A Place To Bloom

Promises

A bird with bright blue-and-yellow feathers crept beneath the stone outer wall of the city, digging its long bill into the sand. It unearthed a cluster of white eggs and cracked one open, gobbling up a dark, slimy chunk before cracking open another.

A gargantuan black alligator burst from the water and snapped its powerful jaws, only for the bird to flap its wings and jump away, fly off, and disappear beyond the trees in the distance.

Slowly, the beast nuzzled her nose in the sand, covering back the broken eggs and resting her massive snout over them.

An even larger alligator straddled the black slate road, resting her heavy tail on the wooden drawbridge that unfolded across the river. Beside her, a man with medium-green skin and a widow's peak hairline stood. His build was lean and toned, and he wore a shimmering white silk loincloth with black embroidery in the same symbols from the cover of the strange book in the library that no one could translate.

I walked at the lead of the procession with the rest of my team.

Dax gaped. "Gods, that is one big gator."

"That one's Shaedi."

Ta'o corrected me. "That's Horus, bro."

Bilal chuckled.

"That's Shaedi," I insisted. "She's the fat one."

"She's not fat, she's pregnant. And that's Horus; look at his foot." Half the creature's left front foot had long been ripped off.

"Taganu," I shouted from across the field. "Is that Shaedi or Horus?"

He cocked one eyebrow and chuckled with his hands behind his back. "This one's Gaijin!"

I checked Ta'o, who pursed his lips and looked in the opposite direction while the rest of my team laughed.

Still laughing, Taganu knelt low and tapped the beast on the side of his belly. Her belly. His or her belly. Gaijin pushed off on all fours and slid across the grass, down through the reeds, and disappeared into the water.

"By the way," I turned to the new recruits. "I don't recommend swimming in the moat. It's kinda muddy, bugs get in your nose, it's just unpleasant is all."

Finn nodded, fighting to keep a straight face. "Probably cold, too."

Half the men shook with laughter.

Rolon couldn't peel his eyes from a young, white-skinned Tobori lady who watched over three lambs nibbling on the grass. She was nearly naked as the rest of us, with a number branded on her arm, and didn't turn to look at us once. As for Rolon, Gaius the Unformidable snapped his fingers in front of his face and got no response.

We stepped onto the drawbridge. Taganu reached his arms out to embrace Ta'o, who returned his embrace. A small, green vɪta'o who was barely an inch or two taller than the last time I'd seen her raced from beyond the gate and encircled me with excited chirps. She bounded among my men, sniffing around and came back to me, craning her tiny neck with a chirp.

She raced down along the whole bison train, rushing beneath carts and between men's legs only to dart back to me once more with a chirp.

My heart broke. "He's dead."

She tilted her head to one side and chirped.

"He's not coming back."

A tear trailed down my cheek as she wove in and out once more, sniffing the wheels, sniffing knees, and nearly getting kicked by one irritated bison before flitting back over to me, only to crane her tiny neck up once more with a chirp.