Treeline

Chapter 25

Just in time the red hummingbird shot skywards and collided with the shape. The entire hull lit up as red crackling energy pulsated through the creature’s translucent body. I screamed while Dot made a faint “ahh” sound.

Long snaking tendrils flailed about the room and a scorching smell filled the air. The brief also lit up the rest of the room and I paled as I realized it was full of the creatures. They all screeched at the light and closed their massive white eyes against it. The blue lights that ran along their tails flickered. The entire ship groaned.

I grabbed Dot’s sleeve and pulled him toward the exit. It took a moment for him to move but once he did he quickly outpaced me. My hummingbirds flared around us in sweeping circles, daring the creatures to come closer. I thought that the original attack kept them off.

I thought wrong.

Right as we were about to reach the doorway with its single pale light hovering over it, a shadow moved in the way.

“No kill.”

I heaved myself up onto Dot’s head. The last thing I needed was for him to pull one way while I pulled the other and we become separated in the darkness. My eyesight in the dark is generally pretty good, especially with a little bit of light like the blue lights that flickered here and there all distracting. Eyesight doesn’t come in completely handy though when your enemies are practically see-through.

“Why can’t I kill?” One of the hummingbirds seared flesh that was far too close for comfort. It recoiled back into the abyss. It was far too tempting to just send my magic out in a blast. It was obvious these creatures had little magic resistance of their own and I wasn’t sure if the blue lights counted as them having magic at all. No matter their size, all I had to do was put a little extra something in it and I figured they’d splatter just the same.

“They Nua. Me and you Nua. Same.”

I tapped on Dot’s bone mask. He stopped running in circles. The creatures around us groaned hungrily. “In case you haven’t noticed, they’re trying to kill us whether we are Nua or not.”

The hummingbirds vanished in a puff of smoke. That was it, the fear gripped my heart and that was that. We’d both die there in the darkness, so much for me protecting once again.

“Shh.”

“What?”

“Shh.”

I snapped my mouth shut. If we were going to die, then it could be just how he liked it. No point arguing anything in your last few minutes. The creatures paused as if agreeing to his last wishes as well. Silence.

A sound crept into the hold. Dancing with the silence at first, embracing it. Hushed. It took me a few moments to notice that it came from Dot. Out of his little egg-shaped mouth came the most beautiful notes I had ever heard.

The notes grew louder and louder until they filled the room entirely. The creatures creaked as they shifted away. They moved away but it wasn’t out of dislike for the song, no, I could feel them intently listening.

It is hard to capture the beauty of a song without letting one hear it for themselves. The tune was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard until the words came. I couldn’t even understand them as I supposed them sung in Dot’s own language. I couldn’t understand them and yet I could feel the depth and meaning behind them.

The song was of the desert. Vast, forlorn, barren. And yet out of it came life. The images of the salt deserts I crossed went through my mind as I heard it. I could feel the wind pulling at my hair, the sand dusting my skin.

Above all of that though, I could feel loneliness in the song. The loneliness that I felt the day the hunter took me. Loneliness that can only come from being away from where one is meant to be, away from ones’ own people. A loneliness that comes when you know that you cannot go back however much you may want to. The song chewed on my heart.

The blue lights of the creatures ebbed until they were hardly visible at all. I didn’t fear getting eaten or crushed anymore because I knew then that they were just like me and so was Dot. Nua, he called us. Taken from our homes as prisoners.

Dot finished the song and all was sent back to silence. None of us dare break it. Hot tears rolled from my cheeks onto his head. The creatures let us leave without a struggle.

With the door firmly sealed behind us and back in the unnatural light of the ships’ hallway, Dot reached up and gently removed me from his head. His face was impossible to read behind the shadowed holes of the mask. No tears sat on the outside of it as they did mine.

“That was beautiful,” I said as my feet once more touched the cold iron.

He shrugged. “Thanks for protect.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

His head tilted to the side. “You willing though.”

Yes, I was willing to destroy things that were in the exact same situation as I was. Whatever they were, they were the cargo of the ship, it didn’t take too much to know that that’s what we were meant to be hunting. I couldn’t help but think even of the baralich that I had been so eager to destroy. Yes, it threatened my life and Zanns’, but did that give me right to explode it all over the place? Surely I could have thought up a way for us to get away safely? Who was I kidding. My first reaction was always something drastic. Something huge. I set things on fire, turned creatures inside out if they didn’t bend to my will. There was that horrible guilt again.

Dot turned and headed back to the bridge. I rubbed tears away on the back of my arm and took a moment to regain my composure. What I wouldn’t have given for a hot bath to soak the layers of grime and memories off.

I took a deep breath, then followed.