The History of the Plandikes
Figure 1 Male and Female Plandikes
Figure 2 Plandike Flag
Forward
I, Adonias Kahti, chief scribe of the [need to come up with name] tribe, greatest of the nine tribes of the Plandikes, have been appointed the task of chronicling the history of our most noble and excellent race of the Skymo birds. We were once nine separate tribes, until one day a bold leader decided to unite them all. This tells of our humble beginnings and how we rose to be one of the greatest of the bird species of Skymo.
Chapter One: Divided
It was not until twocenturies ago that we finally united as a species. Before that, we consisted of nine petty tribes, constantly engaged in even more petty squabbling. We were not respected and feared as we are now, but instead were so divided that other, more organized, bird groups pillaged our villages often while we were too busy fighting amongst ourselves to have time to do something about it.
There was the Maasaieeta tribe, known for skilled archers and boat-making. There was the Kuwadaelis tribe, known for the invention of catapults and underwater fishing nets.
Chapter Two: The Maasaieeta Tribe
Chapter Three: The Kuwadaelis Tribe
Theirfirst leader, who united the tribe, was Theodoric the Brown. Before that, the tribe consisted of five loosely allied clans: the Domr Clan, the Fraegr Clan, the Vigamaor Clan, the Frami Clan, and the Prymja Clan.
The Juliomno Chronicles
Figure 3 Male and Female Juliomnos
Figure 4 Juliomno Flag
Forward
I, Stephen Jardis, chief recorder of the Historical Society of Greater Avaliq, have compiled this collection of histories and events, mostly concerning the Juliomnos, but also involving the other species of birds as well, so that those in future generations shall know the history of our kind. These accounts have also been compiled, not just for the casual reader, but in the hopes that, should certain events be forgotten, or, worse yet, should the truth be deliberately obscured by sinister agents, that the reader shall learn of what truly transpired in our past.
Chapter One: The Various Flocks
We weren’t always working together as a species. Over two hundred years ago, many of the Juliomnos were under the control of the Cuàciastés, who, at the time, had a vast empire that covered much of Skymo. The Juliomnos had been under Cuàciasté control for centuries, and there seemed to be little hint that it wouldn’t continue for centuries more still.
Figure 5 Male Cuàciasté
However, things all changed after a long and drawn out war between the Cuàciastés and their long-time rivals, the pheasants and the chickens. The war had ended with a Cuàciasté victory, in which the Juliomnos had played no small part. This victory had left the Cuàciastés with even more territory under their control. However, it also saddled their empire with a considerable amount of debt. This they decided to try and pay off by levying new taxes upon the various residents of their empire. Some of these territories, of course, being Juliomno ones.
The Slisli Annals
Figure 6 Male and Female Slislis
Figure 7 Slisli Flag
Forward
I, Jinho Hak, head chronicler of the Ministry of Recording of the Southern Federation of Slislis, have written these annals about our people so that scholarly Slislis, as well as other curious birds, can learn of what transpired in our past.
Chapter One: The Art of Sli Tu
No annal of Slisli history would be complete without mentioning the art of Sli Tu. Invented over 1500 years ago by a Slisli by the name of Ste-sing-sa, it is one of the most renowned martial arts in the bird world.
In this time, in what is now the Eastern Federation of Slislis, there were groups of Slislis and Rakames who were part of the wandering tribes of Tagrilandi and Oxuna, who were ruthless thugs and mercenaries without any honor. These nasty birds had most of the smithies in their territory, meaning that weapon production outside of their realms was limited. This enabled them to pillage, without much resistance, the surrounding countryside.
The thugs had killed the grandfather of Ste-sing-sa and had wounded his father in one of their raids. Ste-sing-sa vowed revenge and that he would find a way to fight back. The Tagrilandi and the Oxuna just laughed, for they thought that they had the superior weaponry, which was true. But what they hadn’t counted on was the bold Slisli inventing a new kind of weapon.
The Tales of the Tyndys
Figure 8 Female Tyndy
Forward
I, Msizi Ledwaba, have compiled these tales of our kind, so that others may know of the struggles and triumphs of the Tyndys. While it is true that others have inflicted injustices upon us in the past, it is also true that, like our own kind have also had a role in said injustices, others have also joined our own kind in achieving our triumphs as well. As of late, many Tyndys have forgotten where we came from and how far we have come. Sinister agents of our own kind, seeking their own profit, have been spewing hatred toward other birds over past injustices against our kind, which, if successful, will keep us from moving forward.
A Guide to the Flora of the Four Worlds
Forward
Though the Amphibian War continues, and though Skymo and Fladerma are not on the best of terms with Chertasakrila and Tafathayta, we have decided to put aside petty political squabbling and work together to compile a record of the various flora of our worlds.
- Jonathan Hazelworth, Mathias Abrama, Ming Salumi, and Bina Margalit
PART 1: THE FLORA OF SKYMO
Skymo has a wide variety of flora. The most famous of these, of course, being the Shajoy tree, the only plant in all four worlds to have more than one type of fruit on it. Its three fruits are the blue hendo, the marron maralinqua, and the orange breannis. Many birds of Skymo love the fruit of the Shajoy tree. Even the Plandikes, who, being strict carnivores, are unable to digest the fruit itself, enjoy various punches made from the three fruits of the tree.
PART 3: THE FLORA OF CHERTASAKRILA
Adresselberries are cyan-colored peanut-shaped fruits that grown onLadendel trees. Due to Ladendel trees being, on average, 20 feet in height, with greater heights for trees over 100 years of age, the fruit is safe from predation by non-flying creatures.
The Birds of Skymo The Bird War Book 1
Figure 9Tokando Ocean coast
Introduction
The twin suns had gone down on the planet of Skymo, a planet, dominated by birds, in the Alpha Centauri system. A family of sparrows, the Spelmichs, wandered outside lazily, walking along the coast of the Tokando Ocean. The children were playing hide-and-seek in some cowtail pines. It was a cloudless night and the stars shone in the sky. The planet’s three moons were out, and two of them were full, which only happened once every 86 days of Skymo’s 429-day year, and making the tide come in strongly on the shores of the nearby beach. Luckily, they were well away from the dangerous surf.
“Look, a falling star!” one of the children called out, pointing up at a meteor in the sky.
“That’s not a falling star, that’s a bird that just doesn’t know how to fly properly,” one of the other children remarked.
“Birds can’t fly that high up,” a third remarked.
“Maybe that’s why it’s falling. It flew too high up.”
“It’s not a bird,” said their mother.
“Then what is it?” one of the children asked.
“It’s a sky rock. I’ve seen them many times. They fall to the ground,” their mother said.
“Where do they come from?” one of the children asked.
“Not sure,” their father Stanley replied. “I know that they come from beyond the world.”
“Can we go play near the shore?” one of the children asked.
“As long as you stay safely away from the water. The current is very strong right now,” their father replied.
“We promise,” they all said.
“Ok then.”
The three children moved near the shore, though still within the sightline of their parents and safely away from the dangerous currents. They picked up a nearby seashell and began tossing it amongst themselves. After a few minutes of this, the seashell sailed past one of the children and landed on the beach, closer to the water.
“I’ll get it,” said Muiris, the oldest.
He walked to the shell, for none of them could fly yet, and was about to head back toward the beach when a big wave crashed into him, starting to drag him out to sea. “Help me!” he cried.
His siblings, Aureliana and Jennifer, jumped into the water to rescue him. However, all they succeeded in doing was getting themselves caught in the current as well. Their cries soon reached their parents. Stanley and Elviira flew out after them. Together, after much effort, the two sparrows had brought their children, coughing and sputtering, safely to shore. They had avoided one disaster. However, another was approaching.
“Eich! Owei! Nayav!” It was the hunting cry of Plandikes. They were large birds, who were nearly seven feet tall, making them the largest of the birds, even surpassing ostriches. However, unlike ostriches, they could fly, and fly well. They were carnivorous, notorious carnivores in fact, who ate other birds. It soon became apparent that they were the targets of a hunting expedition.
“You will not be hunting my family!” Stanley shouted at them as they began to circle, moving closer and closer to them. The Plandikesdidn’t answer, but instead one of them hurled a spear, which hit and killed Aureliana. “No! Not my daughter! I’ll kill you!” Stanley charged at them, not even caring that they outnumbered him and had weapons, all he cared about was hurting them as much as possible. As he neared, one of them whacked him in the head with the side of a spear. He struggled to maintain consciousness and spun out of control, moving in a falling arc and eventually crashing into a medium-sized tree, snapped off a branch, and fell to the ground, landing in a bush and out of sight of the attacking Plandikes, where he quickly fell into unconsciousness. When he came to again, his wife and kids were gone, as were the Plandikes, and there were only spots of blood where he had last seen his family. They had all been eaten.
“No, no, they can’t be dead! They can’t be!” the sparrow sobbed.
The Plandikes had attacked sparrows before. It had even happened to families not too far from him. However, this attack on his family had really hit home. This was his wife and kids that were killed! For too long the bird world had just accepted the predation. No bird should eat another bird! It wasn’t right! It was time to do something about it!
Chapter One: Seeking Revenge
“You want to start a war with the Plandikes?” asked Cornelius Paroqui, a parrot friend of Stanley’s. Cornelius lived some fifty miles away by the Oko Ocean, an inland ocean. Still, the two met very often, having been friends since they were hatchlings. Cornelius had come as soon as he’d heard of the deaths of Stanley’s wife and children. After they’d held a funeral for the Spelmichs, Stanley had brought up his desire to avenge their deaths.
“Yes.”
“But they’re natural-born fighters. They’ve been warring among their various clans for time out of mind, until they finally united as one group about two centuries ago.”
“I know, but I don’t care. We can’t just let them eat other birds. Our friends. Our children. Our wives. Enough is enough!”
“I agree, we can’t keep letting them do this. But the two of us can’t fight a war by ourselves.”
“I agree we can’t do that. But what are you getting at by bringing that up?”
“I mean by that that we’ll need to convince others to join our cause.”
“That shouldn’t be too hard. I mean, I’m not the only one that lost family to those awful Plandikes. My friends and neighbors will certainly help me. And you can get your friends and neighbors to join in. Then we can challenge the Plandikes and hopefully others will see the righteousness of our cause and join in.”
“I don’t think it will be as easy as you think.”
“I don’t see why it wouldn’t be.”
I’m afraid that others that haven’t had it happen to them won’t care what happened to you, as long as it doesn’t happen to them.”
“I hope that doesn’t turn out to be the case.”
The two travelled to nearby villages of sparrows first. Many of them had lost friends and family to predators such as the Plandikes, and many of those who hadn’t knew someone who had. They received a similar reception from the parrots. Still, they weren’t able to convince either the parrots or the sparrows as a group, as they were averse to an all-out war. “Stinking politicians don’t want to stick their necks out!” Stanley grumbled.
“Perhaps if we can persuade enough birds to join us, they’ll come around to our point of view,” Cornelius said.
“We need a larger bird to join us.”
“Which ones did you have in mind?”
“How about the Slislis for starters?”
Slislis were so named because of the bird call they made that sounded like a fast-ringing bell going “Sli-sli-sli-sli-sli-sli-sli-sli!”. They were divided into four, united, but distinct, federations, North, South, East, and West. The Slislis had the numbers to get the war idea off the ground and give the Plandikes a real challenge. The two decided to visit the Northern Federation first, as it was the nearest, only thirty miles away from Stanley’s home. When they arrived in the northernmost town of the Northern Federation, they made their way toward the home of the chieftain and his officials.
“What can I do for you, my fine birds?” he asked as he saw them approaching.
“We’d like you to help us in a war,” Stanley said.
“A war? Were you attacked?”
“In a manner of speaking. Plandikes attacked my family.”
“In an invasion?”
“Not exactly. A hunting expedition.”
The two left the Slisli village, feeling very dejected. They sat in silence for a while.
“So, what do we do now?” Cornelius asked, finally breaking the silence. He had warned Stanley that it wouldn’t be that easy to sway others to their cause.
“I have given the matter much thought. I have concocted a plan to get the Slislis to help us.”
“What kind of plan?”
Chapter Two: A Bold Plan
“This plan sounds really risky.” Cornelius said when Stanley was finished explaining his scheme.
“I know, but I think it will work.”
They silently flew into a Plandike village. Stanley had brought several sticks; they were of two different kinds. When rubbed together, the friction would create heat, and with enough heat, they could start a fire. They approached a large wooden building, which functioned as the village town hall. The two applied copious amounts of pine tree sap to the structure. Once the building was sufficiently coated, Stanley began to rub the sticks together while Cornelius stood nearby as a lookout. As soon as he had ignited several branches, Stanley quickly flew around the structure, tossing flaming branches onto it, until the structure quickly began to engulf in flames.
“Come on, quickly!” Stanley whispered to Cornelius.
The parrot wondered why the sparrow wasn’t fleeing, as the Plandikes were sure to be awake and after them, but Stanley merely signaled to him, handing him branches covered in tree sap. The two quickly applied tree sap to buildings adjacent to the town hall. As intended, these buildings were soon engulfed in flames as well as the fire spread from building to building.
By now, the Plandikes were beginning to stir and it didn’t lake them long to spot the blaze and the two arsonists.
At this point, the two, knowing they were spotted, took to the air and fled with great haste. “After them!” a Plandike cried.
The two birds had a couple of minutes head start and they used it to fly toward a Slisli village. Several Slislis darted out of the way as the two fleeing birds zoomed past. “Where are you two going in such a hurry?” one of them snapped. Neither the parrot nor the sparrow replied.
The two birds had been only gone a few minutes when the Slislis were once more disturbed. “I say, why is everyone in such a hurry tonight?” one of them grumbled.
“Did you see two birds go by here?” one of them asked.
“Yes, I did, as a matter of fact. Seemed in quite a hurry, just like you.”
“Did you happen to see which way they went?” one of the Plandikes asked, the tone of his voice clearly showing his impatience over the delay.
“Yes, I did.”
“Then tell us already!”
“They went that way,” the Slisli said, pointing to his right.
“Thanks.”
“What do you want with these two?”
“They set part of our village on fire.”
“Why would they do that?”
“How should I know?”
“Surely you must know.”
“Well, we don’t! Now stop bothering us and let us get them!” And without a further word, the Plandike mob angrily flew off, nearly knocking the Slisli out of the air as they went by.
Cornelius and Stanley, meanwhile, had arrived in the middle of the Slisli town. The few Slislis that were about were startled by their arrival. “Why are you two in such a hurry?” one of them asked.
“Had a little problem with some Plandikes,” Stanley replied.
“What kind of trouble?” one of them asked.
“They’re after us,” Cornelius replied elusively.
“How come?”
More Slislis began to arrive, curious about what was going on. Before the two birds could make a reply to any of them, the Plandikes arrived.
“There they are!” one of them cried.
“Is anyone going to tell me what is going on here?” a very grumpy Slisli, irate at being woken out of bed in the middle of the night, snapped.
“Those two villains set fire to our town!” a Plandike replied.
“Why would they do that?” a Slisli asked.
“I have no idea! All I know is that they did and we saw them!” another Plandike said.
“I did it because your kind ate my wife and kids!” Stanley replied passionately.
“See, he confessed!” a Plandikecried.
“Yes, I did, and I’d do it again!”
“You won’t have the chance! We’re going to lock you two away for quite some time.”
“Like we’d let you!” Stanley snapped.
“Help us arrest these arsonists,” the Plandike village chieftain commanded the nearby Slislis.
Much to the surprise of the Plandikes, however, one of the Slislis replied “We’d prefer to stay out of this.”
“You’re not going to help us?” a Plandike asked.
“This really isn’t our fight. You started it by eating his family and now he retaliated.”
“We have long eaten other birds. Why make it an issue now?” the Plandike chief asked.
“Because you attacked my family and I decided that I wasn’t going to stand for it and fought back. I can see that you never had that happen before,” Stanley said.
“Enough talk, we’re going to take you two in, one way or the other,” a Plandike said.
“I’d like to see you try!” Stanley taunted them.
“You’re going to be sorry that you won’t come quietly!” the Plandike chief snapped.
“It’s you who’s going to be sorry! Sorry that you killed my family!”
“You’re never going to catch us,” Cornelius shouted at the Plandikes.
“If we have to kill you in order to catch you, we will gladly do so,” the Plandike chief retorted.
“I’m sure you would, because you Plandikes like killing!” Stanley snorted.
The Plandikes ignored this remark and began their pursuit of the two. Several Plandikes hurled spears at Stanley. These, he dodged and a Slisli bystander was nearly hit by one of them.
“Hey!” the Slisli snapped.
Stanley darted around the Slislis, who narrowly avoided being hit by the spears that the Plandikes were hurling. Cornelius also narrowly dodged attacks. Unlikely Stanley, however, he was dodging attacks in such a way as to not risk a Slisli being hit by a thrown spear. Annoyed that their spears weren’t hitting either of them, some of the Plandikes began to wield daggers. He wasn’t sure how long he could last against this onslaught.
A spear, thrown at Stanley, missed, instead killing a Slisli. “Hey, stop throwing those now!” another Slisli demanded.
“You could have helped us. You didn’t and thus you’re paying the price,” the Plandike chieftain retorted as his underlings continued to hurl spears.
A Slisli official, angry that the Plandikes were continuing to throw spears despite being ordered not to, seized a spear of his own and hurled it at a Plandike; it struck him and pinned him to a tree.
“Hey, what did you do that for?” a Plandike snapped.
“We told you to stop hurling spears!” the Slisli chieftain replied.
“We’re trying to get those arsonists!”
“Well, we told you to stop when you killed one of our people!”
“Your people could have helped ours, then this wouldn’t have happened!”
“We demand that you leave at once!”
“Leave? We’re not leaving until we bring those criminals to justice!”
The Slislis all brandished their weapons at the Pandikes. “Leave, now!” the Slisli chieftain demanded.
“Very well, but consider this a declaration of war,” the Plandike chieftain snarled.
“If that’s what you want, that’s what you’ll get,” the Slisli chieftain said.
The Plandikes left, vowing revenge. When they were gone, the Slisli chieftain said to Stanley and Cornelius, “It looks like we’ll be aiding you in your war against the Plandikes after all.”
“Thank you very much for your assistance,” Stanley said.
“You’re most welcome,” the chieftain replied.
“Maholo ,” Cornelius said to all the Slislis in Slisanese. He had picked up the language for he had met Slislis in the past and lived with a few briefly after moving out of his parents’s house as roommates in a country inn.
“Hemeaiki ,” they replied.
“You know, you guys caused us a lot of trouble,” the Slisli chieftain said to them a few minutes later.
“I know. We had hoped to get away but the Plandikes followed us here,” the two lied. It had been their plan all along for the Plandikes to come after them, figuring that the Slisli politicians would prefer to stay out of this feud, and that the arrogance of the Plandikes would lead to a situation where war would be declared. The two had agreed that a few misdeeds here and there justified the greater good of ending the evil of bird predation.
“We weren’t planning on getting anyone killed and we’re sorry for that poor fellow’s death,” Cornelius said.
“Well, you two were right, those Plandikes are arrogant, thinking that they can do whatever they want without any consequences. And it’s about time someone stood up to them. Might as well be us,” the Slisli chieftain replied. “Though, you do know, we expect the parrots and sparrows to join in on this new war and ally with us, you understand, of course,” he added.
“We understand,” the two replied.
Chapter Three: The Bird War Begins
Soon after war had broken out between the Plandikes and the Slislis, the Grundus joined the side of the Plandikes. The Grundus were nocturnal, like owls, but, unlike owls, they ate other birds, just like the Plandikes. They had not been on the best terms with the Slislis and it wasn’t that hard for the Plandikes to convince them to join them.
Figure 10 Male Grundu
The Slislis, for their part, enlisted the help of the Donkas, who were herbivores and had frequently been preyed on by Plandikes and other predators.
Figure 11 Female Donka
Figure 12 Male Donka
The parrots and the sparrows joined the side of the Slislis while the hawks and falcons joined the side of the Plandikes. The Tyndys, a medium-sized herbivore bird with limited flying abilities, joined the side of the Slislis; the vultures were persuaded to join the side of the Plandikes.
Neither side could recruit the Juliomnos, who were omnivorous and thus less likely to be targeted by predators as they could bite back. The Juliomnos mainly concerned themselves with philosophy and the liberal arts. They were wily inventors and created a great many things. However, they were not really into war and wanted to stay neutral in the new Bird War.
So far, no battle had been met since the first skirmish between the Plandikes and the Slislis. The most they had done is cut off diplomacy and exchange harsh words with each other. However, one night, that all changed. The Grundus and other nocturnal birds had planned a night attack upon the parrots. The parrots were nearly caught off guard and would totally have been off guard had not the barn owls and spotted owls, the two groups of owls that hadn’t joined with the Grundus, warned the parrots ahead of time.
The warning came only five minutes before the attack itself. Thus, the parrots barely had time to ready themselves and many of them were killed, though not as many as the Grundus and their owl allies had hoped. The Grundus were furious at the barn and spotted owls for helping the parrots and declared war upon them. Now the owls were divided, most on one side of the war and two species on the other.
Four days later, the parrots, the sparrows, and the barn and spotted owls met in the territory of the Donkas, an area by the Lynnelem Ocean. It was hundreds of miles away from the homelands of Stanley and Cornelius and took them most of the four days and a lot of the nights too to fly all the way there. They were very tired and weren’t up to much planning the night that they arrived.
The following day, they met with the leader of the Donkas. It happened to be the Donka festival of Dwallis. It was like the Earth Christmas, though it was midyear instead of at the end of the year. The Donkas were burrowing birds, meaning that, rather than being in the air in a tree, or even in a house above ground, the Donka banqueting hall was below ground.
The Donkas were vegans, so they didn’t serve any meat for their feast. However, they did serve a lot of great food, including a favorite of Stanley’s and Cornelius’s: Shajoy tree fruit.
“Please, more Maralinqa,” Stanley asked as a lark was carrying around plates of food.
“Breannis please,” Cornelius said.
“Do you have any Hendo?” Stanley asked.
“I’m afraid we’re all out,” the lark said.
“A pity. Shajoy tree fruit really helps with my gizzard, which sometimes gets upset.”
“Well, hopefully we can pick some more Shajoy tree fruit and we can get your gizzard taken care of,” said a Donka.
After they were done eating, they began discussing their plans for battle. Their immediate plan was an attack upon the Grundus. Perhaps a decisive enough victory over them would get the owls to reconsider their alliance with them and join the barn and spotted owls instead. They were joined in their war plans by Tyndys as well as the Slislis from the Southern Federation of Slislis.
“Yu-whoop!” several Donkas cried. “Du-peed-uh!” others cried. These two sounds were the cries that Donkas made. “Sli-sli-sli-sli-sli-sli-sli-sli-sli-sli-sli!” an army of Slislis screamed.
The Donkas, Slislis, Tyndys, parrots, sparrows, and barn and spotted owls zoomed toward the Grundus, great grey and screech owls, Plandikes, hawks, vultures, eagles, and falcons.
Chapter Four: Jezibeak
“Hey you two.” Cornelius and Stanley turned around. A female Atrund was calling to them from a nearby table at a café. An Atrund was a bird that could move its head 270 degrees, kind of like an owl, and was very flexible with its legs, able to stretch them into positions that other birds could not.
Figure 13 Female Atrund
“I don’t recall meeting you before,” Cornelius said.
“Me neither,” Stanley said.
“No, we haven’t met, though I’ve heard of the both of you.”
“Who are you?” Cornelius asked.
“My name’s Jezibeak.”
“Hello Jezibeak. What made you seek us out?” Stanley asked.
“I heard what happened to your family. Just awful. I wanted to help you defeat the Plandikes.”
“That’s very kind of you.”
“Think nothing of it. I’m just here to help you.”
“We can use all the help we can get.”
“And I have plenty to offer.”
“What specifically do you have to offer?” Cornelius asked.
The Rakames were large carnivorous birds with a tail of multiple layers, each one splitting out to form another one that was one layer longer the one before it. The females had four layers while the males had five. They had been covertly trading weapons and other materials with the Plandikes, obtaining them from the Slisli side via their neutral stance in the war. They had been hoping to share on a large bounty, placed by the Plandikes, on Cornelius and Stanley, with Jezibeak.
Figure 14 Female Rakame
The Birds of Skymo The Bird War Book 2
Introduction
There was a new development in the Bird War, and it was troubling Cornelius Paroqui. The Bockies had recently joined on the side of the predators such as Plandikes (who had been the original instigators). The reason why they had joined the war was what was troubling Cornelius. The Bockies were egg-eaters, including eaters of bird eggs, but despite that vice, they had been neutral in the war up until this point. They had claimed that the side of the war that Cornelius was on, the anti-predator side, had attacked them unprovoked.
Figure 15 Male Bocky
“They’re lying,” his friend Stanley Spelmich, the sparrow, told him, when he brought up their claim to him.
“It doesn’t make sense.”
“That they’d lie? They must have had hidden dealings with the Plandikes and just chosen now to openly side with them. Of course, they don’t want to admit that they’ve been working against us the whole time.”
“This war has cost a lot of lives already. Why openly join it and risk getting killed?”
“Who knows? Maybe they’re not that bright.”
“Well, whatever the case, them joining the war just made the situation worse.”
“I don’t see how. We were winning already.”
“Now it will take longer to win.”
“That all depends on what you consider winning.”
Cornelius wondered what Stanley meant by that.
The Life of Cornelius Paroqui
Chapter One: After the War
Cornelius formally retired from combat after the end of the Bird War and put away his medals that he’d received for his service. The war had taken a great toll on him. Not only due to the carnage he’d seen, but from the toll of having to fight his own childhood friend, Stanley Spelmich, the sparrow, who had gone rogue, desiring revenge against the Plandikes and other predatory birds for the deaths of his wife and kids. He had been harming innocent groups, such as the Bockys, in a desire for revenge. When Cornelius had uncovered a plot by his old friend to slaughter many Plandikes, even when it seemed that they were close to surrendering and accepting the terms of surrender, he felt forced to act.
Though it had broken his heart, he’d personally dueled his old friend and had mortally wounded him. Before he died, Stanley had repented of his deeds, admitting to giving into his passion, and begged forgiveness. Out of respect for the memory of his friends, he had kept his friend’s misdeeds, which were unknown to everyone else, a secret.
A radio, a fairly recent device that sent sound across great distances, was playing in his house as Loraine Lilafeather came into his house. “Sorry about Stanley’s death. He was your best bud. It must be hard. But at least the war is over. The Bird Laws go into effect today; he would have been happy to see that.”
Figure 16 Loraine Lilafeather
“Indeed, he would. But he saw it, even though he didn’t live to see it, he was the one with the vision.” He wouldn’t even be telling Loraine, whom he loved dearly, about the darker side of his old friend. That was a secret he planned to keep with him till the grave. Nobody need know about Stanley’s dark deeds, and there was no need for it, as he had paid for them. Besides, the bad press would put the anti-predator side in a bad light right as the Bird Laws were going into effect.
“Today, the Bird Laws take effect. It is now a capital offense for any bird to eat another bird or the eggs of another bird,” the radio said.
“It gives me great delight to see these historic bird’s rights measures go into law across the planet,” said a woodpecker politician, Woodrill Watson.
“You wanted to see me for something Cornelius,” Loraine said, turning off his radio.
“Yes, sorry, got distracted by the good news.” He went to a shelf and dug out a box, pulling over a gold ring with a diamond on the end of it. He knelt. “I vowed that if I lived through the war and had the chance, I’d do this. Loraine Lilafeather, will you be my wife. I want to spend the rest of my life with you,” he said.
“Oh Cornelius, I accept!” she cried, hugging him.
A few months later, the two were married. He was 21 and she only 16, but this wasn’t that unusual in that time period. Some months after their wedding, they had their first egg. Loraine put it into a nest made of branches and grasses and a mixture of her and her mate’s feathers. “What she we name the child if it’s a boy and what should we name it if it’s a girl?” Loraine asked.
“Mae if it’s a girl. Clarence if it’s a boy.”
The two had waited excitedly till one day the egg started to crack open. However, much to their shock, four feet began to protrude out of the egg. The egg soon shattered, revealing twins. Double yolks were rare in birds, but not unheard of. “I guess we’ll be using both names,” Cornelius said to his wife.
It took Loraine some time to make diapers (to keep babies from peeooping all over the floor until they were toilet trained) for the other baby, having only made cloth diapers for one child. However, the two babies were soon fit into diapers. What was harder to deal with was their constant crying. It seemed that, together, they were crying as much as Loraine and Cornelius thought eight babies should be. “Their racket is worse than an army of Slislis screaming in battle!” a very tired Cornelius cried in exasperation after hours upon hours of endless bawling. Still, the two parrots dearly loved Mae and Clarence.
Chapter Two: The Slisli Flu
One day, Cornelius woke up as the first sun rose, he and Loraine finally having gotten a decent night’s sleep for the first time in weeks since the twins had hatched. His mate was in the hammock bed beside him in their house. The babies were down below, thankfully still asleep, in a nest of grass, branches, and feathers below. They had a blanket, made of molted feathers and grass, which they were tightly wrapped in.
A messenger pigeon knocked on the door. He was the paperbird, arriving with the morning paper. Cornelius thanked him, paid him 0.25 Sencos, the bird currency for the area around the Oko Ocean, in [need a name for this bird country], and took the paper inside.
He brought the paper to their hammock bed and began to look it over. He looked at an entry on the fifth page “Well, that’s unfortunate,” he remarked.
“What is it?”
“Bird flu. They’re calling it the Slisli flu, since it’s broken out in the Western Federation of Slislis and seems to be spreading to other areas.”
“Do you think we have anything to worry about?” she asked.
“I don’t think so. Several Slislis in a village got sick and five of them died. They are also reporting that two toucans have died from it. They were staying at an inn not far from the Western Federation of Slislis.”
“That’s unfortunate, but at least the war’s over, so it won’t be spreading as much as they it would be if it was still going on. I doubt we’re in danger of it. “
“I agree. Besides, a little disturbance of the gizzard won’t kill us. Stinking politicians making a big issue out of nothing, as usual.”
The following day, he read in the newspaper about more birds falling victim to the Slisli Flu.
The Fladerma War Book 1
Introduction
It was late in the day, at the hour of sunset, on the planet of Fladerma in the Alpha Centauri system. In the Tarteri Mountains, a 550-mile-wide range, beside the Tarteri Ocean, which was 500 miles wide and was situated in the midst of the range, the only ocean above sea-level on the planet, there lurked a teenage bat named Lennard Pipistrellus. He had arisen early before the sunset, hoping to meet with his friend Adronius Leconuv, a Crenki. Adronius, unlike him, was diurnal, and he’d been up since before sunrise helping with the family farm. Though their sleeping schedules conflicted, the two had always found time each day to spend with each other.
Figure 17 Male Crenki
As Lennard flew up to him, crossing the skirts of the ocean, the water reflected the red light of the setting sun, making it look like blood. As the sun went down in the east, the planet’s small moon, less than a quarter size of the Earth’s moon, started to rise in the west.
Adronius lived about 20 miles away from where Lennard currently was, which was about 20 miles, in turn, from his own home. The two had each traveled for about 90 minutes. Adronius, being a Crenki, had two pairs of wings as well as a pair of arms. His face looked like a cross between a rodent and a fox.
The bat and the Crenki landed beside each other and Lennard shook one of Adronius’s hands with one of his wings. “How are things my friend?” Lennard asked.
“Not well, I’m afraid.”
“What’s wrong?”
“The Ishten.”
Figure 18 Male Ishten
The Ishten were cute-looking four-eyed flying creatures, that, lately, had been acting in anything but a cute way. They were one of the shorter-sized flying creatures on Fladerma and their leader, Napeon Bonappeus, was short even for an Ishten. Nevertheless, his diminutive size belied his gargantuan ego. Since Napeon’s rise to power, which wasfairly recent, the Ishten had been on the warpath and had been expanding into the territory of other creatures on a conquest mission. “I didn’t know that the Ishten were in Crenki lands. I certainly haven’t heard anything about it.”
“That’s because it’s only been since this morning. Right before I left they attacked a village not far from our home.”
“That’s kind of scary.”
“Yes. There was talk that the Ishten were going to attack our village next. We might have to evacuate.”
“I hope it doesn’t come to that.”
“Me neither.”
The two chatted for an hour or so and then Adronius left. Lennard returned home, where his family needed him to help with their farm. They were raising a group of rats in their barn, which was the only building they had that was only on ground level, as none of the rats could fly. They would eat them for food, and sell the excess meat at the market, later in the year. They also grew various plants to eat, for his type of bat was omnivorous. As he entered his family property, their pet chinchilla ran up to him and licked him. “Down Chita! Down girl!”
“Lennard, where have you been? You’re supposed to help with chores.”
“I was with Adronius. The Ishten are advancing and his village may have to evacuate.”
“Goodness, I didn’t know that they were getting that far!” his mother Clarabelle gasped.
“I didn’t either until tonight.”
“I hope they’re all right,” his father, James, said.
They worked a lot of the night on chores. They had just finished when Adronius came, tired and forlorn-looking, toward their front door. “Adronius, what are you doing here? I thought you would be asleep,” said Clarabelle.
“They’re dead. I’m the only survivor,” he replied.
“Who’s dead?” Lennard asked.
“The Ishten attacked our village and killed everyone, including all my family. I didn’t see it happen but another Crenki from a nearby village did. He told me what happened when I came back before I got there. I’m wondering, since I’m now orphaned, if I could live with you.”
Chapter One: A Looming War
Naturally, the Pipstrelluses took in the orphaned Crenki. They did the best they could to comfort him for the loss of his parents and siblings. At first, he was silent, more in shock than grief. However, over the next few nights, for he kept the schedule of his adoptive family, he cried for hours, usually alone in his room (the family built an extra room in the house for him).
One evening, around thirteen in the morning, as the family was preparing for a midnight meal, Adronius said “I want to join the war against the Ishten.” The Crenkis had all taken up arms after the Ishten attack upon their village. Technically, the minimum age for soldiers was 15, which Adronius was. However, boys at this age in the war would only be tasked with cleaning weapons, carrying supplies, tending to the wounded and would only engage in combat as a last resort.
“You know, at your age, they won’t let you fight yet,” James said.
“I know, but if I can get my hands on some weapons, I can gut the Ishten myself, with or without the army’s approval. I’m going to avenge my family.”
“You can join the war, when you’re a bit older. Right now, you’d only get yourself killed going up against trained Ishten,” Lennard said.
“Perhaps, but if I die avenging my family, so be it.”
“You don’t even have any combat experience,” Clarabelle remarked.
“I can’t just stay around here and do nothing. I have to do something about the Ishten!”
“You’re not thinking logically. A boy like you…..” James began.
“I’m not a boy! I’m nearly a man!” Adronius snapped.
The Chertasakrila War Book 1
Introduction
“I’m coming! I’m coming!” Elanor Irakavo called to her husband. The two suns were at their peak on the planet of Chertasakrila in the Alpha Centauri system. The family of Pteranodons was having a picnic on the warmest day of the year. The warmest day on Chertasakrila was only as warm as a fair day in mid-spring on a planet such as Skymo. Nonetheless, she, her husband Nojus, her son Audrius, and her daughter Irene, as well as her sister Kazimiera and her husband Linas Martaski were there to take advantage of the warm weather.
Irene had brought the Kangelis, a food made from potatoes, bacon (they had pigs on Chertaskrila, which were slightly larger than Earth pigs), milk (from goats, which were roughly the same size as Earth goats), onions, flour, beets, and steamed lettuce. Elanor had brought Quasiado, a casserole made of olives, salmon, squirrel liver, carrots, celery, green Hydroniac flowers, and large insects called Tasins. Linas had brought a lemon and Adrassellberry pie. It wasn’t cooked yet but they had warm it up while they were eating. It was cooked over stones, which was what Elanor had been gathering when her husband had called her to tell her that they were about to eat the food for the picnic.
“Elanor, I’m sure you have enough stones by now,” Kazimiera said when she arrived at the top of the hill where they were picnicking.
As she flew up the hill, she saw a dinosaur she recognized flying toward her. “Fancy seeing you here, Klara.” It was Elanor’s friend Klara Micelanov, a Microraptor.
“What a pleasant surprise. Picnicking here as well?”
“Yes. Care to join us?”
“Certainly.”
Klara, like Elanor, was married. “Hey, Elvinas, guess who it is?” she called to somewhere behind her, on the other side of the hill as Elanor had been.
“Who?” came a reply.
“It’s Elanor.”
“Is that Adrassellberry pie I smell?” Elvinas asked as he came into sight.
“Yes, we’re baking it right now,” Linas said.
“Come join us, you two,” Kazimiera said.
The dinosaurs and pterosaurs enjoyed a very tasty picnic, topped off with Adrassellberry pie and lemon tart at the end. They were about to leave when they noticed a Kasodon heading toward them. A Kasodon was a pterosaur with large red wings and a red crest. This Kasodon was one they were not fond of. He had been speaking of creating a revolt against the Kazzars. The Kazzars were thuggish quatazlcoatlus who had ruled large parts of Chertasakrila for hundreds of years, and had persecuted some pterosaurs such as the Irlendens and the dinosaurs such as the Kanokaraptors. Getting rid of them wasn’t what the pterosaurs and dinosaurs had a problem with, it was the manner in which Armen Medvedevo was suggesting taking them down and organizing revolution. It sounded very violent, and that it could easily spill over and lead to innocent deaths. What his Red Army, as he named it, after his red wings and red crest, was proposing to do sounded dodgy, to say the least.
Figure 19 Male Irlenden
Figure 20 Female Konokaraptor
“You are not welcome here!” Elanor said.
“You cannot ignore the voice of the people forever,” he replied.
“Are you sure what you want is what the people want?” Klara asked.
“I’m sure they do, in secret. And anyway, once they hear what I plan, I’m sure they’ll get behind me.”
“Well, don’t feel offended if we don’t,” Linas said.
“I won’t, for now,” he replied, before flying off.
Chapter One: The Discontent of the People
The following day, Elanor and Nojus were flying along a large forest, one where they foraged for meat and plants (their kind of pterosaur being omnivorous, unlike Earth Pteranodons). They encountered a Kanokaraptor, a colorful flying dinosaur with three sets of wings. “Hello Elanor and Nojus,” PyotorZibrak, for that was his name said. "The Kazzars sent their thugs into our village again. You know, despite what you think of him, I think that Armen Medvedevo has the right idea in dealing with those large thugs."
"I fear that once he takes over, he'll be just as bad a the Kazzars are, if not worse," Nojus replied.
“You should come to our next meeting. You’ll see how wrong you are,” Pyotor said.
Though the two weren’t fond of his Armen, they decided it best to attend his next meeting, at the very least to see what he was up to and if his schemes had the potential to get off the ground. When Eleanor and her mate arrived at the gathering, there were several Irlendens, Kanokaraptors, Pteranodons, microraptors, and others present with even more still arriving.
Armen Medvedevo noticed the two pteranodons. “Didn’t expect to see you two here. I thought you weren’t interested.”
“We wanted to see what this was all about,” Nojus replied.
“Well, you will, as soon as everyone is gathered here.”
The Tafathayata War Book 1
Introduction
Amal Basharhan was a teenage Kachidas, a froglike flying amphibian from the planet of Tafathayata in the Alpha Centauri system. She was at the point of her life where she was still a tadpole Kachidas, but close to a metamorphosis where she’d sprout legs and lose her tail. Her metamorphosis wouldn’t just give her legs, but also strengthen her wings, which were puny right now, meaning that she couldn’t go far from the water that she still spent much of her time in.
Figure 21 Male Kachidas
Tafathayata was closer to the two suns than Skymo and was a planet with many swamps, bogs, and a few freshwater oceans. There was only one saltwater ocean, which was a large inland ocean in the middle of the largest continent on the planet. Since Kachidas were saltwater amphibians (they could handle freshwater but preferred salt water), she and her family lived in this region, around the Delaviz Ocean shores.
“I can’t wait to get legs. Swimming around all the time is such a drag,” Amal remarked to her mother, Aisha.
“Not for me. It’s easier to keep an eye on you the way things are now,” her mother replied.
“That is even more of a drag.”
“Not as much of a drag as it will be for me when you can walk and can fly better.”
“Amal, you will metamorphosize soon enough. And besides, once you do, you will be helping with us with the family chores more once you get legs and better wings,” her father, Babak, said. Amal was the oldest of a family of five. She, so far, was already helping the most with the family chores, but was, thus far, limited on what she could do with no legs and puny wings.
“That is the biggest drag of all!” she grumbled. “Maybe once I metamorphosize, I will just fly off and live on my own. Then there will be no more chores for me.”
Her parents laughed hard. “If you think you would have an easier time on your own than with us, you are in for a rude awakening,” her father said.
“Maybe I’ll get married.”
“That still will not be an easier life than you have now,” her mother remarked.
“I suppose not. But I still would like to be married, someday.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” her father said.
“Speaking of married, how are things going with Emir Zorlu?” her mother asked.
Emir Zorlu had been a boy that she had had strong feelings for and had indeed seriously considered marrying him. However, something had happened a few weeks earlier that had changed everything. Emir Zorlu had joined a rising cult called OderrazdeLunas, or the Order of the Moon. The planet had two moons. One of them, due to the weird orbit it had, was most often in the crescent form. This cult had a crescent moon as its symbol. And it was not a peaceful cult at all, but a warlike one. If only a fraction of the rumors she’d heard about it were true, then Emir must not have been the great man she had thought he was to even consider joining the Order of the Moon, let alone to actually go through with it.
“I’m afraid he’s not really my type anymore,” Amal replied. She didn’t want to tell her parents about her now ex-boyfriend being a member of the infamous cult.
“Well, there will always be someone else out there for you Amal,” her mother said.
As they had been talking, the first sun had gone down and the second was about to set. “Bed in an hour Amal, we have a busy day tomorrow. Uncle Demir is visiting and we need to get things ready for him. He tends to be a bit picky and will feel insulted if we don’t do our best to make him feel welcome,” her father said.
She nodded. Demir was a bit picky, but, as long as you stayed on his good side, was pretty decent, as far as uncles go. An hour later, as she went to bed, she had no idea that, despite breaking up with Emir, that her troubles with the OrderrazdeLunas were far from over.
CHAPTER ONE: THE ORDERRAZ DELUNAS
A few hours later, Emir Zorlu was gathered with a group of Kachidas, some Sterussachi, which were winged newt-like creatures that had six limbs, as well as a few Doplicostics, which looked like winged Diplocauluses. One of the last group, Dopshevmir Ayad, was the current leader of the OrderrazdeLunas. “Are we all assembled?” Dophsevmir, the Grand Aliyok, asked in a gravelly bass. The group was assembled on land, a few miles from the water. They were in a slightly mountainous area, hiding behind some trees inside a cave, making it so that outsiders weren’t likely to run across the gathering of their secret organization, though, if they did, they all had orders to kill them on sight.
Figure 22 Female Sterussachi
“Yes, I brought in the new recruits with me. That was why I was late,” Emir replied. He was a teenage Kachidas like Amal, though he was greener colored whereas she was more brownish green. Also, he had already undergone his metamorphosis a few weeks earlier and now had legs and stronger wings. That had been when he had felt man enough to join the organization, for he had doubted that they would take a tadpole Kachidas seriously.
“It is good that you brought them. Otherwise, I should have had something to save about your lateness,” the Doplicostics remarked.
“I had to initiate them first. Make sure they were up to it.”
“Good. Good. No wimpy little boys in our grand organization, only fighting men of the best caliber.”
“I only bring in the best, as you should know.”
“Yes, you are a true visionary, KirkalikenZorlu, and a fine asset to OrderrazdeLunas.” The Kirkaliken was the second highest rank in the order, after the Grand Aliyok.
“I only seek to please you, oh great Aliyok.”
“Do you now, or do you have other motives?”
“I seek only the furtherance of the order. It is my highest calling. What other motives could you possibly imagine that I have?”
“I believe that you seek to lead the order yourself.”
“What could ever give you that idea?”
“Don’t insult me! It is plain that youseek to be the Grand Aliyok yourself!”
“I admit, I disagree with many of your decisions, Grand AliyokAyad.”
“So, are you challenging me?”
“I wouldn’t presume to…..”
“Enough chitter chatter. Are you formally challenging me or are you just a little boy running off his mouth?” Dopshevmir bellowed.
“If you put it that way, I do. I think I can run this organization better than you!”
“Well, the order can only have one Aliyok. And I can’t have a Kirkaliken who doesn’t know his place in relation to me. So, are you going to formally fight me like a man or do I have to drive you out like a cowardly little boy?”
“We duel to the death at midnight. Survivor is the Aliyok.”
And so, the two left and returned half an hour later with metal scimitars, ready to duel to the death for control of the order. “Still time to back down and submit to me,” Depshevmir cackled.
“I submit to nobody!” Emir retorted.
“Then submit to my blade!” the Aliyok declared as he swung his blade toward his rival. Emir twirled his blade through the air, clashing with Depshevmir’s. The two darted about the cave, flying and jumping around and swinging their blades and blocking each other. Emir was proving quite a capable fighter, despite his youth. However, it seemed that Dopshevmir was slowly gaining the upper hand, using his years of experience against the younger Kachidas.
With a powerful swing of his blade, he broke Emir’s blade in half. The Aliyok laughed. “You thought you were something. Yet you were a fool, like the previous fellows that dared challenged me. Now you will die like a fool!” He prepared to swing his blade down on Emir’s head. However, the Kachidas sidestepped his swing and stabbed what remained of his own weapon into the Aliyok’s right wing. Dopshevmir cried out in pain and involuntarily dropped his weapon. This, Emir quickly seized, driving it right through his foe’s chest and out the other side. “No it is you who is the fool and will die!” Emir cried.
Dopshevmir fell into a pool of water and sank out of sight. Whether he ultimately died of his injuries or from drowning, nobody ever knew. “Now, I am the new Aliyok! Kneel before me!” Emir Zorlu declared.
The group, as one, knelt before their new leader. “And now, we begin a new era, one that will lead us to victory over all who would stand in our way!” he declared. The group all raised their scimitars in a salute to Grand Aliyok Emir Zorlu.
CHAPTER TWO: THE GROWING DANGER
“Well, this place seems decent enough for my arrival and not looking cluttered,” Demir Basharhan remarked. His brother was more of a slob whereas he was an extreme neat freak.
The Birds of Skymo The Bat War Book 1
INTRODUCTION
In the Alpha Centauri system, there was a planet named Skymo. It didn’t have any humans but instead had various birds living there as the dominant life form. The planet had two suns, two yellow ones. There was also a nearby star,though this one was red and was considerably farther away and smaller than the other two, so that it often wasn’t visible in the sky, only mainly at night. The planet had ten oceans, though these were smaller than the oceans of Earth. Near one of these oceans, the Oko Ocean, an inland ocean, there lived the Paroqui family.
The Paroquis were a family of parrots. They consisted of Ischar, Pera, Liesel, Lionel, Susa, Seneca, Adrian, Jamal, and Brandi. Ischar was the grandson of the famed Cornelius Paroqui, hero of the Bird War.
Figure 23IscharParoqui
Figure 24PeraParoqui
Figure 25 Brandi Paroqui
Figure 26 Jamal Paroqui
Figure 27 Liesel Paroqui
The two parents shared a room.
Figure 28Ischar and Pera's Bedroom
So did the two youngest girls Liesel and Susa. And so did the three youngest boys Lionel, Seneca, and Adrian. Jamal and Brandi, the two oldest, each had their own room. They also had a new member of the family, who so far was still an unhatched egg. The egg was located on the first floor in the living room, nestled in a nest of grass and bird feathers.
It was fifteen minutes before the rising of the first sun. Only the dim red distant star shone in the sky. It was present in the sky an hour and a half before the setting of the second sun till an hour and a half after the rising of the first sun. Brandi Paroqui silently flew down the hallway and out a window, carrying a candle.
She had constructed a telescope out of rock and crystal two years previously and had spent many nights looking through it at the night sky. Last night, however, she had seen something, more accurately, a group of somethings, bizarre in the direction of the distant red star, the third sun; whatever they were, they seemed to be moving in the sky away from that area and toward Skymo, her planet. She knew there were planets besides Skymo in her star system, though she nor anyone else, as far as she knew, had ever left Skymo to visit them. She had, at times, seem meteors falling toward some of these planets, much as they sometimes fell toward the surface of Skymo too. At first, she had thought that that all of those lights moving toward the planet she had been looking at with her telescope were just a meteor shower, though she had thought that they had seemed to enter the atmosphere slower than a typical meteor. Still, she had thought nothing of it. She had been about to stop her observation of the night sky and go to bed when she suddenly noticed that a few of the lights that had come to the planet were now leaving it. Meteors didn’t fall backwards!
Brandi had rubbed her eyes, to make sure she wasn’t just seeing things due to being tired. She had looked again and there they were, moving away from the planet. She had wanted to continue observing this strange site, but her parents were rather strict about her staying up past her bedtime.
So now she was up before dawn, going back to her telescope, which was one the roof of a rockface overlooking the Oko Ocean. She looked into her telescope and once more saw the strange lights going to and from the planet, as well as some going to and from other planets. This was definitely abnormal!
She had a bizarre thought. Was it possible that there was life on another planet besides Skymo? If so, were they coming here?
CHAPTER ONE: THE PAROQUI SIBLINGS
While Brandi wondered whether the birds of Skymo were indeed alone in the universe, her brother Jamal woke up. The first sun was rising out of the Oko Ocean. “Morning already?” he yawned. He had been reading a long book, about a romance between a peacock and an ostrich, late into the night. His parents wanted him to dust all the attics today. “Why does Brandi get to pick the plants and clean the bathrooms while I’m stuck doing the attic cleaning, stick gathering, and harvesting?” he grumbled.
Thankfully, the attic didn’t need much cleaning this time. Within half an hour, he’d cleaned the floor, walls, and ceiling of all dust. “That was easier than I thought it’d be,” he said, setting down his duster.
Now, however, he had to help harvest food for the family. Thankfully, he had some tools to help him out. There was a nifty device that he could strap to himself and fly around with, operating the levers with his talons to aide in harvesting. It was an invention of his father’s. His father had invented many useful devices to help with chores. They helped make the work a lot easier. Even with the fancy gadgets, however, the work still took him a couple of hours to complete.
Once he was finally done, Jamal flew up to the second story of the house and to the window of the bathroom. The window was big enough for birds to fly through (why bother going through the house if you really had to go and could fly?). It had a window shade, made from cloth, that could be pulled shut from the other side. However, the shade was open so he went inside and bolted the shade shut.
He used the toilet, which was made of wood. He then took a bath, the bathtub and even the pipes also being made of wood. After this, he dried off and was admiring himself in a mirror.
Figure 29Paroqui Second Story Bathroom
Brandi, meanwhile, was currently outside gathering fruit from one of their Shajoy trees. The Shajoy tree was different from trees on Earth, in that it grew three different types of fruit, each unique to the Shajoy tree. There was the blue hendo, which looked like an Earth corn on the cob made up of blueberries instead of corn, there was the maroon heart-shaped maralinqua, and there was the orange breannis, which looked like two orange Earth bananas crossed together to make an x.
Figure 30Hendo
Figure 31Maralinqua
Figure 32Breannis
She was gathering food for herself and her family. After gathering several baskets of fruit, Brandi felt nature calling. There was an outhouse outside. They used it to collect their waste so that they could use their feces and urates to fertilize the plants. However, the storage bucket underneath the seat was full. She’d have to empty it. But first she needed to relieve herself.
She flew up to the second story of the house. However, the window shade was bolted closed. She rapped her wings on the window. “Who’s in there?” she asked.
“It’s me sis,” came Jamal’s reply.
“Could you hurry up? I really have topeeoop.” She had no bladder or urethra, so couldn’t urinate like a mammal could. Birds, except the flightless ostrich, lacked a bladder, which would weigh them down and make it harder to fly . Instead, her kidneys and her rectum dumped her wastes in her cloaca, a chamber that stored all wastes before they were voided out her vent at once. Hence, she peeoped.
“Ok.” He realized that he should dry off and get out of there. However, he thought it might be amusing to mess with his older sister. Amusing to him anyway.
Three minutes later, to Brandi’s great annoyance, the window was still locked. “Could you hurry up? Please! My cloaca hurts!” she groaned. As such, her pain was strong and she was furious with her brother. He liked to mess with her. Not able to sweat, being a bird, she panted due to the strain on her cloaca. “Come on Jamal, now is a bad time to fool around!”
“Can’t you use the outhouse?”
“It’s full. I think you’ve been in there long enough. Let me in before I stain the roof !”
“Almost done,” he laughed.
“Come on already!” she bellowed in anger.
“Just wait five more minutes.”
“I don’t think I can hold it that long!”
“Then go in the woods. You can use leaves to wipe your vent.”
“The woods? Yuck!” She was a civilized bird, not a feral bird like on Earth, so the idea of going in the woods would seem as odd to her as it would to you and I, especially with a bathroom at hand.
“You’re a wimp. Can’t even hold your cloaca for five minutes. Besides, it would be funny to see you stain the roof.”
“Jamal, please!” she screamed at the top of her lungs.
“Jamal, stop picking on your sister!” she could hear her father’s voice holler from inside the house.
“Yes Dad,” Jamal said. He was soon out of the bathroom.
After using the toilet, she went out the window and back down to the Shajoy tree, picked hendo, and flew back in the window. She then exited the bathroom into the house, opening a curtain (which had a bolt on it to lock it just like the one on the window, which the birds used instead of doors in the house.
Figure 33Paroqui second story hallway
She slowly crept down the hall. She could have flown, but she wanted to walk, as her wingbeats could be more easily heard than her tiptoeing. She soon found what she was after.
Jamal was inside the family bookroom, a library which stretched up two floors (there was a passage at the top of the roof that one could fly up to another level of books.).
Figure 34Paroqui Bookroom
Figure 35Paroqui Bookroom Second Floor (still under development)
He was readinghis book about the peacock and the ostrich; he was so engrossed in it and didn’t see his sister approaching, at least until it was too late. SPLAT! She threw the hendo at him, splattering him in the face and, because he shieled the book with his feathers, they were hit as well. “That’s for messing with me earlier!” she snapped.
“Dad, Brandi threw hendo at me!” he shouted.
“Serves you right!” came the reply.
“Ug, and I just took a bath too!” Jamal grumbled.
Jamal went back into the bathroom, this time to wash his face and feathers. “Don’t be in there too long,” Brandi called after him mockingly.
“Ug!”
“Brandi, why is Jamal spending so much time in the bathroom?” Liesel, her youngest sister, asked her. She had come out of her room, curious to see what was going on, after her father had yelled at Jamal.
“Guess his gizzard is upset,” Brandi replied, grinning.
“Is he ok?”
“Oh, he’s just not used to eating humble pie.”
“What’s humble pie?”
“It’s a type of food that’s hard on the gizzard.”
“I hope he gets better soon. He should know better than to eat humble pie.”
“I’m sure he’ll be fine.”
“You should tell him not to eat humble pie so that his gizzard doesn’t get upset.”
“I’ll do that.”
“You’re awesome, Brandi.”
“Thanks Liesel.”
“Ok, kids, enough messing around, it’s time for supper,” called Pera from a nearby room.
“Great, I’m starved,” Brandi said.
“Remember to wash your talons first.”
“Yes, mom.”
They all flew down to the dining room, which was located in the middle of the first floor, not merely in the middle horizontally, but vertically as well; the table and chairs were hammock-like structures suspended midway between the floor and the ceiling. There was a pulley-lever that could bring up younger birds that couldn’t fly yet, as he been used with the children when they were younger and soon would be used again when the newest member of the family hatched.
“Jamal, I’m glad you’re feeling better. Brandi told me you ate humble pie and got an upset gizzard and kept using to use the toilet. You shouldn’t eat humble pie if it makes you sick; actually, Mom said not to eat dessert at all before dinner. Why were you eating a pie?” Liesel said.
“What?” Jamal gasped. He turned to see Brandi, who was smirking at him. He scowled.
The family enjoyed a meal of fruit (some from the Shajoy trees, some from other plants that grew in their yard or in their garden, as well as some insects (they, like Earth parrots, were omnivores)). All of this they had gathered or grew on their own.
“Guys, last night and then early this morning, I saw something in my telescope,” Brandi said. She had been busy that day with chores and, after that, the ordeal with Jamal had driven it out of her mind. Now, as she was eating, it had come back to her.
“What did you see?” Adrian asked.
“Well, it looked like falling stars that could move up and down from planets in space.”
All of her siblings laughed at this, Jamal the loudest, thinking her nuts. Her parents, however, weren’t laughing. “What did you see exactly?” her father asked.
She explained everything that she had seen the night before and that morning.
“Are you sure you weren’t just tired and seeing things?” her mother asked.
“Yes, I’m sure. I checked twice, as I told you. I can go check again tonight as well.”
“Actually, I think you’re going to be too busy tonight to go look into your telescope,” her mother said.
“How come?”
“Jamal may have had it coming for nearly making you peeoop on the roof, but you still need to clean up that hendo that you splattered all over the library,” her father replied. Brandi sighed.
It took so long for her to clean up the mess, for she had thrown two talon-fulls of hendo at her brother, that it was indeed time for bed by the time she was finished. As she got into her bed, a hammock strung up halfway between the roof and ceiling (not the full way up, in case she rolled off in her sleep), which had her own molted feathers as a blanket, she wondered if indeed she had just seen things when she was tired.
CHAPTER TWO: THE TYNDY ESCAPEE
The following day, Lionel Paroqui was fertilizing the corn in the family garden, using the cache of bird feces and urates from the outhouse, when a female Tyndy flew into the yard. Tyndys were birds that couldn’t fly well, maybe 100 feet or so at a time, but were excellent swimmers. This Tyndy was in bad shape. Her feathers were bent and falling out; she was thin and looked very tired. “I got away! Thank [bird deity that needs a name] I got away!” she panted.
“Got away from where?” Lionel asked.
“From the institution.”
“What’s an institution.”
“Where they locked me, and several others.”
“Why would they do that?”
“Because we can’t fly that well and they think we’re inferior birds. They even said we’re not really birds at all.”
“That’s silly. Of course you’re a bird.”
“They didn’t treat us like birds. They experimented on us. They sterilized us too.”
“Sterilized?” Lionel, who was too young to know what that meant, asked.
“It means they did something to us so that we can never have eggs.”
“Who would do such a horrible thing?”
“The Purity Society.”
“Who are they?”
“A group of birds that think they are better than everyone else because they can fly. And think that birds that can’t fly shouldn’t be allowed to exist.”
“That’s terrible! We need to stop them!”
Susa watched her brother and the Tyndy from a treehouse. It had been built by Brandi years earlier; Brandi still sometimes came to it, when she wanted to get away. “Who is that?” Susa called to Lionel.
“A Tyndy. She said she escaped from an institution and was sterilized.” Lionel shouted back.
“What does that mean?”
“It means they made it so that she can’t have eggs.”
“That’s terrible! Who would do such a thing?”
“Some group called the Purity Society.”
“Can you kids bring me to your parents? I need to speak to them right away.”
“Ok,” the two said.
The two encountered Pera first. After hearing from them what the Tyndy said, she instantly believed that they hadn’t made it up. They were simply too young to have the capacity to invent something like that on their own. She immediately flew out to meet the Tyndy.
“What’s this about an institution that sterilizes birds?” she asked.
“They’re called the Purity Society. And they’re led by a Tusis by the name of Charlie Dershwin.” A Tusis was a bird with a mixture of red, white, and blue skin and red, white, blue, and gold feathers.
“How could something like this happen on Skymo?” Pera asked.
“Do you doubt me?” the Tyndy asked.
“Your appearance seems to back up your story. But I’ve never heard of this Purity Society before.”
“From what I could gather, while trapped in their institution, they have been around for some time. However, they were talking about going public lately, believing that many of the politicians will back their ideas.”
“We’ll deal with this Purity Society, but the first thing we need to do is get you taken care of. Come inside the house, my husband and kids will make sure that you are well-fed and bathed.”
“Where are you going?”
“To visit a friend. Her husband is the son of a lieutenant in the Bird War.” She was referring to her friend ShemiaElang, a middle-aged brown-tailed hawk. Her husband, Barak, was the son of Shay Elang, the chief Lieutenant of the Hawks in the Bird War. Despite her mate’s grandfather, Cornelius Paroqui, and Shay Elang having been on opposite sides of the Bird War, Pera was great friends with Shemia and her mate.
Figure 36ShemiaElang
“Thank you for your help.”
After flying for twenty minutes, Pera arrived at theElang house. It was built into the side of a cliff, on an island in the Oko Ocean.
As Pera moved to knock at the door, she saw Barak approaching, carrying a struggling squirrel in his left talon. As he landed, he bit off the creature’s head. He turned to Pera. “Hello Pera, what brings you here?”
Pera grimaced at seeing the squirrel beheaded, though it had not been the first time she’d seen the Elangs kill prey. “Squirrel, for the Missus,” he said.
“It’s really urgent business. I’m afraid we’ve got a problem with a eugenics society imprisoning and experimenting on birds. According to the Tyndy who told me about all of this, they’re even sterilizing them.”
“Sterilizing? What birds would do such a horrible thing?”
“She said it was a group called the Purity Society, led by a Tusis by the name of Charlie Dershwin.”
“Never heard of him or them.”
“Neither had I.”
“How do we know she isn’t making this all up?”
“She’s in pretty bad shape. Something bad happened to her and I think we should at least investigate it. I thought I could use the help of some, er, stronger birds.” Barak knew that Pera meant birds with predatory abilities.
“We’ll see what we can do. But the first thing we need to do is find this institution that the Tyndy mentioned.”
“I didn’t ask her where it was yet. She was in bad shape and I thought we should help her first.”
“Well, come inside. Shemia will want to hear about this too.”
“Perhaps she should come with us back to talk to the Tyndy.”
“She’s busy making breakfast for our kids right now. Cooking fish. She only caught enough for them. That’s why I went and caught her a squirrel. I already ate one myself.” Pera noticed another squirrel pelt in his other talon, which she had missed before as her attention had been on the live one. It was ripped open and devoid of guts. The Elangs kept the pelts as quilts for beds as well as for items like rugs and curtains.
As the two flew into the kitchen, Shemia noticed Pera. “Hello Pera, what brings you here?”
“Some very bad business, I’m afraid.”
“What happened?”
“A Tyndy came to us in bad shape. She said she escaped from an institution that experiments on and sterilizes flightless birds and birds that can’t fly well.”
“Where is this institution? We’ve got to put a stop to it at once!”
“She hasn’t told us yet; she needed help first. Come back with me and we can go ask her.”
“I will. But I need to make sure my kids have their breakfast first. And someone will need to watch them as well. It’s no good bringing them with us.”
“I can have my oldest daughter, Brandi, watch them.”
Half an hour later, which was 35 Skymo minutes, Brandi, who was none too happy about being assigned to babysit four boisterous young hawks, arrived at the Elang household with her mother. By now, the children had eaten their breakfast. "What's going on?" Freya, the oldest, asked.
"A very grown up and serious issue. You kids are to stay here with Brandi," Shemia replied.
"Why do we have to stay here?" Franz, the youngest, asked.
"What we're doing is dangerous," Pera said.
"Are you sure we can't come with you?" Astor, the next oldest after Franz, asked.
"Totally sure," Barak said.
"You kids behave for Brandi," Shemia said.
"We will," Zephyra, the second youngest, said. She had her wings crossed behind her back. Her parents were rather strict and she hoped that the babysitter would let them goof around more and not have to do as many chores. She certainly wouldn't be informing Brandi of the typical routine of the family.
After Pera, Shemia, and Barak left, Freya asked Brandi “What’s going on?”
“From what I heard, there’s some bad birds out there doing horrible things to certain groups of birds.”
“Will they come after us?” Franz asked.
“I don’t know. I hope not.”
“Will you protect us?”
Brandi didn’t know what she could do against a secret organization of evil birds, but replied “I’ll do my best.”
Meanwhile, Pera, Shemia, and Barak arrived at the Paroqui house. Ischar and the children had been seeing to the needs of the Tyndy. “Could I ask your name and how you ended up at this institution and where it is at?” Pera said.
“My name is Philani Buthelezi,” the Tyndy said. “I lived in the small town of Ponglundi until about two months ago. Well, actually, I didn’t live in the town, but outside of it, preferring the countryside. Perhaps if I’d been in town, I’d have been safer.
“Anyway, I was approached by some birds one day.”
CHAPTER THREE: THE PURITYSOCIETY
Several birds walked down a hallway at a gated compound on an island in the middle of a swamp. The Purity Society had chosen this location, instead of an island in the ocean, as it was less likely to be stumbled upon by travelling seagulls and pelicans, who tended to live on islands in the middle of oceans, and travel between said islands to visit family and friends. They decided that the ideal location for their institution would be a smelly swamp, which birds weren’t likely to stumble upon by mistake.
CHAPTER FOUR: THE SEARCH FOR THE INSTITUTION
Meanwhile, the Plandike, the Juliomno, the two parrots, and the two hawks arrived in the swamp.
CHAPTER FIVE: MORE SIGHTINGS
BLCCCCCCH! RNCCCCH! GUNNNNNH! One of the hawk children was coughing up a pellet. Some birds, such as hawks and owls, spat up pellets, releasing undigestible material such as fur, teeth, and bones from their gizzards in the form of a compacted pellet. This was a disgusting process to witness, let alone to undergo, but it was preferable to passing the material out the vent when peeooping. Brandi turned away. Though this wasn’t her first experience of seeing a bird expel a pellet, it was nauseating enough to her that watching it long enough put her at risk of spewing up the contents of her own gizzard.
The Birds of Skymo The Bat War Book 2
Introduction
Jamal Paroqui was worried about his older sister Brandi. She had been warning that they were not alone in the universe after seeing what looked like things moving in space, which she stated couldn’t be falling stars as they would move both up and down from planets. Their family hadn’t thought too much of what she was saying, due to how bizarre it sounded, plus the fact that nobody else had seen what she was seeing. Furthermore, the family had been kept too busy the last few weeks trying to stop a nefarious eugenics plot by The Purity Society to deal with birds such as penguins and Tyndys that they viewed as undesirable, to give hypothetical aliens much thought.
Brandi, however, had thought she’d seen the strange objects landing and taking off from Skymo itself and had gone to investigate. Brandi had found strange flying creatures that weren’t birds coming out of weird looking contraptions, which she had said could fly like a bird, only they could go up into space where no bird could fly. Curious enough about her findings, the Paroquis had temporarily halted their pursuit of the evil Dr. Charlie Dershwin and his minions to check out these aliens Brandi kept talking about.
They had all gone armed with dart guns, but Brandi had gone on ahead. Brandi had been spotted by the creatures and engaged in a firefight with them. These creatures had had weapons that could fire rock-like objects really quickly, nearly killing Brandi many times. Despite the dangerous weapons of the enemy, Brandi had nearly escaped and had even killed one of the aliens with a dart to the head.
However, before she could try and hide in a nearby forest, she had been grabbed by one of the aliens and taken away into one of the ships. Jamal had hit and killed one of the aliens and taken his weapon and fired it at one of the departing vehicles, incapacitating it and forcing it to crash land. The aliens had climbed out of the wreckage but had quickly been killed by the Paroquis.
The aliens had then announced a message from the air, in a language that the birds of Skymo knew, that they had Brandi as a hostage and not to try anything further. They also stated that they were going to take over the planet as the new leaders.
That had been several hours ago, and the family seemed baffled as to what to do about either Dr. Dershwin or the aliens. “If only those stupid aliens hadn’t come, then we could have caught that stupid Tusis and brought him to justice!” Ischar grumbled.
“I don’t know about that, dear. He’s awfully slippery. And even if we did catch him, loads of the authorities view him as a hero rather than a murderer so they won’t prosecute,” Pera sighed.
“Right now, we should focus on finding a way to get Brandi back,” Ischar said.
“But they said not to try anything,” Pera argued.
“We can’t just let them take our daughter to some place in space. They could be doing anything to her!”
“They said they’d keep her safe.”
“And you believe them?”
“How would we go after them anyway? None of us can fly up that high.”
Jamal watched his parents argue. An idea was formulating in his head. Perhaps they could fix the flying device that the aliens had brought, the one that they had damaged in the firefight. If it could bring the aliens to Skymo, then perhaps it could be used to get to their world.
CHAPTER ONE: FLADERMA
The ship left the planet’s surface and quickly ascended. Jamal had never flown this fast before. It was surely faster than the hovercrafts, devices that flew like birds, only faster, which were in the early stages of development, and he had never flown on them, but knew he had to be going faster than any of those, from what he had read about them. After a few moments, he breached the atmosphere of Skymo and came into outer space.
Jamal sat in silence as he traveled through space. As the hours went by, his proventriculus and gizzard had growled with hunger until he’d found a cache of food in back of the ship. It was a mixture of plants and meat that he’d never seen before, but at least he’d been pleased to find that they were edible. The ship contained a bathroom, so that he didn’t have to peeoop on the floor. Next to the toilet was a urinal. Since birds, except ostriches, which could pee and poop separately, only peeoped, he had never heard of a urinal before and mistook it for a sink, which confused him as there already was a sink in the small bathroom. After drinking water from the urinal and wondering why it came out that way rather than shooting out like a sink, he tried the sink, which, despite the different design from any Skymo sink he’d seen before (this one was made out of metal rather than wood), worked fairly similarly to the ones on his planet.
He had been curious how the sink, urinal, and toilet were even still working, as once he’d left Skymo and headed further and further away from the two suns, the temperature rapidly dropped. If the aliens had come through here, they had to have had a way to keep the pipes from freezing. Thankfully, before the pipes were in danger of freezing, he had accidentally turned on the heat, by bumping a button while looking around the front of the ship for some blankets.
After a day had gone by, he began to wonder how far away this other world was where the aliens had taken Brandi. After nearly another day had passed, he began to draw near a planet. It was about the same size as Skymo, though its star, the very red one that he and his family had seen from Skymo around evening, was smaller than the two stars Skymo had. Slowly, he began to descend into the atmosphere. He had been enjoying the feeling of low gravity, for he could fly around for hours on end with little effort. He was especially annoyed when the gravity started to come back, causing him to plummet to the floor, for he had been hardly flapping his wings in the low gravity. As he drew closer to the surface of Fladerma, he realized that the ship was likely on a course to a populated area, no doubt filled with lots of hostile aliens. He tried to find a way to turn off the autopilot. The good news was that he succeeded. The bad news was, while hitting various buttons to try and turn off the autopilot, he had somehow jammed the steering, and crash landed, damaging the vessel more than it had been after his family had shot it down on Skymo. He was, for the time being, now stranded on Fladerma.
He was in the middle of a forest, with no creature in sight. Not only did he not have any idea where Brandi was, he really didn’t have any clue where he was on the planet either. At least, he thought, he was safe from hostiles out here. What he wasn’t safe from, however, as he soon found after traveling for some hours, was the call of nature. Of course, there were no toilets out here, so he was forced to relieve himself in a tree hollow and then wipe his vent with leaves. He thought of the great irony of how, not too long ago, while keeping his sister out of the bathroom to annoy her, he had jokingly told his sister to go into the woods to relieve herself and use leaves to wipe his vent and now he was the one doing it. The thought of his sister made his heart ache. He felt so bad for mistreating her and not believing her that day when she had first told him about her sightings in the telescope. If only he’d believed her that day, then maybe she wouldn’t have been kidnapped.
He felt foolish for coming here. Sure, he was the only one on Skymo that had gone after Brandi, the other members of his family being too uneasy about risking messing with some alien spaceship and going to another planet of which they knew nothing about, not to mention they were also busy dealing with the Tusis Charlie Dershwin and his Purity Society, and it seemed the politicians were taking their time to help as well. So, of course, he’d decided to play the hero and go himself, and now, he was in the woods on some strange planet, with no food, no water, no toilets, and no idea where he was. A fine comfort he’d bring his family if he died out here of thirst or hunger. He hadn’t even thought to grab any food or water from the wreckage of the spaceship before setting out. He facepalmed, angry with himself over his own stupidity. He hadn’t brought a weapon either. There were those blaster guns, better than the ones they had on Skymo, and he hadn’t bothered to pick up one first before setting out, in case he met any hostiles. “A fine pickle you’ve gotten yourself into Jamal. How were you hoping to get Brandi free? Just hope you’d find her location by chance and get in there with no weapon and come rescue her?” he scolded himself aloud.
He jumped, hearing something rustle in the grass. He turned and saw a lizard. He sighed. “Just a silly animal, Jamal. You got yourself all worked up over nothing,” he said to himself. However, as he heard another rustle nearby, this one considerably larger, he felt less secure. Slowly and quietly, he seized a branch from a tree. Much to his annoyance, it had thorns on it, tearing out his skin and drawing blood. He hoped whatever it was couldn’t scent blood and wasn’t a predator of some sort. He slowly crept toward the sound of the noise, figuring it was better to confront whatever it was outright rather than try and sneak past and risk being caught unawares by it. He decided to confront it on the ground rather than risk his wingbeats being overheard. He suddenly came across a strange alien crying, one with hair and no feathers, but which could fly like him. It was a female. She stared at him, her mouth open in as much shock as his was. Too late, he saw that she had a club in her hand and couldn’t react in time as she hurled it at his head. He was knocked out cold!
CHAPTER TWO: STELLA PIPSTRELLUS
When Jamal came to, he found that he was inside some kind of building; as he looked around, he soon realized that it was some kind of house. He had, in fact, been taken inside the creature’s house, which he had been near, though he hadn’t known it. She had lugged him in through her bedroom window, taking over two hours to get him inside, of which he’d remained unconscious. “Ug! Where am I?” he moaned. He looked around and soon caught sight of the alien again. She, finding that he was now conscious again, picked up the wooden club, which she had set down beside her, having just gotten him finally inside and having paused for a rest from her tiring work. “No, don’t!” he cried.
Figure 37 Stella Pipstrellus
“Wersind se?” she asked him. She had asked him who he was in her native language of Batten, of which he didn’t know a word. “Wassind se?” she asked, this time asking him what he was.
“I don’t understand you.”
“Se zutunhier?” she asked him, this time asking him what he was doing there.
“I’m afraid I don’t understand your language.”
The alien pulled a feather out of his tail. “Ouch, what did you do that for?” he snapped.
“Sen haut kommetaus!” she gasped, amazed that, as she thought, his skin was able to pulled off so easily.
“What?” he asked.
She held up the feather that she’d pulled out. “Wassitdieser?” she asked, asking him what the feather was.
“That? That’s a feather.”
“Feather.” she said. “Wassit e feather?”
“It’s something that grows on me. It helps me fly,” he said. Deciding to illustrate what he was saying, he spread out his feathers and began to fly around the room. The alien was taken aback, for she didn’t know that he could fly. She dropped her club in alarm.
Jamal, seizing his chance, flew right at her, and, before she could react, tackled her to the ground. “Ok, where am I? Where did you take me?” he demanded.
Not knowing a word of Common Bird, she didn’t know how to respond. She just stared up at him, her eyes widened in fright.
“Se neinverletztme!” she cried, begging him not to hurt her.
The nob of the door to the room began to turn. Jamal was distracted long enough for the alien to break free. She pushed him behind some furniture and threw a blanket over him just right before the door opened. “Se bleibehier!” she whispered to him, asking him to stay put, as the door opened.
It was a female alien, the same type as the one with him. “Stella, wassitlosingibt?” she asked, asking what was going on that was making all the noise.
“Esistnichts, mutter. Meabgeworfenetwas,” Stella lied, stating that she had merely dropped something, which had made the noise of her crashing to the ground a moment earlier.
Her mother sighed and told Stella that it was time to get up. Stella’s mother left the room and Stella left a moment later, whispering “Se bleibehier.” to Jamal again before she shut the door. Jamal got up out from under the blanket and began to look around Stella’s room. He saw that, like himself, she had a hammock-like type of bed, with sheets made of the skins of animals he had never seen before and the pillows made of some kind of plant-like material. He was tempted to climb into it and go back to bed, for, as he looked out her bedroom window, he saw a twilight sky, the red sun having just gone down and the planet’s single moon out. Stella and her family must be nocturnal like owls and Grundus. Slowly and silently, he unbolted her bedroom window, and was about to crawl through it when he saw a creature out tethered in the yard. As the window was too narrow to fly through, he’d risk getting in range of it before he could take flight. He sighed and closed the window. He didn’t think that it was safe to go out that way. In fact, it was, for the creature was only a friendly chinchilla, which only would have licked him when it came up to him, but, alas, he didn’t know that and had to assume that it might be dangerous.
Since Stella and her family were in the house walking and flying around, making it hard for him, a light sleeper, to fall asleep, and, since he sometimes snored loudly when he slept, something which could give him away, he decided it best to pass the time by looking at the books on Stella’s shelves. Of course, they were all in Batten, which he couldn’t understand. One encyclopedia caught his eye, which showed hairy flying creatures on the cover. This, he flipped through, recognizing some of the aliens that had landed on Skymo under the entries of “Crenki” and “Ishten”. As he came across an entry labeled “Bat”,he saw figures of creatures that looked like Stella. So, Stella was a bat. Now at least he knew what she was.
As time went on, he began to feel a pressure in his cloaca, for he had to peeoop. Unfortunately, there was no bathroom in Stella’s bedroom. He held out as long as he could, panting from the pain. After starting to feel that he would splatter the floor if he didn’t go soon, he slowly opened the door of the bedroom. He peeked out the door once it was open enough to see out of. Nobody was in the hallway. He slowly crept down it, not daring to fly in case his wingbeats caused him to be overheard. He could hear voices, talking in Batten, from down the hallway. It seemed that Stella’s family was having some kind of midnight lunch. He hoped that there was a bathroom nearer to him than the kitchen. Thankfully, he found one. He sat down and nearly fell into the toilet, for the seat was lifted, which seemed odd to him, as all the toilets on Skymo were made with the seat bolted down. He wondered for what purpose the bats had left it raised. He lowered it and proceeded to use the toilet. Once he was done, he wiped his vent but didn’t dare flush, in case the flushing was overheard. He slowly crept down the hall and softly closed the door. He could only hope that, if Stella’s parents came into the bathroom, that the toilet paper would cover the bird wastes.
As the night went on, he had to peeoop two more times. The last time he had gone, it was about dawn. He had made it just in time into Stella’s room, for he could hear Stella’s parents heading down the hallway with Stella.
Stella, meanwhile, headed to the bathroom on this side of the house. Her family had two, one near the entrance and one nearer to her room. Therefore, by luck, her family had thus far only used the other one and not seen evidence that Jamal had used the toilet. However, as Stella was about to use the toilet herself, she saw the bird feces and urates in the toilet. She shook her head. She had forgotten that the parrot would have to relieve himself when she had left him in her room all night. After she used the toilet herself, she flushed it, hiding the evidence that Jamal had been then. She then headed back down the hall toward her room. She could see her parents coming and didn’t want them to go into her room and risk finding Jamal. He might not be under the cover of the blanket if they opened the door. She had to stall them. She told them that she was going to bed now, hoping that this would keep them from going into her room.
Jamal, meanwhile, could hear Stella and her parents coming. Her heard Stella pause, her wing on the door, about to open it, and speak to her parents. They said something to each other, likely, he figured, wishing each other goodnight, or, more accurately, goodday, and then, once he heard Stella’s parents heading down the hallway, Stella opened the door. She put a wing to her lips, signaling for him not to say anything. He nodded. Once her parents were gone away, to sleep for the day, she said to him "Wersind y wassind se?"
He stared at her blankly. Stella sighed and pointed at herself and said “Stella Pipstrellus. Bat.” Then she pointed at him. Now he understood.
“Jamal Paroqui. Parrot.”
Over the next several hours, the two talked, Jamal slowly learning Batten from her and she Common Bird from him. Around sunset, the two were now very exhausted, both having been up for over a full day (which was 26 hours on Fladerma.)
By late afternoon, she knew enough Common Bird so that when Jamal asked “Why you hit me on head?” she replied “Long story. Not want others to find me here.” Her words were slow and stuttered and thick with her Batten accent, but at least Jamal could understand her.
“How come?”
“Will tell later. Very tired.”
“Me too.”
The two were about to go to sleep, Stella in her bed, and Jamal under the blanket he had hid under earlier, when the doorknob turned. Stella turned pale. She reached toward the door but wasn’t able to get there in time. Her father, who had heard her talking to Jamal and him talking back, opened the door.
"Wasumallesinderwelt !” he gasped.
"Hallöchen ," Jamal said nervously, smiling and waving.
CHAPTER THREE: THE PIPSTRELLUS FAMILY
It took Mr. Pipstrellus a while to recover from the shock of seeing Jamal in his daughter’s room. Once he did, he talked to his daughter Stella, who, in her very poor Common Bird, told him that he was to rest for the night and that they would discuss things with hm the following night. Jamal figured that he was not going to be harmed by these bat creatures and gladly rested, not in their daughter’s room, for they certainly wouldn’t have allowed that, even if he’d been a fellow bat, but instead on the couch in the living room. He was soon fast asleep, his snoring irritating Stella and her family.
Meanwhile, while Jamal slept on Fladerma, his family was listening to the morning radio. "Two days ago . a day which will live in infamy, the planet of Skymo was suddenly and deliberately attacked by alien forces from another planet, who took prisoner the innocent parrot Brandi Paroqui, and have threatened war upon this world.” That was a local politician, Franklin Ravenvelt. Another radio was also playing, where another politician, Winston Chirpheel, was stating “We shall fight them in the air, we shall fight them on the beaches, we shall fight them in the trees, we shall fight them on the land. We shall never give up. We shall never surrender, whatever the cost may be.”
“Do you think that Jamal has found Brandi yet?” Lionel asked his father.
“I don’t know. He’s gone to another planet and there’s no knowing what he’ll meet there.”
Jamal was so tired that he slept through the night and till late afternoon. When he awoke, the family of bats were still asleep. Thoughts entered his mind about making a run for it while they slept; however, he quickly dispelled them. They’d had their chance to kill him, but hadn’t taken it. Maybe, just maybe, he could convince them to help him. They knew the planet and possibly knew where Brandi was being held.
He got up and used the toilet, this time being sure to first check that the seat was down. He then decided that he needed a shower, for there hadn’t been any on the ship, so he hadn’t bathed since he’d left Skymo, figuring that the bat family wouldn’t mind. Upon entering the shower, he saw that the handles and faucets were made of metal rather than wood. Also, the bathtub was rectangular, rather than circular, like on Skymo, and it had a shower nozzle on each end of the tub, for washing the back and front at once.
“This is nice,” he remarked. “Wish we had one of these at home.”
After he had finished his shower, he had scarcely stepped passed the threshold of the bathroom door when Stella spoke to him. “So, birds duschenauch,” she remarked in Batten.
Jamal didn’t know the Batten word for shower but knew that she was asking something about birds and assumed, correctly, that she was asking if birds took showers too. She actually was merely making a statement, but he, not knowing that, answered her as if she had asked a question. “Ja, wirtin.” he replied, stating that they indeed did.
His gizzard and proventriculus growled. He hadn’t eaten since he had been on the ship, days earlier. “Se haut zweimagen?”
Jamal knew that she was asking if he had two something, and presumed it was stomachs. “Ja, ichwill. Proventriculus y gizzard,” he replied.
“You must be very hungry,” she replied.
“Ja, ichbin.”
As Stella left to get him some food, he wondered what bats ate. Hopefully it wasn’t something that would make him peeoop a lot, or, worse yet, be so unagreeable to his stomachs that he wouldn’t be able to keep it down at all. He was pleased to discover that bats, at least Stella’s kind, were omnivores like himself, so they ate similar things to parrots.
The Pipstrellus family kitchen was fairly similar to his family kitchen on Skymo, though instead of hammocks, they had circular seats made out of some kind of wood, which were tethered in midair. He felt very famished. Stella’s father, who was already in the kitchen, baking what looked like some kind of rat in a frying pan, said “Ich erwarte das dubistsehrhungrig.”
Jamal, who could understand enough Batten to know that he was mentioning something involving the word “hungry”, nodded vigorously. When Jamal heard Stella tell her father that he had two stomachs, an idea crossed his mind. “Dreit.” he said. “Crop, proventriculus, y gizzard,” he said, pointing at his chest. This was only partially true. First food went to his crop, which was only for storage, then it went to his proventriculus for some digestion, then to his gizzard for the main digestion. However, as he’d intended, Stella and her father assumed that he’d had three stomachs that somehow digested food simultaneously, thus meaning he’d need lots of food for his systems to work properly. Stella was a bit skeptical, as she’d only heard two stomachs growl, but she assumed that maybe the first one didn’t growl as loudly for some reason. However, her father was totally naïve and served him many generous portions, far more than he’d have been allowed at his own house. He ate until his proventriculus was full and his crop, only meant for storing food while waiting for digestion, was also full. Stella’s father offered him more, thinking he had another stomach to fill, but he politely declined.
Stella, her father, and her mother, who had come to join her husband and daughter, ate a normal-sized meal. After they were done eating, Stella and her family taught Jamal more Batten, while learning more Common Bird from him. Over the next few days, he followed the routine of the bats, sleeping during the day and staying up at night. He slowly learned more Batten and more Common Bird from them. One night, at midnight, as had a midnight lunch, Stella Paroqui began to tell him about the rise of RandolfBatler, the leader of much of Fladerma. He had risen to power by wooing the creatures of Fladerma. Sometime after he had come to power, he had staged an attack upon his own headquarters, the Batchstag. He had blamed his political opposition and cracked down on them. As he had begun to infiltrate the papers and embed his allies on the radio, a lot of the “news” backed his statements. In time, those in the papers and radio who didn’t agree with him were jailed for long periods, and that was if they were lucky. It was at this point at which schooling at home, which had still be an option, and one in which her parents had taken, was banning. Her parents had taken it because they and their ancestors could see the danger, which arose after the Fladerma War ended and NapeonBonappus was defeated, where the schools had decided to end the classical education and teach a more militaristic way, to train better workers, for the large businessmen, and the government. This, they had done because they believed that their many defeats by Napeon were the cause of an undisciplined citizenry, totally ignoring the fact that it was this same “undisciplined citizenry” who had ultimately helped defeat the Ishten emperor in the first place. This had first been implemented in the province of Nietoperruzzia but had, over time, spread to all ofBahtenland.
Her parents, fearing arrest, or worse, for refusing to send her, had begrudgingly sent her to the public school when she was in secondary school, where she had been shocked to learn how ahead in knowledge she was ahead of her peers. They had thought her, however, “stupid” for she didn’t believe many “facts” that the system had been teaching for some time, even before Batler’s rise to power, and she had been assigned “remedial education” to help “catch her up”.
Around dawn, Jamal was heading toward a bathroom, the one on the side of the house near the entrance, with Stella walking out. He saw the urinal in there, as he had before a few times. “What is that?” he asked, pointing at it.”
“Toilet, for pee,” she replied.
He felt revolted. “Yuck!” I drank from that on the ship here thinking it was a sink!”
Stella walked off, her sides hurting from laughing so hard. Jamal scowled. At least he would use it in the proper way this time. Or so he thought. He peeooped in the urinal. Like the one on the ship, for some reason there wasn’t any toilet paper near it so that he could wipe his vent. No matter, he borrowed some from the rack beside the other toilet. When he flushed, however, the feces and urates, not to mention the toilet paper, didn’t go down and instead the urinal just kept filling with water. Jamal was confused and continued to try and flush. It didn’t work and the urinal began to overflow onto the floor. He quickly grabbed a plunger, which was next to the toilet, and tried to unclog the urinal. It was what he did at home when the toilet got clogged (which didn’t happen often as bird feces and urates were much more easily flushable than the wastes of other animals like bats). However, it didn’t help here. As the water continued to pour onto the floor, he cried out “Help, it’s flooding!”
All three Pipstrelluses came running to the bathroom. Mr. Pipstrellus opened the bathroom door first, in case he was still on the toilet, and found the floor flooding.
"Wasumallesinderwelt!” he gasped
“I tried to flush it but couldn’t, Mr. Pipstrellus!” he said frantically.
“O bodenmein!” he moaned, lamenting the state of the floor.
“Stella told me it was a toilet and so I peeoped into it,” Jamal said.
“Stella!” Mr. Pipstrellus bellowed.
“"Ich habnicht sag ihmmachendas !" she replied. “What is peeoop?” she asked Jamal. He explained how the avian digestive and excretory systems, particularly their endpoints, worked. When he was done, she said “Interesting. “I not know that birds have only one hole. Bats have two, one in front and one in back. However, urinals for liquid pee, not semi-solid pee and poop.”
Jamal turned bright red with embarrassment. After Mr. Pipstrellus calmed down, Jamal helped him mop up the floor and transfer the feces, urates, and toilet paper to the proper toilet so that they could be flushed. By the time they were done, the sun was well into the sky. The family of bats, plus Jamal, went to bed without another word. Jamal would be sure to only use the proper toilet from now on and avoid the urinal.
CHAPTER FOUR: BRANDI IMPRISONED
Brandi Paroqui awoke from a frightening dream. Her waking was not much better than her nightmare had been. She was locked in a small and smelly cell. It was smelly, not just because of very poor ventilation, but also because it had had no toilet, and she had already involuntarily peeooped in a corner several times. In addition to no toilet, there was no place to sit down, save a hard floor, made out of rock. She has also not been given any food or water since her capture. Her proventriculus and gizzard were growling loudly and angrily. Her lips were chapped from lack of fluids and the inside of her beak felt as dry as a desert. In the past, she had thought she was starved after a hard day of work. Now, however, she realized that she had no idea what it truly meant to be hungry. Her eyes were watery, for the stale and waste-stained air was foil. She wanted to cry, but she had already shed many tears, wondering if she would ever get home again and if anyone would rescue her. She didn’t think she could cry anymore.
They had taken her to Fladerma, where some bats had interrogated her. Despite being from another planet, they had somehow known plenty of Common Bird, and they had grilled her for hours, asking her how she had found out about them coming, for they had tried not to draw notice to their planned invasion of Skymo and she had now alerted the residents before they could get a large force in undetected. They had also demanded that she give them as much information about the layout of the Skymo as she could. However, she had defiantly told them nothing, not wanting to endanger her fellow birds. She had then been thrown into this tiny cell and had been languishing in here, alone, for days now.
Suddenly, a flap on the cell door opened and a hunk of bread came in. Though it was totally stale, she’d downed it in less than thirty seconds. “Care to talk yet?” came a voice, no doubt one of the guards.
“How do you know Common Bird?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“Perhaps what I might know about Skymo would be none of your business.”
“Careful there, feathered flier. You’re in no position to be smart with us.”
“You’ll get nothing out of me until I’m given something to drink.”
“Very well. ”The guard returned and put in a container of bitter-tasting water, which she downed anyway. “Now, talk!”
“What specifically do you want me to talk about? Skymo is a big place and I haven’t been to a lot of it, believe it or not.”
“What kind of weapons do they have?”
“I’m not in the military. I’m a girl in case you haven’t noticed. How would I know what they use?”
“Surely you must know something.”
Truthfully, she had read books on the matter and knew quite a bit about the weapons used in various parts of Skymo. However, she wasn’t going to be divulging that information so easily, especially now that her crop had food and water inside of it again. “Well, they do have these weapons that shoot darts.”
“We’re aware of that. We saw your handwork on one of our soldiers back on your pathetic planet.”
She told him about some outdated weapons, ones from the time of the Bird War or even earlier. She hoped that he wouldn’t know she was bluffing. It didn’t seem like he was alert to her deception. “Interesting. Our weapons surpass that. Subduing your planet shouldn’t be too hard.”
“What are you going to do to our planet?” she asked.
“Nothing much, just take it over, wipe out the weak, and make the rest follow us as their new leaders.”
“Sounds fun.”
“Yes, but we’re going to need help taking it over.”
“I happen to like my planet and am not really keen on it being taken over.”
“Perhaps giving you the bat treatment will help persuade you.”
“Bat treatment? What’s a bat?”
“It’s what we are. We’re one of the best flying creatures out there.”
“That’s debatable.”
Soon, four bat guards came in and turned her upside down and chained her legs and wings, so that she dangled upside down from the ceiling. “Bats can hang upside down for hours. Let’s see how long feathered fliers can handle it,” the head guard cackled, before leaving her alone again in her cell.
Brandi began to feel lightheaded. She soon passed out but came to a few seconds later. She could feel the blood running to her head. It was harrowing to see the ground below her, as though it was the ceiling. She was bound too tightly to even struggle. All she could do was shut her eyes to try and make it go away; shut her eyes and try and pretend that she was actually right-side-up. Her gizzard, proventriculus, and crop all lurched, feeling nauseous. With an effort, she fought off vomiting up her meager helping of water and food. She tried humming to herself and thinking of her family, anything to get her mind off of her torment. As time went by, her cloaca began to hurt. However, this time, she didn’t even have the luxury of going in a corner. She panted and panted from the strain but soon couldn’t hold it any longer. She could feel a sticky wetness by her tail. She began to cry.
A day later, the guard came in to see how she was doing. By now, her stomachs were in knots, she felt really dizzy and lightheaded, and her underside was soiled by her own peeoop, which had now started to drip down her sides and onto her wings, having no other place to go.
“He wants to speak with you,” the guard said.
“Who is he?”
“FurlisterBatler himself. Few see him directly. You should consider it an honor.”
“I feel so special,” Brandi replied, rolling her eyes.
“Let’s go!” he said, undoing her chains and causing her to fall a few feet to the floor. While she was still seeing stars from her fall, he pulled her to her feet and force marched her out of her cell and down the hallway. Brandi felt very nervous. If these guys were this bad, this Batler must be truly horrible!
The Birds of Skymo The Bat War Book 3
Introduction
Jamal and his sister Brandi Paroqui had fled the planet of Fladerma, along with their allies, the bat Pipstrellus family, after the rescue of Brandi from the clutches of the evil vampire bat RandolfBatler and his allies. This rescue had been pulled off, in part, thanks to unusual allies, pterosaurs and flying dinosaurs from the planet of Chertasakrila. Batler and his allies had originally signed a non-aggression pact back when they had first encountered them, sometime before the invasion of Skymo. However, shortly after Skymo was invaded, Batler had betrayed them and launched an invasion of their world. However, despite his higher-grade technology that at first caused heavy casualties on their side, their large size and determination had made conquest harder than Batler had thought.
Right now, he and his sister, along with the Pipstrelluses, were en route to this planet of Chertasakrila to help defend the planet capital of Pterokingrad from the forces of Batler and his allies. They really hadn’t had much say in the matter, the pterosaurs and dinosaurs, as these creatures called themselves, having felt that one good turn required another.
Chapter One: The Battle of Pterokingrad
When they arrived on Chertasakrila, the first thing they noticed was the cold weather; it was much colder here than on Skymo or Fladerma. “I’m freezing!” Jamal said.
"Mesgasimetuipaltasgreitai, bendraz ," one of the soldiers said in Pterosian.
Jamal, not understanding a word of Pterosian, just stared at them blankly. He was pleased when they soon got him a coat, made out of goat skin. “Thanks,” he said, putting it on. The hair of the goats made him a tiny bit itchy but it certainly kept him warm. None of the pterosaurs or dinosaurs were wearing coats. They generally made them for children, who were not yet accustomed to the planet’s cool weather, especially its winters. Right now, it was in the harshest part of the winter. Jamal lucked out in that he was the size of a toddler pterosaur, so he fit well into it.
They flew off toward a large pterosaur city. Outside the city, the smoke from fires, set to homes in the countryside, billowed into the air. Pterosaurs and dinosaurs were fleeing from the advancing armies.
The Wedding of Jamal and Stella
Chapter One: Proposing
Jamal Paroqui and Stella Pipstrellus were en route to a restaurant some 75 miles south of his house. It was over a three-hour flight. He had given her the impression that he was taking her to a restaurant owned by some Great Tinamou friends of his to celebrate the end of the Bat War. Indeed, that was one of the things they were there to celebrate, but not the main thing. A week earlier, after getting the approval from both his parents and Stella's parents, he had decided to propose to her. He was going to get his own rings, but his father had gone to a shelf and pulled out two old, but still in great shape, rings made of gold with diamonds on them. These, he had said, had belonged to his late great-grandparents, Loraine and Cornelius Paroqui. Since Jamal was his firstborn son, Ischar believed that his grandparents would have wanted Jamal and Stella to have their rings. They arrived the restaurantand were greeted by the family of Great Tinamous, the Espelitas.
“Hola, seneres,” Raphael Espelita, the owner, said to the couple, bowing.
"Hola, mesa para duas porfavor ," Jamal said to him in his native Pajaronol.
"Immediatemente, sener," Rafael’s two sons replied, bowing to him.
They were sat at a table, which was made of polished wood and had hammock seats set in the air. They were soon brought something to drink, nectar flavored tea for Jamal and dandelion flavored punch sprinkled with crumbled nuts for Stella. Once they had gotten their beverages, he pretended like he had to peeoop and left Stella. However, instead of visiting the men's room, he consorted with the owner and the staff. He told them that he was here to propose to his girlfriend. He suggested that they bring out the main course first, have the two dance, to the upbeat music that the musicians, for this was an upscale place that had musicians perform, would play. Then, they would get dessert, where he planned to put the ring near the top, covering it with frosting. Stella would think it was a nut or something on the cake and he would surprise her by removing the frosting, pulling out the ring, and proposing to her.
When he arrived back at the table, Stella asked him “What took so long? Upset gizzard?”
“Yes, but it’s better now.” He felt bad lying to Sella, but he didn’t want her to know what the night was really about until he gave her the ring.
“Good, then I suppose you still have your appetite.”
“Yep, sure do, how about you?”
“Starving.”
“Don’t worry, dear, I brought you here to remedy that.”
The two perused the menu. It was in Pajaronol, which Jamal knew enough of to communicate with the waiters, and to place an order, but which Stella, who was still learning Common Bird, knew nothing of. “What is a peixecomfeija?” she asked, pointing at one item.
“It means fish with beans.”
“Hmmm, never had that before.What’s it like?”
“I’m not really into fish, as my gizzard can’t really digest it well, being a parrot, but a bat might be able to handle it.”
“Yes, I’ve eaten fish before, though we don’t serve them with beans on Fladerma.”
She felt hungry for fish, and eventually settled on an entry for fish that was fishballs, like meatballs but with fish instead, and with beans, jalapenos, a plant she didn’t have on her planet but which Jamal recommended to her, beans, mushrooms, and onions. Jamal ordered the same, though with insects and worms instead of fish. After they were finished with their first course, the two danced, as Jamal had planned, with one of the Great Tinamous playing the guitar, while two sang. The bat and parrot were enjoying themselves, until suddenly Stella broke wind, for what Jamal hadn’t reckoned on, as his intestinal structure made gas impossible, as was true for all birds, save chickens and Tyndys, was that bats, like humans, were subject to bouts of flatulence. Stella turned bright red, as did Jamal, who felt foolish for suggesting she place that order.
“I’m so sorry. I didn’tnow that that wouldn’t agree with you,” Jamal said.
Despite occasional bouts of gas from his girlfriend, the two continued on dancing, as though nothing was wrong.
When the cake was brought out, Stella was about to eat her slice, when Jamal said “Let me get something for you,” and pulled the ring out from under the frosting. Stella stared at him, her mouth agape. He knelt and said “Stella Pipstrellus, will you be my wife?”
Stella turned even redder than she had earlier when she had broken wind. However, after a few seconds of shock, she replied “I will.”
And so, in the end, Jamal got what we wanted, and also got an interesting proposal story, that he could tell his children and grandchildren.
Chapter Two: Planning a Wedding
Now that they were engaged, they now needed to plan their wedding. Where would they hold it, on Skymo or Fladerma? What time would they hold it? Most birds were diurnal but bats were nocturnal. They didn’t want guests getting tired and falling asleep during the ceremony. Who would they book as the caterer? How much would they spend on the wedding? Would the ceremony be in Batten or Common Bird and how many translators would they need?
“What should we order for food?” Jamal asked.
“Preferably something that won't give the mammals lots of gas,” Stella replied.
“Again, I apologize for that.”
“Well at least most of the phhhtsss were in beat with the music.”
Birds of Skymo - The Pterosaur and Dinosaur War - Book 1
Introduction
On the planet of Skymo in the Alpha Centauri system, at 4789 Parrot Parkway, at the intersection of Juliomno Junction, Jamal and Stella Paroqui had built their home. The two were a very unusual couple, to say the least. One was a bird, a parrot, and the other a mammal, a bat. Stella Pipistrellus had been born on the planet Flederma. She had been one of bats who had defected from the evil bat RandolfBatler and had helped the birds of Skymo. Jamal Paroqui was born on the planet Skymo. He was the great-grandson of Cornelius Paroqui, hero of the Bird War, and was himself a hero of the Bat War. Stella PipstrellusParoqui was the great-granddaughter of Lennard Pipstrellus, hero of the Fladerma War.
After the Bat War had ended, bats and other creatures from Fladerma had integrated into Skymo society. This had mostly gone down well, though there were some problems from the Skymo side. For instance, public bathrooms began to integrate urinals, which had signs on them saying “No birds,” for the mammals. Some of the Skymo birds, feeling that they were being discriminated against, used them anyway, peeooping into them. They had then been made to clean out the feces and urates from them, being told that it was only for liquid urine, which only the mammals produced.
The two had gotten married shortly after the Bat War had ended. Planning the wedding itself had been a real hassle. Jamal’s friends and family wanted it during the day while Stella’s friends and family had wanted it at night. In the end, the two had had the wedding right at sunset, with receptions both before and after the actual ceremony, so that everyone could attend. They had left the wedding late into the night. Some months after their wedding, the two had two children, parbats. For a long while, the two had wondered if it was a boy or a girl but were shocked, after Stella had given live birth, that she had in fact been carrying twins, fraternal twins. It was the first time someone in the Paroqui family had been born live, as previously they had all been born from eggs. It was also the first time a Paroqui had had a delivery, live or egg, at a hospital, for previously they had all been born at home. They were also the first Paroquis to live in a city, Jamal’s predecessors all having lived in the countryside. It was also the first time that the Paroqui family had twins since Jamal’s grandfather Clarence Paraqui and his great aunt Mae Sparbill had been born in one egg, a great rarity among birds. Stella had told him that, while usually bat mothers had one baby at a time, having twins wasn’t that unusual. She had even had heard of a family having quintuplets (though this was considerably rarer than twins).
They had not even been sure that they’d be able to have children. A bird had never mated with a bat before. Thankfully the two children turned out ok, which was remarkable considering that they weren’t sure what a parrot/bat hybrid would look like. They looked like feathered bats. They had named the two children Vinkus and Patila. They had had them at home now for about two months and they were already starting to crawl, though they couldn’t walk, let alone fly, yet. They were in diapers, so as to keep them from pooping and peeing on the floor. At that moment, Stella came to nurse the two children. He was used to it by now, but had been shocked when they had sucked on milk from her breasts for the first time. He had asked what she was doing and she’d replied that all bat mothers fed their babies that way, since they couldn’t yet stomach solid food.
Stella had only just left the room when he heard the phone ring. He flew over to the receiver and picked it up. “Hello,” he said.
“Is this Jamal Paroqui?” the voice asked.
“Yes, it is. Who are you and what do you need?”
“We’re the Skymo Office of Avian Affairs.”
“What do you want with me?”
“I’m afraid we have an unfortunate situation here.”
“I figured that’s what it had to be, if you’re calling me in the middle of the night.”
“We received threatening messages from Chertasakrila.”
“Just great! Here we go again!”
Chapter One: A New War Brewing
“Why would Chertaskrila want war with us?” Stella asked.
“We had a mutual foe in Batler and his allies, but that was about it in the Bat War. Now with them having control over parts of Fladerma, they want control over the rest of Fladerma and Skymo as well.”
“Our regime in West Bahtlandia has cooperated with them after Batler’s defeat. We agreed that they would control East Bahtlandia and that it control would be divided with each getting half of the capital city. Why would they want to go to war with us, their allies?”
“Greed, I guess. It’s our fear that they’ll make a move against Fladerma as it’s closer than Skymo.”
After Stella had put the sleeping twins into their crib, the two flew up to the second story of their house so that they could talk in normal voices without the fear of waking the babies. Though the two suns had set and the light was fast failing, it being late in the year, Stella had no trouble maneuvering about the room. Jamal could see the dark outline of his wife hanging upside down from one of the rafters of the roof. He admired her ability to do that. Most birds couldn’t do that. He’d once tried to do that, to impress her, but had soon started to get lightheaded and had lost his grip. Thankfully for him, Stella was below to break his fall; she’d asked that he never try that again.
“Jamal, I’d prefer that you not get involved in another war. I’d hate to see you get killed and me be a widow and our children grow up without their father.”
“If Skymo gets invaded again, I have to defend it.”
Chapter Two: A Bat Remembered
Jamal couldn’t believe that Greta Pipstrellus was dead. Who could possibly want to kill her? She was such a sweet bat and a good leader of the bats. She had done such a good job of cleaning up the mess RandolfBatler had made.
First the threatening message to Skymo, now an assassination on Fladerma. War was definitely brewing, and, due to it hitting her so personally, Stella was now totally behind him going off to war once more. In fact, he had to persuade her to stay behind and not go herself.
“I know it’s your mother, but one of us has to stay behind in case the other should be killed. And I think the children should have their mother at least,” he had said to her as they had made their way to the spaceport to take the next transport to Fladerma.
When they arrived on Fladerma, Archie Pipstrellus rushed over to hug the two of them tightly. “Glad you two came,” he said.
The three met up with Brandi and her mate Aleksander Pterokavich, a pterosaur she had met on Chertasakrila during the Bat War. Despite being born on the pterosaur and dinosaur planet, he was a foe from the Reds, as they called themselves. He and his family had been foes of the Red Army and their communism, as they called it, since its inception at the start of the Chertasakrila War. His great-grandparents were Elanor and NojusIrakavo. Brandi flew up and hugged her sister-in-law and said "I'm so sorry!".
“I’m glad you came,” Stella replied, hugging her back.
The Birds of Skymo The Amphibian War Book 1
Introduction
It was a few hours after sunrise on the planet of Skymo. The two yellow suns were casting yellow rays on the surface of the Skymo Center of Avian Unity. It had been built by a robin by the name of Maximus Robinfelter some years previously to commemorate the unity between the birds of Skymo, the mammals of Fladerma, and the pterosaurs and dinosaurs of Chertasakrila.
The structure was fifty stories high and was one of the tallest buildings in Aviapolis. Suddenly, an area near the top of the building exploded! Shards of glass and cement went flying everywhere. Several birds, mammals, pterosaurs, and dinosaurs were killed instantly. Others, that were unharmed, quickly flew out the windows. An Irlenden and a Plandike rushed at a pair of large glass windows, which could open, but not enough for anyone to fly out, shattering them and flying out, along with several others.
Five minutes later, the entire building collapsed, killing over 100 flightless birds that had been trapped inside. The news throughout the day on Skymo, Fladerma, and Chertasakrial covered the events, going over and over eyewitness accounts and the stories of the survivors and the slain.
As evening fell, one of the local politicians, Jorge William Folique, stated his outrage against the attacks, which the Skymo Bureau of Intelligence had discovered was from a group of radicals on a planet called Tafathayata, which was, as the Bureau had discovered a planet dominated by flying amphibians, and which was in the opposite direction of Chertasakrila, being closer to the two suns.
“Make no mistake, to those responsible for this attack, we will find you, and we will make you pay. And now I say to everyone else, you’re either with us or you’re with the extremists.”
The Birds of Skymo TheTrue War Book 1
Introduction
It was twilight on the planet of Skymo, with one sun down and the other nearing setting. The nursing home was in the middle of the city of Birdburg, in an area that shouldn’t have had bad things happening, but they were. The Paroquis had placed Ischar here, where they thought he would be well cared for. Marvelous Manor had a reputation for excellent care.
LieselParoqui had come in to check in on him and found him lying in a pool of his own waste, greatly malnourished and dehydrated. Even, worse, when she had told the Ostonïada nurse about it, she didn’t seem bothered about his condition.
Figure 38 Female Ostonïada
The family immediately came to see him, for it was clear that his condition was, at this point, terminal. He might have lived a few more years if treated right, but after being neglected so, he only lasted about a day. As he breathed his last, he said to his wife and kids, as well as his parrot, parbat,parterosaur, parbatrosaur, parbatnosaur, parphibian, parbatrosaurphibian, and parbatnosaurphibian grandchildren and great-grandchildren that he loved them.
And so passed IscharParoqui, hero of the Bat War and patriarch of the Paroqui family. Per his will, his two oldest children, Brandi and Jamal would inherit his home and property, as well as be entrusted with the care of his now widow Pera.
Jamal and Brandi would rather eat bat guano than entrust her to a nursing home, even one with a reputation like Marvelous Manor had, and so each took turns watching and caring for her at their own homes, while keeping up the old Paroqui family home and land.
The following day, the local news covered the story, or at least they said they did, for the parrot family, as they viewed the broadcast, didn’t think they did nearly enough of a job covering the scandal that claimed the life of their late patriarch. “Today, Marvelous Manor, a care home….” a spoonbill reporter began.
“Should call it a ‘they don’t care’ home!” Seneca grumbled.
“…investigated by the authorities after the death of renowned hero of the Bat War…..”
“He sure didn’t get a hero’s death,” said Mabel , Ischar’s youngest child.
“The nurse in question has been fired…..”
“Should have been thrown in the brig and had her license revoked!” Liesel snapped.
“The home has been fined 1 million Sencos…..”
“That’s all? They should be fined to oblivion!” Jamal bellowed.
The report then gave a, to the Paroquis, pitifully brief recap on the life of the late IscharParoqui.
Much to the Paroquis’s disgust, the investigation into the neglect of Ischar had, in the end, only led to the firing of some low-level staff and a, very minor, amount of damages were awarded to the family. All the top board members of the institution got to keep their high-paying jobs.
“Total miscarriage of justice! What good is voting if this is the best we get?” Brandi grumbled to her brother as the two gave the money that they had received in the mail to Pera, whom they believed deserved it the most. Unfortunately, this experience of the Paroquis with a corrupt institution and a lack of justice was only going to be the first of many in the years ahead.
Chapter One: Farewell to Ischar
The Paroquis invited all of their friends and family from Skymo, Fladerma, Chertasakrila, and Tafathayata to attend a memorial service for IscharParoqui. They held the services on Skymo, at the old home of the Paroquis. Ischar had put it in his will that after his passing, his memorial was to be held at his house, and after the service, that his body would be cremated and the ashes spread into the air over the Oko Ocean like his grandparents Cornelius and Loraine had done before him. Slislis, Grundus, Plandikes, Samarazuns, Irlendens, Pteranodons, microraptors, ichtyhornises, Kachidas, Kanokaraptors, Maradobaks, sparrows, parrots, bats, Crenkis, Ishten, ibises, herons, hawks, Juliomnos, Sterussachis, and an assortment of other birds, mammals, pterosaurs, dinosaurs, and amphibians who knew and loved Ischar were all gathered together at sunset for his memorial.
Chapter Two: Ella Simard
Ella Simard was a Juliomno about to go to school for the first time. She was starting her first day of preschool. This was earlier than her parents had started schooling, her mother starting in kindergarten and her father in first grade. She was going because the Partnership for the Early Start of Fledglings had been promoting the idea of starting at age four in the municipal board meetings and in the large community organizations of Julikulsa. “Start at four so they can accomplish more,” was one of the slogans they were using for their campaign for Juliomno educational preparedness. “Don’t worry dear, you’ll be fine,” her mother, Loren, said.
“But I want to stay with you,” the young Juliomno pleaded.
“I know,” her father, Joseph, sighed. “But it’ll be exciting. You’ll get to make new friends and have fun.”
“Why can’t I do that at home?”
“Lots of grownups think it would be best for your future if you started school now.”
“They didn’t ask us. I like being with you,” Ella whined, making a pouty face.
“I know. I know. But it’ll be all right,” her mother said.
Chapter Three: An Old Bird
“Mother, your wallet is where you left it, upstairs,” Jamal argued.
Pera had had a fall a few weeks after Ischar’s death. She had accidentally crashed into the side of the wall while going about at her normal speed of flying and had fallen several feet to the ground. Her wing was injured and so was one of her feet. She was currently hoverchair bound. “Are you sure? I thought I checked up there already.”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
“I could have sworn I left it down here somewhere. Could you go up there and check?”
“Mom, I already did and found it, hence why I’m telling you….”
“Don’t get smart with me!”
“Mom, do you want me to go get it for you?”
“If you could.”
“All right, I will.”
In addition to Pera’s leg and wing injuries from her fall, she had recently started to have lapses in memory. This was, no doubt, caused by the trauma of the loss of her mate of over 50 years. Jamal flew upstairs and retrieved his mother’s wallet. “I found it, it’s up here where I said it would be.”
“I don’t know how it got up there. Did you put it up there?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Well, I think it best if you put things down here. Your father and I used to go up there often to read together, but since he’s no longer here I think it’s best if…..” she broke down and cried. “Oh Ischar, I miss you! I wish you were here now!”
