Echobright

Author's note: this is an unapologetically nonhuman love story told from a twin perspective. This story, Echobright, tells the story from the male point of view; its sister story, Grey-Eye, tells the story from the female perspective. Enjoy.

* * *

I looked up to see three women perched on a stone parapet high above the street, their wings folded, their long grey necks thrown back as they sang out into the bright blue sky. They sang their parts in the Song, the ever-changing sky-filling harmony to which we hyeloki all learnt to lend our voices, and they sang them well.

They seemed absorbed in their singing, and perfectly unaware of the diverse bustle of people of many races pushing through the street below them. For a moment I was tempted to leave them to sing undisturbed, but then chided myself for cowardice. I'd never find a mate if I didn't at least

talk

to people. So I swallowed my nervousness and called up to them.

"Hello up there!"

Three voices cut off abruptly and three pairs of yellow eyes turned to regard me. The one in the middle - the larger and, I thought, probably the most attractive of the three, with a lithe and curving physique and almost flawless white-grey skin - spoke down to me.

"Oh dear.

What

are you?"

It wasn't, I considered, altogether the best start. But I pressed on, optimistically.

"My name's Grey-Eye, and I was greatly enjoying your singing. Forgive me for shouting up at you from down here, but I'm afraid I lack the ability to join you on your comfortable perch."

I unfolded my right wing for them to see, knowing they'd recognise from its bent, shattered shape that I was flightless. Looking up, I could see their eyes as they took in not just my wing but the patchwork of scars which blighted the whole right hand side of my body, from my face and neck right back to the base of my tail. Each pair of eyes seemed to say something different as they drank me in.

Disdain

, said the eyes in the middle.

Disgust

, said the ones on the right.

Pity

, said the ones on the left. Under the combined gaze of all three, my scars seemed to burn and itch with shame.

The one in the middle, though, when she spoke again her voice was soft and pleasant. Perhaps she was strong enough to swallow her disdain.

"A pleasure to meet you, Grey-Eye. I'm Cloud-Splitter."

"Cloud-Splitter? A beautiful name. It suits you well."

She smiled at the compliment and flicked her tail coquettishly.

"Yes, it does, doesn't it? Listen, Grey-Eye, I'm getting tired of shouting all the way down there, so if you can't reach up here, how about this..."

She leaned down towards me and flashed me a warm smile. Eagerly my mind filled in the next words which seemed to be coming:

how about I fly down to join you, and we can have a private chat away from these prying ears?

"How about you go and find someone closer to your own level. Understand?"

The one on the right howled with laughter. So did the one on the left, and neither one looked me in the eyes. Cloud-Splitter fixed me with a mocking, victorious stare, as though daring me to try and defend my dignity. I didn't. I just turned away, trying not to show my hurt.

It was then that I heard the noise. A very faint repetitive

click-click-click-click-click,

just on the edge of hearing but getting slowly louder. Stranger was the effect it seemed to be having on the crowd. People were vacating the road, pushing towards the edges. Well-meaning hands tried to shepherd me with them but I shrugged them off, watching as the people pressed themselves into two tightly packed strips along the road's margins, leaving the centre clear, myself excepted.

Click-click-click-click-click,

getting louder and louder, and amongst the myriad dialects of the crowd, I thought I made out a name, passed from voice to voice:

Echobright.

Confused, I turned back to the only other hyeloki around: Cloud-Splitter and her companions.

"What's that sound?"

All three laughed out loud before Cloud-Splitter replied.

"You really are new here aren't you? That, Grey-Eye, would be someone more on your level."

The sound, very loud now, was coming from my right, and as I turned my head back that way I suddenly found myself face-to-face with the source. A big hyeloki dropped out of the sky at speed, flying fast towards me with her head straight out in front and tail straight out behind, huge wings held out rigidly to either side, feet dropping down to meet the tarmac, landing something in the manner of an aeroplane. The short distance between us rapidly closing, she stopped clicking just long enough to shout at me in a commanding voice.

"Get out of the way, you idiot!"

She seemed to fill the street, her wingtips passing a mere whisper from the faces fronting the crowds. Just at the last moment I shook off my surprise and threw myself downwards and to one side, pressing myself into the road as one great wing sliced through the air above me. When I regained my feet the flyer had come to a rest some way down the street, turning her head this way and that, making the same sharp repetitive

click-click

noise she had made in the air. The crowd, grumbling, diffused back into the street and went about their usual business.

I stumbled towards her, fascinated. Female hyeloki are built on a slightly larger scale than us men, but even by female standards she was big. A primitive male part of me didn't fail to notice the fluid aerodynamic contours of her body, the solid and potent strength that seemed to underlie her sleek grey curves, or the subtle and becoming tones of her smooth grey skin, mottled white on her underside. The rest of my mind, however, was more transfixed by the way her long pointed ears were held rigidly upright, sieving the air for the faint echoes of her clicking tongue, and by her eyes, which were two featureless milky white pools. She was, quite obviously, completely blind.

I greeted her excitedly.

"Excuse me, but is your name Echobright by chance? Are you

echolocating?

It's incredible! How did you ever learn to..."

"Go stick your head up your own arsehole and practice it, if you're so interested."

And with that she turned her tail on me and walked away. I blinked, surprised but not overly offended. The rebuff had been harsh, yes, but I didn't feel it to be in any way aimed specifically at me. More of an automatic defensive instinct against a hostile world.

Cloud-Splitter, however, was apparently not one to let a good insult go to waste. Amidst the shrieking laughter of her two friends she hollered down to Echobright.

"Hey there Echobright! Don't be so rude to the little guy! He just wants to be your

boyfriend!

"

Echobright froze at the sound of her voice, her tail flicking in irritation, before turning her head to stare directly at where the other woman perched high above her.

"Cloud-Splitter! Fly down here and insult me face-to-face, why don't you, instead of lurking at a safe distance like a month-old chick?"

To her credit, Cloud-Splitter did come down to us, swooping down with three easy flaps of her wings to land between Echobright and myself. Just out of reach, I couldn't help but notice, of the blind woman's bared fangs and flexing talons.

"Hey now Echobright, I'm not here to insult you. If only you could see him, you'd know that after just one taste of your graceful landing and

charming

personality, why, he's simply head-over-tail in love!"

She turned her head to regard me, her yellow eyes lit up in appreciation of some private joke. I glared back, as hard as I could. What did she think she was doing?

"And oh Echobright, this one's quite a catch! He's so... strong and fierce!"

Her two clingers-on watching from the parapet managed to contain their laughter long enough to make their own contributions to my description.

"An unmatched acrobat in the air!"

"And he's absolutely

gorgeous

to look at!"

Cloud-Splitter shot them a warning look. Apparently she didn't appreciate interference.

"It's just a shame he has his heart so set on you, or I'd have him as my own in a heartbeat."

I seethed in anger. I didn't like being used as a toy in this woman's sordid little games.

Come on Echobright,

I willed.

Jump at her. Tear at her. Put her in her place.

But she didn't. She just shook her head in disgust and turned her tail on our tormentor.

"That's it? You're turning your back on him? Breaking his heart?"

So Echobright was above solving her problems with violence. Maybe I wasn't, though.

"But just imagine what beautiful children you two could... ayyaarrrgh!"

I didn't bite her tail very hard. Just hard enough to break the skin. Just hard enough to really

hurt

. Just hard enough to show her that I wasn't to be messed around with. When she spun round to face me her easy arrogance was gone, replaced by snarling, spitting fury.

"Did you just

bite

me, you pathetic little cripple? If you weren't such a pitiful little scrap of a thing I'd give you a few more scars to go with your collection! Get out of here before I... AYYYAAARRRRGH!"

I hadn't noticed Echobright lunge at her once her back was turned. Certainly I had no idea how she managed to locate her tail so accurately without eyesight. But as soon as I heard that scream, I knew at once that she'd bitten down much harder than I had.

Cloud-Splitter wrenched her tail free, blood pouring from a red raw wound. I couldn't find any pity for her as she curled in on herself, whimpering.

"Psychopaths, the pair of you! You deserve each other!"

Spreading her wings, she rose shakily into the air and flew fast away, her two companions close behind, laughing again, but this time their laughter was all directed at her. She left a trail of red spots along the road where blood still dripped from her tail.

Click-click-click-click-click.

I turned. Echobright sat placidly in the middle of the road, her sightless eyes fixed on me, bathing me with probing bursts of sound. I had the impression of being sized up, appraised. As I stepped towards her the clicking stopped, and she sat silent, as though waiting for me to speak. I hesitated for words. "Thank you" just didn't seem appropriate.

"I don't know how well you can see me like that, but I'm afraid I don't live up to the description they gave of me."

Silence. She didn't reply. She just sat there. Listening. So I carried on. If there was one thing I could do, and do well, it was talk.

"They did get one thing right though. They called your landing graceful. And it was. Not just impressive - I mean, the fact that you can fly and land without eyesight

is

impressive, really, I would never have thought it even possible - but genuinely graceful. You've heard the saying that a truly graceful flyer can land atop of a finely balanced pole with only a single sweep of the wings? Twaddle. A

truly

graceful flyer doesn't flit about to the whim of some ridiculous pole. Grace is something that sets its own course and leaves others to work around it. A

whole street full of people

erupted into chaos just to make way for the grace of your landing."

Her white sightless stare was impassive, but her ears were erect, listening. Something told me that if she didn't like what she was hearing, she wouldn't be sitting there listening to it.

"I'm sorry, I never even introduced myself. My name's Grey-Eye."

"Why?"

The question gave me a moment's pause. Nobody who could see me had ever had to ask.

"On account of my unusual grey eyes. I was born with them. But then I lost the one on the right, so Grey-Eyes became Grey-Eye."

I noticed a slight trickle of red blood - Cloud-Splitter's - running down her chin; I repressed a sudden desire to reach in and lick it clean. What was it about this proud and standoffish woman that drew me in?

"Echobright, if you don't mind me being somewhat bold, I'd like to have a chance to get to know you a little better. Perhaps we could find something to eat to wash the awful taste of Cloud-Splitter's tail out of both our mouths? Where are you headed now? Wherever it is, would you mind if I came along with you?"

There was a long pause, and I had the impression she was considering the offer. Then she rose to her feet and addressed me in a voice that was calm, composed and invited no objections.

"Thank you for biting Cloud-Splitter. I have work to do, and you can't come. Goodbye, Grey-Eye."

I knew a rejection when I heard it. She turned away from me, and I stared after her forlornly as she paced casually away. And then she stopped, and spoke again without turning around.

"But I'll be hunting on the low mire at second noon."

* * *

It was first noon. The red sun was high in the sky, roasting the valley in its hot velvet light, but the white sun was still low above the horizon. I watched it, sprawled on the wooden decking outside my home, as it crept upwards, achingly slowly.

"Hey, Grey-Eye, what're you doing down there?"

I looked up to see the head of Lens-Of-Infamy, my neighbour, grinning down at me. I lived in the bottommost of a series of basic hyeloki-homes ranged up a steep hillside - each no more than a single comfortable room and a decked landing/lounging area - which I had chosen mostly for the rare quality of being at ground level. In the short time since I moved in, Lens-Of-Infamy and his infinitely gentle mate Fall-Of-Snow had become firm friends.

"Nothing very much, just watching the sky spin round."

"Pretty much exactly what I was doing! Why don't you come up here and we can do it together?"

It seemed a pleasant enough way to distract myself, so I got to my feet and rather laboriously clambered up the connecting ladder. Lens-Of-Infamy lay sprawled languidly in the sunshine, his wings spread lavishly to either side of him. I lay down near him, so that we could talk without raising our voices above a lazy murmur.

"How's your little one faring, Infamy?"

"Very well, I think. We're expecting her any day now. We can feel her moving about more and more."

He lifted his wing briefly to reveal a dappled cream-coloured egg nestled against the warmth of his body.

"What about your quest for love, Grey-Eye? Found the courage to ask anyone yet?"

"I did, and we're going hunting together later today. At least I think so."

"What, you got a date already?

Really?

"

I frowned at him for his incredulous tone. He'd been the one who'd warned me, as kindly as he could, not to set my hopes too high. Now, rallying, he tried to recover himself.

"Well, of course, I had no doubt you would. Good for you. Who's the lucky lady then?"

"Her name's Echobright."

He stared at me as though I'd said I had a date with the red sun itself. When he replied it was in an awestruck whisper.

"What, the giant scary blind one?"

"You know her?"

"

Everyone

knows her, Grey-Eye. At least, everyone knows to be somewhere else when they hear that clicking noise approaching. That woman terrifies me."

"I don't think she's scary. Actually the opposite - I find her somehow... reassuring."

"

Reassuring

."

He looked as though he was struggling to incorporate the word into his vision of Echobright. At length he shook his head to dismiss it and talked in a low but earnest voice.

"Listen to me. I'm not judging your tastes, and I'm sure she's a fine woman in many exciting ways. But look at yourself: you've got one bad wing, one missing eye and you're not so strong as most people. You need to find someone who can look after you. Echobright's blind, she can't do that for you. She needs somebody to look after

her

, if she can find anyone brave enough."

I sniffed in displeasure, not entirely appreciative of his condescending advice, even if I knew it was meant for the best. When I replied I did so with slightly more venom than I really intended.

"We can both look after ourselves, and we can

certainly

look after each other."

He shrugged a wordless apology, and we both went back to watching the white sun crawl ever so slowly up the great blue bowl of the sky.

* * *

As I tramped through the mud of the mire I heard Echobright sing. There were many voices in the Song, all taking each other's lead, passing round themes that morphed and diverged and evolved, an intricate weaving of melodies and rhythms spanning the sky. But not Echobright. Every note she sang was her own, completely oblivious to the music playing all around her. Sometimes a passing voice or two would try to work Echobright's song into the larger pattern, and the result was confusion. Her voice seemed to tear a hole through the very fabric of the Song.

Her music called to me like a beacon as I waded through reed-bordered pools and deep banks of mud, making my way to her across the broad, flat, waterlogged wilderness that was the low mire: a rich, wild, shining and stinking place. Echobright sat on a slight rise of dry land, and when I finally reached her I sat quietly beside her, listening to her music, admiring its complexity, its strength, its constant inventiveness. Had she wanted to be, she could have been an extraordinary Song-singer.

I waited until she stopped before speaking, not wishing to interrupt.

"You sing as beautifully as you fly. Entirely to your own tune."

Her reply was abrupt, almost severe.

"You walked here. Can't you fly?"

Oh, of course. She couldn't see me.

"Not any more, my right wing doesn't do what it's told. I can still glide a little, but I can't push myself through the air like I used to be able to."

She began clicking with her tongue, measuring me up with sound.

"I want to have a look at you."

"A look at me?"

For a moment I was confused, but then as she reached towards me with the fingers on her wings, I realised what she intended. Compliantly, I let her touch my face, feeling her slight touch explore my snout, tracing the soft flesh under my chin, flowing around my eye and ears. Self-consciously I thought of how bad my scarred side must feel.

"My left side's my good side. The right side's scars and burns all the way - once you've counted them all you'll probably be glad you don't have to look at me all the time. You know I've never had someone look at me in this way before? Maybe its just your talented fingers, but I'm quite enjoying the experience."

I was. There was something incredibly sensual about the feeling of her fingers sliding down the sensitive curve of my neck, gliding over my skin in such a delicate and tactile operation. It was, I reflected as her hands flowed over my shoulders, a very personal and slightly intimate way of getting to know someone that made me wonder if we sighted folks were missing out on something. After her hands tracked along the first length of my wings in perfect symmetry, pausing slightly when her left passed over my deformity, I caught them in my own so that we stood facing one another, hand-in-hand, face-to-face. There was a moment's stillness between us, and I hoped that we might hold that pleasant pose for a while, but she pulled away and spoke levelly.

"I think I heard marsh-lopers over that way. Can you see them?"

I squinted into the glare of the setting red sun.

"Yes, I see them, about half a dozen grazing about a hundred spans away."

"Let's catch one. Lunge and lurk."

Lunge and lurk. An old two-hyeloki hunting trick. I thought it through, carefully.

"Yes, we could manage it, I think. You lurk and I lunge. There looks like a good spot for it further down. And there's a mudbank right behind you, if you want to dress for the occasion."

"I know. I can smell it."

If Echobright was going to be our lurker, she'd need camouflage: her grey-white skin stood out in the browns and greens of the mire. Stepping backwards, she let herself descend slowly into a deep bank of sticky brown mud. I watched as she rolled over, smearing the mud over her skin, trying to coat every last part of her in the cloying substance.