WAM! Nash collided with the trunk of the tree again. He just couldn’t get control of his wings once he started pumping them. The wind wasn't helping either, it kept passing through the leaves and screwing up his trajectory. Nash stood up on his legs again, still having trouble walking on them. Nash wobbled as he tried to trot back over to the end of the tree branch so he could try again. That had been the procedure for the past hour. He would stand at the end of a branch, and then he would launch himself down the branch toward the tree with his wings. He was trying to learn how to stop himself or at least slow down after takeoff.
The consequences of his many failures were becoming apparent. First: Nash was starting to leave scratch marks in the bark of the tree. By failing so much, he learned that his horn was pretty tough and was good at scratching things. Second: he was forced to walk after each failure. Which was giving him a reason to practice. He still stumbled and lost his balance after every third step, but he was getting the rhythm of his new legs. And finally: he learned that controlling his wings was going to be harder then he thought.
His wings were like a lawnmower. Once he got them started, they went on their own and he could simply tell them he needed them to go faster or slower. The problem was their slow response time. He was having a hard time getting them to speed up or slow down quickly enough to actually achieve anything. He could also rotate his wings to change his angle of ascent or descent. Again, the response time was causing problems. It was like his wings were old and needed some grease to loosen up or something.
“Dang it, work with me here!” Nash ordered his wings as he got ready for another attempt. His wings kicked up into overdrive…again. They buzzed away and made a strangely pleasant sound in his ears. Nash kicked off the branch as before. He buzzed a few feet, or rather a few inches, off the surface of the branch as he glided towards the tree. The trunk was coming up fast and he began slowing his wings and rotating them back now, earlier then he did the last time. Nash began to descend and slow down, but it was too late. Nash gently bumped into the trunk and slid down to the branch below.
“Ugh! So close!” Nash complained. He had barely felt the collision but it wasn’t enough. He needed to be able to do this pathetic little exercise perfect if he was going to attempt to fly out of this tree. Nash looked to the sky. It was getting late. Half the sun was already below the horizon. Without light, attempting to fly was extraordinarily dangerous. If he couldn’t see the branch he was flying over, he couldn’t know where he was going to land. Nash had no choice but to stop. He grumbled about it though. He didn’t want to spend the night in some giant tree.
Nash climbed up to a slightly higher branch where there was a hole in the trunk. It was small, even for him, but it was better than sleeping on an open branch where a simple roll would equal his death. Nash looked at a protruding leaf nearby. Walking up to it, he used his fangs to cut through its stem and he was able to pull it up before it fell to the ground. Nash dragged the leaf over to the hole and crawled in. It was a tight shallow hole. There was something about the wood around the hole that worried him though. It looked like someone had burned this hole into the tree.
Nash wrapped himself in the leaf just as the last bits of light began to fade. He couldn’t see anything but the branch outside his hole and the leafy umbrella that was the tree itself. He sighed. It was just so good to be alive. But Nash would be lying if he said he wasn’t scared. How was a new life supposed to work when you’re so small? The everyday creature could smear him without even knowing. Nash shivered and pulled the leaf blanket closer as he let his head stick out of the hole. He was not comfortable.
Nash’s eyelids began to droop when he felt a strange poking. Nash looked around for a moment. There was nothing he could see. Scratching his head, he shrugged it off and tried to go back to sleep. Again he felt something poke the back of his skull. His eyes darted open as he swung a hoof back to stop the pest. His hoof hit nothing. There simply weren’t any other living things around. Nash made sure to look in his hole and above him. There weren’t any little twigs or leaves that could bend down and poke him at the moment.
While he was still trying to identify the poker, he felt it again! He twisted his head around but only found air. “Hello?” he asked into the darkness. He could hear the wind and the sound of leaves scratching against each other. He heard the occasional creak of swaying wood and the other nighttime insects were playing their symphony for no one in particular. Finally, there was the occasional owl hoot off in the distance. But none of them replied to his request.
“Can you hear me Nash?” Shadaico’s voice echoed in his head!
“SHADAICO!” Nash shouted out into the darkness.
“Hey! Quiet down. I can hear you fine.”
“Where are you?”
“If you mean how am I talking to you, it’s through telepathy. I don’t know if you received my earlier message, but I’m sure you’ve noticed a few things by now.”
“Yeah I have. What’s going on? I thought we die!”
“I don’t know but I’m not about to complain…too much anyway.”
“What’s wrong with you?” Nash mentally slapped himself for asking that. The screws were still in his back!
“Other than the Punishment Screws in my back, and the fact that my new body is not physically equipped to remove them on my own, I’m lost.” Shadaico’s ghostly voice didn’t sound pleased.
“Well I have a bit of a problem myself.”
“What’s going on where you are?” Shadaico didn’t sound too concerned.
“I’m stuck in a hundred foot tree. Where are you?”
“I’m in a forest somewhere. There’s a lot of activity going on around me. Animals are everywhere. Most are leaving me alone, but let’s not tempt fate again today.”
“How long can you keep this talk up?”
“Hmph, funny you should mention that actually. I don’t got much--ow--longer apparently. I’ll try to reach you every night, okay?”
“Sounds like a plan!” (The connection was lost)
Nash felt better knowing Shadaico was alright. But Shadaico’s theory that they had been reincarnated didn’t make sense. He still had the Punishment Screws imbedded in his back. If he was really reincarnated, those things shouldn’t even exist anymore. “Oh it doesn’t matter. What matters is sleep!” Nash flopped his head down and closed his eyes.
Sunlight. It was a funny thing to wake up to the sun in his eyes rather than the rattling of cell doors and angry inmates. Nash stumbled out of his hole and stretched his body out. His shoulders and hips popped nicely. Next his neck and all four ankles gave a nice crack. Nash instinctively extended his wings out as hard as he could until he heard and felt a great pop. Nash suddenly realized what he was doing and panicked. For a moment Nash thought he damaged his wings. Craning his neck around he found that it was his joints where his Wings connected to his back that had popped. His wings were fine. He sighed in relief. He had to be more careful.
Nash’s first thought was breakfast, but found awkwardly, that he didn’t feel hungry. Blinking a few times, he shrugged. It wasn’t like him to tell his body he knew better then it. Believe it or not, the body does know a thing or two about itself. Nash’s next instinct was flying practice. Another groan escaped his throat. His sleep had been surprisingly peaceful and he was a morning person, but he was not looking forward to more crashing. Nash wondered for a second what Shadaico was up to. He had to shake those thoughts out. He couldn’t worry about that at the moment; he had to worry about himself first.
Nash carefully trotted to the end of a thick branch again. Nash felt more fluid in his walk now. He only fell once this time! Nash lowered his front and spread his wings. The change was immediately noticed. His pale wings were more responsive now. Nash ignored it and went at his test flight. It went better then expected. His wings responded to his commands immediately. He accidently stopped way too far from the trunk. Nash tilted forward and slowly inched over to the trunk. He had complete control now!
Nash theorized that he just had to sleep to give his brain a chance to really hook up to the wings. That was why he couldn’t move at first. His brain was trying to boot up and learn how to control his new body before it could let him go running around. It just took a little longer to fully get the wings implemented. Nash smiled; maybe he could escape the tree today.
Looking down, the incredible height took a bite out of his resolve. A lingering thought told Nash to practice more. But he had to do this sooner or later. Nash continued to hesitate though. He was starting to shake. He couldn’t do it. He was just too scared. He was going to slowly rot up in this tree because he couldn’t bring himself to try and escape. Nash backed a step away from the edge and let a few tears roll. He was so pathetic. He had already faced death, why was this any more intimidating. This time it was his choice and he had good reason to believe he wouldn’t suffer an injury, yet he was still terrified.
It was actually a good thing Nash hesitated. A tiny vibration shook the tree. Even at Nash’s tiny size, it was little more than tremor in his hooves. But it was followed by another. Strange monstrous barks of laughter exploded through the air. Nash looked around frantically, but he couldn’t see anyone. Nash went wide eyed when he realized where the enormous giggles were coming from. Nash pushed his head over the edge of the branch. His short white mane dangled as he stared at two massive figures.
At the base of the tree, two enormous horse like creatures cuddled together against the base of the tree. Nash guessed that when they laid down against the tree, it had shook. Nash had also confirmed that he was little more than an insect now. These horse things would have towered dozens of feet above him if he hadn’t been at his elevated position. What kind of life could he live in a world populated by giants? Nash collapsed and draped his head over the edge. He was giving up.
He decided to watch the goliaths nuzzle each other in some kind of romantic embrace. The larger one had an angular muzzle, a white coat with the slightest touch of grey, and a blue mane. The smaller one doing most of the nuzzling was a yellow color with a green mane. Her tail was long and curly while her mane looked brushed. The two were very affectionate towards each other.
Nash kind of missed that, ever since his girlfriend died. They hadn’t been quiet so romantic as to go out hugging and kissing under a tree on a mountain, but they had hung out. She had always been cool and loved action movies. She loved video games too, but was never any good at them. Nash let a tear fall from his eye. It had been a long time since he thought of her. Had she gotten a second chance too, he wondered.
The couple below kept making weird noises that didn’t sound equine in nature. They weren’t words Nash was familiar with, but they were definitely speaking to each other. These horse things were intelligent! Nash face palmed--hoofed--forgetting that he was now a bug and still clearly intelligent. Maybe they could help him. But how did he get their attention from way up here? Looking around quickly, he spotted an acorn. Nash grinned for a second before it became a frown.
The acorn was growing on the underside of the branch. He knew he could chew through the stem, but how did he get his fangs there? An image of his wings flashed through his mind. “That’s not going to help much.” Looking around some more, he saw a long thin branch that dangled above the branch with the acorn. “Maybe…” Nash wasn’t sure how long the equine lovers would embrace each other, so he rushed. His walking was fall free, but he still lost balance now and then. “Stupid legs, not right now!”
Nash was scooting along the thin branch. His legs were able to wrap all the way around it and it was bending under his micro weight as he inched along. He couldn’t take his eyes off the prize or he risked falling. He might have been able to save himself with his wings, but “no risks” was becoming his motto. The acorn finally came into view just as he reached the end of the branch. He could reach the stem of the acorn now!
The acorn was slightly bigger than him, but it wasn’t going to fall on him after all. Slowly, so he wouldn’t lose his balance, Nash got up on his hind hooves and leaned against the acorn as he chewed at its stem. He felt kind of like a rat chewing at wires. “The things I do…” he growled to himself as his fangs cut through the stem with only some difficulty. Nash flicked his eyes downward and saw the couple looking dreamily into each other’s eyes. “Oh brother…”
The acorn was lined up perfectly with the males head at the moment. Nash chewed harder and faster. His gums hurt from the pressure but he couldn’t miss this opportunity. A falling acorn was one thing, but an acorn falling on your head would really grab your attention. The stem was string thin, he just needed a little more…it snapped! Nash jumped back onto the thin branch as it fell. Nash didn’t have time to see its effect because his branch was bouncing up and down from his sudden movement. Nash saw the top of the larger branch the acorn had hung from. Without thinking, he lunged for it. Nash was now perched on the larger branch again. He dashed to the edge and looked over, hoping it had worked.
The couple had been an inch away from a kiss when he was hit on the head with a hard acorn. She giggled as he rubbed his head and grumbled something about jealous squirrels. He looked up the tree to spot the offending furry prankster. As he searched, he saw the tiniest of black heads pop over the edge. Nash couldn’t believe his luck! The male was looking right at him. Nash quickly waved down to them and tried calling. He was unsure of how loud his voice was at his size, but he had to try. The more intelligent he made them think he was, the better.
The female stood close beside her partner and looked where he was pointing. Nash was getting excited. He had both of them looking right at him! They clearly saw him waving; their eyes seemed to dilate after a second though. Nash was confused by this. Next thing he knew, they were running away screaming in their weird language. Nash stood there with his smile frozen on his bewildered face. “What just happened?” Nash sat down and tried to reason out why they ran.
Nash suddenly came up with a very sensible reason. Maybe he was some kind of horribly poisonous insect that could kill with a single touch. “Oh come on!” Looking where they had fled, Nash couldn’t help but feel like there would be negative repercussions for this…