And I am not sure why that stirs my cock’s interest.
“I’m barely coming to terms that this is all real,” Polly says, one hand gesturing around at the dark jungle surrounding us in its embrace. “I don’t need to be worrying about you passing out on us again, or the fact that you think ‘I’m yours’ and apparently want me to…” she waves a hand at me, her cheeks growing impossibly pink.
“I believe it was something to do with you seating yourself on his face,” Tryk comments unhelpfully from his place by the fire.
Polly’s pretty lips snap shut and she turns to give the Shadow Wing a look. I already do not need to see it to know that it will be a gloriously displeased glare, and oddly, I am jealous that he is receiving any kind of looks from my female, glares or not.
“Or something like that,” Tryk says, amusement in his tone. “I may have misheard.”
I can hear his quiet chuckle as Polly turns back to me, irritated. She shakes her head and continues, “this isn’t a big game of ‘finders-keepers’. I’m not yours. And anyway, we’ve got more pressing issues than you apparentlycalling dibson me right now.”
I stare up at her and say nothing. Some of her words confuse me, but I think I can follow their meaning. She does not knowwhat she speaks of. Of course she is mine. If she does not feel that now, she will feel it soon enough, of that I am certain.
Polly stares right back before the hardness in her eyes begins to scatter bit-by-bit - like when younglings blow the fluffy seeds from a cloud-flower, taking several puffs before the flower is bare. She uncrosses her arms and fidgets with her fingers. “Not that I’m notgratefulfor you protecting me from those creatures, and sorry that you got hurt pretty bad,” she says, glancing down at her own hands, the stern tone she held before now gone. “Thank you for that.”
My fingers itch to tuck those errant strands of her pretty hair back behind her ear. The trills of the jungle bugs and the pop and crackle of the fire is all that fills the night as I watch my Polly. Only speaking up when she finally looks me in the eye again. “I would protect you, with the last breath in my lungs, the last thrust of my spear, and the last beat of my wings, my mate.”
Instead of smiling wide, giggling, or coming to me to press her lips to mine - all actions I have witnessed Zahreenah perform with High Spear Rynn when he speaks of his heart - Polly only rolls her eyes. “Look, Tryk told me about this when you were passed out-”
“Oh, did he?” I ask, leaning stiffly to one side so that I might glare at the Shadow Wing myself now. He continues to stay seated on the other side of the fire, barely looking up from where he’s whittling a stick to a sharp point. “What else didTryksay?”
When I look back to Polly, her arms are folded over her chest again. “That your heart will light up right there on your chest when you find true love, and since I don’t see anything, I think we can drop this whole ‘I’m yours’ bullshit and concentrate on the important things like getting out of this scary-ass jungle.”
Tryk snorts behind her but I don’t acknowledge it. I glance down at my own chest, certain that I will see my heart-starsshining so brightly now that I have my female with me. But there is nothing.
That is… disappointing.
No matter. They will come.
I belong solely to Polly. Nothing could dissuade me of that.
My female is distressed and confused. The females of our tribe had warned our search party that should we find them, this would be the case. I do not wish to add to her stress and confusion, so I simply smile at her and ask, “what is ‘finders-keepers’?”
She shakes her head at me and huffs before taking a seat between the Shadow Wing and I again.
She is not going to answer my question, that is clear in the way her eyes glaze over as she silently watches the flames of the fire. “What are we going to do about the other girls?” When neither Tryk nor I respond, her eyes refocus and she looks to both of us. “It-… it’s all still a bit cloudy in my memory, but I’m sure I saw other women back there. They need help.”
Tryk sheaths his blade at his hip and then uses the now sharpened stick to skewer a small animal carcass before offering it to the heat of the greedy flames. “You remember correctly,” he comments. “I counted five females, including yourself back there.”
“Six,” I grunt. “The mimyckah had somehow managed to break the pod of one of them. She did not survive it.”
Polly’s mouth opens and closes before she goes back to staring at the fires. A somberness folds itself around our strange little camp and I find myself shifting my positioning as if I could shake off the discomfort. All I do, however, is set off a whole waterfall of pain cascading down my left wing. I manage to hold in the groan and instead refocus on my Polly.
“One girl looked familiar to me,” she says distantly before shaking herself, blinking as if surprised by her own admission.Hugging her knees she turns to look at me. “What will happen to them?”
I want to touch her - to hold her. I want to scoop her up and keep her pressed to my chest. She looks vulnerable, scared and like the most precious thing to ever walk Trixikka lands. Instead, all I say is, “my brothers will not leave them there to die.”
* * *
It is decided that we try to rest for the remainder of this night’s embrace, and discuss what is to be done once the twin suns begin to wake. The Shadow Wing takes his watch and urges Polly and I to sleep. I cannot, of course, so instead, I too stay awake and watch over my exhausted looking female.
During this night, I am afforded long moments of thinking between blinding stabs of pain. Mostly, I am trying to put myself in my female’s place - to attempt to imagine how she must be feeling after everything that has happened to her.
The females at our tribe have described their lands to me many a time, and it sounds so utterly different to what I am used to. There are no Trixikka, different foods, different beasts - even different plants. Their ways and customs had sounded strange to my ears. The females had told me of so many methods in which human males would try to gain a mate - to ‘bag-a-baddie’, as Ah-Lanah had put it.
My eyes trace the sleeping form of my Polly where she lay curled into herself by the fire. She is my baddie to bag. I just need to figure out what that truly means.
Glancing down at my chest, I sigh. Still no heart-stars.
