Feather by Feather and Other Stories

by Lynn E. O'Connacht

  The stranger was lying on her side, one wing wrapped under her awkwardly, and breathing shallowly. She looked too small for a peeweww and her head seemed too angular with little crescents of moving flesh like a tree-glider’s on her head. Her wingclaws were shrivelled and her pale skin and leafless tail looked like an insect-eaten piece of bark. Nightshadow’s cheeks puffed up, his tail burrowing under the dirt and decaying leaves. He was their Keeper. But nothing glimmered in his private thoughts, nothing that would explain what the stranger was or what had happened to bring her here. She needed aid, though; that at least was obvious.

  “Demons.” Starglow’s voice as blurry as always. Startled, Nightshadow flexed his wings, snapping one of them back when it collided with a body. “She’s from far away,” his brother added, shifting beside him. The thoughts were for Nightshadow alone and he sent an unfocused ‘thank you’ back. Then he lowered his own thought-walls to address all the gathered peeweww.

  “Who found her?” he asked to give himself more time to think. Sound-voices clacked and twittered around him while thought-voices touched the edges of his mind. He ignored them and hopped closer to the stranger. We’ll have to help her up to a tree-nest, he thought to himself. Stretching his bent neck as close as he could and dared, he crouched beside the stranger. “What happened?”

  The force with which the answer broke through his thought-walls threw Nightshadow physically back. Flaring his wings, he tried to slow down and keep from falling over. Distantly, he could hear peeweww cries and feel the touch of cold air, warm bodies and blood as he tried to make sense of the vision. Many of the images were distorted, hazy, broken, almost as if seen through mist. Many contained things — plants, animals and places he guessed — that he had never seen or heard about before.

  Once the images had been burned from his mind and he regained awareness of his surroundings, Nightshadow hopped closer to the stranger again. Starglow sat beside her, rocking back and forth. As he moved, pain flared in Nightshadow’s back and he cheeped softly. A thorn-vine brushed against his cheek when he stopped. It pricked. “Who are you?”

  “Sun.” That, at least, was an image he could interpret easily, even as weak as it was. He introduced himself and his brother, told Sun she was safe with them and asked what she was. Sun’s sound-voice mewled softly and plaintively, accompanying her thought-answer. It was muddled, looked like her which told Nightshadow nothing, then moulded into the sky and the Stars. It snuffed out as she lost consciousness. She didn’t look like a peeweww, but she could be nothing else.

  “We need to get her up to the nests,” Nightshadow said as he moved away. A few peeweww with baskets resting against their chests were clacking irritably. “She understands us and claims to be peeweww.” He didn’t give the colony much time to let that settle in. “I don’t know how to get her up either, but we are resourceful and we will find a way. Until then, we’ll leave her here under our protection.” Nightshadow took off and settled on the nearest rock, startling a cricket. His tail flew up to scratch at his cheek; his claws dug deeper into the moss.

  “Peeweww!” he called out, stretching his neck and underscoring the thought with a shrill cry. Waiting for the sounds to quiet, he resettled his wings. “We have enough to feed one mouth more, but we must return to our work. There is food to be gathered, children to be looked after, nests to be maintained.” He paused to scratch at his cheek with his tail and his wingclaws clenched at the pain. “We will deal with prowlers if they come. They do not like high noises. Those not aiding our guest, Sun, go back to work. Children, help your parents or play elsewhere. Leave Sun to her rest and care. There will be plenty of time to hear her tale later.”

  He fell silent and watched the crowd chatter amongst itself and disperse. Starglow appeared to have vanished already, but Nightshadow had expected that. Starglow was never there for decisions. He’d be at the lake, as ever. But his brother would have to wait. First, Nightshadow wanted to talk to Morningshade; she always helped him think.

  An owl screeched in the distance. Nearer, carried by the faint breeze, the peeweww colony sang. Starglow was listening, swaying in the wind’s lullaby above the lake. Here, above the water’s distorted clarity, he could mull over Sun’s tale in peace. Here where things made sense. It’s the Stars, he told himself. Here, the canopy was thin enough to show the Stars clearly. Starglow always thought better here. Perhaps he wasn’t the only peeweww to seek out the lake. Most likely he was.

  Why? Starglow landed on a boulder and folded his wings against his body. While he thought, he flexed his wingclaws and wished, once more, that he knew why the Stars had blinded him, wished his brother was there for him, wished he had answers he lacked. Now, tonight, the Stars were silent. Some great disaster had befallen Sun’s people too; that much was obvious. I wonder if they’re all so like the Daystar. Some of the older peeweww believed Sun had come from the Stars; he knew better. From far away, yes. Some place vastly different, he’d understood. But not from the Stars. Foolish brother, my foolish brother, but the Stars admire you. I know They do.

  Starglow flicked his tail against the rock, dislodging some moss. It tickled. Why did You forsake him, Stars? And why else would the colony be living near the ground now, so far away from Them? How else could they have found Sun? Starglow unclasped his wingclaws again and jumped to catch the cool air. He danced above the lake, sometimes trailing the leaf of his tail through the water, sometimes letting the edge of a wing graze the surface. More often, he looped and sang higher, his sound-voice strong, of echoes and loss and Stars. Low, high, his sound-voice carried across the clearing, cast back by trees and rocks and leaves. Higher and higher he went, up towards forbidden heights, towards the Stars.

  “What are you doing?” His brother’s thought-voice cut through the song like a tail lashing at a nest-mate’s head. Unwilling to provoke a fight, not now, not here, Starglow glided back down. After landing on the boulder, he flicked another piece of soft moss away with the leaf of his tail. In his silence, a wingless screamed. Another howled. When the sounds met, Starglow cried out, binding the noise together like claws bound baskets, thrown out of his private rituals as he was. His throat felt like he’d swallowed a mouthful of sticky sap.

  Finally, he answered, “What we should all be doing.” He could hear Nightshadow’s cheeks turn puffy, could hear the low, pained sound-voice whine. Perhaps that was why the Stars had taken away his sight.“Does it matter so much to you?”

  “They are not for us.”

  “Yet we are Their children.” Even Nightshadow still believed that. “Brother, let us not argue. Not tonight.” Starglow’s wingclaws clenched as he curled his tail around his talons. I wish you would let go of that hatred, brother. “You must tell me what you know.”

  “Of this Sun?”

  “And of the Stars. You must, brother!”

  But he could sense, even during the sending, that his brother was taking off. Starglow shifted; his skin felt slick and hot. A soft plop rippled from the lake. Still here. He forced himself to relax, tried to think of nothing at all, to be quiet. In a little while, another plop sounded. Nightshadow had abandoned him without abandoning him then. “You must tell me.”

  “No. They’re not our stories anymore. I wish I could forget, Glow. I wish we could all just forget. Do you think I don’t know what whispers are travelling through the colony? ‘She fell from the Stars’. ‘The Stars favour us once more’. ‘The Stars have forgiven us’. They haven’t, Glow.” Again, Nightshadow whined, low and pained. “Even on an overcast night like this, I could hear Them singing. Long ago.”

  For a little while there were no sounds but those of the forest around them and the irregular plop of pebbles hitting the water. At last, Starglow dared break the silence. “I am sorry, brother.”

  “It’s not your fault. Ask me about the stranger, Glow. I can talk about her.”

  He didn’t. He waited for his brother to speak again, for the pebbles to stop falling and the soft plaintive song t
hat Nightshadow would never explain to come to an end. Oil beaded down his skin. Tell me, brother. Talk to me. You need me as I need you.

  “A long time ago” — Nightshadow’s sound-voice was silent, his thought-voice dim. —“when you were not yet born and I was little, the Stars struck a tree. Old Leafcarrier couldn’t say why. The Stars didn’t warn him, nor me, though then I could still hear Their singing. The force tore the tree in two, one part crashing down and the other consumed by demons that ate all that came near it.” He paused.

  Plop.

  “Clouds, thick and pale, were carried by the wind with a –” Nightshadow’s thought-voice faltered; his sound-voice whined on softly. “It was indescribable. Like nothing we’d ever experienced, Glow, like nothing we’ve experienced since. It was… taste. More than taste. Sharp. Painful.” Again his brother’s voices both fell silent, but no pebbles broke the lake’s surface. Nothing stirred. The breeze had cooled Starglow’s skin and the Stars were singing, thin and delicate like raindrops. Tail swishing, he puffed up his cheeks and tried to gather his thoughts.

  “This was bigger,” Nightshadow continued before he could ask. “Much bigger and far away. I didn’t know there were other peeweww out there. I thought the Darkness had left only us.”

  “So did we all. So did I,” Starglow confided. But the Stars could have told us. They were talking amongst Themselves even now, though he knew Nightshadow couldn’t hear Them, not this far down, and he himself had never been properly taught to understand Them. I wish I could help you, brother. “How is she?”

  “Asleep. Morningshade found some leaves which seem to ease the pain. Do you think she’ll recover?”

  “I don’t know. Does she truly look like the others show?” A small leaf stuck to Starglow’s oily skin; he twitched then shook himself to try and dislodge it. It stuck firm.

  “Everywhere she has the Changeling’s paleness, when it watches over the living. If –” But Nightshadow didn’t continue.

  Don’t shut me out. Starglow cheeped, prodding at the leaf with his tail, but he said nothing. Always he was trying to manoeuvre through a tight maze of branch and vine when he spoke with his brother, anything to cease the arguing. He flicked his tail at the moss again, giving a soft cry when instead he struck rough stone. His brother screeched, alarmed.

  “I’m all right.” Starglow felt the air move and heard the rustle of wings as Nightshadow settled nearby. “I’m all right.” His brother’s tail wrapped around his, just below the leaf, in comfort. “You worry too much.”

  “I promised Mother I’d look after you.” Nightshadow let out a soft, sing-song cry. “You will always be little to me.”

  Starglow laughed, rapid, high-pitched clacks, and his tail tightened around Nightshadow’s. “I am blind, brother, not senseless.”

  Nightshadow’s tail loosed from his own and the peeweww took off, the dislodged air brushing past Starglow. Wrong. Yet part of him was grateful. Alone he could seek counsel of the Stars. Perhaps, brother, your own feelings are keeping Them from you. I wish you’d realise you don’t have to carry the sky alone. Starglow laughed, mirthless and low. Sometimes I wish I could drop a branch on your head.

  He waited long enough to be sure his brother was far enough away not to overhear him, and if he wasn’t it was Nightshadow’s own fault. I should ask Morningshade to hit you with a branch, Starglow thought, first to himself and then for the Stars to hear. Even as he lifted himself from the boulder, he raised his sound-voice in song. He whooped and clacked, chirruped and cheeped, and danced, taking himself higher and higher until he brushed past the first layer of the giant leaves and he could feel the first spatters of rain upon his skin. The water slid off him like he too was a leaf and the songs the Stars were singing became ever clearer.

  The rain got worse and more leaves obstructed his flight, but Starglow felt both only vaguely, like his senses were shrouded in a thick canopy of groundclouds. Then… he could hear the Stars. He sheltered beneath the larger leaves until the rain grew less. He beat his wings to the rhythm of Their song and raised his voice in harmony with Theirs. They spoke to him, though he understood too little, of legends long passed, of tales remembered in the shadows of his thoughts, of the great monsters that had driven the peeweww below the canopy and scattered them, of the gleaming age above when the world was naught but liquid shadow beneath them and the Changeling pale bright above them, of the time when the Stars Themselves would come down every night to dance with Their children.

  Is Sun truly a fallen Star? Why did You take my sight? He swayed, bathed in Starlight where the leaves were thin again, and listened to a song that dampened all other sounds. He saw with a sight that was the Stars’, images made of pricks of shadow and Starlight, or nothing at all. What do I do?

  But the song only spoke of times past and of homes near the canopy. It spoke of elderly, weak peeweww without younglings to care for them, no one to hear their wisdom, to pass their prayers to the Stars. Is this what my brother has done? How can he be right when I can hear You? Should we go back? Could we? Tell me of Sun, Stars. Please.

  Just like a cloud hiding the Changeling, the Stars’ sight vanished. Disoriented, Starglow slammed against a branch, tried to grab hold, slid and failed. He tumbled, caught by leaves and branches that snapped and broke under his weight. Finally, he found the air again, though not yet his bearings. Starglow flew in small circles for a while, too proud to call for help and too wise to expect to be heard by anything but beasts. Perhaps, even now, there were little wingless looking up at him, or tree-gliders. Or perhaps some primate had strayed from its territory, or a prowler lurked nearby, tail swaying like in Nightshadow’s stories, all hunched together for a leap at a lone, lost, blind peeweww.

  Starglow panicked. He cried out and beat his wings as if he were caught in a giant weaver’s web until he managed to calm himself down enough to think. He couldn’t hear any large creatures, nor the gentle lap of water. You’re not a frightened fledgling, he chided himself, feeling oil coat his skin all the same. He didn’t even know how far down he was. Keeping his tail as straight as possible, he glided down. Sooner or later he would find resistance other than air or leaves. When his tail pierced the surface of the lake, Starglow was so relieved he struggled to keep himself from falling into the cool liquid entirely. I need to talk to Sun.

  After he’d regained some altitude, Starglow sought the edge of the lake and circled it in search of his boulder. When he found it, he settled onto it gratefully. His body ached, some limbs and places more than others. When his nerves had recovered enough, he would seek out the strange peeweww. For now, he only wanted a sand bath to wash the fear off his skin and throw his aches into the devouring-sand.

  The Changeling had visited the dead and returned to the living before Sun had recovered enough to converse coherently and Starglow could start teaching her the images that the colony used. Where his brother was during the nights, Starglow couldn’t begin to answer, but he himself divided his time between talking to Sun and asking the Stars for Their guidance. They were as silent to him as he presumed They always were to Nightshadow, but his Star-born vision still came, sometimes, and his desire to see, truly see, Sun instead of through the mind-visions of others only grew stronger.

  Starglow never failed to ask Sun what she knew of the Stars. What They would not tell him, his brother could not be asked. Sun could be. In return, he taught her the layout of the colony and the location of obstacles. She wasn’t blind, she’d told him, but her vision was so poor she might as well have been.

  Starglow was hunched beside the entrance of his nest, thinking, when Morningshade startled him. “You love her,” she said, pushing a basket with berries closer. Starglow cheeped in protest, but when his brother’s mate continued, talking about what a sight their children would make with little, silly, wiggly ears, there was the clacking of laughter in her sound-voice underneath and he couldn’t help but laugh along. “Off to see her again? You might as well live there.”
/>   Starglow didn’t answer. Sweetness trickled down his throat as he chewed a berry and swallowed.

  “It’s about time you started looking for someone, Glow. You can’t spend all your life dancing over that lake.”

  Of course he could, but he stayed silent, eating his meal. Morningshade would only fret and fuss with a list of all the things she thought he had to keep in mind. It wearied him, but at least Sun understood him.

  After his meal, he flew over to the old tree Sun lodged in, sending out greetings to other peeweww as he flew. They’d given her a proper nest inside the tree. Starglow still had trouble finding the entrance, so he clung to the trunk and carefully climbed down, using his tail to search for air where there should have been bark. When he found it, he chittered in triumph and called out to Sun with both voices.

  He received no reply. Maybe she’s asleep. Starglow skittered down the bark as carefully as he could, so as to give his tail as much length as possible to probe the nest without making him tumble inside and injure himself. At first he felt only the air move as he sent his tail tracing through the emptiness, but then he poked something tough and slick: Sun, no doubt. A blink later Starglow felt pain in his tail. Fiercest just above the leaf, it travelled all the way up his body to the beginnings of his wings. He cried out, he trying to pull away, but the weight that clung to his tail remained.

  When it did disappear, he hit his head against the tree from the force he’d needed to pull free. He couldn’t hold on to the bark and fell. So close to the tree’s trunk, Starglow had to struggle to get himself airborne properly and to keep himself from plummeting to, at best, broken bones.