Intertwined

First Flight

His eyes snapped open, a startling, pure, green staring out into the world. They were so bright and shined with a curious innocence, a more vivid green than anything in the forest. His mind was alarmingly blank, no thoughts racing through his head. He couldn't remember anything, not how he got here or even who he was. He felt like he should know, that he had a past and it was right there, but he couldn't quite grasp it.

He sat up and put his head in between his legs, holding onto it as he tried to focus, tried to remember something. Each time he got close though he had a sudden sharp shock to his brain and soon the pain got too much for him to pursue his memories actively. When he finally accepted his memories were out of reach, he began to take a look at his surroundings. The first thing he noticed was that his skin was blue.

For some reason, it felt wrong, like this wasn't his body like something was out of place. He slowly climbed to his feet and noticed how tall he was, how long his limbs were. It looked like he shouldn't be able to balance, but strangely enough, he was sturdy on his feet.

He even thought he would be extremely agile and quick. He ran his hands up his body, going along his sides until he reached his face. His nose was flat and his eyes wide, his lips plump. He pulled them back in a kind of pseudo snarl and felt sharp canines.

Bringing his hands up, he kept sweeping them up his head until he got to the top of his head and felt thick hair. It was untamed and freakishly long, he could feel it, now that he was focusing on it, brushing the back of his knees. He ran his hand through it until his hands got tangled in a particular strand that sent pain through his body and brought him back down to his knees with a cry. Carefully, he pulled that strand out and realized it was a soft pink; he followed the strand all the way up until he reached the back of his neck.

The sound of a twig snapping, and a sharp gasp brought him out of his musings as he snapped his neck up so sharply it hurt. Standing along the tree line was a group of blue, lanky creatures, all staring at him with wide eyes.

There were five of them, all on what he knew to be direhorses, with bows held tightly in their hands at the ready. They were like him, except they seemed a tiny bit bigger, with more muscle mass on them. They were staring at him in what appeared to be shock, their eyes wide and attentive, taking him in like he was doing to them.

His muscles tensed, his mind was racing, and he tilted a little until he was braced to run. These people did look like him, but he didn't know them, didn't know what they would do to him and for that he felt fear. A fear that gripped him so tightly, that he felt like he could run at a moment's notice. The figure that seemed to be leading the group shifted, gathering his attention. As the leader opened his mouth as if to speak, he took off running.

He raced through the trees, running as fast as he could to get away from the strange men. Branches snapped against him, creating little scratches that started to bleed out, but in his haze, he didn't even notice. Of course, they had to give chase and were chasing on his heels.

He knew he would get caught eventually, they were on direhorses for goodness sake, but that just fueled his panic even more. His heart felt like it was going to beat out of his chest and into the open. His skin started to fill too tight, and his limbs began aching, it didn't feel like the aching from running, but like something wanted to break free from within him. With his mind so focused on the tight, restricting feeling, he didn't notice the drop off up ahead. He didn't even slow down as he threw himself over a cliff.

Wind rushing through his hair woke him up to what was happening around him, to the reality he was facing. He was falling, falling so fast he couldn't even scream. The ground was quickly approaching, and his panic was making his muscles tense up in preparation for what was surely going to kill him.

But, then the tight feeling came back in full force as it finally broke free of him. His mouth stretched open in a scream as agony hit him, something he really should be used to at this point and wasn't that a sobering thought. The torture hit its peak, his whole body convulsing in the air as suddenly, he was flying.

Ateyo and his hunt watched in stunned silence as the young boy threw himself off the cliff in his haste to get away from them. And then his panic was replaced by shock as an ikran suddenly flew up from underneath the cliff and soared high into the sky with a loud screech.

He brought his direhorse to a stop before the edge of the cliff and dismounted to see over, expecting to find a young body on the ground. To his surprise, he saw nothing and gripped his bow a little tighter. He didn't think that the ikran had been carrying anything, but that was the only thing that Ateyo could think of as to why there was nobody. He thought back to just a couple of minutes ago when they first stumbled upon the young Navi, about his son's age.

They had been out patrolling the lands for the people, making sure that none of the sky people had encroached on their land farther than they had allotted. They had traveled as far as the Tree of Voices, and that is where they first saw him. He was sitting there, staring at his hands and then running his hand through his untamed hair.

He was slightly smaller than his son and Ateyo's first thought was that this boy was one of the sky people's demons. But, he had four fingers instead of their five. As one of his men shifted they stepped on a branch making the boys head snap up, straight in their direction and Ateyo sucked in a breath.

Looking straight at him were eyes so bright and luminous that he felt a shudder go down his spine. The eyes were not the customary gold of the Navi, they were so green it almost didn't seem real. He looked wild, his hair hanging down in his face, nothing covering him as his eyes were wide and fearful.

The fearful part is what sealed the deal in Ateyo's mind that he wasn't one of the sky people. He looked like a scared child, his eyes so fearful and innocent, wariness laced throughout them. Ateyo was worried, and so he stepped forward to speak to the boy when he suddenly shot off.

His men gave chase, and he tried yelling at the boy to stop, but it was as if the boy was stuck in his head. He didn't see anything around him and so when the cliff came into sight Ateyo sped up his stead and then watched as the boy didn't even slow down as he went over.