The Forest

-36-

The lid slid off with a clatter. He dangled over the dark chasm, suddenly too weak to call for Kovu or Aspen. A swipe of the hand and he was cast down into that cold pit. The floor connected with his knees in a metallic thud, knocking the breath out of him, and he sprawled to the ground in a tangle. Colder air instantly stung his throat. But there was no time to absorb the hurt, with the lid already clinking overhead. Alder twisted for the last scrap of light as the human shifted to seal the prison, but it was too late. The light eclipsed and he was swallowed by thick, velvet dark, his scream smothered.

The prison shuddered as it was pushed to the back of the shelf. He didn't dare move, locked in a paralysis of trembles. Footsteps creaked, hinges squeed once as a door was opened, twice when it was shut, and all fell silent.
He shuddered numbly in the centre of the metal case. Was he going to be left in here— was that it? Nasty bruises were throbbing on his knees and palms from where Daniel had thrown him down into the prison. Cain won't ask. He felt the pitch of falling all over again. He didn't even know who Cain was. But the demands squeezed his throat, the weight of what they expected him to do laid heavy. He couldn't take them to Quercus, he couldn't.

"Alder?" A girlish voice whispered through the dark.
His breath caught, panic sputtering to a stop. It couldn't be. But she was there when he turned, curled against a wall, her eyes luminous. Lyn.
The sudden urge to burst into tears pricked him, but he stifled it.
"Oh great." He groaned instead. "Of all the people, it had to be you."
She didn't say anything.

The two of them sat in silence in their shared prison. He was reluctant to admit it, but his breathing had calmed a little. Lyn was here too, which meant he wasn't alone. Daniel hadn't snatched her away, as he had started to fear he might have, just put her in here.
It shouldn't have mattered that the human-loving freak was in the prison with him, but it did.

He drew himself up to a wall like she was, only to flinch away. The shiny surface was unbearably cold even through his clothes. Did she not feel it? It didn't matter. He sat in place for a bit, rubbing his arms and waiting for his warmth to heat the space around him. Everything echoed in a shallow whisper. The dark was intense, but seemed more bearable now that his eyes had started to adjust.
He gulped. Stupid as it was, he couldn't resist glancing over at where she sat. Her cloak had been taken, he recalled, and so she sat in her grey and brown furs, looking at her palms. Her starlight features were out of place in the dark.

The boy nursed his scratched knees without much idea of what to say to her. The silence between them was worse than the dark and cold put together. It hadn't escaped his notice that she made no move to shuffle over to him, and was oddly quiet. Lyn loved running her mouth, she never knew when to shut up. To hear her so quiet unsettled his nerves.

His heart dropped. Did she know what he had done? Hawthorn, Aspen and the others... she couldn't have known, Daniel wouldn't tell her that. And Alder decided then and there that she could never know. She idolised Aspen, one look at her mystified smiles was enough to see... if she found out that Alder had landed him in the clutches of a human again, she would never, ever forgive him.
And again, it shouldn't have mattered. But it did.

"How's your wrist?" He asked lamely. The question echoed for a long time because there was no reply. Lyn's head tilted up at hearing sound, but had then dropped down onto her knees once she realised it was him talking to her.
Alder drew his own knees near to his chest and tapped his fingers on the cuts. There were little ridges on his skin. With every tap of his fingers, he ran another question through his head. None seemed right.
"It's quiet."
She didn't bother to raise her head this time. Had it not been for her slow breathing, Lyn would have been completely still. Alder had to squint to see her outline in the dim light. Fine, if she didn't want to talk, they wouldn't talk.
He turned his attention to far above them. Maybe there was a way out. Maybe not. But it was probably worth trying to do something, anything was better than sitting like they were. It was in his scout blood to take action. That's what Kovu would have been doing had he been in the situation.
He sat up, "Do you think we can-"
"Leave me alone."