The story starts to move again in here, I hope you enjoy it.
.....
Three days later, Verdeyan lay downstairs at the hearth, across from Asabet.
The damp chill of rain drafted from the shutters, cold drops tapping on the walls of the house. She sighed. It was an awkward feeling sleeping in the house, as she recalled the fuss from upstairs earlier.
“What is that rat doing sleeping in our house!”
“Bloody thunder! Jonalla, it is raining out there. We don’t leave the possums out in this weather.”
“Because the possums get black-foot fungus. Flerizon do not get black-foot fungus.”
“That is completely beside the point!”
“No, it is not. She will not die of foot-rot unlike the possums, therefore, she can sleep outside tonight.”
“Oh, bloody thunder!”
She sighed, turning onto her side. Her stiff wings twinged as she used her abdominal muscles to execute the roll, sucking in a breath. Outside the shuttered windows, a rooster crowed, and a neighbor’s mullar lowed.
It was earlymorning, but the rising sun hidden behind the clouds, the household still asleep.
A noise stirred her from her dim mulling, a sound much like a cough, only harsher, more labored. It startled her, grating in her ears as she sleepily discerned where it came from.
“Asabet?” there was a question in her voice.
The noise continued, and she crept over to the woman’s side.
Asabet lay on her mattress, her chest rising and falling rapidly, several times a second, as pained wretching gasps for air issued from her throat.
Verdeyan stood for a moment, transfixed by the odd sight, then jerked into action, grasping the woman by the shoulders, nudging her.
“Asabet?” Her voice was lost in the din of Asabet’s odd coughing.
She shook the woman harder. “Asabet!”
Her eyes flickered open, revealing only whites. Alarm filled her veins and she jerked back suddenly, gasping.
The coughing persisted, now accompanied by random twitches of the woman’s body.
Her head turned to the side, her eyes rolling back in her head—Verdeyan felt tears beginning to slide down her face.
“Gattlin! Gattlinian!” she cried, grabbing Asabet by the shoulders. “Gattlin!”
As Asabet writhed, Verdeyan pressed herself to the old woman’s body, trying to stay the restless limbs, as if to curb the attack by sheer force of will.
“Gattlinian!” she bellowed, now crying freely.
Footsteps echoed as he threw open the door of his room, his bare arms and chest appearing in the doorway.
“What is it?” His voice was soft and sheepish as if sleep still clutched his mind.
“Gattlin!” she replied sharply, unable to say anything more.
He turned his gaze to the hearth where his mother lay, convulsing, and adrenaline inundated his consciousness, washing away the cobwebs of drowsiness that dulled his mind.
“Mother!” he cried, coming to her side suddenly, his body shaking. Verdeyan looked up in time to see the terror in his eyes, a sudden wave of sympathy washing over her.
He was afraid.
A gentle tug of his arm pushed her away, as he removed the blankets from his mother’s body, placing them beneath her head, and began to move away all the dishes and baskets of belongings that surrounded her bed.
“Verdeyan,” his voice was low, urgent, “Get Jonalla.”
“But-“
“Get Jonalla!”
Verdeyan paused for a moment, then wheeled, sprint noisily up the stairs, shouting,
“Jonalla!”
“What do you want!”
“I-“ she began, stepping back a few feet “It’s Asabet—“
Jonalla appeared in the doorway of her room, her dressing gown falling off her shoulders.
“I’m coming!”
A bedsheet trailed from her hand like a ghostly veil as she fled down the stairs to Gattlin’s side.
“Verdeyan found her like this,” he said breathlessly.
“How long has she been like this?”
Jonalla turned her face to Verdeyan, who was silent, frozen, two sets of eyes fixed on hers, their gazes urgent and wild. Panic filled her.
“How long has she been like this?” Gattlin’s voice was cold and detached.
She only stood, fixed in place, like a squirrel in the sights of a falcon.
“Wench, tell me!” Jonalla shouted, taking each step deliberately towards Verdeyan.
As the girl remained silent, frozen, Jonalla rushed at her, grabbing her by the shoulder.
“Tell me!”
Jonalla slapped her across the face, the pain searing in Verdeyan’s consciousness, a scarlet streak in her vision, she reeled backwards.
“Ah-a-few minutes—“ she gasped, scrambling away.
Gattlin’s gaze threw from the sight of his mother to where Verdeyan sprawled on the floor, a stunned look on her face.
“Jonalla!” he howled, “What are you doing!” As he shouted, Verdeyan scrambled away, up the stairs, locking herself into Jonalla’s chamber.
“I am going to fetch the healer!”
With that, she tore out the front door, leaping out into the rain, and spread her tawny wings. Her dressing gown flared around her bare legs, rain slicing though the fabric, drenching her in frigid drops. As she gained altitude, darting between the branches where other farmhouses were located, someone shouted, shaking a fist at the woman who flew with her bare body so exposed.
She shivered, her hair blown into her eyes by the wind, fleeting half-thoughts of cold and modesty inspiring her to wrap the bedsheet over her bare legs.
She darted upwards between branches, more than once nearly colliding with the tree, until she reached its top, where the pollished wooden shingles of the homes of the elite and the temples of the town.
Light reflected in a hazy silver sheen off these, the gleam masked by the dull gloom of the rain and clouds.
She alighted onto the porch of one of these homes, not hesitating even a second before pounding her fists against the nearest surface, which happened to be a window shutter.
“Open up! My mother is ill!” she howled, slinging the drenched bedsheet against the wall of the house with a shrill snap.
Footsteps clattered in the building, and a small hand snatched open the shutter, an equally diminuitive voice inquiring “What may I do, Miss?”
A boy of perhaps ten stuck out his head, his sleep-hungry eyes shaded by a floppy cap, lending him a sheepish look.
....
Thanks for reading! Reviews are much appreciated.
~Voxina
