Maelstrom
So wrong and confused. How? Why?
Driven onward. Kin laughing at her from the surrounding shadows.
Terrible truth snapping at her tail. Her burden alone. They would not understand how wrong she had been- had probably been. If they did, they would turn tail for certain. Friends were only such if they gained or benefited. Were they not? Too much of a risk to bear. Too much to lose.
Between the waterfalls, down the long, dark cavern into the first chamber, a side-passage lined with light-rocks on all sides.
Flight passing in mere wingbeats, or in a full dark-light cycle of the above. Which? Unknowable. Racing breaths and thoughts.
What kind of Alpha would be so weak and blind? Too fast to conclude about the many from experience with the few. Judging without even knowing. Needing answers which fit into what was necessary to justify actions which-
Which protected others for their own good? Which gained her more power and status of her own?
Her limbs weak and wings weary, she heavily touched down, caught her breath, and looked around. The enormous chamber was as empty as it likely always was, there being little green or food nearby. The largest and brightest crystal of all, upon which her sire-father had once perched, held the same warmth she had felt last time she found this chamber. No other kin were in sight, only a few faint roars echoing from beyond.
Alone at last.
She slowly made her way out on the crystal toward its tip. She took a pawful of deep breaths to steady herself and struggle with the terrible, inescapable truth. No avoiding the obvious anymore.
The ground-kin which the dark wings and their kin were protecting were not foul or monsters at all. The fellow kin in that pack felt safe and were not being used except as they agreed for the good of the mixed-pack. There were too many examples of cooperating to ignore. They could not all be thought-twisted. Ground-kin offering grooming and food, and young ground-kin playing and bonding with dark wing fledglings and other kin. No sign at all of any planning to attack other packs.
Perhaps the ground-kin had once been more like the trapping two-legs of the above but had changed. Shadowwing and his kin had likely helped in making that change. How had that been so difficult to see? Why so suspicious and determined to see the worst in the different life-kind?
Did her own experience of being trapped by two-legs in the above for countless cycles, starved, parched, struck, and isolated, explain or create that need for-
For a purpose to her life-flight? A goal to pursue?
Justice? Revenge? What was the difference, if any?
She opened her eyes and looked around, imagining countless kin on the ground all around. Safe under her protection, or his protection. Her sire-father had been Alpha for all kin from here.
Sire-father. What would he have done? He surely knew about the two-legs, though he had never mentioned them. Would he have welcomed the ground-kin, or refused them a place with kin? As far as she knew, there were no other packs with ground-kin before the New-Haven-Pack, which only came to the hidden ranges after his death.
As long as they did not harm the other packs, there was no harm in them staying. So what if they shaped the range they lived in to their benefit? Light wings did the same in other ways to their own ranges, intentionally growing certain food-mushrooms and plants with help-helping purposes.
Ground-kin were not monsters. If anything, the only monster was- was-
A cold wind chilled her life-fire as the truth became clear. Wanting harm on those who had not wronged anyone, using their presence to justify spreading fear, and betraying their trust to plan attack on a peaceful pack. Monstrous.
Her a monster? What? When did that happen? What could force her to be a-
Motivation. What better and stronger motivation was there than revenge? Revenge kept her alive and strong in the darker and deeper ranges, determined to escape and kill the Alpha who attacked and force-mated her. Revenge gave her strength and defiance against the two-legs while in their traps above.
Revenge against a wrong or injustice, real or imagined.
Experience and purpose to define herself with, and an enemy to oppose.
Power to claim.
She hung her head and looked down at her disturbed or fearful image in the light-rock. It blinked with her, and its eyes were intense.
Without that enemy or purpose, who- what even was she? Revenge, like a fire, needed to consume to live. Without opposition, what was left?
No answer.
Nothing.
Her own eyes staring back into her.
A tugging pull.
Who would need or trust her? Her pack would not need protection or want her.
How could she trust herself at all in anything? Failed judgment and flawed vision.
No answer.
A pounding headache.
Weak and weary on her paws.
Swirling lights and spinning clouds all around the light-rock.
Eyes narrowed to dark, empty slits.
Countless voices from all directions.
Falling and spinning.
Her image glowed in the light-rock, or was that actually the light-rock itself? No, it had to be her own image and-
Her image moved, its head tilted wrongly to the side, "So weak."
The voice was familiar and terrible. A hissing teasing which had once been warm and welcoming, the only voice she heard for too many waking-cycles. The only other life-fire or voice which had stayed with her in isolation. In misery back then, the voice had felt welcoming and known, now only foul.
"I told you to leave me alone!" she growled at Nameless.
Why did Nameless have such a clearer image this time? An image of her own shape instead of a shadow on the ground or a dark haze in the corner of her view.
Nameless stretched wide wings which dimly burned within the light-rock.
She bared her teeth and bent down closer to the light-rock, "Leave me and never return!"
Nameless leaned closer to her, as if to touch her nose through the light-rock, "Make us."
How could Nameless speak to her life-fire at all? No satisfactory answer ever given. The shadow-life had perhaps always been there.
Taunting, teasing, and defiance in those empty eyes staring back at her.
Not weaker life, not Omega, not light wings, nothing could resist.
Her life-fire and thoughts reaching out, flaming aside the dark mist, leaping inside with a defiant roar, and-
There was no dark kin here. Nameless was nowhere and nothing. There was nothing except her own awareness. Her own life-fire and-
A swirling, smothering cloud with-
Chaotic wind.
Voices echoing and whispering from all directions.
Painful howls.
Cries of loss.
Moans of pain.
Traps everywhere.
Shattered eggs.
Fallen nestmates.
Countless kin deaths over season-cycles.
True memories.
Lived experiences.
Kin long since dead.
All because of two-legs.
Echoes of the past demanding justice.
Clinging to hope.
Crying out as one voice.
Completely uncontrollable and smothering.
Too much.
Too chaotic.
Too many voices clamoring.
Too many life-fires to touch through the-
Clinging to the light-rock against the wind and storm.
Fear. Powerless.
Too many flashes of memories. Overbearing grief weighing down wings and thought. All warmth departed from the world. No good in the world and life, only pain and loss and need. Too much to know. Too much to feel. Stop feeling.
Countless connections and life-fires. Too many to control. Boundless power for the storm's taking.
A lone voice or a multitude of voices whispered from the chaos.
"Since when were you in control?"
Alpha fire-scale roused himself, aimlessly staring ahead.
Obey Alpha.
Alpha him, yes? No, obey Alpha. Not him.
Fly. Fight. Kill. Flame.
Vision of a range of summoning to fly and-
He blinked and looked around at his range and his pack and his fellow fire-scales silently flying to-
Summoning. Obey. Yes, obey.
Alpha command. No think. Yes, fly.
Vision fading.
Obey.
Listening.
Flying.
Obeying.
Sharp-wing-tree-cutter obeyed.
Summoning answering.
Flying above other kin.
Listening.
Flying.
Obeying.
Spine-tail obeyed.
Summoning answering.
Flying among other kin.
Listening.
Flying.
Obeying.
Listening to Them.
Flying for Them.
Obeying Them.
Digs-For-Roots and his packmates on guard remained silent and alert, trying to stay out of sight as they watched the flight passing before them. Countless tens of other kin were flying in one flight with no snapping at each other, flaming, or even roaring. None of the kin were even calling out or making any noise other than that of flight. There were far too many to fight against or flame away if the swarming kin were to attack them or New-Flame-Pack. Where were these kin flying, and why?
If only their great Alpha Skadi was back with them, she might know, having seen far more of the ranges than anyone else. She might have seen these large gatherings before, and she might know what had recently happened even to them.
The entire pack was concerned after everyone started hearing indistinguishable yet beckoning whispers which only slowly faded along with head-pains.
What was happening?
Reflection stiffened, motionless on her paws. A thought-call, a tortured command soared across distance, life-fire to life-fire. Dominating and hollow, with strength claimed from elsewhere. Echoes lingering long after they should have faded.
Vision of a range of summoning to fly to and-
Summoning.
An Alpha to obey.
She shook her head and carved her long claws against the rock underpaw. The whispered thought-call stopped-faded-silenced. Gone.
No. She had no Alpha and answered to nothing except her inside-voice and loyalty to close-kin and friends. What could cry out with such power that even here she could feel it?
Fear chilled her liver. The range in the vision was familiar, as She-Who-Sees had described it once. One great and powerful kin had claimed that location as his from where he was the High-Alpha. There was only one kin which could have called in such a way across the linking oneness touching all kin.
But why would Skadi have done that? Her suspicion of the two-legs was great, but summoning countless kin to battle would be far too hasty. Especially without confiding in her first.
Perhaps Skadi had not.
Guilt. Why had she not confronted Skadi about the wispy rot leeching from her life-fire? That thought-parasite could not have been natural. Had Skadi known about it? Could anything have been done earlier? Too late now.
The dark wings likely had no idea what had just happened. Unprepared. Was it even possible to prepare for what was coming?
