“How could I have missed my hometree’s cries from the extensive damage this dreaded vessel has done to our land?” Lyave spat as he swung inside the doorway, his vines gripped to its sides to keep him safe from the strong winds. “How come you didn’t warn us they were coming our way? I could have made something—”
“What could you have done to prevent this?”
I looked at my long-time friend, watching the raindrops trickle down his dark green leafy body. I felt a pang of sadness as I realized he didn’t have any colorful flora that bloomed all over their bodies once his species, the Calyzis, mated, despite how hard he’d worked on his land to prepare in hopes of attracting one.
He, like me, yearned for a mate and desired nothing more than to take care of them and provide them with everything they required.
“Not even your hometree could craft something that would stop this,” I said gently, knowing how difficult my friend’s future would be. “Instead of worrying about escape pods falling from the sky, you should conserve your hometree's energy and respond to any damage that has occurred on your land. Wasting precious resources that take a long time to accumulate on what-ifs isn’t a sustainable practice, especially if you don’t have a partner to help you tend to your land.”
“You honestly didn’t hear anything about this ship or its crew until after it crashed?” he questioned angrily before exhaling a deep breath.
“I would’ve warned you if I knew about it, you know that.” I puffed my feathers in frustration, shuffling my wings as I tried and failed to recall any of the reports mentioning an emergency pod rushing toward X’thyrl. “Do you really believe I would have kept such a life-changing event from you and your people?”
“No, you wouldn’t have,” he grumbled, frowning as his glowing violet gaze met mine. “You always keep me up to date on everything that happens within the IPA, especially if it involves my planet, including being on the lookout for human emergency pods. I just didn’t think one would crash land here. It was incorrect of me to accuse you of anything else.”
He moved in closer, clasping my shoulder and nodding his head. His eyes widened as he looked behind me, and a gasp escaped his lips.
“What is it?” I turned around and followed his gaze to the unconscious redhead female.
“How?” Lyave rushed to her side, wrapping his vines around her limbs as his hands quickly unbuckled the female’s harness. “I can’t believe it.”
“Believe what?”
I watched him, perplexed and in disbelief, cradling the female in his arms as if she were the most precious thing in existence. His vines bound her to his and held her head against his shoulder, preventing it from moving as he gingerly brushed her hair away from her face with his fingers.
“She’s mine,” he insisted, his eyes wide with awe. “I’m drawn to her, and I need to take her to my hometree to confirm our connection. You don’t have to be concerned about finding someone to care for her. I’ll sponsor her and take responsibility for her welfare.”
“She’s not even conscious to express her opinion on the matter.” I puffed my chest and raised an eyebrow at him, wondering why and how he thought the female in his arms was his. “We’ve been friends for a long time, and I will support you in your decision, but you know that human consent is one of the most important factors in the IPA’s rescue and victim-sponsorship program.”
“She’s mine. I feel it with every essence in my being,” he swore, his violet eyes burning bright with the passion that dripped from his husky voice. “Let me take her to my hometree and tend to her. When she is awake and well, you can fly over and ask her if she wants to stay with me, but please don’t prevent me from caring for her until then.”
Lyave had never asked me for a favor in all the years I’d lived in my villa on the cliff on his land’s outskirts. I owed him the most for keeping a close watch on my villa while I was away on councilor business. He always made certain that no creature decided to claim it as their own as well as making sure that it was ready for when I arrived.
Not only because of everything he’d done for me, but also because we’d been friends for a long time and I knew what kind of person he was, it would be wrong of me to say no to this one request.
“I can’t challenge your feelings because my kind don’t have natural instincts to tell us who is our match,” I quipped, clicking the top of my beak with my tongue and making a quick popping noise as I tried to think of how to say the next part. “It would be wrong of me to deny your request, especially since I know you wouldn’t take advantage of the situation any further than you already are.
“If I let you go with her, you must promise to keep me updated on her every day until she is ready to talk to me about her future.”
“By the Mother Tree, I swear I will honor your request and not abuse your trust in me and our friendship,” he said, nodding and then looking down at the sleeping female in his arms with a wistful smile. “Once she’s well, I’ll spend my time cleaning up this mess and restoring my land to its former glory.”
“Should I stay here until you come back for the other one?” I turned and began to slowly unbuckle her harness with one hand while holding her body up with the other, surprised by how light she was in my grasp. “It sounds like the rain is starting to lighten...”
“I’m afraid I can’t take her,” Lyave replied. “Having another female within my hometree before I’m officially mated, and without my luwaeri’s consent, would jeopardize everything.”
“But they’re the same species, and they traveled together,” I grumbled, cradling the other female in my arms, her long braids dangling over my wings and pressing against my chest. “You can’t separate them.”
“I refuse to leave my female with you, especially since I just found her.” He took a step back, cautiously eyeing me, as if I was about to take the red-haired female away from him. “With everything you have in your villa, you should have no trouble tending to the female in your arms—and it wouldn’t have to be for long, not when I know you’ll be reporting this crash.
“All you have to do is use your connections to send your female to the sanctuary you told me was just built for all the human refugees; I’m sure you can look after her for a few days until someone comes here to pick her up, and then you can spend the rest of your vacation in peace.”
“I don’t know anything about caring for a female, let alone a human who will be dependent on me.” I took a step closer to Lyave, and he took one back, keeping the distance between us the same for each step I took. “Ekoiskra females are independent and fierce, willing to do whatever it takes to care for the nest; how am I supposed to work when she is incapable of flying and must be watched?”
“If you still want to have a flock, now is the best time to learn how to care for others,” he teased, his violet eyes dancing as he shot me a cocky toothy grin. “My luwaeri is human, not a Calyzis, and I don’t mind that she doesn’t have vines, because the Mother Tree wouldn’t entwine our roots if she couldn’t live with me on this planet.”
“But how am I supposed to—”
“Figure it out,” he said as he stood in the vessel’s doorway, extending a vine outside. “It appears that the storm has passed, and it will soon be nighttime.
