P’rao
adjusted his angle and dropped like a stone until his talons just hovered over
the wispy grasses. He flexed his claws and twisted to see Meech on his right,
just now descending to a skimming altitude. Beyond his friend, the green wall
that marked the edge of safe territory loomed. Glossy leaves waved, snapping
like deadly flags and gleaming in the low sunlight.
Death waited
just inside, and it meant to spread if they let it.
His claws
tightened, snagging a tuft of errant grass and ripping the twisty roots free
from their territory. He liked that sound. It reminded him that the plains were
free and safe to his people. It reminded him that they had a hand in keeping
things that way.
Meech tore
at his own tufts, and they filled their claws with the strands until they could
hold no more. When they angled up, the two milkers left a clean swath of dirt
in their wake, a long strip of fresh border to keep the Master plants out.
P’rao cawed
and lifted into the warmer rays. He fluffed at the shoulder and enjoyed the
warmth alongside his small triumph. They weren’t actual milkers just yet, more
like juniors in training, but their horizon was as bright as the desert behind
them. Eventually, they’d brave the jungles with the rest of their kind.
And what
would Tr’lia think of that?
He clicked
his beak and snapped his long flight feathers, banking sharply toward the
baskets where the grasses were collected. Once they’d been safely uprooted, the
aeries had many uses for the sparse fibers—not the least of which was nest
building.
Meech was
right, damn it. He had mating on the brain. Mating and a bright yellow breast
that might not relish the idea of him sneaking into Master plant territory.
“You missed,
idiot!” Meech squeaked at his shoulder. “You dropped that load back on the
ground.”
“Huh?” Prao
twisted his neck around and spied his mistake. The cart minder already pecked
at his lost strands, stuffing them into the basket and murmuring curses in his
direction. “Ooops.”
“I can’t
imagine what distracted you.” Meech
waited for him to bristle, and when he refused added softly, “or who.”
The stork at
the cart bounced on long legs and clapped at them, but P’rao angled again,
circled wide and then dove in for another pass along the border. He flattened
his quills tight and streaked far enough ahead of Meech that he didn’t have to
hear his friend’s grumbling.
His second
pass ended with both his fists overflowing with grass. He’d stretched his claws
a bit, but this time, the fibers ended up neatly where they belonged, the cart
minder ignored his delivery and Meech kept his beak shut.
The grasses
always invaded first. Invisible roots wriggled out from the jungles, hidden
beneath the hard-packed plain and only bursting into view when their sub
structure was well established. They opened the way for the higher ups, for the
plants that could use their nodes and pathways to organize, to plan a more
significant advance.
A bare
border was a safe one, and P’rao dove again with his resolve set even more
firmly. They kept the plants at bay. They trimmed to borders, and eventually
they’d brave the long flights over the jungle, the dangerous missions into the
heart of Plant territory to retrieve medicines, fruits and seed for
domestication and controlled food production.
Their lives
depended on this much. All their lives and any future he might hope for. He
made two more passes to Meech’s one and then tucked wing and dropped behind the
line of carts for a drink and a moment’s rest.
The grass
carts filled slowly. This stretch of boundary had been weeded only a few weeks
prior. Their team had been assigned for maintenance more than anything, but
still they found spiky grasses wandering into their world.
P’rao drank from the minders’ buckets, leaned
against the back of one cart and watched the Rhino beetle in the traces of
another shift its weight from one leg to the next. It’s gigantic, domed
carapace shimmered like the distant leaves. Emerald green, metallic and harmless
compared to the foliage it resembled. Even with the heavy horn protruding from
the beast’s head.
Meech landed
between them, his dust puffs blocking out any further view of the draft beetle.
P’rao ignored his grimace, the nasty clacking of his friend’s beak. He let his
gaze drift instead out toward the jungle in the distance. The green wall
shimmered in the sunlight, but just then, something about the way the fronds
moved spoke of more than hot air and unreliable vision.
He stood up
and craned to see better, bouncing and arching his wings for takeoff.
“Where are
you…” Meech started a question, but the words died as quickly as P’rao’s
intended flight.
The both
froze and listened to the jungle howl. The cart minders stopped fidgeting. The
flights still in the air banked away from the green swath, from the wall that
trembled and danced now, screaming and hissing at them in the frenzied speech of
many joined plant minds. A wave rolled across the leaves, down the horizon in
one serpentine ripple. The scream rose in volume, and the foliage broke at the
top.
One, giant
green orb lifted from the canopy. It snaked straight up on a fat stalk lined
with wispy hairs. The cranium twisted, turned left and right and then focused
on their position. Even at this distance, P’rao judged just that head to be
four times his size, at the very least. The sight of it set his plumage
spiking. His beak ground together at the same instance the Master plant opened
its huge, sticky maw and howled its fury to the sky.
