Epilogue
Daskh’s wings spread in a leisurely stretch and Slengral gave the male a disgusted look from his perch.
“We are supposed to be on guard duty,” he reminded his nest brother peevishly.
“We are guarding nestlings,” the male argued as he pointed to nestlings playing below among their tenders. “It is not exactly a demanding duty. Truthfully, I would rather be down there playing with them than stuck up here on this ledge with you,” he grumbled.
Slengral huffed but he smirked despite himself. “What you desire is to go down there where you can convince our mate to let you hold our nestling for endless hours,” he pointed out.
Daskh scoffed but grinned unrepentantly as he peered down at the scene below. Slengral could not entirely blame him. Being with their little nestling was far more appealing than being stationed on guard duty, but all the Seshanamitesh took their turns, and he knew that it made Lori feel better knowing that they were taking the protection of the nara seriously. And Daskh was not wrong, guarding the nestlings was a more pleasant task than the long flights along the mountain that they did on other rotations.
Sneaking a glance toward their mate, he smiled. Soon his replacement would come, and he could descend and join her. Although she still bemoaned her green coloring that had never faded, in his eyes she was more beautiful with the passage of every day. He teased her that it made her easy for him to spot among the other humans from the air—that and the gold dishana that she had turned into a pendant and took to wearing around her neck, even if it made an excellent target for their nestling’s curious fingers.
Little Deshka had grown rapidly and was quickly getting too large and too heavy for her, but Lori insisted on carrying him in a sling as she accompanied Hashal while the small male played with other nestlings his age. As much as Slengral did not like their mate straining herself, he also understood the reason for it. Hashal was slowly becoming a new nestling now that he had others within his age group to play and learn with rather than constantly clinging to Lori or any of his fathers. He was becoming more adventurous and exploring more like a nestling should and it made Slengral happy to see.
He was also very attentive to his younger sibling. Slengral watched as Hashal suddenly abandoned the other nestlings he was playing with to swoop over Lori and wiggle his fingers playfully at his sibling in her arms. Even as his distance, Slengral could clearly see the softer, more human shape of Deshka’s face and perfect little lips like their mate had for his mouth. He was a beautiful nestling with scales of the same deep indigo that Slengral and so many males of his line possessed, yet with a shimmer of slightly paler blues along his scales that gave him a heightened beauty that would someday draw many eyes.
Lori laughed at that moment, obscuring his view as she turned and shooed the male away to play. Hashal rolled through the air in amusement before flying away, leaving his mother staring after him. She shook her head in amusement and settled heavily down to another female—the medic, Sara—as the little female, Seeri, chased after Hashal with a squeal of laughter. There was some amused speculation between the elder males and females that it was perhaps the first signs of a mating between them in their future, but Slengral ignored it. They were nestlings, after all, and it would all depend on the choices that both would decide to make.
It wasn’t the shinara where the female could simply choose, and he was happy to be raising his nestlings far from that.
“Have you noticed that Kehtal is no longer hunting,” Daskh commented casually, drawing his attention to the larger male.
“He is not?”
Daskh snapped his gavo. “He is small and never enjoyed the hunting that we were forced to do as males of the upper caverns. He did not wish to speak too soon of it, but I spotted him joining the weavers the other day, and yesterday he was speaking excitedly to Lori about some of the weaving techniques the males and females among them do. I believe our nest brother has found a new path for his life.”
“As long as that path does not take him from our nest,” Slengral grumbled half-heartedly and Daskh laughed.
“Truthfully, it will likely keep him in our nest for longer periods. He is content to stay there with Lori when it is clear that my larger size is not needed to protect the nest. He feels valuable there with her, contributing. Look, he comes now,” Daskh fanned a wing out toward the male approaching the play area with a large basket of supplies.
Although the basket was nearly the size of Kehtal, Slengral felt a rush of pride for his nest brother as the male settled beside their mate and immediately took the slight and settled their nestling comfortably against his chest before he pulled long, split reeds from the basket. Slengral chuffed quietly to himself. They would probably need to expand their home to make space for all the baskets of reeds and supplies for whatever else Kehtal wished to make within their home now.
“What of you,” he asked, glancing over Daskh. “Have you found another path?”
Daskh’s ears flicked as his eyes lifted and scanned the trees growing up the sides of the mountain around them. “You could say that all of the paths have opened up before me. I have been discussing shinara law with the council, I have been teaching old and young alike to read and write for whoever may wish to learn it. I hunt and guard as needed and desired. My life is full,” he murmured with such contentment that it drew a smile from Slengral.
“It is good, then,” Slengral murmured in reply. “Shangla was right to bring our mate here. For all the evil that my mother had to do to get Lori here, Shangla was right to permit it.”
Daskh inclined his head, his gavo snapping lightly as he peered over at him. “Are you happy here?”
Slengral’s gavo raised and snapped leisurely as he drew the clean air into his lungs. “It is good,” he repeated. “There is much to hunt and eat, and wide skies to fly. I am not like Kehtal who has the patience to make things, and I am not like you who knows much, but this is a place to make a male who was always restless and discontent happy with life.” He met Daskh’s eyes. “My place is here.”
Daskh inclined his head again. “Perhaps more so than you think. Therxian has spoken to the council of making you head of the hunters while he deals with the shinara. Jathella has brought back word over these last seasons, and it seems that the queen matriarch has not only refuted the males of her line but is in search of another mate with the hope of breeding another queen instead. There is talk that she is insane, and any nestling raised under her care would suffer, if she can even successfully bear any. Although it has made her quick to ignore Raza after realizing that we will never return there, it still potentially makes her a danger to the shinara itself. People are afraid of what might happen if she cannot successfully breed due to her age. Therxian will undoubtedly not remain long on the mountain before he is forced to deal with her.”
Slengral hummed quietly to himself but inclined his head in understanding. He felt curiously empty at the thought of his mother slowly destroying herself within the walls of the palace. The female who declared herself to be as Shangla herself was driven mad by Higthar’s star.
“May Shangla’s will be done,” he whispered before turning to smile in greeting to their replacements and dropping from the cliff with Daskh following behind him, eager to return to the female that he had loved ever since he rescued her from another male in the upper caverns.