Wordcount: 888 words
Rating/Warnings: PG-13
Summary: Sneak, sneak, sneak… omgrun!
NOTE: This is the first draft of a story, so it will most likely contain plot holes, retcons, and other inconsistencies. I’ll come back and fix things once the story (or arc) is complete!
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Escape!
May and Baron try to escape, but are spotted by the sentries just as they are about to make it free. May uses a bit of the power to deflect a blow by one of the sentries, pushing them back and that startles them enough to lose them.
May and Baron make it back to Pine Reach and alert them to what is going on.
May was covered head to toe in black cloth and black grease paint. Soot and coal dust covering everything that cloth could not. Baron was coated in soot and coal dust as well, front feet coated with the same grease paint, although he was complaining about the feel. As dark as he was there was still a lot of white and they did not have the time or supplies to dye his feathers properly.
So he was more of a black and grey foxhawk than black, but it should be enough to keep them hidden at night. There was still a lot of low cloud cover and they would hopefully be able to use a combination of ground work and very low flying to keep them off the radar until they had to cut back in across the land.
The rocks were black, they were black, the moon was only a tiny sliver in the sky and it was raining again, or would be in the morning. There was some risk that the rain would wash away the soot, which is why they were keeping Baron on the ground as long as possible. The less of the underside of his wings they saw the better.
They worked their way across the rocks slow and steady; they had hours before the sun came up enough to give them away.
They reached the last of the patrols without problems, waiting for them to circle on before making the last mad dash for the road. They would be flying from here on out, straight to Pine Reach as fast as Baron could take them.
Once the last patrol was out of sight, May slipped into the harness, making sure not to smudge the coal dust on his wings. Baron took one last look around then, leapt into the air, wings beating madly as he drove them up and forward.
They were right at the point they were finally ready to relax when there was an annoyed cry from above and a lone scout plummeted down at them, planning on knocking them from the sky.
Baron dogged, but barely and the other foxhawk snapped up from the dive and came up at them from below. Baron was smaller and could turn better, but with May on his back he was hampered. They dogged back and forth for a few dances, then the older foxhawk flipped over, coming at them suddenly and Baron knew they were caught.
May panicked and pushed out at the foxhawk as it came in at them, accidentally grabbing hold of the same circular bond that they would used in the storm and when Winter was hurt. Only this time there was only two of them and the paralysis that they had felt before lasted only a heartbeat. Instead of feeling like they were everywhere at once, this time they felt like they were the same person, the same thing only half of it was her and half Baron.
The other foxhawk was shoved backwards with a terrified squawk and Baron grabbed the advantage, trading height for speed as he dove down skimming the ground and putting distance between the two of them.
The other foxhawk recovered, but by then Baron had put a good bit of distance between them. They could hear the scout cursing after them and there was a crazy adrenaline rush keeping them both going.
Only it was not just adrenaline, they realized, May was feeding into Baron and that let him fly harder than he could have, gave him energy to put on another push to get them well out of sight. It left May drained and tired, and Baron went back to gliding as soon as he could, to keep from trying them both out.
Once they were safe, or as safe as they were getting, they tried to figure out what was going on.
“I thought we needed Omen,” May said.
“We did not for Winter,” Baron pointed out, still trying to get his mind around the idea. “But we had all of us there, I thought that was it. We did not have anyone this time.”
“I wonder if that is why he needed me,” May said, “maybe it’s something I can do that lets him do that magic.”
“But we did it, just by ourselves.” Baron objected.
“All we did was share energy,” May pointed out, “at least until now. We never did anything with it, other than let someone else use it instead of us.”
“So how did you stop it?”
“I don’t know, I was trying to duck,” said May. “I don’t want to try it again though.”
“Neither do I,” agreed Baron. It was too creepy to think that there might be magic. Magic was fairytales and fantasy, and if magic was real maybe that meant other things were real too.
“I will forget it happened if you will.” May offered.
“Deal.”
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