Chapter 3
Szhe’ka
Mornings almost always start the same for me; waking up to the sounds of my bachelor group excitedly talking amongst themselves about the newest mate pairing and how they cannot wait to find theirs.
Each day there is one less bachelor and I am reminded of my own fate. Today it starts when Nnaiv flaps his azure feathers over my face as he wakes me from my slumber.
He speaks to me in a low warble, as if not trying to alarm the rest of the nest. “Get up.”
He is concerned about something.
I am awake and have been for some time but I pretend to be roused by his voice, unwrapping myself from the cover of my wings.
I get up from my crouching form and shake the exhaustion from my limbs before stretching my wings high above my head, letting my feet dig into the soft, leafy flooring of the aerie.
I am taken back to a time where it wouldn’t have been uncommon to find myself in a squabble with Nnaiv because I tripped over part of his wings by accident. We were just fledglings then, young and trying to take over some aspects of our lives since being separated from the brood mothers.
I try to share my memory with my friend but his attention is elsewhere—intently staring out of the nest, wings tucked closely around himself, eyes narrowed to a fine point. So I ask him what bothers him.
Nnaiv gestures in the direction of the jungle down the mountain, a place where only the bravest venture to traverse—somewhere I have never gone myself.
“Trespassers again.”
I think he worries too much. There has been much news of these trespassers but most of them are grounded creatures and we live far apart.
“Impossible. Cannot reach,” I try to assure him quietly but I can tell that he is not listening to me.
“Not forever. Need find mate. Migrate before here,” he continues, eyes looking into mine.
His singing is low, as if he intends only for me to hear but this purpose is defeated and I hear a teasing titter not too far from me. His eyes trail to the entrance of the aerie and I follow but all I can see is the sky.
“Szhe’ka mate? Not possible,” someone says from behind me.
I know where the conversation is about to go and I will not allow myself to get riled up so I start to move away. However, my friend is too tightly wound to ignore the words of the aerie’s bully.
“Tch’tek, stop. Serious conversation.”
Nnaiv tries to deflect but Tch’tek has already settled before us, using the sheer vastness of his size to try to intimidate me. He always was the biggest of all of us since the time we were fledgelings and somehow that has made him think better of himself.
Nnaiv spreads his wings before Tch’tek can invade my space further but it does not deter him.
“Not teasing. Truth.”
His eyes hold a glimmer of something mischievous in them, almost as if he finds my silence to be agreement. It vexes me and my chest starts to swell with a resonate dismissal. Then I feel both of Nnaiv’s right hands on my leg, as if holding me in place.
“Szhe’ka find mate when ready. Just as you, Tch’tek. Leave alone.”
Nnaiv tries to defend me but Tch’tek has already started gloating to the small group of bachelors around him about how everyone else would find a mate before me.
“Why do mating song so well but run after?” Tch’tek sings out teasingly again and I look down because he is telling the truth.
The mating season has seen a lot of success from this nest, yet I still haven’t found anyone for myself. It is my fault. I do not like to boast but I have been told on many occasions that I have the best mating song among others in my aerie.
I just cannot get myself to stand still after it is done. Some undefined horror fills me and I flee before hearing an answering note.
“Not important.” Nnaiv tries to reroute the conversation but the others seem a little too entertained with the topic of my failure to let it go.
“Aerie on the next hill, almost empty. Must find mate,” someone says and I cannot see who.
“If empty before ours, no mate til next season. All bachelor forever.”
Tch’tek looks at me, like I am the reason why the rest of the nest have not found mates yet.
I don’t blame him, as tales of my cowardice have probably already traveled through the mountains and started diminishing the males in my nest. Still, I do not look away from him, letting him know that I may be scared to sing a second song to females but I am not scared of him.
Nnaiv takes his hands off my shoulders and saunters to the far end of the nest, his talons gripping onto the ledge. “Come.”
I listen, repeating his actions.
We both allow our wings to extend, stretch out behind us and flap before leaping down.
I can hear the other bachelors do the same but Nnaiv and I let ourselves fall a little lower, our arms and legs spread out underneath us.
It feels good, warmer on the way down but not as good as when I lift myself from the fall and start to carry the entire weight of my body back up to the sky, wings flapping around me.
I aim to fly up to the peak and off a hill so I draw my legs up to my chest and let my arms straighten beside my body.
The view is breathtaking every time, yet mundane.
Our aerie is so high up that the ground and its inhabitants are mere specks to us.
Our territory is beautiful, all mountain peaks and large white clouds and the wind rushing by you whispering its ancient secrets into your ears.
As it gets cooler, the crisp morning breeze slides easier against each individual feather on the back of my wings.
I allow my eyes to close for only a moment, letting all of the words that Tch’tek spoke to me earlier wash away from me. When I open them again, I see Nnaiv just ahead of me, his face awash with the same youngling glee I feel soaring through the air and hope swells in my chest.
Mating season is not over yet, and just because I haven’t found a female already doesn’t mean I never will.
I hear the surrounding flock around me begin to call into the wind as we near another hill and I join them, alerting the surrounding aerie that we are near.
Our shrill cries mellow into a harmonious hum and we launch into a short song, moving and breathing as one as if we had not nearly all gotten into a brawl moments before.
The wind carries our song and delivers a response from the females and the Shi’ell, mated male members in the surrounding areas. Bright flashes of feathers follow as the Shi’ell start to join us.
A collective squawk of joy follows from some of the males around us as I see a few of them gather overhead and begin to make their way uphill. I start to fly upward as well but the temperature around me begins to heat up. A barely noticeable shift that brings a small group closer to me.
We fly toward the warm updraft, forming a colorful circle of wings as we catch the thermals.
All four arms and my legs spread out from under me as I stretch myself to catch the breeze on every part of my sleek body.
It is a small recreation of the stories about migration that we have all heard since we were fledglings.
I imagine myself with a mate, our fledgelings nestled between our wings as the air warms us up.
Before I can finish my thought, there is a ruffling of feathers and sharp-toned squawks from above me. I look around and find Nnaiv’s eyes.
“What happen?” I call out to him in lowered tones while simultaneously reaching for his lower appendages in a private show of concern before he tells me that he has no idea but we should probably go up to check.
I agree and tuck my limbs back, letting myself glide back against the direction of the wind.
That is when I spot it.
At first, it doesn’t look like much more than a silver speck on the horizon.
It is slow moving but it does not resemble anything I have ever seen.
It moves through the clouds in one of the strangest ways I’ve ever witnessed, almost looking like it forcefully pushed them away from itself but as it inches closer, my sharp eyes begin to make out the details of what I can now recognise to be an inorganic metal craft.
I can immediately tell two things; it is traveling at impossible speeds and it is not native.
I turn to warn Nnaiv when I hear a loud, wet squelch.
It sounds final and it strikes fear in my heart.
From above me, someone screams out something guttural and points with a long limb; we all see Tch’tek at the same time.
I spot his bright red wings trailing after the rest of his body as he falls out of the sky in an almost beautiful display.
It registers immediately that this is an enemy with the intention to harm my brothers and me. Small beams of red light torrent out of the wingless silver monster blanketing the area where my flock was located, some landing on my left wing but I swerve before they can properly connect.
Several of the flockmates around me are not as lucky and I hear their death songs as their wings stop moving and they plummet.
Nnaiv belts out a battle cry and retracts his wings only a few meters so that it can thicken and form something of a shield around him while extending his murderously sharp talons. I sing along and do the same, maneuvering toward the vessel as fast as my wings will allow.
The melody is echoed around us by flockmates and Shi’ell alike as we fly toward the vessel in solidarity. My chest swells with rage, feathers standing at attention, red like Tch’tek as I smoothly avoid another one of the beams of light.
The memory of someone so prideful falling out of the sky so weightlessly angers me even more and I swear within myself to make them pay, whoever these strange new trespassers are.
Cowardly creatures disrupting the peace of others for no reason deserve nothing but to be wasted in ways worse than what they have done.
The vessel is much closer now and is launching even bigger missiles from its side. Nnaiv arrives first, avoiding one of the larger projectiles and screeches, his sharp talons reaching out from beside him so that he can scratch the side of the wingless silver demon.
I follow closely under him, intending to latch myself onto it until I can find a way to pry the thing open and pull the trespassers out. They won’t feel so powerful after I have ripped out their throats so they are unable to scream while I tear the rest of their bodies apart.
The craft is gradually being surrounded at this point, covered in the blood and feathers of fallen flockmates and Shi’ell, as well as deep gouges crisscrossing its previously mirror-like surface.
A large group of Shi’ell wielding long bladed weapons in each hand finally join the battle hacking repeatedly at it before a pulse of energy emanates from deep within the obviously damaged silver craft filling the air with burning flesh and feathers and the screams of anyone who was in contact with it.
Bodies drop like flies.
Luckily, I had backed off at the sight of the warriors but I’m immediately filled with trepidation.
I’m certain Nnaiv was at the forefront and was most certainly close enough to be affected by the strange attack wave.
The craft starts to freefall, whatever that pulse was, it clearly took its toll on the attackers as well.
Rushing toward the rapidly falling vessel, I hear Nnaiv call out to me, immediately followed by his death song. It feels like a part of my wings have been ripped off and I give up on my plan of attack and start to chase the body of my friend as it falls.
My hands are stretched out in front of me and I can see his life as it leaves his eyes.
“No death!” I beg my friend just as I make contact with him but I am just as quickly stopped by something I cannot see.
It wraps around me quickly, forming a flexible cage around the entirety of my body and shrinking in a way that forces me to retract my wings and arms into myself.
I struggle against the strange material, fighting to not let it shrink anymore, realizing the battling to stretch myself against it until it breaks and I feel hope that it is working until a horrifying smell I cannot recognize fills my nostrils.
It burns my eyes and my tongue when I try to scream, drawing the air out of my lungs until I am gasping for air, no breath left to sing out my dismay.
I am still flying, but without my wings, when the world goes dark, my mind racing with my pleas for Nnaiv to forgive me.