Chapter 16: Celeste

"I've got you now," she muttered, closing in on her prey.

She soared through the night, a silver blur as the moonlight glinted off of the bright streak running down her back. She moved in ever-closer to her target, readying herself to strike. Just as she moved in to catch it, the Tiger Moth exploded into a sea of sound illusions, leaving her thoroughly confused. She felt herself fall back a little from the mass of insects as she faltered, her echo-vision flitting from one copy to another. Which one was real?

She shook her head to sober herself and began hunting the moth with her eyes. She wasn't going to give up this easily—not this time.

"Your little sound tricks aren't going to work on me," she told it determinedly, pulling up over top of it and batting it into her claw with her tail. "Gotcha!"

She tossed the still-flapping insect into her mouth and bit down on her prize, savouring in its taste—the taste of victory. It went down her throat and she felt tremendously satisfied in herself. Everyone knew how hard it was to catch a Tiger Moth.

Her hunger sated, she decided that she had eaten enough. She knew she should've kept hunting—her mother never stopped reminding her to fatten up for the migration ahead—but she felt too exhausted by her latest efforts to force it any longer. Instead, she made her way over to a small maple tree to roost, where a pair of other newborns seemed to be arguing animatedly with each other.

"What're you guys talking about?" she asked, setting down beside them.

The closest bat turned to her for support, and Celeste recognized her as Andromeda. "Nero keeps saying that Griffin was the one that got tied up in the cactus in the Underworld!" she said scathingly.

"That's what happened!" the other newborn protested—Nero, she presumed. "My mother told me the whole story! Griffin got trapped in these vines that were possessed by Zotz, and Luna had to save him!"

"That's not what happened!" Andromeda spat back. "It was the other way around: Griffin saved Luna!"

"That's not what my mother said!"

"Yeah, because Skye is so knowledgeable," she scoffed sarcastically.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"What do you think it means?"

Celeste heaved a weary sigh and took off again without a word, leaving the two alone to bicker to their heart's content.

Of course they were talking about her parents—that's all anyone ever talked about around Tree Haven. There was never anything else interesting going on.

It wasn't that she didn't understand their fascination: her parents were both practically heroes, and her father was the colony's greatest living idol—saving the sun and defeating the notorious Vampyrum king, Goth. It was perfectly reasonable to be interested in their stories.

No, what really bothered her was that it left no room for anything else, and what was worse was that the other newborns always seemed to forget that she knew all of the stories too—far better than any of them for that matter. After all, she had heard them first hand from her mother, who had actually lived through them.

Ultimately, it seemed that if bats weren't talking about her father, they were talking about her mother; or if they weren't talking about her mother, they were talking about her grandfather, Shade, or her grandmother Marina. Even her great-grandparents were fairly famous, and both were well-known elders. What hope did she have of living up to any of them? What hope did she have even going one day without answering a question about one of them?

She remembered now how excited she had been to tell some of the other newborns her story with the Tiger Moth, but somehow it no longer felt very extraordinary. It was just a stupid moth. Griffin probably would've caught five; Shade would've caught the entire forest. She was just an average bat with no special talent that was easily forgotten.

As she fluttered through the air, fuming silently, she became so caught up in her thoughts that she wasn't paying any attention to where she was going, and without warning, she felt her body smack into something hard. Whatever it was, it was much heavier than a bug.

"Ow!" she yelled, righting herself and grasping at her head with her foreclaw, her grunt echoed by another voice. She looked up and saw that she had hit another bat, who was also rubbing his head sorely.

"I'm sorry," she apologized. "Did I hurt you?"

"Ow. No…no, I'm okay," he insisted, his voice a little weak.

"Are you sure?" she asked concernedly. "I hit you pretty hard. Maybe you should roost somewhere for a while."

He nodded, not looking entirely well, and she escorted him over to a tall sugar maple tree. She noticed distractedly that it was teeming with caterpillars, making it difficult to find a clean place to land. Never in her life had she seen so many caterpillars on one tree. There were probably more of them than leaves.

She eventually set down and waited patiently for her companion as he approached the tree after her. It took him a couple of tries to land successfully before he finally roosted beside her and folded himself up in his wings.

"So…" she began awkwardly, watching the bat rub his forehead some more. She looked down as his grimacing face, checking to see if she recognized him. He was another newborn like her, but she couldn't remember having ever seen him before. Then again, there were a lot of newborns, and it was hard to really keep track of who was who.

"You really did hit me pretty good," he said in spite of himself.

She chuckled uncomfortably. "Yeah, sorry about that. I got a bit distracted. I didn't even see you…" She trailed of embarrassingly, hoping he wasn't angry.

"What made you so distracted that you didn't see another bat?" he asked, frowning as he brought his claw down before his eyes. There was a little bit of blood on it.

She sighed heavily. "Oh, just…things…"

"What kind of things?" he asked curiously.

She stared at him hesitantly, wondering if she should say. Something inside her really wanted to tell him—to finally tell someone—but she wasn't sure how he would take it.

"It's okay if you don't want to tell me," he said quickly. "I didn't mean to—"

"I just don't get why all of the other newborns are so obsessed with Griffin!" she blurted suddenly, "and Luna, and Shade, and Marina, and everyone else! They never talk about anything that's happening right now! It's always arguments over what did or didn't happen, and who did or didn't do what, and whether Shade killed a million cannibals or a billion cannibals, and…" She took a breath, seething. "And if you try to talk about anything else, they just ignore you!"

She stopped finally, feeling relieved that she had finally let it out. Her voice had risen steadily and her flanks were heaving. She wondered suddenly if she had scared the other bat a little—he was looking at her somewhat strangely.

"Well," he reasoned finally, "they are pretty amazing stories."

"Oh, I know they are," she said irritably. "I've heard them all too, you know—and more accurately than most of the others."

He tilted his head thoughtfully. "You're Celeste?"

"Yes," she said tightly.

He nodded. "Can I ask you a question?"

Great, she thought, I went and told him who I was, and now he's going to ask me some stupid question about my parents, just like all the other newborns.

She seriously considered telling him that, no, he couldn't ask her a question, and he could just go off and talk to one of the hundreds of other newborns if he wanted, thank you very much; she was sure they'd be happy to chat things up with him. Then she saw the small bruise on his forehead, a little bloody still. It looked pretty bad. She supposed she owed him enough to answer one question.

"I guess you can," she answered stiffly.

"Have you ever caught a Tiger Moth?"

"Well, why don't you just ask—wait, what?" she shook her head, not sure that she heard him right.

"Well, I kind of know what you mean," he said, "about the questions and everything. People always try to get me to talk about my father too—all his time in the jungle with Shade and everything…"

"Wait," she stopped him, "you're Chinook's son?"

He shrugged indifferently. "So, have you ever caught a Tiger Moth before?"

She just stared at him, at a complete loss for words.

"I've heard they're really hard to get," he continued, "and I've given it a few tries before, but they always seem to get away at the last second. Have you ever caught one?"

He was giving her his full attention, and it was so unusual for her that she wasn't sure she liked it at first. Was he really waiting for an answer? He did look pretty expectant…

"Well…" she began slowly.

He nodded encouragingly and without any further hesitation, she dived right into her story, careful to enjoy every detail of her exciting battle with the elusive moth. He listened and nodded attentively along the way, and it felt so good to finally have someone asking about her own life for a change. She eagerly answered every question he threw her way, often remembering some other escapade and quickly jumping into another tale.

She could tell that he wasn't just trying to be nice either—the way his face changed with each sentence told her that he really was interested in what she had to say, which was something she never would've thought possible. Generally she had to mention her father a least a few times to maintain anyone's interest.

As the night grew on, her new acquaintance started sharing some of his own stories, speaking with as much relish as she had, and even joking a little. They continued to swap their greatly embellished tales with each other well into the night, laughing at their exaggerated victories and maybe even talking about their parents just a little bit. With each passing word, Celeste began to feel confident that this was going to be the start of a wonderful friendship.