[Veltzeh]: 39.PlanetSide: Tzhagane.Chapter 1: Preparation

     It was morning. The sky was mostly clear. Far in the west, over at the ocean, it rained.
     A lonely figure, a member of the Tzhagane species, flew silently through the empty space under the few clouds, performing magnificent acrobatics in the air above the deep canyons that stood in the water. The tzhagane's figure was slender and eir light blue skin was smooth for the most part, featuring a dark pattern or two around eir body. The hair covering the most part of the creature's head was magenta in color and its flowing caused by the flows of air did not disturb the thin, long ears that were currently pressed along the creature's head. Ey wore little clothes: only a simple pale green top that covered most of eir chest and a loose pair of shorts of a deeper green on eir lower body. Eir form was graceful and eir wings moved flawlessly through the air, taking the small body wherever they wanted.
     Soon, another creature of the same species joined the performance. Though they looked more or less the same, the second one was smaller and had indistinctly different but darker patterns on the body and eir hair was bluer in color. Eir clothes did not considerably differ from the clothing of the first tzhagane, but eir top was slightly different in design as well as in color: the top was dark blue. Together, they flew more or less like light blue flashes of lightning in the bluish cyan sky, their smooth aerodynamic wings that were also blue barely moving as they glided through the air.
     As it was, the sexes of both tzhaganes were undeterminable; an out-worlder would have been utterly confused about a thing that is most mundane for every tzhagane: the fact that everyone is the same sex. A monoecious species, every normal tzhagane can carry offspring and fertilize others. While the laws of nature and chromosome conjugation induce variation within the species so that a person who is used to distinctive sexes is likely to deduce that a certain individual tzhagane appears male while another should clearly be female, the physical and mental traits often associated with a certain sex by the members of a dioecious species are not associated with a certain sex among the Tzhagane since there is no such thing as another sex. There are other species on the planet, other animals like the Tzhagane; most of whom are dioecious. Only few of the known species that inhabit the area are epicines like the tzhaganes. Thus, the tzhaganes know that there is another way, but as it is, the most intelligent species happen to be monoecious, so the common fact for them is that having two distinct sexes limits the development of proper intelligence. The external characteristics of an average tzhagane are as ambiguous as might be expected: the figure is slender, the hips are as wide as the shoulders, the musculature is slim but efficient and while the breasts are not exactly developed, they are softer and fuller than a general male breast, with the nipple sticking out effeminately.
     Thus continued these two strange creatures their flight between the canyons. Very suddenly, a much bigger, colorful and frightening bird-like creature of the Pheen species joined the two tzhaganes, hunting them. This pheen was bright green and yellow, and had it not been hiding in a dark shadow between two small cliffs, the tzhaganes would have noticed its presence from far away. As it was, the pheen flapped its large, fully feathery wings frantically, trying to catch the two tzhaganes into its frightening talons. The two light blue tzhaganes dove in the air, the pheen after them. The two flew into a deep canyon, with barely enough space to glide between the rocks with their wings stretched back. The great bird gave up and did not follow the two into the canyon.
     The tzhaganes were coming to the water-filled bottom of the deep canyon. The latter one of them would not make it without help.
     "Kale!" ey yelled to the other one. The shout echoed in the canyon for a while. At the last moment Kale, the first tzhagane, took the other one's hand and the deep rocky canyon ran to its end. The wings of the second creature touched the ice-cold, clear water. Kale, flapping eir gray-blue wings once, twice and thrice, lifted both of them away from the water, using the blowing wind from the canyon. The second one let go of the other.
     "Zhaanno!" said Kale, turning around. "Are you okay?" ey continued telepathically, speaking to the other through eir thoughts. Zhaanno got back to flying.
     "Yeah."
     "Let's go home."
     After making sure the pheen was not in sight, they flew off to east, where the sun would rise in a few hours, making twists and turns as they went. They arrived at a relatively peaceful side of a mountain, where they caught sight of their home. Another tzhagane, this one wingless, was standing in front of the manufactured cave entrance. The form of this creature was otherwise also distinctively different from the two others; ey looked clearly tougher, even older, and while eir complexion was the same color, the patterns on eir body were remarkably lighter and formed clearly different figures on eir skin.
     "Look at that", said Kale to Zhaanno. "Theri's there again. When will ey learn? Standing out visible like that isn't going to shield em from the pheens an' the rest."
     "Ey's just trying to annoy us."
     "It's stupid. Especially without wings when ey can't fly away!"
     The tzhagane called Theri waved at the two while shouting to them out loud: "Hey you!"
     Kale replied telepathically in the same tone: "Hey shut up!"
     "Hey get inside!" Kale and Zhaanno landed on the rock Theri was standing on.
     "You should be inside – –"
     "Well, I don't bring pheens to our home doors!" Theri went inside. The two others took a glance behind them and saw the vicious pheen flying at them. They ran inside and closed the heavy sliding door. Theri was rather frustrated. "I don't understand why I should stay in when you're bringing pheens home like that."
     "You don't want to die just half a year before you'd get your wing implants, would cha?"
     "Kale. I. CAN. Take. Care. Of. Myself."
     "Ha ha. Couldn't when that huge hrollt came an' almost fed you to its cubs... Or back then when we were kids, when your wings got torn..."
     "Do I have to be perfect or something?"
     "Well, you wouldn't care if y' were dead."
     "Come on!"
     Suddenly a terrible shriek came from outside, followed by anxious shouting and telepathic cries of help. Theri, Kale and Zhaanno opened the sliding door, peeking out through the cave's doorway. They saw the big pheen driven away by other tzhaganes, their parents. Shortly after they saw a bloody little figure on the ground and another climbing up from the rocks. The bloody one was dead; they did not sense any telepathic signals from eir brain or find any function inside. It was Kale and Zhaanno's little sibling, Khaza.
     "And do any of YOU have any idea why that pheen was here?" asked Kale and Zhaanno's parent, Raqeidan.
     "They did it!" Theri exclaimed.
     Kale looked a little hesitatingly at Theri and then at Raqeidan. "Uh..."
     "You are supposed to distract the pheen! Guide it far before returning!" exclaimed Raqeidan in a very ordering tone.
     "We did! It must've followed us from a distance... We're sorry..."
     "Don't apologize to me. I can get new kids. Apologize to Lairei..." Raqeidan looked at the other small tzhagane, who was now halfway up from the rocks, crying on the ground. Kale and Zhaanno could not do anything; they did not know what, or how. "Always so innocent, you two. Just go back inside an' get ready. We'll hit the mines in an hour."
     "But... but..."
     "Kale, I know it isn't nice. Get over the fact that even you can't protect everyone." Raqeidan grabbed the body of the slain child and flew a bit further from the caves, throwing the body into a canyon. Theri's parent walked over to the crying little child, carrying em away, inside another cave. Kale and Zhaanno walked back to their cave. Theri followed them.
     "That was just swift, wasn't it?" Theri asked sarcastically after ey had sat on a couch.
     "Theri, it's not funny!" Kale answered. "Khaza just died. It's not fun." Zhaanno did not speak, instead ey walked away to get something to eat. Theri looked at Kale and did not speak until Zhaanno had stopped walking. Kale sat on the same couch Theri was sitting on.
     "Who cares if one stupid kid dies? Even i– –"
     "I do!" snapped Kale.
     "Why do you?" Kale was quiet. "Ey was a kid. Kids die, y'know? I almost died, y'know? Who cares, if one kid out of ten dies? Who cares if every other kid dies? No one. An' nor do they. They're dead by then. An' I'm sure you should know our medical center couldn't handle the pressure if we were going to try heal every sickness one or two kids are sensitive to. It's better to let the weak ones die before they reproduce and make that sickness spread to everyone. The– –"
     "Yeah, an' isn't it just so ironic that I let you who allowed to have your wings ripped reproduce with a kid who'd have died four times if not for me. Who's the better one of us here?"
     "You missed the point."
     "There's no crettin' point!"
     "Don't swear, babyling. Now we're getting to the point. We're already older. We've become knowledgeable enough scientists. They'd have to train an' teach a kid specifically to replace us now, wouldn't they? We are something now."
     "Khaza could've been something!"
     "It didn't look like it. It doesn't look like it now! Almost anyone can be replaced. And definitely a kid of whom no one knew if ey'd ever be something. Ey didn't show signs of not being replaceable." Kale pressed eir head on eir legs, covering eir body with eir wings. "Don't get me started on your harmful views that could drive our species into the oblivion of people who care about every dweening invalid to cross their path. Our birth rates would drop, even from the lousy point where it's now, an' we'd die out completely!"
     "Maybe we wouldn't!"
     "Maybe we would! At least this way we won't, we know that. And we know that we'll thrive because most of the weak ones are weeded out."
     "But it's unfair! Khaza should've lived an' I should've died! It was my fault!"
     "Yeah, well, it just seems you're lucky, kid." Theri lifted eir legs and put them on Kale's back, using em as a leg support. "Let's hope that quality and not your stupid views get passed on to your offspring. If you'll ever have any." Kale threw Theri's legs off emself, knocking Theri to the ground. "Angry are we?" Kale rose, but sat back down almost immediately. Zhaanno tried to calm em down telepathically from the kitchen. Theri got up from the floor and sat next to Kale, trying to calm em down as well. "I'm sorry." Through their telepathic connection, Theri soothed Kale, trying to make em feel better.
     Soon Kale was back to normal, or as normal as ey could be. Theri let go of em, saying: "Well, is your gear ready?"
     "Almost."
     "The pre-investigation report said that the boulder is really big. It's made of some material we've never seen before. An' there's something weird connected to it..."
     "I haven't heard there was something connected to it..."
     "They didn't know it then. They don't know how long the thing is, but it's long. Really long. I don't know."
     "Sigh... It'll just be another lump of traston touching some diamond-thing. Those metal-miners wouldn't recognize a traston when they held one in their hand." Kale leaned over to a shelf, grabbing a wood-looking round piece of something. As ey held it, it steadily transformed to look and feel exactly like eir skin. Ey put it on eir head and soon there was really no telling where the strange substance was, as it had transformed into eir hair. Kale shoved it off eir head and it splatted on the floor, transforming into a round stone.
     "Trastons aren't bigger than two meters. This is at least twenty or something."
     "Maybe they grow bigger down there?" Kale took the piece of traston from the floor. After it had transformed into skin, ey ripped it in half. It wiggled a bit, but then reformed to form two skin-like balls.
     "Well, maybe... I don't know. But it'd still be weird." Kale put the two balls of traston next to each other, so that they were touching. After a bit of wobbling, they became one again. Kale ripped it in half again. "Stop that. You'll hurt it." Theri grinned.
     "I always wondered what it'd do if I did this..." Kale put the other piece on the couch and it turned into the fabric the couch was made of. Keeping the second piece attached to eir hand, ey placed it next to the first one. For a few seconds it looked like nothing happened, but then the both pieces of traston started wobbling. They squeaked as they became one again, jumped upwards and fell on the floor, becoming a stone. Kale and Theri were laughing their lungs out.
     Zhaanno came to them to see what they were laughing at. After ey saw what happened, ey was also laughing like crazy.
     "I didn't know it could squeak!" laughed Theri. "Or jump for that matter!" They laughed yet for quite some time, before Kale said:
     "Okay, it's funny... but we have to go. An' well, we don't even know when we'll be back. Well, is your gear ready?"
     "Never readier. Hey, I don't do those 'morning flights' y'know..."
     "Mine is ready", replied Zhaanno.
     "Okay. So... I'm the only one who's missing one thing. Where have you hidden my scanner?" questioned Kale.
     "Y'know what?" asked Theri, looking a bit accusingly at Kale. "K– – Lairei stole it. I saw em playing with it just before you brought the pheen around. It's probably down in the canyon now." Kale stood there for a while, dumbfounded, getting angry and then walked out hastily. Theri flipped eir hand to show that ey thought Kale was nuts.
     Zhaanno did not reply, but just looked at Theri. "You shouldn't push em that far. – –"
     "I lied to em y'know. It was Khaza who took it."
     "Oh. Well, I'm sure that little incident was because of that. Ey doesn't like it when eir siblings get killed. That's probably the simplest reason for why ey's so eager an' ever so effective protecting me... Today was yet another day that I would've died if it wasn't for em", Zhaanno went on calmly.
     "Heh... no offense, Zhaanno, an' I do like ya... But what are you worth if you can't take care of yourself?"
     "Same worth as you, losing your wings in a stupid fight with another kid with a knife?" Zhaanno snapped playfully and still calmly.
     Theri mock glared at Zhaanno. "Why you, you little worthless piece of..." Theri ran at Zhaanno and grabbed eir wings, twisting them a little so that they would not be hurt when ey pressed Zhaanno against a wall. "...hrollt droppings." Zhaanno just smiled, saying nothing and wrapped eir arms around Theri's chest. They kissed each other, Theri holding on to Zhaanno's wings and Zhaanno touching Theri's back. "What, ya wanna carry me today?"
     "Hah... Kale could maybe do it, but I'm too small. I think my parent'll do it, and give eir gear to Kale... and I'll carry yours... as always..." Zhaanno touched the scars on Theri's back. "Mmmhhh... You never really told me... What really happened?"
     Theri stroked Zhaanno's wings and replied: "Well... You remember Larise, right? You know we hated each other... It was really nothing more than a fight at first, like usual. I had no idea ey'd brought a knife this time. Ey knew I was a better fighter an' evaded me until ey got my wings. It. Really. Hurt. Ey kept cutting them, an' I thought ey wasn't going to cut them so bad that they'd have to be removed... But ey didn't know when to stop. Ey left me there then, and Kale took me to the medical center. They amputated my wings an' I just waited until they let me out. You know Larise was getting whipped every ten days for doing it, well, I sure didn't think it was enough! An' since ey didn't have wings to start with, I just took a knife, went an' killed em. I thought ey deserved it... An' you know the rest, I spent the next few months crying because of all the whipping an' flaying... I sometimes wonder if it really was worth it. I suppose not. But it's too late anyway. At least I'm still here." Theri smiled at Zhaanno and kissed em again. They kept on making out until Kale returned.
     "HAH! I found the damn scanner! It isn't even broken much, just needs a new power source and a new screen." Ey saw Theri and Zhaanno making out, not really listening to, and much less caring about what ey was saying. "Well, thanks a lot for your attention, you mentally challenged body worshippers", ey said, heading out again.
     "Theri, you really keep annoying em..."
     "So what?"
     "What are you, jealous?" Theri did not answer, but stopped kissing Zhaanno. "Fine..." Zhaanno picked up eir gear and went outside. Theri came soon after em and closed the doorway of their cave by reaching inside from a window and pushing a button, and watched as the slide door closed the doorway. Theri then pulled down a metal cover for the window, and went after Zhaanno to their parents' cave.
     "What, you're ready already?" asked Raqeidan. "Good kids. We can get going then. Bye everyone! We'll be back in twenty or thirty days, I'm guessing." Raqeidan got eir gear and walked outside. "So, you all have your gear now? And you've got a new screen an' power source?"
     "Yeah", Kale replied.
     "Alright. Here you go", Raqeidan said, giving Kale eir gear. Theri dumped eir gear on Zhaanno, grinned and climbed on Raqeidan's back. Zhaanno just smiled.
     Raqeidan spread eir gigantic dark blue wings and glided off the rocks with ease, eir children following. They flew to the east, toward the area of high mountains, forests, and many cold, narrow rivers.

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© by V. E. "Veltzeh" Lehkonen.