Chapter 1: A Plea for Death, A Hope For Healing

Shots launch from below and behind as I fervently pound the air with my wings.

"Ya almost got im, Jimbo!" yells one of the peach-colored landlovers as they race below astride horses. "C'mon, its $100 a head!"

A round of simultaenous fire streaks around me; I can hear the wake. I cry out to the horses to defy the smaller creatures atop them, but they neigh back complaining of how badly they are beat if they attempt to defy them.

I fly over a canyon, knowing the horses-straddling two-legged groundcreatures could not follow, but they continue firing.

A shot tears through my tailfeathers, shredding four of them. Another tears into my right shank, spraying blood into my underfeathers as it grazes through several inner flightfeathers on my right wing, forcing me scream to in pain.

"Ya got im, Ralford!" yells another of them.

I reel from the hit, trying to maintain flight stability, when another shot thunks my left wing, shattering the bone.

"Dammit, he's fallin on the other side!"

I try to bear the intense pain to keep both wings extended, but to little use - at one-third the length of my left wing, it flimsily bends skyward before the midjoint, as I fall through a clump of trees.

I arc my left shank forward and outstretch my talons, hoping to be able to graple a branch on my way down, but with my right shank dangling uselessly, I know there is not much I can do to prevent a rough landing.

I spot a large branch a tright high as smaller branches and needles in the canopy shred more feathers from all over, stinging and leaving a trail of my shredded white and dark-brown feathers behind me.

I do my best to steer with my left wing, but already getting thrashed by treelimbs, I can do little to avoid hitting more.

A small limb thwaps my right eye as I crash further into the forest canopy, forcing me to close it.

At long last, I fall below the thick canopy, passing very close to several trunks as the forest floor grows ever closer.

As I swerve on my left wing to dodge one trunk, a large oldgrowth trunk lies directly in my path. I swerve again, but realize there is not enough time... I arc my good shank and talons ahead and arc my neck back to soften the impact as I slam into the trunk.

My shank cracks and my chest slams into the rough bark, and though their impact softens the blow, the intertia throws my beak into the bark with a shuddering thud.

Stunning pain richochets throughout my skull and down my spine as I plummet, unable to summon the control nor strength to extend my left wing again to recover from the plunge, and I plead Gaia's mercy to extinguish my consciousness before I hit the ground.

My body tumbles chaotically, and my single open eye cannot judge how fast I plummet... perhaps for the best.

When I feel certain the ground is less than a moment away, I hit something soft that stretches under my inertia, breaking my plummet; it pulls me back up and tosses me somewhat, and I land again, more softly.

I find myself on my back, unable to right myself, looking directly up as debris from my plummet through the canopy rains down. From the corner of my eye, silhoutted against the bright sky, I recognize the outline of one of those two-legged groundcreatures. I scream in defiance, but cannot seem to operate even my good wing or shank much from the stun of the impact and fall.

The two-legged groundcreature tosses something soft but dark over my head, robbing me of eyesight.

"Be calm, my winged friend," calls a soothing voice.