance." He gestured to his helpers.
"But remember, we don't want you to go flying on your own just because you are impatient to 'get the hang of it' or something like that." I could already hear some of the younger ones were groaning silently, clearly a sign that they had heard this many times over. "We don't want you getting hurt before you can really fly," He said, glaring at those who were complaining. "So until we say so, you are not allowed to go flying without any of us supervising you. Are we clear on that?" We all nodded, though those who had some experience in branching grudgingly did so.
Boron smiled before turning around and headed towards the end of the branch while we all watched. "Now, all you have to do is to flap you wings, slow but strong, when you are hopping to any nearby branch. With the breeze, you should be able to do it without much of a problem. You can flap any number of times you want, but if there's any problem, we are here to help you." He then extended his wings for a demonstration and jumped from the branch, savoring the gentleness of the breeze. Flapping his wings once, he landed on a branch a little way off before flying back to us. "Now it's your turn." He said with a chuckle, his fellow Guardians joining him at the look of amazement on all of us. "Form a line and you can began branching whenever you are ready."
The owls looked at each other excitedly, scrambling over each other to form two lines. The first two then stepped forward, extending their wings and hopped off the branch, giving a few good flaps and gracefully glided down to a branch below.
"Excellent!" Boron commented before asking the next pair to be ready. Soon, most of the owlets before me had succeeded in branching, though some of them needed a little help from the older ones. Right now, it would be the Snowy owl right in front of me who would began his turn to branch. He stepped onto the launching branch, ready to began his turn. Lifting his wings, he jumped off and began to flap.
Suddenly, the breeze grew exponentially and became a gale. In an instant I knew what would happen to the Snowy and quickly shouted, "Hey, kid, come back!" But it was already too late. The Snowy flailed against the gale, trying his best to stay in the air. In his panic, he flapped his wings frantically but it was of no use. Helpless before the gale, he plunged towards the ground.
In the moments that was happening before me, watching as the Snowy was beginning to fall, time seemed to slow down around me. My eyes widened in shock before they narrowed in determination. Before my mind fully registered what was happening around me, I was already racing forward while I was still shouting. Boron was the first to overcome the shock and the only one who saw me jumped, gave a strong flap before swooping to the rescue. "Wait, no, DON'T...'' he shouted, but it was too late for him. My mind was so filled with the thought of saving him that it blocked out his warnings or any other distractions, everything save for the frightened shrieks of a falling owl, the loud thumping of my heart beats and the howls of the winds around us.
My wings tucked to my side, eyes locked at the Snowy while he futilely flailed his wings trying to slow himself down. My gizzard led me safely through the winds, listening to their chaotic roars as they twisted and collided against each other, swirling violently around me. My wings flapped once or twice, aiding my dive."Come on, come on!" The thought raged in my head, willing me to go faster. I locked on to my target, which was the only way to pick him up...
There! "Eulalia!" I roared, giving another powerful flap for an extra boost and caught the Snowy's claws. But the Snowy was too heavy for a Boreal like me to carry, dragging me down with him. Instinctively, I tried to level myself, doing my best to slow my descent. But the gale was too strong, tossing us around the moment I broke out of the dive. The Snowy yelped and cried out in fear, struggling in my grasp and making it harder to concentrate in this storm.
Left without a choice, I quickly extended my wings and tilted with a grunt, letting the winds guide me. However, because of the Snowy, I was still being dragged down. Struggling to keep in the air, I turned towards the island before the effort was too great. "Just a little further..." I groaned, feeling that my grip on the Snowy was slipping.
"Almost...there," I muttered, gliding about four feet from the ground before I gave out, dropping the Snowy on his back while I crash-landed and did a barrel-roll. "Uugh!" I muttered in pain before getting up and walked towards the Snowy who, now that I was looking closer, was shivering and shrunk down in fear."Are you all right?" I asked the Snowy. He nodded, getting up as well.
I was about to suggest that we went back up when a loud voice shouted "Stay right there!" We turned around and saw Boron and three of his helpers alighting before us. The older owls looked angry but I thought I could see amazement in some of their faces, however Boron was a different story. I thought I could see steam coming out of his nostrils as he fought to rein in his anger while directing us to the shelter of the Tree.
"Do you have any idea what you had just done?!" Boron shouted once we were safely sheltered. His face was livid, making me cringe under his piercing glare. At the back of my mind, I knew why Boron was mad. In fact I knew it the moment I saw Boron's furious look when he touched down, and the truth was that I agreed with why he was mad at me. If I were in his place I would be mad at myself too. "Do you know what you'd done?" he repeated, leaning aggressively towards me. Taking the bitter pill, I gulped and nodded meekly, shrinking into my feathers in a pointless effort to hide from his wrath. Boron then straightened himself, still glaring at me. "And you know that you will be punished for such an action?"
I nodded and bowed, ready to accept his punishment when a voice suddenly spoke up. "No! You can't do this!" Looking up, I saw the Snowy stepping in front of me, and he seemed to be bigger than he was a minute ago. "He'd nothing wrong to deserve this. Why are you punishing him?!" The Snowy asked, anger clearly heard in his tone.
"Enough!" I walked in front of the owlet and faced him. "Do not do this for me, please. This is what I deserve." I said calmly. Everyone then stepped back in shock, but no one was more shocked than the Snowy.
"But why?!" He spluttered. "You saved me, but why do you want to be punished?"
"It is precisely because I saved you, I have to be punished."
"I...I don't understand. What do you mean?" The Snowy shook his head in confusion. "You...you saved me, but why..."
I sighed, seeing that I had to explain more to get my point across. "Listen to me, you are a Snowy," I began, pointing to him, "and I am a Boreal, so naturally you are bigger than me, and a lot heavier too. In fact, much more than I could even carry."
"But in the end, you still saved me, didn't you? Isn't that..." The Snowy said.
"You still don't get it, do you?!" I roared at him, silencing him. "I could have dropped you, can't you see that?" He stood there speechless, trying to process what I had just said. "You were so heavy that I could barely keep us in the air after grabbing you, and that was considering that I had grabbed you properly in the first place.
"Not to mention, this is my first time flying too. In a blinkin' gale even! I could have went yeep in midair! I could have been blown far away! I could have died. We could have died. There are so many things that could go wrong that we were considered lucky to have survived this. And worse, what I had done might have prevented them from rescuing you when they were saving me. Do you even know how frightening that thought was?"
By the time I came out of my rant did I then realized that I had backed the Snowy to a corner. He looked at me, stunned and shivering in slight fear at my outburst. "I'm...I'm sorry. I didn't mean for any of that to happen. I just..." I sighed, stepping back. "I'm just scared that I might have killed you without meaning to." I looked down, ashamed at my actions. "I could gotten you killed just because I made a foolish decision. How could I ever live this down? How could I ever do something so stupid?"
Pausing for a while to see if any of that went into his head, I asked. "Do you know why Boron was leading the class in the first place?" Turning slightly so that I could face Boron as well, I stated. "It's because he is one of the biggest and oldest owls in the Great Tree. Not only that, he is also one of the wisest and a very experienced flier. That and I guessed he had gathered some experienced fliers, probably from the Search and Rescue chaw, to help us out. Ain't that right, my lord?" I directed the last part to Boron who then nodded in surprise. "If he or any of the owls here were the one who saved you, they would not have made any of the mistakes I'd made.
"I may be wrong, but you might have seen that as brave and heroic, but to me, it was foolish. No, more than that! It was stupid and reckless! And I'm guilty, guilty for almost having you killed. There are worthier owls than I am that could have saved you, and they are right here. Compared to them, who am I," Here I looked at the Snowy in the eye, pointing to myself. "A owlet who was smaller and weaker than him and had never flown once in my entire life, had any rights to save you. And that is why it is justified for Boron to punish me, so that I will not foolishly step out of line again."
The Snowy looked at me, eyes contemplating on what I'd said. Then he asked me a question. "So why then? Why did you save me?"
I hesitated, not knowing how or what to answer. "Truthfully, I do not know." I replied. Sighing, I stared at the ground, thinking about what happened back there. "But when I saw you plunge, suddenly I felt...a burning feeling in my gizzard, like I shouldn't let this go on. And the next thing I know is that I saved you from certain death by recklessly jumping down after you. It's as if my body was moving ahead of my brain, like it wanted to save you. I...I just couldn't explain it."
Facing him once more, I pleaded. "So would you please step down, for me?" Finishing my explanation, I awaited his decision. The Snowy then nodded sadly and stepped back. Knowing what I had to do, I turned to face Boron and bowed. "My King, I await my punishment."
If Boron's face was full of surprise before, then his expression now would mean he was truly at a loss of words. He looked on at me, taken aback to see such maturity in a very young owl. Finding the right words, he said, "You are right in every word you'd said, Matthias, and you saw through the reasons why I was furious at you. But I had never thought you would defend us, even though we would have punished you. We will discuss your punishment at another time but for now, I wish to apologize to you." He bowed. "I had thought that you were showing off by pulling that reckless stunt, but I'd misjudged you, so I am sorry for that."
"Um, sir?" One of the owls walked up to him and whispered into his ear. "Is it alright if we could..." The rest of the words were muffled, making me tilt my head in curiosity. Boron's beak lifted up into a smile as he nodded, clearly hearing some good news.
"Very well," Boron turned his attention back to me, eyeing me cheekily. "I think we are going to put one of my students into power-flight school very soon, eh Matthias?" He gave me a wink. I stared at him, not comprehending.
"When we were coming down, we saw you swooped down and caught him by his claws, then gliding with the gale." The owl who spoke up earlier took over. "Such skill was rarely seen in owls, much less in an owlet who had just begun branching." I turned my head away, wishing I could stop the blush that was spreading across my face.
The older owls crowded around us, laughing heartily at my embarrassment. "You did it mate!" The Snowy patted hard on my back, congratulating me. "You did it. You are going to power-flight school! I can't believe you are going this early!"
"Don't forget I was just lucky and is still in trouble," I mumbled, looking down, away from everyone's eyes.
"True for both accounts," Boron said, stepping forward. "But we will get to that later. For now, we will have to finish this lesson and then we will see if we could put you there, shall we?" He then walked out of the shelter and took flight. Two of his helpers flapped their wing to gain height before swooping down to catch us, taking us to the Infirmary to see if we could go on with the lesson.
I looked out to the sea, watching as the rays of light slowly peeked over the horizon and promising a new day. My mind was still bothered by what had happened. Thank Glaux no one was seriously injured, I reflected, if not I would never be able to forgive myself, unlike last time. I closed my eyes, remembering all the blood, cries of pain, tears and death. No, I shuddered, painfully shoving those memories away. I'll never let that happen again. No one is going to die, not while I could help it. Not while I am still here. That's a promise.
A/N
Finally, next chapter done. Exams are over and the holidays starts today! China, here I come. Hope you like the chapter.
(1): Branching is the first step toward flight, in which owlets in trees hop from branch to branch while flapping their wings
*chaw- class/lesson
Thanks for reading!
(15/12/15) Updated. Yay!
