The new divine being smelt familiar to Gilrack. He wondered if he had met her while delusional with fever or half-dead from the dead-eyed one's thunder stick.
She was past her prime, her scent told him. Had been for a while, though her body held strong despite that. She also had white hair, something unheard of among his own kind, and he found he couldn't stop looking. It was like clouds.
She was also tiny. Smaller than both the dead-eyed one and his goddess. Her voice had rung with kindness as she had spoken to his goddess, but her mind had pulsed with a lead-heavy sadness. The sadness called to him, but this was a stranger and he had no nest to urge her into. He could only hope she had her own nest and family to comfort her.
Then, as his goddess and the old male got to work on the strangest shaped stones hanging from the roof that he'd ever seen, the little old female turned her face up to him and he got his first close look at her eyes, framed by bird-feet wrinkles and white lashes.
Black eyes. Dead eyes.
He couldn't hold back his flinch. Perhaps dead-eyes were common among the divine beings, or perhaps she was related to the male. It didn't make it any less unnerving to see them moving and looking at him.
She pointed to herself. "Nayohmee," she said.
Ah, yes, the word his maiden had said when she'd appeared. "Nay...Nay-oh-mee."
The little female nodded, curving her mouth in that way Gilrack had learned was the divine beings way of expressing pleasure. He'd yet to hear them purr and had begun to think they were incapable of doing so, thus their pulling of their mouth corners.
He hesitated for a moment, then pointed at himself. "Gilrack."
This seemed to please her even more. "Gilrack?" she tried.
Apparently, the ability to say new words perfectly on the first try wasn't just a skill of his maiden's, but perhaps all the divine beings.
He sent out a wave of pleasure, only remembering to pull back his mouth corners instead when the little female's eyes widened and her mind radiated with surprise.
"Oh," she said, before turning her head to say something rapidly towards the other two, who were both arm and head deep into the ceiling now. Their voices echoed back to her and she turned around with her mouth corners pulled back even more. There was excitement in her mind waves.
"Gilrack," she repeated, then crossed the space to the ladder to touch his goddess's calve. "Jo-Leen."
His chest and spines clenched towards his core in delight. Her name. Her glorious name.
When they were going over words he didn't want to offend by asking. An inferior never asked the name of the superior. The superior always had to offer it first. Also, she had started their word game by going first and he didn't want to accidentally offend in case there was a rule to the pattern of spoken conversation. He'd taken a chance by giving her the word for his tail, but she had looked as though she were at a loss for what to name next.
The old female—Nay-oh-mee (such an odd name), moved her hand to the male's leg.
"Lee-veye," she said.
He repeated the names until Naomi nodded when he got it correct, lingering longer on the name of his divine maiden. Odd names, yes, but Jo-leen had a soft, pleasing quality to its sound that he couldn't help think fit her gentle nature and swooping dark eyelashes perfectly.
He hated the male's name. He had to practically pierce his bottom lip to make the 'v' sound only to jump clear to the back of his mouth afterwards to make the 'eye' sound. But Jo-leen moved smoothly from front to back, no jump needed.
The male's low voice echoed down from the ceiling cavity and Nay-oh-mee rolled her black eyes.
When it became apparent that the little female was done trying to teach him words, he recited what he had learned in his mind as he eyed the different parts of his female—no, not his yet—or, at least, the parts he could see as she worked at something in the ceiling. He kept waiting for one of them to heft themselves up and their joints to turn fluid for tunneling. But their limbs stayed as straight and firm as his were now. Perhaps this was the effect of being in the heavens, even if there were still holes and tunnels to shimmy through. The gleaming walls, however, angular and straight, were made of something much harder than stone, though more pliable. He remembered the feel of the grates bending beneath his claws and flexed his fingers.
It was good material for a den. But, then, what he'd seen of the heavens seemed to be full of nothing but caverns and abandoned dens. He'd only ever caught the scent of these three and he suspected he only ever would. Sometimes and empty, dusty smell of abandoned spaces and stale air would drift to him. The heavens were a surprisingly lonely place. You'd think the people who had conquered the vast skies would have reproduced enough over the eons to fill at least half that space, but apparently not so.
Perhaps he and his female could get started on fixing then...when they learned to communicate for him enough to court her.
He'd been enjoying the view of his divine female's ample breasts pressing through the loose fabric of her strange, full-body covering suit when he felt a familiar chill down his spine and turned his face to meet the cold, black gaze of her male companion. The air seemed to sharpen, ever so slightly, with the scent of the male's hostility. Gilrack huffed to clear his nose of such a weak scent. But, then, most of the scents the divine beings gave were weak, though he was becoming more attuned to it. He wouldn't be surprised if, on returning to his people, he found their scents overwhelming.
The male held his gaze with stony firmness until Gilrack finally looked away.
Best not to pick a fight until he knew more.
It got harder to ignore when the male got off the ladder and came uncomfortably close. It was a direct threat and Gilrack's carefully controlled instincts spiked between his fingers to respond. When a clear wave of protective, hostile male rage lapped across his mind, he unconsciously dug his claws into the hard, pliable stone beneath him.
The small female suddenly appeared, pulling the male with the same eyes as her back. Her mouth had puckered down and her eyes had narrowed. She spoke sharply to the male, even smacking him on the ear before pushing him towards the ladder.
Gilrack's instincts thankfully lowered to a simmer and he tried to convey his thanks to the female. It was obvious who was the chief in this tiny tribe. She gave him a cornered-pull show of pleasure in response.
He liked her, he decided. Perhaps he could make an ally of her yet. Then not even the dead-eyed male could cause him trouble.
To do so he'd need gifts, something he could make without infringing on the divine property...that left only himself.
So, eyeing his spines and his long tail tuffs, he considered what he could make. Gifts were universal among tribes and animals. Surely it would apply to these strange divine beings.
But it only took a few breaths for him to grow depressed. He could make a gift of camaraderie easily enough using what he had on hand, but a mating gift would be impossible unless he could somehow escape the heavens. Not to mention the divine maiden was a caliber of female who demanded the rarest of jewels, softest of cloths, and entire dens of gold and platinum. She deserved the most tender of meats and the most sweet of fruits.
One step at a time, he told himself. First, communication.
Because beyond her beauty, her scent, and her soft, supple whiteness, Gilrack longed to hear the soul thoughts of his beloved spoken aloud for only him to hear.