Chapter 5: Chapter Five

Sadrahan did not know why he chose the mountains, not exactly. And it was more than an hour before he really even noticed the direction he was traveling in. His mind was numb, his heart was empty, he could not even weep bloody tears, he couldn’t feel his heartbeat any longer, he was a flying shell, an empty husk, even when he came back to himself to start thinking. ‘I left my heartbeat behind me…’ The thought came to mind without any prompting, and he tried not to compound it with thoughts of worse.

‘They cut our wings off… they were cutting off our wings… why would they do that…? Is that how humans are made, by cutting off the wings of demons?’ It was a chilling thought to have and the dread it carried ran up and down his spine and caused him to clutch the little one in his arms a little tighter.

He dismissed the thought as quickly as he could. ‘It can’t be true. I’ve seen human infants, and even if I hadn’t, Midas the elder or Midas the younger would have mentioned that.’ But answering his own horrified question in the negative only left the question completely unanswered, and though it tugged at Sadrahan’s mind, he forced himself to focus on the issue at hand.

‘Act now. Mourn later. The mountains will be safe, or should be.’ He told himself, but doubt nagged at him. The great high mountain crags grew larger with every passing moment of flight, and when he looked over his shoulder, his village was far, far out of view. Down below lay ground he’d never seen before, forests deeper than he’d ever walked, and only the crudest of paths suggested any real travel at all took place.

The path was empty, as was everything else, at least empty of anything suggesting people of any race lived nearby. The forest offered much in the way of mystery, the canopy of trees made a carpet of leaves from above that hid grass and bushes and all animal life but birds that occasionally flew below him. But he was blind to what was really within.

‘Good land down there, I could farm again, no humans are going to come bother me so far away. Building a house would be easy, if I put it way back from the path, I’d never be found.’ Sadrahan dipped a little in the air, but as he did so, the memory of the cracking wood of his home came back to mind… ‘The roof probably came down on her… no. No. No.’ He told himself and looked ahead at the mountains once more. ‘I want a roof that will not collapse. A roof of stone! A mountain! That will be her home! The humans can’t possibly come this far. It doesn’t matter that we’re alone…’ He told himself and felt the little life begin to stir.

“I’ll keep the mountain strong, and hold it against everything, just like your mother would have wanted… Nobody will threaten you, nobody will harm you. There you’ll be safe. It will… yes, I will make it a stronghold.” He invented the word in the heat of the moment and beat his wings ever harder, “And anyone who comes and tries to make you cry… I will break them like trees.” He vowed and put his other arm around the sack which held the unborn little demoness.

Snow up high was unpleasant to contemplate, but at the base of the mountain he saw the path of a rushing river which raced along a long range of mountain peaks which pierced the clouds themselves to hide the tops from Sadrahan’s demonic eyes.

And for the first time in his life, the demon asked himself, ‘Just how big is this world anyway…?’ In all his years, the question never came to mind, his flights had never carried him farther than the kill of a passing bird, his interest never carried him beyond the human village that lay one day’s walk away. ‘If I ever see the Midas family again, I’ll ask.’ He promised himself.

It was just then that a tiny ash gray hand with tiny claws so small they could barely be said to exist at all, tore through the membrane which sheltered her as if she were trying to be born from a mother she no longer had.

‘Now?! Now?!’ He cried out in his mind and raced ahead, the tiny hand continued to tear its way free, a second hand joining the first in the free air of the open and endless sky.

‘I thought I’d have a few more days at least?!’ The empty shell of a demon filled up with panic in the space of a heartbeat. With dismay and fear running wild as he realized a thousand things all at once.

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‘I don’t know anything about babies?! I don’t know anything about little girls and haven’t since I was a little boy! I don’t know anything about any of this!’ He cried out in his mind, and his mouth opened up without thinking as tiny arms spread out in the air. The rearing of young demons was typically done communaly for the first few years by the women of the village while the fathers worked to clear a field, build a home, and work extra hours to prepare for a distant future. Because of this, knowledge of the very young passed from mother to daughter, mother to daughter… and the chain of knowledge was now as broken as his heart.

“Lamash! Lamash, I need you!” He howled and roared and bellowed and raged as anguish and worry ripped apart his body from the inside out and his daughter was all but born into his very arms, fleeing the only home her only living family ever knew.

But Lamash didn’t answer. Her spirit didn’t call out from any beyond and her wise council was not whispered into his ear as if she were still laying at his side in the quiet hours of the night when their heated lovemaking caused steam to rise from the coarse sheets of their simple bed.

His raging sense of loss was so loud and forceful when he let it rip from his lips that it struck the mountain itself, and as if the stone pitied the pair and wanted to weep for them… a tide of white poured down the side in a raging avalanche that roared like thunder across the world.

The white cascade ran down over the river where it came to a crash and snow rose up like clouds from the ground, baring the gray stone beneath along a broad side of the natural wonder.

And in his arms, a tiny reedy cry pierced the air like her own mother’s claws pierced flesh to give her a chance at life, little limbs kicked and flailed and the tattered remnants of cord and membranous protective layer fell down and disappeared into the tree canopy below.

“Food! You need to eat! I know that much! Don’t worry, I’ll find you something, just hold on!” Sadrahan shouted and closed his wings tight against his body and charged the final stretch of space between himself and their new mountain home. “Just stay with me! We’ve got this!” He shouted in defiance of all his bad luck, and pleaded to the spirit of his vanished wife. ‘If you can hear this… please don’t make me a liar…’

Her spirit didn’t answer him, not that he expected it to, but at the very least, Sadrahan could dream, and if she could do anything from wherever she was? ‘She would never abandon us… we just need a little luck, and I can make this work!’

Or so the wild hope in his breast told him.

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