Chapter 6:
Vaikrand
I had spent with Athena what she called three weeks, gauging her moods and convincing her on a daily basis not to abandon our partnership. Her pessimism was almost too much to bear sometimes, and her constant suspicion of me had me growing more and more annoyed with her.
Some days she was charming and sexy and fun; it was all I could do not to take her those days: to whip her down into a tent of furs and take her. To grope her breasts and take them into my mouth until they were hard mounds against my tongue.
Other days I wished for death. Her unresolved fury against the Weredragons was nearly relentless and her constant need to show up my physical strength with her weapon was infuriating.
Still, she had agreed to go on a tour of Dobromia with me. This would be a difficult tour for us both, but a necessary one, I kept telling myself.
Difficult for me since I was banished; should another Weredragon see a topsider he had every right to engage him physically. Difficult for Athena because she was also on the run, so to speak. Though, if the D’Karr wanted her, it would be a great bargaining chip for me if I happened upon a soldier.
Today would mark the beginning of our tour, but we had yet to leave the shelter of our tent for the morning. I knew it would be a dead heat with no humidity. Just a dry, cracking blaze. I had no desire to leave the shade of our bed just yet.
We had taken to spending the nights together, which drove me crazy in more ways than one. I never slept when we shared a bed: just waves of drifting in and out. Athena moved a lot.
Plus, her body pressed up against mine was driving me to the brink. I could feel myself hardening against her backside and I wanted nothing more than to thrust into her. Become the wild, outlaw mates. Claim a criminal as my own. An escapee from the D’Karr’s vicious tower.
But then she would open her mouth and complain or berate me and my anger would seethe anew.
This morning she had her head resting on my chest; still breathing slow with the syrupy haze of sleep. I could feel her heavy breasts pressed up against my body and for just a moment, it was all bliss.
Then she sniffed suddenly and, once realizing I was awake, she rolled off of me.
“We have three stops,” I said to her as I sat up.
“Doesn’t sound like much of a tour,” she teased sleepily.
“Oh, it is. And don’t forget.”
“Yeah, yeah,” she waved me off and began throwing her ration containers, all empty at this point, back into her satchel before slinging it around her arm. “Partners for life if I feel even one teeny tiny spec of sympathy for the murderers.” She looked at me pointedly and traced a finger over her lips; smiled. “Sorry, did I say murderers? I meant Weredragons.”
“Ha-Ha. They teach you that humor on the Earth?”
“Nope,” she said loudly. “All Dobromia, that one.”
“Super,” I said and we began packing up the tent. “You know, not all of us are murderers.” She looked at me sharply and I shrugged. “Most, but not all.”
“Didn’t you say you’re a fighter? Isn’t that like, your ‘thing?’?”
“Didn’t you say you were a soldier?” I spat back and she smiled proudly. “So, what’s the difference?”
“I’m sent on missions to protect my people–”
Before she could finish I shook my head and raised an intrusive hand to her mouth. “So am I. Do you really think we kill for no reason?”
“You don’t care about human life,” she said intensely. “That’s what I know.”
“And you can’t fathom why they might be willing to take such dire action? Never occurred to you that perhaps things are that bad that we would sink to such a level?”
“Nope,” she said, her lips popping at the end of the word. “But, I guess I’m about to find out, aren’t I?”
I rolled my eyes. “I guess you are.”
Our first stop was the deadening fields: our empty crops. The most logical venture to start off my little tour of Dobromia.
The T'nemtar were fields where the Weredragons used to find the lushest greens to feast upon. The bodies of water interspersed like a net of liquid flowing alongside diamond-shaped plains. Greens would grow in the plains: plants and sprouts and vegetation. And sea swimmers would gather in the ponds and we could pick them clean and be satisfied for cycles without returning.
From above, the pattern of T'nemtar was unmistakable. It was where feasting began.
It was also where the suns shone brightest and hottest.
I brought my wings in and turned sharply with Athena in my arms until we both skidded to a halt on the ground. She pushed away from me and shielded her eyes from the sun.
“So, if this is where you grow your food…” she looked around in confusion and then back to me with her eyes narrowed.
I knew the reason for her confusion. After all, the fields were still green. They looked perfectly viable for consumption.
“Pick it up,” I said and gestured toward the tall vines with their pink blooms. They would taste gritty and soothe the bellies of the Weredragons; an undeniable treat.
“It’s not going to… come to life and eat me, or anything. Is it?”
I laughed. “Just pick it up.”
She kicked at the ground momentarily before grabbing the vine and pulling it gently. Even with her ginger movements the vine crumbled into dust, raw and brown on the inside.
Athena pursed her lips and looked up at me, her eyes perfectly blue. “Ah,” she said with a nod. “And it’s all like this?”
“Every bit,” I said.
“And there’s no…” she gestured to the waters and leaned far over to get a better look, “protein?”
“The waters are drying up,” I explained and then pointed up.
“Double suns,” she said, giving a mocking salute. “Gotcha. Well, yep,” she set her hands on her hips. “That’s pretty bad. Not exactly feelin’ sorry for you yet but, yeah, that’s a doozey.”
I frowned at her sentiment and pulled her further into the fields. “This is where we would all gather,” I said wistfully. I could still remember us gathering as partial shifters, a vast array of color flooding the field. Here we would graze and hunt: utilize our speed and strength to help gather meat.
When the famine began and all the greenery became dust, we began making quick work of hunting the creatures that lived below sea level. And soon enough, they were gone too.
Dobromia was nearly picked clean of sustenance and there was nothing we could do about it.
Tredorphen and I used to go out on missions together, to hunt for food on neighboring planets. But that was many moons ago. Now I was a bastard, outcast and enemy to the king.
“It gets worse,” I said lowly. My heart sank as Athena looked up at me and I realized where I would have to take her next. The mating caves.
I didn’t tell her the name of it, in case she began to get any ideas. And even though she told me she’d been locked up for the better part of two full turns, her face sparkled with recognition at the entrance of the cave.
Aquamarine eggs hung from the top and bottom of the deep cave, many having lost their glow over the cycles: dead. The eggs were roughly the same size as Athena, and a spark of nerves flew into a flurry in my stomach as she traipsed through the caves.
Athena traced her delicate fingers over the black vines that held the eggs in place and she looked over at me quizzically. “These are the babies, right? Where they’re born… err… grown? Or, whatever you call it. Birthed?”
“Just stop,” I laughed in protest. “This is them, yes.”
“My sister told me about this place,” she said in a tone that was triggered with sadness. “Tredorphen brought her here.”
“Is that right?” I said slowly. “She got to know a lot around these parts?”
She gave a searching expression as she carefully monitored the eggs that latched and roped into the walls. The change in her demeanor said she didn’t want to answer my question, yet she opened her mouth anyway.
“I think so. He was the son of your king and all, so they probably had access to lots of places.”
“King?” I tested the word out on my tongue and then shook my head. “The D’Karr, right. You ever resent her for leaving?”
“No,” she shrugged and gave an expression that was nearly unreadable. “I was the one who told her to go. I could have just as easily left on the ship
“So what am I supposed to be learning?” she asked indignantly, swiping her hand hastily off the vine. “That you have little eggs in here who are going to be devastated by the lack of food when they get out?”
“I guess it goes without saying.” I scratched the back of my head bashfully and she laughed.
She looked down at the eggs with a dismissive shrug and looked back to me with a giant grin across her moist lips. “Not moved,” she said in a proud tone. “To me, this is like looking at caviar. Gross and something I’m not interested in, which I know,” she raised her hands to me to prevent me from speaking, “is a reference you don’t understand. So just trust me, I don’t care.”
I felt a boiling in my stomach as she said the words. This human was impossible. It was becoming clear to me why the guards at The Tower had no luck breaking her or finding the coordinates for the earth.
My eyes spread over the eggs and I placed a hand on one that hung directly above me. The vines looked like they would give out at any second, but I knew they were sturdy. To me, this cave was everything.
Life, love, the future. I craned my neck to look around the cave and take in the sight. I hadn’t been able to come here since my exile topside. It was usually guarded.
“Since the famine, we haven’t been able to protect them like we used to,” I explained when I saw her inspecting some of the cracked, broken eggs, the thick shell parting slightly to reveal a mangled blackness within its holding.
“Why not?” she asked, crouching down to the broken egg and making a pointedly disgusted face at the corpse within.
“We’re not the only ones starving on Dobromia,” I said with ease.
Her blonde hair whipped behind her as she turned to look at me, still crouched down. “They eat them?” she winced.
“We don’t,” I said with a laugh. “But the Drogs do, as do other creatures. Look there,” I pointed. “See that small hole dug into the bottom of the egg there?”
Athena marched her long, tan legs in the direction of my finger and she ran a delicate hand along the hole.
“That’s from one of the Zay’eer’s. They appear like vines that come out of the soil. Usually they crop up and burrow into a land creatures leg.”
“Like a Drog?” she asked with perked brows.
I frowned. “Well, the Drogs are acidic. So that would kill them. They usually burrow into Paeldron’s.”
Athena laughed and waved me off. “Okay, whatever. Go on.”
I smiled at the girl and watched her wander: let my eyes linger on her backside and down her perfect legs with a raging lust. As she turned, my eyes flicked back up to hers and I offered her a guilty grin.
“Go on,” she repeated flirtatiously.
“The Paeldron’s are what we’ve been eating,” I explained of the large, furry beasts with an incredibly snouted nose. They were practically blind. “Usually, they would wander to the lakes and use their snout to attract the sea creatures. The Zay’eer’s would use this time to pounce on their enemy, burrowing into a leg and slowly debilitating them. A Zay’eer, small as it was, could feast on this for a full cycle, or one human year.
“But,” I continued, “The Paeldron’s are dying, just like we are. There’s less around, which means the Zay’eer eels need to get creative. Usually, they wouldn’t bother with something as meager and hard to get into as the eggs.”
“Ah,” Athena said with a nod. She made her way back to me and crossed her arms, looking down at the mass of broken shells on the ground beneath us. “How are eggs hard to get into?” she asked unbelievingly.
I tapped my nose and wandered back out into the blazing heat beyond the entrance of the cave. I grabbed a nearby branch and walked back over to her.
“Watch,” I instructed.
I moved the dead branch toward a glowing egg and began to push the stick hard into it. Before it could pierce the shell, the black vine that gripped around the egg slithered up toward the branch and hissed before spreading itself thin across the full surface of the cocooned child.
Athena’s eyes went wide, and she looked at me in surprise. “What… was that?”
“The vines are here to protect the young. You see, you can place a hand across one, and nothing happens, right?”
She nodded and watched as I splayed my hand across another healthy egg. The vine stayed in place.
“But once they sense pressure or an attack, they spread out over the child. It’s just their design. But look,” I continued, walking over to one of the eggs that had only a weak glow illuminating from within. I wiped my hand over the surface to show Athena nothing would happen and then began banging my hand against the long surface.
“Stop it!” she yelled as I continued to whack the human-sized egg. “You’re going to hurt it!”
I laughed and took my hand away from the creature. My fist left a small, circular fracture in the shell and my heart dropped at the sight of it. “It’s Zay’eer food, anyhow.”
“Why didn’t the vine come up?” she asked, absolutely transfixed now on the egg.
“It’s dead,” I said. “Or dying.”
“You weren’t kidding,” she breathed and then clarified, “About the famine affecting more than just you guys.”
I rubbed my hand over my forehead and wiped the sweat away, looking back over at the girl. The wind blew in hot, and I could see the moisture dripping down the blonde’s face in beads. We were both thirsty.
“Just for the record,” I said bluntly, “You didn’t want me to keep hitting the egg. That means you care.”
“No!” she protested with wide eyes. “You were just…” She swallowed and laughed. “Making noise! You had made your point, and there was no reason to alert any nearby Weredragons… that’s all!”
“Is that so? Well then, I see your hard heart remains a black hole,” I teased and nudged her arm. She looked at me with another proud smirk, and I shook my head. “Onto the next?”
“Onto the next,” she repeated, her voice completely game for whatever I had in store.