Chapter 7 - Aloryk

When I resurface from the black nothing once more, there is firelight before me, the pop and crackle of the flames accompanied by soft murmurings. Slowly, I sit, gritting my teeth against the tremendous pain slicing through my wings. The quiet talk stops and two pairs of eyes are on me, one set is a rich, amber brown that fill my belly with yearning, the other… is whatever color the Shadow Wing's are.

"Aloryk? How are you feeling?"

The question is asked by my female - my female . My lungs greedily take in an inhale. I found her. She is here. And she is everything she had been in my dream and more. The light purple colored hair, the gloriously curved figure, complete with an adorably rounded face and cheeks that flush a bright pink as I watch her.

I grin at my Polly, despite the way my shoulders and wings are screaming in agony. The pain has become a constant friend to me in some ways now, and my mind feels like a floating feather - or like that time when I drank far too much fermented fylli fruit juice. Polly is here and that gladdens my heart more than anything. "You may use my face like a seating rock whenever you please, my beautiful female," I inform her, starting to feel a little light-headed now that I'm in an upright position again.

Chaz-Titi had told us of many a pleasurable thing that males and females can do, and I must admit, the thought of a mate using her male's mouth for this purpose is one of many that I am fascinated by. I had lay awake in my hut, imagining my mishi-flower female straddling my face for many a night.

"Wha- Did you just…" Polly's pretty little mouth opens and closes.

"I believe Aloryk just offered for you to sit on his face," Tyrk drawls, leaning closer to Polly in a way that makes my tail twitch and my teeth clench. Her cheeks are blooming into an even deeper shade of pink now. "Where on these Goddess-given lands did you come up with that idea, Protector Aloryk?" Tryk asks, bringing my attention back to the Shadow Wing.

I lift my chin. Is he implying I know nothing about females? That I simply made it up? "Chaz-Titi," I reply, watching his blackened skin-stars burst over his body at the mention of the female.

He blinks, and then fixes me with a glare, the muscles in his jaw jumping before he grinds out, "I thought this one was your female," he asks, jerking his chin at Polly.

" Excuse me ?!" Polly flusters, "This is ridiculous."

She stands, and instantly, I try to stand, too, but my body is raging against me, protesting with pain so sharp, it leaves me groaning and gasping for breath.

"Sit down," she orders me, her hands before her, urging me to stay seated. "You've lost a lot of blood."

I slump back, too lightheaded to stand anyway. Only now do I realize that I am at the base of a night tree, and we apparently made it back to the jungle's embrace. I have only once seen The Great Waters before in all my life; when I was dropped off, wings freshly clipped for my Protector's Trial. My back grazes the bark of the tree and I hiss at the contact, jolting forward. I should probably lay down, but that would mean leaving the majority of the responsibility of my Polly's protection to a Shadow Wing.

A Shadow Wing who saved us when I could not.

Fuck , that stings as much as my injuries do.

I stay seated because she asks it of me, trying not to focus on my own inadequacies now that I have my female.

"Good," Polly comments, standing in front of me with her arms crossed over her chest and her shapely hip cocked to the side. I feel like a misbehaving youngling about to be reprimanded with the stern way she is looking at me.

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 apparently calling dibs on 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 know what 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 not grateful for 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 did Tryk say?"

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-stars shining 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.

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…

I found her.

And I am keeping 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 my forearm 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 try standing 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?"