A New Beginning

Chapter 58

"I think I'll check again, and if they aren't there, then I may go torment the chess players with my terrible skills."

"Chess is boring. The sun is nice and warm, so I shall nap for a bit. Let me know if Abby decides to show up."

I snickered as I flew towards the clearing. Glen and Dad may both have silver scales, but they were complete opposites personality-wise. Dad loved chess; then again, so did Mom. It was a game that neither Abby nor Glen liked.

My ear tufts drooped when I saw that the clearing was empty. Chess didn't really appeal to me, and I didn't come to the park to lounge in the sun.

Landing on a branch, I looked around while wracking my brain for ideas. Even doing patrols for three days with nothing but safe spaceships to show for it was better than being bored in the park.

My eyes paused on a shrub; it was a common type, but its berries were terribly sour. On top of that, the leaves smelled bad if they were disturbed. My lips pulled up as a smile graced my face – it was the type of smile that would have worried anyone who knew me.

If Abby was going to ignore me, then I was going to use her absence to annoy her later on when I was too far away for her to do anything about it. I was sure to get an earful later tonight.

I swooped down to the bush to gather as many leaves and berries as I could carry. Once my arms were full, I took off in the direction of Abby's burrow. The other night she had told me about finally making a private entrance so she didn't have to use the main tunnels in her large family's burrows.

In her pride, she had been thoughtful enough to show me images of it – so I knew exactly where it was.

It was a fairly lengthy flight, although it wasn't too hard to find the hidden entrance. I rolled the stone away from the entrance and began dragging my treasures into her room. It took a few trips to get it all down through the narrow tunnel. I didn't want to annoy her whole family, so I pushed enough dirt into the joining tunnel to confine the smell to her room.

There was still plenty of room when I finished, so I went in search of more of the bushes. Fortune was favoring me today; there were several nearby. I ferried more leaves and berries back to her room, snickering a good chunk of the time.

It took me a while to fill it to my satisfaction. Once I finished, I put the rock back and went to check if the Ply-Ball players had arrived.

The clearing was as empty as it had been earlier, so I decided to go hang out with the Kymari handlers and guards while pretending I was innocent. My saving grace was that Abby wouldn't go back to her room until close to nightfall. I would be safe and sound in Soranto's – and now my – home by then.

Reaching the meadow, I flew over to Soranto and landed on his glove. I trilled and half-spread my wings, looking at him, then upwards.

With a chuckle, he threw his arm upwards. The ride into the sky was a thrill I never grew tired of. Once gravity reclaimed me, I glided down to land on his glove again. I gave another trill and looked upwards, asking to be tossed into the air.

"Again?" Soranto asked, a grin growing on his face. "Sure. Here you go!" He threw me skyward.

After the fifth repetition, Sipar idly commented, "If you attach some weights to your wrist, that might actually classify as a workout after an hour or so."

"I'm hoping that she tires of it before then," Soranto replied, "although this is preferable to a lot of other things she could be doing."

"Like trying to stuff caterpillars into your armor?" Sadria asked dryly.