It's done! O_O
My excerpt! It's done! O_O (I'm making this a public entry just so that anyone can read and comment on it. XD)
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A hooc whistled in the rustling leaves, her ears prickled. Shiian was dark and would stay so for the next two days. They wouldn’t have any light during the night, it would limit them to make this tedious trip longer. Uiya didn’t like those thoughts, they doubted everything and her mood transcended through the rest of the clan and they, in turn, would doubt as well.
What good did doubt do? She thought. It wasn’t the same as paranoia, because paranoia made you prepared, even if overly so. No, insidious, twiggling little doubt wormed its measly way into your thoughts and rooted there. A malicious little imp smile tugging at the lips like plump tenaciousness; that was doubt. And she didn’t enjoy thinking about it, it made her shoulder itch like something perched there with claw feet, the kind that squeeze their way under your scales and felt like they would never come out.
Snorting something of a irritated sigh, there was no hope of getting any more sleep tonight, that was obvious. So she would be running on the fuel of last night’s constantly disrupted dreaming, great. She tried to focus on something, keep her mind occupied, force doubt to find a notch on someone else’s scales. Her drowsy eyes slid over crumpled rocks and dusty leaves until fixated on Armac’s slithering tail; A little purple serpent with the occasional gleam of royale blue.
Swish, swat-Uiya’s eyes perused the contour of rocky edges and chipped battlefields. Thwump, thwap-She watched it nearly slap another, younger dragon in the temple. It was actually amusing, in a strange way. Watching her people like this, entirely empty of their usual personas. She could make them whomever she wished them to be. Teannih could be the ugliest gray colour she could imagine. Just a static wave, not Teannih, not a village jewel. Imagining Teannih as a peppered grey made her wonder why she disliked Teannih so much.
It wasn’t even hate. Hate is too strong for her. No, Uiya mustn’t hate anyone. If you hold enough emotion about someone to hate them, then instead you should respect them. That was what the Chief Mother had told her when Uiya had been sulking about Teannih chosen for the Flight above her. She had blithely pronounced a hatred for the sleek and able-bodied competition, and the Chief Mother admonished her earnestly.
“Uiya... you should respect Teannih.”
“But Mother-“
“I will not hear of it, Uiya. Either respect her for the fact that she has accomplished something you could not or move past such a childish distaste.”
Chief Mother was always telling her that she acted too much like a child. It got to her sometimes, but she knew it was only in for her best, in the Elder Mothers’ eyes. She always had some provoking knowledge, too. Uiya often wondered if it just came from being the Chief Mother, or if it was something completely unique to the Chief Mother herself. She acted like she didn’t pay attention when the aphorisms were given out, but she dwelled on them late in the night when she couldn’t sleep. She realized that being a Chief Mother wasn’t easy, having apprentice someone like herself was hardly any condolence prize. But it wasn’t as if she was still a hatchling, she could go on the Flight now, defend herself and even choose a mate if she wanted.
Theump, thunk-Armac’s tail was still roughhousing with the dirt spilling into the air while he slept sound and unknowingly. It stopped her from continuously brooding over the Chief Mother, missing her most of all. This being only the second day of Shiian’s dark sect of his cycle, Uiya was able to remember how long it had been since they left. It had been eighteen days.
Just eighteen days? Was that really all? She thought to herself, in simple awe. She had been on the Flight, had gone and become an adult, but aside from it she had never really been too far from home for more than an incubation period. But this was that and a half! Strangely, she didn’t feel as homesick as she thought she would be. More so, she was morose... but not just, there was a freedom there. A fragmented feeling that she’d let go of something close to her, but also detrimental to her ability to stand on her own feet and be a leader for the people before her in their narcoleptic satiation.
Shiian’s darkness made looking at the sky a lost cause. It was as if the entire sky could not light themselves without his beautiful blue-grey magnificence. There was a fog on the world-just a slightly thicker feel to the air around her-that reminded Uiya of a loved one’s neck, twining around yours in coil that couldn’t be pried apart
Finally off the granite and limestone marbleized ledges. Sudden winds stroked her svelte, airborne form. The condensed plush of clouds tickled her tail as she corkscrewedandahalfloophole around the sparse few she came to. It was thrilling, exhilarating and relaxing. All that and more. It was her Flight.
A particular cloud caught her fancy, it was a perfect smoke-shifting form. First it was some indiscernible haze, but then as the winds separated into their forms it became a twisted old tree, knotted with a personality of benevolence that you had to look past the fungi-encrusted bark to see. She approached it more rapidly, sweeping the air, slicing and dicing it. If she could, she’d puree it until it was a topping to drizzle over that perfect smoke-shifting cloud and eat it in one swift bite.
Some flicks of a twitch and tensing of muscles, she now hurtled herself at a slant towards her entree`. The hazy fog began to dissipate, all that was left in her bulleting in a mad frenzy and realizations of a gnarled embrace reaching out to her. Sudden halts, reversing position to avoid more than minor score on a section along her left lower flank. She was back above the delicious, malignant fogginess, righting herself back on her crow’s path, destination awaiting.
She’d never been more nerouvsandanxiousanduncontrollablyexcited at any time. This was her time. Towards the Northeast, a distant gleam from Sukah’s dominant sun, Huntei, glittered merrily into the wide array of spectral colours. Purple and black and mossy green to deep blue and even a few of the lesser seen colours were present. She touched down, this rock here felt different, it was alive. Countless generations had stood here, watched here, taken their baited breaths while the old magicks washed over them.
She was by no means the first, but quite far from the last of those on their Flight to arrive. Every day, every moon's hiding and revealing, dragons stood here and stayed here. They would know when the time to leave and come home would be. No one ever stayed longer than six days, however, if they were gone seven days, they were dead. And as soon as everyone was on this living piece of the ancients and their times, it began. The magicks they held were flaring into what they would become. Her eyes drooped, it was a cleansing, refreshing feel, very comforting. But they widened as she started to hear sounds.
They started dropping around her. Several of them, none she knew, but it was happening. Suddenly, among these piled cadavers stood less then half of who came. A stolid face; a horrified mind.
Sudden dilations upon waking and her head streamed forwards to spew a cold dinner in a messy, contemporary pattern. No one talked about it. Even the youngest hatchlings knew that if a dragon didn’t come back from the Flight, they were dead. Dead completely, not just in body, in mind. You didn’t speak about them, think about them, the parents never had that child. They had never existed. They were unworthy to be a dragon. No, Uiya could never stop thinking about it, remembering it, forcing herself to try and accept it. Failing.
Huntei was winking at her, she winked back unwittingly, Huntei smiled at her as it did every day upon everything and everyone long before Kitei even began to awaken. They should continue, and hurriedly so that they could gain as much ground in very little time; The elder’s stain on Sukah wouldn’t last forever, and it would be easily missed, they needed to be on their guard all day, because no one knew exactly where it was. Many of the older dragons would gripe about being earthen-bound, but it had to be that way. She knew there would be more conflicts today, just as there had been for every day since they had left the clan’s caldera home. Fond memories came to mind at once, but she didn’t have the time to dwell on thoughts; She had to act like the leader everyone wanted. Until they knew that she was serious about her position as the Chief Mother now, she would have to act enough for them to believe it. Otherwise they’d only walk over her and laugh at her puppet ruling behind her tail. There would be time enough for reminiscence when she laid down for sleep again, which wouldn’t be until Shiian’s darkness overshadowed any light they could guide by.
“Armac! Kahn! Get the formations ready for travel!” she bellowed forth at the bleary, not-quite-adolescent-but-still-childish males. A few glowering looks and scattered grumbling about her decision that no one should fly-just an another average morning, she told herself a little too reassuringly (another part of the average morning)-and the formation was ready to continue on.
The formation was suited to help protect the clan as a whole, it had been questioned several times, but it held true: Females would begin the rail of travelers, but because of the sheer number withheld in the clan it became that they would only be ten figures thick and four wide; Next, a group of males only a sparse three thick by four figures; But in order to protect the youngest of the clan, they would be kept in the middle surrounding by a flanking of males and females equally, stretching six figures down and with a separate flank set aside from the rest of the train, only four dragons on each side, as a first cover for the hatchlings and young ones. The same process would repeat after the youngest until it came to the end, which was inevitably an uneven group of males to provide rear protection from any unwanted challengers. Of course, Uiya was decided to lead, she was expected to.
“Uiya,” it was Kibayi, another elder mother inaugurated too early, “we need to rest.” Kibayi was barely older than she herself, and had been apprenticed to Gamu, the previous elder mother. Kibayi had run farther ahead so she could speak with her, being that Uiya was at least an entire figure away from the front of the formation.
“Kibayi, we cannot rest. We must continue,” she had to be tough on the entire clan, could not give in and be lenient at moments when time was as crucial as this. Not many knew just how crucial it was, only the new generation of elder mothers were brought into the ceremony for watching the performance. For now, all that Uiya would allow herself to focus on would be planting on leg in front of the other, listen to the thick snappings and murmurs from the forest’s activity.
“It is the young ones, they are not used to travelling this much!” Now Jhuine was jumping up on her wings for a cause, it was always about the youngest ones with her. It was in her disposition, however, and Uiya could not reprimand her for such an outburst, but soon enough she found herself mobbed by a crowded bulge like a swelled mother ready for laying a ripe measure of eggs.
“The older males are starting to yell!” that had been Buduae.
“We must stop and rest!” and that was Seehah.
“Uiya! Do you even know what you are doing?” ... Aevith.
“We will stop at the next river we come to.” Her words were quiet and not even recognized for the first few instants they left her apathetic mouth, but then the barraging demands and anger disolved until she was once again a length away from the rest of the clan, wearily dredging their large claw-adorned feet through the trampled underbrush. She hadn’t been able to take all the crashing waves of squalling about resting. It was barely into midday, they should have been farther down the path, looking for the stain on Sukah’s dimensional weave. But now they were on the look out for a place to stop and rest, a place to idle time away. Idle thoughts away and wonder about what toppings would be good on top of a smoke-cloud.
A true Chief Mother, a true leader, should and would not have given in to such childish argumentativeness among the fellow elder mothers, especially when there was a priority at hand known to all of them. Thoughts that ate at her mental constitution; perhaps she didn’t know what she was doing, as Aevith had so pertinently implied with her questioning. This was no time for thinking, she should have been scouting for the next river to come across. Even if it was against her ideals to stop even momentarily, she would have to keep to her word and stop at the very next river they came to.
The river came a bit too soon, and hadn’t been seen my Uiya as it should have been, it had been a younger one, who was reproved shortly after his discovery-he had been outside the central circle of protection as all the youngest hatchlings were deigned to be for the entirety of their, seemingly interminable, trip.
It wasn’t much of a river, more of a trickling stream for them, it was only half a figure wide. The hatchlings were happy to be splashing around, though, and it brought dead smiles to the older faces. Jhuine was doing her best to try and fit with the rest of them, slouching down to make herself look shorter. Uiya would need to talk with her about the vision of respect the elder mothers should bring, but in the meanwhile she drooped the sidelines of her jaw frame down to show her disapproval.
Seehah meandered closer to her standing impatiently, staring into the luridly plush flora off to the east of their route. She was most likely considered a pushover now. Just bother her enough and she’ll cave and let the clan do as they feel is needed. But she didn’t think like that, in all truths of the suns, she knew that the younger ones would need to rest and drink. More impish doubt was resting just below the first layering of scales in the middle of her spine. What a pain it was, and she twisted oddly a few times, trying to dislodge its hold. “We need food,” a pretentious order, easily observed, dismissed and just as easily rebuked-
“No. Finding food will deviate us too much from our route, we need to keep moving.” Seehah was the persistent one among them, no wonders on why she was the one to approach Uiya about the subject. Her jaded stare fixed on the tilted head, so cocksure and filled with barbed retorts, even for her superior in rank. Uiya would have smirked, if she wasn’t so predominantly churning over continuing their movement, they had to move and quickly. In fact, she should have called for them to stop wallowing in the depleted river’s supply of water and muddy bankings a long while ago, some of the young ones were completely filthy. But she didn’t care, it would help them to stay cooler in the combination of Huntei and Kitei’s fulgent light.
“How can you say no? Don’t you know how hungry we are? You’re going to kill us if you refuse us food!” Seehah was very fiery today, it was probably from traveling so far on foot, she was a powerful flier, that was known throughout the clan, but as such she didn’t spend enough time walking on her own two feet. No, she allowed her wings to carry her overhead everywhere, and the consequence for living life as she did could be a lot of ache. Instead, Uiya let the fire of her magicks into her eyes, let them dance into Seehah’s vision and show who was the truly dominant one in the conversation.
“As Chief Mother of our clan,” her voice was garnished with fresh enthusiasm masked like a mint leaf for parsley, “I do not have to bow to your orders or requests; If I do, it is in my honour and you should be thankful for it.” She looked more severely at Seehah, examining her reaction. Yes, I will not bend like a shied sapling in a windstorm. “And furthermore, looking for food will cost time.” Seehah’s head lowered slightly on the longer neck, showing Uiya her subordinate position to herself.
“Chief Mother,” addressing her by the proper title, Uiya wanted to smile, but she would maintain the poise of a leader, “I apologize. But I must insist that we need food, the youngest and the hatchlings will not do well without it,” it was viable reasoning and Uiya accepted that.
“You’re right, how would you feel if I sent out a search patrol to scout for food, on wing, while we continue walking?” A compromise, but it was on the feet of equality. She didn’t want to be known as a tyrannical and peremptory; So, she would allow Seehah and the other elder mothers to talk to her like equals, but they would always know that she had the final decision. It was her clan to run, they would help, but she was supposed to be the one who knew what was best. Even if she didn’t, really.
Visibly irritated, Seehah replied, “That is a good plan, Chief Mother.” Uiya heard it shouting through her snout, no, it wasn’t a good plan. A good plan was for everyone to look for food, that was what Seehah wanted to hear. But it wasn’t really, a good plan, they needed to move but she was right that Uiya couldn’t ignore the need for sustaining their health; The youngest ones would die if they didn’t eat often enough, and she knew that, but she didn’t know how much she cared at the moment. It was a cruel and horrible thing to admit to herself, but it was logical. If the youngest ones slowed them down because of their health, they’d never reach the tearing before the magicks holding it pried open would dissipate and it would seal itself back up again. And if they were stuck in Sukah, they would all die eventually, their people would die out because not enough hatchlings could be born, the elders would die because their bodies didn’t have the vitality of youth to ward of whatever had struck them.
She would send out Kahn, Chiiava and Seehah with some of the clan to go look for food. If Seehah wanted to fly, she could fly; If she wanted food, she could help look for it. Swiveling her frame around like a hooc’s neck, she took in another view of the hatchlings in mud and mildew; adolescents of both genders trying to repress the urge to be as their younger counterparts in an effort to detach themselves from the degrading vision of youth. The adults just idly stood by, watching them in mock irritation or feigned interest.
“Chiiava, Kahn... Seehah.” Metallic with a dry pounding to it, like a dull resonance of a pair colliding in flight, righting themselves only to find that they misdirected and crash again. A few started, a great many were just confounded at the unaccustomed vocal expression of demand; Uiya had been silent most of the trip. Seehah’s shoulders were straightened more than usual, she knew why they were being called, knew why she was perhaps being mentioned with the other strong fliers. Simultaneously, they advanced to their something of a leader and she furrowed an eyelash of concern in return. Switching her pivot, she led them out of earshot. If the rest of the clan realized that they were searching for food-a first on their trip, so far-they could possibly panic and the trip could fall into disarray because they would think that the clan could starve. It was hard to admit, but they wouldn’t be able to find food everyday, and without reserves, they wouldn’t be able to last until they found what they were traveling for. Uiya should have heeded Dantu’s warning when she had told her that reserves would be needed; Not to simply make haste out of their caldera home, but to have foresight as well. Now Iyyi, her replacement, could scold her, tell her that they should have packed food and water reserves, and Uiya would listen when, or if, Iyyi came to her in her ire.
Seehah kept her tongue, but would have loved jumping at the chance to demand a full explanation for the others to understand the situation at hand. Make sure the other two knew exactly why they were being sent on this flight. This leader of theirs was barely older than an adolescent, she had no idea what to do! There were heavy wingbeats surrounding them, a weighted feel to the air that made it into your nostrils, down to your lungs and wedged itself in there, like that air owned the space of your lungs and it knew it.
“I’m sending the three of you out for food-“ she was never given a chance to finish, Seehah’s temperament took over and sent her into mine-filled territorial spaces.
“The three of us? Why just three? You said-” she was close to shouting, Uiya’s eyes shone with an arcane emission; it was enough to silence the three anything the them of them had to protest, and then expand beyond that.
“As I was saying...” a warning note in the lilt of her voice, “You will be in groups. You will each take three adults with you, and go into separate sections to search for food. We are not yet at our fraying edges, but I have been talked to and from such, have ascertained that we are not far away from this rope lifeline coming undone beneath us.” There was a smouldering feel between Seehah’s brows, she knew Uiya was staring at her slightly bowed head, and blatantly meant that she was the one who had brashly alerted her to the food supply. She didn’t know whether to feel flattered or degraded. “Obviously, I have chosen the three of you to be the directors of these groups because you three are all known to be among the best in our clan. Strong wings, strong lungs, and all of you have a vehemency, a loyalty to your passions or ideals that make me respect each of you.” Respect? That was something she didn’t expect from this child-like princess.
“I’m trusting all of you to keep our people safe, bring them back alive, and help the rest of us stay alive at the same time. Can you handle this?” Her intense gaze settled on each bowed forehead in turn, and burned the question behind the sockets of their eyes, making sure they knew how heavy a responsibility was. It may have just been finding food, but without food they would perish if kept on a strict regime such as she had in mind. They couldn’t stop every few days to find more shallow reserves of sustenance, they would need a large amount to store with them easily.
In turn they concurred with her speech, looking up and standing with a little more enthusiasm-something extra in their spines, to stiffen- for their assignment. It was a food run, a scouting job, but it was important to her, she took it seriously, they admired her. Respect and be respected, she thought, is such an effective way to make them accept your assiduous mindset of even the most menial tasks or the labouring jobs nobody wants.
“Kahn, you first; Who do you choose?” his eyes were stiff as his shoulders, he was a very serious individual, always the first to volunteer for anything, he had a chest in his eyes. Something shielding, just there; he always had a hidden chest in his eyes, it didn’t reflect light, it was a dark teak chest, lighter but matte in their appearance.
“Etuch. Pao. Teannih.” Short, crisp remarks. Nothing more or less than what was asked, was answered. Uiya nodded, he could go and round up those he chose; It didn’t need to be said, it was just expected.
“Seehah, you next; Whom do you choose?”
She breathed a little deeper and thought for a moment, she would have chosen Etuch in a second, but he was going with Kahn now, obviously. A few of the moderate fliers would do at least, she could even nab Etuch’s hatchling sister, Hation. Uiya seemed to nod her approval at the choices they had thus far chosen. She wanted to spit in that smug face, it jeered a suspended hallucination, reminding Seehah that this teenage something-of-nothing was now her superior.
“Chiiava?” She turned to the female spectacular flier expectantly. The oldest present, Uiya had wanted to give Chiiava the most time to think. The hazelwood scales were not as luminescent as the others present, but they had the most personality, those scales. Chiiava wasn’t too much older than Armac, so Uiya’s mindset traveling back to last night, watching his tail and examining the hills of plated scales, wasn’t really absurd. Looking up to the tumultuous eyes, she cocked her head slightly and thought on how Chiiava was practically Kahn’s shadow, the absence of what he was; That or he was her shadow, without all the emotional turmoil to show.
It took the older one a while to answer her Chief Mother, and she gave a peculiar reply, “I want to take Tuhalle and Lin and Satsu.”
“Lin and Tuhalle? Satsu I could understand-by a bit of a stretch-but the others?” Uiya’s voice was perplexed and she didn’t even make a motion to hide that. “Lin and Tuhalle are barely off of their own Flight-why would you want to take them for our food? I thought you agreed to take this assignment seriously!” She was close to being exasperated with this entire ordeal. If Seehah hadn’t brought the food to her attention, she could have just forced the group forward, and worried about it when it got to its peak point of aberration.
“I am, Uiya, and that is why I’m asking for Lin and Tuhalle as well as Satsu.” Chiiava’s voice conveyed a trusting warmth to Uiya, the tilt reminded her of what it felt like to romp around with friends, when she had friends. Allowed to have friends and actually spend some time with them; Not always a person of responsibility, one who could let go and fly around until Kitei’s early dusk period. A voice that was always warm, stoked fire, one that could be a roaring bonfire or a comforting blink in the inky forest’s hostility. That voice of hers had absorbed into itself her lifetime: she communicated with it in a way most people couldn’t imagine. You could infer things with any other person’s voice, because you heard what you wanted, and heard what they said, but with Chiiava’s voice you heard it directly, like it sprang up from your mind to tell you what was right. “I can see it in them, they will do us all proud. Please, do not mind it, put your trust in me, Uiya,” her eyes were welcoming, so Uiya was only left with one option.
“All right. But only out of my respect and faith in you,” she could hear the message with blinding clarity, ‘You are not as wise as you are trying to act. I don’t condemn you, but you must learn before you can teach.’
It took them several hours before they came back. Two of each party were loaded down, stocked with enough reserves to last at least half an incubation period to feed the entire clan, so long as it was rationed properly. She called forth a few of the elder males to ration out the food, and went about organizing the rest of the clan together, get them ready to journey on, haste biting their dust in second place.
The young that were before romping around joyously, were now tending quietly to their coatings. Their scales were much more thinly plated than her adult scalings. She saw Jhuine and a few of the other motherly figureheads for them helping them with barely any difference to their sounds than the young voices made. A twinge of jealousy took root next to doubt and they chorused some raucous drinking songs that were so inappropriate, even she Armac wouldn’t want to listen to them! But Uiya couldn’t handle the children like Jhuine and the other females could. Stroking and patting their heads, she couldn’t do that, when would the right time to do it so that they didn’t snarl at her be? It was an ease they took for granted, this ease with other people, with the young ones. A simple talk with Jhuine and Hodanen-it turned out to be her helping Jhuine-and they gave their solemn nods, the hatchlings seemed to just have the innate ability to know what Uiya said to them without hearing it or being told. Their grave looks and uniformity that came as easily as Jhuine’s handling them, was a sure sign.
Striding back to where Chiiava, Seehah and Kahn had unpacked each parties’ food supplies, she spoke calmly that they needed to move out soon and how well were the proportions? The two oldest males sorting out the food practically hugged her in their delight: There would be enough rations for the entire clan to last them at least well into Kitei’s dark cycle. Everyone else was completing their own, self-deigned tasks of collecting peoples, scolding hatchlings and whatever else they could find to evade her reproaches; After all, why should they have to listen to such a novice, not even completed her apprenticeship. Wasn’t that it?
It was time to move. She bellowed again, a mighty blow of signals, ‘Get into your groups!’ she said to them in their ingrained training. And as the last tail twisted to a comfortable angle, they moved closer towards a nearly unperceivable stain on their luscious terrain.
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TELL ME..... *begs* What do you think?
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A hooc whistled in the rustling leaves, her ears prickled. Shiian was dark and would stay so for the next two days. They wouldn’t have any light during the night, it would limit them to make this tedious trip longer. Uiya didn’t like those thoughts, they doubted everything and her mood transcended through the rest of the clan and they, in turn, would doubt as well.
What good did doubt do? She thought. It wasn’t the same as paranoia, because paranoia made you prepared, even if overly so. No, insidious, twiggling little doubt wormed its measly way into your thoughts and rooted there. A malicious little imp smile tugging at the lips like plump tenaciousness; that was doubt. And she didn’t enjoy thinking about it, it made her shoulder itch like something perched there with claw feet, the kind that squeeze their way under your scales and felt like they would never come out.
Snorting something of a irritated sigh, there was no hope of getting any more sleep tonight, that was obvious. So she would be running on the fuel of last night’s constantly disrupted dreaming, great. She tried to focus on something, keep her mind occupied, force doubt to find a notch on someone else’s scales. Her drowsy eyes slid over crumpled rocks and dusty leaves until fixated on Armac’s slithering tail; A little purple serpent with the occasional gleam of royale blue.
Swish, swat-Uiya’s eyes perused the contour of rocky edges and chipped battlefields. Thwump, thwap-She watched it nearly slap another, younger dragon in the temple. It was actually amusing, in a strange way. Watching her people like this, entirely empty of their usual personas. She could make them whomever she wished them to be. Teannih could be the ugliest gray colour she could imagine. Just a static wave, not Teannih, not a village jewel. Imagining Teannih as a peppered grey made her wonder why she disliked Teannih so much.
It wasn’t even hate. Hate is too strong for her. No, Uiya mustn’t hate anyone. If you hold enough emotion about someone to hate them, then instead you should respect them. That was what the Chief Mother had told her when Uiya had been sulking about Teannih chosen for the Flight above her. She had blithely pronounced a hatred for the sleek and able-bodied competition, and the Chief Mother admonished her earnestly.
“Uiya... you should respect Teannih.”
“But Mother-“
“I will not hear of it, Uiya. Either respect her for the fact that she has accomplished something you could not or move past such a childish distaste.”
Chief Mother was always telling her that she acted too much like a child. It got to her sometimes, but she knew it was only in for her best, in the Elder Mothers’ eyes. She always had some provoking knowledge, too. Uiya often wondered if it just came from being the Chief Mother, or if it was something completely unique to the Chief Mother herself. She acted like she didn’t pay attention when the aphorisms were given out, but she dwelled on them late in the night when she couldn’t sleep. She realized that being a Chief Mother wasn’t easy, having apprentice someone like herself was hardly any condolence prize. But it wasn’t as if she was still a hatchling, she could go on the Flight now, defend herself and even choose a mate if she wanted.
Theump, thunk-Armac’s tail was still roughhousing with the dirt spilling into the air while he slept sound and unknowingly. It stopped her from continuously brooding over the Chief Mother, missing her most of all. This being only the second day of Shiian’s dark sect of his cycle, Uiya was able to remember how long it had been since they left. It had been eighteen days.
Just eighteen days? Was that really all? She thought to herself, in simple awe. She had been on the Flight, had gone and become an adult, but aside from it she had never really been too far from home for more than an incubation period. But this was that and a half! Strangely, she didn’t feel as homesick as she thought she would be. More so, she was morose... but not just, there was a freedom there. A fragmented feeling that she’d let go of something close to her, but also detrimental to her ability to stand on her own feet and be a leader for the people before her in their narcoleptic satiation.
Shiian’s darkness made looking at the sky a lost cause. It was as if the entire sky could not light themselves without his beautiful blue-grey magnificence. There was a fog on the world-just a slightly thicker feel to the air around her-that reminded Uiya of a loved one’s neck, twining around yours in coil that couldn’t be pried apart
Finally off the granite and limestone marbleized ledges. Sudden winds stroked her svelte, airborne form. The condensed plush of clouds tickled her tail as she corkscrewedandahalfloophole around the sparse few she came to. It was thrilling, exhilarating and relaxing. All that and more. It was her Flight.
A particular cloud caught her fancy, it was a perfect smoke-shifting form. First it was some indiscernible haze, but then as the winds separated into their forms it became a twisted old tree, knotted with a personality of benevolence that you had to look past the fungi-encrusted bark to see. She approached it more rapidly, sweeping the air, slicing and dicing it. If she could, she’d puree it until it was a topping to drizzle over that perfect smoke-shifting cloud and eat it in one swift bite.
Some flicks of a twitch and tensing of muscles, she now hurtled herself at a slant towards her entree`. The hazy fog began to dissipate, all that was left in her bulleting in a mad frenzy and realizations of a gnarled embrace reaching out to her. Sudden halts, reversing position to avoid more than minor score on a section along her left lower flank. She was back above the delicious, malignant fogginess, righting herself back on her crow’s path, destination awaiting.
She’d never been more nerouvsandanxiousanduncontrollablyexcited at any time. This was her time. Towards the Northeast, a distant gleam from Sukah’s dominant sun, Huntei, glittered merrily into the wide array of spectral colours. Purple and black and mossy green to deep blue and even a few of the lesser seen colours were present. She touched down, this rock here felt different, it was alive. Countless generations had stood here, watched here, taken their baited breaths while the old magicks washed over them.
She was by no means the first, but quite far from the last of those on their Flight to arrive. Every day, every moon's hiding and revealing, dragons stood here and stayed here. They would know when the time to leave and come home would be. No one ever stayed longer than six days, however, if they were gone seven days, they were dead. And as soon as everyone was on this living piece of the ancients and their times, it began. The magicks they held were flaring into what they would become. Her eyes drooped, it was a cleansing, refreshing feel, very comforting. But they widened as she started to hear sounds.
They started dropping around her. Several of them, none she knew, but it was happening. Suddenly, among these piled cadavers stood less then half of who came. A stolid face; a horrified mind.
Sudden dilations upon waking and her head streamed forwards to spew a cold dinner in a messy, contemporary pattern. No one talked about it. Even the youngest hatchlings knew that if a dragon didn’t come back from the Flight, they were dead. Dead completely, not just in body, in mind. You didn’t speak about them, think about them, the parents never had that child. They had never existed. They were unworthy to be a dragon. No, Uiya could never stop thinking about it, remembering it, forcing herself to try and accept it. Failing.
Huntei was winking at her, she winked back unwittingly, Huntei smiled at her as it did every day upon everything and everyone long before Kitei even began to awaken. They should continue, and hurriedly so that they could gain as much ground in very little time; The elder’s stain on Sukah wouldn’t last forever, and it would be easily missed, they needed to be on their guard all day, because no one knew exactly where it was. Many of the older dragons would gripe about being earthen-bound, but it had to be that way. She knew there would be more conflicts today, just as there had been for every day since they had left the clan’s caldera home. Fond memories came to mind at once, but she didn’t have the time to dwell on thoughts; She had to act like the leader everyone wanted. Until they knew that she was serious about her position as the Chief Mother now, she would have to act enough for them to believe it. Otherwise they’d only walk over her and laugh at her puppet ruling behind her tail. There would be time enough for reminiscence when she laid down for sleep again, which wouldn’t be until Shiian’s darkness overshadowed any light they could guide by.
“Armac! Kahn! Get the formations ready for travel!” she bellowed forth at the bleary, not-quite-adolescent-but-still-childish males. A few glowering looks and scattered grumbling about her decision that no one should fly-just an another average morning, she told herself a little too reassuringly (another part of the average morning)-and the formation was ready to continue on.
The formation was suited to help protect the clan as a whole, it had been questioned several times, but it held true: Females would begin the rail of travelers, but because of the sheer number withheld in the clan it became that they would only be ten figures thick and four wide; Next, a group of males only a sparse three thick by four figures; But in order to protect the youngest of the clan, they would be kept in the middle surrounding by a flanking of males and females equally, stretching six figures down and with a separate flank set aside from the rest of the train, only four dragons on each side, as a first cover for the hatchlings and young ones. The same process would repeat after the youngest until it came to the end, which was inevitably an uneven group of males to provide rear protection from any unwanted challengers. Of course, Uiya was decided to lead, she was expected to.
“Uiya,” it was Kibayi, another elder mother inaugurated too early, “we need to rest.” Kibayi was barely older than she herself, and had been apprenticed to Gamu, the previous elder mother. Kibayi had run farther ahead so she could speak with her, being that Uiya was at least an entire figure away from the front of the formation.
“Kibayi, we cannot rest. We must continue,” she had to be tough on the entire clan, could not give in and be lenient at moments when time was as crucial as this. Not many knew just how crucial it was, only the new generation of elder mothers were brought into the ceremony for watching the performance. For now, all that Uiya would allow herself to focus on would be planting on leg in front of the other, listen to the thick snappings and murmurs from the forest’s activity.
“It is the young ones, they are not used to travelling this much!” Now Jhuine was jumping up on her wings for a cause, it was always about the youngest ones with her. It was in her disposition, however, and Uiya could not reprimand her for such an outburst, but soon enough she found herself mobbed by a crowded bulge like a swelled mother ready for laying a ripe measure of eggs.
“The older males are starting to yell!” that had been Buduae.
“We must stop and rest!” and that was Seehah.
“Uiya! Do you even know what you are doing?” ... Aevith.
“We will stop at the next river we come to.” Her words were quiet and not even recognized for the first few instants they left her apathetic mouth, but then the barraging demands and anger disolved until she was once again a length away from the rest of the clan, wearily dredging their large claw-adorned feet through the trampled underbrush. She hadn’t been able to take all the crashing waves of squalling about resting. It was barely into midday, they should have been farther down the path, looking for the stain on Sukah’s dimensional weave. But now they were on the look out for a place to stop and rest, a place to idle time away. Idle thoughts away and wonder about what toppings would be good on top of a smoke-cloud.
A true Chief Mother, a true leader, should and would not have given in to such childish argumentativeness among the fellow elder mothers, especially when there was a priority at hand known to all of them. Thoughts that ate at her mental constitution; perhaps she didn’t know what she was doing, as Aevith had so pertinently implied with her questioning. This was no time for thinking, she should have been scouting for the next river to come across. Even if it was against her ideals to stop even momentarily, she would have to keep to her word and stop at the very next river they came to.
The river came a bit too soon, and hadn’t been seen my Uiya as it should have been, it had been a younger one, who was reproved shortly after his discovery-he had been outside the central circle of protection as all the youngest hatchlings were deigned to be for the entirety of their, seemingly interminable, trip.
It wasn’t much of a river, more of a trickling stream for them, it was only half a figure wide. The hatchlings were happy to be splashing around, though, and it brought dead smiles to the older faces. Jhuine was doing her best to try and fit with the rest of them, slouching down to make herself look shorter. Uiya would need to talk with her about the vision of respect the elder mothers should bring, but in the meanwhile she drooped the sidelines of her jaw frame down to show her disapproval.
Seehah meandered closer to her standing impatiently, staring into the luridly plush flora off to the east of their route. She was most likely considered a pushover now. Just bother her enough and she’ll cave and let the clan do as they feel is needed. But she didn’t think like that, in all truths of the suns, she knew that the younger ones would need to rest and drink. More impish doubt was resting just below the first layering of scales in the middle of her spine. What a pain it was, and she twisted oddly a few times, trying to dislodge its hold. “We need food,” a pretentious order, easily observed, dismissed and just as easily rebuked-
“No. Finding food will deviate us too much from our route, we need to keep moving.” Seehah was the persistent one among them, no wonders on why she was the one to approach Uiya about the subject. Her jaded stare fixed on the tilted head, so cocksure and filled with barbed retorts, even for her superior in rank. Uiya would have smirked, if she wasn’t so predominantly churning over continuing their movement, they had to move and quickly. In fact, she should have called for them to stop wallowing in the depleted river’s supply of water and muddy bankings a long while ago, some of the young ones were completely filthy. But she didn’t care, it would help them to stay cooler in the combination of Huntei and Kitei’s fulgent light.
“How can you say no? Don’t you know how hungry we are? You’re going to kill us if you refuse us food!” Seehah was very fiery today, it was probably from traveling so far on foot, she was a powerful flier, that was known throughout the clan, but as such she didn’t spend enough time walking on her own two feet. No, she allowed her wings to carry her overhead everywhere, and the consequence for living life as she did could be a lot of ache. Instead, Uiya let the fire of her magicks into her eyes, let them dance into Seehah’s vision and show who was the truly dominant one in the conversation.
“As Chief Mother of our clan,” her voice was garnished with fresh enthusiasm masked like a mint leaf for parsley, “I do not have to bow to your orders or requests; If I do, it is in my honour and you should be thankful for it.” She looked more severely at Seehah, examining her reaction. Yes, I will not bend like a shied sapling in a windstorm. “And furthermore, looking for food will cost time.” Seehah’s head lowered slightly on the longer neck, showing Uiya her subordinate position to herself.
“Chief Mother,” addressing her by the proper title, Uiya wanted to smile, but she would maintain the poise of a leader, “I apologize. But I must insist that we need food, the youngest and the hatchlings will not do well without it,” it was viable reasoning and Uiya accepted that.
“You’re right, how would you feel if I sent out a search patrol to scout for food, on wing, while we continue walking?” A compromise, but it was on the feet of equality. She didn’t want to be known as a tyrannical and peremptory; So, she would allow Seehah and the other elder mothers to talk to her like equals, but they would always know that she had the final decision. It was her clan to run, they would help, but she was supposed to be the one who knew what was best. Even if she didn’t, really.
Visibly irritated, Seehah replied, “That is a good plan, Chief Mother.” Uiya heard it shouting through her snout, no, it wasn’t a good plan. A good plan was for everyone to look for food, that was what Seehah wanted to hear. But it wasn’t really, a good plan, they needed to move but she was right that Uiya couldn’t ignore the need for sustaining their health; The youngest ones would die if they didn’t eat often enough, and she knew that, but she didn’t know how much she cared at the moment. It was a cruel and horrible thing to admit to herself, but it was logical. If the youngest ones slowed them down because of their health, they’d never reach the tearing before the magicks holding it pried open would dissipate and it would seal itself back up again. And if they were stuck in Sukah, they would all die eventually, their people would die out because not enough hatchlings could be born, the elders would die because their bodies didn’t have the vitality of youth to ward of whatever had struck them.
She would send out Kahn, Chiiava and Seehah with some of the clan to go look for food. If Seehah wanted to fly, she could fly; If she wanted food, she could help look for it. Swiveling her frame around like a hooc’s neck, she took in another view of the hatchlings in mud and mildew; adolescents of both genders trying to repress the urge to be as their younger counterparts in an effort to detach themselves from the degrading vision of youth. The adults just idly stood by, watching them in mock irritation or feigned interest.
“Chiiava, Kahn... Seehah.” Metallic with a dry pounding to it, like a dull resonance of a pair colliding in flight, righting themselves only to find that they misdirected and crash again. A few started, a great many were just confounded at the unaccustomed vocal expression of demand; Uiya had been silent most of the trip. Seehah’s shoulders were straightened more than usual, she knew why they were being called, knew why she was perhaps being mentioned with the other strong fliers. Simultaneously, they advanced to their something of a leader and she furrowed an eyelash of concern in return. Switching her pivot, she led them out of earshot. If the rest of the clan realized that they were searching for food-a first on their trip, so far-they could possibly panic and the trip could fall into disarray because they would think that the clan could starve. It was hard to admit, but they wouldn’t be able to find food everyday, and without reserves, they wouldn’t be able to last until they found what they were traveling for. Uiya should have heeded Dantu’s warning when she had told her that reserves would be needed; Not to simply make haste out of their caldera home, but to have foresight as well. Now Iyyi, her replacement, could scold her, tell her that they should have packed food and water reserves, and Uiya would listen when, or if, Iyyi came to her in her ire.
Seehah kept her tongue, but would have loved jumping at the chance to demand a full explanation for the others to understand the situation at hand. Make sure the other two knew exactly why they were being sent on this flight. This leader of theirs was barely older than an adolescent, she had no idea what to do! There were heavy wingbeats surrounding them, a weighted feel to the air that made it into your nostrils, down to your lungs and wedged itself in there, like that air owned the space of your lungs and it knew it.
“I’m sending the three of you out for food-“ she was never given a chance to finish, Seehah’s temperament took over and sent her into mine-filled territorial spaces.
“The three of us? Why just three? You said-” she was close to shouting, Uiya’s eyes shone with an arcane emission; it was enough to silence the three anything the them of them had to protest, and then expand beyond that.
“As I was saying...” a warning note in the lilt of her voice, “You will be in groups. You will each take three adults with you, and go into separate sections to search for food. We are not yet at our fraying edges, but I have been talked to and from such, have ascertained that we are not far away from this rope lifeline coming undone beneath us.” There was a smouldering feel between Seehah’s brows, she knew Uiya was staring at her slightly bowed head, and blatantly meant that she was the one who had brashly alerted her to the food supply. She didn’t know whether to feel flattered or degraded. “Obviously, I have chosen the three of you to be the directors of these groups because you three are all known to be among the best in our clan. Strong wings, strong lungs, and all of you have a vehemency, a loyalty to your passions or ideals that make me respect each of you.” Respect? That was something she didn’t expect from this child-like princess.
“I’m trusting all of you to keep our people safe, bring them back alive, and help the rest of us stay alive at the same time. Can you handle this?” Her intense gaze settled on each bowed forehead in turn, and burned the question behind the sockets of their eyes, making sure they knew how heavy a responsibility was. It may have just been finding food, but without food they would perish if kept on a strict regime such as she had in mind. They couldn’t stop every few days to find more shallow reserves of sustenance, they would need a large amount to store with them easily.
In turn they concurred with her speech, looking up and standing with a little more enthusiasm-something extra in their spines, to stiffen- for their assignment. It was a food run, a scouting job, but it was important to her, she took it seriously, they admired her. Respect and be respected, she thought, is such an effective way to make them accept your assiduous mindset of even the most menial tasks or the labouring jobs nobody wants.
“Kahn, you first; Who do you choose?” his eyes were stiff as his shoulders, he was a very serious individual, always the first to volunteer for anything, he had a chest in his eyes. Something shielding, just there; he always had a hidden chest in his eyes, it didn’t reflect light, it was a dark teak chest, lighter but matte in their appearance.
“Etuch. Pao. Teannih.” Short, crisp remarks. Nothing more or less than what was asked, was answered. Uiya nodded, he could go and round up those he chose; It didn’t need to be said, it was just expected.
“Seehah, you next; Whom do you choose?”
She breathed a little deeper and thought for a moment, she would have chosen Etuch in a second, but he was going with Kahn now, obviously. A few of the moderate fliers would do at least, she could even nab Etuch’s hatchling sister, Hation. Uiya seemed to nod her approval at the choices they had thus far chosen. She wanted to spit in that smug face, it jeered a suspended hallucination, reminding Seehah that this teenage something-of-nothing was now her superior.
“Chiiava?” She turned to the female spectacular flier expectantly. The oldest present, Uiya had wanted to give Chiiava the most time to think. The hazelwood scales were not as luminescent as the others present, but they had the most personality, those scales. Chiiava wasn’t too much older than Armac, so Uiya’s mindset traveling back to last night, watching his tail and examining the hills of plated scales, wasn’t really absurd. Looking up to the tumultuous eyes, she cocked her head slightly and thought on how Chiiava was practically Kahn’s shadow, the absence of what he was; That or he was her shadow, without all the emotional turmoil to show.
It took the older one a while to answer her Chief Mother, and she gave a peculiar reply, “I want to take Tuhalle and Lin and Satsu.”
“Lin and Tuhalle? Satsu I could understand-by a bit of a stretch-but the others?” Uiya’s voice was perplexed and she didn’t even make a motion to hide that. “Lin and Tuhalle are barely off of their own Flight-why would you want to take them for our food? I thought you agreed to take this assignment seriously!” She was close to being exasperated with this entire ordeal. If Seehah hadn’t brought the food to her attention, she could have just forced the group forward, and worried about it when it got to its peak point of aberration.
“I am, Uiya, and that is why I’m asking for Lin and Tuhalle as well as Satsu.” Chiiava’s voice conveyed a trusting warmth to Uiya, the tilt reminded her of what it felt like to romp around with friends, when she had friends. Allowed to have friends and actually spend some time with them; Not always a person of responsibility, one who could let go and fly around until Kitei’s early dusk period. A voice that was always warm, stoked fire, one that could be a roaring bonfire or a comforting blink in the inky forest’s hostility. That voice of hers had absorbed into itself her lifetime: she communicated with it in a way most people couldn’t imagine. You could infer things with any other person’s voice, because you heard what you wanted, and heard what they said, but with Chiiava’s voice you heard it directly, like it sprang up from your mind to tell you what was right. “I can see it in them, they will do us all proud. Please, do not mind it, put your trust in me, Uiya,” her eyes were welcoming, so Uiya was only left with one option.
“All right. But only out of my respect and faith in you,” she could hear the message with blinding clarity, ‘You are not as wise as you are trying to act. I don’t condemn you, but you must learn before you can teach.’
It took them several hours before they came back. Two of each party were loaded down, stocked with enough reserves to last at least half an incubation period to feed the entire clan, so long as it was rationed properly. She called forth a few of the elder males to ration out the food, and went about organizing the rest of the clan together, get them ready to journey on, haste biting their dust in second place.
The young that were before romping around joyously, were now tending quietly to their coatings. Their scales were much more thinly plated than her adult scalings. She saw Jhuine and a few of the other motherly figureheads for them helping them with barely any difference to their sounds than the young voices made. A twinge of jealousy took root next to doubt and they chorused some raucous drinking songs that were so inappropriate, even she Armac wouldn’t want to listen to them! But Uiya couldn’t handle the children like Jhuine and the other females could. Stroking and patting their heads, she couldn’t do that, when would the right time to do it so that they didn’t snarl at her be? It was an ease they took for granted, this ease with other people, with the young ones. A simple talk with Jhuine and Hodanen-it turned out to be her helping Jhuine-and they gave their solemn nods, the hatchlings seemed to just have the innate ability to know what Uiya said to them without hearing it or being told. Their grave looks and uniformity that came as easily as Jhuine’s handling them, was a sure sign.
Striding back to where Chiiava, Seehah and Kahn had unpacked each parties’ food supplies, she spoke calmly that they needed to move out soon and how well were the proportions? The two oldest males sorting out the food practically hugged her in their delight: There would be enough rations for the entire clan to last them at least well into Kitei’s dark cycle. Everyone else was completing their own, self-deigned tasks of collecting peoples, scolding hatchlings and whatever else they could find to evade her reproaches; After all, why should they have to listen to such a novice, not even completed her apprenticeship. Wasn’t that it?
It was time to move. She bellowed again, a mighty blow of signals, ‘Get into your groups!’ she said to them in their ingrained training. And as the last tail twisted to a comfortable angle, they moved closer towards a nearly unperceivable stain on their luscious terrain.
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TELL ME..... *begs* What do you think?