Court of Feathers

Eleven

Word Count: 2,209

Shiro was able to retrace his steps back to his room without getting himself lost, which he saw as a small accomplishment compared to the day he'd been through. Opening the door to his room with a sigh, he noticed that the bed had been unmade for the night; an unfamiliar stack of clothes sat at the foot of the bed, and in unfolding them Shiro recognized the black, soft fabric to be pajamas.

He quickly changed, diving for the sheets as he threatened to fall asleep where he stood, comfortably melting into the folds of sleep as his eyes blissfully slipped closed.

The nightmare came again, but it was a bit different than the time before.

Shiro felt as if his back was going to explode with the pain building up under his skin, stumbling across the war-ridden landscape, the cries of young Keith and Katie cutting through the air. The two of them were huddled together under the porch of a flaming shack, their eyes blown wide in fear as they called out to him, he needed to get there, he needed to save them.

Both of the children clutched each other harder as he got closer, stumbling every few steps as he attempted to get there as his very being felt like it was being torn apart at the seams and he fell forward onto the ground, holding in his screams of pain as he writhed on the dusty ground, coughing on smoke and wishing it would all stop.

"Shiro!" voices screamed, he looked up just in time to watch as the shack fell on top of them, their forms being engulfed in flames, their screams echoing into the night.

"Keith! No!" His voice sounded like it was floating about in his own ears and he squeezed his eyes shut, tears of pain leaking through and hitting the forest floor.

Shiro looked up in confusion as the pain in his back finally faded, he was standing now, looking over the princess as she continued to bleed out on the lush ground at his feet. Blood blending with black as Shiro's shadow darkened in front of him, shadow stretching and lengthening in front of his eyes, the shadow of wings on his back fell over the dying princess, all the while dozens of voices repeated over and over in his ears in a never ending chorus.

"They're coming. They're coming. They're coming. They're coming. They're coming. They're coming,

"Shiro."

they're coming, they're coming, they're coming, they're coming, they're coming-they're coming-they're coming-they're coming-they're coming-they'recomingthey'recomingthey're

"Shiro, wake up!"

comingthey'recomingthey'recomingthey-"

"Shiro!"

He shot up gasping for breath as sweat trickled down his temple, taking a couple of minutes of just gulping in lungfuls of air as he tried to steady his racing heartbeat. Keith stood beside him, worry etched on his face as Shiro continued to calm himself down limbs shaking from the dream.

An avian stood beside him, wings almost orange, close enough to almost match his mustache, set below laughing eyes so dark of blue they were almost black. His arms were holding what Shiro could guess was a bundle of clothes, the majority of what he could see, the fabric was black in color.

Of course, Shiro didn't dwell too much on the new stranger; he was, more or less, still stuck on the leftover images still running rampant through his thoughts, they were more jumbled than they had been, but it was still enough for him to draw his attention away from the two standing in the room.

It had to be the same dream again, just in more detail than last time, and Shiro stressfully ran a hand through his hair at an attempt to calm himself down. He felt like he had just ran a marathon with how much he was breathing, but he was eventually able to calm himself down enough to not hear the constant thrumming of his heartbeat in his own ears.