Disclaimer: I don't own anything except for my characters.

Bold lettering is Spanish sentences translated to English for readers benefit.

To answer the question from Lithium Icewing(love your penname. You must really like Evanescence. If you do, I don't blame ya, Evanescence rocks!), I'm still thinking about when and how they'll meet Shade and Marina and whether they'll get along or not. If anyone has suggestions, feel free to tell me. Who knows, I might use them in the next chapter...

Chapter 7

Escape

"So hungry..." Hazel complained in their prison. Tachetee nodded and looked at the current owl guard. She slowly approached him.

"Um...excuse me. I don't mean to bother you but..." Hazel got to the point, coming up beside her friend.

"We're starving man!" she yelled. The owl ignored them.

Hazel growled and bristled, and before Tachetee could stop her, she took a peice of loose bark and threw it at the bird with all her strength.

"Hazel!" Tachetee exclaimed. The bark hit the owl on the back of the head. He turned and screeched.

The bats screamed and retreated to the back. The owl was about to barge in after them, but a nearby hoot was heard, and the guard forced himself to calm down. He resumed his job.

"I don't think he's allowed to hurt us." Tachetee pointed out. Hazel nodded with a mischievious grin. Tachetee got her message.

"Oh, no. Hazel don't."

But there was no stopping her friend. The troublemaking bat took another peice of bark and threw it at the owl again.

The bird forced himself to remain calm. Hazel threw another peice at him.

The next twenty minutes consisted of Hazel playing her new found game. Tachetee gave up trying to get Hazel to stop. She only watched, occasionally shaking her head in pity.

For the owl, those twenty minutes seemed to go on forever. Every time he screeched at Hazel, he would only get a minute or two of peace before the bat recovered her courage to continue.

Hazel threw another one of her endless supply of bark. It bounced off his back. He cringed, waiting for his shift to be over. Another bark hit him on top of his head.

Finally, another owl came to relieve him. He laughed maniacally as he left to get some well-deserved sleep.

Hazel was thinking about playing her game with this owl, but she listened to what Tachetee had to say this time.

"Let this one alone Hazel. I got a plan that might get us a meal." her friend said. Hazel nodded as Tachetee approached the newbie owl.

She filled her lungs and began to sing.

It appears Tachetee has many talents, from being alert in her sleep to understanding dreams instinctively at an early age. But that's the least of it. One of her most special and most useful gifts was to sing.

Not a normal song, but a kind of lullaby that can make anyone aimed at fall asleep. She guessed it had something to do with the echos or something.

Hazel pinned her ears flat, so she was deaf to the song. She knew what to expect. Tachetee uses the song to get restless newborns and other creatures to sleep.

The owl was already tired to begin with, having been awaken for his shift. So it didn't take long for him to fall into dreamland.

Tachetee stopped, and Hazel relaxed her ears to their normal upright position.

Reaching herself as far as she could between the bars (No she can't squeeze out. She's too big), Hazel made the bite and they both managed to feed from the large bird before it woke up.

It became aware of the wound and stared at the bats inside the prison. They tried to look inconspicuous, but their looks wasn't fooling anyone.

The owl let out a screech of alarm. The two bats gasped as more owls appeared on the scene. The guard showed them the wound and they looked at the teenagers with tons of hostility.

The friends gulped and tried to get away as the owls opened the cage and attempt to grab them. Almost inevitably, they were caught and flown to Brutus.

Court was in session.

Brutus scowled at them.

"Now you bats are in a whole new level trouble. Your punishment will be made worst because of another count of attempted murder." he said. "Remove their wings at once. That will be the first stage of their punishment."

"Hear us out for once. Let us explain everything." Tachetee exclaimed before the owls could begin their torture.

Brutus thought for a moment. Should he listen to them? Maybe it was necessary. He allowed them.

"As you know, we're Bloodwings. We feed on blood. We don't try to kill anyone, we just want a meal. If we go more than two nights without food, we'll die. And since you were pretty much starving us in that cage, we had no choice but to turn on the guard." Tachetee started.

Hazel joined in.

"We are just here for adventure. We don't want to hurt anybody. If you don't want us to feed off you, just ask. Not try to kill us like everyone does. We understand that being part of the natural order of food is hard. But it's natural."

"You bats are not natural. You don't belong here. And you made your choices, now you must suffer the consequence." Brutus said balefully.

Before any harm can be done to them, Hazel and Tachetee made a break for it.

The owls, of course, tried to stop them, but began their chase a little too late. Almost without effort, Hazel and Tachetee out-flew the owls and went off into the dark unknown.

"You learn anything?" Tachetee asked. Hazel nodded.

"Next time, let's not get a meal from Giant Chickens. They taste good, but not worth it in the end."

Tachetee nodded in agreement. After a pause, she looked at Hazel.

"You wanna go back south?" she asked. Hazel looked at her in surprise.

"No. We got a lot more adventures ahead of us!"

I'm so terribly sorry it took this long for the chapter. I'm grounded and the papers I wrote this story on as practice was taken away as part of my punishment. I hope there aren't any hard feelings...if their is, know this:

IT'S NOT MY FAULT!!!!!

Zealak Silverdirk, about the writing thing with the past and present tense all together, it's sort of an unbreakable habit for me...:-)