Chapter Fourteen – The Happiness of Koja’so
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“I did not mate,” Ja’kh’redd confided in Koja’so, as they Hunted out in the wilderness, two days after the Week had ended for all the females. Everything had immediately resumed as before the Week, females coming and going as they pleased, visiting one another in their caves, the males ignoring any female but their own for another year. As violent as the last week had been, this week was equally peaceful.
“WHAT?” the small Vidos gasped, shocked literally out of the air, as he fell onto the grassy plain. Ja’kh’redd followed him down, landing like a hunting hawk over his kill.
“I did not mate,” he repeated to his friend. “I could not mate.”
“WHAT??” Koja’so repeated, springing to his legs like a pop-up toy, to firmly grasp the New Chief’s leather loin-wrap, and pull it sharply forward, to look inside. “No, you still have those…” He let it slap back into place, glaring up at his friend. “What is WRONG with you? Why couldn’t you mate? Do you not realize you won’t have eggs in the spring? They will call you infertile!” He was aghast. “A powerful Chief must have many eggs his first year!”
“I know!” Ja’kh’redd yelled, angry at the obvious. He grabbed his horns and pulled, walking away from Koja’so in frustration. “I know! I know! I know! I know! I just couldn’t! I couldn’t stand the sight of them, I couldn’t stand the smell… nothing!”
“The smell? But… but…” Koja was totally baffled. “But the Mating smell of females is the smell of Heaven! What do you want? What more could you ask for, Bri-pan Herself, the White Vidos, or isn’t a regular female good enough for you? Much less two??”
“Don’t lecture me, Koja!” He bellowed.
Koja’so became contrite and unhappy in his bewilderment, staring at the waving grasses around his knees. The wind hissed like a thousand snakes, shifting through the dead stalks as Autumn arrived firmly, and thunderheads began to form on the horizon. They would only have a few good days of Hunting before the females demanded their new mates, and the rains began. Where they were, in the South of Mohmast, the rains would only last a few days here and there, so they had more hunting time than other tribes. They counted themselves fortunate to be able to get away from the women more often. It was a strange irony; a young Vidos spent the first half of his life scheming of ways to get a female, and then once he got one, scheming of ways to get away from her.
Ja’kh’redd stalked back, his heart in a rushing of feelings and logic, which swirled together like a noisy river and made him speak too fast with too much force. “I think it has to do with my… with kitten.”
“That human cub you saved?” Koja’so grimaced, for it had always been his opinion that nothing good could ever come of having saved a human cub. Humans totally misunderstood and hated Vidos, and his action in Koja’s opinion could only lead to more trouble and misunderstanding than ever. He was, in the end, partially right. “I’d regurgitate my own horns to be able to mate, just once! What by Bri-Abal could that human cub have possibly done to effect you so disastrously?”
Ja’kh’redd was stopped by those words, and simply stared out over the plain, knowing the answer. He seemed to lose time and place, reaching out one hand blindly as he remembered little soft arms around his neck, an embrace so sweet, it had stopped him even from Mating, to his absolute disbelief. His gut seemed to drop out from beneath him at the thought, and he just stood, and stood, and stood, silently staring with an absolutely lost look on his strong Vidos face.
“They must not see this weakness…” Koja’so was afraid, pulling on his pointed Vidos ears. “The females will gossip, they will already have spread it around… no, Ja’kh’redd, this is NOT good. You must go back to your cave at once and mate, perhaps the Mating isn’t…”
They both stopped, smelling a very distinct musk on the breeze. They turned, Koja’s instructions forgotten.
Staring at them in surprise, a lone female stood on the plains near a large copse of trees, a rabbit dangling limply from one claw. She was still in the Heat, from another Village whose Mating Week had been at a slightly different time.
“Well,” Ja’kh’redd said in surprise, then stopped to stare. What was a lone female doing outside of the caves in Mating Week, and so close to Cho’ghra village?
After the initial moment of surprise, the young female remembered herself, put back her ears, hunched her spine a little, and hissed viciously to warn them off. A shrew then, who didn’t want to mate at all. Usually very young females would refused to mate for several years until they were ready.
“From the looks of her, she’s hiding from the Mating,” Ja’kh’redd said in amazement. But they were just near enough that she could make out what he’d said.
“YES!” She shouted back, voice thin and distant, and angry. “I refuse to Mate!” She snarled. “I will not mate any male!” But instead of running, she just stood there, glaring, with her rabbit.
Ja’kh’redd rolled his eyes and turned, and walked away without a second glance. She was no temptation to him at all.
For Koja’so, it was much more difficult. With the fury of the Mating Week still in his veins, and the scent of a female on the breeze, he had to tear his claws out of the ground to move. He looked at her, looked at his friend, looked back at her longingly, then with all of his might, forced himself away from her to follow him. He loved his friend more than just mating. “Ja’kh’redd, you must go at once back to your cave before the others notice…”
“Why are you walking away?” she yelled, far away, amazed. She’d never seen males turn their back on a female in Heat in her entire life, used to the brutish fury of the Vidos, and despising it from her youth. She was so astonished, and amazed, that she actually took several loping strides toward them, leaving the rabbit where she’d stood. She could come back for it, but this behavior was too odd to ignore.
Ja’kh’redd didn’t answer her, but kept walking, picking up speed. Since the fight with the Chief, it hurt him to fly very far, so they were doing their Hunting near the canyon. This also avoided being attacked by the males of other Villages, whose Mating was still winding down.
Koja’so glanced back, so amazed at being near an unmated female that he could barely think, but again he managed to walk after Ja’kh’redd. “I don’t know where this loyalty comes from,” he muttered to himself, watching the bigger Vidos’s back. “I should be chasing her, and instead I am chasing you.” He sighed, shaking his head.
“It comes from me having slapped the horns off of Uri’ako on your behalf about six times,” Ja’kh’redd snorted with a laugh.
“That must be it…”
“HEY!”
She was mad this time.
Ja’kh’redd turned, and so did Koja’so.
“WHAT!” Ja’kh’redd roared back, in no mood to fool with her.
“How can you walk away from a female during Mating?” She demanded, coming slowly nearer to them, amazed and delighted. She’d never seen males like this before. “Are you both all mated out? Have no more use for females?” She laughed, finding her teasing funny.
Koja’so was almost drooling. He breathed quickly, watching her approach, his wings twitching.
“If you want to go, go,” Ja’kh’redd muttered out of the side of his mouth. “And maybe…” he smiled a little, “…later, I’ll teach you something to show her, that will make her fight away any male that tried to get her.”
“What?” He asked in awe, his eyes fixed on her.
“It’s called … a hug,” Ja’kh’redd whispered.
“Huuug,” he repeated stupidly, sniffing the breeze as she came within a short hop and flight of them both. He was sweating, and shaking, it was obvious that her presence had totally overwhelmed him. But to Ja’kh’redd’s sorrow, he himself was not effected in the way he wished. Surely, he felt the need for a female at the scent of her… surely, he felt the heat of the Mating in his blood, the desire to perform it. But when he turned and looked at her, the sickness in his gut cut off all will, and made his wings feel too weak to fly.
“Female,” Ja’kh’redd addressed her, feeling unusually civilized. Perhaps it was kitten’s influence. “If you do not turn back and leave, my younger friend will become foolish. If you wish not to mate this year, turn and go.”
She startled, realizing what she was doing, and backed up a little bit. Koja’so, to his credit, remained frozen, and didn’t even try to go for her.
Then she realized further that she liked these two males, who had not tried to force themselves on her, and she felt herself pleased with them. “Perhaps I wish to… to…” she said hesitantly, with a touch of sauce, looking Koja’so up and down. “Perhaps I am not afraid of you.”
“Males only have so much control,” Ja’kh’redd warned disapprovingly. “If you truly do not wish to mate, you are making it very hard on my friend here. Go away.”
She glared and pouted, then turned and left. But halfway to her rabbit, she paused, and turned back. She did want to mate, she realized. But not with the idiots from her village, not when forced, not without choice. The big one was very handsome, but obviously not interested. The little one, though scarred, was… cute. She smiled at him, and lifted her chin to him, then picked up her rabbit and walked with a wiggle of her tail into the copse of trees.
“OH BY THE SUN!” Koja’so howled, dissembling into a heap on the ground, which rolled around and then sprang back to full height, almost bouncing on his toes. “Did you SEE That? Was she inviting us?”
“Not us, you. Go.” He gave his friend a little push. “This is the kind who likes to talk too much, you two should be a perfect match.”
Without any further thought, Koja’so was off like a shot, flapping wildly to the copse of trees, and sneaking gingerly in. Ja’kh’redd had to smile as he waited, counting down the seconds, until within ten, the first female yowl of flirtatious displeasure at his supposedly un-asked-for presence came from what sounded like a little hidden cave somewhere in that grouping of foliage. After that was a yip of delight, and the full end of her protestations.
Taking a deep breath, and looking around at the sky, Ja’kh’redd did his friend one last service. He walked halfway to the copse and sat down, and as growls and various sounds of interest came muffled from somewhere within the trees, he carved himself a new wooden súwah, and guarded the cave. After all, little Koja’so was too small to defend his own female. At leat Ja’kh’redd could give him one year of being mated, if he couldn’t give himself happiness.