DC’s Dawnstar: Assessing

Her shoulders ached. The left side of her body too. Her wings ached most of all. She heard voices coming from outside of the room – a strange language; familiar, yet ancient. She opened her eyes and looked around. A man slept on a seat opposite. Looking further around the room, she saw it comfortably decorated, with various pieces of furniture spread around the edges. Paintings and pictures adorned the walls, and a large one on the wall opposite the bed on which she lay featured who she thought was a younger version of the sleeping man and a woman. She looked at her right hand and realised her ring was missing. She noticed the voices become louder outside the door, so she pulled the blanket over her again and pretended to sleep. Through one partly opened eye, she saw a woman enter the room, stand in the centre and look over to the man. The woman said something indecipherable, and an equally inaudible voice came from the other side of the door. The woman walked over to where she lay and the other woman entered the room, standing just inside the door. The man remained sleeping. She knew they were talking about her, but couldn’t understand their words. She had to track her ring which would help her to do this. She focussed. She could feel the ring nearby. Outside. She could sense a musty smell. She picked up the smell of rotting wood… dried soil… rusting metal. The combination of smells she sensed confused her. She had to get through that door. She heard the other woman step into the room and decided to act now.

She leapt off the bed flinging the blanket to the floor. She ferociously flapped her wings sending objects scattering around the room. She almost laughed as the first woman to enter the room started lifting and lowering her arms whilst speaking at her in her garbled tongue. Her moment to get out of the room was taken from her as the other woman slammed the door shut.

“I need my ring!” She shouted. “I need my ring!”

“I nood mey rung tyut!” The woman by the door said.

The commotion caused the man to awaken. He shouted something to the woman by the door, who replied. She wanted to know what they were saying. The woman by the door ran out through it and returned carrying a package which she handed to the man. The man took an object out of the package and started breaking it up, tossing pieces onto the floor.

She picked up the scent of bread. She realised she was hungry. The man and the woman were still speaking to each other. She needed to calm things down. She sensed these people were trying to help her, not keep her captive. She stopped flapping her wings and sat calmly in the centre of the room. The two women were now blocking the door.

“I need my ring!” She said again. The man gestured for her to eat as she looked over to the second woman to come into the room. She remembered now she had helped her to walk inside before she slept. In fact the man and this woman had. “I need my ring!” she pleaded in desperation, as she picked up a piece of bread. The bread was edible. Bland, but edible. She picked up a couple of other pieces and ate them too.

She remembered the way they walked into the room. In her mind, she back-tracked the route they took. Through the door. Through another set of transparent doors. Across a field surrounded by numerous different plants and shrubs. Into a small room. Yes! This is the room that smells of musty, rotting wood, she realised. In her mind she could see the ring covered in fragments of wood and pottery.

She stood as calmly as she could, and walked toward the two women by the door. She pointed to the door, smiling at them as she did. Calmly, she motioned for them to both move inside the room, which they did in haste. She noticed the look of fear on their faces. The man stood and comforted the woman who had brought the package of bread into the room. The other woman bent to pick up one of the artefacts she had accidentally knocked to the floor.

She followed the path she saw in her mind and walked out through the double transparent doors. She crossed the field. The starlight was bright. She hadn’t thought of the star while she was in the room. She realised there were no windows in there. The air was cool. It was early in the day. She approached the small room and found a broken door. She pulled it open and stepped inside to the musty darkness.

The image of her missing ring was clear in her mind. She walked between old wooden units, bending to lift a rotting pole with a bent, rusty and sharp item connected to it. She put it on top of one of the units. With her foot, she moved some of the broken wooden fragments side to side. She looked up and saw the hole in the ceiling of the room.

She remembered the way she fell through it. She remembered the energy surge that sent her flying across the galaxy. She remembered the heat as she entered this planet’s atmosphere. She remembered landing on this wooden room and then falling through it in the darkness before blacking out for a few minutes.

She remembered how gently the elderly couple helped her up and walked her to the bed where she slept soundly. She remembered the aches in her body.

She saw the gold of her ring between two of the wooden slats that made up the floor. She bent and retrieved the ring, and placed it onto the third finger on her right hand.

And finally she remembered her name.

Dawnstar.

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This is the third instalment of my fan fiction tale based on the DC Comics character Dawnstar. The first part can be found here, and the second here. Dawnstar was created by Paul Levitz and Mike Grell. All other characters are of my own creation.