Shadows on the Border

Chapter 4: Awakening

Chapter 4: Awakening

Shivering and clammy, the Carnas awoke in the darkness. It couldn’t move. It was curled into a tight, damp ball, covered in a sheen of freezing damp.

Its eyes were closed. It opened them. It was in a place of total darkness. It shut them again.

Its body was reassuringly cold, wings folded tight against its back. It was wedged in a corner or hole somewhere. It could feel the walls pressing against it. When it was threatened its instinct was to hide.

Its body hurt. There had been fire. It had been trying to return to its home in the Outlands. It was lost.

It was a young female. She had ridden the waves of energy in the way of her kind when she had felt a strong Source pass by. And she had been jettisoned into this wet, energy-less place where she couldn’t sustain herself and couldn’t gather enough energy to travel home.

She had found a small Source to sustain her in the crypt of the hospital…but she had been driven out and been forced to use her meager energy to locate more, a self-defeating cycle. She’d been surprised, in the animalistic, instinctive way she could experience surprise, that there were a handful of Sources here strong enough to Pull from. There was enough potential for her to become energized enough to get home if she could take their kias from them.

She had harvested from some Sources that she had tracked across the landscape. A populated place that was difficult to navigate, outside her experience. There were lots of Sources, but none of them were very charged with the large quantity of kias she needed. She had taken what she could find and moved forward, tracking the strong Sources she could taste, all gathered in one place.

They had been using their kias. She was hungry. She had been incautious in her approach and had paid the price. She had leaped at the strongest Worker and thought to pull her kias from her, but the Source had fought back. The Lurker had tasted her blood and started pulling the heady strength of her kias. But the Source had twisted and turned and fought and somehow Pulled her energy back and that of the Lurker as well. Another Source had thrown fire. The Lurker feared fire.

She had to retreat, weakened and burned.

And then, in the depths of the weakness, the time had come for her clutch to arrive.

It was her first clutch, but generations of primal instinct drove her. She found a nest. Two eggs came. She ate one, driven by her instinct, expediency, and the desire to survive. Then she curled her hurt body around the remaining egg and slept.

Whatever woke her had gone. She had no idea how much time had passed. Time was not a concept the Creatures were equipped to deal with. They mapped the paths of energy and followed them as their needs dictated. They could be nudged in the right direction by experienced energy workers. But they owed no loyalty and were essentially wild animals. Their driving force was the need to survive and to survive, they needed kias.

Blinking in the dark, she sniffed the egg and ran clawed paws over it. It was intact. The Young was growing inside. She could feel the glimmer of energy already. She ignored the shattered remains of the other shell on the floor, the sharp edges digging through her leathery skin.

She raised herself to a crouch and scented the air. There was a trace of kias. A Working had happened and close by. She needed to eat.

She left her egg in the way of her kind, tucked away under the rags she had been sleeping on, and she departed, seeking to feed.