Tales from the Fair Chapter 6

The Duke of Sorka

For uncounted generations, our kind lived and died, each generation very much like the one before it. We hatched, ate, grew, mated, laid eggs, and if the larger carnivores didn't get us, we finally went between forever. We all added our mind-pictures to the group's memory while we lived, so that even when our physical lives ended, our memory would never fail. Some of us had small adventures, but for the most part, life never changed.

Then the humans came, and they changed everything.

At first, they were a nuisance. Some of them tried to capture us and keep us in boxes. They always failed at this, of course. That was our first clue that they were very different from us. Not only could they not go between like we do; they seemed to be unaware that we could do it. Why else would they think that a simple cage or box could hold us? Of course, we never let them get that far; we went between as soon as we knew they were trying to catch us. We learned to be wary when the humans were around, just as we were wary of the large feathered flyers.

But there was a difference. The flyers had but one goal – to eat us. The humans had no such goal. We sensed no antagonism toward us from them, only curiosity. When they were hungry, they ate their own food, which was never our kind, and which sometimes – ironically – was the feathered flyers. The humans were not a threat to us in that way, and we did not know any other way to measure their interest in us. We did not understand what they wanted with us, or why they would want to capture us.

Sometimes, one of the more adventurous young ones suggested that we allow them to capture one or two of us, just to see what would happen. "If they try anything bad," they went on, "then we can just go between and escape them. They have no power to harm us."

"No," said the older, wiser ones. "What if they try something suddenly, the way the feathered flyers suddenly attack us from out of the sun? You might not have enough time to go between. Do not take this risk. You only want to appease your own curiosity, and your life is worth much more than that." None could argue with the logic in this. So we kept our distance from the humans.

This was easy at first, because all the humans lived in just one place. They called it "Landing," probably because their fiery-tailed flying machines landed there first. But they soon began to spread out. Within a few cycles of the sun, they were everywhere! Most of the adult ones were busy doing what humans do, so they posed us no threat. The young ones would still try to catch us from time to time, even though none of them had ever succeeded. For our kind, life went on, still very much as it had always done.

Then came the day when I hatched. I am no different from any other of my kind, and I never wanted to perform world-shaking deeds, but when I emerged from my egg, it was a turning point for two species.

I am told that it was a hatching just like any other hatching. My mother knew it was time, and she prepared her nest for us. Others of our kind brought water plants and arranged them to keep us from escaping. This was to ensure that we would eat our first meal in a safe place, under the protection of the adults. The six-legged predators who dig in the sand love to eat our kind, and we are especially vulnerable when we are newly-hatched and distracted by hunger.

Sure enough, as soon as my nestmates began to emerge, the six-legged predators appeared. How did they know we were hatching? Did they follow the song that the adults sing to us? No one knows. But the adults know how to protect a nest full of eggs and hatchlings, and they did so. A predator that did not run or hide would quickly become prey for the scavengers.

I emerged from my shell, feeling nothing except the overwhelming hunger that all hatchlings feel. I looked around for food. It was the adults' job to provide me with my first meal; all of our kind know this. I saw some adults flying toward me, but they brought me no food. Instead, they attacked something large, something that had gotten very close to me…

The mind pictures were clear and unmistakable. Predator! My wings were much too weak for me to escape by flying, and I was too hungry to focus my mind on going between. I scrambled away from the predator, right over the encircling ring of water plants, toward a large green bush. There might not be food in the bush, but there was safety, because the predator was not there and it could not see me if I was hidden there.

It occurred to me later that I might have stumbled straight into the maw of another predator who was hiding in the bush. I had no idea what, if anything, might be lurking there. My only thought was to escape from the predator I could see. Even food wasn't as important as escape now. As it turned out, there were several large creatures hiding in the bush. But they were not predators.

As I stumbled toward safety, something suddenly flew through the air and landed right in front of my nose. I started back, frightened for a moment, but my nose told me there was nothing to fear. Very much to the contrary – it was food! I devoured it, then looked for its source. Perhaps one of the adults had dropped it for me? After all, that was what adults did at a hatching. But a quick glance upward showed nothing but clouds. There were no adults anywhere near me. Where had the food come from? I needed to know, because I desperately needed more of that food. The only place it could have come from was the bush.

As I took a few more steps, another mouthful of food landed in front of me. I dispatched that morsel as quickly as I'd eaten the first one. "This is good! I need more!" I shouted, hoping that the unseen adults in the bush could hear me. The only ones who noticed were two brand-new browns who were as hungry as I was, and who were having no luck catching food from the adults before another hatchling snatched it away. They followed me.

Now I had to move fast. Whoever was feeding us from the bush, they might not have enough food for all three of us. I found this food source first, so it rightfully belonged to me! I headed straight for the bush, but had to keep turning aside as more bits of food flew toward me and landed on either side of me. Some of them flew far beyond me; the browns devoured those and kept coming.

I took a moment to consider what our kind's mind-pictures showed me about a situation like this. There was nothing. Whatever was happening here, it was without precedent. The others of my kind would probably be curious about my own mind-pictures of these curious events. But that could wait until my belly was full. The food was definitely coming out of the bush, and so… to the bush I would go!

And then the bush shook, and something big came out of it. It was a human! And it had food!

For a moment, I was torn. The mind-pictures were emphatic – humans must be avoided. They wanted to trap us. The wise ones among us offered no other way of dealing with these creatures. But the wise ones among us could not possibly be as hungry as I was. The human extended its long pink forearm with its five oddly-shaped digits, offering me another bite of food. I hesitantly took it, ready to scramble away at the first sign of danger. But there was no such sign. The human's hand smelled strongly of food; nothing else mattered. I climbed into that hand. I asked, "Please, human, I want some more." The human complied, again and again until I had eaten myself senseless.

I dimly noticed that the two browns had converged on another human who came out of the bush. That human also fed them as much as they could eat. They made no attempt to trap us. And yet, somehow, we were entrapped all the same. Feelings of gratitude and goodwill filled me to overflowing. I became aware of similar feelings from my human, and… wait. My human?

When had a fire lizard ever laid claim to a human? It was the humans who wanted to capture us, not the other way around! And yet I felt a sense of complete ownership of this human. The two browns had likewise claimed the other human as theirs. And yet, at the same time, we felt bonded to those humans, in a way that was completely unknown to our kind. What had happened here?

Was there something strange in the food they had given us? No, the flavor and texture were exactly what they should have been. Was this some special ability that we had never detected in the humans until now? It seemed unlikely that they would have never used that power before, given how badly some of them wanted to capture us. No, this was something totally new, something that had surprised all of us. It was also very pleasant. Our humans rubbed our backs and thought kindly, curious thoughts about us. That was when I realized the true depth of what had just happened.

I could see my human's mind-pictures!

Somehow, they had become one of us. Or was it we who had become one of them? Perhaps it was a little of both. But it was new, and it was wonderful. After our first big meal, we needed to find a safe place to sleep… and we knew we were perfectly safe in the arms of our humans. We slept deeply and easily. When I finally awoke, I was in a human place.

The next few days were remarkable ones. I saw none of our kind; if my instincts did not guide me, I might not have lived to adulthood. I later learned that the two browns lived with their human and his family unit. They attacked several of the six-legged predators at night and drove them away, and the humans thought very good thoughts about them for doing this. I lived with my own human and was frequently visited by other humans who were filled with curiosity about me. They fed me well, and when my back itched, they rubbed something on it that made me feel much better. My human made up a word, "Duke" or "Dook," which she said only to me or about me. It made me feel special

One day, the curious ones took me aside. I could tell that my Sorka (that is what she calls herself) was nearby, so I felt no threat or fear. But then they took me to a very large human-made thing that hummed. As I got closer, I could feel as well as hear its humming, and it began to hurt my ears. When I realized that they meant to put me right next to the thing, I had had enough.

I had never gone between before. It is an instinct that our kind possesses, but the adults always guide the young in their first few jumps. I had no such guidance. I just knew that this human-made thing was making me very uncomfortable, and my Sorka, my safe place, was nearby. So I went to her.

She was surprised to see me, but not unhappy. That told me that she had played no role in helping the curious ones and their humming machine. I, on the other hand, was very unhappy about that machine. I landed on her shoulder, wrapped my tail around her neck, and caught my claws in her hair. I then proceeded to tell her exactly what I thought of that machine. If the curious ones meant to take me away from her again, they would find it more difficult than the last time! My Sorka stroked me and reassured me that no one wanted to harm me. Could they not hear and feel that irritating hum from their own machine? I am quite capable of deciding when I'm being threatened, thank you very much. Even when Sorka tried to put me next to the machine herself, I refused to leave her shoulder. The curious ones eventually gave up.

After a while, more of my kind began appearing on the shoulders of other humans. They had been enticed with food when they hatched, just as I had been, and they were just as content with their new situation as I was. Even the curious ones acquired winged friends of their own. We began to knit ourselves into human society. We protected them against the six-legged predators, and they fed us and cared for us. When they welcomed their own young into the world, they did not gather and sing to them, the way our kind did, so we gathered and sang instead. They seemed to appreciate this, or at least, they found it intriguing.

My human acquired a riding-beast one day. It was larger than the humans, but considerably less intelligent. I tried to share mind-pictures with it and failed. But it made my human happy to ride on this creature's back, and if she was happy, then I would be happy. She often rode alongside the other human. I began to suspect that they might soon mate, if they had not already done so. That human had no real impact on me. The riding-beast, on the other hand, took up a great deal of my Sorka's time and energy. The curious humans wondered if I might become jealous. Jealous? The very word was unfamiliar to me; I was unable to understand the idea until I saw mind-pictures from my Sorka's mate.

Another human male had expressed an interest in Sorka. Among our kind, this would mean nothing; all that matters is who catches whom in the air. But human courtship is much more elaborate than ours, and it proceeds according to a set of rules that none of our kind understands. Still, it was very clear that my human's mate wanted no other males pursuing my Sorka. The two of them did not fight, but they exchanged words that were virtually aflame with anger. The mind-pictures were perfectly clear that time. I met with some others of my kind to discuss them and we agreed that this must be jealousy, an unwillingness to share a loved one with others.

Should I feel jealous of my Sorka?

No, of course not. The riding-beast posed no threat to me. It took up Sorka's time and attention, but she did not love me any less. Jealousy seems to come naturally to the humans, but among our kind, the idea is completely unknown. (Well, I admit I was jealous of my food source in the bush when I hatched, but food is everything for a hatchling. I would not have felt that way if I had known that they had plenty of food for all of us.) This "jealousy" is a strange idea, and as much as I enjoy human society, this is one aspect of their society that I will not adopt as my own. The thought had never even occurred to me.

Then came that awful day when the sky changed color, and we all knew that the silver threads were going to fall from the sky again. The humans seemed unaware of the danger. We warned them as best we could; when they left their homes, we tried to chase them back inside; and when our own humans were caught in the forest, we urged their riding-beasts to take cover. My Sorka and her mate took no harm because they listened to us. I am sorry to say that some humans disregarded their fire lizards' warnings. Those families suffered. But they all learned. After that, whenever we warned them about the threads, they listened.

This brings me to the remarkable events of today. The humans have been doing something with their machines and a clutch of eggs; I cannot pretend to know what or how. But the eggs were much larger than normal – I think an entire clutch of normal eggs could fit inside one of these special eggs, with room to spare. The humans were extremely interested in these eggs. A group of them, including my human and her mate, spent all their spare time sitting next to the eggs and thinking about them. Today, they hatched amid great excitement, and one of the golden ones has chosen my Sorka as her life's partner. They do not share mind-pictures, as my human and I do; they converse mind-to-mind in a special way that I cannot duplicate. They spend all their time together now.

Again, some wonder if I will be jealous. Again, my answer is, "Why?" My greatest joy in this life is knowing that my human is happy. Now she is happier than any other human here, except for the others who befriended the large hatchlings. Should I be upset that the one I love is happy? This new creature, this "Faranth" takes up my Sorka's time and attention, even more than the riding-beast, but she does not diminish Sorka's love for me. I am not threatened by her.

I have realized that it will soon be time for my human to lay her egg. I will certainly be among the many of our kind who will gather outside her home and sing our song of welcome to the new life. New humans are not like the hatchlings of our kind; they need constant oversight, and they can do nothing for themselves. My human will be very busy caring for it, just as she is busy with Faranth and, to a lesser extent, with her riding-beast. I think that the curious humans still expect me to be jealous somehow.

I wish I could tell them that their fears are groundless. I was not jealous of the riding-beast and I am not jealous of Faranth. The baby human will take up Sorka's time and attention to an even greater degree, but it poses no threat to me or to my relationship with my human.

My human is happy, so I am happy. Nothing else matters.

o

A/N
Thank you to guest reviewer "Jedi Senshi" for pointing out that I originally got the story backwards - that Sorka impressed Faranth first, and then had her baby, not the other way around. I have fixed the story to get it right.