Petrichor

I Love You

Leypa felt his mate's swollen belly press into his back as they rode together on his skimwing. His mother and father were on his right, Tonowari and Ronal in front of them on their own tsuraks. Ätopä had began showing prominently almost overnight about two weeks ago. It was strange to see it, but it always filled him with love. She was carrying his child, their child. 

The tulkun had led them outside the reef, in the rain. They had wanted to show the Olo'eyktan and the Tsahik something. And as they got closer, birds cawing around something in the water, it became clear. 

A dead tulkun. A dead calf. Not natural deaths. He could see the bright orange of human made material. 

Ronal slid from her skimwing into the water, reaching out to touch the tulkun. She brought herself up onto the creature's fin, distress clear over her features as she looked back at the calf. 

Leypa glanced at his parents. Jake's face was full of sorrow, but Ilhia's was hard, closed off. Her eyes were narrowed as she took in the Sky People devices. 

Ätopä's grip on him tightened as she took a shaky breath. He placed one hand over her joined ones.

"Her name is Ro'a," Tonowari said softly, looking over to Jake and Ilhia. 

"She was my Spirit Sister," Ronal breathed. "She was a composer of songs! Much revered. We would sing together." Her voice began to break, unable to keep the emotion from it. "She waited many breeding cycles to have this calf. The clan was so happy for her." She fumbled along Ro'a's face, feeling only death. 

Jake and Leypa exchanged a look. They were getting closer. They wanted them to attack. They wanted them to expose themselves. 

"What is this, Tonowari?" Ronal cried. "What is this?!"

Tonowari moved closer to his mate, as Jake and Ilhia moved away, giving them some space. Leypa went around the tulkun, his ears down, as he heard Ronal's cries. 

"What is that?" his mate asked softly. He glanced up, saw his parents first. They'd went underneath Ro'a's fin, and were staring hard at the device that Ätopä had seen. 

"It's a tracker," Jake said as the two skimwings moved closer together, towards the device. It was beeping incessantly. "It's how they caught her." 

"Why would they do this?" Ätopä demanded. "The tulkuns are peaceful. They pose no threat. Why would they do this?" 

Leypa locked eyes with his mother as Jake slid from the tsurak and pulled himself up onto the tulkun's back. He moved around, feeling the device, looking at it, and clicked something. The beeping stopped. 

He was unable to read Ilhia's face. He'd always been pretty good at guessing what his mother was thinking, but he was getting nothing from her. 

Jake tried to pull the device from Ro'a, but it was stuck in deep. He crouched down further, looking at something, but it was useless. He yanked on it, hard, but it was embedded too far into the tulkun's flesh. It took him and Ilhia to remove it, and Leypa understood why it had been so difficult. 

The end of the tracker was barbed. 

He exclaimed under his breath, eyes narrowed on it. Jake handled it with care as he and Ilhia got back onto his tsurak. Ätopä pressed her face between his shoulder blades. 

"I do not understand this," she whispered as they followed his parents back around to Tonowari and Ronal. But they'd already left, their figures in the distance. Jake picked up the pace, and Leypa followed. 

"They want war," he murmured back. 

"The Sky People?"

"They will not stop. Not until my father is dead."