Grave awoke from his deep hibernation, his senses coming back to him one after another. His large body was slowly becoming aware. His hands wide and taloned for parting rock, folded against his chambered chest. Two massive wings made of skin and scale unfolded from his back formed a roof, ceiling and floor roughly the size of a coffin surrounding him.
In his groggy state, his wings began shifting its hard protruding scales in waves. He tunneled this way through the earth, his back toward the surface.
His consciousness fully returned. Absently, his arms extended downward into the empty space his wings created, seeking a body that wasn't there. Grave frowned, and remembered there had been no female to join him last sleep.
His kind were regarded as gods for their power over the earth and rock, they were called Shakers. His body was built to tunnel through the earth as fish do in water. His specialized wings muscled and dug through solid rock with ease. The fang-like "scales" on the outside of his wings simultaneously crushed and burrowed, like thousands of long bone fingers. Although mostly solitary, his kind were responsible for earthquakes when they moved in unison.
He was compelled toward the surface, tunneling 4o miles upward, Grave tried to sense whether the sun was up. He could tell by the warmth of the earth, it was at least mid-day. He could tell by the way the earth parted, it was spring. The earth was softer in the spring, he thought, they said so and it was true.
He slowed his progress roughly one mile from the surface. He was completely blind, the male Shakers had no use for sight. From deep in his chambered chest, Grave let out a percussive beat. The low frequency sound shook the surface above him, and the returning soundwaves gave him a picture of the landscape. He was in the desert, near canyons.
Not wanting to get involved with the Flyers, he changed course away from the rock formations, and sought flat landscape.
Grave felt an ache in his chest, a burning hope. It was unnatural for Shakers to be completely solitary. The males used their powerful wings to part the earth and keep their comparatively more vulnerable bodies away from the pressures of rock and temperature. The largest of the three Kind, even their massive bodies seemed small compared to their wingspan.
That was because the females of his species depended on living wrapped in the wings of a male. They were unable to control their own body heat, and the males provided warmth. The male's wings would shield the female and any young at all times. Young males would leave their father's wings once their scales grew in. Young females would leave once an unaccompanied male was available. `
Grave's parents had been the last of his colony. There were no other young around them where he was born. So when his scales came in, he set out to find other colonies in the hopes of finding a mate.
His kind were never meant to be alone, but he had spent years searching for more of them. The social need of being a Shaker required him to hold onto a member of the opposite sex. It was a need he'd never had the chance to fill, and the years of it's absence have had its toll. He'd practiced over and over in his head their sacred language. How he would introduce himself to a female. His mother had been warmed by her mate and her son. He remembered her cool flesh and how he'd been comforted by it. He remembered his father's nest, and how the two of them were always in embrace. Truly, the Shakers only looked like complete beings when there were two.
Grave maneuvered easily through the spring earth. He let out short probing beats from his chest periodically, not strong enough to wake any slumbering members of his species, but enough for him to locate where they were.
After a few hundred miles, his heart sank in his chest. He couldn't identify a single nest. In a panic, he let out a distress signal. The vibrations reached the surface, shaking stones, and traveling far.
He waited in his blind earth. Every scale a receptor anxious for a response.
As his distress call returned, he noticed something unusual about the subterranean landscape. Evidence of his kind wandering through this rock, the remnants of a colony. But a few miles east, there was what was left of a nest. He could make out the pocket in the ground, and the layers of shed scales that hallmarked a nest. The sound indicated that no male was occupying the space, but it wasn't empty.
Grave stilled. The only reason a nest would be unaccompanied by a male is if there was a young that needed feeding. He wondered if he should investigate, or if disturbing a family unit at a sensitive time would result in violence. Making a mental note of that nests' location, Grave slowly moved closer in proximity, and stopped far enough to send non-threatening probes.
He would stay far away and wait until the male got back into the nest.
Joa lay still in the remnants of the family nest she found. The disturbance she felt sent terror into her body. There was a male nearby calling in distress. He was a distance away but she didn't have the ability to see him the way another male would. Unlike the male Shakers, the females had working eyes. But they served little help when alone in a nest. She took the long talons at her back, where wings were on males, and sunk them into the ground. Immediately she was able to sense the direction of the male, his probing calls.
The warring of her youth left her battered. She was only a young when her father was called to fight off the nearby Flyer colony. When he didn't come back her mother became too cold. There were males that were holding onto multiple females at once as many found themselves mateless due to the Flyers. The mated females got territorial and fought with the refugees, even though they knew better, there was definitely intimacy involved with being wrapped, and the mated females could only take it for so long. As more males fought, less females could survive.
The only reason Joa survived was because she'd been unmated, and because her mother built a relationship with the Firestarters. In the unforgiving desert night, the cold was unbearable to a naked female. But the firestarters taught her to make fire. It was a poor solution, she nearly had to lay in the flames just to survive at night, but the alternative was death.
The distress from the nearby male could be anything, but she feared there could be Flyers attacking again. He was probably defending his female, but there would be no backup from her colony, she was the last one. She wondered if they had young to protect, and maybe that young was male. She was too old to dream of a mate. She didn't dare leave the colony for fear of the crippling cold. Her spines told her the male was sending probing signals. She considered sending distress back. Maybe the female would allow her to share if only for transportation. That was too risky though.
What she could communicate was limited. She took a deep breath and sent a probe herself. The pulse inquisitive, an "everything ok?"
There was a stop in the probing. Then, suddenly, an exposing beat, one that would tell him every detail of her in the nest. Oh shit she thought. What if this nest belonged to that male? What if he'd been battling and calling out to his mate and young? She knew she could be killed for being caught trespassing another's nest. She was sure this one belonged to deceased Shakers. If the male approached, she would run.
Grave halted his probing at the communication. It was dimmer than his own and sharp. There was a female answering his distress with concern. He wanted to see her. As soon as the thought crossed his mind he sent a powerful pulse, one that gave him every detail of the nest in his sight, one that told him this female was alone, no young. He would do the courteous thing, and approach from the surface. Without hesitation, he tunneled up swiftly breaking ground. He felt the sun on his wings, parting them, on his face, hands, and feet. On all fours, he began walking toward the nest.
As he approached, he was blind. He could sense where the entrance would be on the surface. This approach ensured the nest's privacy from his pulses, and made himself more vulnerable, exposing himself as to not pose a threat.
He was nervous, but the compulsion to meet another of his kind was the reason he came here.
