A Single Strand || #Wattys2018

Chapter Four

Hyrna sits at the edge of the cliff, eating that morning's catch.

With her wings flushed towards the gleaming sun, her body warms, and her energy grows. The fish she has just caught certainly helps, too. She knows that she will need a trip to the spring before she continues exploring.

Hyrna closes her eyes and tries to remember what she saw before the crash. She remembers seeing a few smaller islands nearby in the same archipelago. She starts growing rather curious about them.

What's on those, I wonder? Anything important? New animals? Life at all?

The questions tug at her mind like creeper vines, and soon, her desire to learn gets the best of her. She hurries down the cliff and through the jungle to get her morning drink.

After quenching her thirst, Hyrna climbs back up the cliff. Calling to mind the joyflight she took the previous night, she runs to the edge, kicks off with all her might, and opens her mighty wings. The morning wind currents are still rather gentle, not nearly enough to carry a flying beast of her size, so she beats her wings very hard, enough to give her lift.

When she flies high enough, she turns to the right and spots the islands she noticed during her uncontrolled descent. She makes for the nearest one, the second largest and the only other one of the islands with foliage. A few birds and some insects the size of her palm scatter as she lands, somehow avoiding getting her horns caught in vines again.

Hyrna quickly takes to investigating as much as she can. The insects here are oddly pretty, with many multicolored wings and elongated bodies. However, she knows that they're most likely poisonous; the insects on her home planet with those bright colors killed whoever ate them.

The trees on this island are different, too. They only vary slightly from the trees on the main island, but it's enough to get Hyrna's attention. They stretch their wide, leafy arms to capture as much sunlight as they can. The birds take advantage of this shelter, building their nests on as many branches as they can. Lizards bask on the very tops of the trees until they spot predators, at which point they dart back to safety.

The life on this whole planet is familiar, and yet not. So much of it is like the life Hyrna has seen throughout the Kaivan Galaxy.

So why does it all feel so different to me?

Hyrna still has trouble understanding. But, she realizes, that understanding won't come easily. She will have to work for it. She has worked for many things in her life. This will be no different.

At least, that's what she tells herself.

She warily extends a claw out to one of the lizards. It tilts its head, watching her dubiously. Then, it suddenly raises a crest of brilliant red feathers, almost like a cat's hackles, and hisses at her before sprinting away. Hyrna doesn't chase it. Rather, she just watches it as it vanishes, her curiosity growing.

The wind begins picking up around the island. Hyrna takes this opportunity to stretch her wings some more. Swiftly climbing up the tallest tree in the area, she flaps her wings as hard as possible and leaps into the air. The strong currents easily sweep her up into the cerulean sky. Her flight is almost effortless; the wind does the work for her. All she has to do is tilt her wings in order to stay around the islands.

As she gazes out, something on the last and smallest island catches her eye. The long fallen body of a massive tree rests in the island's center. Skipping over the rest of the islands, Hyrna dives towards the island and lands beside the tree.

Her heart mourns for the giant. She places a paw on its sun dried, once dark brown trunk and understands that at one point, it was a sanctuary, a home for a multispecies family of creatures. It's so gigantic that Hyrna knows that it must have been ripped out of the ground; the remains of its roots are too strong to be affected by mere wind. But the Nemarin doesn't think about its killer; she thinks about what it did in life, and her soul connects deeply with it.