Page 16 of Ruby
I stand once more to offer my welcome.
“Greetings. I am Ree. Your name?” she offers first, clearly concerned at the difficulty I’m having.
What a curious creature to be concerned for what must look to her to be a wounded monster lurking in an unfamiliar forest.
“I am Szhe’kadedade,” I sing, but the small female only looks at me with what I can tell is confusion.
“My regrets. Do not understand.”
I can tell that I am the first of my kind that she is meeting, so must give her grace.
I repeat myself and she pays careful attention, clearly hoping to understand this time. She still doesn’t. Her regrets are communicated in her song as she tries to repeat what I say and fails. She asks if she can call me a name completely different and I fight the feeling of disrespect.
It is not her fault.
“If short you like, then Szhe’ka,’” I sing, giving her the name that only my brothers call me and hope that it is more manageable.
“My regrets,” she sings back, defeated.
“No need for regret.”
I join my fingers into a circle as I sing, letting her know that there is only forgiveness between us.
Ree and her companion, Thivoll, she tells me, comically attempt to do the same but I appreciate the effort taken. It is the first kindness afforded to me by another living being since I was ripped from the skies above and I am thankful.
After the introductions have been made, I settle back on the ground and pull my legs close to me, wrapping my hands around them so that they don’t have to be flat against the ground. All the walking has rubbed them raw and I am grateful for a chance to not have to use them, even if only for a little while.
“What taken, brother? Can we find?”
Ree sounds hopeful when she asks me, determination in her song.
Her question pains me because there is no way to fix the damage done to me or find the ones who did it. Again, I’m struck by her concern for a strange creature such as I must be to her and I wonder if I would be similarly magnanimous if I were in her shoes. I think not.
Instead of wasting effort trying to explain, I resolve to match her openness and obvious care with total transparency.
The pain shoots through me and I close my eyes, crying out when I spread my wings out for her to see.
I don’t stop my song, letting it express all of the things I cannot say. The orange beast growls and it gives way to a howling song, following the pathway of mine.
He too has known pain.
Ree joins and we sing together, our voices so different but belting out the same heartbreaking pain of once being something whole and now missing parts.
They run out of breath, so I finish the song for us, knowing that our emotions are tied together now and the song will always be ours to share.
“I thank you for shared song. You seek allies but I am broken. I will sing death soon.”
I admit it to myself as much as Ree and Thivoll.
There are not many ways I can survive being grounded. I cannot hunt, I cannot provide for myself and I cannot have a mate because no female will want a broken mate who cannot do the very thing we were born to do.
“You not fight? You let them win?” Ree’s song is firm like a warrior feeding hope, but I have none left.
I cannot help the sound of disbelief that leaves my mouth.
“I not give them pleasure of kill. But no joy left. No shelter for fledglings. None will be mine. All die if grounded. May be best you kill.”
At least it will be a merciful death if the beast tears me apart quickly before my own pain can. I will only ask that they bury me somewhere by the mountains if they can find one so I can be close to the ones like me.
