Born To Fly - The Copper Tree Series (book #1)

9| Don't Fly

"I'm home!" Fawntonya called as she slumped up the stairs to her room in the attic. She grimaced as Estel bumped into her on a corner, hitting a fresh wound on her stomach, made from the tip of Lavalda's dagger an hour earlier. Estel slapped her arm and whined about bleeding all over the floor and making such big messes, but Fawntonya didn't hear. The only things that her mind processed were her father's disapproving stare, and the marble floor shooting upwards to meet her body.

An hour later, Fawntonya was sitting through one of the worst speeches that she had ever had from Estel about staying away from fights, or something like that - she didn't care. Estel went through it every time she came home if she had even the slightest bit of a disagreement with someone in town. Lord Kiton was always upset about fights too. But, even though he was her father, she didn't care what he complained about. She hadn't cared since he had stopped caring about her. That was right after Vanya's death. She had given up on trying to please him since that fateful day.

"Fawntonya!" Estel's sharp tone broke her thoughts.

"What?" 

"I asked if you were listening to me. Three times."

"Oh. No, I wasn't listening to you. Did you really think that I was? I practically memorized your speeches years ago. It’s not like you say anything different in any of them anyway, so what's the point in repeating them?" she grumbled as she stood up from her place in the corner of the room and started to go outside. 

"Wait Fawntonya, the physicion said you were not to fly! It will take longer for you to heal!" Estel cautioned fervantly.

"Does it look like I care? Leave me alone!" Fawntonya fumed as she slammed the door behind her. She knew that Estel would tell Lord Kiton, and he would punish her, but why should she care? He only would do it for show, for the gossip, so that it looked like he was a father who cared enough about his daughter to discipline her.

She sighed to herself as she realized again that flying was the only freedom she had. She wandered around the many trees in the backyard, and then shot straight up into the air, enjoying the fierce wind and the chill of the clouds in her hair. She turned her body, ready to fly back to the mountains for some peace, when her abdomen reminded her of it's current problem. She lifted her shirt to see the bandages. She felt weak. Just flying for a few minutes had sent her stomach into a rapid bleeding state.

In a trance, she watched the blood soak through the bandage and begin to drip down her leg and off of her foot and down to the earth. She shook her head. She needed to get on the ground, before she lost to much blood. Already she felt burnt out and limp, but she forced herself to begin a landing. She was only about fifty feet above her home, so how hard could it be?

Fifty feet above ground.

The pain was intense, but she kept on going.

Fourty feet above ground.

She switched to a different position, like she was lying on her stomach and slowly floating down.

Thirty feet above ground.

But gravity was making her lose much more blood now, it was just pouring out of her stomach. Bad positon.

Twenty feet above ground.

"I would be dead if I didn't have all this extra blood in my system to circulate through my wings." She said to herself, trying to be encouraging as she changed position to stop the flow.

Fifteen feet above ground.

For the second time that day, she fainted.