Valycion [draft]

Part 4

He slept too little and he still felt tired when he felt a sudden movement against his wing. Peaking past his feathers he yawned, the movement exposing the sharp ridges of his beak, and then the loud clack as the top and bottom swung shut. Fiore did not look amused. Motioning to her mouth he muttered the spell, his mind still groggy. "Let's get going." She seemed hurried and he couldn't figure out a reason why. Everything moved so fast around him. He didn't want to move, and he felt a sudden chill. Where was everyone. Nien, Kou. For a long while he waited to see their faces to explain the absence of the voices. But there was only the empty space where the bond used to be. His gaze turned to the sharp features of the creature that had spoken to him. This was not a joke. Strength, she had wanted him to be strong, stronger, he had always promised Schili he would be stronger but that was tomorrow, always tomorrow. Today was today. Where was the dawn. He waited for the dawn but the metal confines allowed only their own light. Where are you? It was like trying to speak in space, there was nothing for the sound to travel through.

"Let's go." She reached out for him, and he wanted to shudder against her touch but it was something other than nothing. And right now he had more than enough nothing to go around. Nothing, there couldn't be nothing.

He felt her pull but he had nothing to give and she grew frustrated though none of it showed on her exterior. "Where are they?"

Dead. The thought stretched between them. She wondered if it would do more harm than good to take him outside and see where their previous bodies lay, there was nothing to reveal that they had been anything more than creatures that had met a sudden end no trace of the life that had been there. The only way to know the Valycion were dead was to realize that no more could be found, save the one that she had kept. Fiore needed to determine the best time to let him know that the only others that might have survived had fared no better. "They're gone." With each time she used this honeyed voice it became harder and harder, the edges of the mask slipping through her fingers. She was just tired, this invasion had taken its own toll on her. There was no time for him to mope around all day, he was utterly useless to her then.

It seemed as if he was about to speak but he didn't and the words died, not even whispered to the ground. Dragging him up with more force she attempted a smile, it was difficult with her features, "Come, let's do something to take your mind off of it." All problems, to her, could be resolved with training. All emotions could be beat into submission with a punching bag, whether or not it was breathing or not a nonessential detail. All enemies could be vanquished, the weight of her rifle on her back seeming like the weight of wings to a bird.

He allowed himself to be tugged along corridors he didn't care to remember. It was never going to be a good day. They weren't gone, they couldn't all be gone. There were too many to kill in one fell swoop, he wasn't hoping for rescue but he was hoping for something. The abyss threatened. Valycion were almost impossible to kill, not one had died since before he was born. She let go of his wings eventually, when it became clear he couldn't keep up with her walking, and he could feel their tips brush up against the edges of the hallow, shallow, hollow air letting him sink unless he fought to stay aloft.