There was no time to regret my actions, as the flood of flying figures was already bearing down upon me; crawling down the surface of the tree, flocking through the air in voluminous clouds of vacillating yellow forelimbs, and landing on any extremities that they could find purchase.

It wouldn't be long until I was completely subsumed by the swarm, and there was such a formidable collection of biomass present that it would only take a few shallow scratches from each individual to leave my entire body an open wound the likes of which no amount of gauze would be able to seal.

I kicked a flaccid flyer off from the back of my heel, where he was attempting to climb up to the pack; where it dangled from my neck. It squeaked in either surprise, or desperation, and caterwauled about in the middle of the air before circling back to me; unharmed by the entire ordeal.

Almost simultaneously as it uttered its hapless squeal, the entire assembly surged as if it were one body; and soon I was discomfited to see an angry swarm the size of a Nightwhere pontoon descend like an open palm to swat me out the air.

I doubled my efforts into descending; choosing to forego the safe path down in lieu of whatever would get me away from the mighty hand of an indignant deity that I had angered with my disrespect.

"C-coming through!" I shouted, as I slid eagerly past even Rilah, on my left.

"Zozi, just let them have it!" she pleaded, reasonably; but I was far past listening to reason at this point.

I feverishly throttled my head, in an overly dramatic display of childish bullheadedness. I was tired of losing. "You'll thank me later!" I called back, through gritted teeth; hoping that she could make sense of the syllables, regardless.

It was a lot more simple to descend the tree than to climb, I found, as lower stretches had thicker, and stronger, branches that I could practically fall into without breaking. I settled into a primal pace, swinging from one bough to another, like a regular brachiate arboriform.

I whooped and hollered like it was a game, trailing a shimmering volume of hungry hand-sized balls of wings and claws behind me in my wake; down and around the cylindrical plant that stretched up to the very limits of the soil's propensity for nutrient support.

It wasn't to be outdone by the outstanding aerial agility that the gutterflies expressed. They kept pace with me at every leg of the journey; ducking, and weaving, and somersaulting elegantly between and around every stick, branch, and leaf of the tree like they were merely a marigold-colored fluid that the topiary was swimming through.

They were a constant presence the whole way down, clogging my eyes and ears with flashes of radiant yellow pelts, and the bright squeals of gleeful mindless abandon, as they drew close to the scent of their cherished delicacy.

"You want it?!" I cackled, drunk on the hormones coursing through my system; making me feel invulnerable and infallible. "Ha ha ha ha ha! You can't have it, you miserable little mini bats! You couldn't hope to take them from me!"

I grabbed a handful off of the flesh of my shoulders, and tossed them far away from the bag they were close to entering. "It's not yours, it's mine! You fly back up there, and get your own!"

They kept trying to latch onto my legs, arms, and back, and work their way toward the pack from there, as every other bit of me was in constant motion. Yet, due to their lack of any real appendages outside of the claws on their wingtips, I would just shake them off, cleanly, every time they would get close; without much issue.

A couple dozen landed directly on the bottom of the pack, and were scaling it like the rocky face of a stalwart cliff, but they couldn't fly simultaneously, so they opted for a different strategy instead.

A dozen became a hundred, and the weight began to grow significantly more noticeable as the number of individuals piled on top of each other grew and grew. They were pressed so tightly to one another—and their bodies were so flat to begin with—that my fingertips would just scrape along the bumps and ridges between their bodies, and I could only manage to dislodge three or four of the pests at a time.

I would need a better angle, or much more force to separate them from one another, more sufficiently; and I wouldn't be able to do that without risking the integrity of the package, itself.

I started to panic a little, thinking internally how much of a waste it might be if they grew too heavy for the poncho to hold together at all, and all my work would have been to naught.

I landed roughly onto a bough from a distance of about ten feet—enough to make the bones of my leg ache with strain at the impact—but the gutterflies didn't budge. The only thing that gave, at all, was the fibrous pelt that made up the fabric of my poncho, having been stretched far past its limits with an audible "shhhrrrip!"

I cursed under my breath. 'That was stupid!' but good news had arrived, as well. The growing light below meant that I was nearing my target, and just as I was out of my element in the canopy, I knew that my delicate stalk spawn would not appreciate being so close to the ground.

"Hey!" I called down, around a mouthful of flapping wings, and the shirt off my own back. "I'm gonna need some help, here!"

A tinny voice echoed to where I was, "By the great blue, Zoel! Is that you?!" That must have been Fimbs. "I was just telling Janius what we saw up there. Are you okay?! What was that crashing noise?"

"Uh—" I sighed, unable to parse half of what she was asking over the sounds of flapping wings, and territorial calls. There was also some scraping which I hoped didn't mean that they were tearing into the poncho itself, but I couldn't be entirely sure. "I'll tell you later, Fimbs! I'm kinda in the middle of something!"

It was Janny's voice that replied, though, laughing with incredulity at the sight that he was witnessing at the edge of the torch's light. "What the five did you do, Zoel?! What are those things!"

"Oh, nothing much. I'm just grabbing dinner, don't worry about how bad this looks." I remarked, unsure that my voice could even penetrate the multiple layers of wings and bellies that hedged me in on all sides. "Rilah says they're not gonna hurt us, but they really want the goods I brought you."

Janny seemingly hooped and hollered in celebration at the implication. "YOU GOT HER?! I knew you had it in you! Ha ha! Is she okay?!"

"Janny, focus! Look at me!" I shouted, anxious at the way the conversation was going. "I've got other things to think about, right now!"

I was nearing the stretch of tree where there wouldn't be much more limbs to swing from, and my pace would have to slow way down. I could make out their diminutive forms, and that meant that they could make out mine.

Fimbs asked, "What can we even do? You're too far for us to reach you, yet, and I'm not climbing up there again."

Shaking off an armful of squeaking bright rodents, too stupid to realize that they'd failed at this tactic before, I sighed. "I dunno! Just wave around that torch or something, and see if it scares them off!"

I slid down a few painfully controlled feet, before locking my fingers into the wedges the way that Fimbs had shown me. Janny shouted in confirmation, and shook the torch over his head, violently, like he was trying to blow the thing out.

A tremor washed over the crowd of airborne fructivores, as the unnatural light awakened an instinct that they seldom ever used. The entire column pulsed, and reeled back like a snake about to bare its fangs, then burst like a sausage overstuffed with blood and mashed up liver.

The entire trail leading up into the canopy scattered into their individual constituents, and fled back up to the regular safety of its home. That is, all except the ones that were closest to the fruits.

They squeezed closer together, like a shield against the fire's light—protecting their pilfered goods underneath like they were fireproof. The closer I got to the ground, though, the more erratic the outward layers became.

I could feel them shivering as the light drew near, then, just as I crossed the ten yard line, these too began to panic, flitting off at once, to crawl across my back, neck, face, and hair, with their inch-long daggers carving bloody tracks over my flesh.

"Get it off! Get 'em off me," I screamed, holding onto my tree for dear life, as the confused, similarly terrified little Nightwhere Spawn ripped tiny little chunks out of me in a frenzied rush.

"Huh? but you said—"

"I don't care what I said! They're scratching my body all over, do something!" I snapped at Janny, who was clearly at a loss.

That's when Rilah swooped down, out of the darkness, and landed on my shoulders. Then, tucking two of her fingers into her mouth, she whistled loudly, and the remaining bodies all fell to the ground below; unconscious.

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