Heart of the Rainforest

Chapter 6 - Conversation

Tiki and Equo explained to Geelvink why they needed the darts, and he cautiously gave them to her in a dark green leaf pouch sewn together with tree fibers. Tiki let her friends go back to her treehouse to rest while she and Banggai flew together with their birds, and she explained what her plan was so far (not that she had that much of a plan, anyways) to them.

"That's weird." Banggai observed. "I have no idea what the NightWings would want with your friend."

"Neither do I." She admitted. "I've been thinking about it, but I can't come up with anything."

"I do kind of feel bad for them, though." They said. "I mean, what a horrible place to live. Who would choose to live there?"

"It probably wasn't like that when they got there." Tiki pointed out. "They probably didn't even realize it was a volcano at first."

"Probably," Banggai smiled at her and playfully bumped her. "Always trust you to figure those things out."

"Well, I'm still trying to think of why the NightWings would want Equo. Maybe they were mad her mother ran off with a SeaWing, but why not punish her mother?" She wondered aloud. "And why bring Equo to the island? They didn't even make her do anything. They just put her in a room and left her there."

Banggai shrugged. "No clue. Very weird. What are you planning to do?"

"I don't really know. We're going to try to find out what the NightWings are doing, because Equo said her captors said something about 'other hybrids'."

"That's... concerning." They wrinkled their snout. Tiki nodded.

"Well, anyways, I'm coming with you." Banggai said. Akila squawked agreeably from Tiki's other side.

"You're- you're coming with us?" She stammered, startled. "Why?"

"Because I'm not letting you come back after being stuck in a cage for a year and then go right back out into the wild." They said matter-of-factly. "Plus, I'm much less likely to be chosen to be a soldier if I'm not in the rainforest."

"That's not safe!" Tiki said, hints of pale green slipping through onto her violet scales.

"Exactly my point."

"What about my friends?" She thought of Lionfish, Adder, and Mamba. "Won't you be- I don't know, suspicious of them?"

"If you trust them, so do I." Banggai said loyally. "You're not going to win this argument. I'm coming with you."

"That's really not a good idea," Tiki worried. "I don't want to drag you into danger, too."

"Hey, we have venom and camouflage scales. I think we're pretty safe." Their scales melted into camouflage and Banggai was invisible in the air next to Tiki, and they shimmered back to pale orange a moment later.

The two RainWings soared in a loop and flew back to the village at dusk. Banggai slipped into their own treehouse, a small square room nestled comfortably between two tall trees, and Tiki went back to her own, where her friends were waiting.

She deposited Akila on one of the many wooden perches and lay down on her bed. Equo was asleep on a small pile of grass and leaves, and the others had taken their blindfolds off and were sitting along the wall. 

Tiki let herself rest for a while, before she stood up and grabbed a blank scroll from her drawer and quickly made another chart in ink. Akila politely let Tiki measure her, and she quickly noted her observations on the chart, and settled back down in her bed. 

It didn't take long before Tiki fell asleep, sinking softly into the best sleep she had had in over a year, deep and filled with sunny dreams of birds and RainWings friendlier than they ever were in real life.