Heron Lake Plateau I feel as if I'm floating away,

Starts at the same time as this thread.; tags are for reference.

As soon as he slipped off to sleep, things happened in slow motion. He wasn't aware of being carried back to Niamh's den, of her persistent nurturing (or her equally persistent complaining), but his body knew it had been relocated. His senses knew. The smell of the earth was most obvious; then the aroma of feathers, the dusty and faint traces of where those birds had been which was quickly overwhelmed by that soil scent. Had he died? Was his body being prepared for burial? These were possibilities — but the poor boy was oblivious. He could not hear @Niamh's guilt-laden protests, her demands that he wake, but those sounds did enter his ears and they did register, in some manner, with the lump of fat between his ears. Some processing was active, even if he was not awake for it.

To Screech, things happened so much faster.

He had felt the collision, he had witnessed Niamh's screeching, recoiled from Raven when she came close, and then there had been drifting — there had been sleep — but to Screech, he had rested well.

His slumber was peaceful, and then he roused — not in his friend's den, but out beneath the beaming summer sun. Around him were the familiar ridges and crevaces of the Caldera; the central lake was perfectly calm, and he lay on his belly upon an exposed segment of plateau in the center of the lake; it was The Roost, which didn't belong within the Caldera but, to him, it was perfectly situated. Nothing seemed amiss.

He heard a voice — and, turning his two golden eyes towards the sound, he saw Niamh swimming through the water. Beside her was @Towhee, @Orca, @Stoat, @Phox — trailing behind them was @Gannet. He could feel himself smile, but he could not speak. A shadow crossed over his prone form, and he turned to look at it, but it was only @Raven — or, at first he thought it was Raven. Her eyes were the wrong color. Rather than being electric yellow, they were more like the color of sunlight-through-leaves. A vibrant green.

What the hell are you doing here? A voice called, not exactly in a demanding tone but not in a friendly one either. The stranger's face did not move, but Screech knew that it came from them — it was deep and masculine, further solidifying that this wasn't Raven at all. He noticed after a second that one of those eyes kept flickering (like a neon sign without enough wattage), and while he was curious, he was not afraid.

He could not speak, though.

The sound of his family climbing out of the water one by one, splashing and laughing, was all around him. Screech couldn't move, couldn't turn his attention away from the dark figure with his strangely commanding, familiar-but-not voice. He couldn't watch them walk around him, but Screech could feel their presence; he felt water spray him as they shook off, and found that he tasted the lake on his tongue. He could hear their claws on the stone as they dispersed, and finally he could turn his head away from the silhouette - but he only saw wet prints where they would've been standing.

Slowly, the prints evaporated. The sunlight seemed so warm for a moment —

The stranger turned his head and regarded someone behind him; Screech tried to do the same, but found he was stuck in a sphynx-like position. He was feeling sleepy and warm, safe and comforted by the sunlight that fell across his back. The sound of the lake water lapping at the rocky shore was —
lulling him —
to sleep again.

—Dipshit, another voice said, so distant, You better be awake when I get back.