Chapter Seventeen
Dekani stood where the conference had taken place. She was watching the forest, almost longingly. Her home… It had…changed. She had changed, and yet she couldn’t catch the reason why. There was no disappointment, but there was no pleasure either. No contentment, no… nothing. Her ears twitched at a cough and she turned to look around the tree. The blurred mass of her people, who were also intruders who were going against everything the woman knew; were all moving. Uma was walking through them, stopping to hiss something to one, patting another on the shoulder. Then Uma moved beyond Dekani’s rather weak sight and became just another smudge.
But near Dekani, several groups were moving towards the people. Dekani tilted her head, looked to where Nakomii and Nym were surely waiting for her, then back towards the somewhat clear shapes that were, according to her nose, bringing prey to be eaten. Glancing again to where the two dragons would be, Dekani dropped down, hand against the ground. In a limping walk-crawl, Dekani moved towards the groups.
She watched through a bush as one group dropped a deer to the ground. The entire group, Dekani noticed, squinting, appeared to be male. They all had long hair, just as the females, but the males’ hair was… gathered back? How? Not that it mattered, but Dekani was curious. Besides, these were the first males of her age, or a little older, that she had seen… ever.
All creatures want to have children. It is the desire to further the genetic line, to pass on your own genetic material. A sort of immortality. Dekani had lived for much of her life as animals do, and she had the desire, too. But, having never met a male of her species and never having had a set season for mating, Dekani had never really noticed the want. Now she did.
The males were also, she thought, a little broader across the shoulders. Just a bit.
One of the males, who stood closest to the young females, moved towards one of the woman. Dekani blinked, and tried to hear what was said. What she did hear meant nothing to her, other then to compound her curiosity. The woman bared her teeth at the man, and moved to the deer.
Dekani watched as the women took slices of meat, the first woman getting the liver and head of the deer. Dekani breathed a sigh as the last of the meat was taken away, the men taking the bones.
Group hunting? How… different. Shaking her head, Dekani got to her feet and walked to the dragons. She could feel people watching her. It was wrong, to her, and her ears pressed against her skull.
But she did her best to ignore it. Just a little too well.
---
M-gan smashed a rock down on a leg bone, and started picking marrow from the shards. “Ho-sath didn’t even lead the hunt. Why’d his court get first pick, anyway?” M-gan picked up one of the bone shards, and rolled it between his fingers.
“Oh, and I suppose one of us, who don’t even have courts I might add, should have been called leaders?” Gy-ren sneered at M-gan. He'd already eaten his own portion of marrow. Now he was picking at his claws.
“Well, we were. Ho-sath didn’t do anything but hide in the trees. And as for courts… Who is that?” M-gan was almost instantly out of his position of repose, instead resting his weight on hands and feet. His other hand was lifted, finger pointing at the pale figure walking through the group. She walked like the Dao did, like people would make way for her no matter what. And since the draconians nearest her were moving out of her way, she did appear to be right.
Gy-ren just rolled his eyes. “Who knows? Does it matter?” Just to say he’d seen the draconian, he glanced at the pale figure. He glanced back at his fingers before pausing and looking back. His jaw dropped. “Sssrak…”
At once, both men spoke. “She’s mine!”
M-gan turned to Gy-ren and smiled. It was not a nice smile. It showed way too many teeth. “How’s this. We both court her. She decides. Otherwise… I wouldn’t want to hurt you, brother.”
“You, hurt me? Don’t be a fool! I don’t want to hurt you. Fine. We both court her.” Gy-ren scowled, and shook his head. Neither was quite happy with the agreement.
They had no idea what they were getting into.
You had to feel sorry for them.
---
Dekani looked closer at the chipped rock Nym was holding out. “I don’t really know what it is,” she admitted. Then she looked up. “What is it?”
Nym sighed. “It’s a cutter.”
Dekani looked down at her claws. “Don’t claws cut?”
“Would you let me finish?” Nym growled for a moment, her hackles rising. “It’s a cutter of dragon skin. Get it?” Nym shook the cutter at Dekani, who just looked at Nym.
“It’s made of dragon skin…” Dekani stared at the cutter with something akin to fear in her eyes.
“No! It cuts dragon skin! It’s a rock!” Nym’s eyes narrowed, and she looked away from Dekani, instead looking at Nakomii. Her tail stilled, and then twitched once, before stilling again. Dekani didn’t understand why. They were mates. Nym was angry and Nakomii would make her happy again. That was as it should be.
“I’d better take this to Uma then. May I?” Nym didn’t reply, simply handed over the cutter. Dekani pulled her lips up, and held the cutter as she walked towards where she had last seen Uma. Behind her, she could hear Nym growling, which suddenly turned into a yowl. Dekani jumped, while everyone nearby, and not so nearby, moved as far away as they could without leaving the general area.
Dekani turned to look, and saw Nakomii running as far away from Nym as he could. His side was bloody.
Nym had bit Nakomii! She had… but before reaching the mountains they didn’t stop touching…
Shaking her head Dekani moved to take the cutter to Uma.
---
Nym didn’t know why she was placing her trust in these… things that could only crawl on the ground. Her movements were forced, a little jerky in the elbow. Nakomii… he had run with his tail between his legs. Good! She didn’t want him near her! He should run, because if he stayed… well, there would be one less dragon in the group.
Then Nym’s hackles smoothed out, and she looked around, seemingly confused. What had come over her? Why had she snapped at her mate? And… great, she had just crushed a piece of flint she was shaping. Hackles back up, she growled at the powder, and shook her head. Tail snapping around like a whip, jaws snapping closed in the air, Nym started a new cutter.
The moment she finished, she felt… relaxed. Her wings touched the ground, her shoulders slumped, and there didn’t seem to be any reason to have her hackles up. Why had she been angry in the first place? It was a very foolish reason, a broken cutter. It hadn’t even been finished.
“Dragon, may I try?” A young male, younger then Dekani by far, crept forwards. He stank of fear, yet he was brave enough to come close. Nym tilted her head, and then nodded.
“Of course. Here, try holding a rock… That’s it. You’re more interested in making things then hunting, aren’t you?”
The boy looked up, eyes wide. “How did you guess? I…” He looked away, perhaps towards where his peers watched, or spoke behind his back. “Everyone else, they…”
Nym blinked, startled. For a moment, her hackles rose as she looked the same direction as the boy, before they lowered again. “That’s not a bad thing. In my clan, makers and tellers and healers very rarely hunt. A lot of kryth, that’s the hunters, want to exchange meat for food or story or just to talk. When you get good at this, I’m sure it will be the same in your clan.”
The boy chipped away at the rock. Nym nodded, he had a good eye for the break lines. It was like dragon hide, there was always a crack.
The boy made a hissing sound; Nym leaned closer before realizing that was his sort of sigh. “There are no makers or tellers or healers. The rik, the olders, they make the furs wearable and that’s it. Everyone’s a… Kryth?” He shook his head. “Though there are those who tell as well as hunt, or take the furs to the rik, or who know what to do with a broken bone… but I don’t want to be a kryth at all! I don’t… I don’t like hunting…” He trailed off, and Nym blinked. She didn’t respond to that…
Nym nodded, and tapped the spot to hit. The boy hit, and made a noise like a bird. “Look at that! It’s showing the edge!”
Nym’ nodded again. “Yes. Now there. The rik, they are the most at risk aren’t they? And what happens when you’re injured? There. That’s good! Better then my first try. I’m jealous.”
The boy laughed lightly, which was also hissing. “Thanks! I can see what I’m making now; I’m not just smashing at a rock. Yeah, the rik are the most at risk. They can’t move so fast, and don’t eat a lot. When you’re injured… You live or you die. Unless you are near one who knows more… but mostly you live or you die.” The boy started to chip away at the base of the cutter, and one of Nym’s eyes narrowed.
“What are you doing?” Behind the question, Nym was, well, she was looking around at the group with a healer’s eye, and was wincing the entire time. Yes, she could see old wounds, bad healed bones… erg! That was it! She was a healer; she had to take care of these people no matter what! And she would have to get some help too; she would be overwhelmed otherwise.
“I thought of something. Can you cut a long branch that’s really straight, like one of your wing bones?” The boy looked up, and Nym nodded slowly. Then she reached up to the tree, cutting away with her claws as she held the branch with her teeth.
“This good?” Nym set the branch down, and the boy held up the odd-looking cutter and then looked at the branch.
“Can you help me make it smaller… thinner too?”
Nym tilted her head, but did as asked. Her temper was a thing of the past, thankfully. She had never hunted Dekani’s kind, because she was much too busy gathering herbs or hunting for Tora Rashia, but there was always a first time for everything…
Nym followed the boy’s directions. Not long after, she was watching as he rubbed a stone over the wood, which was thinner then his arm and as long as his arms spread.
“Why,” Nym wanted to know, “did you have me get a branch? And what are you doing now?”
The boy smiled. “Well, I’m smoothing the wood. Sometimes the rik do this to furs old caught. It makes the furs, well, not softer really but they bend after. And… Look at your wing. What do you see?”
Nym spread one wing to look, and blinked. The wing bones were all thin, long and straight, or slightly curved. And at the very ends of them were thin, cutter-like claws.
“I hope you don’t plan to try flying.” Nym’s voice was dry, almost wary of the answer.
The boy shook his head. “Look.” Then he swung the stick in front of him. “The reach is longer. And with a cutter on the end…”
“… your people won’t have to get so close!” Nym lifted onto her hind feet with the realization, wings spreading. “That makes so much… sense…” She wasn’t looking at the boy, not anymore, but at her stomach with something approaching what might have been dread. It was bigger… rounded… Oh no…
“Yeah it does. What are you staring at?” The boy stood up from where he’d been working to fit the cutter onto the end of the stick. His earlier fear had obviously been replaced by respect, and perhaps even liking.
“I’m going… to… KILL… him! NAKOMII!” Without another word, Nym turned on one foot and launched herself as fast as she could go, following Nakomii’s scent. White hot fury fueled her, and she would have been surprised nothing sparked from her eyes, but she was moving too fast to notice.
---
The outburst was not unnoticed. Uma had introduced Dekani to two women and one man. The women were different shades of brown, and stood tall with their backs straight. They were named Aridith and Nidgam. The man, who was slightly bent and more gray then any other color, was named Isss-olde. Dekani had been showing them the cutter when Nym had, well, exploded was the only word for it.
While everyone else looked panicked and smelled of fear, Dekani only blinked and looked up. She looked over to where Nym had been; though there was no way she would be able to see it. “Oh,” she said, “Nym’s just figured out she’s carrying.”
To say that those with her were shocked would be an understatement. There were varying degrees of confusion, as well as fear, but they stopped looking like they were going to run.
“Carrying what, exactly?” The paler Aridith asked. Dekani felt almost kinship with the pale woman. Apart from Aridith, Dekani was the lightest colored draconian around.
“A baby dragon? I’m not sure, actually. Now, look here. They use these things to cut when they can’t use their claws, I guess. See how sharp the edges are? I wonder how they make these…” Dekani looked off a little, thinking, before shaking her head. “Nakomii will tell everyone where the weak spots on a dragon are, where they bleed the most.”
Isss-olde cleared his throat, and everyone glanced at him. “How long do you think this war will go on, Dam’e? Because… I hope that the children of my children will grow up knowing safety.”
Dekani shook her head, and actually sounded cheerful as she said, “Oh, probably many generations. It will probably take a few generations for the dragons to become wary of the woods, and many more before they give them over to us I suppose.” Then she blinked, because the other four were looking at her. “What?”
Uma narrowed her eyes, ears laying back. “So you have brought false hope. We- I should have known.”
Dekani narrowed her eyes, ears laying back. What was false hope and why did Uma say she had brought it? She knew that it was likely the dragons would fight for a long time, and that in return she and her people would have to fight for a longer time. Why did they not realize this at the beginning, anyway? It was the only sensible trail to follow, anyway!
“I don’t believe she knows what false hope is, Dao. I suppose to her it sounds reasonable; it sounds so to me at least. I doubt that the dragons will pay any attention to their missing members, after all they are spread out more then we ever were.” Nidgam waved her hand, and Dekani was rapidly losing interest in the talking of the others. Still, she was used to waiting and boredom, so she paid attention. But what was a Dao? They called Uma a Dao, but her name was Uma. Or was that false hope?
“Still… I suppose…” Uma did not look convinced, but she was no longer glaring at Dekani which was just fine with the pale woman. Uma’s glaring made her feel uncomfortable.
“We should probably spread out again, work this way all over. The prey is almost gone and the young have come to me with complaints. They cannot get enough to satisfy all their courts.” Isss-olde laced his fingers together; Dekani watched with interest, and not just because she no longer had another hand with fingers to lace together.
That started Uma complaining that outside of Dekani’s half-pass, whatever that was, they died. In the half-pass they were safe, or safer. They could not leave.
The others started to impress on Uma that they had to leave, but that did not mean leaving what little safety there was. Dekani, with no interest and no one talking to her, did what might have been sensible and left. She could still feel her people’s stares as she crossed the empty space to the camp.
Her people’s stares continued to make Dekani uncomfortable, but she was resigned. They were going to stare, because she was different. At least they weren’t driving her out like gray wolves did to black wolves. Dekani had never felt quite so alone before, though. Nym was too busy trying to kill Nakomii to talk to her, and Nakomii was too busy hiding from Nym to spend time with her. And who else did she really know, anyway?
Sighing, Dekani made her way over to the edge of the clearing, but not an area that had many children. She had stood for far too long. Still, sitting while her people stared at her, that went against her instincts.
She was doing more things that were against her instinct often, as of late, she thought. Sitting on the ground while being watched, jumping at sounds, and something else that nagged at the back of her mind. What was it?
Two of her people intruding into the space that Dekani sat alone in, where no one else dared to walk for some reason, broke Dekani out of her thoughts. She looked up, and blinked. She was both surprised, and suddenly aware of what she wasn’t doing right.
She wasn’t talking to men. She wasn’t paying attention to them; they weren’t paying attention to her. Until now.
“Greetings, maid. We were away on a hunting trip when you arrived. I am M-gan, and it is a pleasure to finally see you up close.” One of the men tapped his chest and then held his hand palm down to her. He also bared his teeth at her.
Dekani, almost unnoticeably, even to herself, leaned back.
The other man chuckled, and elbowed M-gan in the ribs. “Please, ignore my brother. I am Gy-ren, and not only is it a pleasure to meet you it is an honor.” Gy-ren did the same as M-gan had, tapping his chest and holding out one hand palm down to her.
Dekani got to her feet, and eyed them. They didn’t seem like they wanted to hurt her, even though they were baring their teeth.
“I am Dekani, chosen of Dekalagh. Greetings?” Dekani tapped her forehead, lips, and then heart. She wasn’t sure of herself; she never had been since seeing her people where she personally thought they shouldn’t be.
The men chuckled, and nodded. “Perhaps, Dekani, we shall see you again?” M-gan asked, taking a few steps forward. Dekani’s eyes widened as her personal space was, abruptly, invaded.
“Please say yes, it would be such a shame if we never saw you again.” This time it was Gy-ren who stepped forward; close enough for Dekani to almost grab behind the back. Her gaze darted from M-gan, who was near her only arm, and Gy-ren, who didn’t seem to realize she only had the one arm.
“I… I have to go.” Dekani bolted, but swore she felt two fingers on each side of her face trace her jaw. Nearly choking on her tongue, Dekani ran as fast as she could to where she thought Nym would return.
Behind her, M-gan and Gy-ren chuckled. “Well,” M-gain said, “she didn’t say yes.”
“But she didn’t say no either, little brother. She didn’t say no.”
Sharing a predatory grin, they walked the same way Dekani had run.
Again, they had no idea what they were getting into. Because, although Dekani didn’t understand, Nym, and more especially, Nakomii knew what was going on.
Well, if Nym stopped trying to kill Nakomii, they would know.
