The Owls' Kiss

Chapter Three

Consciousness came back to her in blips. Her eyelids were heavy, and she refused to comply with her desire to open them. She knew she had hands and fingers somewhere but could not feel or touch anything to ground her. Her head hurt, and what started as a dull ache began to melt her nerves until she felt as if she was so far underwater that the pressure was crushing her skull. Fauna was ensnared by a syrupy awareness that she wanted to sleep off, just a bit longer, as she was rocked gently into the darkness that kept her warm and without worries. She wanted to stay there indefinitely.

Was this pain inside her head there, or did she imagine it?

Would she feel better if she stayed in this place, locked away in her version of dilapidated memories? She remembered an argument, one she can't recall the words of. Had she hurt someone? Her skull felt too small, and she had a fleeting moment of the possibility that she had been the one to be hurt.

That was not right.

Fauna opened her eyes slowly but then clenched them shut. Memories were garbled, but the light hurt too much for her to remember.

She waited before trying again, but the sounds came back before the feeling did, and Fauna realized someone was walking, and it was not her. Her body ached, and as the world came back to her, her eyes shot open, and everything crashed into her at once.

Opening her eyes to discover that she was upside down, splayed across sharp, bony shoulder blades is not an experience Fauna would ever like to repeat twice. Especially when the movement made her dizzy and made her stomach uncomfortably aware of the bitter liquid that still coated the inside of her mouth, gathering the saliva to spit it out was unnecessarily difficult for being upside down. Fauna attempted to clear her throat instead. This sound, however, alerted the person below her, and in a quick, nauseating moment, they flung her over their shoulder to settle her feet on the ground. She swayed, not yet ready to be alone, and her knees buckled. Hands went to her underarms to keep her upright, and Fauna blinked rapidly to clear her vision before her savior or captor, she was not quite sure, came into view.

It was dark after sunset, and the bright, round moon was high in the night sky. The breeze felt humid and smelt of rain. Much time had passed, and as Fauna blinked at The Oracle's face, she considered closing her eyes and pretending to faint. That thought was immediately banished as the feathered young man tilted his head with a sharp twist—a movement that would have certainly broken her own neck.

Fauna felt her mouth open in disgust at the cracking sound that followed his jerky movement, and when The Oracle stayed still for a split, horrifying moment, Fauna believed that he did just that.

"I see we're back to screaming our thoughts. How blissful it was when you weren't thinking at all." He spoke, watching her from the corner of his eye. He removed his hands from her person, and they disappeared inside his cloak of feathers, his body becoming a smooth figure in the darkness. The speckled splotches of white stood out against the moonlight, and Fauna remembered that fleeting moment of her youth when she believed him to be covered in stars.

The Oracle turned away and rolled his shoulders backward twice before taking his left hand and massaging his right shoulder as he rotated it in a circular motion. Using this small moment of distraction, Fauna made a quick decision.

She ran.

She sped down the path in a direction she did not know by heart. The mountain rocks deep into her mind like never-forgotten memories. Her shoes were missing, a gross oversight she should have realized much sooner. The stones dug into her feet, cutting and ripping to leave her skin raw, but she did not stop. The moon far above lit up the mountainside, but she was unsure where she was going. She had never been this far into the Shadowbrick Mountains. This path had only been traversed a few times, as the dirt was not compacted, and the valley lights were nonexistent.