Dusk Fall

Whisper peeked her curious wide-eyed gaze over the edge of her nest. Her brother, Frost, lay curled up in a tight ball, hiding his smooth bony skull beneath the palm of his snatcher. She knew he lacked the powerful draw that drove Whisper to explore. Far beyond the bounds of her nest wall, she knew the most amazing things awaited her. How could he stand being confined to the rough tangle of sticks, dried grass, moss and feathers that they were forced to call their home? Her glowing honey eyes blearily trailed the claw-marked wood grain inside the nursery hollow. It was round and open inside, the shape reminding her of a snail’s shell. Lightly glowing moss crept along the walls and up the ceiling, diffusing the still air with a pale-yellow glow. She knew the tree was called an oak from what her brood mother told her. Dusk Flight bats proudly called oaks their home. And she was a Dusk Flight whelpling. Every flight had their own preferences, but Whisper felt glad she could be born into such a noble king of the forest. She would hate to be born into a pine tree like Creek Flight bats. Misty gray light poured through the hollow's entrance and though her young eyes couldn't see very far, Whisper could swear there were strange white puffs drifting through the air. Whisper often amused herself by tracing shapes in the claw-scratches that read the history of her hollow. One of the older whelplings told her that the nursery was carved out by tireless claws many many seasons ago, when Master Night—their flight leader—first found the Dusk Oak. Of course this could only whittle away the time until they would finally be allowed into the whelp hollow. Where they could start training. It left her feeling unsatisfied between hearing all the stories Broodie Pollen shared. There were never enough stories. She lifted her wings, using her foreclaw to grasp her long fluffy ears one at a time and scrupulously groomed herself, combing through her thick coat. Whisper took pride in her well-cared for appearance and the bright glow that her pelt gave off. The silvery color outshone her brother's dark gray smoky pelt. It might make hunting difficult—but that didn't matter to Whisper; She was going to be a scavenger! The thought curled her snatcher into a tightly clenched ball, the five digits squeezing against each other as she imagined herself as a Tinker-in-Training. The Old Ones had snatchers, just like bats did! Only, they had one at the end of each forelimb, and they made the most marvelous things! If she could be a Scavanger, she could learn all about the Old Ones. Even more exciting, when scavengers earned their mastery over the relics the Old Ones left behind, they would be invited into the shadowy world of the Tinkers! Mysterious bats who unraveled the secrets of the past and brought Old Ones technology to their flight. The idea that she may one day be one of the awe-inspiring creatures that so changed bat society—It was more than she could bear. Her pelt bristled with excitement, and her eyes reflected the fantastical, make-believe accomplishments that ran through her mind of their own accord. She felt a small whisker brush along her flank. "What," Teased a squeaky chirp. "Are you hoping one of the Tinkers is going to visit the nursery, and tell the tiny pup in the tree that she's gotta go on a real adventure?" "Frost!" She hissed back, playfully fluffing up her mane. "Why don't you look after your own nest, and I'll look after mine!" She playfully launched herself across the down lined nest they shared, sending puffs of wispy white feathers up as she barreled into her brother. He clicked his fangs with delight, rolling with her attack. They often scuffled in their nest for as long as the pair could get away with it—Brood Mothers never let them get too riled up in the cozy nursery hollow. Before Whisper could make another move, Frost wrestled himself on top of the smaller, silver-coated whelpling and gently bit down on the scruff of her neck. Whisper squealed, batting her feather-like whiskers against him and wriggling like a land-locked fish, desperately trying to break his grip. "Surrender, owlface!" Frost commanded, gently battering her haunches with his sharp hind claws. Frost almost always won. "Never!" She yelped; her voice muffled into her sparse mane. "You'll wake the whole Flight with your nonsense!" At the sound of a stern voice, Frost's weight disappeared from Whisper's back and she clambered to a sitting position, shaking scraps of feather down from her rumpled coat. She tried her best to seem chastised, but her eyes glowed with the sparkling light of mischief. "Sorry Broodie Pollen," Whisper responded hanging her skull, grinning sheepishly. "Yeah, sorry Broodie," Frost added on, still dangling by his scruff from the pale white skull of the Brood Mother on duty. The much larger blue-gray vixen set Frost down beside his sister, shaking her skull indulgently. "You two are nearly big enough to be whelps! You must start acting like it if you want to begin branching this side of the season! We have to know we can trust you to have sense in those little skulls." She gave an affectionate lick between the ears of both the little whelplings she watched over, her exasperation melting like snowflakes on stones under the warmth of her affection. Pollen perched at the edge of her nest with her ferocious foreclaws gripping the straw between her hind legs. She reminded Whisper of the stories of dragons her father would sometimes come to tell them. "We know, Broodie Pollen! We're just so bored! I wanna see the outside!" "I know, I know, it must feel like forever to you little pups. I remember when I was barely any bigger than you. It felt like I would never be allowed beyond the ledge." "You were small like us once?" Came Whisper's disbelieving chitter in response. "Oh yes. Maybe not as small as you, little wing, but certainly, I was once a whelpling, just like you! Of course, that was many seasons ago." She crawled into the nest, curling around Whisper and Frost, using her snatcher to pull them close to her warm belly. Her dark ginger fur was so soft, it nearly lulled Whisper to calm. "I took my first flight on a snowy day, just like this." " Oh! Please Broodie Pollen, please tell us about your first flight!" "Yes," Frost crooned longingly. "Please tell us!" Pollen had no defense against the two pairs of huge glowing eyes that stared wonderingly up at her. "Alright, keep your whiskers down you zippy little bats, I'll tell you about my first flight." As she settled in, the pair of litterkin snuggled into her wake, side by side, their wide eyes fixed on her grinning skull. It was readily apparent Pollen adored her late sisters’ pups. "When I was a wee little bat, I was very, very sick. My light didn't come as it should have, and the Menders couldn't figure out what went wrong with me. I was trapped in the Nursery Hollow for an extra seven moonrises!” Whisper gasped quietly. When a bat hatched, normally they would be born sightless and still. During the first moonfall they experienced; they would get their light. Their empty eye sockets filled with glowing color, and the young pup would be given their name and their explosive development would begin. Or so she'd been told. If Broodie Pollen’s magic didn’t come right. . . Whisper shuddered at the thought. She could have easily been flightless! “Finally I got so sick and tired of waiting, I sneaked out of my broodies' nest while she slept, and I managed to find my way alllll the way to my father's hollow. I told him Broodie Oakleaf told me he could take me out branching. I don't know if he believed me considering it was barely first light. And it was snowing." Her eyes glowed with amusement as she watched the wide-eyed little whelplings drink in her story, her old adventure flickering across their glowing orbs. She heaved a reminiscent sigh, and wrapped her tail around the pair of pups, hoping to usher them into their dreams so she could catch a few more winks of sleep before the sun climbed too high. "But my father was never a drake to discourage my adventurous spirit. He let me climb onto his back, and he flew me all the way to the tiny oak in the preflight hollow. All of the branches were bare of leaves—as bare as bones!—And my poor sleepy father found himself a comfortable place to fluff up his fur against the wind and let me off. "Remember, Pollen," he said to me. "You're only branching. No flight. The Mender's said it wasn't safe." Do you think I listened, my lovely little whelplings?" Frost slouched against Pollen's wake, his eyes slowly closing. Whisper, on the other wing, looked like she had lightning bouncing around behind those bright eyes. "I bet you didn't!" She squeaked, starting to fuss excitedly in her spot. "Calm, little wing. You're going to wake your litterkin. No, you're right. I did not listen. At first, I leaped from branch to branch. Each one a little farther than the last. I really started to feel the air beneath my wings. My father, bless his skull, had fallen asleep. I thought it was the perfect time to really see what I could do. I was so good at branching, that must mean I had to be a natural flier!" "Yeah!" Whisper said in a hushed voice strained with excitement. She wiggled her foreclaws back and forth almost as if imagining what it would be like to catch a cold breeze beneath her tiny wings. "I bet you were the most natural flier ever, Broodie Pollen!" Pollen chuckled, a melodic and gentle sound. "No, little wing, I was certainly not a natural flier. I stood at the very end of a branch and I spread my wings. My snatcher held me in place because the wind was a little too strong for my hindclaws alone to bear. Neither of us could know, however, the danger that lurked in the forest just out of sight." "Danger?" Came Whisper’s enraptured, interrupting squeak. Pollen nodded and gently licked the bristling fur of Whisper's mane. "What danger?" "Well, you remember how I told you the tree was bare as bones?" "Yes. . .?" Whisper trembled in anticipation, the light of adventure blazing in her eyes. "Neither me, nor my father knew that a pair of hungry eyes were watching us." Pollen paused, letting her anticipation really sink in before she hissed in a hushed whisper. "A fox." Whisper gasped and fell back against her broodie. Eyes wide with wild light, silver pelt standing on end. She looked like she'd seen a phantom! "A real fox? What did it look like?" "Hush, little wing, I will tell you all about the fox. Remember, your brother's sleeping now." Pollen used her wing to shepherd Frost closer to her wake and gently draped it over him, giving Whisper a bit of space to spread out and content with her wiggly fit. "Well, I stood on the end of that branch, I spread my wings, and kicked off! A breeze caught me, sailing me high, high over the winter brambles and snowdrifts. Right over the little creek that ran past the preflight tree, and. . . Right. . . On to. . ." "Broodie Pollen, no!" Whisper gasped in stifled horror. "You don't mean you landed on the--!" "Fox! Yes! I landed right on his back. Good thing for me, too, I dug my little foreclaws into his bristling neck and I held tight, screaming for my father. Ohhh, that beast tried to shake me right off and into his mouth; you've never seen jaws so big!" "But Broodie Pollen, what happened?! How did you survive?" Whisper leaned forward now with her eyes as wide as the full moon, as she tried to envision Pollen's harrowing escape. "I was very lucky my father was nearby. He heard me squealing for him and he came down like a terrorhawk. He landed on its head! Of course he couldn't do much but scratch the beasts eyes while he picked me up in his snatcher, but let me tell you, young Whisper. I have never seen any creature take flight so fast. That fox became a little rusty speck on the ground, he flew off so quick." "Did you get in trouble?" "Big trouble, my little wing. My father bundled me right back into the Nursery Hollow, and I had to stay an extra seven moonrises!" "Oh no!" "Oh yes." Pollen nodded gravely starting to groom the now sleep heavy pup with long strokes of her tongue, combing through the thickening fur with her bony teeth. "I was the biggest whelpling in the nursery. I had to clean all the nests dawn and dusk. Every day! I thought I would never get out." "But you did?" Yawned Whisper, as she circled the nest curling her tail around her tiny body and tucking her wings in tight to her sides to stay the winter chill. "Of course I did. The Flight Leads knew I'd learned my lesson in the end. At least, I never tangled with another fox. When I finally left the Nursery Hollow and made my nest in the hollow below, I could barely believe how much different it was! We only had a broodie to watch over our nests—The whelp den was completely unsupervised! Well, until our guides came around." Whisper’s eyes were barely open now, the honey gold glow fading in the dusty darkness. "Did you know what you wanted to be Broodie Pollen?" Her voice scarcely more than a quiet breath now, she tucked herself closer. Pollen lifted her wing, and gingerly pulled Whisper against her litterkin, stretching her warm wing over the pair of them. "From the moment I first set claw in that hollow, yes. I knew I wanted to be a Brood Mother and protect little scraps like you." Pollen waited to hear a squeak of protest but was answered only by the soft snoring of a dreaming whelpling. Whisper went on grand adventures in her mind full of sunset colored fur and snapping jaws. Yet she felt no fear from her thrilling visions. No, young Whisper felt only the fire of adventure kindling brightly inside her heart.