Starre slowly opened her eyes. The world was still a little blurry, but she was beginning to make out some details about where she lay. First and foremost, she was behind metal bars.
Second, she felt two rather uncomfortable ropes wrapped around her body, one on her torso, the other around her legs. She struggled, and finally managed to scoot against the wall and sit up. She felt the stone wall with her fingertips, and moved them down the surface and to the hard floor. She looked over to her left and saw her family, unconcious, lying beside her. Good, at least she wasn't alone.
"Nina?" Starre whispered, prodding her adoptive mother as hard as she could. "Dad? Stevan? Guys, wake up!"
Nina made a little groaning noise, and tried to move to push Starre away. When she found she couldn't, her eyes snapped open. She wiggled around for a moment, still in the fuzzy stages of whatever chemical-induced sleep they had been in, and then looked at Starre, eyes wide.
"Where are we?" Nina asked breathlessly.
"I don't know," Starre murmured, "but it's not a good place. Come on, kick dad and Steve. Maybe they'll help us brainstorm something."
"Okay," Nina whimpered, twisting herself so that she could successfully hit her son on the back. Stevan grunted something that sounded distinctly like 'five more minutes, mom,' but he looked around with fear a second later, struggling fiercely against his bonds.
"Kick John, Steve," Nina commanded. Steve, who was in no state to think on his own, wriggled around and kicked John soundly on the stomach.
"BURGAH!" John shouted, his eyes snapping open. "Oi, Stevan, you scared me." John sat up in the same way as Starre, a bemused expression on his face. "Well, welcome home to me," he muttered, rolling his eyes.
Starre's jaw dropped. "What's wrong with you?" she asked furiously. "We are trapped in a cell with no way out, and you're practically happy!"
John shrugged. "I've been in this situation before," he explained, rolling over to a cage bar. "Here, watch." With that, John began to ram his body up against the metal. "If you do this long enough and hard enough, one of us might be able to wiggle through and unlock the cell. Then we stand a chance," he finished proudly.
"One problem," Nina said dryly, nodding toward her bindings.
"Chew through them," John said flatly, ramming himself against the metal again. "But first, take a turn at the ramming. I had to stop last time because I had taken off my bindings too soon and it hurt. I was skin and bones even when I came in, anyway. Starre and Stevan, you guys can chew through the ropes now. I don't know if you're strong enough to do much good."
Stevan scowled, but said nothing. He began to gnaw away at his bindings, as did Starre. They tasted horrible, but Starre knew it had to be done. Stevan got through his first, and began to work at his legs with his hands. Starre finished chewing through her bindings soon after.
"They spend too much money on themselves, the DF folks, and not enough on their prison security," John noted, whamming into the bar again. It had a considerable bend in it now, and Starre realized that she could almost squeeze through. "Starre," John said, "can you do it? You only have to push a button and the bars will lift."
"Okay," Starre breathed. "I can do it."
"Are you sure?" John asked, suddenly concerned. "Nina and I can enlarge the gap and one of us can go out."
Starre shook her head. "We run more risk of getting stopped by guards if we wait. I'll be fine, I just have to push a button."
"Okay," John said, ramming into the bars again. "Undo your legs, Starre. Nina, start chewing on those bindings."
"Wait," Stevan piped up. "I'll untie them." He did just that, working swiftly and methodically. Soon, both Nina and John were free.
"The gap is wide enough for you now, Starre," John confirmed. "Are you sure...?"
Starre nodded. She crawled over to the gap, and squeezed herself through, bit by bit. In less than 15 seconds, she was out and lying on the ground outside the cell. She could see countless other cells like theirs, but she didn't see anyone in them.
"Quick, the button!" John hissed. Starre leapt up, and slammed her hand down on a red button beside the cage. The bars creaked, and slowly lifted. The three crawled out, brushing dirt off of their clothes.
"What now?" Stevan asked, his hands raised to defend himself. "Should we just make a break for the exits?"
"What exits?" John muttered. "We don't know where do go! That...was...stupid...!"
"It's okay, dad," Starre said gently. "We're out of the cell, which wasn't a stupid thing. We have more room to maneuver this way, if anything happens. Here, let's peek around that corner."
The four crept along one wall, and peered around the corner. They were met with a most unpleasant sight.
"'Allo," the guard said, sneering. "'Aving a noice stay?"
**--**--**
Rai gasped for breath, her wings aching from tip to tip. She had been flying down the river for almost half an hour now, and she had seen absolutely no sign of any sort of dam, let alone a DF headquarters. She swore that her wings were growing numb, and she cursed that she ever got tangled in this mess.
Starre, she said miserably, I'm trying. I'm...trying....
The red shrape gritted her teeth, and beat her wings one last time before going careening out of the sky and down, down, down....
THUD. Rai winced, and carefully lifted herself up on one wing. She took a deep breath, and let it all out in a rush. She was on top of a dam.
Talk about luck, she thought dryly. Tucking her aching wings to her sides, she began to slither toward land.
At one point, she lifted her head to look for the building, and there it was, a giant, dwarfing all the other buildings at its borders. Rai groaned inwardly. How would she ever find Starre in there?"
Swallowing hard, Rai knew that she would just have to do it. Her strong connection with Starre would lead her. So, she continued to move forward, resting her wings, and concentrated all her energy on finding Starre.