It’s a war pa and stepapa are talking about. A war... a fight on our level. Problems that we understand. Things that can be solved with words and
birds and swords, not weird, ancient old codes, half of which are crumbling or trying to erase us.
I look around the throne room and Mother Thriti nods
at me, as does Zon Amardad ... the school... There is so much that this stupid
war is going to interrupt. The wind that
blows through the room is mostly cool... mostly damp, from the mist curtain but
there’s enough furnace hot that it’s like a threat across my face over the
veil.
“Pa.” He and
stepapa look at me. “I should stay here
and keep working on this problem. The
boys... I don’t know if it would be better for them to go off with you to the
negotiations.” To get blooded if things
go terminally dry. “But I could work with the zardukar... their zon... and keep working in the code. The kids just got here because everybody thought we’d be staying with Papa Kyrus.” He smiles at me and I just have to smile back. You can see a smile even through a thick veil, if it reaches people’s eyes.
“We’ll be here, safe. You can take the bees to grow your own lins so you can write us and we’ll be able to write you.”
“Hmm.” Pa has that crease between his brows again that he got right after Ma died. I miss her still, but Pa marrying stepapa made him happier. But now there’s this threatened war. “I’d feel better with you a full month’s travel away from our border. But the Nads...”
“You’ll make them listen to reason, Pa. Or you and Stepapa and all the Asses of Lainz
and every Milar tsingy warrior will make them.”
That made him laugh.
“Of course. Hara... you surely
get your smarts from your mother.” He’s
obviously thinking of ma too. He and
stepapa have their hands next to each other, on the armrests... hands just
touching. I’m relieved that Ky and
Werfas are probably going to be going off on this adventure.
Does this make me a bad person? I don’t think so, but I bet Ky and Wer both
find new bed friends on this trip. Ky thinks I’m the love of his life, though I
know we’re good friends... the three of us work well together... but I don’t
know if I love him or not. Werfas is
still crazy in love with Ky and won’t tell him because of all that Lainz
nonsense he’s got to unlearn. I want to
find out if I do really love him. We’re
not even grownups yet, and after all, they’re boys and right now if it isn’t
warbirds, swords, other pretty girls (and boys, even though Ky doesn’t say
anything, he still looks) its fart, butt and penis jokes.
**
The egg rocked violently and Dag found herself
hovering over it. The first egg in a set
to hatch was usually the biggest and the strongest. It was also the likeliest one to show if this
generation of warbirds was finally going to be tameable.
The shell cracked in half and the wet bird lay with
its rear still in one half. Bulbous eyes
and scraggly feathers plastered to its body, its ribs and wing stublets pumped
like a bellows as it breathed.
It opened its eyes, that were bright, bloody red
with a black bar across them, second and third eyelids blinking them clear. It staggered
to its feet and hissed at her, which was a good sign because it didn’t instantly
attack her. It wobbled sideways and
cheeped. A ridiculously tiny sound. She
dangled a worm over its head and it reached up and snatched, crunching and
gulping the wiggling thing down its throat as fast as it could swallow.
Dag held her breath as it clicked the razor beak
once, twice -- gulped a half dozen more times to make sure the worm was
thoroughly swallowed. It shook itself
again, already drying off in the heat, turning from a slimy, leggy thing with
hook and talons to a ball of yellow and orange fluff. Those disconcerting eyes
turned to her and the bar across them narrowed then widened. Feral? Or tameable?
It cheeped again and then did something that no
chick had ever done before. It bobbed
over toward her hand, but slowly and then bunted her fingers with its head. “What? You approve of me?”
The chick crouched on the table, flung its head
back, mouth open, winglets shaking and began the most awful screeching. “I understand. I’m sorry.” She was laughing as she began
feeding the long strands of its first full meal down its gullet just to shut it
up. It
head bunted me. Oh, this looks
promising. Even if I don’t like
birds. This looks very good.
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