Laughter erupted into pure and unadulterated glee as the owl and the giant connected, throwing each other towards the rooftops.
Shade tumbled, spinning out of control on a wild descent as Marina raced to catch him while the fight escalated.
Talons that should rake across the bat's face and chest didn't rend flesh and muscle, always missing by a hair when he twisted aside or rolled away, wings folded, and then with a few powerful beats dropped on it again.
Powerful jaws closed on the owl's wing, splintering it and the owl screamed.
But it refused to give in and the bat refused to give it any oppurtunity, driving the bird into the human's glass suns, each exploding, shearing feathers from the owl's back before blinking out forever. He did this like it was effortless. Like it was nothing.
The bird was fading, its eyes glazing with pain, and when it hit the concrete the force of the fall snapped its neck.
Sparrow fluttered onto a caged and rumbling vent, watching the stranger tear a strip of flesh from the dead bird, red smearing across its pale feathers and leaking onto the cold stone. Swooping from behind, a more ragged giant jittered impatiently for a share. Alarmed, Sparrow leapt off the vent to usher Marina and Shade away just as they reached the rooftop, and the sound caused the two strangers to pause and join her on the other side, the gruesome remains tucked safely away.
"Ah, tiny bats. Do you think they can understand-"
"We understand you fine," Sparrow said.
"Forgive me," the large bat said, bowing his head. His tongue slid across his teeth, clearing away some of the owl's blood and he smiled.
Marina added distance between herself and the strange, violent travelers. Gargoyles come to life, just as the pigeons feared.
"I am Goth. This sad creature is my brother-in-law, Throbb."
"I'm Shade, and this is Marina and Sparrow."
Still stealing discreet glances at the newcomers, Marina flinched at the sound of her name.
"We are new to these lands. Torn away from our home."
"Us too!" Shade beamed.
"We have much in common," Goth said. "We are hoping to fly home, but we cannot read these northern stars. We need help to navigate, and it seems we cannot turn to other species for aid."
"You could travel with us! We're heading south too, looking for my colony."
Marina's elbow slammed into his gut. "Shade!"
"What? It's true."
"We're delighted for your hospitality," he said, bowing once more. Smiling, but he was watching his brother-in-law, and Sparrow couldn't be sure who the smile was for, only that it was uncomfortable, like some inside joke she couldn't understand. "Allow us to repay you by offering our protection. It's clear these owls have no respect for the people they share the sky with."
Shade's eyes lit up, body humming with restless anticipation. They could make better time with escorts this powerful, be less on edge.
"So," Goth said, "Where next?"
Pointing to the faded stars of a polluted sky, Shade grinned.
"We follow this star until the city is out of sight and then the Sound Map that my mother sang to me will show us the way."
"Aw, lead on then my friend," Goth said spreading wings that could have filled the night.
And with a final, mournful look towards the crumpled owl, they took to the skies, angling south, with the humans' lights at their tails.
"How do you little bats survive this cold?" Goth asked after a luckless hour browsing in the open forest, scavenging insects while seeking any signs of the Silverwings. The windswept maple Goth clung to sagged under his weight and he dropped to a lower, sturdier branch that put him at eye level with Shade. "Where we are from it is warm and sunny all year round. The trees aren't ugly like this. Makes a bat grow to a reasonable size."
He laughed with abandon, flaring his wings their full three foot span. "As a prince I am a magnificent specimen, even by my colony's standards. But that's to be expected."
Leaning in to Sparrow's ear, Marina hissed playfully. "Imagine being that full of yourself."
"I ain't complaining," she hissed back.
"You're impressed!"
"No!"
"Aw, admit it!"
Sparrow batted her away. "Alright, alright. Look at Shade before you go judging me. I think his soul might be about to leave his body."
"Oh yeah. He's really sensitive about his size, you know."
"Doesn't realize he'll grow eventually, does he?"
"Not that much."
"That would be-"
"Frightening. It would be frightening," Marina said, suddenly quite serious. "He'd probably kill Brutus himself."
"The sadist owl you mentioned?"
Growing ever more curious, Marina moved closer to the conversation.
"How did you end up so far from home?" she asked.
"The, hmm, royal guard was not acting with its ears wide open," Goth said, catching Throbb in the corner of his eye. "The day the humans captured us, banded us, and brought us here to be imprisoned. I see you were also taken prisoner by those repulsive humans, senorita. Aw, common ground, it grows like the jungle vines."
Sparrow's attention peaked. How far north had they been carried by the whims of humans?
"What's a jungle?" Shade asked.
"A jungle?" Goth laughed, wings snapping open again. "A jungle is an explosion of colour born in the heat and the sun! We live as we choose in ourjungle, with the warmth on our wings and our bellies never empty. We eat only the most succulent of small birds, the tastiest of lizards, and other small animals."
And he snapped his teeth a hair from Shade's nose.
Shade laughed, jumping back.
"Enough about me. What about you?"
"Oh well, hah! We Silverwings live as we choose to too. Like the rule that bats can't look at the sun? Well I did! Even if the owls didn't like it."
"Didn't like it?" Marina snapped. "They burned down your roost!"
Even though Shade had retold the event countless times now, Sparrow hated to think of it. That there was no loss of life was nothing short of miraculous and she had the same idle thought Shade had. What if all animals stole fire from the humans? What if a bat crept quietly into the nests of owls?
"Why did your males not save you?" Goth asked.
"They weren't-"
"A hundred tiny bats against a flock of owls?" Chuckling quietly, Sparrow fluttered towards Goth, dropping beside him. "You can think critically, can't you?"
"She's right. We're too little. We were getting ready to migrate to Stonehold, to join the males, when our roost was burned down. I hate the owls almost as much as I hate the Treaty!"
"Treaty?"
"Basically, the bats were punished for not taking sides in the Battle of the Birds and the Beasts. That's why we have to fly at night."
"Nonsense mythology," Sparrow growled. "Of something that happened outside of memory. It doesn't bind you in the south, does it?"
Goth shook his head, eyes fixed on Shade. Of course, what did he have to fear? No owl could harm him or his colony. No bird could dare bring fire to the home of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of these giants.
"I could bring some of my people north, to end this persecution-"
"You would not make the flight north, if you even make it south," Sparrow said, blinking serenely.
"Do you enjoy the company of this cynic? Though, it does sound ridiculous, doesn't it? Bats afraid to fly in the sun. You must have been very brave to defy the owls. Your father must be very proud."
Shade smiled, but it was a flicker of pride that opened an old wound and Goth looked for a moment like he regretted the platitude.
"I don't have a father. Cassiel, my dad, disappeared while scouting one night. They say the owls got him."
"A boy without a father," Goth said, a wing over Shade's shoulder. "I'm sorry, Shade."
For awhile they lapsed into silence, wordlessly taking to the sky again.
Maybe Goth was what Shade needed, Sparrow thought after some time, watching them flying together, eventually chatting idly about the Goth's homeland as if Shade might visit it somenight. Something neither Marina nor Sparrow could give him, someone to fill the space left by his father, even if perhaps just the role of an older brother. Goth could provide that, for now.
But Shade was very young, very impressionable, and the spectral bat was young himself. He didn't see far enough into the future. He didn't see the long lasting consequences his choices would leave behind in the north.
As the glow of the city faded, the countryside opened into a large swath of forest devoid of human interference. A dawn chorus swelled in tempo by the time Sparrow returned from her scout for shelter and so with faltering wings and tired eyes they swept into a low cavern at the edge of the escarpment, Goth and Throbb barely squeezing through the entrance. Sparrow's echoes swept the chamber a second time, and she landed on an outcrop just large enough to fit her, Shade, and Marina.
"I'm tired, I'm going to sleep," Marina said loudly, her voice echoing around the cavern, but her whispers tickled Sparrow's ear. "We should all talk. When our voices won't travel."
Later and blessed by good fate, nightfall brought ideal conditions for covert conversations, a headwind that carried their voices away from the spectral bats deep in their own one side conversation. Primarily, Throbb's whining.
Even Shade, who'd spent the last of twilight listening to Goth's tales, dropped back to join the girls. Marina glared, almost as if she planned to tell him off, but turned to Sparrow instead flying as tightly as possible so that their wing tips brushed every few beats.
"What did you see?" Marina hissed. "Why did you wave me off?"
"To see what they had done to the owl."
"We know they killed it."
"It looked horrible. Ripped apart."
Shuddering, Marina's attention returned to the valley.
"There's no sign of my colony," Shade said.
"Then they must have moved on. We'll find them," Marina said. "But there's the other thing."
"Other thing?"
"Traveling with carnivorous bats. Don't you see a problem with that, Shade?"
"No, why should I?"
"They could be dangerous," Sparrow added.
"Didn't Zephyr just tell us not to think someone is an enemy so quickly? They're bats and they're lost, just like us."
"Yes, but, you saw them kill that owl like it was nothing," Marina insisted.
"It tried to kill us first! Besides, we eat bugs. That probably grosses them out. They're living things too."
"It's hardly the same! You're a bit older than us," she told Sparrow. "What do you think?"
"Let them, what did he say? 'Offer our protection'," Sparrow said in a high pitched mockery of Goth. "But we watch them."
"Your wing's not looking so good," she said, even the thought sending a spike of pain down Sparrow's swollen fingers. She wished Marina would stop reminding her.
"It'll be fine after some sleep."
"I think we've reach the southern valley," Shade said.
Goth appeared with Throbb, the tail of a rat disappearing into the smaller bat's mouth.
Beating his wings as hard as he could, Shade rose vertically to capture an image of the entire quiet, lonely valley.
"How are we ever gonna find your colony, Shade?"
"You know," Goth said, breezing by Marina, "migration is such a strange part of your culture. How do you remember the way?"
"I've a Sound Map my mother sang to me but it's hard to know what it means sometimes. It's flashes of images."
"Not a Star Map? Interesting. Perhaps you could see this map and we can figure it out together?"
Strangling a gasp before it could be heard, Marina's eyes bore into Shade longing for his attention, to stop him before it was too late, but the Silverwing's eyes were already closed, he was already letting song fill his head.
"Focus, Shade," Goth said, soft as breath.
"The cathedral we passed, this valley. I see light- fire! Coming out of thin branches, except they're vertical. It's like towers of fire."
"Not so hard. You've given us something to work with, Shade," Goth said, brimming with what might be ambition or what might be brotherly pride. Yet quick as it came, his nose caught a new scent and his attention turned. "Hmm, please excuse us. The food here is... not worth wasting."
Grinning with abundant glee, together the two bats dropped away.
Marina swung around, teeth bared. "How could you just blurt out your Sound Map like that? I told you the Maps are secrets of each colony when we were on the island!"
"You know," Shade said, shoving his face into hers, "sometimes I feel like you were on that island so long you don't know how to trust a friend."
"Better friendless than this clueless!" She flung herself higher, putting more distance between them. But Shade had already turned away.
"Why do you think the humans band us?" Shade asked, curiosity putting him in better spirits.
"Envy. Human arrogance," Goth said, spitting as if 'human' were a dirty word he was above saying. "To steal the abilities they lack. They're blind by night."
Marina frowned. "Maybe the band means something good."
Scoffing, Goth said, "Such as?"
"I don't know, something special."
"Something special. I'd be careful how much trust you put in these humans. When they banded me and Throbb they trapped us in a false jungle, and blinded us with lights, and pierced our skin with needles. I don't think they're our friends." He stopped, seeing the distress on Shade's face.
"Maybe the bands mean something more meaningful," Marina whispered, clutching her own, eyes downcast. The humans had been kind with her. The night they banded her they'd stroked her head gently until she wasn't afraid. Then they let her go.
"Maybe," Goth said. "Maybe there is a different meaning to the bands. I only wish to look out for your safety, senorita Marina. Disappointment is a horrible feeling. You should be wary if you cross paths with the humans again."
Joining Marina, Shade shook his head because there must be different sorts of humans. Good and bad.
"My elders told me the humans band us because Nocturna guided them to. As a sign of a promise so we can fly in the sun again. The bands look like the sun."
"Hmm. How do you learn about something older than even memory?" Goth asked.
"We have Echo Chambers in our roosts where bats sing their stories and they bounce off the walls forever."
"And you think a goddess sang this story?"
"I think so... or a bat who was there when Nocturna promised," Shade said. "The elder of my colony showed me and I trust her."
"The Vampyrum Spectrum have no such childish stories, and we're much more relaxed for it."
Marina dropped any pretense of friendliness, seething openly with her jaw tensed as if she were going to bite him, and afraid of further escalation Sparrow jostled her off the branch.
"So what do you we call you while you're in our northern culture? Vampirewing? Artificial-Sunwing? Maybe Rainbowwing?
"What are you, then?" Goth snapped back. "Hoarwing?"
Sparrow growled; Goth smiled. "I've seen your people in the jungle. Sometimes they go too far."
Hissing Marina swept by, Shade on her tail.
"That Brightwing is starting to annoy me," Goth said, glancing down at Sparrow. "Almost as much as this cynic. It looks like Shade might need help consoling her. Perhaps follow him, senorita?"
Anything to be away from their whining she thought, disappearing into the defoliating canopy.
"Let's be done with her," Throbb hissed.
"Patience."
A gentle swoosh of wings rowing, and then a chuckle, and their shadows passed over Sparrow as one.
Post chapter rambles also known as author's notes.
haha hoarwing.
Hoary bats are named for their fur looking like hoar frost and sometimes they do migrate quite far south.
Yeah that's the worst pun of my life but if I had to experience it so do all of you.
You may notice I have somewhat changed the Towers of Fire description. In the show Shade's map looks like a nuclear plant, but when they arrive it's just a power relay station. It would be possible for bats to mistake steam as fire, but that's not a feature of a relay station. What does Shade see? Guess you'll have to keep torturing yourself to find out! :D
There'll be less horrible puns, I swear.
Kjox5: Thank you for the comment! I honestly didn't expect to get any feedback! Hope this chapter didn't disappoint.