A/N - Okay, so I think this is my favorite chapter so far. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed watching it. Don't forget to review! -bitemark
Chapter 8 - Storytime
"Sure," I told her, they all circled around me. Katie sat in my lap and all the others crowded so close they may as well have been in my lap. I looked around. "Do you want a story from the Singing World, or the Ice World?"
"Singing!" a majority of them yelled. I smiled.
"Singing it is." I declared. "Well, on the Singing World, everyone is a bat. But not like the bats on Earth. These bats are pretty, with feathery wings and soft fur all over their body. They're all different colors of the rainbow - pink, purple, blue, yellow - even some colors that don't even exist here on Earth. The bat's can't see, because they're bats, but they can sing. The speak a language you've never heard and have the prettiest voices you've ever heard."
"Even prettier than Cinderella's?" one little girl asked. I nodded and her eyes widened.
"Even prettier than Cinderella's voice. They sing songs about what it would be like to see, and about flying, and all sorts of good things.
"Then one day, there was a bat that could see. Her name was Sees What We Sing About. She described the world to all the other bats. What the planet looked like, what the bets looked like, what the whole universe looked like. She traveled all over the world singing to the bats about where they lived, and what they looked like. Bats would come from all over just to here her sing.
"Sees sang about the plants that were a dark shade of green, and that had big, fat leaves that were held up by skinny stalks, some so high that the weight of the leaves bent them. She sang about the blue waters that moved with the wind and with all the moons of the planet that held all the fish. She sang about all the moons, at least fifty, that hung high and white in the sky amongst all of the stars that shared the night. She sung about the huge orange sun, and how it burned hot in the day, but was a cool blue when it set over the horizon.
"Then one day, Sees woke up and couldn't sing. She couldn't make any noise at all, she had lost her voice. The only way to get back her voice was to give up her sight. It was the hardest decision she had ever had to make. She didn't know what to do. If she gave up her sight so she could sing to the other bats again, she wouldn't be able to tell them what the world looked like. But if she didn't get her voice back, she wouldn't be able to sing again.
Then one day, Sees met a very handsome bat named Voice of Chimes who had heard of her problem. He was willing to give up his voice to her if only she would kiss him. She agreed, and he gave her his voice. She kissed him, like she said she would, and when she did, she fell in love. She lived happily ever after with Voice, traveling all over the world to sing. Voice never sang again, but he was always happy to listen to Sees sing about what she saw."
I looked at all the kids, and they were all staring off into space, imagining what I had just told them. It surprised me that the story had come so easily, since none of it had been true. The bats weren't different colors, they looked almost identical to bats on Earth, just larger. Some of it was the truth, but the majority wasn't. The bats couldn't see, they couldn't lose their voice, and they couldn't give their voice to another bat.
It was then that I noticed all the adults were standing around listening. They were also a little spacey, trying to picture what I had told him. Then I caught Wanda's eye and she smiled at me. I blushed, she, of course, knew what the world was like and knew I had been lying. I turned my head to see Holden staring straight at me, his arms over his chest. I turned even more red and looked away.
"Time for dinner kids," Jeb's gruff voice sounded over everyone's thoughts. The kids got up and ran down one of the tunnels. I stood up a noticed Katie standing, waiting for me.
"Are you going to eat dinner Katie?" I looked around and noticed all the adults had returned to their jobs. I looked back down at her.
"Will you come with me?" she asked.
"Okay," she held out her hand and I took it. "You might have to show me through the tunnels, I still don't know them yet." She giggled and we started down the tunnel, she was ecstatic about showing someone around. She led me down the tunnel and into the kitchen, then ran over to get a plate and sat down beside Holden.
He was so sweet to her, and all the other children, but he paid more attention to Katie. I stood slightly in the door off to the side, and got to really look at Holden for the first time. He had crystal green eyes lined with thick lashes, a chiseled nose, a full mouth and a sharp jaw line. His hark was a dark brown and was messy, in a good way, and thick eyebrows. He had broad shoulders and thick biceps and forearms with wide hands on the end.
"Katie is Holden's niece," I jumped and turned to see a woman with salt and pepper gray hair and trusting blue eyes standing behind me. I smiled and turned back to watch Holden and Katie. "Katie was Holden's sister's child. She was taken as a host a while back. He found this place and brought Katie with him. She's such a sweet child, Holden treats her like his own. He promised his sister that he would take care of her, and he kept that promise. If anything harms a hair on that child's head, it's good as well dead."
"How old is Holden?" I asked. She motioned for me to follow her over to one of the counters where there was a big blob of dough.
"Wash your hands," she pointed to a big bucket with water in it. "You don't need your foot for this kind of work." I followed her directions and walked over beside her and watched as she cut the giant lump into two smaller ones and placed one in front of me. "Knead."
I did and looked over my shoulder at Holden.
"How old is he?" I asked. She smiled at me.
"He's a very handsome little thing. I can see why your interested in him." I blushed and looked back down at my bread, concentrating on punching into the bread, then folding it over itself over and over and over again. She reminded me of Leeann's grandmother. "But he's about twenty-three or twenty-four, pretty close to your age if I'm correct." I nodded.
"How did he get here?" I asked.
"I think Ian gave him the lines, they're cousins but they act like brothers. Kyle, he's out on a raid right now, but you'll meet him when he comes back, found him in the desert on a sweep. Poor thing, had barely eaten or drank anything for almost a week, sacrificing himself for Katie." It never ceased to amaze me how one race could be so selfish but yet so selfless at the same time. "But Katie likes you, so you don't have anything to worry about. She's got him wrapped around her little finger."
"Oh really?" I jumped and turned around, dropping the dough on the counter, to see Holden staring down at me. I was absolutely horrified.
A/N - Don't forget to review!
