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Well... Nothing, of course. The Vrika was just as powerful and sacred as the Sea Sand Lavrika. The mate bond it established was real and hard and true. Previous generations of the Sea Sands had been decimated by ignoring the Lavrika’s call, and I assumed that the Vrika’s pairings were just as important to the future generations of all tribes. So if it were to happen, if Fiona were to be paired with another male, of course I would stand aside. I had no claim on her. I would let her go. Let her go to him, and... and...
And probably throw the male in question from the top of his very own mountain home.
Or stab him.
Or maybe both. Stab, then throw. Yes, that would work.
I couldn’t risk him surviving the fall and climbing his stupid way back up. Better to kill him first.
I was so caught-up in the pleasantly violent distraction of my inner thoughts that I almost stepped on something as I exited our cave.
I paused, foot mid-air, my sight stars pulsing as I tried to figure out just what it was that I was looking at on the stone floor.
It was a pile of red and pink... stuff. I was fairly certain the new women had a name for this sort of material, but the sands take me, I did not have a single clue as to what it was. I pulled my right foot back, placed it beside my other one, then crouched, staring at the little pile with my elbows sharply placed upon my knees.
When it did not move or do anything else of interest, I lifted a suspicious claw and gave the pile a wary poke. I tensed, but the pile ultimately did not do anything besides shift a little to the side with the force of my touch.
“What is that?”
Oxriel’s voice boomed from behind me. He stepped forward and then crouched beside me, peering down at the red and pink stuff.
“I do not know.”
“Smells like new women,” he remarked, his sand-coloured sight stars vibrating with interest.
“Yes.”
“What should we do with it?”
“How in the Sea Sands should I know?”
“Is it some sort of message?”
“Oxriel,” I said on a low growl, “If you do not cease asking me foolish questions that I have no answer for, I will be forced to hit you. Very hard.”
“Alright,” he said, not seeming perturbed in the least by my threat. And then, less than two heartbeats later, he said, “Do you think it is a gift?”
I reached for his shoulder and shoved, toppling him from his crouched position. The force of his fall made the red and pink bits in the pile lift and scatter like rindla petals in the wind.
“Oh, now you’ve done it,” Oxriel grumbled. “What if the structure was important? Now you’ve gone and broken it.”
“If the wind from your foolish body falling to the ground was enough to break it then it was never meant to stay together,” I snapped. But something like dread made my spine feel cold. Had I broken it?
Rather worried now, I collected all the bits as Oxriel righted himself. There were five of them, all flimsy and thin. I made sure to hold all the delicate leaf-like bits between the pads of my fingers and thumbs so that I did not rip them with my claws.
Then, I placed them all back down as they had been before.
“No,” Oxriel piped up, “that is not right. There was a pink one on top before. Not a red one.”
“Oh. Are you certain?” I asked, tense and annoyed, suddenly unable to recall exactly how the pile had looked before.
“Yes!” Oxriel said. With careful claws, he fished out a pink bit. As he did so, the bit came open. We both stared at it as Oxriel fully unfolded it.
The shape was odd and curving. Very symmetrical. Like a circle was trying to split off from its own centre, two bubbly bits at the top both anchored together by a point at the bottom.
“Look!” Oxriel breathed, his sight stars pulsing. “This is new women writing!”
So it was a message, then. But a message we were incapable of reading.
