Survival

“All right everyone! Stay in the sky until further notice!” Tobias shouted, speeding up and going past me. The group changed its formation and spread out. The trees were thinning, so I reached behind me and grabbed my first arrow. We reached the clearing within a matter of seconds and I saw females and children running and screaming. They were all out in the open! What had they been thinking? But it didn’t matter. They were the enemy, and I was glad they were vulnerable. I took aim, quickly calculated the compensation for gravity, my movement forward, and the fact that my target was moving. The arrow flew forwards, looking as if I was about to get a torso shot on a young male. At the last second, the child had a burst of energy and moved quicker, causing the arrow to only pierce his leg. It wouldn’t be lethal.

“Damn!” I hissed, flying up past the humans’ spaceship. As I turned, I grabbed another arrow and started to place it in my bow. I surveyed the clearing, seeing it was absolute chaos. There was no possible plan I could try and do without endangering myself, so I just flew around in a circle, firing arrows down whenever I thought there was a chance I could hit someone. Most of my arrows managed to graze limbs, but quite a few missed, and it wasn’t long until I had none left. The humans had all retreated inside, and all Kasiens were starting to gather in a circle close to one another.

“We have to go down! We can use our knives and guns! Invade their ship!” Otto yelled determinedly at Tobias.

“Absolutely not! They are armed and it’s their territory! We can’t possibly know what’s awaiting us in there! It’s too dangerous!” Tobias countered. “It’s not part of the plan!”

“This is ridiculous! We can’t just sit around and wait!” Otto argued. I looked around the group, seeing some males from both ships were getting uncomfortable. The stare down between our two leaders was intense. I had never seen Tobias so angry, even at me when I was disobeying.

“That is the plan! I’m not going to risk lives unnecessarily!” Tobias retorted with a death glare. Perhaps he was right. Otto might have been trying to steal his position after all.

“No! My group will go down! Let’s go!” Otto shouted after a moment of thinking. He backed away from Tobias, others like Loukas and Adara following him and repositioning themselves for a descent.

“You’ll all get killed!” Tobias cried out, sounding desperate to stop them. There was a loud bang and something slammed into my calf.

“Ah! What the…” I hissed, pulling my leg up and holding the stinging area. Red was seeping through my clothes, and I saw a metal object falling from the material. A bullet.

“Marion!” Tobias and Otto exclaimed at the same time.

“They have their guns out! Let’s get out of here! Move! Move!” Sylus yelled above everyone’s panicking voices. I turned my head and saw that there was a small group of humans in the doorway of their ship. They were using it for cover and were firing up at us. Definitely a good time to leave. I started flapping my wings to turn myself around when I got hit again, but this time just below my breasts. The pain was intense and I pulled my arms to my body as I cried out in pain. Then I realised I was falling.

“Marion!” Toby’s voice called as I tried to get my wings moving. They wouldn’t work! I couldn’t die like this! There was a gust of air and then strong arms grabbed my own and heaved me back up. I looked up and saw Tobias’ strained face. Biting back tears, I clenched my jaw and held onto his arms, trying to hold my wings tucked in and out of the way so it would be easier for him to fly. After a few minutes I could no longer hear the talking of other Kasiens and Tobias was starting to slow down. We were nowhere near close enough to the stopover island, so what was he doing?

“Toby?” I asked, trying to look at his face but unable to see it because of the bright sun behind him.

“Don’t worry, we’re just going to stop for a while. Everything’s okay,” he replied. I could tell he was doing his best to remain calm, but he couldn’t hide his fear. Soon after, there was a familiar sound of wings flapping to land, and my legs hit ground. Tobias gently sat me down with my back against a rock, thankfully in the shade. I opened my eyes and saw he was looking me over, so I too looked down. My clothes were essentially covered in blood. My torso and leg had been wounded, and were bleeding more than I had originally thought. “Marion… I… What hit you?”

“Both times it was a bullet,” I answered, pulling my slightly numb leg up. I rolled the material up and revealed the wound to both of us. “I thought these clothes were supposed to protect us from this?”

“They do. Trust me, if you weren’t wearing them you’d be dead,” Tobias said before biting his lip. “I’ll have to try and patch it up. The last thing we need is you bleeding out before we can get back to proper medical supplies.” He hesitated and I saw where his eyes were looking. My torso wound. How could he temporarily bandage that one if he wasn’t allowed to see my sacred part of my body?

“What about my chest wound?” I whispered. His hazel eyes fell.

“I’ll have to… I don’t want to risk it,” he answered quietly. Toby then stood from his crouched position. “I’ll see if there are any yarrow plants around. It should help to stop the bleeding. Uh… Expose your top wound when I’m gone, but try and stay as covered as possible…”

“Don’t be too long. They might be chasing us,” I reminded him. Toby nodded and then briskly walked off, leaving me alone and staring out at the calm sea. How was I supposed to do that? I untied the material behind my neck and exposed my chest. The top half of my clothing was attached to the bottom, just like every other female item of clothing, and no matter how much I twisted or turned it, it wouldn’t cover up my chest as well as exposing my wound. Frustrated, I pushed it to the right to cover up that half and just used my hand to conceal my other breast. It would have to do. We weren’t prepared for this, but we were both mature adults. It would be fine. It just had to be.

“Marion? Are you ready? I found some,” Toby called out from behind me.

“Yes,” I replied, feeling a bit nervous. No male had ever seen me like this before, but the pain and fear of dying was sinking in and scaring away my feminine anxiety. Toby awkwardly joined my side again, keeping his head down. I saw he had brought brilliantly green vines with him, as well as yarrow leaves.

“It’s going to hurt, but please don’t move,” he ordered. I nodded and tensed my whole body, ready for the sting. He pressed a leaf on me and my leg reflexed, trying to jolt away from the pain. I forced it to stay still and Toby used a vine to wrap around my calf and hold the leaf in place. It wasn’t so bad anymore, really. The plant was giving the wound a cooling feeling, and the pain was being eased away. Toby then shifted closer to me, staring at the wound on my chest. So much of my skin was exposed, and the only time a female should be showing it was before copulation, which only occurred between mates, and now Toby of all people was seeing it… I took in a deep breath to calm myself down and tried not to think about it. “Okay, I’ll, um… I’ll get this other wound now… On three. One… Two…” Toby pressed the leaf on me a second too early, taking me by surprise. I tolerated the pain and looked up at him once the initial sting had finished and the calming sensation was happening. I shoved his arm playfully.

“Jerk…” I muttered with a smile. He grinned back before grabbing the long vine and wrapping it around my chest. Toby fastened it on my back, cut the extra off with his knife, then turned his back to let me put my top half of clothing back on properly.

“Okay, let’s get out of here,” he said, pulling me up and carrying me on his back. He ran and jumped off the edge of the island and his large, powerful wings carried us up high above the water, and all the way back to our home.