FINTAIL

𝘕𝘐𝘕𝘌𝘛𝘌𝘌𝘕

I FEAR the answer to all things shewn in mystery is to panic.

Ants scurry in circles around a fallen queen, cursed with no explanations, and nowhere to go. Birds of a feather fall into obsession over their self-discoveries and futile hypotheses of the living, and the dead. Humans, blinded by fate, seek solutions to unknown questions before losing their sense of reality. Before turning on those still holding onto hope.

Here it was no different. The air reeked of it; even from behind the walls of this mysterious plane, I could taste it, like burnt salt upon a volcanic shoreline. I heard it, too -- the banging, the thuds, the muffled snarls of a distraught carnivore pleading for escape. It rippled through the air like a puddle, and I feared it wasn't due to stop. Neither was he.

"Grrrr... nnhh..."

Fossil gnawed and chewed against the fleshy bindings that held him astray, using each fang to damage its hold. Below, his lower talons kicked and slashed, rattling back and forth from his brute strength. It was a noble effort, brave even, but futile. Even with a fierce bite (and an angrier attitude) strength wasn't enough to free him from this darkness. Or any of his siblings for that matter.

"Rrrragh! Damn it!"

The albino longsnout released himself with a soft groan, licking away the blood oozing alongside his tongue. Fossil figured he tore something; there was a growing ache at the front base of his underjaw. But one thing was clear: there were no gains in trying to escape. And that hurt most of all.

"Do you see anything?"

    "Agh... Besides just a black void?" The albino long snout shook his head in reply. His older sister, Cora, exhaled in disbelief as her tail continued spooning her younger sister, Ripple. The poor purple female was quaking against her sibling despite every effort to settle her nerves. Sure, Cora would try to prick her claws against the crease of her sail, sending rivers of sensations to soothe Ripple's heart. Even her own tongue joined in the mix, furiously licking her skull to calm him down.

It wouldn't change a thing. Not for some time.

"I-Is it gone?" Ripple croaked.

Cora's eyes raised. "Is... what gone?"

"T-The circle..." she stammered, "in the sky..."

The female's stomach writhed. There was no good way of giving an answer to that. How do you admit something had gone wrong? How do you convince innocence that fate chose a different path? But she didn't want her to wane. She didn't want someone else to lose their courage, too. Cora confidently licked Ripple's cheek, taking in the salty scent of her tears with a sharp inhale, and a subtle exhale. And, through a soft rumble, the longsnout bobbed her head. "It's okay. It's gone."

Ripple still didn't move. Her whimpers only grew louder, resounding her pain to the rest of the darkness. "I'm s-sorry..." she sobbed into his claws. "M-Mom told me to w-watch Thorn. It flew over me... I-I didn't know what to do..."

"Shh..." Cora gave her sister one more firm, lick across the snout. "It is not your fault. None of this is." Her turquoise eyes lifted to meet Fossil's ruby stare, which seemed to soften at the sound of her guilt. He growled softly, turning back to survey their area a second time by using every sense available to him. But even that seemed to burden him with more vague answers, and even more questions.

"This doesn't make any sense," Fossil snarled, reaching his claws over the doorway. "One moment we were at home, and the next a volcano erupts. Now we're in... whatever this place is."

Cora's eyes raised to watch him, only breathing a subtle sigh.

"I can't smell anything, or see anything, I can't-!" He suddenly snarled, whacking one of the walls with his aquatic tail and startling the two females. "Curse the stars, it's too dark in here!"