Chapter 8 - Bea
Zyntarr is kind of an unofficial third in command here at the tribe.
At the top, you’ve got Rynn, then his second, Mavyx, and then there’s Zyn.
He doesn’t hold any kind of title for it, and nobody acknowledges it outright, but the way that all the other Protectors defer to him for instruction when Rynn and Mavyx are nowhere to be seen tells you all you need to know.
They respect him deeply, and were constantly coming to him today while he’s with me overseeing the little boy Trixikkas in their lessons, along with the other Carers.
I think it’s part his sheer stature, and partly due to his age.
I’m not entirely sure how the Trixikka age per se, but if he were human, I’d put him around his late thirties, possibly early forties.
He’s still incredibly fit, but if you look closely, there’s a slight peppering of gray at his temples.
He’s also got a deeper crinkling of crow’s feet on the outer corner of his uncovered eye, as well as a matching set peeking out from the side of his leather eye-patch.
I try to ignore the swooping in my tummy that occurs when I notice these things about Zyntarr. It doesn’t matter if I find him wildly attractive - if wrongly believing that I saw his heart-stars ignite comes back to bite me in the ass, I will be devastated.
That seniority that Zyntarr seems to possess affords him the opportunity to stay by my side for the whole day without getting into trouble, just like we’d planned.
And he had.
He’d joined in when teaching the ‘younglings’ wing stretching exercises, when we’d taken them up to their ancient ‘mother caves’ to look at the cave wall drawings, and he’s even taught a few of the older kids how to perfectly cook a stew over the fire.
All of which, didn’t really do much to quell the desire I have for this man. In fact, they kind of stoked the flames even higher.
We’re finishing the day with the ‘younglings’ up at the Trixikka’s Temple.
Zyntarr and I stand back to watch while some of the other Carers are holding a mock ‘Offering Ceremony’, first explaining all about why they make offerings to the Temple.
The elderly male reminds the kids of the stories they’ve been told of how their kind used to have females, but their ancestor’s treatment of those Trixikka women angered the Goddesses, forcing them to take the females away from the males with a terrible illness.
A little boy shoots to his feet to ask, “will the same thing happen to Miss Bea?!” Zyntarr stiffens beside me.
It was Tyll who had asked - a bright little Trixikka who is not yet big enough to fly, and who normally likes to sit in my lap at meal times.
He’s one of the few who had adopted the use of my title of ‘Miss’ after I’d explained that’s how human kids had referred to me back at my job on Earth.
The poor thing looks distraught right now, though.
I take a breath and open my mouth to answer, but Zyn is faster. “No,” he says simply.
Tyll’s eyes are still wide with worry. “Do you promise?”
“Yes,” Zyntarr answers. “Bea will never be mistreated, and the Goddesses would not dare try to take her from me.”
One of the elder males splutters at Zyn’s declaration, his expression turning annoyed after Zyn had dared to challenge the Goddesses’ will - right in front of their Temple, no less.
Tarron, another little boy, older than Tyll, and so much more mischievous, decides it would be a good idea to push Zyn even further; “what would you do if they tried, Protector Zyntarr? You cannot best a Goddess.”
Everyone looks to Zyn beside me. He crosses his arms over his massive chest, and there’s a tick in his jaw that wasn’t there before. Now, why is that incredibly attractive? “I can try,” he huffs, the brow over his good eye rising with the imaginary challenge.
“You know, you’re brave with all this talk of ‘besting Goddesses’ and all.”
The words had been spoken in a feminine voice, and at first, it took me a while to find its source.
But there, bobbing in mid-air next to one of the Carers is the floating, spinning, glowing orb that ‘the Goddesses’ use to communicate to us.
It must have detached from the Temple when we weren’t paying attention.
Instantly, the elders drop to a kneel, urging the younglings to do the same. I’m too caught off-guard to follow suit, and Zyn doesn’t even attempt to bow down to the floating ball. Instead, he steps in front of me, shielding me from the deity with his massive body.
Peeking around him, I watch as the orb floats closer.
“I wonder, what would you best me at?” it muses.
From the tone of its question, I don’t think it’s actually challenging Zyntarr.
In fact, the voice sounds… playful? “Do you play duos on this bore of a planet?…. or maybe goxxi-stones?… I’ll even settle for eye-spy! ”
The orb floats higher to be directly in front of Zyn’s face.
It spins and whirs like this ball-thing is really looking at him.
“Oh, shit!” the orb exclaims, but this time, Zyn jerks a little in surprise at how the voice is now that of a male and decidedly less ethereal sounding.
“I guess I’d have the advantage over you on that one,” the male voice laughs.
Heat spikes at the base of my skull and I step out from behind Zyntarr. “Are you making a joke about his eye?! Because that is not ok!” I demand, pointing an accusatory finger at the spinning ball.
It’s not until a deathly silence falls after my words that I remember that I just reprimanded a ‘Goddess’… or is it, ‘God’ now? I think the elders with us are all about to have a conniption.
Beside me, Zyntarr subtly angles his big body like he’s readying to pounce on that little spinning God-ball. “Leave her be,” he growls so low and menacingly, it sends tingles down my spine and raises the downy hairs at the back of my neck.
The God-ball…. laughs. “Relax!” it chuckles. “Your cute little human is safe.”
“Why do you sound like a male?”
The question came from a small child - Tyll - who was no longer bowing, and had shot back up to his feet amongst his peers, his little face confused, curious, and completely oblivious to his Carers angrily gesticulating for him to get back down into a kneeling position.
“Ah, fuck!” the orb-God swears. “I mean, sorry, uh… it must be broken again… uhhhh…” the sphere spins and bobs nonsensically like it can’t decide what it wants to do. “You know what? Uh… us Goddesses sometimes sound like this, you know? It’s-it’s perfectly normal.”
I’m not so sure about that.
“Please forgive the youngling’s ignorance, my Goddess,” one of the elders steps forward to say, his graying head bowed low, with his graying wings tucked in tight on his back. “He meant no offence.”
The orb whizzes around and starts circling Tyll. “Oh, yeah, none taken, none taken,” it says, spiraling and loop-de-looping around the little boy. Tyll giggles. “Oh, hey, kid. You wanna try n’ catch me?”
With that, the hovering ball zooms away, twirling and zig-zagging all over the place, egging on little Tyll to follow - which he does, excitedly pursued by all the other boys, too. The Carers nervously look to one another before deciding they had better run along after their charges.
Zyn and I watch from our place here at the foot of the mountain, the strange Temple looming over our shoulders.
“That Goddess is… very odd,” Zyntarr comments as our gazes follow the glowing ball and little crowd of Trixikka children laughing uncontrollably as they frolic from one side of the white-grass-covered clearing to the other, chasing it.
The elders shout for them to all calm down. It doesn’t work.
“Yeah, it’s a shame. I was thinking of asking the Temple for some advice,” I say, feeling Zyn’s heavy gaze settle on me without having to turn to see it.
I stay facing forward, watching the little kids laugh and jump and sprint after that twirling orb.
“I was going to ask the Goddesses if I saw what I thought I saw.” It’s then that I turn to face him, my eyes falling to his chest. In the light of the bright afternoon, all I can see is his scars - no evidence of heart-stars at all.
I sigh to myself. “Do you think we could coax them to appear somehow? So that we know for sure?”
Zyntarr stares at me with that one blue eye of his for a long while.
It takes him so long to answer me, I almost start to think I’ve made him mad somehow.
But then he says; “I do not think one day spent together is enough to make heart-stars appear, little Bea.” His voice is somehow velvety and rough at the same time.
He pauses, his chest expanding with a breath before firmly adding; “you should stay with me in my nest this night.”
And with that, he turns back to the chaos of the younglings whooping and giggling as they chase the God-ball.
Zyntarr doesn’t wait for my answer, he simply starts to walk in their direction, as calm and nonchalant as if he hadn’t just invited me to bed with him.
His tail twitches and he stretches out and resettles his huge, inky black wings on his back.
When he calls out in one booming word for everyone to stop - they do.
Even the Goddess orb stays bobbing up and down in one place. “You really are a buzzkill, you know that?” the ‘God’ voice calls back to my man.
My man.
God, it’s gonna hurt if this is the wrong choice.