Right, I’m back with another instalment of the adventures of Maria and her star-dragon friends. It’s a short one this month.
Chapter fourteen – Maria
Maria waited to speak, as Sahrai took the flyer over the forest below and towards a ridge of cliffs rising out of the vegetation. Maria focused on the rocks, as they processed their emotions. They couldn’t tell if Sahrai was being dismissive of humans, or if she was genuinely trying to explain the complexity of her senses to Maria. Something felt…off.
Maria lost time as they flew, the orange vegetation blurring as their thoughts took control.
The flyer landed with a bump, jolting Maria out of their head and back into the world. They focused on the environment. It was new. Sahrai had landed them on a sward beneath the cliffs. The orange mud showed through purple grass-like vegetation that had been trampled into submission. Maria couldn’t bring themself to call it grass because grass didn’t try to grab you and strip your skin off.
Something cracked against the flyer bubble. The flyer shuddered as a volley of nuts hit it.
“What was that about?”
“Just the vegetation, it gets a bit lively up here. Exit towards the rock face or the plants will try again.”
“No, I meant what was that comment about, the landscape singing and wishing I could hear it? Do you think there is something wrong with me because I can’t?”
“Oh, I see, I wondered why you went so quiet. No, no, I wasn’t saying that. Are you upset? I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to be dismissive.”
“Sorry, I just…so many of the IGASS species are really dismissive of humans and it’s not fair. We’re just different, and that doesn’t mean we’re lesser than the rest of you.”
“Isn’t that what happened to the Lunatics though, you were treated as lesser because you were different and exiled to the Earth’s Moon.”
“And that’s why I’m upset. IGASS acts as though it is superior and yet it still engages in this behaviour; it just hides it! It’s wrong whoever is doing the discrimination.”
“Yes, you’re right…I understand, I think. I’m sorry, I really am, I didn’t even realise that was happening. And I was contributing to it.”
“Lah-Shah does it sometimes too, and he loves humans.” Maria said, sadness soaking into their soul. Even in this new world, the one they’d been raised in, they were an outsider.
They sighed, unbuckled and slid out of the flyer.
*
Standing under the ledge with the flyer at their backs, the star-dragon and the human saw what it was that doomed the IGASS expedition.
*
“Well, that’s…Sahrai, we need to do something.” Maria said, pointing at the image on the screen in Sahrai’s secret basement lab.
It showed the dark surface of the rock face, sheltered from the weather and free from the lichen-like growths that grew on the cliffs. Carved in the rock face were images of aurox, wave-like marks, stick figures, dots. They overlaid earlier carvings, some shallow, some deep, erasing images beneath them.
The stick figures looked cleaner, newer. In one image there were rectangles, an aurox on its side and three stick figures pointing at the aurox. A circle of dots around the images, with one a lot deeper than the others at the seven o’clock point, and outside the dots was a waved line at the two o’clock point.
“Who made the carvings?” Maria spun around, then around again, thinking. “The aurox? No, not flexible enough. Hmm, what other creatures live in the woods?”
“Good questions.” Sahrai said, “There’s are no large animals other than the aurox, but there are a number of medium sized animals that might have the dexterity to do it.”
Maria jumped, so lost in their own thoughts that they forgot Sahrai was there. It took them a few seconds, but they finally managed to process the star-dragon’s words.
“There are? What sort?”
“There are a few, some reptilian forms, and some are a bit like Earth monkeys, but not mammalian. It lays eggs.”
“Like a monotreme?”
“Something like that.”
The pair stared at the images again.
“Maybe we can separate the different layers of carvings?” Maria suggested. “Maybe they’ve drawn pictures of themselves somewhere?”
Sahrai nodded and settled at her worktable to play with the images.
Come back next month when we will finally meet the rock carvers.
Everything Is Better With Dragons 