11 Years ago
Mare was drawing with her mother when the horns sounded. The horn played two quick bursts and then a longer one before repeating. The attack signal. Somebody was attacking.
The final noise was cut off before it finished.
The flock had never really needed much more protection than a small ring of raised clouds around them. The clouds served as their perches, their wall, and their lookout. Even if they hardly thought they needed it, they kept a lookout in all four directions at any given time of the day.
The horn was just an extra precaution, a warning. Usually, it was used to signal visitors. The attack combination had never been sounded by anything other than practice horns that hardly made a noise, and those could not have been heard for any sort of distance.
The flock only had about twenty-five people, just families and cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents. Not too many of them.
Not enough to fight off any sizeable force.
Mare's uncle ran in, speaking in hushed tones with Mare's mother, a soft looking woman with dark brown hair and shining blue eyes.
The man then knelt in front of the little girl, taking a green and white striped bucket hat from his head and placing it on hers.
"For protection, alright my little flower? It always kept me safe, now it'll keep you safe too." He smiled once, then turned on his heel racing out the door.
Mare was set in a small compartment in the floor, a place that the family stored valuables in.
Her mother smiled warmly down at Mare.
"Darling, listen to me now. We're going to play a very important game of hide and seek, okay? Can you do that for me?" At Mare's nod, she continued.
"Don't let anybody find you, okay? Nobody. When the game is over, I'll come and find you, but you must stay there no matter what you hear. And-and if for some reason I don't come back for a while, know this: You are the light of my life darling. You shine in the darkness and brighten my days. I'll love you always. Be brave, my shining star."
After that last line, the door above the confused and scared little girl closed, plunging her into darkness.
Mare tried to stay still and quiet in that hiding place as long as she could, she really did. But it was just so hard.
A four-year-old avian is not meant to be cooped up for hours at a time.
But then again, no child should have to listen to the screams of their family as they do so either.
When it seemed like everything had gone quiet, Mare decided she was done. She didn't like this game anymore.
Mare just wanted her mama.
She pushed open the door of the hatch above her, meeting no resistance.
She looked around curiously, wondering where everybody had gone.
She stepped through the door frame, and her foot hit into something squishy and wet. When she looked down to see what it was, she screamed.
She saw the once bright eyes of her father, clouded and faded into a dull gray, his blond hair and golden wings stained red.
She looked out along the path from the house, seeing her mother not far away, hand still intertwined with her father's.
She saw her sweet little grandmother who always made cookies with an arrow through the chest, wings bent unnaturally beneath her.
She saw the cousin just a year older than her, wings laying a few feet away from him.
She looked up from the ground, and her eyes met the cruel black ones of a man with a bloodied sword.
"Well what do we have here," he smirked, as more men appeared behind him. "What do we have here."
YOU ARE READING
Gladiator
FanfictionWhat if Technoblade was a gladiator as a child? What if a younger girl taught him to fight? What if this is the story of the two of them, a pair of fighters stolen from their homes as children, only to be eternally connected by fate? This is complet...
