“Do not concern yourself, whelp,” Noxx told him sternly. “There is plenty of food in our shelter. But we must be patient. The days here are short.”
Sol blew a bubble of spit from his small mouth and smacked Noxx approvingly on the cheek.
Luna moved to the wires of her own accord. Some of them were as thick as her own wrist. She couldn’t begin to imagine their value. Equipment like this could last a lifetime if it were properly handled.
Luna smiled and got to work.
9
Noxx
An hour later, Noxx sat in the kitchen of the treehouse, holding Sol as the little one slurped down another enormous meal.
The fresh air must have stimulated the whelp’s appetite.
He could hear Luna working in the tree above him, the sound of moving cables in the branches interspersed with snatches of the melody he was pretty sure she didn’t realize she was singing.
The little Terran really knew her way around all those wires.
She had begun by telling him to coil the wires the way they want to go, an idea he had found patently ridiculous. Wires were wires, they had no mysterious motivations.
But as he watched her work, he began to see that even if they didn’t have aspirations, the wires definitely had memories.
Luna gently lifted a few feet at a time, allowing the snake-like thing to coil itself back into the shape of the spool it had originally been wrapped around after production.
A few minutes of her efforts helping the wires coil were more effective than the hour he had spent battling them in her absence.
Together, they had hauled them up the tree.
Now she was up above the dwelling, getting them ready to run to the spot where the antennae would be installed, while Noxx tended to the baby in the kitchen like a wet nurse.
Sol finally let go of the milk cell and let out a ripping burp.
“Nice one, whelp,” Noxx told him.
Sol’s little face broke into a happy smile and Noxx was very sure the heavens had opened up to light the little one’s eyes.
“So she’s good with wires,” Noxx said. “I am good at feeding you. Maybe this is the proper order of things.”
Just then, a high-pitched screech split the air, followed by a scream that had to be Luna.
“Damn it,” he said, grabbing a massive piece of firewood and scrambling outside with the baby still on his hip.
He pulled himself to the roof of the treehouse and scanned the branches above.
The dragon in his chest was raging, but he couldn’t shift here without crushing their home - and certainly not with the baby in his arms.
He began to climb the branch overhead.
“Luna,” he called out softly.
But she didn’t answer.
Instead there was another pair of screams.
His heart thundered and he wished he could carry the baby and shift at the same time. He should have thought to put him back in the cradle first.
At last, Luna’s off-white coveralls came into view.
She was facing off with a small green monkey, which stared at her menacingly with its large, yellow eyes.
The two of them were screaming into each other’s faces in pure terror.
“Luna, back away,” he said softly. “Slowly.”
She did as she was told, pleasing his dragon with her instant submission.
Noxx watched with his heart in his mouth as she eased herself backward. But she moved so slowly that the monkey thing didn’t seem to be threatened. Normally, the creature would be too small to be a serious threat. But up in the canopy, an attack would almost certainly lead to a fall.
When Luna reached him, Noxx could feel her relax slightly.
Again, the dragon was gratified.
She knew he was there to protect her.
Noxx handed her the whelp.
“Were you going to make a fire?” she asked, looking at the hunk of firewood in his hand.
“No,” he said, fixing his eyes on the tree-monkey. “I’m going to club it. It’s being territorial because it’s nesting.”
“You’re going to club it?” Luna echoed.
“It’s in the way of where our antenna is going to go,” he said. “And besides, tree monkeys are delicious.”
“I think she might have babies in that nest,” Luna said, sounding horrified.
“We don’t have to eat them all at once,” he chuckled. “We have a refrigerator.”
Luna’s pretty face went rigid and she handed him back the whelp.
The next thing he knew, she was scrambling back up the tree, headed right for the monkey.
“Luna,” he called after her. “What are you doing?”
The monkey shrieked at Luna again, its green fur rippling as it rushed toward her.
Luna placed her body between Noxx and the nest and turned back to him, eyes blazing.
“You are not going to harm these eggs,” she shouted down to him.
“Luna,” he said helplessly.
“If you have to put your wires here,” she said, “then I can just move the nest.”
“I wouldn’t do that,” he warned her. “The mother is up there, she might attack you.”
“Like you would have attacked her eggs?” Luna retorted.
He opened his mouth and closed it again.
The leaves on the branches above rustled as Luna went to work lifting the nest from the crook in the branches where it was nestled.
The mother tree-monkey scolded and screamed from the branch below.
Noxx couldn’t risk her attacking, so he climbed after the monkey.
“Don’t hurt her,” Luna panted, struggling to carry the heavy nest.
But the monkey leapt toward Luna and he had no choice but to move closer.
Sol squeaked in delight as they sailed from branch to branch, oblivious to the danger. If the creature attacked Noxx while he was holding the baby, he would be forced to end it, whether Luna wished him to or not.
At last, the mother monkey leapt to a neighboring tree, leaving Noxx to check on Luna.
He climbed carefully, and found her on the other side, putting the finishing touches on the nest’s new home. She was using vines to firmly secure the nest. The mama monkey would be proud.
Our mate is protective and resourceful, the dragon whispered approvingly in his mind. She will be a ferocious mother for our whelps.
“See?” Luna said. “The nest is moved - problem solved. And there are two eggs in it.”
He fought back the urge to offer to scramble them up for her. She obviously felt an affinity for the odd little monkey thing.
“That was very brave of you,” he admitted instead.
Luna scowled at him, but her lips were turned up at the corners, like she couldn’t help taking pleasure in his words.
“I’m a little worried the mom won’t come back now that I’ve touched the nest,” she said. “Do you know if that’s likely with this species?”
“I have no idea,” he told her.
“I’ll just bring up some treats,” she decided.
He watched her scramble down the tree toward the house, and made his way back down after her.
Yesterday, she had been nervous about the climb, but now she looked like she had been born in a tree.
She was so resilient, this mate of his. Or maybe it was her kind heart, worried enough about the tree monkeys that she forgot her own fears.