All of Zarriko's males are here, bar his silent Second Spear who refuses to leave one female in particular alone. Rynn had welcomed them at the mouth of our sacred Mother Cave. Now, we stand together, arms crossed and feathers bristling.
An etching on the wall behind Zarriko catches my eye and I find my arms dropping, the talk of the other males losing focus. The depiction is new. It shows a scene; the strange carcass of the 'ship' that brought the females to us, surrounded by jungle. Our village standing at the foot of our mountain, numerous winged figures in celebration while four smaller, wingless figures stand in the center. Below, reads'the Goddesses bless us with human females'.
I stare hard at the drawings of the four figures. One stands close with a Trixikka figure, her hair a pleasant shade of brown and her skin a pale pink. The Elders have added small chips of sparkling life-stone to the chests of the female and her male, clearly depicting my High Spear and High Spearess with their matehood.
My eyes hone in on one of the other female figures; the one with darker skin, darker hair and fuller curves. My Ah-Lanah.
No life-stone chips for her chest.
I try to ignore this and focus on the beauty of the drawing. They did not do her justice, but even still, she is the most attractive of any of the females even in drawn form. My eyes fall to the explanation of the etching again.
The Goddesses bless us with human females.
Ah-Lanah's voice rings in my ears.Humans. Get. Sick.
And I... I feel a coldness spread throughout my body.Howsick is she, exactly? Could the Goddesses be so cruel? They wouldn'tdaretake her from me. I would rip their Temple apart, sacred or not, and demand she be returned.
"What is your input, Second Spear, Mavyx?"
It was Zarriko's words that had pierced through my rapidly spiralling thoughts. Eyes from all the gathered males are on me, waiting for a response. I look to Rynn, but he only raises a single brow, his arms crossed over his chest.
It is then that I realize we are stood around one particular etching; the one that depicts all of Trixikka lands - that ofourterritory, of Zarriko's and, of the lands from tribes no long gone.
"Our searches for the females have exhausted the territories to the south of our village," I say, deducing the topic of conversation and praying to the Goddesses that I am correct and not about to make an even bigger fool of myself. Luckily, the males around me bob their heads in agreement, their focus on the map of our lands. "We found no trace. We have had Protectors on foot as well as in the skies. We followed mimyckah tracks but those in the surrounding areas of our village seem to be alone, possibly outcast from their band. They were dealt with swiftly."
Zarriko nods. "The one called'Dove'is either lost or is actively evading rescue."
The female they had found and then lost again. Why anyone would hide away from rescue is beyond my thinking. But then, a lot of what these females do is beyond my thinking too. Maybe emptying the contents of your stomach is more common with females? Or humans in general? Who am I to question these things?
Something about it just doesn't feel right, though.
"This was found-" Zarriko continues, pulling a strange object from a hide pouch, "- in the very far reaches of our territory, almost to the easternmost mountains where the mimyckah numbers are thickest." The thing in his hand is jagged but sharp, the material odd - clear, like ice but far too smooth and flat. I glance at Rynn. I have seen this material before.
"Don't step on the broken glass! You'll cut your foot and I'm not playing nursemaid, idiot!"
I remember the words Ah-Lanah had hissed when we'd taken her and Zahreenah back to their strange carcass-ship. There was this clear-stone material everywhere, scattered all around like it had burst and shattered.
"It is from the human's 'ship'," Rynn says. "Mavyx and I have seen it before. Though, what it is doing so far east when the ship carcass lays so much further south, I do not know."
"It is a sign of the other females. The ones that are sleeping." It had been Aloryk who had spoken. Even though he is a young Protector, he has joined so many of the search parties - many times voluntarily. Desperately searching for his female with the mishi-flower colored hair, no doubt.
"We do not know this," I say, shaking my head. "It may have been picked up at the carcass site and taken northeast by mimyckah."
Aloryk looks as though he is about to argue and I know that restlessness in him is blooming from a source of desperation. I cut it down with a single stern expression. The younger Trixikka clamps his mouth shut, but the muscle in his jaw ticks as though it pains him to stay quiet.
"What do you propose?" Rynn asks Zarriko, High Spear to High Spear.
The older male eyes each of us for a moment. "We need to search the northeast more thoroughly, even crossing the boarders into the territories of the long-dead tribes."
"The Goddesses will punish us as they punished them," someone mutters from behind me.
"The Goddesseswill understand that we need to keep our females safe," Zarriko barks at all of us. "Tell me, how can we do that if we do not find them?"
I cross my arms when his gaze meets mine and incline my head for him to proceed.
"As you all know, going that far into lands ruled by mimyckah and other beasts will be dangerous. We will need to search on foot for our flightless females, and we will need to send a party big enough to withstand an attack from a sizable band - of which there are many that far east."
This makes sense. And, of course we know flying over treetops only shows you so much during our own searches. The females are on foot, so we must be on foot also. But mimyckah have a deadly habit of catching Trixikka unawares, jumping for our backs and maiming our wings. I've seen it only once. The sound of bone crunching will forever haunt me. As will the screams. Wings should never hang at an angle like that.
