The Hovering Ingress: The Hidden World

Chapter 40

Low Fire

A Ninth Sune Later

Marsh quietly grunted and shifted in the small nest-like area the three free felines made for themselves, closer to Xengu's cage. After the scare with Favi nearly getting killed, the group decided now wasn't a good time to separate themselves over disagreements. Another 'training' battle happened a few sune cycles before, Marsh barely making it out alive by somehow summoning his shield in a panic and blowing up his opponent. That was not a pretty sight to see.

The lynx could hear something by the entrance, as he started to always be able to. With a grumble, he got up and crawled out of the nest, then stretched. His body was still sore from the fight. Quietly looking around toward the sound, he listened and watched as flabir feet clicked and ophoris paws thumped. What could be going on to summon both? Was there supposed to be another 'training' session? Who would be next if so?

Silently Marsh looked back to the nest and the cage, finding that everyone else was still asleep. Sighing, he decided to stalk over to a rock to get a better view of what was going on. Going up to it and hiding behind it, he looked over toward the shuffling of claws. He found himself looking at Raid cheerfully chatting with a deep orange feathered flabir. The bird looked quite friendly, a shorter, more rounded beak, softer looking feathers and hardly any flames around him. There was definitely a molten look to his orange and dark brown feathers, but other than that, he was pretty. He hardly had any spikes, only along his belly.

The lynx perked his ears and leaned in a little to take in the bird's features. Marsh was just so... awed at the fact that he found a completely civil flabir that didn't seem to have any physical aspects of mind control. His pupils weren't enlarged at all, they were quite small and thin. The lynx had been watching the flabir's eyes for such a long time that he yowled and fell back when the pupils suddenly locked with his. Raid perked up at the bird's usual alert shoot-up-straight position and turned toward Marsh's direction.

The forest lynx scrambled behind the rock and panted intensely, doing his best to slow himself down.

"Marsh?" Raid's voice echoed.

With wide eyes, the lynx froze and stopped his breathing.

"It's okay, he won't hurt you."

Taking a deep breath, Marsh nodded and slowly got up, trembling as he peeked out from behind the rock. He found that the flabir was no longer upright and alert but lowered a little to the ground and with a tilted head. Quietly swallowing the saliva in his mouth, the forest lynx took a hesitant step out from his hiding spot. The flabir immediately widened his eyes and reared back a little, then took a step forward with interest.

"Wow... so this is a feline?" he asked.

"Yup, his name is Marsh. Marsh, meet Crackle, he's a friend of mine," Raid purred out.

"N-nice to meet you, Crackle," Marsh breathed out in awe. "How are you so...?"

Flinching at his own question, the lynx quietly cursed himself and slapped his cheek.

"Sorry, I shouldn't ask things like that- "

"No, no, you're fine. It's okay to be curious. I was trained by Blaze, that's all," Crackle explained.

Marsh shrilly inhaled at Blaze's name, Raid quickly lifting a paw to try and wave at him to calm down.

"Basically he has better common sense and understanding past aggression, something a lot of flabirs don't have. He's only around five searings old, after all," Raid purred nervously.