2200 Blues Interlude (Early Draft)

Sand irritated his feathers, having burrowed under his layers of red plumage. He twitched, jerking his feathers back and forth. Sand drizzled out from in between his twisted feathers where there were caked banks of sand underneath. They fell like rain from dense unrelenting thunderclouds. 

He blinked and shuffled his butt across the ground, raking more sand. The air was noticeably still. Of course anything would seem still after being dragged through the sky by Eagles soaring at dizzying speeds.

Looking behind at the depths of the hole he lay in, he could almost trink himself into thinking he was still asleep. The space of the dusty rock walls beyond were as dark as the insides of the eyelids. 

The cavern was silent. The greenery of the creeping wilderness in front was tinged with the evening blue of a dying day. Like a blanket of snow, the blue radiance settled in, splotching the bushes and shady winding trees until the green of the leaves of the bark disappeared. 

Leaving a deep blue that was quickly dimming to the pitch darkness of the cave. 

The scuttling hoots of monkeys died. The night was replaced by the sharp and incessant chirpings of nighttime critters. 

In the slithering pitchess and singularity of darkness, the memories of a frantic hunt and fall into a larke of horrors crashed into his consciousness, snapping back from the tension of dormant memory and ricocheting across his mind. Each ricochet— each thought of unbelieving anguish. 

He’d failed the hunt. Failed his training after enduring and progressing for so long. Was it real? Mother Hawk in chains? Would he ever know? 

What if he’d stayed? What if he could have fixed the situation? Seen if the sight of Mother Hawk was real and fixed it? What if he hadn’t plummeted to the lake? Would the land around it be burning? 

The images of a smoldering forest rimming a lake erupting with forceful heat crashed over him. The helpless questions prodded at his mind like hot rods he couldn’t grasp. 

He’d failed the Eagles. If only they’d let  him stay and fight……………………

“Time to rest.”

The last words spoken to him. 

Father Hawk’s heart hammered with the anticipation of action. Of remedy to his pain. But those last words gonged from his memory, ringing through his mind. 

Hearing them. He sighed and slumped to the floor, closing his eyes to darkness within darkness. With that, he settled into an uneasy, but exhausted sleep.