A Whisper of Wings (2 page)

Zhukora suddenly hurtled herself up into the air. With a hard glance at her companions, Daimïru snapped into place behind her leader’s tail. The other hunters hastened to follow in Zhukora’s wake, their wings whirring in the gloom.

Far below, the wallaby Ka began to wail in fright. Fresh blood sparkled in the sunlight, glittering like jewels, and the Ka wept as the blowflies drifted down to feed.

***

Leaves rustled as a hand stole around a fallen log, a vile yellow slug dangling from its elegant black fingers. Mucus bubbled as the slug writhed in indignation.

A delicious tang of mischief quivered in the air, curling across the senses like an exquisite, wild perfume. Slowly, carefully, the hand dipped down towards a costume made of finest silk, and the fat slug dripped slowly down onto the clothes.

The hand paused a single, precious moment in delight, the silent flourish of a true artiste at work, before fading back into the ferns.

The imperious voice pealed out across the clearing. Shadarii swiftly flitted from the scene of her crime, her gorgeous wings sweeping open to carry her across the forest floor. She alighted daintily in the middle of the clearing, her eyes lowered to avoid Mistress Traveesha’s baleful gaze.

The Dancing Mistress stood glowering in a fog of dire humour, dismissing her with a quick sniff of her nose. The lean grey teacher turned back to address the other students.

“Since we are finally all together, we shall begin. First cycle, second movement, and I shall expect better timing from you this time around!” The woman’s tail curled primly up behind her. “Shadarii, no more of these flighty innovations. The dance is prescribed exactly thus and so! You must not presume to improve upon works crafted by your betters. If you wish to be a Past-Holder, you will have to learn the dances in their perfect forms. Would you change history because you want your tail to the left instead of the the right? Fa girl!”

A dozen maidens waited sourly around the clearing, all noblewomen training in the art of dance. Their carefully tended figures gleamed with svelte perfection, and Shadarii tugged her scruffy hair and slowly shied away; to seek friendship was to find rejection, and it seemed always best to keep well clear.

Shadarii rarely missed the company. Who could be sad when the trees were oh so green? When the little tadpoles nosed along the streams, Shadarii felt at peace. Shadarii had known no loneliness; the forest world was hers to care for, and in return, it gave her love.

To Shadarii, the role of Past-holder seemed a precious, holy thing, but to the other girls, it simply offered status in the clan. In a world that cried out for skillful artisans and hunters, a dancer was a rare and precious thing. Few families could afford to keep a daughter who provided no food for the lodge. A dancer never laboured, she never fished or wove or span; she became the ultimate status symbol, a creature devoted purely to the arts.

For untold ages the Katakanii had nurtured their ancient, subtle culture. Theirs was a world of pure refinement, of exacting forms and carefully delineated structure. Every word and deed was measured to ancient formulae; as the treetrunks held aloft the forest roof, so tradition formed the bones of Katakanii life. Shadarii’s people hunted the rainforests for their food. They dug the tubers from the dark old soil and reaped the wild grains from the riversides. They were the Kashra, the folk of Father Wind and Mother Rain, timeless and unchanging.

Tribal dancers preserved the stories of the past. Each tale had been recorded as a complex formal play. The centuries had refined the art into exquisite delicacy. To learn the Katakanii’s repertoire of ritual dance became the love-task of a lifetime.

Shadarii burned with one shining, simple need. She sought to tap the wonder that she felt within her soul, and so she gave herself to the magic of her craft. When she danced, she felt set free into a world of beauty, and her supple body spoke the tales that her tongue could never tell.

The dream of knowledge burned bright within Shadarii’s heart, and so she glumly suffered Mistress Traveesha’s scorn; for the sake of knowledge, Shadarii would endure.

Mistress Traveesha paused in thought before sending her dancers scurrying off into the bushes.

“Shadarii, you shall lead the chorus dancers. Javïra my dove, to your place! Everyone attend the cues and listen for the harmonies. Come along, the day is wasting!”

Shadarii’s great orange wings flipped out to catch the ïsha, and she swirled high up into the air, taking her place in the branches of a silver eucalyptus tree. Far below her, the dance seemed ready to begin. Mistress Traveesha briskly flitted to the sidelines, and with a sharp clap of her hands she signalled the rehearsal to begin.

It was a simple tale of creation; the meeting of “First Mother” with the spirits of the forest world. For the dancers of clan Swallow-Tail of the Katakanii tribe, the dance should be an easy task. One by one the girls fell quiet - poised like graceful, precious flowers high above the forest floor.

Music rose to brush across the air; breath by breath the rhythm grew, while the trees stirred gently to the ebb and sway of sound.

A naked dancer preened herself at the centre of the clearing. Javïra was a creature of perfect, pristine beauty - a beauty that could hurt with all the malice of a wildcat’s claws. The sun shone from her pure white fur, tracing icy highlights across her flanks. The painted mask across her face merely emphasised the cool perfection of her form. The music surged - Javïra swayed… The girl shamelessly indulged herself, stretching out her solo dance for all that it was worth. The music seemed to wilt and groan, dragged far past any memory of its initial charm.

High up in the trees, Shadarii’s ears flattened, her tail thrashing as she shared the dance’s agony. Javïra was the darling of the clan; the first choice for any solo part, she had become the most sought after woman in the tribe. The Dancing Mistress doted on her, applauding the “perfection” of Javïra’s talents.

Javïra also happened to be Mistress Traveesha’s niece…

Far below, Javïra threw out her arms and turned yet another pirouette, tossing out her snow-white hair and dancing beneath a streaming shaft of sun. She paused, looked slowly up into the treetops… And whirled about to start her solo dance again.

Enough was enough! Shadarii suddenly set her jaw and dove head first towards the ground, great wings sweeping out to guide her fall. She banked and made a dizzy curve past Javïra’s astonished face, then looped triumphantly up into the sky.

Shadarii reached out to touch the ïsha flow, winging through the currents as she flipped over in another dive. All around her the other dancing girls came tumbling from their perches, laughing brightly as they hurtled through the air.

Javïra flapped her mouth open like a landed fish, then slowly swelled, her fur going stiff with anger. Finally she hurtled her mask down to the ground and stamped in wanton fury.

Javïra shrieked in indignation. Dancers braked, tumbling in confusion as they broke apart their dance. Shadarii banked frantically to avoid a milling group of fliers.

“It’s ruined! That scheming little skreg*** has ruined everything!”

Javïra tore at her hair, prancing up and down in a magnificent tantrum. Mistress Traveesha swooped down from her perch, her jaw firmly set in disapproval.

One by one the dancing girls fluttered to the ground, and Javïra became the centre of a fussing cloud of sympathy. The girl swiftly wreathed herself with tears.

“Did you hear the cue? Did you? No! It was her. She’s ruined it again!” The white furred girl hissed in spite, and Shadarii quailed, feeling opinion firmly turn against her. She slowly tried to back away, torn to ribbons by the others’ scorn.

It wasn’t fair! She had been right! Javïra had been ruining everything. The others had seen it, felt it… why wouldn’t they just come out and say it?

Butterflies scattered from the dark swirl of ïsha in the air. Mistress Traveesha coldly folded up her arms, and Shadarii felt the displeasure of her regal gaze.

“Shadarii, come with me if you please.”

Her tail dragging, the little Kashra allowed herself to be led away. Shadarii’s eyes burned with hidden tears as the Dance Mistress stood glaring at her from above.

“Shadarii, why did you disrupt the dance?”

Shadarii slowly closed her eyes. Her fingers flew in the formal symbols used in dancing as she pointed at Javïra, making the sign for ruin and catastrophe. The Dancing Mistress barely bothered to pay the girl attention.

“Well yes! Of course you ruined it! Dear Mother Rain, Javïra’s nerves are in tatters. Have you no shame?”

Shadarii furiously waved her hands, then flung up her fingers and tried again. Traveesha lost patience with the whole wretched exercise.

“What’s that? Ruining? Ruining what, girl? You mean Javïra was ruining the dance?”

Shadarii nodded, defeated by a simple sentence. Mistress Traveesha mulled her next words patiently before she spoke.

“Now Shadarii, I want you to listen very carefully to me. I am aware of your talents as a dancer. I am also aware of your antipathy towards our poor Javïra. We are Past-Holders! Here art utterly rules our lives. Talent, not ambition! Harmony and never conflict. Each of us has her proper place, each working as one small piece of a greater whole. This is how society must function. One sour note in the music can ruin the work of all.”

High overhead, a zephyr spirit drifted aross the glade, sculpting elegant curls into the ïsha flow. Not caring to notice the passing Ka, the Dancing mistress gazed loftily down at Shadarii.

“Shadarii, jealousy does not become you. You are a fine dancer, one of my best, but your wilfulness has pushed my patience to the limit. We have tried to work around your disability, but we cannot pity you forever! Now either learn to cooperate with the other girls, or find yourself another lifepath. Do I make myself absolutely clear?”

Shadarii nodded miserably; she was defeated, trapped by her need to belong - even to belong where she was unwanted.

They walked back into sunlight. The other girls swapped venomous whispers back and forth behind their hands, and Shadarii tried to close her ears, knowing full well that they meant her to overhear.

Mistress Traveesha strode between the girls and clapped her hands with brisk authority.

“Well now! A small disruption, but I think the breathing space has done us all a world of good! Shadarii, why don’t you take station in the second flight of fliers. Javïra dear, do go and fetch some proper clothes. We’ll not try your solo again today. You may take Shadarii’s place as the leader of the aerial ballet.”

With an insolent sneer, Javïra swooped over to her abandoned pile of clothes. Traveesha’s long hands rubbed together in satisfaction; discipline had once more been upheld.

“There now! No more dramas for the day. We’ll start afresh with gaiety and devotion, shall we? We have rightfully seen that personal initiatives have no place within an ordered set of forms…”

A shriek of horror ripped through the air, and Shadarii lowered her long lashes in exquisite pleasure. Javïra’s squeals were pure balm to the soul; the girl hopped absurdly on one leg as she frantically plucked a slug from inside her loincloth, then slipped and fell on her backside in a handy pool of mud.

Girls swapped astonished glances, only to see Shadarii laughing silently behind them. Her face fell as she suddenly met Traveesha’s gaze.

“We shall do as best we may, my sweet, but we must all be a little tolerant. Shadarii is slightly different from the rest of us. The poor girl deserves our pity.”