This time, waiting is easier.

You have decided to trust the boy, so now you are waiting.

Days pass and you stop hurting your wing. At night, you sleep waiting for the sun to rise, like the mortal beings you've met during your journey.

You dream. You dream of flying once more, but also to land on the ground, this time with more gentler means and by your own accord. You dream of travelling with your friend again.

When that happens, you wake up with a sour taste on your tongue.

You wait for your friend to help you escape. Soon you will be free again and find the true Star Menders. And then, you will return to your brethren once more.

The sour taste does not disappear.

Is that not what you want? Is that not what you wished until this moment?

Will you be confined to the spaces of your belt of constellations from now on? Will you have to be satisfied only by the brief night trips that your brothers and sisters sometime indulge on, always so secretive and silent?

Will that be enough?

You shake your head once more to scatter those thoughts.

From the village of the Star Hunters, voices and the flickering of flame are never ending. They are always walking, always talking, always doing something. Now that you are not trying to let yourself rot and you have been accepting your food without hissing, you have enough energy to focus on your surroundings.

You have seen those predators carve new weapons out of wood, letting men chant words above the bark. The symbols they carved, each cut of the blade made your rage surge in your chest.

But you kept your beak shut. You do not let yourself hiss.

You are waiting. You have to let them believe you are behaving.

You will escape.

The child will help you.

Or at least you hope so.

One night you see the child again. He is wearing the same garments of his people and it makes you want to jump at him, but you let your instinct dwell deep beneath your mind.

It's the man next to him that makes your heart drop. The fake Star Mender, the betrayer.

You take a couple of steps back until your leg hits the cage's bars.

A couple of other men are together with them. They are all holding weapons in their hands: both weapons good at striking animals down and weapons that spit fire.

The boy looks at you and gives you a nod.

Your wing has yet not healed. These men cannot kill you until it does, so that gives you a bit of reassurance, as they open the cage.

One of the men grabs you and pulls you out of the cage. You don’t even have time to breathe that he pins you on the ground, a yelp escaping your beak as something brushes your broken wing.

The child exclaims something and, at his voice, the man above you relents a bit.

The fake Star Mender approaches you and you can see his feet right in front of your eyes. He kneels down and places his hands upon your broken wing.

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You yelp in pain, but he doesn’t stop. You thrash about, the man strengthens his grip on you, but he doesn’t stop.

You look at the child, your eyes filled with a silent prayer. He yells something at the fake Star Mender, but yet he doesn’t stop.

And it is in that moment that a small warmth touches your damaged feathers and everything stands still.

For a moment, you feel as if the world has stopped turning. The wind has stopped blowing, the animals have stopped skittering around and you have stopped breathing. Relief washes over you as your body is filled with tranquility.

Everything stands still. The screaming of the men, the rough handling, your pain, your fear, they all stop. Silence overwhelms you, like when the night falls over the world, tucking it in its embrace, and humans go to sleep. The lights disappear and nothing ever moves, waiting for dawn.

Night has fallen over your body and it is then that you realize that your wing does not hurt anymore.

With wide eyes, you look at the child, and he smiles. He is grateful, even with the lack of words you can feel it, caressing your mind with gentle images of affection. For a moment, you are happy that humans do not possess the skill that you have, or the Star Hunters would have smelled the child’s betrayal in the fray.

It is then that you see it.

The boy has hidden something under his garments. The glint of a weapon flicks upon your eyes, but the child is not fast enough for another man stops him and his weapon that spits fire falls from his hand. The boy looks at the man, eyes filled with terror, and you understand that he is in danger.

The man above you pushes his leg upon your back as other men approach the child. Some words explode around you, the air is rife with anger and confusion and fear and terror and it makes your head spin.

A fire burns in your chest.

It is a familiar feeling, similar to when you would hear the prayers sent by the humans to the night sky.

But this time the fire burns much brighter and it almost hurts you.

Those humans that have trusted your kin well enough to hand you their deepest wishes, you have always desired to help them.

But you are a star and you have always followed the ancestral rules. You were not made to act and talk, but to watch and listen.

But your friend is in danger. This world is so very vast and so very big and so very difficult. Ancestral laws mean nothing down here.

And you have already broken some of them, and you enjoyed it.

So, in this moment, you decide that you don’t care about such rules anymore.

You open your wings, sending the fake Star Mender away from you, and you push the man pinning you down with the weight of your body. And then, you leap at the man in front of the child, sullying your claws with his blood. Screams and roars surge all around you like a river engorged by a storm, but you do not wait one moment, and you grab your friend and beat your wings with as much strength as you can manage. You were afraid that you had forgotten how to fly, but soon the light feeling so dear to you and your brethren empowers you once more, as if it had never stopped waiting for your return, like how a mother waits for her son during the cold winter nights.

You are flying.

A spark of joy surges from your chest as you notice how close to the skies you are once more. It feels like you are back home: a few more wing beats and you could reach your kin in a matter of a couple of birds’ songs.

But a certain weight in your arms stops you. The child is gripping at you for dear life, legs dangling above the camp that you just left, and he is looking at the ground below with wide eyes.

You remember that humans have never flown before.

You do not mind that your friend will be the first one to do so.

You beat your wings once more and relish in the feeling, but then the hiss of an arrow pierces your ear.

You look below: the Star Hunters are gathering their weapons, ready to throw them at you. You know they won’t use their weapons that spit fire, since they burn your feathers, and instead will only use the ones that pierce and cut.

The voice of your friend reaches your ears: he is pointing somewhere beyond the horizon, towards the shape of the mountains touching the sky. You do not recognize the place he is pointing to, but you realize that you’d probably have a hard time recognizing any place, in these perilous mortal lands.

Another arrow passes you by, forcing you to make a choice.

Any place would be better than where you are now. You have to bring your friend to safety.

You beat your wings once more, as yells and roars spill from below you, and fly away.