Severed Dreams

“Watch this,” he told her. Breath filtering into the air.

She stopped, wrapping her wings around her body. Retaining her warmth. But still shivering. The cold affected her a good deal more than it did him.

Akira watched him crouch down, coil, and leap, grasping the branch with both paws, slender, furry form swinging back and forth like a gymnast. Then, again, he was a squirrel. A natural born acrobat. Agile. Nimble. His body swung, twisted, flipped. Tail fluttered in the air, and he released his hold on the branch, landing flat on his foot-paws in the dirt and leaves. Knees bending. He then stood and opened his arms, still grinning. Beaming, was more like it. Chest heaving for breath.

She clapped her wings, paws together, nodding. “You’re marvelous.” She couldn’t help but smile. “I couldn’t do,” she said, shaking her head, “Something like that.” She wrapped her wings back around herself.

“Oh, but you can fly,” he told her. He sounded so much like a little boy just then, when he said that. Such awe in his voice, such reverence. For her. She had to blush.

“Yes, but ... it doesn’t take that much skill. What you do,” she said, nodding to him, looking to the branch. Back to him. “You bump and grind with gravity. Without a parachute.” She smiled, considering. Daring him. “How many flips, exactly, can you do,” she posed, “Before hitting the ground?”

“Four,” he said proudly.

“I don’t believe it.” She was still smiling.

“Uh-huh,” he insisted. “Watch.”

He repeated his springing leap from before, swinging faster, faster round and over the branch, which creaked and shook with his weight, and at the last possible moment, as he passed the point of no return, he let go. Ducking and tumbling through the air. Two, three ... four times, paws padding the earth. He teetered, waved his arms. Fell to his rump and tail. Sighed. And laughed, tilting his head. “Well, I did the four flips, at least.”

“I’ll have to teach you how to land properly,” she teased, giving him one of her wing-paws. She hoisted him to his foot-paws.

Azure brushed his fur with his paws, brushing off dirt and leaves. Stray particles. He went to grooming his tail as they continued their walk. Azure put his backpack back on, which contained their supplies, some food. And other things.

“Mother says,” he told her, eyes fixated on his tail, tongue grooming each hair into place. “I’m too thin.”

“Well ... a bit, maybe,” the bat admitted.

He looked to her.

“I haven’t seen you eat but a bite since we’ve been on the move.” It was a matter-of-fact statement. Motivated by concern.

“You need the food more than I do,” he said, looking back to his tail.

“My ears are just as good as yours,” she reminded him. “If not better. I hear your stomach growling.”

He sighed. Dropped his tail, which moved behind him, arcing and bobbing as his legs and hips moved.

“I just,” he started, not wanting to talk about it. But, then, if he hadn’t wanted to talk about it, why had he presented an avenue for its discussion? “I just ... am very self-conscious.”

“About your body?” she said. She tilted her head. “I kind of noticed.”

He looked to her.

“The way you always hold back. At first. How you need to be coaxed into letting your guard down, into ... giving yourself.”

“I don’t have a problem giving myself to you,” he said, a bit defensive.

“I’m not saying you do. But I’m saying,” she told him, “That I notice your tics. You may be a keen observer. But so am I, and ... you can be very, very modest. Shy,” she said.

“I know,” he muttered.

“Anyway, it’s almost winter,” she said. “Don’t you ... don’t squirrels need to gain weight for winter?”

“I don’t want to.”

“Azure,” she said, frustrated. She blew out a breath. “You’re beautiful. I don’t ... why don’t you know that? I think,” she said again, “You’re beautiful. I don’t think padding a few pounds will diminish that in any way. I mean ... look at me,” she said, opening and flaring her wings. “I’m rather stout, you know.” She was shorter than him, too.

“I think you’re perfect.”

She nodded. “Yeah. So, how about we stop ... ”

“Again?” “Again. We stop and sit down, and you eat something.”

“I don’t need to.”

“Why?”

“I don’t ... ” He shrugged, stuttering. “I don’t like thinking about it. About food,” he said, “In me. Digesting.” He closed his eyes and shook his head. “I’m not hungry.”

She shook her head, incredulous. “So, wait. Wait. You get queasy at the thought of food ... ”

“Not all food. I just ... I don’t like to gorge myself with food. I don’t ... I eat enough.”

“The process of eating makes you queasy, but the much more messy, germ-swapping, much more intimate act of physical ... ”

He cut her off. “Look, I’m ... I’m,” he stuttered, flustered. “I’m bizarre, okay? Don’t try to figure me out.”

She had to laugh. A warm laugh. She walked up to him, put a wing under his chin, lifting his head a bit. “I think you enjoy it.”

“What?” he asked, stepping back, adjusting the backpack on his shoulders.

“You like being ... shall we say, detached. Quirky.”

“And why’s that?”

“You crave things that are unique. In a world of so many creatures, you need,” she said, more seriously, “To know that you are distinguished. That you aren’t a drone.” Pause. "But I also think," she added, more seriously, "That you like to hurt yourself."

He made a face. “Well,” he said, opening the backpack, taking out some food. “I will eat some acorns.”

She smiled and nodded. “Do that, then.”

“I will,” he insisted, and using both paws, he brought one to his lips, nibbling.

“Take a huge bite,” she teased. “Just ... chomp it.”

“Squirrels nibble. We don’t chomp.”

“And bats bite,” she told him, showing her fangs.

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning,” she whispered into his ear, eyes gleaming with mirth. “Do not tempt me.”

He smiled, nodded. Nibbled. “Oh, I’ll try not to.”

She beamed at him, grinning still. About to say something more when her ears perked and rotated. She leapt at the squirrel, knocking him down with an oomph. Knocking the wind out of him, shielding him with her wings as a dark, quick, blurry form rushed past where they’d been standing. And then disappeared.

Akira cursed herself quietly. “They’ve found us!”

“What ... what?” Azure asked, regaining his breath, sitting up.

“Alright. Alright,” she said, mind whirling. How ... how had they found them? By their voices? Echo-location ... scent?

Another blurry form was approaching. Dive-bombing. Tucking wings and coming in like a dart, like a falling, furry arrow, teeth bared and claws on wing-paws and foot-paws aimed for piercing.

“Left, left,” Akira hissed into Azure’s ears.

The squirrel, clasping to her, rolled to the left, and they rolled end over end. Out of the way. The dive-bombing bat missed them, faded away. And Azure scrambled to his knees, pulling her up, too.

“How many are there?” he asked, looking around. Compared to her, he was blind in such darkness. He felt so helpless, so frustrated.

She sucked in a deep breath and fired off an echo-burst.

The squirrel watched her, fascinated by her ability. By all she could do.

“Five,” she whispered. “Three circling above the tree-tops, two ... below, swerving back to us.”

“How are we gonna,” the squirrel started.

“We’ll get away. Just ... think,” she said, looking to him. “I can maneuver us, okay, but I don’t know the layout. Where can we hide? Do you know where we are?”

“I think so.”

“Where?”

“There’s a creek a few hundred yards away. Can’t you smell the water?”

She sniffed the air. She could, in fact. She nodded.

“It gets bigger as it winds along, and turns into a river, nearly, as it leaves the forest. And then it goes across the plains. So I’ve been told,” he said, for he’d never been outside the forest. Not in his entire life. “There are some more caves around here. There are lots of them. Some on the creek-side.”

“Bats can’t swim,” she told him.

“They can’t follow us, then.”

“Azure, I can’t swim,” she said, almost frantically.

“I can,” he told her.

A swooping, swift attack. And, Azure, using his agility, twisted and grabbed onto the bat’s foot-paw as he missed them, passed them. The bat kept going, jerking Azure across the forest floor. He yelped and held, gritting teeth, feeling his nose scrape across the ground. In a flash, Akira was in the air, darting, flapping after them, rising above some of the limbs, darting and weaving in and out, and then falling. Punching the other bat with a direct ram, sending all three tumbling to a rough stop in a bed of pine needles.

Azure moaned, rubbing his nose.

Akira spread the attacking bat’s wings, shoving him to the ground. Pinning him. His blue fur shone pale in the night.

“Leave us alone,” she told him.

He laughed. Harshly. “Do you really think we will?”

“No,” she said simply. “But I thought I would try a nicety before I resorted to violence.”

The other bat swallowed. He shook his head. “No bat has ever killed another.”

“Really? As I recall, the Council was considering sawing off my wings with a dull blade.”

“The Council has the right to do so. They pass judgment.”

“Really?” she said again, sarcastic.

“And who said cutting off your wings would kill you?”

“And who said,” she whispered into the male bat’s ears, fangs closing down onto his ear-tip. Pressing until he squirmed. “I’m gonna kill you? How about I just chew off ... ”

“Akira,” Azure whispered, trembling. “They’re watching us.”

Akira turned. The other bats. On limbs, wings wrapped around them. They sat like statues. Eyes blue (for they were all male). Blue and piercing.

The bat beneath Akira’s grasp shoved her off and fluttered up to join them. And then one dropped down from the trees, landed. Walked up to her.

“I told you this would be fun,” he said.

“Ereth,” Akira whispered.

Azure looked from Akira to the new male bat. There was an obvious sign of recognition flitting between their eyes. And Akira wore a look of disgust.

“Consider yourself caught,” he informed her. While she fumed, breasts heaving with angry breath. Teeth bared. And Ereth padded over the squirrel. Looked him up and down. “What a scrawny thing. I can’t believe,” he hissed, turning back to Akira, “That you ... consorted,” he spat, “With a rodent.”

With a nimble, quick leap, Azure pummeled into the blue bat, battering his paws against his face. Taking him to the forest floor and drawing blood from his muzzle. The other bats began to rush forward.

“Back off!” Azure screamed, paws around Ereth’s throat. Own furry chest heaving. Tail twitching. He leaned down, eye-to-eye with Akira’s acquaintance. The other bats stopped their swarming. Paws still around Ereth’s neck, the squirrel said, “You can call me a tree-hugger, a mouse with a bushy tail. I don’t care. But do not,” he growled, baring his teeth, “Call me a rodent.”

“My. Seems I,” spat the bat, spitting blood up at Azure’s face. Azure flinched and squinted, turning his head. “Struck a nerve,” Ereth finished. “Anyway, that’s what you are,” he taunted, whispering. “A rodent.”

“Shut up!” He delivered another blow to the bat’s face, knocking him unconscious. And, swimming in an adrenaline-filled rage, he backed off, getting to his foot-paws. “And leave Akira alone,” he said, barely audible.

“Azure,” Akira whispered, in a state of semi-shock. “Are you ... ”

“I’m fine,” he whispered, suddenly ashamed. He wiped the blood from his cheeks. Glaring at the other bats. “Go away,” he whispered to them, voice vulnerable. Cracking. “Just go away.”

The bat that had originally attacked Akira began to prepare a descent, when he whirled. The barn owl. A lumbering, deadly-quiet missile. Falling. And it got him. It was all over. That quick, that fast. And the bat was screaming as he was crushed in the bird’s talons and carried away, facing a gruesome fate.

The remaining bats scattered in no time, and Akira grabbed Azure’s paws, yanking him away from the scene, pushing him through the dark. He was crying, and she was frantic, and neither of them noticed they had reached the creek until they had splashed into it, wetting their fur. Blindly they fumbled about. After about five minutes of wandering downstream, they found a small cave. Big enough so that it wasn’t claustrophobic.

Creeping inside. Shaking. Confused. Falling unconscious. Again.

Chapter Six - Wet Paws

“I can undress myself,” he mumbled, blushing. Sullen.

“Arms,” she said simply.

He raised them, and she pulled his shirt up and over his paws, tossing it to the sandy bank. It was morning, and they were outside the entrance of the cave. Where they would spend the day. Until night. When they would move again, but more stealthily this time. The next hunting party would be larger.

She sat down behind him, hugging him from behind. Her wing-tips running through his chest-fur. “Are you okay?” An honest question.

He didn’t have an honest answer. “I’ve ... I’ve never done that before. I wanted,” he said, and he shook his head, clenched his eyes closed. “Right then, I hated him. I don’t think I’ve actually hated anyone like that.”

She looked pained, and she leaned into him, chin on his shoulder. She gazed out at the water, watching the ripples and the currents.

“Akira, that’s not how I’m like, you know?” He turned his neck to meet her eyes. “I wouldn’t hurt you, and ... ”

She shushed him, moving her wings to his lips. “I know. I know you wouldn’t.” Pause. “We all have violent instincts. I was ... I was going to bite the other one’s ear off.”

“Were you, though? Really?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. It seemed a good threat. The point is ... he was being a jerk. Ereth was. No. No, he was being evil. He had no right to call you that.”

He nodded. “I just ... that’s an insult, you know? That’s a very deep ... ” He shrugged. “It’s not said.”

She whispered into his ear. “You protected me,” she told him. “No one’s ever fought for me before.”

He blushed. “I’m sure they have.”

She shook her head. “You were ... ” She searched for the words. “You were valiant.”

He laughed lightly, a smile warming back to his face. Which had a few streaks of blood stained to the fur.

“I’m just ... I’m not that violent,” he told her. “I shouldn’t have ... ”

“We need to wash up,” she reminded him.

He nodded.

“Legs,” she said.

“Hmm?”

She nodded at him, waiting.

He blushed, moving to his back. And raised them, and she undressed the rest of him, and then undressing herself.

They waded into the water.

Akira gave a sort of squeal. “Oh, it’s cold!”

“Course it is.”

The bat started to inch slowly, slowly in.

“No, no,” insisted the squirrel. “No, you have to dive in. One fell swoop. You’ll only torture yourself.”

“Don’t you dare,” she said, already reading his mind. But it was too late. She laughed as he drug her down and in. She gasped, flapping about. He laughed and let go, sinking, bobbing.

They treaded water, which rippled and circled around their limbs and movements. Little, tiny fish – minnows, perhaps – darted between and then away from them. Out to the middle of the creek, which came up to their chests. The squirrel and bat treaded, treaded water for a while, following the fish.

Azure tried floating on his back, but sank.

She giggled, doing the same. But successfully.

“No fair. Your wings are like ... water-wings.” He smiled, taking in a mouthful of water and squirting it through his teeth.

She laughed. “Don’t do that. I’m sure that can’t be civil.”

He did it again.

She flared her wings and brushed them against the water, sending waves of water at him. He turned his head and took the splashes, dripping. Sighing. She stopped, and they both floated in relative peace. Listening to the birds.

“I saw you had bird feathers in your room,” she said. “On your desk.” She sliced her wing slowly, slowly under the water, raising it above the surface. Breaching. Allowing the liquid drops to drip from her, rippling back to their source.

He nodded quietly, licking the water from his lips. Drops dripping from the end of his nose. “Songbirds,” he told her. “There are some pretty ones.” He took a deep, tired breath. “I like to watch them. Listen to them. I can identify them, you know. I’m pretty good at it.” He shrugged, as if there were nothing more to say on the subject.

She nodded.

“I don’t have many hobbies,” he said. He shrugged his furry, bare shoulders again. “Most creatures have interests. With me,” he said, sounding sullen (still), “I just ... I don’t.”

Akira rolled her eyes.

“Well ... ”

“Well, Azure, please,” she said, sinking down into the water. She sighed. “I don’t like it when you’re ... dark,” she said, sounding dark herself as she said it.

“But I am dark. Anything else is just a front.”

“I don’t believe that,” she said gently, tilting her head. “And I’m sure you don’t, either.”

He shrugged his shoulders once again.

“Let’s just,” she said, taking a deep, cleansing breath (or imagining it as such). “Let’s just not worry, okay? We will get through this,” she said, “And we will be fine. And don’t,” she warned, pointing a wing-paw at him, “Respond with a shrug.”

He nodded. And he felt a bit better, but ...

“You still have blood on your cheeks,” she noticed.

“Only a dark creature would be wearing blood,” he remarked.

She said nothing, only pulled him into the shallows. “Sit still,” she said, wetting her wing-paws. She rubbed the blood from his fur, scrubbing.

He tilted his head and grimaced.

“Oh, that doesn’t hurt,” she told him.

“Mm,” he went.

“Mm,” she echoed. “And what does that mean?”

He said nothing.

And she sighed, finished. “There,” she said, trying to smile. She bit her lip, sinking down into the water, at a sit. In the shallows, with him.

“I didn’t sleep well last night,” he told her.

She rubbed her own forehead. “I know. I was there.”

“I’m sorry,” he apologized.

“Look, Azure, you don’t have to keep doing that,” she said, a bit on edge.

“Doing what?”

“Apologizing,” she stressed. “You’re making me feel bad, and ... and neither of us has done anything wrong, okay? I mean ... last night, for instance. We were attacked. We were defending ourselves.”

“I wonder, though,” he said, barely audible. “The thing is, I wonder, if things had been ... if I had been pushed hard enough, how hard would I have pushed back? Would I have killed?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. She grabbed his head between her wings. “No. Azure,” she said. “Listen.”

“What?” he went, dully.

“Listen.” She swallowed, taking a breath. “I love you, alright.”

He looked to her, fur and eyes glistening. From the water. Or were his eyes glistening from tears?

“Alright?” she whispered.

He nodded, and she saw that they were tears. For they left his eyes and went down his cheeks. Though he didn’t sob or make a sound. He sniffed and let out a shaky breath through the nose. “I love you, too,” he mouthed, as if the words were so delicate he was afraid they would break.

She smiled and kissed his nose.

After they had dried and dressed, they sat in the entrance to the small cave, waiting for dusk. Upon which they would move.

“It’s starting to get grey again,” Azure said. “Out there.” Pause. “Maybe it’ll rain.”

“Maybe,” she whispered, wings wrapped around herself. Shivering.

“Are you cold?”

“Well, I’m ... ” She stopped and nodded.

He coiled his bushy tail around her back and stomach, like wrapping her around a blanket.

She smiled. Breathing in his fur. “Thank you,” she whispered.

He nodded, biting his lip.

“There’s something about a good storm,” Azure continued, staring back out at the grey. “In the summer, when we have these vicious, dark storms. Big thunderstorms, and the wind picks up, lightning forks. The rain pelts you. You can’t see,” he said, eyes distant now. In memory. He blinked and swallowed. “Everything is humbled. And you know it. And it heightens you, you know?”

She nodded. “I think so.” Pause. “But we don’t have storms up there,” she said, looking up. Up to the blue. They could see the clouds, and from here, they could even see the cloud that housed the city. High, high up. Smaller from this view. Not a view Akira was used to seeing. In her mind, that place loomed big. Unreal, somehow. But one couldn’t see the city itself unless one was over the cloud-top. It was sufficiently hidden.

“Is it always sunny, then?”

“Well ... for the most part. We are,” she said, as if reciting something from legend, “The highest cloud. Above the weather,” she said. “But not above the stars.” A smile melted to her face. She looked down to the dirt, the cave floor. She traced invisible patterns with the ends of her wings, her claws. “The moon is so big from up there. Everything is so clear. So vast,” she said. “Like you can’t imagine.”

“It sounds like a beautiful place,” was what Azure said, cause it felt like the appropriate thing to say.

“It is,” she whispered. “It’s my home,” she said, a tweak in her voice. Shrugging her shoulders. “As much as you want to hate the place where you came from, as much as you want to rebel,” she said. “You’re attached. The cord is never cut. It stretches, but ... you’re tied for life.”

Azure nodded, looking at his foot-paws.

Akira gave a brief, melancholy laugh. “Now I’ve got both of us feeling homesick.”

“Maybe,” he suggested, trying to relieve their depressions, “We’ll make it back some day. Years. Decades,” he said, though hardly able to grasp such a passage of time. Such a future. He was still so young. “Maybe things will be better, and we can return.”

She didn’t answer.

Azure blew out a breath. The chill was burning the tips of his ears, but his fur was keeping most of him warm. Oh, to have your ears burn. What a feeling. He breathed in deep. Feeling his lungs expand.

“Do your ear-tips,” he asked her, “Burn? Right now?”

She blew out a breath. “Yeah,” she went.

He nodded. “What do you do up there, in the clouds,” he asked, “When it gets cold?”

“We stay inside. We have big buildings, these ... these cavern things. They reach up, and some even go down into the interiors of the clouds themselves. It’s ... I don’t even know how it all works,” she admitted.

“We used to hibernate,” he said. “In the winter.” He trailed.

“Used to?”

“A few decades ago, they ... ” He swallowed and shook his head. “They came up with this medicine, this concoction. Each squirrel, and every other hibernating creature, is injected every year. It does something to your blood, or ... ” He shivered, whispering, “I hate needles.”

She waited.

“But it blocks the urge to hibernate. It ... rewires your brain.”

She hesitated a second. “Why would they do that?”

“Hibernating,” he told her, meeting her eyes, “Is not efficient.” He scoffed. “Not that I believe that. I mean ... you still feel the urge, the pull,” he told her, “But it’s not so strong. Before, you had to. In winter. But, now,” he said, “You can resist. Without much of a problem. You can keep working,” he whispered, “And working. All through the dead of the world. And for what?” he asked.

“Well,” she said. “If you had to hibernate, you could gain some weight.” She poked his stomach and chest. “Just don’t get the shot, then. Problem solved.”

He frowned. “Well, they make you get it.” His frown melted into a smile. Hibernation. “I would be a sluggish ball of fur at your feet for a good two months, at least. I would be incapacitated, aside from brief snatches of consciousness.” His smile faded again.

“I would watch over you,” she said sincerely.

He nodded, then said, “I’ve haven’t gotten the shot yet. This year. I was supposed to ... this week, but ... ” He shrugged.

“Yeah?”

“I hadn’t thought of it until just now,” he said, suddenly going quiet. For several seconds.

“So, what will happen?”

“I figure I have a few weeks, you know. A month. When it starts snowing, I’ll get sluggish. I won’t be able to travel.”

“You’re saying,” she said quietly. “If we don’t get out of their range ... ”

“We’ll be away from them by then, I’m sure. They won’t follow us to the ends of the Earth, right? They’ll stop sometime?”

She wasn’t sure. Only said, “I will watch over you. When and if you have to hibernate, I’ll take you somewhere. I’ll stay with you all winter.”

He bit his lip. Eyes showing his gratitude. And then he said, “I’m sorry. That this problem, my ... that this will happen. I don’t mean to do this to you.”

“No. No, it’s not a problem,” she assured him softly. “What did I say about apologizing?”

“You said to stop,” he mumbled.

“You’re you. I can handle a groggy, sleep squirrel.” Pause. “What about the nightmares?”

“Hibernation is normally deep. The dreams ... they can’t disturb me. But I haven’t,” he said. “I haven’t actually hibernated before. I’ve only read about it, you know.” He swallowed. She realized that the thought ... was making him visibly nervous. He was afraid. “What if I go to sleep and never wake up?” he whispered. “What if I do have the nightmares? It’ll be like I’m dead,” he started, his prey-like instincts flaring.

“Azure, that’s not how it works. Even I know that.” She tried to assure him. “It’s not an inconvenience. Honestly. We all have,” she said slowly, “Our vices. Comes with living. You have your prey instincts, your hibernation, and I,” she said, pausing. “I have a rich heritage in the sky. One that barricades me from the world. I have my wings. I can fly, but I can’t swim. I can’t fit in. You have nightmares. And I ... ” She sighed, stopping. Shaking her head in confusion “I am going,” she said, managing a smile, “To not dwell on vices.”

“I’ll toast to that,” he said, grinning.

“With our lovely vintage of creek water here.” She tossed a pebble into the water, creating a ripple effect.

“Only the best,” he said, kissing her wing, “For you.”

She laughed, sighing with some sort of content. A feeling that, not so long ago, she was certain she would never feel. And she wrapped his tail tighter around herself, snuggling against his side, leaning her head on his shoulder. Staring, through half-open eyes, at the water. At the trees and gaps of darkness and splashes of light that hovered here and there. And everywhere.