What started as an innocent question about my name, probably prompted by the flower I wear behind my ear, had taken a dark turn as I found myself embracing the arm of the woman who I thought was my captor.
I honestly didn't know I would make that poor girl cry the way she did. It hadn't occurred to me that showing a little motherly love would bring such pain to her heart.
As she breathed heavily I stayed there like a blood pressure cuff with wings. As she began to walk towards another room, I asked "Is something wrong?"
"The heat," she replied, and gestured towards me with her other hand. I decided it would be best to fly off to a nearby ledge, as I didn't want to make her even more uncomfortable.
She took a few more steps forward, and ran her claws through her ponytail. She adjusted her outfit, & I heard the clang of metal onto the floor of the cell. After flinching, I noticed her armor,
if you could call it that, on the ground and shielded my eyes with my right wing.
"Sorry," I said, panicking. "I didn't mean to look."
"You thought I had nothing under that?" she asked in response. The mole placed the claw of her thumb next down the side of her neck, pulling on a fabric that I hadn't noticed was there.
he color of the garment she wore underneath was similar enough to that of her fur I had assumed it wasn't even there. This almost golden colored bodysuit had cut out sections that left
her belly and back exposed, and only went down her legs to about half the distance to her knees.
"I thought you had no shame," I replied.
"But you're the lady wearing nothing but her own fur and a flower, Rose." She had a point there, and it didn't take any sort of concealing magic to figure that out. I wonder if the heat she had complained
about earlier was getting to her, or if banter was just a way to deal with stress. I also wondered why she didn't remove that metal plate she had over one of her eyes. My focus shifted
towards those areas not covered by her garment. I couldn't see her stomach well from my vantage point, but I noticed a large patch of exposed skin on her back. Seven prominent scars ran
across her bare back. Two of them ran parallel to her shoulder blades, almost giving the impression they were where wings once attached to her body.
"My dear, your back!" I shouted. Upon hearing me, she collapsed onto the floor and curled up into a fetal position. Tears welled up in her eyes as she held onto the plate over her eye with one hand.
"Goldie!" I shouted as I flew over, shocked I had yet again made her suffer like this without even meaning to. "Are you okay?"
"That wolf," she sobbed. "It was him."
"I'm so sorry. I never meant to hurt you like this." I squeaked.
"No, you weren't to blame for my injuries," she replied. "The fall didn't hurt." I was shocked by that admission. That dramatic collapse onto the floor didn't actually hurt her body?
But I couldn't bear to be responsible for all this emotional damage I must have been doing to this poor mole. I had assumed the wolf she was referring to had inflicted those nasty wounds
to her back. She had mentioned earlier pain from before the current ruler of her people came to power.
"A wolf?" I asked. I was not sure if this was the right course of action, but my curiosity must have gotten the better of me.
"Please," she wept. "Don't blame ALL wolves." After all she had been through, I saw now her inner strength. She refused to let hate dominate her mind,
even in situations where most wouldn't blame her to do so. "I was eight," she uttered. "Night of fate."
"I'll get you help." I said. I wasn't entirely sure how I would do such a thing, but felt after all the pain I had caused her I should at least do something. At this moment I noticed something
about the scars on her back. They seemed too fresh, too recent, to be attributed to an incident that happened in her childhood. I felt a sense of fear, and helplessness, when I realized this.
Knowing what I did about how these cyborgs operated, she was no doubt being watched by their leader as this was aboard his airship. The apparent headache she had might be their leader trying
to directly control her. While whoever this wolf she alluded to was responsible for her mother's death, her problems were far from over.
I was so lost in thought I hadn't noticed that the leader of her people was approaching until he rushed right past me.
"You!" he yelled, glaring in my direction. "You did this to her!" His anger unsettled me, but had a note of genuine concern in it as well.
He carefully wrapped some sort of blue water filled bag around her back.
"No," Goldendove said weakly. "She didn't mean to." Even in her pain, she insisted on trying to protect me. I thought again about how she said she believed her mother was reincarnated in the form of a dove,
and knew that only if I was able to escape this airship that I would be able to tell someone about this. I knew my husband & my daughter were also captured by the invasion, but somehow,
my son managed to escape. I also knew he was actively working to foil the plans of those who captured us. I hope for us to be reunited, to once again fly free through the trees.
