Chapter 1 - Ayana
Her ears perk up as her sound wave bounces against something and the echoes return to her, lighting up the moonless night in silver and gray. She scans her surroundings before they fade away, noticing a few small flies hovering in the air a few feet from her as well as a beetle that had just landed on a thin, weak branch jutting out from the one she’s perched on. She pauses with a moment of indecision. If she goes for it, she’ll have to take flight a few feet from it to keep the branch from trembling with her weight, but the empty feeling in her stomach convinces her that it’ll be worth it.
Creeping forward, flexing her wings, she sends out more sonic clicks, making certain of her prey’s location before she attacks. With a silent breath, she flares her wings and springs forward—
Just in time to see another bat do the same and swoop down to snap up the beetle and push off the fragile branch with grace, hovering over it for a moment before locking their wings and glide over towards the branch where she sits.
“Xena, that was mine!” The larger bat rolls her eyes and licks her lips.
“Listen, you wanna eat, you gotta strike quick. It was about to fly off, so I went for it! If you had gone for it, you would’ve been way off. Here, flare your wings again for me.” Xena commands, barely trying to keep her voice down. The smaller bat growls, backing up. She sighs in frustration. “Come on Ayana, do it yourself or I’m gonna make you!”
Ayana licks her lips, debating the pros and cons of refusing. Xena may act extremely condescending towards her, especially when it comes to hunting, but she was the best in the clan for a reason. With an over dramatic sigh Ayana slowly opens up her wings, stretching them to their full extent to try and fool herself into thinking she may have grown past Zena.
But without much success, she notes bitterly. Even with her friend’s wings out halfway, she’s already much bigger than herself. Xena looks her up and down while prodding her into the right place with the combination of her nose and claws.
“You’re still at a disadvantage for size, but if you can lock your wings tight, you’ll be much more agile and able to make sharp turns and fast dives. Here, imagine I’m your prey. I want you to spring at me. Do it, or I’m gonna hold you down and you won’t get a meal tonight.” She warns, seeing Ayana roll her eyes. She really didn’t want to do this and embarrass herself again in front of her self proclaimed mentor, but the sharp twang in her stomach helps to get her into a hunting position. The faster she got through this, the sooner she could go eat.
Xena steps back a few paces, folding her wings to shrink down to a decent size. Even with them tightly pressed against her body, her muscly torso still has trouble fitting comfortably on the shared branch.
Ayana tenses, springing forward and unfurling her wings, pouncing on the larger female. Xena snaps at her, but she persists, trying desperately to get her claws buried in her chest fur, thus hooking a meal.
Xena fights back for a bit, then opens her own wings and beats Ayana back, ending their game. Ayana backs up, seeing an all too common look in her eyes. One of disappointment and pity.
“You’re still not using your wings to your advantage, Ayana. Come on, you’re the only three year old bat who still has trouble catching larger, faster prey. Your small size should guarantee you a free meal every night!”
Ayana, used to this kind of scolding, simply waits until it ends and nods, saying that she’d continue to practice this, and maybe next time she’ll do better. Xena doesn’t seem to buy it, but her stomach, not filled by the one tiny bug, convinces her to leap off the branch and call out that she’d better do well next time!
She sighs, sadness replacing her adrenaline rush. She doesn’t feel much like hunting anymore, even though the changing season makes for a nice cool, refreshing night. Her whole session with Xena had drained all the effort out of her, so she sets off towards the edge of their territory.
Once she reaches a reasonable altitude, she locks her wings and glides, following a route so well known she doesn’t even need to send out an echo. Weaving in and out of the all too familiar maze of trees, she finally sends out one last echo to ensure a smooth landing at her final destination. Ayana opens her claws, sinks them into the soft bark of the tree, and as soon as she feels comfortable, she shifts.
Her long, thin arms become fuller, covered in a light orange skin much like the color of her fur. Her furry head loses much of its fur, and it all seems to move to the back, where it grows out to tickle her shoulders. Her large ears stay, however, as well as the fur covering her torso and down to her legs. Ayana sighs and smiles, stretching her limbs over her head as far as they go, getting a satisfying ‘pop!’ as a reward. Flexing her fingers a few times to get used to them again, the young bat searches out a puddle that had remained from the previous night’s rainfall.
In its reflection she regards her new form. Twisting her head from side to side, she winces to see how knotted her hair had grown while she was hunting. Trying and failing desperately to smooth it down with her hands, she finally admits to herself that she would probably have to ask Xena or one of her adoptive family members to help. She wonders why her friend hadn’t noticed how much of a mess she actually was.
“Actually I do know that. It’s cause she’s a self absorbed idiot.” Ayana says aloud, but quietly. She loves Xena like family, but sometimes she was just too blind to reality. She liked to believe that it was because she was really good at hiding her true self, but deep down she knows that it’s mostly because her friends and ‘family’ don’t look hard enough.
One day, she wishes to tell them her secret. But the attitude towards her true self is so hated, so reviled, that they would send her away without a second thought. She takes one last look in the puddle. The muddy ground mixed into the water makes it hard to get a crystal clear image, but as she regarded her features, she smiles.
Despite everything, she was proud to be human, even in a world where they were called useless, weak, and even unnatural. When she was a bat, her limbs felt clunky, like she was trying to use someone else’s body. But when she finally let that form melt away in the darkness of night, she felt calm and serene.
Only she couldn’t stay long like this. If anyone came this way while hunting, she would be exiled, which was as good as dead. Sure, sometimes exiled bats could survive and start their own colony, but she didn’t want to take the chances.
“Just do what I came to do, then leave,” She says to herself, turning towards the tree she had landed in. With her new eyes and the bright moonlight, she’s able to make out small shapes hanging in the branches. Stretching as far as she can and standing on her toes, she manages to grab a cluster and bring them down to her height.
She breaks them off the branch that they’re attatched to and picks one out of the bunch.She rolls it around in her fingers to get used to the feeling before popping it in her mouth, enjoying the crunch of its thick, tangy skin. The ache in her muscles quickly fades away as she eats more and more, loving the repetition of the movement.
Repetition is safe. Repeating her actions; falling asleep at sunrise, waking up at dusk, hunt for a little bit, nine times out of ten get lectured by Xena about her lack of skill, and finally escape to the tree and fill up on its delicious fruit and relish in the silence. Away from the stares, away from the criticism, away from the spiral of lies that is her life.
Pausing before she eats the last small fruit, she gazes at it sadly before lowering it, having lost her appetite. She looks up at the sky and starts, seeing the moon had sunk low on the horizon, and a faint pink tint was behind her.
Heart hammering in her chest, she leaps into the air and assumes her smaller form, beating her wings as hard as she can to make it back to her colony in time. Soon another set of wings beating join hers as a much smaller bat falls in beside her, his voice reaching an even higher pitch than Ayana’s.
“Where were you Ay? We looked all over!” the young bat lies through his teeth. Ayana tenses for a second, then beats her wings faster without replying, trying to work
away her anger before she reaches her shared roost. She knew none of her adoptive family had gone further than the neighboring tree to look for her.
Sure enough, her ‘parents’ were sitting lazily on the branch, her mother grooming her father and to Ayana, she knew that they had been at it since she had gone off on her own. She flares her wings, dumping all the air out to land near the trunk of the tree. For a moment, it seems as if her mother didn’t see or hear her land, since she hadn’t turned. Ayana tries to creep even closer towards the tree.
“So, where were you, Ay? Dejen couldn’t find you.” There it is.
“I went a little further out to hunt. There weren’t enough bugs to go around tonight,” Ayana lies. This was a regular routine, but it didn’t make it any less terrifying.
“You’ve been doing that a lot, Ayana. And yet whenever Obi and I go out, there’s more than enough food in this area. It makes us wonder... what else you might be doing?” Her tone seems conversational and light, but it sends chills through her.
Ayana mumbles a quick excuse that doesn’t seem to convince her before retreating over to her roost where she’s greeted by Xena shuffling along the branch.
She inwardly sighs but puts on a happy facade. “Xena, what’re you doing?”
Xena grins back, looking slightly ridiculous on the branch that was clearly too small for her. Realizing a way to pay her back for the scolding while they were hunting, she drops down to brush her chest fur against the branch and shuffle towards her friend.
“Ay... what are you doing...?” Xena questions nervously, digging her claws as deep as possible into the shallow wood. Smirking and pausing only a foot or so from Xena, she sunks her own claws into the branch and throws her whole weight down, then up, then down again.
She yelps, quickly becoming dislodged from the tree and thrown ungracefully into the air.
“I hate you Ay!” Xena calls out as she plummets past several other roosts, waking newborns and their exhausted, cranky mothers before yanking her wings open and flying back to Ayana’s branch.
A satisfied smirk greets her as she immediately curls up and hangs from the branch. Ayana follows her example, significantly more cheerful.
“Love you too, Xen. What’re you doing anyways? My parents said no sleeping in my roost after last time--”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m not staying,” she says offhandedly, shifting to accommodate her large wings which, when folded, doubles her body size. “I just wanted to talk! You ran away and I couldn’t find you. Sorry, by the way.”
Ayana stifles a yawn. “About what?”
The prideful bat curls in a little, looking away uncomfortably. “Y’know, for during hunting. I was really harsh when I was yelling.”
Ayana smiles despite herself. “That’s just how you are, Xen. Don’t sweat it.” Xena’s face lights up and she nuzzles her friend happily.
“I’ll try not to do it again, though. Oh, I know!” She pulls away from Ayana and turns to face her, looking determined. “You get to yell at me.”
“What?”
“Yell at me. It will make you feel better.”
The smaller bat rolls her eyes. “No it won’t.”
“Yes it will.”
“No it won’t!”
“Come on Ay, please?” Her whiny tone grates on her sensitive ears, making her wince.
“No! It’s so weird that you’re trying to make me mad at you, Xen. Usually friends try to avoid doing that.”
Xena smirks, opening up her right wing and pulling Ayana closer. “Yeah? Well, we’re waaay past the point of ‘friends,’ Ay,” Ayana’s heart skips a beat at this. She didn’t mean...!
But her friend doesn’t seem to notice instead she grins while looking across the way towards another tree. “Don’t look now, but we’ve got a hottie approaching.”
Curious, Ayana sends out an echo in the general direction. Xena never talked about her mate that way, so who was it? When the world lights up in silver and black, she realizes that the ‘hottie’ was actually another bat about their age, known for his good looks and hunting skills.
“Xen! You’re taken already, don’t say stuff like that!” Her friend grins and unfurls her wings, hovering in front of Ayana.
“Just ‘cause I’ve got a mate doesn’t mean I can’t admire from afar. Besides--” Xena breaks off as he gets into hearing range. Smirking knowingly, she winks at Ayana and rockets upwards, most likely to hide and eavesdrop.
Ayana rolls her eyes and curls up, sinking her front claws into the branch and pulling herself onto it. She barely reacts when it suddenly sinks down a foot with the weight of her visitor.
“Hope I’m not keeping you from sleeping,” he says in a smooth voice. Because her ears are searching for it, she faintly hears the stifled squeal from above She was right, Xena was listening in on her conversation. And for good reason, though it was annoying.
It was Lanre, the bat said to be a prodigy in everything. His special talent however, seemed to be wooing young female bats just like Ayana.
She shakes her head in answer to his statement -- it hadn’t really been a question -- and uses it as an excuse to look him over.
Large wings folded over an even larger torso, giving him even more trouble than Xena had balancing.
“I’ve been awake for long enough, I think I can spare a few minutes. What is it?” A hiss from above. Too blunt.
Lanre doesn’t seem to mind. “Well, I wanted to ask you to go hunting with me tomorrow. I saw Xena yelling at you tonight and I thought maybe you’d like a night without that?” Ayana stares at him, taking way too long to process the proposal.
“You... want to go hunting... with me?” He nods, flashing her a brilliant smile.
“What do you say? I know a great place out of the way. Nobody ever comes by,” Lanre purrs, a strange predatory look in his eyes. If Ayana had been thinking clearly, alarms would be ringing incessantly. She didn’t know Lanre that well and truth be told, she had no desire to be alone with him.
But sleep was calling her name and the promise of food with little competition was appealing enough for her sleepy head to nod slowly, giving her approval. Lanre smiles a little half-smile, one that was obviously designed to make her heart flutter.
Whether it did or not was lost to the twilight of sleep she was sinking into, as she also doesn’t feel the branch lift back to its normal position, relieved of its extra burden.
‘A date,’ thinks Ayana as sleep wraps its warm arms around her like another set of wings. ‘I have a date tomorrow...’
And then her mind falls into darkness as the bottom of the glowing red sun clears the horizon. I know the formatting's weird but that's just because of Blogger. I'd appreciate any and all comments and criticism on this story, because it's the first one that I know I can see through to the end!
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