CHAPTER 20
S’samph
The next morning, S'samph found K'kaen on his plot crouched in the soil whacking at a section of weeds with serious concentration. K’kaen, unlike S’samph, had actually taken to farming with surprising skill, and with the rainy season approaching, his prized sawa flowers would need extra diligence before getting shipped to the IA for processing and medical distribution.
Even though he didn’t look up, K’kaen’s tail twitched at S'samph's approach, acknowledging his presence without breaking concentration from the task at hand.
"I want to speak to you,” S’samph said.
"Are we not speaking already?" K'kaen's tail twitched with humor despite his grumbling. He continued pulling weeds. "It is unusual for you to crawl out of your nest to seek me out, so it must be important."
S'samph’s frill lifted with annoyance while K'kaen continued working as if his request wasn't worth a pause. "Eleri requires a new clutch brother."
“This is the important thing you needed to share?” K’kaen tossed a clump of weeds into a pile. S’samph had never understood his friend’s patience for such things, but that was probably why he could only ever coax those accursed vela beans to grow on his plot of land.
“You will become her new clutch brother,” S’samph responded.
"I will?" K’kaen asked, dusting soil from his hands as his tail curled in confusion. "Do humans even have clutch brothers?"
"Not in the way of our people. But the one she has is a miserable pile of f’fret. He’s due for replacement."
"It seems like you aren’t really giving me the option." K'kaen's frill rippled against his neck in what S'samph recognized as amused exasperation. "You’re lucky I like your little human."
“She needs protection beyond what I can provide for her alone. You’re an honorable male, and I can think of no better clutch brother for my mate."
“Oh really? I thought you considered me an insufferable ravik.” K’kaen’s frill smoothed along his spine. “She must really be a good female to cause you to become so sentimental.”
S’samph’s tail swished in annoyance. “Eleri deserves more than I can ever hope to offer her. Will you do it or not?”
"Of course I will. Someone needs to keep an eye on her with a mate like you kicking around. But I am gratified to see that you’ve finally come to your senses about her.”
He ignored K’kaen’s barbs, knowing the other male would do the job admirably despite his poor sense of humor. “Then I will let her know of your decision.”
“No, I will. If you’ll have me be her clutch brother, then let me do the job properly. She’ll have questions that I can answer better without you lurking around.”
S’samph grunted his acknowledgment. Better for them to establish their own connection directly than for him to get involved. He should let K’kaen take the lead. “You’ll speak with her soon?”
“Later today. Some of us are working, you know. I doubt Eleri would appreciate me bothering her during her clinic hours.”
“I’m patrolling,” S’samph grumbled in response. He retreated to his levibike and adjusted the holster of his pulsar gun on his waist.
“Could’ve fooled me.” K’kaen pressed a node in the ground to activate the irrigation hoses for the temperamental sawa flowers.
Although S’samph was loath to admit it, he’d spent far too much time away from his responsibilities.
Eleri was hard at work, and he was doing his best to become a male who deserved her attentions.
The harsh light from both suns beat down as he patrolled Laurus’s boundaries, but he enjoyed the dry heat on his scales.
The climate in this season was one of the few similarities Cassiaq-IV shared with Latilla.
Each time he cut the engine to listen for the unmistakable din of a klatch of raviks.
Nothing yet. The silence of the open fields pressed against his hearing auricles, interrupted only by the faint rustling of blue grasses in the sparse, hot breeze.
He was halfway through his circuit when he noticed a thin plume of smoke rising from Laurus’s southern quadrant. His tongue flicked out, tasting the air. Fire. Mixed with the faintest hint of feathers. The top half of his frill rose instinctively as he revved the engine and sped toward the source.
The smoke thickened as he approached, until he could see flames licking at the edges of Ailairi's pichari enclosures.
He covered his face with the collar of his shirt to try and protect his nostrils.
The old giradey farmer was desperately trying to herd the fat, flightless pichari away from the advancing flames.
But pichari were prized for their beauty and not their intelligence, as such it was proving to be a losing battle for one lone giradey.
S'samph cursed audibly and placed a call to S’kasia on his wrist console, praying that Laurus’s notoriously patchy service didn’t fail this time. Through a bit of luck, her voice crackled through on the other end of the line.
“S’samph?”
“Alert K’kaen and the other patrols. Ailairi’s farm. We need a water line.”
“I will send an alert.” She closed the line. His clutch sister had enough sense not to draw out the conversation. S’samph dismounted from his levibike and hurried toward the old farmer.
“What happened?” He asked.
“Raviks,” Ailairi responded in a raspy trill.
“Help me get the pichari to safety.” The farmer grabbed two birds and shuttled them toward a more distant enclosure, where the flames hadn’t reached, with surprising alacrity.
S’samph was dubious about his own bird wrangling skills, but he surged forward and gathered three of the fat, wriggling creatures in his arms. He moved with long, purposeful strides to the far enclosure and left the pichari with Ailairi.
“Stay here. I will get your animals.” Giradey were not heat or flame resistant like latil’e.
Better for the older male to stay with his livestock and keep them calm under the circumstances.
S’samph hurried back to collect the next batch of pichari.
He was attempting to corner a particularly frantic creature when K’kaen, Arz, Dynzol, and S’kasia arrived.
It wasn’t lost on S’samph that S’kasia rode on the same levibike as his friend.
"Raviks?” K'kaen asked, his frill raised in alarm. "Where is Ailairi?"
"With the rest of the pichari.” S’samph handed two of them to K’kaen.
“Get these to the far enclosure.” K’kaen’s frill raised in annoyance, but he kept his thoughts to himself as he hurried off with the animals.
In the interim, S’kasia and Dynzol had started a supplemental water line spraying over the smoldering pichari enclosures, which quenched the flames but also served to send the creatures into even more panic.
With the flames doused, S’samph and Arz made quick time in rounding up the remaining pichari.
One of the irritating creatures managed to defecate on his boot which S’samph realized with grim amusement was the same boot where Eleri had vomited.
As they were carrying the last of the pichari over to the enclosure where Ailairi was waiting, S’samph realized that a small crowd had started to form on the outskirts of the farm.
He recognized Pyo and several of the others clamoring to try and get a better view of what was happening while K’kaen and S’kasia tried to hold people back from getting too close to the charred remains of the pichari enclosures.
S'samph noticed a familiar flash of blonde hair inside the last remaining enclosure, which meant that Eleri was already seeing to Ailairi. As much as he wanted to stop by to greet her, he knew there were more pressing things he had to see to first. He joined K’kaen and S’kasia near the head of the crowd, where his clutch sister was already trying to quell the rising panic he could smell in the air.
It was a distinct coating of salt and stress hormones coating his tongue when he flicked it forward.
“What about the rest of our farms?” Someone shouted from the back of the crowd. Several other voices rose to echo the sentiment.
“Is it safe for our children to be out?”
It was only when Pyo snapped his wings open and shut that the chatter died down. S’samph noticed Eleri slip into the background of the crowd in the quiet interval before Pyo began to speak.
“Well? Head of security, what’s the plan?” Pyo addressed S’samph, dropping the full weight of his official title directly on his shoulders. It made only a small difference; he’d been acting in the role’s capacity if not name for a time already.
“We’re running regular patrols around the town perimeter.
” S’samph paused. “But more eyes to help would mean greater safety. For the moment, there are only five of us actively patrolling Laurus and that’s not to mention the roads between here and Indras.
” He glanced at S’kasia and K’kaen and then at Dynzol and Arz, who had come to join them in a grim line before the crowd.
He turned his focus back to the crowd and noticed he didn’t see Eleri, even though he could have sworn he saw her join them only a few standard minutes before.
“If you need more patrols, I’m sure we can round up some volunteers.” Pyo regarded the crowd as if daring them to disagree with the plan. “But what about Indras?”
S’samph refocused on Pyo to answer the question. “K’kaen will go to Indras and coordinate with their security team to help us monitor the road.”
For a brief moment, K’kaen tail flicked with annoyance, but he quickly straightened and gave an affirmative hiss. “I’ll head out shortly then.”
“Good.” S’samph looked around again, still seeing no signs of Eleri. He leaned toward K’kaen. “Go check on Eleri first. I’m not sure where she went.”
For this, the other male needed no prompting, and he set off to the other end of the smoldering remains of the pichari farm in search of his sister.
The tension eased slightly from S’samph’s tail, knowing that Eleri was looked after in his absence.
After the plan to collaborate with Indras and increase the frequency of patrols seemed settled, the crowd began to disperse. S’samph turned toward S’kasia.
“I do not like this uptick in ravik behavior.”
“It would surprise me if you did,” she said, following him as he went to find where K’kaen and Eleri had gone off to.
He was surprised to see Ailairi with his pichari in a makeshift enclosure, the giradey male sang softly to the creatures who responded in kind with an atonal cooing.
When Ailairi noticed him, he lifted a feathery limb to point to the last remaining enclosure, which S’samph took to mean he would find Eleri still there.
K’kaen sat blocking the doorway of the enclosure and held a single claw up to his lips, his frill rippling with amusement.
S’samph’s frill flattened with a mixture of concern and confusion as he poked his head into the doorway to find his mate fast asleep against a hay bale with a clear countdown timer flickering on her wrist interface.
“Is she well?” S’samph asked in a hushed tone. The air was filled with a familiar fragrance that he couldn’t quite place.
K’kaen’s tail flicked in amusement. “Can’t you smell it? She found some y’yeli. That timer isn’t going to wake her.”
With K’kaen’s reminder, he was able to place the distinctive floral scent he hadn’t encountered since S’kasia had given him some in the refugee camp to help quell his ongoing nightmares.
Eleri seemed much more at peace than he ever had with the flower’s effect.
“She shouldn’t sleep here,” he whispered to K’kaen.
“Why not? Isn’t it safe enough with me sitting here?” His friend asked. “S’kasia did tell me she has trouble sleeping at night. She must have given her the y’yeli.”
“Go to Indras,” S’samph whispered back, trying to disguise his irritation that he hadn’t been the one to find her, “I will stay with her.”
K’kaen stood up and brushed some feathers off his pants.
“She makes strange noises in her sleep, you know.” His tail flicked back and forth with his own self-amusement, knowing full well S’samph had no idea what his mate slept like, even though they’d shared the same roof the night before.
The fact that K’kaen knew something he didn’t about her was always infuriating.
S’samph chose to ignore the bait and instead pushed past him to sit beside Eleri instead of in the doorway.
Once K’kaen was gone, and he was certain she was deeply asleep, he placed a hand on the small of her back and felt the weight of her breath.