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I looked up at the sound of Ash’s voice. I was glad to note that he seemed to be trying to work up the courage to come closer, and took it as a sign that perhaps he wasn’t too closed off now to trusting me.

“Where is the she-wolf?” he asked, eyeing me a tad nervously.

As soon as I had set Faith down and Farley and Ferguson had jumped from my back to the ground, I signaled him an answer. “I wasn’t strong enough to carry all of them, and she told me to take the others and come back for her.”

I didn’t wait to see if he’d understood; Farley could translate for him if he didn’t.

Instead, I took to the air again, and flew back to the trees as fast as I could.

The water was rising, and while I reminded myself repeatedly of Akaya’s superior swimming abilities, I could the worry bubbling up inside of me.

The sooner I got back there and picked her up, the better.

But when I at last reached the pine, I was not prepared for what I saw.

It had already been leaning dangerously, and now the water had risen enough to give the healthy, strong trees a difficult time keeping their position.

The pine’s trunk, with several of its branches having broken off, was floating upon the water, more than half submerged.

There was no sign of Akaya.

I hovered there for a moment, my mind reeling.

Then I came to my senses, and dove down to a height that would have made me nervous otherwise, for my aerial maneuverability was greatly diminished when I was among trees, and this time was little different.

Never in my life had I longed for the ability to make a sound as much as I did then.

There was nothing I could do but hover above the surging rapids, signaling frantically even though I knew that it wouldn’t do any good.

The only sound I could make was to slap the water’s surface with my tail, and though some part of my mind knew that even if Akaya heard it, wherever she was, she had no way of knowing that it was me.

I was desperate, and there was nothing that I could do that would help the situation.

Never before had I truly hated my silence; sure, it had gotten in the way at times, and sometimes I had felt slowed-down by it, but there had always been a workaround, and I’d figured out how to go on living a fairly normal life — at least, one as normal as could be expected.

But this wasn’t one of those times.

Now, there was no workaround. If I could speak, if I could cry out, then maybe Akaya would hear me, and give me some sign as to where she was — a howl, a bark, something.

But I couldn’t make a sound.

And there wasn’t a single thing that I could do about it.

 

I’m not sure how long I hovered there, panicking, trying everything I could think of, but all the while knowing that none of it would work. Eventually, I grudgingly admitted defeat, and flew back to the others on the hill, which was fast becoming its own little island.

When I landed, I wasn’t sure what to signal to them. All of them stared at me, waiting for some explanation as to why I had returned without Akaya.

The sadness felt like it was going to crush me as I mustered the emotional energy to signal two short words: “She’s gone.”

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*raises eyebrows at Denali, wherever she is*

@joelle-stone @crazywriter @birds-rock @jasmine

So. . . where’s this going now? Have we thought ahead of this point at all? Or do we just “wing it” and see where stuff goes?