“No,” Aloryk interrupts, and when I look back up at him, he’s still looking over my head at the healer, his jaw clenching and his skin-stars zooming like they’re all silently communicating with one another. And whatever it is they’re saying doesn’t look positive. “You go with Chastity and meet with the other females.”
“But-”
He meets my eye, then, both his hands come to smooth up and down my arms. “I will not be long. I will come to find you,my mate.”
Chapter 17 - Aloryk
The pain had been with me for so long now, it had almost become a companion of sorts. But healer Yoryx is the most knowledgeable of all my tribesmales, and he is soon putting herbs and salves to work that dull the way my unwanted friend shoots down my wings and spine. He is careful to apply a paste with numbing properties before a more thorough examination of the damage can be undertaken. It is an odd sensation to feel the poking and prodding withouttrulyfeeling the poking and prodding.
Yoryx sucks in a breath over his teeth - a noise that makes me screw my eyes shut.
As if that would do anything to help.
I’d known what old Yoryx was going to tell me before I’d even stepped foot inside the old healing hut that smells strongly of all manner of musty herbs. The look in his assessing eyes had said it all as if he had declared it before Tribe and Temple.
“What can be done?” I ask, trying to move my now numb wing joints.
The pause Yoryx takes is entirely too long.
“The right wing will heal, given time, support and proper usage to build the muscle back up.”
I wait for him to continue, all too aware of how the elder is weighing his words before he speaks them into existence.
“The left…” I can practically hear him shake his head, can see him in my mind’s eye scrubbing at the lower half of his face as he stares at my broken wings. “The left might prove to be more difficult. I do not know if it will ever recover its strength to be able to hold your weight in the skies.”
I stare ahead of me for a moment or two, eyes caught on the golden specks of dust floating in and out of the shaft of sunlight flooding through the hut’s doorway. I am exhausted. I am both elated and broken. I have my female now -my mate- and she is everything, even better than in my dreams. But how could a broken male protect a precious creature such as Polly? I look down to my own chest and heave a deep sigh. No heart-stars. I know they are there. They are just like those golden specks of dust before me with how they are not seen when they are not in the light. My heart-stars need to find the light.Ineed to find the light. “I will fly again,” I tell Yoryx. I will be a whole male for my female.
The healer pats my shoulder with a rough, calloused hand. “We will try, brother. We will try.”
* * *
No amount of numbing salve could have saved me from the pain of having my wing joints physically yanked back into their proper place. Old Yoryx had given me a thick leather strap to bite down on and I almost chewed through the wretched thing.
Nevertheless, the Healer righted me as best he could this day. And here I lay on my stomach in my nest with my wing joints wrapped tightly to splints. My head is groggy from whatever disgusting pain concoction it was that Yoryx made me drink, even though I am grateful for it. But the worst thing is that my Polly is not here with me.
She is safe, this I know, and my heart is glad of it. She is with my good friend Chaz-Titi, and surrounded by the protection of the tribe.
Goddess, I hope she likes it here. I hope she is being made to feel welcome. And, I hope beyond anything that word has spread that she ismine.
Briefly, I contemplate getting up and going to find her. Yoryx had said that I need rest, and I do not dispute that, but it is uncomfortable for me to be without my mate. Even if she does not allow me to taste her cunt again this day, I should still like to have her with me regardless.
But, I hesitate too long. She is likely enjoying the company of Chaz-Titi and the other females. Is it wrong of me to want to drag her back to my nest and have her all to myself? The longer I deliberate, the thicker the sensation of sleep covers me. I think the disgusting drink that Yoryx gave me is doing more than dulling any pain. I think he means for me to sleep even if it is against my mind’s will.
I give in and let the Healer’s concoction pull me under, wrapping me in slumber like the friendly vine.
I do not enjoy this sleep. I do not dream of my Polly. I do not dream at all.
When I wake, I find I must have been lost in a dreamless sleep for quite some time. This day is cold with its own end, and it feels as though the twin suns have long been missing from the skies.
The groan I release as I make to sit up pierces the quiet of my little hut. Pain lances through my shoulders and wings, forcing me to sit there, gripping the edge of my finely-built nest and breathe through the discomfort. Strange how before we were rescued, I could convince my body to endure the pain, but now I am here, it is like all my limbs are taking their revenge on me.
My head is bowed when I hear it; laughter and merriment faint on the nighttime air. Despite the weariness and discomfort that has made its home deep in my body, I stand. I cannot be without my mate any longer. I just cannot.
“Here he is,” an affable voice greets me once I make it to the doorway of my hut. I look out into the dark, squinting against the firelight from the nearby brazier.
“Brother, you rise!” another voice says. “It is good to see you return.”
Once my bleary eyes adjust, I am greeted by a small grouping of my tribesmales - males who I consider my clutchmates since we were taught together as younglings. “It is good to be home,” I tell them, trying to walk tall and unaffected by my pain. “And even better now that I have brought my mate home too. Tell me, where is my Polly?”
