Freezing Wings

Chapter 33

{Riland's POV}

I was in my office, tinkering with an old communicator when the Trillip knocked on the door to my office, poking it's head in.  The guards I had set on it were right behind, both watching like hawks. 

I waved it in, not saying a word. I found that if I gave it the silent treatment, it would get unnerved and get to the point, instead of drowning me in flowery language and diplomatic euphemisms.

True enough, right after the customary greeting it sat down and began it's little presentation. It's high pitched voice practically grated on my ears, "As I'm sure you're aware, I have some goods on my ship that need moving."

I nodded. It wasn't anything new. My employees were carrying the goods onto his ship to be sold on a different planet, but we weren't his only customers. There was probably ten other shipments that he was holding to be sold. 

It's large dark eyes looked up at me, giving it's version of a puppy look, "Well," it said in a slightly wheedling tone, "I was hoping that you would allow me to market off some of my spare goods here, on Earth."

I looked down at it, raising one eyebrow. The Trillip never had spare goods. One of his customers had most likely backed out of a deal and he was left with a shipment of things he didn't need, and was probably going to use earth as a surrogate cash cow. 

"No." 

"Why?"

"Because I said so." The only reason it was here to transport the shipments we sold to it and sell them on a different planet. It was not here to set up a base of operations or market off what it couldn't keep. Whether it had to live with a box of clothing three times it's size and five sizes too big was irrelevant.

It's face twisted, an angry look appearing in it's eyes. In less than half a second it's face went from pleading and even slightly cute, to furious and dark, like a furry storm cloud. However, it had the common sense to not yell, or attack. 

If it had, I would have a dead Trillip and a lot less problems, but that's beside the point. The furry gnome was practically breathing fire, but it swallowed any complaints it might have had and stormed out of my office, back to it's ships. 

I went back to the communicator in my hand and threw the brief exchange to the back of my mind. The Trillip were a proud, greedy race of monkeys, and this reaction was predictable. It probably felt that it was lowering itself down below it's pedestal for the pure fact that it had asked. 

The only thing that made it want to go into business was the profit at the end, otherwise, it probably would never move from it's home planet. For it to be angry after it's request was rejected was expected. The only reason it asked was the fact that if it hadn't, it would be booted off the planet at the least and killed at the most. 

I spent the rest of the day in my office, looking out my window to the ships occasionally. My job, at it's core, was that of a manager, but half the time I didn't have to do anything. It was just signing papers, sitting through meetings with my boss and ordering my employees around.

I occasionally had to deal with people coming into the city and the rare criminal case from foreigners, but that was few and far between.  That was dealt with by my underlings. The only reason why I was dealing with the Trillip was because it was a special case, I would usually leave it for someone lower on the political ladder to do. 

I had finished all of my work the previous day and there were no meetings today, due to the funeral. My employees were hand-picked from the batch of interns and they all did good work. After the initial orders, there was practically no other things I had to do, they just did it themselves. 

So, I found myself with an empty day. Instead of doing something really productive, I chose to sit in my office, tinkering with a communicator fifty years old. 

At sunset, I was standing on the city walls, looking out onto the frozen tundra. There were dragons everywhere, dotting half the valley, clustered heavily on the eastern mountain. 

The dragons were a special entity for this city. From we could tell, they were predators, but we never found them eating anything. Whether it was a dragon in the middle of feasting on a kill or the gnawed carcass of it's victim, there was  no evidence of either or anything in-between. 

They didn't attack us, and other than running for the hills whenever we got within twenty feet of them and practically tripping over us at sunset, there was no interaction with them.  They seemed to be large lizards, but didn't freeze in the cold, nor did they live underground. They practically disappeared after nightfall, despite them literally being twice our size.

I could hear them communicating, a jumble of hoots, growls, squawks and trills. We had been secretly studying their language for eight earth years, but it was incomprehensible. They could obviously understand each other, and think with a mind more developed than the average Trillip, but their language was just a bunch of random animal calls. 

There was little to no actual physical samples from them, whether it was saliva, blood, or even a spare scale. We knew they shed due to the fact that we had, on multiple times, seen them casually peel one off, but the evidence disappeared afterwards. 

Their mating habits were a complete unknown, and, from what we could tell, no mating ritual. They only screeched at each other for a year or so, maybe more depending on the dragon, flew with each other for six months or so, then they suddenly showed up with a newborn fledgling at sunset. It had no set pattern or procedure like that that showed up with any other animal.

And their ritual at sunset. I had sat through more meetings than any other just thinking up ideas over the reason they all gathered and sang their hearts out once the sun went down. How did they know it was going down when the sun wasn't out? How were they able to fly like that without crashing into each other? What was with the icy ball of spikes that shows up at the end? Do the dragons create it from their own body or do they just shape it out of the snow? If so, then where do the colours come from? Why the hell do they sing the entire time?