I feel more steady and protected here with Zyntarr. My Zyntarr. I know that even if I tripped over my own clumsy feet, he’d catch me before I touched the ground.
“Are you sure the tyk-tyks are around here?” Zuul asks as he lands beside us, putting Tyll down and brushing off his chest like he thought the little boy was dirty or something.
I frown at that. But, Tyll doesn’t seem to have noticed. He’s too busy pointing the little spear he’d clutched onto all the way here. He’d insisted on bringing the thing even though Zuul had declared it was a useless toy.
I think Zyn had made it for him, but I can’t be sure. He turned up to one of the boys’ lessons one day with a little spear for each of them, but he’d refused to say who’d whittled the wood and chiseled the life-stones into not-so-sharp-points for the young Trixikkas.
“There were some close by the last time I was patrolling this region,” Zyntarr answers gruffly, turning his back to the other male.
“And when was that, brother?” Zuul fires back. “You seem to spend most of your time like an Elder, teaching the younglings or over the cookpot.”
Zyntarr turns sharply to glare at the other Trixikka, and, admittedly, it is a fearsome sight - what with his size, scars, and that ghostly white eye that he leaves uncovered now. The airbetween the two winged men seems to sizzle, like Zyntarr might just set fire to Zuul through the power of his stare alone.
“Which… the tribe is grateful for… obviously,” Zuul adds sheepishly, wisely opting to de-escalate the situation as he rubs awkwardly at the back of his neck.
“Come on!” Tyll says, springing up and down like it’s his first trip to Disneyland. “If we find the fruits quickly, we can hunt some frizikki, too!”
Zyntarr snorts and ruffles the little guy’s hair. “If we find the fruits, we are taking the fruits home, Tyll. There is no need to extend our stay beyond what is necessary.”
“But-”
Zyntarr gives the little boy a look, then. And it’s completely different to the one dealt to Zuul earlier, despite effectively saying the same thing -‘don’t try me’.
‘Horny Bea’ whispers to me that she’d like to see what kind of look I’d get from him if I tried being a little bratty, too.
Something warm flares to life low in my belly at the mere thought. And, judging by the way Zyntarr’s eyes find mine as his nostrils flare ever so slightly, he’s picking up on the scent of my arousal. The look he issues me is almost burning as he stands there, tall and broad-shouldered, his tail flicking behind him like a big cat contemplating his prey.
“Whatisthat scent?” Zuul asks, piercing the little bubble of lust Zyn and I seemed to have constructed for ourselves. The other Trixikka’s tail also flicks now, as he lifts his nose to the air, trying to catch more of the mystery smell. “I have never experienced a scent such as this.”
“And you never will again,” Zyntarr grumbles, urging me forward between two large black-trunked trees. He bends to my ear, adding, “that delicious scent is just for me.”
“I don’t smell anything,” little Tyll chirps, and all I can think isthank God for that!
We walk a little way, with Zyntarr out in front, Tyll and I walking hand-in-hand, and then Zuul picking up the rear. When I’d been here before, running, scared and alone, I’d been blind to just how beautiful everything is in the depths of the jungle. There are leaves bigger than a human, flowers blooming in colors that seem to glow, and birds and bugs that disguise themselves pretty convincingly as foliage. Zyntarr does a good job of pointing different things out. He tells Tyll and I which plants are good for eating, which are great for building nests, and which have peculiar poisons. He tells us about the animals too, recounting patrols where he has hunted them, or just left the encounter as an observation.
Zuul scoffs at that behind us. “Every encounter should be a kill. Once an animal wanders into Trixikka lands, it forfeits its life to my spear. What am I to gain from observing the beasts?”
“Everything,” I murmur under my breath.
Little Tyll looks up at me as we continue to walk hand-in-hand. His nose scrunches before he glances over his shoulder at his father. What Zuul had just said goes against what the tribe’s Elders teach the young boys. They are taught to respect life and be thankful for the food the jungle provides. I can almost see the cogs in his young mind turning. It’s a confusing time when you start to realize your views differ from that of your loved ones. Not that everyone must agree on every little thing. But some things feel big. Like whether or not you’d kill an animal on sight for justbeing there.
Or whether or not you’d shame your teenage daughter for getting pregnant.
Zyntarr throws me a look over his muscular shoulder - a look that screams that we’re on the same wavelength here - a ‘get a load of this guy’ kind of wavelength. He grunts and faces forward again before calling back to us, “we are looking for a tree with bark that is the deepest green and markings that looklike bleeding slashes. It will look like it has been clawed by a firemouth or a blue-tailed cat-beast, but the slashes occur on their own over time. The more slashes a tree has without falling, the sweeter the fruits will be.”
And so we continue, trekking through the jungle, looking for trees that look like they’re bleeding. Tyll keeps trying to leave my side to talk to his father, but the arrogant asshole is very clipped and cold with his responses. The boy soon gives up, and comes back to me, reaching for my hand. I give his a little squeeze accompanied by a smile. I hope he knows that the way his dad is making him feel isn’t his fault. I might have to tell him that once we get back to the village.
Tyll spots one of the tyk-tyk trees before anyone else, and Zyntarr makes sure to praise his keen eye. Zuul snorts again at that, in what I think is a dig at Zyn’s injured eye.
I almost launch myself at the other male, but Zyn is faster, a large hand coming to rest on my shoulder. “Behave, little Bea,” he rumbles close to my ear. “We need Zuul to help carry the fruits back to the village. This cannot be done if my female attacks him like a wild blue-tailed cat defending her younglings.”
I cross my arms as we reach the tyk-tyk tree, hissing, “he’s just so rude,” for only Zyntarr to hear.
The huge, scarred guy grins at me, and tickles his tail up the back of one of my calves. “You may attack him for his rudeness later. This is something I would very much like to see.”
“This does not look like it is bearing any decent fruits,” Zuul complains, and his voice is rapidly becoming my least favorite noise.
“The ripe ones are at the top, right Zyntarr?” Tyll asks, craning his neck to look up at my guy.
