Page 21 of These Endless Nights

"I don't have much right now, but I can go to the store tomorrow and get whatever you need. Do you eat fruit? Vegetables?"

It nodded its head, then carefully picked up the plate in its clawed hands, licking the paper to get every last morsel of meat from it.

"It sounds like you can eat anything a human could, then?" I mentally scanned my cupboards when it nodded yet again, thinking of what I could put together. "You're probably still hungry, aren't you?"

It lay back down with a tiny grunt, which wasn't an answer, but that question didn't really warrant one, anyway. It was obvious. A being as big as this thing was would need a lot more food than I'd given it to sustain itself.

"If you can eat anything, that gives me a lot more options. Will you be okay waiting here while I make some more food?" I stood up to walk inside, but a glimpse of its wings made me pause. "Actually… would it be okay if I looked at your injuries? Those look pretty bad."

The creature's golden eyes went flat, and it growled low in its chest. It didn't seem like it was directed at me, but I still froze halfway out of my chair, heart racing. As intelligent as this thing obviously was, it was still a dangerous predator whose intentions I couldn't even pretend to understand.

"I won't if you don't want me to. I just wanted to help," I whispered. I didn't move, stuck in place, waiting to see what it would do.

It grumbled quietly, then the strange look in its eyes faded and it stopped growling. It considered me for a minute that seemed to stretch on forever, but finally it nodded once. Without looking away from me, it carefully shifted its weight so that its right wing faced me. This was the one that looked like something had gone after it with teeth and claws, where the other injuries looked like bullet holes.

"It's alright if I touch you?"

It nodded again, but I still hesitated before approaching it.

Quinn, what are you doing? This is a wild creature. Just because it's calm now, that doesn't mean it won't react if you hurt it. You're going to get eaten. Why are you so reckless?

I firmly shut the voice down before I could spiral further into self-recrimination, locking it away in the back of my mind and focusing fully on the task at hand.

"I wish you could tell me what happened," I murmured, slowly coming closer. I knelt beside it, careful not to jostle the wing. I still couldn't place what kind of creature those wings resembled. Everything else about this thing came from an animal I recognized, from its panther-like body and avian legs to the tail that clearly came from a scorpion, but the wings…

Vaguely bat-like, up close I could see the differences. The membrane of these wings was thicker, but with more thin bones throughout to support it. From the shape of them, they folded against its body more like bird wings, with the membrane higher up its torso to allow it. Bat wings usually ran the length of the bat's body, at least in my vague memories of what little I knew about bats. But unlike birds, with their light bones to allow for easier flight, the bones spanning this creature's wings looked thick and solid. The bit of bone poking out at the top of the right wing confirmed that, and I had to swallow back my nausea when I looked at it.

"I don't have any actual medical training," I confessed. Talking helped distract me from the more gruesome wounds. "I know how to get a dog's nail to stop bleeding if I cut it too short, and I can patch up small wounds pretty well." Shut up, brain, don't think about why, this isn't about me, don't think about it. "I'd suggest calling Dr. Chapman, except it doesn't seem safe to tell anyone else about you, as much as I trust her."

Penelope Chapman, the local vet, was one of the few people aside from Lain that I talked to on a regular basis. We'd gotten to know each other since I'd become an unofficial animal rescuer. She'd just been by last week to give the kittens their first shots and check on the mule, actually.

The creature grumbled and curled in on itself at the mention of calling anyone, making it clear just what it thought of that idea.

"I know, I won't call her," I promised. "I just meant that she'd know what to do a lot better than me, but I'll do my best."

Moving slowly and carefully to watch the creature's face from the corner of my eye, I gingerly touched its wing, a few inches from the broken joint. Even here, bite marks littered its skin, showing where something had tried to break the skin before finally succeeding at the more vulnerable joint.

"Again, everything I know about broken bones came from TV shows, but I'm pretty sure that bone needs to be set if it's ever going to heal properly." The thin skin covering the bones of its wings was oddly leathery, somewhere between skin and scales, and cool to the touch. Where the injury was, though, its hide was a mess of dried blood and nasty scabbing. It didn't look infected, but I also had no idea what was normal for this thing.

It tilted its head at me, and I quickly shook mine. "No, I have no idea how to do that. I guess maybe it doesn't matter if you don't use them to fly? Are the wings more for balance? Or can you actually use them?"

The creature nodded. Its wings flexed, like it wanted to spread them and show off, but instead it hissed in pain and quickly relaxed them.

"It's okay, I believe you." Though the physics of it went way beyond anything I could comprehend. This creature was massive, and while its wings were also huge, surely it was too heavy for the wings to lift? I vaguely remembered reading an article once about weight distribution and why birds were able to fly, but it'd been during one of my many insomnia-fueled internet scrolling binges and none of the details had stuck in my sleep-deprived brain.

The bigger question is how this thing even exists at all, and you're wondering how it's able to fly?

The voice in my head that sounded way too much like my ex had a point. In the grand scheme of things, figuring out how it managed to fly shouldn't even be a blip on the radar.

"I guess I can try to at least clean the wounds as best as I can. Is that alright? It might hurt a little."

It carefully spread its wings, exposing them completely, and I had to assume that meant 'yes'.

"Okay. I'm going to run inside and get a few things. I'll get the oven going, too. I've got a frozen pizza you can have after we're finished."

Romulus got up the second I did, glueing himself to my side. He'd settled down somewhat while I sat still on the porch with the creature, but it was clear he didn't trust it at all. With my dog beside me, I hurried inside to gather supplies and get the oven going.

"Just bandaging up the monster that lives in my woods and cooking it a pepperoni pizza," I muttered to myself. "This is fine. I'm totally, completely sane. This is normal."