everything is just shapes
They had yelled at her. Bellowed at her until their throats were hoarse and their lungs were tired, the echoes of their angry voices shattering off the smooth stone walls. They had pleaded with her. Begged and cajoled, needled and lamented, angry but also desperate. Finally, they had simply given up. No longer did words of reproach burn Aeluin’s sensitive ears when she returned back to roost; she was finally free of disapproving glances from eyes that could not see her, yet seemed to see her flaws all the same. Her father spoke to her in short bursts, not cold exactly, but distant, as if he wanted to keep his daughter at wing’s length. Her mother was a little better. More affectionate, when she felt like it. Sometimes she still called Aeluin her “little lightning bug.” It was almost as if they were a happy family, one that got along and sang to each other like the other families in the clan. Aeluin wondered if everybody else were fooled by their show . . . or if they pierced through the act as easily as she did.
It was not uncommon for Chiroptera youth—especially cymatilis pearls like herself—to wear a rebellious streak. Caverna, though enclosed underground, was vast; not even the majority of the elders had completely explored their subterranean kingdom. From the time she’d been strong enough to fly, Aeluin had been uncontrollable. Wild. Adventurous. Her parents—both mature conculium—dreaded the messes their daughter flung herself into. If there was danger or risk involved, little Lu dove toward it headfirst. Bottomless pools of water? She had to swim and find the bottom. Corridors populated by glowing scorpions? The child played with them, squealing with surprised laughter when one managed to sting her paw (they weren’t deadly—just painful). Aeluin loved her parents, but their constant regulations made her chafe and wince, as if the rules were a vice clipping notches into her wings. Much of her upbringing involved bitter disappointment and furious panic. Lu just couldn’t figure out how to fix herself, how to become the daughter that her mother and father wanted. She couldn’t explain why sometimes anxiety shook her so mercilessly she had no choice but to distract herself with the next potentially deadly hobby. The girl had hardly grown out of puphood, and already she’d nosed around Caverna to the point its quiet majesty was starting to bore her.
And when Aeluin got bored, that’s when her secret anxiety overboiled.
She was supposed to be roosting right now. Her parents had been playing their little game, calling her affectionate names and grooming her ruff to settle her down. On the opposite end of their aerie, a few other families could be heard singing to one another, the notes rippling up and down several octaves. That music felt as if it were pulling on Aeluin’s heartstrings. She’d smiled politely at her mother, nodded at her father . . . and as soon as their chests rose and fell with the rhythm of sleep, the young Chiro slipped away. Her small paws expertly picked down the rocky path toward a stone outcropping where she could jump and sail into flight. Something for which she had no name had been bothering her lately . . . almost another symphony that hummed above the music of her people. A buzz. A thrum. A trill. And nobody else acted as if they sensed it. The music had been steadily driving Aeluin up the wall for days now. If there was ever a time to discover the source of this oddity, why not now? She swooped over a gaggle of pups like herself sharing a meal, their wings tucked close to their sides; a few elders called up greetings when she sliced by, their ancient pearled irises flickering like candlelight; at last, Aeluin darted beyond the boundaries that marked their small village, into the halls that no one claimed. If she flew through some of these paths, she’d arrive at another Chiro town or city. But she did not. Lu flew, and flew, and flew . . .
. . . until her wings felt as if they’d rip, and at last she reached a place where no Chiro scent lingered at all.
Her heartbeat hammered in her chest. The mysterious melody was loudest here, drawing her closer. Her vision could just make out a weird glimmering haze in a fissure up ahead . . .
“Where . . . what . . .” Words failed her. Language could not describe what she’d stumbled from. Portals were from fairy tales, stories about the time before their people were trapped underground. This . . . was indescribably beautiful. The spotted batling extricated herself from the darkness of the caves and stepped out onto grass, her gaze pulled upward to a night sky shimmering with a million stars.
Chiroptera | cymatilis pearl | no home | no love | xathira