Storm Season | Shelha Series 2 | ✔

Flicker in the Hollow

It didn't matter which way they went so long as they stayed out of Winter's end of the forest. The group ended up wandering towards the river. They had never really decided where they wanted to go, but with five—Whipper counted—Coppertails on board, this was nothing unusual, and nobody really cared.

Once they had fallen into the rhythm of keeping track of each other, creatures drifted apart. Sethral drifted back through the group. Behind her, Silversand and the twins were engaged in a spirited argument about something to do with rock fish. Jay discovered a graze on Wing's shoulder and scolded the mutt for not mentioning it, then cleaned it as they walked. Far ahead, Whipper was bouncing from branch to branch, gleefully showering the ground with tree rain. He smelled something in the trees and scampered off to investigate.

Ryatzi was in the middle of the group. His eyes were fixed ahead, not following the objects around him.

Sethral waved a wingtip in front of him. "Hey Rustybutt. Seth to Ratface... hey. Can you hear me?"

He startled back with a gasp.

"You okay?" said Sethral.

There was a haunted edge in his gaze. He looked away.

"Ratty?" Sethral refolded her wing and poked around in her satchel. The Saberel remained silent. Sethral sighed. "Okay, fine, I'll stop asking. Here."

She tossed him the Sequoia mouse skull from her bag. He caught it.

"Whipper wanted us to have another look at it," said Sethral.

"See?" huffed Silversand. "They can get along! Look at that!"

Whipper looked at her, bemused. "Well yeah. Haven't you seen them fight together?"

"NO. I get as far away as I can when that happens. I'd rather risk the Drakons!"

She fluffed up with a shudder as Whipper succumbed to a helpless fit of 'coughing'.

"Sorry," he said when had recovered. "I nearly swallowed a bug—yeek!"

Wing turned with innocence pasted all over his face. "Oh, I'm sorry, did I hit you with my tail? I thought you were a tree!"

"I will get you for this!"

Whipper shot off to lie on the Coppertail. Wing fled.

Whipper returned beaming his face off. Wing fell back into step beside Jay, damning him as he tried in vain to shake his shoulder fur dry.

'Surely you anticipated that when you doused him first,' clicked Jay, amused.

"Yeah, but the little monster's damn fast for his size."

'It sounded like fun.'

"Whose side are y—"

Jay had deliberately soaked his own paw a few steps back. He smacked the mutt with it and bolted, giggling.

Silversand returned with a red flower stuck artistically in her neck chain. She joined Whipper as he wandered over to see if Ryatzi and Sethral had found anything new. They found the pair examining the Drakon's poem-stone instead. No sooner had Silversand arrived than the discussion deteriorated into a good-natured song swap, for the Drakon-hunting pair had discovered nothing of significance and were ready for a change of topic. Silversand ran about singing everything she heard to entirely the wrong tunes, making up both words and music where her memory left gaps. Not all of them were songs—not that that bothered her—but at least she had a good sense of melody. The poem on the broken stone from the Drakon's pouch very shortly had music.