Seeing Wings of Green

Chapter 9: Sunburst Berries and Close Calls

When I woke up again, the sun had dipped below the horizon; leaving behind just the pastel hues of twilight in the sky above. While I carefully balanced myself on the branch I had been snoozing upon as I stretched, I did a quick scan of my surroundings. The street and sidewalk below me were deserted for the night; the Kymari having gone home a couple of hours earlier. Having completed my stretching, I carefully turned around and made my way into my tree hollow.

The entrance to my hollow was about forty-three feet off of the ground below; well out of reach of the Kymari, foxes, and other small predatory creatures that weren't originally of this world. I- as well as the others- didn't have to worry about the native wild felines, as they kept solely to the thick jungles and forests and tended to stay far away from the Kymari cities; not that they could really get past the solid, sturdy walls that the Kymari had constructed around their cities in the first place. There were two chambers that comprised of my treetop home. The larger of the two (and the original, main chamber) was where I lounged and slept while the smaller chamber (that I had constructed by painstakingly chipping and carving away at the wood with a sharp stone that I had found) was used primarily for storing edible nuts and various dried fruits (and the occasional strips of dried fish meat, as I was more piscivorous than my flock-mates, who lived mostly off of fruits and nuts) in case of an emergency; such as severe weather (though, it would have to be a particularly bad storm to keep us from performing the Morning Song). Thankfully, such storms only passed through the area two or three times a year.

I did a quick walk-through to make sure that everything was as I had left it this morning; subtly inhaling in order to check for any out-of-place scents (of which there were thankfully none). Once I was sure that everything was just where I had previously left it, I curled up in my mossy, feather-lined nest and allowed myself to go back to sleep.

~~~

I allowed myself to get totally lost in the Morning Song and in the emotions that came with it. I always looked forward to the high that the Morning Song brought; more so than I had looked forward to my first cup of morning coffee when I was still Human. The high itself was comparable to the few times that I had gotten high from marijuana. While the plant-based high itself was fairly nice; for me, it had always come with a side of paranoia or nausea that I obviously didn't find too terribly enjoyable. With the Morning Song high, however- there was no paranoia- or any negative emotions or side-effects for that matter. Just raw, pure, untainted euphoria that no natural or Human-made drug could ever even come close to replicating.

A warbling, musical-sounding kree escaped my throat as I barrel rolled off to the side in order to avoid a mid-flight collision with a blue dragonet, feeling the air stir between us as I did so. Such close calls were rather common during our morning performances and while it left me alarmed and a little nervous the first time I had a close pass, I had quickly learned to re-focus my attention back on the aerial movements of my own body. Our quick, cat-like reflexes and lithe, flexible bodies made it so that we could easily evade one another as we each performed our own individual dances for the rising sun. Eventually, we all merged into a single, upwards spiraling, column of bright colors that lasted for about half a minute before we all quickly dispersed as the call to dance for the sun faded.

With the Morning Song done, I chose to do a little bit of exploring. Having explored nearly every inch of the park, I decided to venture somewhere where I- or any of the other Dragonets for that matter- had dared to venture before; the park's boundries. I hummed an old tune from my days as a Human while I effortlessly wove between the upper boughs of some of the park's many trees on my journey to the park's edge. While I had been Human, I had often put on music while I was exercising or doing homework; as I had found that the auditory input and stimulation actually helped me concentrate on the task at hand and the same still reigned true for me now, even as a Dragonet. Since headphones, earbuds, and various music players no longer existed, I had to rely solely on my memory to get me by.