No_Creative_Name
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Chapter 230
🕑 Added 2024-10-05 05:21:27 +0000 UTCThis new place, the Sheer Pass, was foreign but strangely nostalgic to the keelish of the swarm, myself included. It was strange, as these mountains were different from those I had fallen in love with when I’d seen them for the first time just a month ago. These mountains, somehow, felt like home, like we belonged. My home was, in both lives, the jungles dominated by burlraizes, a wet, mostly flat land with dense foliage and denser fauna, a land filled with the calls of birds, screeches of monkeys, croaking of frogs, and rushing of water.
The Sheer Pass was none of that. The Sheer Pass was a barren stretch of land between two mountain ranges, dry and warm, with only low, sparse scrub populating that empty space. No frog calls filled the air, no trees patterned the horizon, and the air smelled like dirt and wind, somehow. In contrast, the mountains were different from those I’d seen before. Those had been covered by the greenery that surrounded them, and the moisture that surrounded them also ran freely down their slopes in creeks and waterfalls. Dense cloud cover hovered and covered the peaks of those mountains, yet these ones were rocky, arid, and unwelcoming. Red stone and brown scrub populated the craggy face of the mountain, where the occasional creature could be seen. The Sheer Pass did not invite, welcome, or desire hospitality.
And that prickly, unhappy nature that enveloped the Sheer Pass smelled like home in a way that I’d never felt from any home before. I longed to rush up those slopes, to screech challenges from the peaks and let them echo in the valley that we were going to pass through. These mountains, more than the dens we had left behind, were home to every one of us.
The spawnlings and Trai were the most immediately and vocally happy to be here, while the Wave Wolfstags complained. Arwa and her children, now grown nearly to Arwa’s five and a half foot stature, didn’t mind, trailing their antlers through the air with sparks flashing to life with every movement. Somehow, Trai and her pack took the crackling of lightning to be permission to run free. Somehow, Trai’s pack comprised of just over fifty individual hatchlings, and the youngest among them were survivors of a vicious culling that had taken place just days before our arrival. With so many considering her their Alpha, Trai had obviously evolved to a Brood Alpha of sorts, and she’d grow commensurately, towering over the keelish as a khatif.
With excited screeches and a renewed lease on life, under Trai’s flighty, excitable nature, these youngest members of my swarm couldn’t restrain themselves from running out and up the rocky slopes that irresistibly called them. I didn’t have the heart to deny them the pleasure, and simply whistled and signed for Foire and Silf to keep an eye on them. Of course, I hadn’t needed to command Foire to do anything, as he gave his daughter a respectable berth of about 100 feet before following. Interrupting my laughing observation of Foire, Sybil stepped next to me.
“This… is strangely familiar to me. Do you know why?” Sybil’s voice was hesitant, but somewhat trusting. My initial reaction was to ask why she would think I would know that, but immediately thereafter I realized that most of the time, I did have answers to questions that I, by all rights, shouldn’t have known the answers to. I put the question to the [System], why would that be?
[The Keel Empire of old formed around their original home in the Shandise Mountains. The environment and climate of the Shandise is very similar to that of this location.]
So there was some sort of a predisposition towards it. Fair enough.
“The little guide that I have is saying that our ancestors lived in mountains like this. Sorry Syb, don’t know anything else.”
“... I would prefer that you call me by my name.”
“Ahh, but wouldn’t a nickname be nice?” I couldn’t hide the teasing smile.
“Ashlani, call me by my name, title, or to your bed. Any other calls are unnecessary.” Sybil’s smirk answered me in turn.
“You keep making these dirty jokes. You getting a bit pent up?”
“Maybe a little. But don’t think I didn’t see your reaction to Farahlia.” Sybil’s smile dampened somewhat. “I don’t mind if you decide to take another to sire your brood. In the interest of keeping yourself sane, I would suggest any other female than her. Took or Shemira would be great options, I’m sure your hatchlings would be formidable. Perhaps Ytte as well.”
I stepped in front of Sybil, impetuous and somehow overbearingly prideful. I forced eye contact as I spoke, “Listen. You, Sybil, are my mate. I see no reason to extend my reach, especially seeing as we will not be able to incubate any eggs that result from rutting. Additionally, if I were to begin a harem, that would introduce any number of new issues in the swarm, such as to give Farahlia a greater excuse to keep trying her luck with me, maybe get some other ambitious newcomer to begin trying that avenue of attack… No, it isn’t going to happen.” I found myself arguing vehemently about something I’d never thought consciously about, and realized, the more I talked, the more deeply I felt about the subject.
“Well, then, maybe later, when we have settled? Would not a larger amount of your spawn be better for the swarm in the long run? Then you can mate with whoever you desire.” Sybil almost seemed desperate to push me into non-monogamy, but didn’t meet my eye.
“Sybil… I want to stay with you. You support me, you’re my friend, you’re my most trustworthy lieutenant, the future mother of my children, and I plan on exclusively being with you. There are a variety of logistical and logical reasons for me to do that, but at the core of it all is this: I want to be your support as much as you have been mine, and I want to be with you.”
“... Ah… Okay then…” Sybil didn’t seem to know what to do about what I’d said, and, frankly speaking, neither was I. It had come out of nowhere for me, but it felt right, and as if I had been pondering the thought for a long while.
“Well. I guess let’s get moving forward. Ok?”
Sybil nodded, then began walking off, for once not immediately leaping into some form of delegation or action, but instead taking steps and actually looking back at me. Genuinely, not calculating or teasing or “teasing” as she did, but just looking at me. I didn’t know how I felt about that, so I issued the command to begin moving out, seeking to spend some of my nervous energy by begin moving in earnest.
An hour of walking later, I was feeling no better. I sighed, and decided to try something new.
“Joral, lend me the hounds for a hunt. I’d like to see what’s available for us to get in this new environment.”
“Yes, Alpha.” His use of the title was as worshipful as always, his fanaticism growing the more “miracles” I produced. But was his respect towards me undeserved? No. I flared my frills and stood tall as, with a whistle, I rounded up the wolfstags and began a searching, ranging hunt for new, exotic prey.
