Passing through the shimmering barrier had felt … well, like nothing. Jaenelle had expected to feel something - some resistance, some pain, perhaps even just a tingle – some sensation to mark her passage from Caverna into whatever unknown lay beyond the strange light. But there had been nothing, and now she found herself hurtling wildly through open space, having over-compensated her launch to account for a resistance that never came. Twisting in mid-air, she snapped her membranous wings open to slow her movement and came to hover several feet above the ground.

Her ears were ringing; adrenaline. After so many years of quietly flitting about Caverna, tending to the little ones and living a generally peaceful life, this was the most daring thing the girl had done. To fling herself through some mysterious, glowing crack which had practically been dripping with magic … why would she have done something so reckless? Perhaps the effects of passing the barrier were not physical, but mental. Certainly the girl felt confused, and more than a little foggy. But as the ringing in her ears began to fade, the reason for her haste made itself well-known once again: Aeluin. That impudent, naïve child who was responsible for the shrill chirping which was replacing the ringing. Jaenelle sighed, shaking her head. Not thirty seconds had passed since the two of them had emerged from the caves, and yet this girl was already spitting defiance and anger. Jaenelle almost wished the ringing would return to drown out the child’s tirade.

She remained aloft, wings pumping slowly to maintain her position, and gazed down impassively as Aeluin snorted and stomped and bared her teeth. It really was quite a spectacle, and if her lavender pearly betrayed any emotion, it was wistful amusement. She wondered idly where the batling got the energy to constantly be so impertinent; surely these outbursts must become tiresome after a while. But then again, this one had never been one to show respect for her elders even on the most mundane of days. No doubt she resented having what she must think a spectacular adventure interrupted by Jaenelle’s apparently unwelcome appearance. With another sigh she lowered herself gracefully to the ground, ginger paws alighting delicately on the damp stone. It hardly mattered how or why the child was like this. She simply was, and now it was once again time to reign in her tiny fury and return her to the safety of her family roost.

”Yes, Aeluin,” she muttered, unable to keep the cutting edge out of her voice. She stretched and then daintily folded her midnight wings along her back. “I followed you. What else was I to do? A child with your … proclivities slipping off alone in the middle of the night is just a recipe for disaster. What were you thinking? Do you have any idea how far from Caverna we’ve come? And that strange barrier. Could you not feel its magic? Have you no sense, child?!” She stopped abruptly, cutting off the reproach. A snarl had crept into her normally velvety voice, and she disliked the sound. This was not her way; she was patient and kind, always, though Aeluin tested her more than most. She drew a deep breath, searching for words that would make the Chiro child understand that her anger came from a place of genuine – if slightly exasperated – concern.

“You don’t have to hear anything I have to say – I will leave the proper tongue-lashing to your parents – but you will be coming back with me. Yes, right now,” she added, to cut off the protest she was sure would come. “We don’t know where we are. There is no Chiro scent here. Staying in Caverna, surrounded by our own kind, that’s what has always kept us safe, Aeluin. We don’t know what this place is, and I’m certain it’s no place for a child. It’s time to go home.” She turned away from the sputtering girl to look for the magical crack in the stone through which she would lead them home … but it was nowhere to be seen. In the darkness, its glow should have been apparent. “Where … “ she began unsteadily. Her large, conical ears flattened themselves against her skull and her lip peeled up in a silent snarl in one motion as she realized the truth of their situation: they were stuck here, at least for the time being, in this unknown place. She alone was now responsible for keeping the most notoriously unruly child in all of Caverna safe in a place where she was somehow sure no other Chiroptera had ever set foot.

As she began to turn back to Aeluin, her mind already reeling with the magnitude of the task before her, a strange sound ripped through the cave. Startled, she leapt into the air and hung there, teeth bared, probing the darkness for its source. It came again some seconds later, a high-pitched, piercing note. It was not unlike the sound the cave crickets made on quiet evenings in Caverna, but was different somehow. Perturbed, she began to glide cautiously in the direction from which the sound had come. “Stay here, child,” she murmured, fully expecting the bratty girl to ignore the instruction.

| . | . | Khett | . | . |