This isn’t a big game of ‘finders-keepers’,she had said to me before. I had not understood the words, but upon reflection, they are quite evident. She is suggesting my claim on her is a game- that because I found her, I keep her. Can she not see that the Goddesses made it so?
Despite the harrowing way in which I was brought to her…
Ifound her.
And Iamkeeping her.
By the time the twin suns begin to chase away the night, the pain in my left wing is almost unbearable.
“You look very pale,” Polly comments, a worried look in her eye.
“I am well,” I lie. I force my mouth into a smile but can tell it is a weak and watery one. Wiping my face with my palm, I feel damp with sweat and yet chilled to the bone.
The Shadow Wing gives me an expressionless look for a long while before cursing under his breath. “You need a healer. My knowledge of medicines cannot-” he trails off just as his hand raises to gesture to my wing - my wing that is beyond a doubt broken, most likely both of them are. And by the look in Tryk’s eye, he is doubtful that they can be saved.
That possibility brings my mind right back to Polly, and I find myself staring at her again. Will she accept a permanently broken mate?
“I know of some plants that can help tremendously with the pain, and some others that go some way to warding off infection, but we really must get you to a healer as soon as possible.”
I nod my head once at the Shadow Wing to acknowledge his words, but I do not like the vulnerability I feel now. I do not like being dependent on this other male.
With a quiet murmur about foraging for medicinal plants and some food, Tryk melts away into the jungle, leaving Polly and I with a promise that he will not be long.
“Here,” Polly says, handing me a skin of water. My fingers brush hers as she pulls away, and the skin-stars racing down myforearm toward her touch does not go unnoticed. “Can you feel those, when they move like that?” she asks.
“Yes,” I tell her, keeping my eyes on her as I tip the water skin to my lips. I swallow the liquid inside, feeling the tickle of stars dancing down my throat as I do, the sensation intensified by the way my Polly’s eyes drop to watch them. “But you tend not to notice the feeling most of the time.”
She nods her head a little as if imagining herself with skin-stars. I would very much like to give her mine. We have come to learn that human females who have taken a mate display their male’s stars for some time after they accept his seed. The thought of Polly’s lusciously soft curves displaying a dusting of my stars has my teeth sinking into my bottom lip to keep from making the offer right here and now. I know she will not accept it yet. She needs to be comfortable first, and accept me as her mate, and I… I need to see a healer. I need to be the strongest of males for my Polly. She deserves so much more than me in my current broken state.
I want to ask her so many questions about herself - I want to know all there is to know about my mate. I want to know her favored foods, the things that make her laugh. I want to know her dreams and fears. I want to know about her life in her homelands.
But, in the end I decide it is best to save those questions for another time. It has not yet been a full day’s passing since she woke from her slumber to find herself in a completely different place and perhaps my queries will be too much.
In time I will find out, though. I will learn all these things and more about my Polly.
Soon, the Shadow Wing returns with a pouch full of his foraging efforts. He gives me a fluffy yellow flower to chew for the pain and I nod my thanks to him. The thing is disgusting, but seems to have an effect fairly soon. So much so, that I trystanding to stretch out my limbs. I can feel Polly’s eyes on me as I do - I enjoy that feeling. I would enjoy it even more if my left wing wasn’t sagging at a pitiful angle right now, but we do not choose the paths the Goddesses set for us. Tilting and turning my head works out the stiffness in my neck from a nest-less night. Next, I stretch out one arm and then the other to work my shoulders. Suspecting that Polly is still watching me, I throw a quick glance her way. Seeing her sat beside another male, but having her pretty eyes watching my every move has me wearing a smile despite the lightheaded feeling I’m fighting right now. I seem to be able to spread my right wing wide, but not high. I can barely move a feather on my left without the pain becoming searing again.
That is not good.
Tryk sets aside a small pile of leaves and then looks up to me. “Who do you want to do it?”
“Who do you think?”
We both look to Polly.
She blinks at the both of us. “What?”
Chapter 8 - Aloryk
“So let me get this straight,” Polly starts, standing before me with that adorable cocked hip again. “You want me to chew up these leaves-” I nod my head, “-spit it out, and then lodge it all up in that big nasty wound on your wing?”
“Yes.”
“With my saliva, and mouth bacteria and all? That doesn’t sound hygienic. You don’t want my spit on you!”
The side of my mouth curls up. “Yes I do.”
One of Polly’s brows raises at me, making me wonder what she’s thinking. There is a long moment of just Polly and I staring at one another, me with my half-smile, my tail swishing back and forth behind me, and her with her curiously raised brow.
