Skylark



_____
Zach
________

"Skylark!" I called.

"Stay away from me!" A voice called out from the bush directly to my right.

I pushed my head through the thick layer of leaves and nearly touched noses with the calico draped across the ochre branches on the inside. I yanked my head back and blushed, then met her bright green eyes.

"I said leave me alone." She grumbled, and melted alway in a ripple of green light.

"Wait!" I stood there for a second, not exactly sure what I had seen. I could have sworn she was just there a few seconds ago.

"Featherbrain." She scorned, walking out of the shadows right in front of me.

My ears twisted back and I puckered like I had just eaten something sour. "How did you...?"

Skylark sighed, her face growing sad again and she walked away from me, sitting down by a small pond made out of a tree root. It glistened in the moonlight, tinged yellow by the sun that finally decided to make an appearance.

"Scribe-claw trade secret, you've never heard of bush travel?" She flickered her tail across the water, and I watched silently as a tears plopped into the remaining snow melt. Skylark sniffed quietly and stared into the water.

"Hey, about Lysander. I'm sorry." I comforted, walking up to watch the water as well.

She laughed bitterly. "Why are you sorry? It's not like you've ever lost someone you love."

I winced, and her eyes widened.

"Oh Glamora! I didn't mean that I swear it just slipped out-"

"No, it's alright. I have lost people I love, a lot of them."

She gaped. "But your family is perfect! Your life is perfect! You're the son of the chief, you get everything you want whenever you want it."

Now I laughed. "Being son of the chief sucks big time. Everyone thinks you must be some sort of prodigy, and that you know exactly what to do. But I don't, most of the time I have no idea. The other two thirds it was me running off into absolutely ridiculous situations that I can't get out of myself. I don't get everything I want because nobody takes me seriously. I'm fourteen and a kit could beat me in a test of knowledge."

She frowned.

"I've lost Arroyo, Zara, and Xanthos to Tenebris. Kennon hates me because I can't look after everyone, Seirra couldn't trust me with her big romance fiasco, I miss my friends and adoptive father from when I was human, and every single terrible thing that happens here seems to be my fault, and yeah. My life sucks." I hunched my shoulders and didn't meet her gaze.

She paused for a second, then patted my back with her wing. "I'm adopted, my birth parents abandoned me to die. It's probably because I'm a half-claw."

She held up her paws, and it was then I noticed they were a light shade of pink.

"White-claw and Blood-claw. I don't remember them very well but... The memories aren't happy." Skylark grinned weakly.

"No way!" I gasped. "I'm half-claw too, I didn't even know that was a word until just now!"

I unsheathed my claws, the dull silver, a mix of white and silver. Skylark breathed in a sharp breath.

"Arietty is a White-claw?"

"Is that bad?"

She shrugged. "There are legal ways you can leave your tribe, but it's hard and not worth it at all. You'll be shunned by your birth tribe and shunned by the ones you join. But it's bad when it's illegal, like my parents did. They kill you."

"Oh."

Skylark dipped her head, suddenly looking abashed.

A flower floated down from a dying tree, and landed with a small plop in the pool. I picked it up with my pad and brushed it of a little, then tucked it behind Skylark's ear.

    "There you go." I grinned.

    Skylark glanced up at me sheepishly. "Thanks, I love it."

    Her gaze flickered back up to me again. "And, there's something else...something I've been meaning to tell you for a while now."

    "What?" I tried to look concerned, but she was using that tone of voice that parents use. You know what I'm talking about that tone of voice.

    "There's something I've come to realize ever since I helped you find that scroll on wolves." She looked up at me again. "I really like you Zach, I mean I really like you. more than just a friend."

    My heart clenched, and I felt my fur get hotter and hotter around my face. My pelt was constricting around my lungs again, I wheezed too quietly for her to hear.

    "Skylark...I..."

    "I know you like me too, you've been so nice to me all the time." She interrupted dreamily. "You can admit it now, I'm sure the other's won't judge."

    I stared at her for a good long time, contemplating what to say. I didn't know. My tongue felt like a swollen hunk of blubber in my mouth, which was dry like velvet.

    "I'm so sorry Sky, It's just. I...don't...ugh. I don't like you like that." I admitted, feeling sick. my paws felt like balls of dough on my spaghetti legs.

    "What?" She asked quietly, like fallen bird.

    "I kinda always thought you were my friend." I squeaked pathetically.

    All the time while I had been talking her face had darkened like a someone throwing a curtain over a portrait. Then it twisted in a scarred mask of pure, unfiltered hate, her cold viridescent orbs reflecting my frightened face with surprising mirror-like qualities.

    Then her claws came wiping around and smashed into my face. I gasped huskily as I slammed against the snow and dirt, the world spinning and the fluffy white snow in front of me stained a ripe cherry color, like a watermelon snow cone.

    "Skylark!" I gasped.

    She screamed at me. "All this time you led me on! And now you've turned on me too! I CAN'T TRUST ANYONE!"

    She lunged at me, eyes slitted and teeth bared, lunging for my neck. I rolled last moment and she landed on my belly. I kicked her off me and twisted back onto my feet. Then she tackled my hindquarters and started tearing at them with her hind claws. I yelped in pain and whipped my paws around, catching her right on the face.

    She shrieked in agony and clutched her eye with one paw. It came away drenched in blood.

    There was a large cut across the left side of her face, and it ran right through her eye. She stood there breathing heavily for a minute or so.

    "See you in Heimsmire Dragonfly." Skylark vowed.

Then her body flaked away into tendrils of green light that twisted around my neck and I felt chocked for a few seconds before they blew away again.

I didn't go back to camp. I spread my wings and took off into the sky, heading towards the one place where I would find some answers. The Cave of Time.

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