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05-19-2017, 04:53 PM
(This post was last modified: 05-19-2017, 04:56 PM by Stellaluna.)
Stellaluna...
Like a leaf on the wind, the little bat is tricky to tether. Already she has memorised the aerial path to the threshold of this mysterious world; there are ancient trees who wave weathered old arms in the wind below, a snaking river that winks and sparkles like starlight and a vast muddy-gold meadow within which familiar old Mr Oak stands like a lighthouse on a cliff (they are landmarks on the internal map she reads). She studies the constellations hidden throughout the dazzling, glittering sky, and trails exactly opposite the slow pattern of her beloved Moon as She sails ever downward west. Stellaluna is an artful adventurer hailing from migratory lines, and it is through the hours of darkness that she moves (for she is nocturnal).The murky breadth of deep forest (the dank, shadowy underworld she recalls), lies already in wake of her open, leathery wingspan and she drives north east with the jagged top-line of redwoods well in sight. Valid reasoning called her back from the sanctuary the giantess had given her (that comfort, home which she had accepted gratefully); the pup was yet to hear word of her smaller sister, Charlotte, and loneliness gnawed a hole in her heart. Giant pupils, so large that her gleaming gaze appeared black, scoured the surface of the canopy, the forest’s crown, searching for trace of a flying fox; she was not alone, Mr Frogmouth flanked lower through bent bough and stiff, bark trunk and Mr Wombat (muttering miserably, for he was a bad-tempered fellow), bumbled and bustled through the undergrowth below. Between, nuts and blossoms whispered and gossiped, yet never had sign of the Little Red been found. Well after the hour of midnight, the little bat needs to rest and she alights at last upon the outreaching arm of tired old White Oak’s wife (she is younger than he, and barely notices the light creature there). Long, hooked thumbs sink beneath the tree’s elaborately wrinkled skin and she balances with precision, high above the littered floor; safe, secure. The cold wind whispers busily by, stirring strange needles to hiss all around her, and the leaves of her host to flap and snap in wild frenzy; there is mention of Banksias and of them the child is wary - she knows they have infiltrated these parts. They are wolves, hungry and terribly cruel by nature, who serve faithfully wicked Mrs Snake. A murmur down below rouses a quickening of her heartbeat (the pulse thunders through her ears), and savvy eyes dart that way, expecting perhaps the scuffing venture of tiny ‘baby’s feet’ (the sound was too meek to suggest lurking villains and far too loud to be the movement of marsupial friends). Someone did linger there, in the dismal depths nearby, bound unfortunately by the shackles of unrelenting gravity, and the figure as it rises to a standing position, is entirely unfamiliar - a good thing. Over the course of the following minutes, the stranger mumbles and gasps, turns and teeters; Stellaluna is quickly captivated, curious, and after a good while watching, draws enough courage to interrupt. “Who are you talking to?” She almost asks, ironic coming from the girl who speaks often to the characters in her world of make-believe. All the while she is perched on that branch, watching with wide, inquisitive eyes, though her knees are knelt lower to rest and the membranes of her naked wings have wrapped snugly like a warm cocoon about the flesh of her body. Another speaks instead; the voice is hurried, scattered, barely feminine as it barrells along before the pale-face’s entrance. The bat fails to comprehend the words it bears forth, but she is compelled to sit in silence - to see how the interaction plays out beneath. Young Ringtail slips from her mother’s sleek back and nestles in close beside, lured by the bright tennor of concern. "Turn on the dark, I'm afraid of the light!" |
