• ‘Thoughts’

    -Shade-
    Death has been good to me all these years; I’ve been able to become as one with this earth. I’ve become everything I’ve ever wanted to in this forest; the trees my loved ones roost in, the wind through their fur, I’ve even whispered my love to them…Marina, I know she heard me, several times as my spirit roosted with her and Griffin each night.

    I watched them grow old, I saw I my son mated with Luna and had children of his own. I saw Marina die…I was grateful she went peacefully and my heart soared when she arrived at my side. It was good to know that Frieda had found her and that she made it to the tree unharmed…I had my mate back, and, together, we watched my son raise his children. I was so proud of him, and yet, I was also saddened…he had grown into a fine young bat and became a wonderful father without me…I only wish I could have been there for him in more than just spirit.

    I’m not saying I regret giving my life for him, oh no, I’m glad he could live on to show this world what he was made of…but I wish I could have been a bigger part of his life…I was scarcely older than a newborn! I should have lived longer!

    After what I’m sure has been a hundred years, I feel regret and anger start to rise within me, but I can feel something else as well…curiosity. I’ve become so many things in this past century, but, there has been one thing I don’t recall ever trying: becoming one with an impregnated female. I’ve become one with Marina’s spirit many a time, but, after I died, she stayed loyal to my memory and never mated again…how I love her so much.

    The thought has so often crossed my mind if it would be possible for me to be reborn. That, maybe, by becoming one with a female who was carrying a child within her, my soul would be accepted into the body of the unborn pup and I would be born again into the Silverwing Colony. Of course, after Griffin had joined us in death, my curiosity has subsided somewhat…but it never truly left me.

    Finally, during the female’s migration, I had my chance…

    Normally, Marina, Griffin, and I would branch off with our separate gender’s migration route, but after I told them what I had wanted to do, they had actually wandered the exact same thing. If it were possible, we were going to truly make it back into the land of the living…and we were going to do it together.

    Before they started their flight back to Tree Haven, the three of us each picked a female. Our selection was totally random, but I felt like I had chose mine for a reason. My chosen female, I had found that Serena was her name, seemed different from the other mothers-to-be. While the others were talking excitedly about what they had decided to name their child, Serena shied away from them and she always seemed so sick with worry. What had happened to her that she wasn’t excited about the child? Had her mate died? That seemed to be the only reason that I could think of that would make an expectant mother so upset.

    While watching her one morning, as she was trying to sleep, I saw she was shaking, sobbing so hard that I could barely make out the muffled prayer she was saying. ‘please, Nocturna.’ she had said, ‘please let this child live…I beg of you…let it live…’ She was pleading to a Goddess who could do nothing about it, I felt that I could though…I could do something for her! I just needed to know more…

    That night, she did not hunt, she went straight to the elders, hoping they had good news for her and her unborn pup. There was no such news for her…they had scoffed at her, telling her she was weak, that it was her fault that the child wouldn’t live. If she had been strong enough to carry her child, she would have not have been blown off course, she would not have hit the tree so hard and the child within her would still be alive and growing.

    My heart sank, or I had felt something much like it, as I heard them talk, it seems as though the kindness Frieda had once shown to all had been long since forgotten. It had never crossed my mind that mothers could be unfit to carry children, I never knew they could die before they were born…I knew they could die shortly afterwards, but before, I couldn’t seem to wrap my mind around it…if I had heard such news when Griffin was to be born…I don’t even wish to think about it…

    The time had come, it was nearly time for the females to reach Tree Haven. The three of us wished each other luck and designated the topmost brand of the nursery roost to be our rendezvous point should nothing happen. Then, we took the plunge. It felt so weird, I was sure it was quite the same as actually having a living creature inside of me, but having the lifeless body of one within me felt just as weird…to give birth to a lifeless body…even when I was one with her, I couldn’t imagine the pain and sorrow she was feeling.

    I controlled my movements as best I could; I was finally able to leave her body and enter the womb. I stayed in the body of the pup for a moment, but I felt nothing I was still me and it was still nothing more than a dead body…I had failed, my thoughts and hopes of being reborn flitted away like my first Tiger Moth. I couldn’t obtain my dream, no matter how hard I tried. As I left the body of both the pup and the female, I felt this weird tugging sensation…it didn’t hurt, as I could no longer feel pain, but it felt very odd nonetheless. I flew effortlessly to the branch we had agreed to meet on and I was greeted by Marina and Griffin; neither of them had any luck with a live body either.

    I will always be happy with the fact that I am still with the mate and son I love. I’m grateful that it didn’t work for us all, I only now realized that we cold have possibly been separated if we had been given new lives and now I thank Nocturna, wherever she is, that I still have them both. Still…I can’t help but wonder…what was the weird sensation I felt as I left her body? Until a month or so after the pups are born, there won’t be much for us to see. We’ll check in on them before the first migration…possibly.