• Previous Chapters:
    Chapter One - 'Thoughts'
    Chapter Two - 'Rebirth'
    Chapter Three - 'Flying Nightmares'
    Chapter Four - 'A Rogue Echo'
    Chapter Five - 'The Medical Roost'
    Chapter Six - 'A Chance to Think'
    Chapter Seven - 'Interrupted Dream'
    Chapter Eight - 'Condolences'
    Chapter Nine - 'A Pleasant Distraction'
    Chapter Ten - 'Passing the Torch'
    Chapter Eleven - 'A Rash Decision'
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    'The Burning’

    Outside, Muse and Lyre had left the crowd of bats and flew towards the boulder Aria and the owls stood on in the same spiral pattern Dionysus and Liber had flew in. Despite their old age, they flew gracefully, both dipping down into the pit that contained Corona’s body and grabbing a small claw full of herbs.

    The two lesser elders flew to opposite sides of the boulder Aria and the smaller owls stood on to two, smaller, plate-like rocks and dropped their herbs. When the two older bats landed, Dionysus and Liber, commanded by a silent cue, each clipped a long blade of grass growing along the sides of the boulder and held it proudly in their beaks as they turned and placed the tips of the grass in the fire Bacchus held in his talons.

    Being careful not to extinguish the glowing tips of the grass, yet still keeping their movements synchronized and relatively graceful, they moved towards the plate-like rocks and placed the small, burning blade slightly under the small piles of herbs and began fanning the flames. It didn’t take long for the breeze their wings created to turn the small burning embers within the herbs into two bold fires; the main part of The Burning hadn’t even begun, and it was already beginning to be a brilliant display of dancing flames.

    As Dionysus and Liber continued fanning the flames, blowing thick smoke over the entire Silverwing Colony, Aria once again took her place in the spotlight, “There isn’t a single one of us here who hasn’t been touched by Corona’s kindness…” again, her voice quivered in false sadness as she continued to speak, “I cannot tell you how many mid-day talks I’ve had with the dear girl as she sacrificed the restful mornings she could have been having in her roost to help out the sick children and mothers in the medical roost…many of us would not be here if not for her dedication to your health…”

    She bowed her head just slightly as she watched her colony’s reaction from the corners of her eyes before continuing with her speech, “We owe her respect…we owe her this honor to be sent into Nocturna’s wings in front of all those she loved so much…”

    Inside Tree Haven, Mist looked at Noxx with wide eyes as she continued to cling to Katarra’s fur, “Noxx, no! You can’t go; don’t you see the owls out there? They’ll rip any bat in half without thinking about it!” she knew about the treaty, how owls were, technically, no longer a threat…but she was right, an owl could easily rip a bat in half…and with his size, it’d be like crunching a dry leaf for them…

    It was clear that, even with her deep concern, he was more than willing to go out there…the little bat knew what he saw in his dreams, and burning Corona’s body was barbaric and unnecessary. Before Mist or Katarra could protest any further, he spread his wings and jumped out of the knothole…away from the comfort of the nursery roost.

    “Noxx!” Mist yelled as she let go of Katarra’s fur to crawl as fast as she could to the knothole Noxx had just disappeared from. She looked down in time to see Noxx flapping his wings as fast as he could to stay aloft from his fall. He was headed straight for the owls…what was he planning to do? She wanted to stand there and watch, until she lost him in a cloud of smoke.

    When she could no longer see her friend, she, too, spread her wings and prepared to fly, but a pair of white wings wrapped around her as Katarra stopped her from taking flight, “Mist, calm down!” she spoke softly as the pup struggled in her grasp, trying yet again to calm her niece, “Your friend is strong, you can see it in his eyes…” she stroked Mist’s head again with her thumb claw as she watched Noxx’s disappearing shadow within the smoke, “…He’ll be okay, I know he will…”

    Mist sobbed softly as the thought of possibly losing her friend crossed her mind and she buried her face in Katarra’s soft fur, not wanting to see if anything bad happened, “…I know he’s strong…” came her muffled voice, “…he…he is The Hero…” saying that out loud helped…but it also made her thoughts of him dying worse…after all, Shade Silverwing, the little hero Noxx so resembled, didn’t make it out alive when he tried to help someone he cared about.

    Noxx coughed and choked as he flew through the smoke produced by the burning herbs, he was beginning to feel lightheaded, but there was no way he was going to let that stop him from stopping the ceremony. Despite his determination, he could feel himself fading in and out…no, he wasn’t fading in and out, he still felt completely awake…the world around him was fading from what he knew to be normal…to something horrific.

    In his eyes, the forest beyond the smoke filled air turned into a horrible, charred wasteland. The land he flew over was blackened and lifeless, the few patches of grass that remained where set ablaze and small veins of liquid fire flowed through cracks in the barren earth. The lake he loved to play around was no longer filled with the clear waters it should normally have…the scent rising through the air said the entire lake was filled with blood.

    Noxx’s heart beat wildly with fear as he blinked, causing the cataclysmic scene his mind produced to fade back into the reality of the northern forest…what had he just seen? This was one of the many visions he had that he wished would never come true…yet…he felt, with an uncomfortable certainty, that what he had just seen would come to pass…

    Paying no attention to Noxx, or anyone else around her, Aria began finishing her eulogy for Corona, “As we have heard in the stories of our past, there is a great tree in the underworld, it is our gift from Nocturna so that we may find eternal peace…yet, we also know that there are many trials for a bat to face down there…” she lowered her wings and Bacchus rose above her, fully showing the impressive flame he carried to the awestruck colony of bats.

    “This is why,” she continued as Bacchus hovered above the pit, “we burn the bodies of those we’ve lost…The Burning Tree, The Tree of Life, is made of living fire. By burning the bodies of those who have fallen, we are helping them by ending their trip to the dark underworld and sending them straight into the fire of Nocturna’s Tree.” She flicked her wingtips and Muse and Lyre obediently moved to her side, “It is with great sadness that we have to send poor Corona off…but it is with great joy that we know we are about to send her to a better place.”

    Noxx broke through the cloud of smoke to see Bacchus about to drop the torch into the pit that contained Corona’s body, “No!” he gasped silently as he beat his wings even harder to make it to the pit in time. As he closed his eyes to strain his wings harder, the horrific vision returned; only this time, it didn’t go away when he blinked. No, the desolate landscape remained, and it was no less horrible to glimpse it a second time…in fact…it was, if possible, more horrible than the last time.

    His eyes darted around the area, trying to catch a glimpse of something that was familiar, something that told him this wasn’t real…he wished to see his mother’s kind, loving smile, to hear Mist’s voice, anything to break this horrible vision. In his panic to see what he knew to be familiar to him, he didn’t realize the pressure of a nearly deafening silence pressing against his ears.

    As he came to realize it, his ears perked up, straining to hear just a small sliver of sound, but he heard nothing, not even the crackle of the liquid fire below him. He took a deep breath and barked sound at the ground, hoping to see a sliver slab of rock in his mind’s eye, but nothing came back to him. He gasped hoarsely and folded his ears back against his head…if he couldn’t hear any sound, he didn’t want to feel the pressure of the silence against his ears…he could handle being deaf in the ears…but the pressure was going to make his head explode, he could feel it.

    He closed his eyes and wished as hard as he possibly could for the sound to come back. As he felt a slight vibration brush against his fun, he was finally able to hear a deep rumbling sound, he sighed in relief and opened his eyes. But, as he saw what it was that was making the noise, he immediately wished for the sound to go away.

    Following where the sound was resonating from, his eyes locked onto the horizon. At first, it seemed there was nothing there, the ground was just a thick dark line separating the sky…it was nothing at all…then, in one quick blink of his eyes, something shot up from the ground. It was too far away for Noxx to use echoes, and the fact that he didn’t know what it was, the fact that something such as a speck on the horizon could cause such noise scared him greatly.

    He squinted, trying to make out what had erupted from the ground, but it seemed that his curiosity was drawing whatever was closer. He quickly realized that it wasn’t just one thing, but a whole bunch of things…huge pillars of jagged rock began shooting up from the ground…and they were heading straight for him!

    He gasped and banked sharply to the left, turning himself around completely in the air, pushing his little wings as hard as he possibly could. As he tried to escape the pillars, his eyes began to water, why was all of this happening? Why was his mind showing him such a horrible vision? Shouldn’t it have faded by now? Could this all possibly be real? He closed his eyes tightly and strained his wings to carry him faster, but it was no use…

    The sick cracking of the dead earth was almost directly underneath him as still more pillars shot up from the ground below him. He yelped quietly as one brushed sharply against the very end of his tail membrane, what was causing this? Why did these rocks seem to have minds of their own? More importantly, why were they trying to kill him in the first place?

    As he continued to scream these questions in his mind, the a pillar rose up directly beneath him, he was just barely able to dodge it by leaning to the right. Now that they seemed to be trying their hardest to impale him, he continued to bank to the left and the right, zigzagging in the air, each time narrowly missing getting a sharp column of rock shoved through his little body.

    Finally, he shouted, unable to keep his thoughts from spilling from his mouth, “Why is this happening to me?!”

    Silence…

    Everything was dead silent once again…was this his answer? It couldn’t be…it didn’t even seem to apply to his question…but it did stop when he shouted his question…it didn’t matter, he liked the silence now compared to the thunderous crack of the chasing rocks…he didn’t want the sound to come back now, and he hoped that wishing for it to stay away would work the same as wishing it would come back.

    It didn’t…

    His ears twitched as he heard a scratching noise, like claws against rock. It hurt his teeth just to listen to it, his ears lay flat against his head, trying to block the sound out but the sound didn’t want to be ignored. It grew from a quiet scratching to a loud scraping, from a loud scraping to a slow cracking…

    His eyes fell to the ground below him as he felt the air vibrate with the loud rumbling again, he wasn’t ready to fly that hard again! He was pushing his body just to stay in the air. He gasped as a crack began to open up below him, it was much bigger than the small, almost circular cracks that spawned the pillars. This crack was in a straight line, spreading as far as his eyes and ears could see to both his left and his right.

    With another sickening break of the earth, one that almost deafened him, the crack opened up into a huge fissure. Before he even had the chance to gasp, a thick stone wall shot up from the ground, completely blocking his view of the dimly lit sky. He flared his wings, using all his strength just to try to avoid slamming into the wall. Exhausted, almost too tired to stay in the air, but too afraid to land for fear of not being able to avoid those spiked pillars in time should they begin to rise again, he flapped his little wings just enough to stay in the air in front of the dark stone wall before him.

    Breathlessly, he sprayed out sound to the left and right of him, trying to keep his echoes as close to the stone that stretched out around him. When his echoes never returned he gasped, although part of him wasn’t surprised in the least, the wall never ended. Once the wall had risen to it’s full height, all fell quiet again, the only sound he could hear was the frantic beating of his heart pounding in his ears.

    But again, that silence did not last long…

    The newest painful sound of grinding rock was not coming from behind him or below him--for that he felt he should be thankful--but from the wall in front of him. His eyes widened as he watched part of the wall chip away, he heard muffled growling from inside the stone as if something inside was trying furiously to escape. As the rock continued to crack and chip away, a noticeable shape began to appear, it looked much like a bat…but something didn‘t seem right…other than the fact that there was a bat trapped in a wall of solid stone.

    The wall bulged, as if the bat trapped within was lunging out at him, spraying small bits of rock out over him. He winced away from the wall just slightly, fear wanting to drive him away, but pure curiosity holding him in his place in the sky. Noxx’s eyes watered from the violent spray of dust the struggling stone bat sprayed out at him. As he blinked, trying to clear the dust from his eyes, the shape of the stone bat had changed…it was no longer the shape of a full-bodied bat…no, it was the shape of a bat skeleton. It’s wings were outstretched, it’s muzzle was turned to the sky, and it’s mouth opened up in a silent scream as if it fought for it’s life to the very end.

    Out of nowhere, a silent wind ran along the surface of the wall, brushing the rest of the dust away from the skeleton, revealing its bleached white form. His heart skipped a beat, he wasn’t sure if his heart had many more beats to skip…with all that was going on around him, he was amazed that his little heart hadn’t given out all together.

    As the wind died down, the skeleton’s top half began to tremble violently, cracking the stone holding it to the wall. Its head was the first thing it wrenched free, its hollow eyes glaring right through Noxx. It opened it’s barely attached jaw and growled at him, blowing out the scent of death on its nonexistent breath, “…you…”

    Noxx squeaked in fear and wheeled around in the air, flapping his little wings as hard as he could to get away from the wall and the living skeleton trapped within it. But the wall itself was three steps ahead of him, the minute he turned away from it, it shot up from the ground directly in front of him. He let out a breathless scream, he couldn’t take anymore…why was he experiencing all of this?!

    He felt like closing his wings around him and ending it. As he stared at the skeleton and the wall that had followed him, as he looked around at the desolate wasteland around him, as the feeling of hopelessness crashed into him with full force, it’s what he decided to do. But, as he flared his wings once last time, the skeleton wrenched its bare, left wing out of the stone that held it and grabbed Noxx harshly by the neck.

    Again, it opened its jaws and breathed out in an unnatural voice, “…you…know…too…much…” with each word it spoke, it’s claws tightened around Noxx’s neck, the sharp points digging into his skin and cutting off what little air he was able to take in.

    Noxx’s panic renewed his will to live, all he could think about now was getting out of the skeleton’s grasp, he just wanted to breath again…anything he did after that would be a miracle to him. His little claws scratched at the dead claws holding him, but with his weakening body, he barely made a scratch. As his wide eyes stared into the hollow sockets of the bat skeleton, his vision began to fade in and out. Confusion swarmed around his mind, he was about to kill himself, but the skeleton ‘saved’ him…only to kill him itself? It didn’t make sense to him…

    At least, it didn’t make sense until the bat carcass spoke again.

    It brought Noxx closer, pressing his nose against its nonexistent one, “…He…has…plans…for you…” Noxx knew that, if he could breathe, the skeleton’s ‘breath’ would have easily made him vomit. The living dead holding him continued to speak, “…it’s…His will…that…you’re…still alive…be…grateful…to Him…”

    Slowly, the wall began to silently crumble away and the skeleton itself began to disintegrate. As Noxx began to lose consciousness, the dead bat forcefully tossed him away, letting the runt of the Silverwing colony fall like a rock. Another harsh wind blew, blowing the remains of the skeleton away while the wall continued to crumble. As Noxx’s world faded to darkness, the sound returned; he faintly heard the dulled rumblings of the falling stone wall, the frantic pounding of his heart in his ears, but above all that, he again hear the harsh whispering of the skeleton, “…Hail Zotz!”

    Then, just as quickly as the darkness of unconsciousness enclosed around him, his eyes snapped open and he gasped, the horrid scene around him had changed back to the peaceful night air around Tree Haven. As a soft wind blew, the wounds he received on his neck in his ‘vision’ began to sting. Fear caused his heart to beat like a hummingbird’s wings, had all of that really happened?

    His resolve to stop The Burning Ceremony was replaced by the need to get out of the area immediately. He flared his wings as wide as they could go, slowing his quick fall, and flapped his wings as hard as he could, the fatigue he felt in his vision was now gone…something he also felt very thankful for at the moment. He closed his eyes and strained his little body, not caring where he was going, and that was obvious by the fact that he was headed straight for Bacchus.

    The larger owl, paying more attention to his duties rather than a stray bat in the skies, was caught completely off guard when Noxx smacked straight into him. Bacchus was knocked back an inch or two by the speed at which Noxx was flying, due to the force the little bat had in him, the owl dropped the torch he carried in surprise. His head swiveled around to watch Noxx, his eyes glaring needles into his furry little body as he darted into the thick forest across the lake.

    The Silverwing runt was the least of his worries for the moment, he turned his head to look at the torch he had dropped a moment ago…which falling in what seemed like slow motion towards his father…

    Dionysus, like his two sons, was concentrating only on his given duties of fanning the flames and he didn’t notice the torch his strongest son had dropped until it hit him. He squawked in shock and stumbled forward on the boulder, tripped on the edge and fell forward into the pit that contained the herbs and Corona’s dead body, taking the torch with him. Dionysus’ tortured screams, and Bacchus and Liber’s terrified squawks was drowned out by an amazed call rising from the crowd of Silverwings. The elder owl falling into the pit sparked a magnificent fire, blowing a great cloud of purple smoke over the colony of bats.

    As an effect of the herbs, none of them seemed to care that their eyes could momentarily register colors, all they cared about was the wispy figure of both a bat and an owl that rose out of the pit through the smoke. Aria once again opened her wings to their full span, causing Muse and Lyre to respond in kind, “Nocturna’s will be done!” the high female elder shouted, “Hail Nocturna!”

    Every bat in the Silverwing colony shouted up to the sky, still following the two ‘spirits’ they saw rising through the smoke, repeating their elder’s words, “Hail Nocturna!” their cries echoed throughout the forest, creating an eerie voice on the wind that caused every animal within earshot to look up even though they did not understand.

    Inside Tree Haven, tears spilled from both Katarra and Mist’s eyes. Though they did not see the ‘spirits’ rising from the smoke, they suffered a great loss “…Mother…” she whispered as she looked away, still absentmindedly stroking the fur of her young niece.

    Mist looked outward, almost unable to look away, “…grandma…” slowly, she forced her head to turn away and pressed her face into Katarra’s soft fur. After a moment of sobbing, she spoke again, her voice muffled by her aunt’s fur, “…Noxx…” she had lost her grandmother and her best friend…Katarra was really all she had left now…and the medics kept saying she was going to die…