Dusk Fall

Little Big Brother

Whisper felt sick to her tiny stomach. The softened strips of mouse-meat Broodie Pollen fed them before they’d gone to bed felt as far away as her hatching. She couldn’t even begin to guess how long they’d been trapped in the stunted oak with its twisted branches. Every time she or her litterkin made even the slightest move, they would be answered with a deep, malicious growl. The sun slunk lower in the sky, and the fleeting warmth of the winter sun dwindled away like a fading dream.

“I’m sorry,” Whisper mewled weakly. “I’m sorry, Frost, I should have listened to you!” She kept her voice to a hushed whisper, flinching at a twitch of the beast’s ear. A deep knot of shame tightened itself in her belly. The wind picked up a biting chill as the sun prowled towards the horizon. They would either freeze to death or starve. How could she have been so birdbrained?! Frost was right, and it was far too late for her to listen.

Who would want such a useless bat for litterkin?

She felt his snatcher lay warmly against her flank. “It’s okay.” He murmured softly, pressing his bony muzzle to her neck, preening his teeth through the bristling fur in an effort to help ease her distress. “I’m going to get us out of here. We only need to get away from this monster. And I think I have an idea. Do you think you can reach that acorn over there with your snatcher?”

Whisper narrowed her eyes, turning her blurry gaze on a little acorn wedged into the fork of a branch. The bark already began to reclaim it, growing around the hard brown shell. “I think so—”

“Be slow!” He hissed, before she could move. “Try not to let it see you move too much. I heard foxes can be really clever, and I don’t know how smart this monster is.”

Whisper nodded. He was right. With the very tips of her furry digits, she carefully teased the acorn loose. Her golden-eyed gaze never left the massive beast. Huddled between a thick tree limb and her brother’s still form, she couldn’t see how it wouldn’t notice her tail working to free the trapped seed. Trembling with fear and keeping herself as still as she could manage, the darkness gathered by the time she’d managed to roll the rattling brown nut into her palm. As delicately as if she were trying to re-nest an egg, Whisper tapped her furled snatcher against Frost’s. With barely a twitch of his pelt, he turned his palm skyward. She dropped the acorn into his grasp.

“I can’t make any noise, once we’ve started. I don’t want to give away our location. Trust me, okay Whisper? I might do something that seems a little scary, but you’ll see. I’ll get that monster off our pelts.” A ferocious light blazed in his eyes, and Whisper felt her fear starting to relax its grip on her heart.

“What are you waiting for?” She asked, her ears flattened against her neck, peeping down at the monster once more. His sickly yellow eyes stared unblinkingly up at her, as if it were willing her to climb down the trunk and into its waiting jaws. Its hips jutted sharply out against his ragged pelt. Deep shadows bit into his flanks, hollowing his sides, and every rib could be counted. Whisper couldn’t help but feel a flash of pity for the creature. It must’ve been hungrier than she was!

“See how the shadows are getting longer and darker? I’m waiting for it to get dark enough.” But even when she prompted him, Frost would divulge no more of his master escape plan. The temperature waned as clouds gathered and the wind collected itself. The icy breeze bit right through her pelt.

Finally, as Whisper felt certain the sun was kissing the line of the horizon, Frost moved. He flung the acorn as hard as he could against a nearby tree. The monster shot to his paws, pelt bristling, muzzle twisted with a fearsome snarl. As it swung its massive head to face the sound, Frost leaped into action.

Quicker than a snake-strike, he roughly bundled her against the tree. Whisper, despite her heart racing out of her chest, managed to keep her muzzle clamped down around her squeal of terror. It felt as though he were bundling her up, tightly, to hide her out of sight. So, Whisper curled herself up, willing her silvery coat to be as small as the acorn. Frost flattened himself out, spreading his wings to wrap them around her. He covered her bright fur with his own dark pelt.

She could hardly dare to breath. Her ear twitched at the sound of a disconcerted growl. She heard the beast pacing around the base of the tree. Every few heartbeats, there was the deep, rhythmic sound of its black nose trying to locate its prey. Whisper silently willed the cold to dull its senses and hide their deception. Please, she thought. Let the monster think we escaped!

There was the rattling sound of sharp claws clipping against treebark. Whisper felt Frost’s body squishing down harder against her. Was he telling her to be still? Or was Frost just as terrified as she was? She heard the sniffing again—Only this time, it came from much closer. Tears welled up in the corners of her eyes, and Whisper suppressed a powerful shudder.

It growled. She felt every bone in her body as if they were made of ice. None of their Flight would ever know what happened to them. She would never get to say goodbye.

I love you, Frost! She thought with quiet desperation, waiting to feel the powerful crunch of those awful yellowing fangs on her body.

But it never came.

Two heavy thuds preceded a resentful grumble, and Whisper could hear pawsteps disappearing into the darkness. Still, she dare not move. She could feel, rather than see Frost’s figure twist, as if he were craning his neck to look out into the woods.

“Keep your squeaks quiet, Whisper, but. . . I think it’s gone.” His voice quivered, but, to his credit, Frost did not cry. She was in awe of his bravery. It was like Frost wasn’t afraid to die. Or, if he was, protecting her meant more to him than the threat of yellowed fangs.

“O-Okay. . . Well. . . We got rid of the monster, but how are we going to get home? We won’t even last the night if we can’t find somewhere to shelter! And I’m so hungry, I can barely see straight!” Her voice shook worse than her litterkin’s. Her whiskers twitched irritably, and it was all she could do to keep from wailing. It was your fault, after all, a voice spoke up in the back of her mind. Why are you making it sound like it’s his fault?

“We’ll figure it out, together. Right? We’ll always get through anything, as long as we can get through it together. Now, listen, you’re right about the cold. We have to get out of it, and we have to get something to eat.” Frost matured more in his short days than Whisper would’ve thought possible. He sounded like a real Flight Guard!

“Right.” She answered back shakily, trying to steady her nerves and portray a braver portrait of herself. “So, what are your orders, Flight Lead?” Whisper asked weakly, a touch of bleak humor coloring her chirp.

“I think I can see a tree hollow in that pine right over there. We’re going to go—together—and cross the forest floor so we can get out of the wind. Once we do that I’ll see what I can gather for nesting, and you can scout around for food.”

“B-But, Frost, I can’t—”

“You won’t have to leave the safety of the branches once we get up. I just need you to see if you can see any oak trees. Where there’s oak, there’s moss, and where there’s moss, little wings like us can get warm. Maybe we can find something to eat.” He quieted her fearful mewling by gently brushing one of his whiskers along her back. “I bet we could even try to glide across the forest floor to get as close to the tree with the hollow as we can. Do you want me to go first?”

Whisper nodded wordlessly. Terror still gripped her heart in its frosty clutches even after the danger passed. What if the monster came back? What if there were more monsters lurking in the darkness? Could she bring herself to--

Before her dark thoughts spiraled any further, Whisper bristled as she watched her brother fling himself off the branch, spreading his wings as wide as he could, landing with a soft thump on the forest floor. He scrabbled noisily against the leaf litter for a few heartbeats, before thankfully closing the distance between him and safety. She didn’t breathe until his foreclaws hauled him up along the trunk.

Whisper took another deep, steadying breath, before flinging herself after him. Her eyes squeezed tightly shut. She couldn’t witness herself far overshoot the mark, and instead felt a jarring impact as her soft underbelly slammed against the tree trunk. “Oof!” She wheezed; the air pressed out of her lungs from the force of her impact. Frost had a steady lead on her, already hauling his tail over the ledge.

“Whisper! Come on!” He chirped, and Whisper thought she detected a note of excitement. She dug her foreclaws in, and scrambled after her litterkin, squirrel-like, lurching up the sturdy pine.

She hooked her foreclaws over the rim, her hind claws churning uselessly against the bark, sending showers of tiny woodchips to the ground below. She felt Frost’s teeth sink into her scruff and haul her into the hollow. She tumbled, skull over claws, landing with her wings splayed out against the smooth wood. The air thick with the scent of pine sap. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness, and Whisper was delighted to see there were already the remains of a long-abandoned nest!

“Frost, look! There’s a nest!”

“Yeah, I see that birdbrain. Guess I don’t need to hunt for moss, not when we have a perfectly good nest right here.” He flicked his ear thoughtfully. “Whisper, why don’t you chase away any nest bugs, and get warm? I’ll worry about food.”

Whisper pushed away the guilty thought that they wouldn’t exactly need food if she’d just stayed in their nest like she was supposed to. And now, Frost willingly put himself in danger to get her something to eat! All while she got to lay warm and cozy in a nest. How was that any fair?

“Whisper? Are you okay?” He softly brushed a whisker against the side of her skull. “Come on, the nest bugs won’t chase themselves away.”

Shaking the clinging cobwebs of doubt from her mind, Whisper answered; “Sorry. Yes, I can get the nest ready for sleeping. But, Frost, won’t it be dangerous to go out on your own?”

“It’ll be even more dangerous tomorrow when we’re weak from hunger. Trust me, Whisper, I’ll be back before you know it.” Without giving her a chance to argue, Frost stole out of the hollow like a snake slithering out of a bird’s nest and disappeared into the deepening night.

Finally, alone, and safe, far above the dangers that lurked on the forest floor, there was nothing stopping her from crying out. Tossing her muzzle back with a soft wail, Whisper let the day’s terror wash over her. Broken, hiccupping sobs wracked her tiny, cold frame, and she couldn’t help but cry for her Broodie. Her body collapsed, her skull landing heavily on top of the backs of her silver wings. She whimpered in uncertainty, her mind bogged down beneath the overwhelming weight of her regret threatening to swallow her. Frost gave her the easy job because she wasn’t fit for anything else.

But, even if it was nothing more than the easy job Frost gave her to be kind, it was still a job she had to do.

Gathering herself from the hollow floor she used her foreclaws, wings folded, to tear the nest to pieces. Whenever she caught the shiny black flash of a beetle shell running for safety, Whisper used her long tongue to lap the scuttling insects up. Her stomach growled in protest, clearly not satisfied with such small pickings.

Once she’d emptied the scrapped nest of its squatting tenants, Whisper dragged the pile of nesting material into the farthest, tightest corner she could find, far from the hollow’s opening. She arranged the scraps into a passable nest. It smelled stale and musty, but to Whisper’s exhausted body, there was no finer place to curl up for a good nap.

She circled the nest a few times, wrapping her tail tightly around herself, hiding her head beneath her snatcher.

“I really hope Frost comes back soon.”