[Gift] Seasonal | Burned Out | Fiery Flight part 2

It happened so fast. The flames rising, engulfing the treetops. Creating walls of impenetrable red flames that seemed to touch the sky. All three of them could hear their fathers on the other side despite the roar of the growing fire. Ashqua, his bright yellow brother, tried screaming back to their parents on the opposite side of the fire but the winds threw up dust and sot into his face causing him to cough instead. How could Öreis scream so loudly on the other side? Was the fire different on their side?

“We have to get out of here.” Moswuiro coughed as he yelled to his siblings. The heat seemed to lick their feathers as they stood there, watching it. Seconds felt like minutes.

“What about our dads?” Wärechaw roared back at Moswuiro as if his sister had suggested they’d leave them to burn.

“They will be fine.” Moswuiro matched Wärechaw's panic as she yelled back at the grey rosette. The siblings weren’t really angry at each other. They just hadn’t caught up with the situation. Their panic was making all the decisions at the moment and they needed to calm down. They needed to find a way to get to the other side and meet up with their parents. Ashqua was still trying to shout between coughs. “We have to get away now the fire will spread.” Moswuiro used her body to push both her siblings. Causing them to finally take a step away from the ever spreading fire. Wärechaw looked at his sister as if she had tried to push him into the fire but after a few seconds his facial expression softened into sadness rather than anger. 

“You are right.” He nodded as they both started pushing a coughing Ashqua away from the fire. 

“We will run downhill!” Moswuiro decided for all three of them.

“How will we know if downhill is safe?” Ashqua yelled back over the roar of flames. “What if our parents are running uphill!” Ashqua tried to turn around but he was pressed between Wärechaw and Moswuiro, forcing him to keep going and not stopping. 

“It’s easier to run down a hill than up a hill!” Wärechaw yelled. He had fully accepted Moswuiro’s leadership. Despite their panic she had been the only one that had gotten them going from the place. She had been the one that managed to get them away from the fire. 

They had only been running for a few minutes when Wärechaw looked up at the flames covering the treetops above.

“Look!” He yelled as his two siblings whipped their heads around. “The flames!” They stopped in their tracks as they all tilted their heads up. 

“What?” Moswuiro asked as she tried to figure out what her rosette brother tried to tell them. “We need to keep going.” 

“The wind has shifted!” Wärechaw didn’t stop looking at the flames as he spoke, they were blowing towards the other side of the fire wall. 

“They’re blowing towards our parents.” Ashqua sounded as if his panic was returning once again. “What if they get hurt!” 

“We can’t think about them right now-” Before Wärechaw could finish his sentence Ashqua and pushed him. They weren’t so close to the flames that he’d fall into them but the fact that his brother would try and shove him in this situation made him angry. His crested feathers on edge he growled as he too attempted to push his brother, stopped only by their sister.

“STOP!” She roared at them as she stepped between them.

“He wants us to abandon our parents!” Ashqua roared back. Panic once again engulfed his logical thinking.

“That is not what I said!” Wärechaw pressed his body closer to Ashqua, causing Moswuiro to be squeezed between them.

“I said stop.” Moswuiro pushed both of them away. “Can you walk through fire?” She didn’t expect an answer from Ashqua who shook his head. “Our parents will manage.” 

Wärechaw and Ashqua lowered their heads. Perhaps they both were planning on saying something but a loud crash as one of the big trees cracked under the pressure of the fire and fell, bringing them back to the reality they were in. 

“Let's keep going.”

They all agreed. This time Wärechaw and Moswuiro didn’t need to keep their brother running. He was running beside them without looking behind him. All three of them would still glance at the fire wall. Occasionally, it was hard to tell if it was actually real or just their imagination, they would hear something that didn’t sound like a tree crashing or fire roaring. It sounded like someone shouting from the fire. 

“Water!” Ashqua yelled out. Both Moswuiro and Wärechaw looked around as he yelled. There was indeed a lake ahead of them. “Let's hurry!” 

“We can get to the other side if we go by water!” Moswuiro shouted. Letting hope fill her voice perhaps for the first time since the fire had separated the family.

“Perhaps our dads are already there!” Wärechaw added. This statement caused all three of them to run even faster down the hill. Sacrificing a bit of careful placement of their feet for speed. Neither of them had realised how warm they were until the cold lake water hit their feathers and skin. It was almost chilling, the shock of going from very warm to ice cold in the fall water. The farther out they swam the colder the water became. 

“We made it!” Wärechaw shouted, as if he had doubted them for a second or two.

“Dad!” Ashqua immediately started yelling for their parents, getting only silence in response. 

“They might not be here yet! Let’s swim to land-”

“ASHQUA. WÄRECHAW. MOSWUIRO.” The loud voice cut of Moswuiro in the middle of her sentence. Chrail and Öreis had both yelled their names. All three siblings started yelling out their names again. Tears catching up with them as they tried to swim up to their parents and hug them. The water made this difficult as they would continuously get each other under the surface of the water instead of embracing them.

“Let’s get to shore first.” Chrail nodded as he began swimming toward the side they had come from as the wind blew from that direction. Öreis swam behind all their children, just next to the oviraptor Anchovy. Making sure not to let any of them out of his sight at all. He would not let the fire separate them one more time. 

It didn’t take long for them to reach the shore again. Getting as far away from the fire as they had energy to do. As soon as they felt safe they all embraced each other in a big hug. All three siblings let their emotions catch up with them and let the tears fall down their faces.

“Don’t worry, don’t worry. We’re all safe.” Chrail added as he patted them on their backs in their embrace. “Just a little crispy.” Öreis glared at him but their children chuckled at the joke. It wasn’t funny but they couldn’t help it. They were safe if their father could joke like that. 

They stood there for a while, hugging, and even dragged Anchovy into the hug until Öreis decided it was time to head home. They had had enough of an experience for the rest of the week. Anchovy tried to say that he didn’t wish to intrude on their house but Chrail, Öreis and all three kids disregarded this and told him that of course he too needed to rest somewhere and their house just happened to be well stocked enough for an extra oviraptor to join them for at least a few days. 

It was a tired group that headed home. But the aching would not make itself known fully until the day after. At least all three of them were safe.