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LBT Fanfiction / One Long Prologue
« on: January 28, 2023, 12:25:07 PM »
Hello there! It has been too long, and the nostalgia feels comforting.
This has been a long time in the making. Over 15 years of rewrites, drafting, beta reading and reworking entire concepts and I believe the story over all is in a place I can feel proud posting it again.
However, going back through previous iterations of both my characters and their stories, both past and present, I came to realize that Longtail specifically was far too convoluted and hard to keep track of even for me!
So, with the idea in hand, I chose to sit down and give a genuine explanation for all of his issues both internal and external. And as I revistied the RP section I remebered I still count the Sleep and Remember rp as canonical to Longtails overall journey.
Now with all the preamble over, I present to you friends new and old the prequel to One Long Tail...
https://m.fanfiction.net/s/14190929/1/One-Long-Prologue
A young, feathered flyer sporting sky blue primary, pale yellow secondary and tertiary compliment red and pink colors running all the way down his back to the tip of his tail had woken up like he did every morning as the bright circle crested over the Big Water that held his home aloft.
The calming ocean waves splashing against the rocks, as the light reflected into the trees and across the land in earnest; waking the sleeping inhabitants from their dreary night time slumber, or telling those who had made the night theirs to return to the nests that they called home.
The little flyer wanting to sleep a little more kept his eyes shut in a vain attempt to keep himself asleep, but something was… off. He couldn't place why, he just knew something was wrong.
With his hearing it quickly became clear he waited for the sounds that would let him know the night was over and a new day could begin.
Usually they were accompanied by several calls denoting an appraisal of the Bright Circle or a heartfelt goodbyes to the Night Circle.
But not this day… this day was marked by complete and utter silence. A quiet so absolute, so final it could've been mistaken for the silence of the dead. Not even the usual insects were making their normal morning noises as the day circle continued to crest the horizon.
This would've been seen as strange all on its own but now, as the silence continued to linger, a sense of foreboding and dread would fill the air in rapid succession.
But at the moment as the young feathered flyer opened his eyes to greet the day that feeling of doom and worry would be the farthest thing from the younglings mind.
He blinked again now sure to smile as the first ray of warm, life giving sunlight streaked across the cave he called home and over his beak.
As was his usual morning antics he would yawn and then attempt to bite the beam of light, chuckling at the fact that he would never actually catch it.
He looked around himself noticing he wasn't in the usual family nest. Now this itself was not unusual, the slight head-hurt was odd too, but seeing as the rest of the island had a 'one herd, one nest' ideal, alongside the fact his brothers and sisters already gone, it didn't bother him much.
‘Always hungry. Those guys never quit.’
The small flyer thought to himself with another chuckle. Finally standing upright from his previous sleeping position the pink-eyed flyer continued to smile as he felt the lightbeam reaching across his wings.
His enjoyment of the bright circles’ gift every day was something most of the flyers found reason to rejoice over. Walking into the open air outside the cave brought its own joys as he could smell the water around the island, as the bitter scent mixed oddly well with the sickly sweet smells coming from the Sky Puff trees that spread out along the island.
It was only after the youngling got over his favorite sights and smells did he notice the soul crushing silence around him.
“W-where is everyone?” he asked quietly, almost as if he were afraid to break the silence for fear of being shouted at for such a mundane act.
The lack of sound truly was starting to unnerve the young flyer as he looked around, not seeing anyone he was familiar with anywhere near the nesting grounds.
The chill of his own fear for a moment overrode the warmth and enriching feeling of the Bright Circle as it continued to crest over his body in the open air.
Deciding it would be easier to get through the fear, he took a deep breath before giving a screech calling out to any dinosaur around hoping he would get some sort of reply.
When several minutes passed and no answer or call returned to the child he frowned as he quickly began to think the worst had happened: perhaps the others had flown away and forgot about him?
Maybe they'd all been swallowed by the swimming sharptheeth in the Big Water, that was known to happen around this island from time to time.
This wasn't how his day was supposed to start and his mind quickly turned to his 'family' and if they were safe.
His family wasn't all one type of flyer but consisted of over a dozen types, maybe more.
Every so often the adult fliers would find abandoned eggs, or entire groups of hatchlings who had lost their parents and bring them home with hopes of hatching and raising them and adding to their own family bloodline.
In fact aside from his adoptive mother and father none of his siblings were island born hatchings, all being from the Mysterious Beyond, either the Badlands to the north, the Coldlands to the south, the Wetlands to the east, and the Deadlands to the west.
With a small grin his thoughts turned to a look-back that reminded him that he naturally loved his ‘siblings' each individually, but as a group they were loud and tended to resolve their issues with fights, claws, and beaks rather than words.
As a hatchling living on Sky Island it was known that every flier shared the moniker of Gaurdian.
Each flyer was taught when old enough, either how to fight with your claws and teeth or to fight with your mind and words...sometimes both if the youngling was feeling courageous enough.
He then remembered while most of his siblings had heard about and were looking forward to learning how to 'Fight like Fire'.
In their excitement, several of them began to play a little rougher than normal. And while this by no means was unusual for most of the boys and even a few of the girls it quickly grew out of control.
This fight had resulted in a near serious injury, which was the cause of the for the entire group, including those who were not even involved in the fight itself to being lectured, this one in particular given by his father of course, but that wasn't the problem, the truth was he himself had only returned to the nest after the fighting was over, but somehow, someway his father always… always found a way to blame the incidents on him specifically.
"Do you see this little ones? Each and every one of you is supposed to help better the others both through combat and with words but here I see several of you weren't even at the nest when this happened! And of course the little rock crawler shows his pitiful face at last… where exactly were you 'Longtail'?!"
Taking a moment to steady his breathing from the climb up the cliff, the youngest of the siblings looked down, thinking on the nickname he had 'earned' from his father.
The name itself was meant to be a demeaning insult to those who had either no tails or shorter ones due to injury or a defective hatching.
'Longtail' glanced up, almost afraid to speak despite his teachings telling him to both speak clearly and loud enough that those around can hear and understand what is being said.
He sighed, still nervous with obvious apprehension on his face as he gave his reply.
"I wasn't here for the fight and I'll accept my role in that but… it's not fair to keep blaming me for every offense."
Their father seemed to sneer aggressively at hearing those words, responding in kind.
"I berate and blame you because you are too slow to climb, not brave enough to fly and too meek to actually fight! You may not be fit to be a Guardian.
Perhaps saving you was a mistake."
Several gasps are heard from the children gathered around excluding Longtail. It was something he'd become accustomed to when 'talking' to his father, but his siblings seemed upset by his words as well, as a few of them stepped forward.
"Daddy, you don't mean that do you?" asked one of his sisters, concern lacing her voice as she looked up hoping for a more positive response.
The angry sneer he held turned into an outright scowl as he addressed his other children.
"Of course! I always mean what I say! Longtail isn't fit for our life here. In fact…"
He narrowed his eyes, while taking a step forward, drawing his arm back in anticipation to strike his youngest son.
The other siblings all took several terrified steps away from their father, all of them wondering why this always happens over something as small as a scuffle between siblings.
Longtail however hadn't moved at all, his face holding a defiant but sad grimace at what he knew was about to happen.
What did happen, however, was the fathers attack was halted moments before he could strike his son across the face by a hand covered in lavender feathers.
He didn't need to see who it was that had stopped him as this too was something the father was familiar to.
"Let go of me Sol. Our… 'son' needs to understand what being a Guardian is about."
The Wingtail known as Sol gave a sigh as she tightened her grip on the fathers' arm.
"What I understand is that you need to check who is watching when things go wrong."
She gave a scowl as she continued,
"I, in fact, was here the entire time the children were playing. Even when things got troublesome. If you'd known that perhaps now you wouldn't look so bad in front of our peers."
With a stunned glance around him the male flyer realized Sol was indeed correct as over a dozen other flyers all stared, some in shock at the blatant anger at his own children, others in disgust at such an act taken against a kid, a few however, held rather approving nods. With an enraged huff he spread his wings taking to the air and flying around the island.
The look-back ended as Longail remembered the proud, almost gleeful look on Sols face as she turned to address her children the image being stuck in his mind as something to hold onto.
Longtail gave a sigh as he looked around now aware again of his predicament and the absolute silence that came with it. After a few more moments of quiet thought Longtail grinned as he realized he could do anything he wanted!
Ironically his first priority in all of this was to master his flying. He knew what to do and how it was supposed to go but his take offs, landings and even his aerial turning was subpar compared to the rest of his family and the skills they'd acquired.
But the real problem he understood better than his inability to fly proper was his fear of falling. He had seen far too many fliers fall out of the sky for one reason or another and that mere thought alone terrified the poor kid to the point where he couldn't bring himself to fly most days, instead choosing to climb the rocks around his home which gave him a knowledge about the island only a few select others had.
Deciding that now would be as good a chance as any to improve Longtail took a few steps back, giving himself adequate running space and rushed forward and following one of his brothers advice he closed his eyes as he reached the edge and jumped feeling the wind wrap around him… before fear gripped his heart again in a sharpthooth-like vise, instantly sending the poor boy into a panic causing him to throw his eyes open, while twisting his body midair and using his claws and talons on his feet to grip the rock wall beside him with all his might, feeling the rock scrap at his belly and pull several feathers loose as he slid to a stop, his heart in his throat as he tried to regain his composure as a few tears gathered under his eyes.
Longtail sniffled as he shook his head to try and clear his vision.
"W-why… why am I so afraid of something that comes naturally to every single flyer? I don't understand… is dad right? Am I not worthy of being a Guardian after all?"
Normally he would at this moment hear several words of encouragement and praise for continuing to try something difficult for a flyer as conquering their own fear, especially as a Guardian.
A smile graced his beak as Longtail could see those past events moving before his eyes only to feel embolden to try again! And that's exactly what he did, over the course of several hours he would try different methods his brothers and sisters had imparted to him on proper takeoffs, as well as landings that some of the older kids and grownups had developed, and in doing so consistantly failed to fly every time as his fear twisted him up inside forcing him to latch onto the rocks and trees around the cliffside to stop himself from falling. After his latest attempt Longtail glanced up at the sky only to realize how late it was.
"I've been trying to fly for so long I accidentally missed eating!" his belly quickly reminded him of this fact as it gave a loud grumble. Upon realizing the issue he groaned before wincing at feeling the stinging sensation from his multiple abrupt stops against the mountainside having pulled close to a dozen feathers loose in the process.
"Guess I should get some food first before trying again." he said aloud to himself as he reorientated his body to now be facing the ground.
As he slowly started climbing down his mind couldn't let go of where everyone seemed to disappear to. It just didn't happen. Not without some loud and sometimes obnoxious fanfare. Any trip away from the island was always a big deal both for the kids and the adults, so not hearing about any of this plagued his mind with worry and sorrow. He began to worry if he'd been left behind. It wouldn't have been the first time after all, his father had tried twice before to ensure he was left on the island during an away trip to try and 'toughen' Longtail up. But both of those tries had failed thankfully.
"But then where did everyone go?" he asked aloud to himself as he tried to remeber the night before.
He distinctly remebered the calls of the Bright Circle falling for the day to be replaced by the Night Circle and having to return to the nest… but the rest of it he just couldn't remeber at all.
And that worried him, as some of his favorite moments before sleeping was curling up with his family and sharing their stories of the games they played, the pranks they'd pulled, as well as the bravery they had exhibited. But now from the night before Longtail could recall nothing like it and he felt tears well up in his eyes before blinking them away.
"I'm sure they're fine. They are all Gaurdians after all." he muttered wistfully.
His thoughts of the past and his potential future allowed Longtail to finally reach the ground; the familiar scent of the Sky Puff trees filled his nose and brought a smile to Longtail before he felt a bout of dizziness. On any other day the dizzy spell would cause alarm but figuring out why eating these was forbidden to the children, would be worth finding out for a little bit of dizziness surely.
As he stepped over to the closest tree holding the delectable sweets he could see that several of them when the light of the circle hit them just right the flowers changed colors, appearing to hold a little skycolor inside them. It truly was something special and it made him bounce in place for a moment just taking in the visual tranquility.
This moment only enticed Longtail to grab one sooner as he used his legs to jump high enough to reach the first branch with blossoms hanging from it, but now being so close to his goal he felt as the dizziness turned into a full on head-hurt. As he tried to clear the feeling and pain he began to wonder what was causing this.
The smell was overpowering now, filling his nose as if he were in the Big Water itself. His head ached so badly, he just wanted the pain to stop, but as he opened his eyes, with another shudder of confusion and fear, Longtail realized he his sight was all wrong as well, everything he could see was blurry and shaking as if he were standing during an earthshake but he knew for a fact he was standing in the tree, however, his ability to stand was leaving him too as his legs felt like the sand at the shallow end of the island.
Whatever was happening it scared him to almost no end as he looked around at the flowers all blooming on the tree, as his eyes widen in shock. It was the flowers! They had to be causing all this pain and confusion which meant he had to get away… but he had enough reasoning left to remember his original goal as he leaned forward, taking a whole sky puff flower into his beak before chewing it with a grimace.
Not at the taste of course, the taste was nothing like he'd ever had before, as if the sky and bright circle had given this tree the absolute joy of the entire world, but the pain he was in, as well as the loss of his motor functions was more than enough to get him to let go of the branch. Longtail could feel himself leaning backwards a bit too far, but by now his head hurt too much, his sight was clouded as if seeing through a sky puffy, nor would his body respond quick enough to stop what was happening.
He was falling.
It was his literal worst fear realized, and yet despite it all, it was the last thing on his mind as his body tried desperately to combat whatever was happening. It took less time than he thought before his body impacted the ground at the base of the tree, while his body exhaled a breath he didn't even notice he'd been holding as he fell.
Unfortunately, the immediate pain all over his body and his head caused him to wheeze from the lack of air while groaning as he still couldn't gain enough control of his motor skills to stand and move, which left little Longtail with only one real option: to crawl.
Using every ounce of his remaining body strength Longtail rolled onto his belly and digging his claws into the dirt as hard as he could began to pull himself forward and away from the tree and its dangerous flowers. He only made it a few meager pulls away when his strength finally failed him, his head still aching as if he'd been struck with the worlds largest rock. He quietly laid his head down feeling his body shudder once before closing his eyes and drifting into a fitful sleep.
One he hoped to wake from soon…
This has been a long time in the making. Over 15 years of rewrites, drafting, beta reading and reworking entire concepts and I believe the story over all is in a place I can feel proud posting it again.
However, going back through previous iterations of both my characters and their stories, both past and present, I came to realize that Longtail specifically was far too convoluted and hard to keep track of even for me!
So, with the idea in hand, I chose to sit down and give a genuine explanation for all of his issues both internal and external. And as I revistied the RP section I remebered I still count the Sleep and Remember rp as canonical to Longtails overall journey.
Now with all the preamble over, I present to you friends new and old the prequel to One Long Tail...
One Long Prologue
https://m.fanfiction.net/s/14190929/1/One-Long-Prologue
__________________
Ch.1
Morning Sights...
It all began on my home of Sky Island.
Imagine it, an island so tall, so high in the air, it was said by our Elders if you managed to get to the top you could touch the Day and Night Circles themselves!
But this would be the first day of a lifelong adventure that I'll never forget...
Morning Sights...
It all began on my home of Sky Island.
Imagine it, an island so tall, so high in the air, it was said by our Elders if you managed to get to the top you could touch the Day and Night Circles themselves!
But this would be the first day of a lifelong adventure that I'll never forget...
__________________
A young, feathered flyer sporting sky blue primary, pale yellow secondary and tertiary compliment red and pink colors running all the way down his back to the tip of his tail had woken up like he did every morning as the bright circle crested over the Big Water that held his home aloft.
The calming ocean waves splashing against the rocks, as the light reflected into the trees and across the land in earnest; waking the sleeping inhabitants from their dreary night time slumber, or telling those who had made the night theirs to return to the nests that they called home.
The little flyer wanting to sleep a little more kept his eyes shut in a vain attempt to keep himself asleep, but something was… off. He couldn't place why, he just knew something was wrong.
With his hearing it quickly became clear he waited for the sounds that would let him know the night was over and a new day could begin.
Usually they were accompanied by several calls denoting an appraisal of the Bright Circle or a heartfelt goodbyes to the Night Circle.
But not this day… this day was marked by complete and utter silence. A quiet so absolute, so final it could've been mistaken for the silence of the dead. Not even the usual insects were making their normal morning noises as the day circle continued to crest the horizon.
This would've been seen as strange all on its own but now, as the silence continued to linger, a sense of foreboding and dread would fill the air in rapid succession.
But at the moment as the young feathered flyer opened his eyes to greet the day that feeling of doom and worry would be the farthest thing from the younglings mind.
He blinked again now sure to smile as the first ray of warm, life giving sunlight streaked across the cave he called home and over his beak.
As was his usual morning antics he would yawn and then attempt to bite the beam of light, chuckling at the fact that he would never actually catch it.
He looked around himself noticing he wasn't in the usual family nest. Now this itself was not unusual, the slight head-hurt was odd too, but seeing as the rest of the island had a 'one herd, one nest' ideal, alongside the fact his brothers and sisters already gone, it didn't bother him much.
‘Always hungry. Those guys never quit.’
The small flyer thought to himself with another chuckle. Finally standing upright from his previous sleeping position the pink-eyed flyer continued to smile as he felt the lightbeam reaching across his wings.
His enjoyment of the bright circles’ gift every day was something most of the flyers found reason to rejoice over. Walking into the open air outside the cave brought its own joys as he could smell the water around the island, as the bitter scent mixed oddly well with the sickly sweet smells coming from the Sky Puff trees that spread out along the island.
It was only after the youngling got over his favorite sights and smells did he notice the soul crushing silence around him.
“W-where is everyone?” he asked quietly, almost as if he were afraid to break the silence for fear of being shouted at for such a mundane act.
The lack of sound truly was starting to unnerve the young flyer as he looked around, not seeing anyone he was familiar with anywhere near the nesting grounds.
The chill of his own fear for a moment overrode the warmth and enriching feeling of the Bright Circle as it continued to crest over his body in the open air.
Deciding it would be easier to get through the fear, he took a deep breath before giving a screech calling out to any dinosaur around hoping he would get some sort of reply.
When several minutes passed and no answer or call returned to the child he frowned as he quickly began to think the worst had happened: perhaps the others had flown away and forgot about him?
Maybe they'd all been swallowed by the swimming sharptheeth in the Big Water, that was known to happen around this island from time to time.
This wasn't how his day was supposed to start and his mind quickly turned to his 'family' and if they were safe.
His family wasn't all one type of flyer but consisted of over a dozen types, maybe more.
Every so often the adult fliers would find abandoned eggs, or entire groups of hatchlings who had lost their parents and bring them home with hopes of hatching and raising them and adding to their own family bloodline.
In fact aside from his adoptive mother and father none of his siblings were island born hatchings, all being from the Mysterious Beyond, either the Badlands to the north, the Coldlands to the south, the Wetlands to the east, and the Deadlands to the west.
With a small grin his thoughts turned to a look-back that reminded him that he naturally loved his ‘siblings' each individually, but as a group they were loud and tended to resolve their issues with fights, claws, and beaks rather than words.
As a hatchling living on Sky Island it was known that every flier shared the moniker of Gaurdian.
Each flyer was taught when old enough, either how to fight with your claws and teeth or to fight with your mind and words...sometimes both if the youngling was feeling courageous enough.
He then remembered while most of his siblings had heard about and were looking forward to learning how to 'Fight like Fire'.
In their excitement, several of them began to play a little rougher than normal. And while this by no means was unusual for most of the boys and even a few of the girls it quickly grew out of control.
This fight had resulted in a near serious injury, which was the cause of the for the entire group, including those who were not even involved in the fight itself to being lectured, this one in particular given by his father of course, but that wasn't the problem, the truth was he himself had only returned to the nest after the fighting was over, but somehow, someway his father always… always found a way to blame the incidents on him specifically.
"Do you see this little ones? Each and every one of you is supposed to help better the others both through combat and with words but here I see several of you weren't even at the nest when this happened! And of course the little rock crawler shows his pitiful face at last… where exactly were you 'Longtail'?!"
Taking a moment to steady his breathing from the climb up the cliff, the youngest of the siblings looked down, thinking on the nickname he had 'earned' from his father.
The name itself was meant to be a demeaning insult to those who had either no tails or shorter ones due to injury or a defective hatching.
'Longtail' glanced up, almost afraid to speak despite his teachings telling him to both speak clearly and loud enough that those around can hear and understand what is being said.
He sighed, still nervous with obvious apprehension on his face as he gave his reply.
"I wasn't here for the fight and I'll accept my role in that but… it's not fair to keep blaming me for every offense."
Their father seemed to sneer aggressively at hearing those words, responding in kind.
"I berate and blame you because you are too slow to climb, not brave enough to fly and too meek to actually fight! You may not be fit to be a Guardian.
Perhaps saving you was a mistake."
Several gasps are heard from the children gathered around excluding Longtail. It was something he'd become accustomed to when 'talking' to his father, but his siblings seemed upset by his words as well, as a few of them stepped forward.
"Daddy, you don't mean that do you?" asked one of his sisters, concern lacing her voice as she looked up hoping for a more positive response.
The angry sneer he held turned into an outright scowl as he addressed his other children.
"Of course! I always mean what I say! Longtail isn't fit for our life here. In fact…"
He narrowed his eyes, while taking a step forward, drawing his arm back in anticipation to strike his youngest son.
The other siblings all took several terrified steps away from their father, all of them wondering why this always happens over something as small as a scuffle between siblings.
Longtail however hadn't moved at all, his face holding a defiant but sad grimace at what he knew was about to happen.
What did happen, however, was the fathers attack was halted moments before he could strike his son across the face by a hand covered in lavender feathers.
He didn't need to see who it was that had stopped him as this too was something the father was familiar to.
"Let go of me Sol. Our… 'son' needs to understand what being a Guardian is about."
The Wingtail known as Sol gave a sigh as she tightened her grip on the fathers' arm.
"What I understand is that you need to check who is watching when things go wrong."
She gave a scowl as she continued,
"I, in fact, was here the entire time the children were playing. Even when things got troublesome. If you'd known that perhaps now you wouldn't look so bad in front of our peers."
With a stunned glance around him the male flyer realized Sol was indeed correct as over a dozen other flyers all stared, some in shock at the blatant anger at his own children, others in disgust at such an act taken against a kid, a few however, held rather approving nods. With an enraged huff he spread his wings taking to the air and flying around the island.
The look-back ended as Longail remembered the proud, almost gleeful look on Sols face as she turned to address her children the image being stuck in his mind as something to hold onto.
Longtail gave a sigh as he looked around now aware again of his predicament and the absolute silence that came with it. After a few more moments of quiet thought Longtail grinned as he realized he could do anything he wanted!
Ironically his first priority in all of this was to master his flying. He knew what to do and how it was supposed to go but his take offs, landings and even his aerial turning was subpar compared to the rest of his family and the skills they'd acquired.
But the real problem he understood better than his inability to fly proper was his fear of falling. He had seen far too many fliers fall out of the sky for one reason or another and that mere thought alone terrified the poor kid to the point where he couldn't bring himself to fly most days, instead choosing to climb the rocks around his home which gave him a knowledge about the island only a few select others had.
Deciding that now would be as good a chance as any to improve Longtail took a few steps back, giving himself adequate running space and rushed forward and following one of his brothers advice he closed his eyes as he reached the edge and jumped feeling the wind wrap around him… before fear gripped his heart again in a sharpthooth-like vise, instantly sending the poor boy into a panic causing him to throw his eyes open, while twisting his body midair and using his claws and talons on his feet to grip the rock wall beside him with all his might, feeling the rock scrap at his belly and pull several feathers loose as he slid to a stop, his heart in his throat as he tried to regain his composure as a few tears gathered under his eyes.
Longtail sniffled as he shook his head to try and clear his vision.
"W-why… why am I so afraid of something that comes naturally to every single flyer? I don't understand… is dad right? Am I not worthy of being a Guardian after all?"
Normally he would at this moment hear several words of encouragement and praise for continuing to try something difficult for a flyer as conquering their own fear, especially as a Guardian.
A smile graced his beak as Longtail could see those past events moving before his eyes only to feel embolden to try again! And that's exactly what he did, over the course of several hours he would try different methods his brothers and sisters had imparted to him on proper takeoffs, as well as landings that some of the older kids and grownups had developed, and in doing so consistantly failed to fly every time as his fear twisted him up inside forcing him to latch onto the rocks and trees around the cliffside to stop himself from falling. After his latest attempt Longtail glanced up at the sky only to realize how late it was.
"I've been trying to fly for so long I accidentally missed eating!" his belly quickly reminded him of this fact as it gave a loud grumble. Upon realizing the issue he groaned before wincing at feeling the stinging sensation from his multiple abrupt stops against the mountainside having pulled close to a dozen feathers loose in the process.
"Guess I should get some food first before trying again." he said aloud to himself as he reorientated his body to now be facing the ground.
As he slowly started climbing down his mind couldn't let go of where everyone seemed to disappear to. It just didn't happen. Not without some loud and sometimes obnoxious fanfare. Any trip away from the island was always a big deal both for the kids and the adults, so not hearing about any of this plagued his mind with worry and sorrow. He began to worry if he'd been left behind. It wouldn't have been the first time after all, his father had tried twice before to ensure he was left on the island during an away trip to try and 'toughen' Longtail up. But both of those tries had failed thankfully.
"But then where did everyone go?" he asked aloud to himself as he tried to remeber the night before.
He distinctly remebered the calls of the Bright Circle falling for the day to be replaced by the Night Circle and having to return to the nest… but the rest of it he just couldn't remeber at all.
And that worried him, as some of his favorite moments before sleeping was curling up with his family and sharing their stories of the games they played, the pranks they'd pulled, as well as the bravery they had exhibited. But now from the night before Longtail could recall nothing like it and he felt tears well up in his eyes before blinking them away.
"I'm sure they're fine. They are all Gaurdians after all." he muttered wistfully.
His thoughts of the past and his potential future allowed Longtail to finally reach the ground; the familiar scent of the Sky Puff trees filled his nose and brought a smile to Longtail before he felt a bout of dizziness. On any other day the dizzy spell would cause alarm but figuring out why eating these was forbidden to the children, would be worth finding out for a little bit of dizziness surely.
As he stepped over to the closest tree holding the delectable sweets he could see that several of them when the light of the circle hit them just right the flowers changed colors, appearing to hold a little skycolor inside them. It truly was something special and it made him bounce in place for a moment just taking in the visual tranquility.
This moment only enticed Longtail to grab one sooner as he used his legs to jump high enough to reach the first branch with blossoms hanging from it, but now being so close to his goal he felt as the dizziness turned into a full on head-hurt. As he tried to clear the feeling and pain he began to wonder what was causing this.
The smell was overpowering now, filling his nose as if he were in the Big Water itself. His head ached so badly, he just wanted the pain to stop, but as he opened his eyes, with another shudder of confusion and fear, Longtail realized he his sight was all wrong as well, everything he could see was blurry and shaking as if he were standing during an earthshake but he knew for a fact he was standing in the tree, however, his ability to stand was leaving him too as his legs felt like the sand at the shallow end of the island.
Whatever was happening it scared him to almost no end as he looked around at the flowers all blooming on the tree, as his eyes widen in shock. It was the flowers! They had to be causing all this pain and confusion which meant he had to get away… but he had enough reasoning left to remember his original goal as he leaned forward, taking a whole sky puff flower into his beak before chewing it with a grimace.
Not at the taste of course, the taste was nothing like he'd ever had before, as if the sky and bright circle had given this tree the absolute joy of the entire world, but the pain he was in, as well as the loss of his motor functions was more than enough to get him to let go of the branch. Longtail could feel himself leaning backwards a bit too far, but by now his head hurt too much, his sight was clouded as if seeing through a sky puffy, nor would his body respond quick enough to stop what was happening.
He was falling.
It was his literal worst fear realized, and yet despite it all, it was the last thing on his mind as his body tried desperately to combat whatever was happening. It took less time than he thought before his body impacted the ground at the base of the tree, while his body exhaled a breath he didn't even notice he'd been holding as he fell.
Unfortunately, the immediate pain all over his body and his head caused him to wheeze from the lack of air while groaning as he still couldn't gain enough control of his motor skills to stand and move, which left little Longtail with only one real option: to crawl.
Using every ounce of his remaining body strength Longtail rolled onto his belly and digging his claws into the dirt as hard as he could began to pull himself forward and away from the tree and its dangerous flowers. He only made it a few meager pulls away when his strength finally failed him, his head still aching as if he'd been struck with the worlds largest rock. He quietly laid his head down feeling his body shudder once before closing his eyes and drifting into a fitful sleep.
One he hoped to wake from soon…
