Page 4 of Flower of Seshana (Tales from the Darvel Exploratory Systems #1)
Chapter
Four
T he sharp rise in their flight along the slopes and cliffs of the Zir Mountains—and the focused stare of the other male who had ceased circling to fly at a fast clip at their side—was enough to make Alexandra cling to Kethan anxiously. The dark rock was as stark as the red desert sands that covered much of the planet and heavily shrouded in mist. It was disorienting and frightening as the peaks and stone spires broke the fog at unexpected moments, all of which the male holding her deftly avoided with a whip of his tail and the dexterous movement of his massive wings.
Worse, they were cutting through the mountains at a dizzying speed, neither male relenting in their pace, creating a hair-raising flight that made her stomach pitch and knuckles grow white with her grip on Kethan. She wanted desperately to squeeze her eyes shut but was at the same time terrified to do so—that somehow not seeing her path to potential demise was worse than watching the mountains unfold around her in a nightmarish display.
Kethan shrieked as the green male cut too close in a dive, his long body angling sideways to disappear in a sleek glide through a crevice cut into the stone looming in the heavy fog in front of them. Alexandra’s eyes widened. They had to be joking. But no, Kethan was heading straight for it. Her eyes slammed shut, her muscles tightening as his wings gave several furious flaps to shoot them through the air before snapping wide. The air whipped against her face painfully, but then her world was tilting as he twisted in the air and the brush of the wind was cut off completely as they passed through the cavern.
Every muscle in her body tightened with terror. Even her eyelids smarted with how tightly she clenched them as she buried her face against his chest. It was quite possible that they would never open again, even when she suddenly felt Ketha’s flight level out and the warmth of sun replaced the cool dampness of the fog. And still she was unable to open her eyes.
The male holding her let out a hissing, chuffing sound of amusement, and she felt the warmth of his jaw brush the top of her head.
“Look, Alexandra. This is what you came to see,” he rumbled.
She frowned against his chest in confusion and very slowly opened one eye to take a cautious glance around her. A gasp of awe escaped her, and both eyes snapped open wide in wonder. The hard world of stone and sand had melted away into a lush jungle hidden within the mountains. Wisps of fog still clung to some places, but the dense trees and plant life clinging to every scrap of soil among the stones grew in a diverse range of shades and hues. It was lush life that she never would have imagined grew on M285.
“What is this? Is this even possible?” she whispered.
Kethan chuffed, the sound rumbling deeply in his chest. “This is what we call the glory of Seshana. When our world began to die, life could only be found within the shelter of the caverns and in the highest mountains.”
“And so you separated,” she murmured.
He hummed in agreement, but the sound shattered in a vicious hiss as the green male suddenly dropped from above them where he had apparently been waiting unseen within the trees. A bark of amusement escaped him as Kethan neatly evaded him, his wings folding as he dropped low through the trees. Greenery rushed by them, faster than Alexandra could follow with her eyes. She pushed her glasses back up her nose and held them in place with two fingers as she stared in mute shock at the blur of plant life speeding by her, dotted by bright splashes of floral color. She felt like she was on a highspeed bolt train crossing continents on United Earth, until Kethan’s wings snapped open, jerking them abruptly into the air with such a sharp jolt that Alexandra was forced to cling to her glasses for dear life. The last thing she needed was to lose something so difficult to replace on a far-flung planet in the middle of a system outside the normal trade routes.
She smashed them to her face and screamed as Kethan rolled effortlessly in the air, pitching them into one of the dark pits that dotted the side of a bare cliff face looming ahead of them. She swallowed her cry as darkness engulfed them, the steady, fascinating beat of Kethan’s hearts against her ear pressed against his chest offering a strange sense of relief. She was aware of the downward pull as his coils dropped and the rapid snap of his wings drawing his forward propulsion up short. His tail lashed against the stone floor of the cavern, and he rolled forward on it as it gathered and whipped through the dark just ahead in a winding pattern visible in the light of her lamp as he slowly brought himself to a halt.
Alexandra clung to him as he remained completely still, as if he somehow sensed her sudden fragility and was giving her a moment to freak out before she collected herself. He was steady reassurance against her, his pulse the only sound in the cave for a long moment until she became aware of the snapping sound of the other male’s wings as he barreled toward them. Alexandra clung to Kethan, barely daring to breathe as the green male rolled on his long, winding tail before skidding to a halt with a toothy grin that was no less unsettling than Kethan’s smiles. Purple eyes glittered with interest as the other male observed her. His mouth parted and he drew a slow breath, his tongue rising against his upper palate, but he immediately snapped his mouth closed with a look of amused chagrin when Kethan growled at him.
“On edge, brother?” the other male queried, a lilting sound of amusement clear in his voice, indicative of casual teasing between them.
“Quillen.” Kethan greeted him with an unamused grunt.
“Brother? You two are brothers?” she interrupted as she traded glances between them. “You look nothing alike.”
Her hand closed over her mouth in embarrassment the moment the words left her lips. For all she knew there were patterns of breeding and inheritance with which she was not familiar. She knew hereditary traits were a complicated subject. Even in plants—which truthfully occupied her entire existence.
Kethan snorted in amusement but tossed the other male a sour glower. “Brother by chance and fate. My mother took him into her nest when we were young. His mother refused to tolerate living among the Vahel for a moment longer and left us, leaving Quillen behind. We were thus raised as brothers.”
“And have nested peacefully ever since—until now,” he amended with a trill of interest as his amethyst eyes narrowed on her speculatively. “Kethan never showed anyone such interest before.”
“Oh,” she murmured and gave a nervous shrug, the motion followed by both males watching her intensely. She could feel an embarrassed flush working its way into her face under their scrutiny. “It’s not so strange. He accidentally fell on me in the desert cavern. Unusual circumstances have thrown us together. That’s all.”
“That is all,” Quillen echoed in surprise as he rolled each word over his tongue in his uniquely alien way with their hissing language.
“That is all,” Kethan agreed with a fierce clicking growl directed at his “brother.” “Cease being a menace and leave the nest.”
Quillen’s crests rose slightly as he gave Kethan a sidelong glance that she found oddly humorous by his obvious obstinance. “This is my nest too. Where do you expect me to go?”
Alexandra drew up short and blinked in surprise as she turned and peered into the darkness extended behind her. They live here?
“Mother would never turn either of us away from her nest,” Kethan pointed out a little too scathingly, earning a belligerent look of disgust from the other male.
“I am not being chased out of my own nest,” Quillen replied with a not too friendly hiss of his own. “If you dislike my presence, then you can leave.”
Kethan immediately puffed up with what she gathered was likely insult or some form of dominance—she wasn’t sure which.
“Alexandra requires shelter,” he snapped, his sharp teeth clicking noticeably with his vehemence.
Quillen growled in reaction. “Then—” he began, but Alexandra interrupted him with a shy laugh even as she wondered if she was crazy for getting involved at all in their argument.
“Actually, there is no reason for anyone to leave. I have plenty of practice being a non-intrusive guest. Ideally you will barely notice that I’m here.”
Quillen stared at her for a moment and glanced in askance at Kethan with an uncertain flutter of his crests. “Does she truly believe that we will not notice?”
Kethan didn’t answer in any kind of immediately obvious fashion, but she saw his ears move subtly to which Quillen responded with a soft hum as his gaze turned back to her once more.
“Seriously,” she assured them with her sweetest smile. “When studying at the Interplanetary University of Biodiversity and Cultured Lifeforms, I was crammed into a two-room dorm with five other females. We learned to tolerate being very close with each other.”
Quillen trilled again, his eyes brightening. She didn’t know what was up with him, but his focused gaze made blushes rush over her in response.
“The more the merrier,” she added as she forced a shaky smile to her lips. “I won’t take no for an answer. I refuse to be an inconvenience. If it is truly a problem, maybe I can go stay with your moth?—”
“No!” both males objected in tandem, drawing her up short in surprise.
“It is as you say,” Kethan murmured with a sweet trill of his own as he drew in close and gently nudged her with the lean bulk of his body, “the more the merrier. There is no reason to make things complicated when there is ample room.”
“Precisely,” Quillen rumbled softly. “Shall we show you to your room then? As it happens, we hollowed out a spare room for some reason, but you may find it comfortable. At the very least rest for a bit as you become accustomed to our nest.”
The tension eased from her as she met the green male’s hopeful gaze and smiled. He really was sweet in his own alien way with his eagerness to see to her needs. “A short rest would be welcome,” she agreed. “Thank you.”
Kethan shot the male a sour look but quickly snapped his crests in what appeared to be a silent agreement when his eyes fell upon her in the next moment.
“Come. Let us get you settled.”
The two large males glided ahead of her in creamsicle and peridot, making something within her tighten with an unexpected intrigue. They really were a captivating pair, so much so that she paid little attention to her surroundings as she followed them down to her room until they left her to her rest and so giving her plenty of opportunity to finally note the sparse accommodations, the most outstanding feature of which was a sort of pit-like bed in the center of the floor filled with furs.
She licked her bottom lip uncertainly as she looked at it and adjusted her glasses. “Well, I did insist.”