• Previous Chapters:
    Chapter One - 'Thoughts'
    Chapter Two - 'Rebirth'
    Chapter Three - 'Flying Nightmares'
    Chapter Four - 'A Rogue Echo'
    Chapter Five - 'The Medical Roost'
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    ‘A Chance To Think’

    -Katarra-

    Sleep?

    This isn’t sleep…I wouldn’t be thinking this clearly if I were asleep. I can’t lift my eyelids, I can barely feel my heartbeat…there isn’t a part of me that I can feel to move. I can live with that, I know I’ll be able to move in a matter of hours…what I’m worried about…the one thing that scares me…

    Is that my Elder, my leader…just tried to kill me.

    The berries she held as she approached me, I recognized them right away. I knew my life was about to end as she shoved those disgusting fruits down my throat…that’s why I said his name…I was so afraid I wasn’t going to see him again. Praise Nocturna that Aria chose to lunge and scare me before she tried to poison me, if she hadn’t crushed those vile fruits and lost bits and pieces before she forced them on me, I would be traversing the underworld with my mother right now…

    I’m not saying I don’t want to see my mother again…even if I had died and was now flying beside her, I’d be happy…but I know that I have something else to live for, now more than ever. Both my mother and I knew something about our crooked elders that no one else could seem to see…and she paid the ultimate price.

    I know the reason they never tried to kill me until just now…and it’s not because my mother was there to protect me, though she did a very good job. It’s because of the way I was born.

    My mother, Corona, was a Silverwing, she was born and raised in this colony and she was a very kind hearted bat. She got along with everyone and never thought badly of others. Even when she knew Aria was hiding something, she never said anything wrong about her to anyone…there was never a better, more nurturing mother in the whole colony.

    My father, Helios, was actually a Brownwing warrior who made his way into the colony by mating with my mother. I remember him very little…he was taken from me by the owls when I was just a newborn…the very creatures who agreed to peace between our kinds killed my father. I do remember that he was a very caring and noble bat, respected by all in both the Silverwing colony and the Brownwing colony he left behind. He was a strict guardian of the colony and everyone was devastated by the news of his demise…all but Aria, of course…she seems to smile on death and sadness more than anything.

    Both of my parents were so strong….and yet my mother gave birth to something like me…

    I am albino, there is no trace of silver or black in my fur…the moment I was born, even my mother knew something was wrong with me…so says the other mothers of the roost…they’re all so unkind…they always have been. No one wants to get close to someone who is supposed to die.

    As an albino, I’m apparently supposed to have a weak heart by nature, the smallest thing to startle me can make it fail and my life would be over in one ceased heartbeat. According to the elder’s in the medical roost, other things are supposed to be naturally wrong with me as well, horribly wrong. They hold meetings every month or so and each time they’ve ‘predicted’ the day I’m finally going to pass on…it has always made me feel so unwanted…like I meant nothing to them.

    Only my mother cared about me, she said I was as strong as my father, and I grew to believe that…my brother, Leo, however, believed the elders more than he did our mother. He never let me leave the roost, I always had to sneak away when he went to hunt, but I never had much time to hunt or play with the other newborns. He always flew back and forced me back into the roost the minute he caught wind of me flying around…I swear the other newborns and mothers had such big mouths.

    Mom always said that, if I really was to die early, that I should live my life the way I wanted and have fun when I still had the chance. I always had more fun when she gently scolded Leo about holding me back, he always backed off for a week or two and I could fly freely with the other newborns…not that any of the other newborns wanted to play with a sick weakling like me…

    That’s when I met him….

    His father was a large bat, I think he was a Foxwing, so he was a fairly large bat himself, he wasn’t hard to miss in a colony of small Silverwings. He was the only one who seemed to enjoy my presence, he’d always ask me to hunt with him, even though he really didn’t enjoy the insects flying around Tree Haven. He’d joke and play with me like I was any other newborn and not some freak…I had a friend because of him…and I knew that, even if I died, I’d go knowing that someone other than my mother cared about me. That was enough to make my slowly sinking spirit soar far above the clouds.

    Then all of the happiness seemed to fall apart when he--…

    Wait…

    Why am I thinking about all of this now? Is it possible that what they say is true? Am I thinking about all of this…is my life playing itself out before me…because I really am going to die? My heartbeat is faint, but that’s just an effect of the berries…I know that…my rear claws! I’ve been trying to move them for what seems like the past hour, I can finally feel them!

    Mother, I’m going to do it, I’m going to use the strong heart my father gave me and the kindness you taught me…and I’m going to leave this colony and find him…no one, not even Leo, will miss me…

    But first…maybe I should get some slee--…