When I saw Mother ruthlessly throw my big sister spinning over the cliff I shrank back so hard I thought I would crush my ribs and squish my muscles till they burst.
Even then I couldn't bring myself to look away, praying that my sister would fly back up the mountain, perfectly in contact, not stuck at the bottom forever.
After a few moments, she didn't. She didn't come up
Mother made an 'Oh well I have more children, we can always try again!' Face which made me ask if she was my mother or a gladiator testing which one of us would survive the longest.
She then snatched the twin sister up and threw her too. Which made me lose my mind!
Like god, you're SCARING ME!? What type of psychopath are you??? Have some decency!
A few moments passed and she didn't come back up either. Mother shrugged again (her shrugs are scaring me.) And dashed towards my brother with no arms, he tried to dodge and run but not even being higher than mother's ankles and having to run on wings, he couldn't make it far before mother caught him and threw him even further more viciously than my sisters.
If I run she'll catch me! If I hide she'll find me! If I do nothing she'll send me to my doom!
Just as I was panicking about what to do, I could finally see my oldest sister soaring upwards towards the sky, squeaking in delight. My muscular second sister came up after her too. Chasing her in a delighted light.
Mother had a look on her face, it was either 'I'm so proud' or 'Dang they are so annoying right now should I kill them myself?' Or even 'Good job but you were supposed to die not fly.'
Mother then very aggressively yanked my dainty-looking brother off a rock he was clinging to and threw him, and then, wasting no time, swept me up with her tail, and smacked me away.
It was too sudden. My wings weren't ready— I wasn't ready. I was trying to screech but no sound came out against the force of the wind. I looked down and all I could see were clouds. How did my other siblings not faint?
It's fine! I thought. IT'S OKAY!Just calm down, I have time.
I did the only thing my mother thought to teach me and aggressively flapped my wings. Each down flap seemed to slow my fall so I flapped harder, and faster over and over again. Panting hard, Until.
I passed the clouds.
Now I could see the rocky ground quickly approaching me but I was too tired to do anything about it. I had flapped my little wings to my death. I spread my wings and closed my eyes, awaiting doom. But just when my wings fully spread, I felt air gather beneath them and it WOOFED me. It was a gut-wrenching feeling.
I felt like I had tripped over my tail, stubbed my toe on a rock, had my mother bite me three times, and bonked my head on my egg (speaking from experience.)
But I wasn't falling anymore. At least, I wasn't falling fast. I was gliding. A slight tilt forward made me go down, tilting sideways made me go in that direction, and dropping my tail made me go backward.
I flapped my wings lazily but it did something instead of being useless. If I dropped my tail back I would go up, if I flapped one wing harder or tilted a bit I'd go in that direction!
If it's this easy, why didn't Mother say 'Spread your wings and THEN flap dear children that I care about!'
After flying in a few circles I finally got the jist of it and back flew upwards, where my siblings were still playing.
It took a while till I got there but when I did it was worth the near-death experience.
My big sister darted towards me. "Hey wanna play a game called 'mortals doom'? I'll be the dragon and you 'mortals' all run away! If I catch you, you're the dragon!" My siblings made excited screeches and flew away from my sister.
I did too. It was so fun. the thrill of flying high in the air, as fast as I could from my big sister who was incredibly scary whenever she got close to you. I wasn't bad myself. I got tagged only 3 times by my siblings, swerving up and down whenever they got close, catching all the wind currents. My wings hurt but I couldn't think of a life where I ever stopped flying.
The games came to a close when Mother roared for us to come back or 'she'll chomp off our tails' which was incredibly unnecessary and made me fear her even more than I already did.
It was dawn when we made it back home. East of our cave was a large lake shaped like a rotting bean. Even I could make the trip in less than ten minutes at most surely.
Surrounding the lake were tall thin trees dramatically spaced from each other with vines connecting all of them. Their branches looked thick and strong and the leaves were thin and numbered small compared to the bushy forests.
I had a bad feeling about that forest, just as I had a bad feeling when we were gathered outside of the cave today.
Please, Mom, don't make us do anything dangerous.