Minutes continued to turn as Nyal and Reonda followed Teolus down the forest path. The two stayed silent for the most part, for no conversation could really be held between them. That did not mean that it was completely silent, however. Some ways into their travel Reonda had started humming a tune that was unfamiliar to the Harpen. It was nothing like what she had heard in taverns or other travelers she had met. The rhythm of it was different, and she found her talons marching to it and swaying her tail from side to side by nature.

In fact, every song Reonda knew seemed to have that same marching rhythm to it. She never repeated the same song once she had finished humming it, but Nyal could naturally hear the similarities. Each one got her marching and her tail swaying, only stopping when Reonda looked back at her. The Acamian knew she was doing it – the stomps of her talons weren’t exactly subtle – but in an attempt not to outwardly embarrass the hen she held in her giggles. Nyal was quite an adorable Harpen to her.

After half an hour Nyal had decided it was her turn. While the rhythm of the tune was a bit more uneven, mainly due to those who she had learned it from being tavern goers and the like, its effect was immediate. Reonda knew immediately what Nyal wanted her to do and was more than happy to try and hum along. She wasn’t perfectly on beat, but it fit with the picture it placed in her head of a bunch of farmers, carpenters, and the like drunkenly trying to sing a tune together.

After a time of humming that tune, the two vessels looked back and giggled at each other. No longer was Nyal behind Reonda, but standing by her side with a smile as she held her Historia. For a moment, Reonda thought of rubbing the top of Nyal’s head like a parent might their child. That thought was instantly brushed away at the ever invisible eyes of someone around her. No doubt her mother and father.

“Teolus, tell me about the camp. Was there anything in particular that stood out to you?” Reonda asked her familiar, doing her best to protect herself from her own mind.

“Camp was camp. Wagon with many things in it, some rather delicious. No horse with it, but likely nearby” Teolus explained. The news of a possible horse-drawn wagon caught Reonda off guard, turning for a moment back to Nyal. Was the hen’s family that well off? “Two tents. One seemed rather beat up, but seemed from talon marks.”

The mention of this tent brought Reonda back to the hawk. “How are you so sure they are from talons and not a blade?”

“Size of cuts,” Teolus told her. “Your metal-made talons are typically slim and cut well. This looks… fatter.”

Reonda accepted what he said, but silently still doubted it. She knew that Teolus knew nothing of man-made arms, and she cursed herself for asking a hawk of all things such questions. Still, the news of “talon marks” made her concerned. Up until then she believed that her parents had merely gone out searching for her, but now she felt differently. A wagon without horses to pull it, and marks of what could possibly be a scuffle visible too. She didn’t notice that her pace had suddenly decided to pick up… only to stop as a more malicious voice played in her mind.

“My my, so eager for an answer. Are you hoping they’re dead so you can keep her to yourself?”

Reonda turned around at what felt like lightspeed, her quicken pace ending almost as soon as it began. Nyal stopped to look at the older girl, able to see a look that very clearly looked off. Reonda’s eyes danced rapidly, not moving enough but looking as if they were vibrating from some imaginary earthquake. Her mouth was frozen open as if a hideous specter was before her. Without any thought it was a bad idea, Nyal reached out to try and hug the human. Teolus opened his beak so as to let out a warning caw to the girl.

He was too late, for as soon as the mere brush of a feather was felt every bit of turmoil inside his master came out in a horrid fury.

“Don’t touch me!”

In a single moment, Reonda reacted without any thought or reason outside of “get them off me”. She slapped away Nyal’s wing before a failed step back led to her falling onto her back and letting out a yelp. Nyal herself took a few steps back, not knowing how to react to the Acamian’s sudden change. A change that Reonda quickly realized, and if the pain that ripped through her back wasn’t reason enough to cry then the reality of what had just happened did.

“I’m… I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” She apologized, not bothering to try and sit up at all as she felt everything boil over. The tears came fast, and she immediately covered her face to hide they were there at all. Teolus landed next to her as she continued on. “It… it was a mistake. I didn’t mean to do that, I promise. I’m so so sorry.”

“Calm Reonda, calm,” Teolus told her. “Nyal is fine. You did not hurt her.”

Nyal, for her part, just looked on and asked her what she had done wrong. As far as she was concerned, she had tried to comfort someone that seemed terrified. To her that did not give enough of a reason for the reaction that was seen. With no idea what she had done, no way to ask Reonda about, and concerned for herself now just as much as she was for Reonda, the girl made what she believed was the best solution.

She would not touch Reonda again.

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It took twenty minutes for Nyal, Reonda, and Teolus to head back on the road after the Acamian’s breakdown. Tear trails stained her face and her head hung as if she had been dropped from a noose. She felt endlessly ashamed with herself for, inwardly bashing the fact she had acted in such a way in front of someone she was trying to help. A girl two years younger than her no less. It didn’t help that the voice was still there, for despite how calm she tried to show herself to be to Teolus and Nyal her mind was a hurricane.

“So volatile. So reactionary. So beautiful~” The voice said, a chuckle both playful and malicious, marking their words. Each of those statements echoed in Reonda’s mind like the owner of them had shouted into a cave. “The perfect little vessel you are. The absolute picture of balance and imbalance. Why, Rag’na’rog could not have chosen better.”

Reonda ignored that like she had numerous statements that the voice said. She would refuse to acknowledge its existence, as she had done for all but a few especially bad moments. Instead she focused on the fact that they were getting closer and closer to Nyal’s destination. From there, she could hopefully drop the harpen off and make herself scarce. It was for the best, as the last thing Reonda wanted to do was harm someone that had tried to be nice to her. A look at the hen showed how much one simple action had changed that.

Nyal had meant to only keep her wings off Reonda for the rest of the trip. Instead she found herself unable to meet their gaze, a voice in her head whispering she was the one responsible for Reonda’s emotional reaction. She had no idea how she was responsible outside of the fact it was a simple brush of the feathers that caused the Acamian to explode. A whirlwind of questions spawned from it as to what else she could have done that led to the moment. None had a clear answer, for she had never seen anyone react in the way Reonda did.

After a time, Teolus started circling not too far ahead. Both girls looked at the hawk with rather different reactions. Nyal was curious as to why Teolus had started circling, while Reonda immediately understood what it meant. She let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding, giving a silent prayer that everything would be alright.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“I won’t hurt her again, good,” She whispered.

She turned to Nyal and motioned for Harpen to follow her as she took off into a sprint. Nyal did her best to keep up, but very quickly she started to fall more behind. Harpen were nowhere near as fast as Humans or Numarans on the ground, and it was put on full display before her. If anything, it made her more ready for the day she finally learned to fly.

Reonda was the first to reach the camp, her joy falling about as quickly as she came to a stop. Teolus’ description had been spot on for the most part; there was clearly what was supposed to be a horse drawn wagon, but there was no horse. That sent a shiver up her spine, the first of two major clues that her parents weren’t just out searching for Nyal.

The second one was the tents. There were two, one a decent bit bigger than the others, and both had seen better days. There were the clear signs of a fight, deep cuts clear on both of the tents, the smaller of them having collapsed on one side. There was also a sign of dried blood, which made the Acamian queasy. Reonda was all too afraid to look at the ground around them, fearing what she might find. Either way she did, and what she saw caused her to bite the inside of her lip.

Blood and feathers, not in huge quantities but they were there. The blood had long since dried up, meaning whatever had taken place had long since passed. Reonda could feel her stomach churn and her head grow light as she saw the sight. Whether the blood belonged to those whose feathers had been lost she didn’t know, but it was clear what had happened.

“You okay, Reonda?” Teolus asked.

“Teolus, you don’t know what you are looking at, do you?” Reonda asked, having to sit down due to how lightheaded she had become. “You know what that blood means, right?”

“Harpen has feathers. Figured blood and feathers meant pin feathers. Need to be removed as they draw blood and hurt,” He reasoned as he landed on Reonda’s lap. “Was… was I wrong?”

Of course he had read the situation wrong. For all the intelligence that the hawk had gained, he was still just a hawk. Smart though he was, clearly things a bit more human didn’t make sense to him. This was clearly one such case.

“Teolus, that blood isn’t from blood feathers,” Reonda explained. “That blood is fro–”

“K-kiere deteki… kiere deteki?”

Reonda looked behind herself to Nyal, who had finally caught up with the Acamian. The look in the hen’s eyes said everything as she looked at the camp before her. For Reonda it answered if this indeed where Nyal had run from and why she had run. A feeling of pain washed over her as she watched tears start to form in Nyal’s eyes.

She should have never brought the hen back home, for there was nothing for them to return to.

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“What… happened?”

The familiar sight of her parents wagon – of their tents – should have made her happy. They should have made her feel as if she had returned home. There was no home before her however, eyes turning between everything wrong. The tears in the tent fabric, the blood and feathers, and near everything else was so wrong she could barely believe that she once recognized most of it as home. Even worse, there was no mother or father in sight.

In hopes that they were merely out of view, she rushed ahead into the camp. Reonda had tries to call out to her, but her voice did not reach Nyal. She immediately looked inside the wagon, but all that was there was the supplies they carried. No sign of her mother and father, so she next ran to their tent. Peeking in through the opening, she prayed to the Oracles they were inside. Just like the wagon, there was no one.

As she brought herself out of the tent, her eyes caught on the dried blood on the side of it. Her mind was starting to panic, the worst coming to her mind. The world felt as if it was losing focus, Nyal stuck on the possibility her parents might be dead. The idea of the last thing her mom ever told her to do was run, of that being the last time she ever saw them, terrified her.

“Mom! Dad! It’s Nyal!” She shouted to the sky in a desperate hope they were nearby. “I’m back, you don’t have to worry. This nice human helped me so… so please come out.”

The only thing she got was silence, and just like Reonda had earlier from her touch, Nyal broke down in tears. She collapsed onto her knees as the tears flowed through her feathers, Historia falling to the ground as her wings went limp at her sides. Her mind whirled with the endless horrid possibilities for what could have happened to the two individuals she cared about most. All landed on the possibilities she would possibly never see them again.

“Mom! Dad!” She screamed through her tears, a simple weep slowly turning into an ugly cry.

All she got was the rustle of leaves in the trees. In one last, desperate bid, Nyal reached out to her Historia and pulled it back to her. She opened it with the grace of a drunkard, her eyes too filled with water to do otherwise. When she finally did, her tears acted in place of what her feathers usually did, their contact with the pages causing the same jumbled ink.

“Where is mom and dad?! What happened to them last night?” She begged.

"I am sorry young lady, but for the safety of one of Rag’na’rog’s Oracles I can’t reveal that."

“What do you mean you can’t? Why can’t you? What is a vessel and what does it have to do with the murderer and Reonda?!” Nyal commanded the book to tell her.

Slowly she watched as what was once a simple sentence in her Historia turned into a paragraph. Then more words started in a new one, till one entire page was filled. Nyal read on as text continued to pile up, hoping that it would give her some reasoning and some explanation to everything going on.

"As last mentioned, it was the will of Rag’na’rog herself that deems me unable to peer into the lives of Oracles and their vessels. She feared the thought of her children not having privacy, and when life was breathed into my pages I was unable to see those who protect the present and future. I know they exist, but their lives are nothing but fog.

As for your last question, your parents wished to keep it secret till you were older, but things have been forced upon you. In place of them and with events of the recent past, it seems I, the Historia of that Past, will have to tell you. Listen closely, young Nyal Mols More, child of Ar’ga’rou and daughter of Aria and Lasp. Do your best to stay strong, for what you are about to learn won’t be comfortable.

You, Nyal Mols Mors, are an Oracle vessel. You are a goddess still young, and this Reonda you’ve mentioned seems to be the same. One day, the mantle Ar’ga’rou now holds will be passed to you. One day you will restore life to Rag’na’rog and give the souls of the dead to the Oracle of Life when her corpse no longer feeds. You are far more than just the simple Harpen you have thought yourself to be."

The Historia had plenty more, but Nyal couldn’t read any further. It felt as if time had stopped, mind stuck as she tried desperately to wrap her head around what had just been told to her. No part of it made sense in her mind, but then again the book had never been wrong. The only thing she could think of was to look down at her feathers and look at what she knew was true.

Her name was Nyal Mols Mors, and her mother and father went by the names of Aria and Lasp. She was eleven, had feathers the color of ash, and was one year off from being strong enough to fly. Before her was a book, which she had recently learned was called a Historia, which only she could open. That is what she had always known, and all that she had known was real. Yet looking at what was written inside said Historia showed there was more to her, and none of it contradicted with what she knew.

“Nyal.”

The hen looked behind her to Reonda, who had found the ability to stand once again. Teolus was perched on her shoulder, and both of them were looking to the ground. While Nyal couldn’t make out an expression on the hawk, she could do so with Reonda. Sadness and regret could be seen in her eyes and lips, her hands resting in front of her, fingers entwined with fingers. It was a mood that permeated through all of them, sticking to them like ticks.

“I… I’m sorry,” Reonda said, her tone carrying the apology in this instance more than the words did. “I didn’t know. If I had…”

Words died before they were spoken, for Reonda knew that could only do so much. Nyal turned away, tail still against the ground and back hunched. No one knew what to do, for an astounding amount of hope had died in the span of a few minutes. It was then Nyal turned her attention back to the book. Her eyes widened as she looked at a sentence further on then where she had read. A sentence which sparked something in her.

"For all I can’t tell you, my lady, I can tell you this: your parents still live."