Found
Title: Found
Word Count: 1,071
Notes: Takes place a few days after the events of The Winged Ones.
Summary: Not every Winged One was in Altus Terra when it was assaulted by nature. One even survived, in a way.
For murder_of_raven's request.
Found
He was barely alive when they found him. Grains of sand had dug furrows into his skin, the red winds scraping away layer after layer of skin in thin lines across his chest, legs, arms, and back, until he looked like he was slowly unraveling from the core of his being. His wings… his beautiful white wings with tints of green and blue around the outer edges of his feathers… they were half-shredded, the feathers bent or torn away from their frame by the high winds. He had taken shelter under the tattered remains of a canvas covering, driven by instinct as he saw the sands rise into the air west of his caravan.
It was the only reason he was still alive.
They removed the canvas from his body with some difficulty. The sands had torn through parts of the canvas to get to his flesh and now the two were bound by blood. The largest One With Fur picked up the injured Winged One easily, holding him like a young child as another examined the wounds on his body. The third and last One With Fur was the one who had discovered him, a young child whose fur was still short and fine. After being confined to her home for a few days, she needed to go for a long walk and had heard harsh breathing under a bloody canvas. Unsure what to do with the wounded creature; she had fetched the healer and her father.
He seemed to regain some consciousness in the healer’s home amidst the scents of herbs and spices, mumbling words in the musical tongue of his kindred as the healer washed his wounds. The child ran to and from the riverbed with pails of fresh water to replace those that had turned red, enlisting the help of her friends as a crowd gathered outside the healer’s hut. She heard whispers of unease from her elders, words of what had happened in the high lands and why they should not help this one, this doomed creature whose kin had cause the water to lose its purity. The unspoken thought going through the elders’ minds echoed through the air:
‘Will it happen to us?’
~^~^~
The Winged One regained coherence three days after his rescue, feeling as if fire had burned away most of the nerves of his body, leaving him in a numb, empty space. Words got tangled in his mouth when he tried to call out, clear thoughts unable to be shared because of a leaden tongue and a hollow ache in his throat. He was lying prone on his stomach, covered with a heavy coarse blanket found nowhere in Altus Terra. He tried to raise his head but his vision blurred almost immediately, forcing him to leave his head against his pillow and close his eyes.
A warm, furry hand patted the hair on his head, fingering his clean, fine hair soothingly. When no reassuring words were spoken, he opened his eyes again. At first he thought his vision was still blurry because the brownish wings of the person next to him seemed to enfold its whole body; but then he realized that the creature had no wings, just a thick layer of brown fur. Instinctively, he cringed away from the One With Fur, ordering his wings to cover his body from its sight. However, the blanket made no whisper of movement, and his back felt did not feel right.
It felt… barren.
He felt… as if something had been taken… something that was such a great part of him that… that….
‘MY WINGS!’ He meant to scream, but his throat still was not working. His breathing became faster and shallower as he felt adrenaline flood his system, allowing him to push himself up into a sitting position. The blanket fell away, and he fell with it, driven off-balance because of his missing wings. The creature knelt down beside him, trying to stop his thrashing before he ripped the bandages that kept him from bleeding to death, but he was no longer thinking.
His fingers found small stubs where his wings used to be as another One With Fur came into the hut, and froze. He didn’t notice that the newcomer had knelt down beside the other, did not notice how they spoke with their hands rather than words, did not notice that his stomach wounds were seeping blood or that sweat was pouring from his wounded body; his attention had narrowed to the space his fingers were touching. Stubs of hollow bone at his shoulder blades, indents covered in bandages where his wings used to spring from his back.
Gone.
He was sure he still had them when he pulled the canvas over his head. Absolutely sure. The sands had ravaged his wings, he remembered the excruciating pain… could not mistake it for anything else even if he tried. That meant that…
The smaller of the two creatures nodded.
He looked at the creatures with the wild eyes of one betrayed as his body trembled with the strain of staying upright. Tears fell down his cheeks as they stared at him impassively. ‘Why?’ he wanted to scream, ‘why did you do this? Why? Why? WHY?’
But he could only cry, voice stolen by the red sands of the West and the trauma to his body.
The large one picked him up easily and he did not fight as he was placed once again on the strange bedlike pile of blankets. He lay still as the small one covered him with some type of ointment, acting docile enough that the large one decided to leave again. Numbing cold seeped into his body again, and he realized that that was the reason he could even think with so many injuries.
When the large one came back, it was carrying a dead bird in his hand, its wings twisted into an odd angle, pinfeathers gone. He stared at the dead bird, uncomprehending, until the large one opened its other hand, revealing a bloody knife. It looked at him patiently as the healer covered him with the blanket again.
He started to cry again when he understood. To save his life, they had taken away his wings and his identity as a Winged One. Now, he was like them.
They did not seem to care that he would have rather died than be broken like this.
Word Count: 1,071
Notes: Takes place a few days after the events of The Winged Ones.
Summary: Not every Winged One was in Altus Terra when it was assaulted by nature. One even survived, in a way.
For murder_of_raven's request.
Found
He was barely alive when they found him. Grains of sand had dug furrows into his skin, the red winds scraping away layer after layer of skin in thin lines across his chest, legs, arms, and back, until he looked like he was slowly unraveling from the core of his being. His wings… his beautiful white wings with tints of green and blue around the outer edges of his feathers… they were half-shredded, the feathers bent or torn away from their frame by the high winds. He had taken shelter under the tattered remains of a canvas covering, driven by instinct as he saw the sands rise into the air west of his caravan.
It was the only reason he was still alive.
They removed the canvas from his body with some difficulty. The sands had torn through parts of the canvas to get to his flesh and now the two were bound by blood. The largest One With Fur picked up the injured Winged One easily, holding him like a young child as another examined the wounds on his body. The third and last One With Fur was the one who had discovered him, a young child whose fur was still short and fine. After being confined to her home for a few days, she needed to go for a long walk and had heard harsh breathing under a bloody canvas. Unsure what to do with the wounded creature; she had fetched the healer and her father.
He seemed to regain some consciousness in the healer’s home amidst the scents of herbs and spices, mumbling words in the musical tongue of his kindred as the healer washed his wounds. The child ran to and from the riverbed with pails of fresh water to replace those that had turned red, enlisting the help of her friends as a crowd gathered outside the healer’s hut. She heard whispers of unease from her elders, words of what had happened in the high lands and why they should not help this one, this doomed creature whose kin had cause the water to lose its purity. The unspoken thought going through the elders’ minds echoed through the air:
‘Will it happen to us?’
~^~^~
The Winged One regained coherence three days after his rescue, feeling as if fire had burned away most of the nerves of his body, leaving him in a numb, empty space. Words got tangled in his mouth when he tried to call out, clear thoughts unable to be shared because of a leaden tongue and a hollow ache in his throat. He was lying prone on his stomach, covered with a heavy coarse blanket found nowhere in Altus Terra. He tried to raise his head but his vision blurred almost immediately, forcing him to leave his head against his pillow and close his eyes.
A warm, furry hand patted the hair on his head, fingering his clean, fine hair soothingly. When no reassuring words were spoken, he opened his eyes again. At first he thought his vision was still blurry because the brownish wings of the person next to him seemed to enfold its whole body; but then he realized that the creature had no wings, just a thick layer of brown fur. Instinctively, he cringed away from the One With Fur, ordering his wings to cover his body from its sight. However, the blanket made no whisper of movement, and his back felt did not feel right.
It felt… barren.
He felt… as if something had been taken… something that was such a great part of him that… that….
‘MY WINGS!’ He meant to scream, but his throat still was not working. His breathing became faster and shallower as he felt adrenaline flood his system, allowing him to push himself up into a sitting position. The blanket fell away, and he fell with it, driven off-balance because of his missing wings. The creature knelt down beside him, trying to stop his thrashing before he ripped the bandages that kept him from bleeding to death, but he was no longer thinking.
His fingers found small stubs where his wings used to be as another One With Fur came into the hut, and froze. He didn’t notice that the newcomer had knelt down beside the other, did not notice how they spoke with their hands rather than words, did not notice that his stomach wounds were seeping blood or that sweat was pouring from his wounded body; his attention had narrowed to the space his fingers were touching. Stubs of hollow bone at his shoulder blades, indents covered in bandages where his wings used to spring from his back.
Gone.
He was sure he still had them when he pulled the canvas over his head. Absolutely sure. The sands had ravaged his wings, he remembered the excruciating pain… could not mistake it for anything else even if he tried. That meant that…
The smaller of the two creatures nodded.
He looked at the creatures with the wild eyes of one betrayed as his body trembled with the strain of staying upright. Tears fell down his cheeks as they stared at him impassively. ‘Why?’ he wanted to scream, ‘why did you do this? Why? Why? WHY?’
But he could only cry, voice stolen by the red sands of the West and the trauma to his body.
The large one picked him up easily and he did not fight as he was placed once again on the strange bedlike pile of blankets. He lay still as the small one covered him with some type of ointment, acting docile enough that the large one decided to leave again. Numbing cold seeped into his body again, and he realized that that was the reason he could even think with so many injuries.
When the large one came back, it was carrying a dead bird in his hand, its wings twisted into an odd angle, pinfeathers gone. He stared at the dead bird, uncomprehending, until the large one opened its other hand, revealing a bloody knife. It looked at him patiently as the healer covered him with the blanket again.
He started to cry again when he understood. To save his life, they had taken away his wings and his identity as a Winged One. Now, he was like them.
They did not seem to care that he would have rather died than be broken like this.