Her glass-hard glare flicked to the followers, and the other females in Ane-ata’s group flinched when Farona met their eyes, shying several steps backwards.
Ane-ata continued to charge forward, undeterred by Farona’s unwelcoming demeanor.
“Little idiot,” Rataka muttered, just loud enough for Sarah to hear it.
“You,” Ane-ata snarled, pointing a manicured claw at Sarah as she stalked right past the seething Farona. “You told Jotahan to send Kevos to his death because you know he sees right through your nixir lies!”
Farona grabbed Ane-ata’s upper arm hard enough to make the younger female wince, before she angrily jerked it free. “You speak out of turn, Ane-ata.”
Ane-ata hissed at Farona, her mouth opening and her tongue flicking out. The action caused the entire circle of females to gasp in shock, but Farona’s expression only grew colder and more forbidding.
“You stay out of this! Just because you’re willing to give up your male to this nixir filth doesn’t mean I will let mine be sent off to his death because of her.”
“What are you talking about?” Sarah said, jumping to her feet to move between Ane-ata and Farona, because her friend’s expression looked deadly in that moment.
Despite Ane-ata’s harsh words, she didn’t want the younger female to end up flying off the ledge from a furious charge by the larger, older female.
She had never seen Farona get violent—had never seen any of the females get violent—but that didn’t mean it wasn’t a possibility. They always appeared fragile, elegant, delicate.
So did venomous snakes.
Ane-ata poked Sarah in the chest, causing her to slap aside the angry female’s claw before it pierced her flesh. More gasps sounded at Sarah’s rapid reaction.
“Kevos has been sent to hunt the deadly vislog stalking the baseland herds. I know you were the one who insisted on him being the hunter the elders sent. Your Jotahan would do anything for you—even send a good yan-kanat male off to die because you didn’t like him.”
“Ane-ata, I have nothing to do with who is chosen for a hunt. I don’t even know what a vislog is, but I don’t think—”
“You lie! All you nixirs lie!”
She tried to poke at Sarah again. This time Sarah caught her slender wrist and pushed it away from her. The strength of her shove sent Ane-ata staggering backwards a few steps, closer to the railing.
Dead silence hung like a heavy blanket over the crowd. A quick glance around showed Sarah that the yan-kanat diners were all watching her, not Ane-ata, with expressions of disapproval and even fear.
Even Ane-ata’s followers had backed away rather than moving closer to help their friend. It was like they expected Sarah to shoot laser bolts out of her eyes or something. She was heavier than any one of them, and perhaps that additional mass would make it possible for her to do some damage to the clawed, scaled, wiry youths, but she couldn’t take them all down.
Their fear of her was superstitious, and reminded her starkly of the fact that despite their less impressive natural weaponry, humans had chased the yan-kanat from Earth in a decisive and devastating victory. Of course, the fact that her skin began to glow probably didn’t help either.
A hard hand captured Ane-ata’s arm, dragging the female away from the rail. Sarah, feeling numb, turned to watch Farona pulling Ane-ata off the platform, towards the walkway. The taller female bent her head towards the Ane-ata, who tried several times to jerk away, her entire slim body tensed.
Farona’s angry hissing could be heard all the way to the walkway in the silence of the crowd, though Sarah couldn’t make out any words.
“Ane-ata has completely lost her mind,” Rataka whispered to the other females in their circle.
A few light chuckles followed that statement as Farona returned alone. She caught sight of Ane-ata’s followers, who seemed frozen with uncertainty. They glanced from Sarah to Farona, then in the direction of the walkway where Ane-ata had fled the area without a backwards glance.
When Farona opened her mouth to hiss angrily at the followers, they turned like one unit and rushed away, heading towards the walkway so quickly that they shoved aside some of the stunned diners.
At this point, Sarah had no idea who they were more afraid of—her, or the indomitable Farona. The elegant female managed to smooth her clothing and sink back into her seat with barely a ruffled head spine, but Sarah was completely shaken by the encounter. The beautiful morning had turned ugly in a single terrible instant. Now, even more of the crowd stared at her, making her feel like a zoo animal on display—a predator, if the fear in their eyes was any way to judge.
“Rataka,” Farona said in her usual serene voice, “will you settle the bill for us?”
She rose to her feet again and took Sarah’s arm, guiding her firmly away from the silent crowd, back towards the walkway that led down to the sky lift station. “Perhaps we should retire to a yanhiss den. I feel the need for a dark and peaceful corner.”
Sarah let her lead them to the sky lift without protest, but demurred on going to a yanhiss den. All she wanted to do was go home and curl up on the bed and cry for hours until Jotahan got home. Farona told her not to take Ane-ata’s words too personally, but must have realized Sarah didn’t want to talk about it, and bid her farewell at the sky lift for the left wing district.
Sarah walked home with her shoulders bowed, her head hung in despair. She feared that it would always be like this. That people would always stare at her like she was a boogie man that just popped up right in the middle of their city to feast on their children.
She had hoped that sharing everything she could about the human race would help increase the yan-kanat’s understanding of her people and let them see that not all humans were bad, and that so much of what humans did could be truly good and benevolent. Maybe someday her hope for understanding would be true, but for now, it was a pipe dream. She was a stranger in hostile territory, and it seemed that she only had a few allies on her side. The fact that they were powerful and well-respected allies helped, but it might not be enough.
Jotahan walked into the door several sandfalls later to find her kneeling before the shrine of Draku Rin, incense smoking on both sides of the statue.
For some reason, despite not considering herself a spiritual person, Sarah found meditating in front of the statue strangely relaxing. She wondered whether the Ajda ever thought of themselves as monsters, or whether they had ever been bothered by the fact that humans had always seen them as such.
It was ironic, she supposed, that their chosen people now viewed humans as murderous beasts. It seemed such a shame that humans had looked upon such awe-inspiring dragons and had immediately hated them because they feared their power. If it was true that the Ajda had abandoned Gaia because they were offended by humans, then she could only mourn what humanity had lost with their small-minded bigotry.
She was slow to turn to face Jotahan when he greeted her, and that was enough to tell him something was wrong. He immediately set down his burdens and came to join her at the shrine. “Drahi, what happened? What’s put that sad expression on your face?”
She turned back to stare at the statue. “Why would you send Kevos to die because he doesn’t like humans? That will only make things worse for me here!”
Her accusing question clearly caught him off-guard and he froze. When he finally spoke, his tone was chilling. “Is that what you think of me? That I would do something so dishonorable?”