Lucid Waking

Archive for June 2nd, 2009

The House of Animalia (2)

(If you haven’t already read the first part, you should probably read that first. I don’t really know what’s going to happen, hence the slow going action and installments, but I thought you’d like more, so I’ve written some.)

        The largest oak in the forest was gnarled with weather and twisted from age. Its joints creaked in the increasing wind as it protested against the storm. Jonah ran up to the tree and stopped, one arm clutching his stomach, the other supporting his weight against the tree. His breath came heavy and labored, but he managed enough of one to whistle against the howl of the wind. At first, nothing answered his meek call, but soon enough he felt weight on his shoulder, feathers brush at his cheek, and sharp claws gripping his skin. He winced in pain and held out his arm for Falcon to get to a better perch. She clipped him with her wing as she glided down his arm to his wrist.
        “Well?” she said harshly. “It’s a storm, Jonah. Make it good.”
        “I’m looking for a place to hide from the soldiers after me.”
        Falcon looked at him out of one of her amber eyes. “Hide? Don’t you Animalia just—I don’t know—become something small?”
        “Argent sent me to you.”
        Falcon almost smiled—as much as a bird could smile with a beak. “Argent is more cryptic than hieroglyphics are to a snake. I can’t imagine why he sent you to me.”
        “Look, I’ve had a rough couple of weeks, do you mind telling me where to go out of the rain?”
        As Falcon was about to protest her lack of shelter for him in a tree, a shimmering hawk settled down on the ground beside Jonah and before he could turn to look at it, had turned into a goddess-like woman.
        “Hawk, have you been hearing this?” Falcon said, gentler.
        Hawk smiled and put a hand on Jonah’s shoulder. “You can stay with Fox, at least for the night,” she said, partly ignoring Falcon’s inquiries.
        “Why did Argent send me here, then?” Jonah said, more exasperated than bashful, though he did blush involuntarily.
        Hawk shook her head. “I cannot say.”
        Thunder shook the world around them, giving Falcon a reason, in her fright, to fly up to a higher branch. Jonah sighed and started towards Fox’s den, but Hawk grabbed his wrist and held her other hand up to her ear. A gunshot went off in the distance, but it was barely noticeable over the pounding rain.
        “They’re farther away,” she said, “you don’t have to fear anymore.”
        “I still have to fear,” Jonah said. “It’s just that they’re not coming closer.”
        The rain lightened up and the patter on the leaves became less pronounced. The sky lightened only slightly, but the sleepy sound of birds tentatively stabbed the cold air. Hawk shifted and flew up to a branch just above Jonah’s head.
        “I don’t know what Argent is planning,” she said. “But perhaps I should let you rest before telling you my predictions.”
        “If it has anything with a prophecy or saving the world from destruction, I don’t want to hear it.”
        “How very un-heroic of you.”
        “The man who gets involved in those messes always ends up with more than he asked for, and more often than not, he didn’t ask for anything in the first place.”
        “Fox is waiting for you,” she said coldly before flying above the branches to follow an agenda that only she knew about.
        Jonah sighed from the continual instructions to run, but he walked down to Fox’s den and tentatively called out to his host.
        “Jonah? Wonderful! Falcon mentioned something of you coming. But do slip out of those clothes, or you’ll be easier to spot than a poison tree frog.”
        Jonah smiled and shifted so that he was a fox leaving his muddy uniform outside the entrance.