I don't own the story, characters, names, hershey, cadillacs...
Lura: What's a cadillac?
Serasia: A shiny red human thing that they use to go places. The ones that can afford it that is. Here's a picture.
Lura: (Squints) Looks gray to me.
Chapter Three
Another set of fangs sank into the human hand and ripped away, causing the hand to withdraw sharply, but it came back almost instantly and was waving a sharp looking stick. It jabbed towards Marina, who was waiting for Lura to fly out; the Silverwings had escaped to safety and they were the only ones left. But thanks to the human, they might not make it out at all. The stick was going closer to Marina, who was trapped by the waving hand holding the stick. Rage toward the human filled Lura as she thought of them giving her human a bad name, hurting her fellow bats, using them to fight their dumb wars. Her mouth shot open and a series of echoes issued from her throat, and shattered the sharp stick, sending liquid and glass everywhere. Marina shot past the hand and through the flap. Lura followed, and the flap fell down right as they went through, almost trapping their tail membranes under it. Pumping their wings hard they flew up the chute and into the night, being greeted by a swirl of Silverwing bats. Lura jerked her head over at Marina and grinned, tired but elated. "We did it, we did it!" She exclaimed happily.
"Now to find Shade!" Marina grinned widely back, circling Lura, and then shot towards two Silverwing bats: one elderly looking one and an adult female, who were staring at them both anxiously, with almost a hint of fear. Marina spoke to them but before she could tell them about Lura the adult Silverwing coasted over to Lura and looked her up and down, then sighed. "Is...something wrong?"
"I mistook you for my son...it was far enough away that...I thought Marina had found Shade and brought him back to help, even after she said he was taken..." She looked away, perhaps in sorrow and fear for her son, and then glanced back at Lura. "Are you Marina's friend?" The aforementioned flew closer and introduced the Graywing.
"Ariel, this is Lura. Lura, I'm sure you figured it out already but this is Ariel, Shade's mother. Lura helped me keep the flap open while you all got out. Lura has been captured by the humans once too, and they put one of the discs on her!" Marina turned to the Graywing, who lurched away and widened her eyes. "Tell them how they did it," Marina implored, "We need to know, and if it happened to more than one bat with us they'll be more likely to believe us and stay with our group." A brightly furred wing gestured to the small amount of Silverwings that had escaped the building. The Graywing slowly shook her head. "No...I can't. I'm sorry." Marina was about to snap, insisting that she tell them, but Ariel flared a wing and shook her head at the Brightwing. "Not yet. She may seem fine, but she still needs to recover from an experience like that. Give her time, and she may tell us." Marina frowned and hung her head, then blinked and glanced back up at Lura who was hovering warily a few wingspans away. "Sorry, Lura. I saw Shade get all that stuff attached to him, and that was pretty bad, but it didn't actually happen to me. So..." She started to apologize again but Lura smiled. "It's ok. I'll...be able to talk about it later. If it'll help then..." She sighed and looked away. Ariel led the two back to Frieda, and Lura found out that she was the Chief Elder of the Silverwing Colony. She'd seen Silverwings before, but never been this close to actually talk to one of them, let alone two, or even be around a whole colony. "How many migrations have you been on, Lura?" Ariel looked across her wing at Lura, who seemed about Shade's size, so it wasn't hard for her to guess but she just wanted to make friendly conversation.
"One and that's it. Just, well...half of one." She broke off and Marina thought she saw her shudder. "My parents and the rest of our colony were flying through the snowy mountains but we were attacked by owls. They killed a few of our colony right off in an ambush, and we didn't even have time to fly away. My best friends were...and my mother and father..." her wings were shuddering so violently now Marina found it amazing that she could still fly. Ariel flew in close and wrapped her wings around the young Graywing, pulling her close to her chest fur. By instinct Lura dug her claws into Ariel's fur and cried into it, staining it a dark gray as her tears leaked over Lura's muzzle. It hit Marina suddenly; just before Shade and she had arrived at the small cabin in the mountains, they'd found hundreds of wings severed from bodies, wings that once belonged to Graywings, discarded because owls couldn't eat those because there was hardly any meat on them. That must have been Lura's colony, but she felt it best not to mention that, ever.
"Mom yelled for me to fly, and I did, but an owl followed me after it got her and almost caught me. But then..." she broke off and squeezed her eyes shut before continuing, "I was caught in one net, and the owl was caught in another. I saw their faces and I knew it was humans. The owl was thrashing around, and they stuck it with one of those sticks that tried to get you earlier, Marina, and they stuck me too. I fell asleep, woke up, and I had a chain with a disc stitched to my stomach, and it was already starting to hurt. The reached something toward my ear and squeezed it around the outer skin, and it hurt so bad I thought I'd choke. After they put the disc on the chain I could barely fly with the darn thing after they dumped me out over the city. I realized then that all the bats had a metal stud in their ears, maybe telling them to go toward the building, because they looked hypnotized or something. Mine musta not worked," She twitched her head, causing her ear to flap. Ariel and Marina saw a small metal silver dot in the membrane, and the ear itself was inflamed and puffy.
Lura rubbed it painfully and continued, "I saw everyone else flying to the building, getting consumed by fire, and not one came out. I knew I would die if I went where they were. I flew away from the city and couldn't help it; my wings just fell straight to my sides and I hit the ground. I waited for some animal to come get me because I knew I couldn't fly anymore, I was exhausted. That's when the human female found me though, and she took me to get the disc and chain off me. Well, I didn't know what she was going to do; I wondered if she was taking me somewhere to kill me, but I woke up later and the disc and chain were gone. Even after that I didn't trust her at first—honestly who would—but afterwards I found she wasn't like the rest of them...I saw it, I felt it."
For a while Lura clung to Ariel's fur, then about a hundred wingbeats later she let go and flew in between Marina and Ariel. "You going to be alright?" They asked almost at the same time, and the Graywing nodded slowly. "Yeah, I am," she assured her friends, then asked, "So, what now? Are we going to go and find Shade?"
A/N: I think it's cute how Lura calls the human "her Human". Animals aren't pets anymore! X3 Whoa, there were a lot of mistakes. I am fixing them now, it should be easier to read. :)