Echobright

"You missed a bit under your neck. And there, just on the inside of your left leg. Perfect! And I must say you are quite the most alluring swamp monster I've ever set eye upon, by a long way."

She was painted brown from head to tail, even the outside of her wings covered in the heavy mud. Not quite enough mud, however, that I didn't see her smile slightly at my remark.

"Shut your cheeky mouth! Let's go."

We set off in the direction of the marsh-lopers, moving quietly, keeping low. After a little way I noticed that Echobright was finding the going difficult. Restraining from echolocation for fear of scaring the lopers, she was feeling her way along with her feet, cautiously, slowly. I whispered to her.

"Would you like to hold my tail?"

I had worried she might be too proud to accept, but she closed her mouth wordlessly around the end of my tail and let me lead her, making faster progress following trustingly in my footsteps, until we reached a good spot.

"Here. Loper run. Only easy way through for a dozen spans either side. If I was a loper this is where I'd go."

I watched Echobright feel around, sniff the ground, then nod in approval. Selecting a spot just to the side of the run she lay down in the mud, wings folded behind her, instantly blending in. On an impulse, I scooped up a few items of local foliage and arranged them over her, improving the effect.

"Are you good and comfortable there? Plenty of nice soft moss for a pillow if you need one. Nothing prickling your bottom? No itches that need scratching? Actually, you look so snug down there I'm more than half tempted to lie down next to you and..."

"Grey-Eye, shut up! Get out there and send me a loper, and save your pretty talk for later!"

As I waded away in high spirits, I looked back, and nodded in approval of her camouflage. Lying motionless, she had become just a part of the landscape, apart from her two milky white eyes. And as I watched, these closed, completing the deception.

I walked in a stealthy half-circle around the lopers, getting round the opposite side of them from Echobright without approaching within forty spans. It required concentration to keep quiet, because I wanted to jump, to leap, to splash through the gloop in exultation. She'd said "pretty talk"! Not a world-shaking compliment, perhaps, but it had come from Echobright. People like me spouted praise liberally, but she wasn't at all like me. Someone like Echobright let out compliments only grudgingly, and they carried an enormous weight because of it. She'd said "pretty talk". That meant she thought the way I spoke to her was beautiful.

I was in position. I selected a marsh-loper: an old but plump male snuffling for small prey in the mud. I had to look at the land, map out likely lines of escape, plan exactly where I wanted it to go...

I lunged. And as I ran, I let a certain pent-up energy break free as I shouted at the fleeing creature.

"Run! Run, loper, run for your life! I'm Grey-Eye the Fierce, a savage and soulless killer, come to devour you! Rrrrawrrrrr!"

It ran. Faster than I could run: nothing outpaced a marsh-loper in its home environment. But it didn't register Echobright as anything other than a slight mound of mud until it was running straight past her...

In the distance I saw her pounce, fast and lethal, striking out with claws and fangs. The creature was dead before it knew what was happening.

"Sorry, loper, I must have forgotten to warn you about her. Oops."

As I reached her I was panting, and limping slightly off my scarred right leg. She sat mud-smeared and magnificent with the dead creature under one clawed foot, and shot me a questioning look.

"Grey-Eye the Fierce?"

"At your service, Echobright the Enticing."

She smiled, and I noticed that she was no longer trying to hide her pleasure from me. I felt that I'd passed some kind of test.

"Shut up and eat."

We took a moment as we bent over the dead thing to honour its life, as was traditional. There was no guilt in the gesture; we were carnivores, and killed to eat. There was just a quiet respect.

I hadn't realised how hungry I was until I tore into its flesh, swallowing in ravenous mouthfuls. It had been a while since I'd had really good meat, so fresh it was still warm. And it had been even longer since I'd felt I'd taken any meaningful part in the kill. The people I usually went hunting with let me take part and eat out of charity.

It didn't take us long to finish the thing off between us. My nose touched Echobright's as we both moved in to attack the last piece, and she let me slide my mouth in beside hers, our jaws working side-by-side as we swallowed the last edible morsels.

The meal over, I stretched, feeling gloriously full and satisfied.

"I'd almost forgotten how good it feels to have a belly stuffed full of fresh meat. Did your half taste as good as mine did?"

She ran her long, pink tongue over her lips, mopping up blood but also a good deal of mud.

"There's a pool just up the slope if you want to clean up a bit? Just to remind me there's a beautiful hyeloki somewhere under all that mud."

She nodded and preceded me up the slope to a clear, wide pool bordered with reeds. The water felt pleasingly cool against my skin as we lowered ourselves until it reached up to our wings, and I could feel it soaking into the mud on my feet, slowly washing them clean. Echobright began scrubbing the cloying mud off her skin with her hands and tongue, and it gave me a somewhat tempting idea.

"Say, Echobright, how about I lend you a hand cleaning that stuff off?"

She hissed irritably at the suggestion.

"I'm not completely incapable, you know! Icanwash myselfwithoutneeding you to rub me down with your hands like I'm..."

The sentence cut off abruptly as she suddenly seemed to see the main thrust of my suggestion.

"Alright, Grey-Eye. If you insist."

She offered me a wing and I started there, washing the water over the smooth leathery surface in great sweeps. When I'd finished one wing she turned around for me to clean the other in a like manner, and then I leant over her to wash her back.

As I worked I talked. I barely listened to what I was saying, and probably Echobright didn't either. My concentration was fully on my fingers as they stroked the strong curve of her back, working back and forth from her spine to the base of her wings, kneading and squeezing the firm grey flesh in a way not strictly necessary in order to clean it of mud, but that wasn't raising any complaints.

Her back clean I worked forwards to brush the mud off the back of her long neck, moving unhurriedly towards her head, where I traced my fingers around the brutally beautiful contours of her face, around her blind eyes, her long pointed ears, down her snout to her nose, and when I passed her lips her tongue slipped out to lap at my fingers encouragingly. After lingering there to enjoy the feeling I slipped down to run my fingertips along the sensitive skin beneath her chin, at which point she closed her white eyes and let out slow, deep breaths, evidently taking as much enjoyment from our contact as I was. As I stroked and caressed the soft skin of her throat she arched back her neck and let loose a low moan of pleasure.

Her neck clean, Echobright flipped herself over in the water to float with her white-dappled underside towards me, a clear invitation to carry on. I could have freed her round, shapely chest of the last traces of mud with a couple of quick wipes of my hand but I took my time, enjoying the soft warmth of her under my fingertips as I cleaned in careful, gentle circles.

As I moved down to her belly I faced a dilemma. There was an area coming up, between her legs, where I wasn't sure if I was invited. To put off the decision I switched suddenly to her legs, and then to her tail, starting from the tip and cleaning inwards, but soon I was faced with the same problem from the other direction. I had an excellent view of the region in question, from which I had for some time had trouble diverting my eye, and I could plainly see that she was in a state of some arousal. Had she not been blind, she would have been able to even more plainly see that I was as well. But it didn't necessarily mean she wanted me touching her there without her permission.

I tried to read her body language. There was nothing about it that saidstop. But then there was nothing about it that saidgo on. Rather I imagined she was sayingyour choice.

For all that I wanted to slide my hand across and touch her there, I took the safer choice and stopped, patting her on the hip to let her know I was done. She turned over, wearing an expression that perhaps suggested disappointment, and cleaned between her legs herself, with her tongue. I confess to staring as her tongue licked delicately around her gaping slit.

"What about you?"

"Oh, I only really muddied up my legs."

"Alright. Left leg up."

The water had already worked my legs clean, but that wasn't the point. I lifted my leg and let her lean down to rub the skin with her fingers, firm but gentle.

"And the right."

I turned around, and let her repeat the process on my scarred right leg.

"You must have splattered your belly, too. Turn over."

I turned myself over in the water to lie on my back, floating, my belly upturned. I sighed as her hands massaged my chest, working downwards in a thorough and businesslike manner that was nevertheless highly stimulating.

Increasingly I was highly conscious of my cock standing hard and proud above its sheath. I suspected that as I had restrained myself, so would she. I was wrong. Echobright's fingers carried on downwards as though there was no issue at all, and I gasped as I felt a hand close around the end of my shaft.

She didn't seem surprised, or react in any visible way. She just carried on cleaning me with the other hand, holding me out of the way now one way, now the other as she cleaned around my sheath, sending a pleasant tingle up my spine. I did, however, notice that she slowed down, taking an excessive amount of time cleaning that particular area.

"Well, Grey-Eye, after you refused to touch me, I was worrying that you didn't really like me."

Her cleaning finished, she ran her fingers lightly once down the underside of my shaft, from base to tip, as though surveying its dimensions, giving me a delicious chill.

"Alright, you're all clean. Back on your feet."

She let me go, and I rolled back upright. I felt I owed her some kind of explanation.

"I do like you, Echobright. Very much. You probably, ah, already realise that now. I'm sorry I was prudish before. It's just... I was a little bit unsure how far you wanted things to go on our first date."

"Date? You think this is a date?"

"It... isn't?"

I stared into her eyes. White. Unreadable.

"It can't be a date. We haven't even kissed."

"Oh! Well. That's right. Do you fancy doing something about that then?"

We turned out long necks to face each other, a slight space between us. A hyeloki kiss is not like those wet and awkward meetings of mouths common in certain other races. We both let our long, pink, delicate tongues push out from between our lips until the two tips met, stroking gently against each other, sending a delicious shiver running through me. And, extending further, we let ourselves hook over one another, our two tongues dancing intimately, curling and caressing, sliding slickly one against the other. And all the while I never stopped gazing into Echobright's white eyes as the intimacy and sensuousness of the kiss filled me with a warm, wild excitement perfectly reflected in her own face.

After the kiss, she moved close beside me and draped a wing over me in a sheltering way. We both sat back in the water, and as I snuggled up close to her warm and soft body, her fingers casually stroked and caressed my shoulder. I talked. Not important talk, just idle, unconcerned chatter, as I let myself be lulled into tranquillity by the cool lapping of the water and the gentle ripples of her fingers. Perhaps she wasn't listening either, for it was some time before anything I said provoked a response.

"When I mentioned you to Lens-Of-Infamy, he..."

"Who?"

"My friend, he lives one up from me. From the look on his face, I think he thought you might eat me alive."

There was a pause, as though she was seriously considering the option.

"Maybe later."

I decided to put this to one side and carry on, determined to tackle a prickly issue that had been bothering me.

"Why do you have such an abhorrent reputation?"

"It comes from being abhorrent."

"But you're not abhorrent."

"Not to those who've earned my respect."

That meant me, I presumed. I smiled inside, sinking a little deeper into her embrace.

"But why be deliberately unpleasant to everyone else? Not everyone is a Cloud-Splitter."

"Don't tell meyoudon't understand? How do people look at you?"

My mind dwelled back to Cloud-Splitter and her two friends.

"Ah. Disdain, disgust and pity. And I'll bet they think you can't see it."

She didn't reply, but I guessed from her silence that I'd hit the answer. How tempting to make people fear you and loathe you instead, if it was the only way to get them to respect you? I had had to find a different solution.

"I ran away from it. A long, long way away to where no hyeloki sing through the skies and I was merely alien, not broken."

She still didn't speak. I well knew by now that it didn't mean she wasn't listening.

"I got lonely."

Her fingers stroked me a little more firmly, as though to reassure, or perhaps just to remind me that I didn't have to be lonely any more.

"Lens-Of-Infamy warned me not to set my hopes too high on finding a mate. I was starting to think perhaps he was right, that I was fated to a lifetime of scorned rejection and perpetual solitude, that no-one would ever take a poor specimen like me."

Her fingers suddenly stopped their stroking. Her wing about me seemed tense. Had I said something wrong?

"But then I met you!"

"Then you met me andwhat, exactly?"

There was an edge to her voice, and as she said it she removed her wing and leant away from me. What had I just said? I had talked my way into something and I knew I was going to have to talk my way out of it.

"I just have a feeling, Echobright. A good feeling. We just... fit each other. You make me feel like a person, not the pathetic little cripple I feel around other people."

Even before she spoke, I knew from the way she held herself that I'd chosen my words badly.

"You arrogant, patronising, presumptuous little scrape of turd!"

I was too stunned to speak as she stormed out of the pool, shaking herself dry, fury written on her features. What had I said? What had I said?

"Is that all you think of me, Grey-Eye? Echobright the blind, Echobright the freak, Echobright the laughing stock, the only person you could find so low and contemptible that you could compare yourself to me and feel worthwhile?"

Oh no. It could have sounded like that, couldn't it? I might as well have said:Echobright, I am a miserable wretch who could not find a mate because nobody, until you, was desperate enough to accept me. I cursed my tongue, even as I stumbled for more words.

"I... no! I didn't mean..."

"You really didn't set your hopes too high, did you? When you'd received your 'scorned rejection' from everynormalwoman available, you must have leapt for joy when you saw me, clearly a creature swimming so low in the dating pool that I'd jump at any offer, even from a 'poor specimen' like yourself? Was that it?"

"No! I..."

"Well let me tell you, Grey-Eye, Ihavestandards, and you're just not up to them.WhenI take a mate, it'll be someone I respect, and who respects me,nota sad little worm who sees me as the only fruit hanging low enough to be within reach!"

There were tears welling in her blind eyes as she screamed at me. What had I done to her? How could I set this right?

"But I do resp-..."

"Shut up! Just shut up, and leave me alone in future!"

Before I could try to explain myself she was running, stumbling and slipping across rough ground, throwing herself into the air when she had built up speed, and flying away into the harsh blue sky.

Numb, I pulled myself out of the little pool. Dripping and cold, I sagged down into the reeds and sobbed, wallowing in grief that I'd just lost the woman I'd become so enamoured with in such a short space of time. Only after that great wave of sorrow had passed did I take hold of myself and pull myself upright, physically and emotionally. I'd lost Echobright. Now I had to get her back. I set out walking across the mire, miles and miles ahead of me.

The hill, or perhaps I would be justified in calling it a mountain, rose relentlessly ahead of me. It already seemed a long way down towards the little town; I'd gone there first, and had managed to get from Lens-Of-Infamy and Fall-Of-Snow the location of Echobright's home. Looking up, I could just make out the ridge where she lived, still looking appallingly high above me.

A hyeloki's legs are not designed for strenuous walking, particularly not up mountains. They screamed beneath me with every upward step, especially the troublesome one on the right, but I refused to listen to them. Up, up, ever upward, closer and closer to Echobright, that was the only thing that mattered. The evening was damp and rapidly getting colder; the red sun had long ago dropped below the horizon and now the white sun was following its example, its fading light making the world look dull and grey.

Up, up, ever upward. The hill seemed to be made entirely of harsh, jagged rocks which cut my feet, except where it was coated in slimy moss which made me slip and stumble. The pain in my legs screamed louder, and I breathed in weary, gulping breaths. But it didn't matter. Up, up, ever upward, closer and closer to Echobright.

I don't know how but I made it. Almost without realising, I found myself scrambling onto the flat stone shelf outside her cave, gasping for air, ready to collapse. As I climbed up I saw Echobright emerge to face me, and prayed that she would listen to me, and not just lash out at me with harsh words.

"Grey-Eye! You climbed all the way up here, on that leg? Are you daft?"

There was no harshness there. There was only concern. Perhaps she'd already changed her mind, realised that I hadn't meant to imply what she had inferred? Either way, I had prepared some words in my head, and I spoke them passionately, although interspersed with more wheezing breaths than I would have liked.

"Yes, probably, but I have something to say. No don't interrupt me. You're unlike anyone I've ever met. You're not 'low in the dating pool', you're flying so very high above it that it's no more than a tiny blue speck below you. You're beautiful, you're smart, you'rereallysexy, and you carry yourself with so much natural dignity and grace that the whole world seems faded and clumsy next to you. I don't care if I have to drag myself up a hundred mountains if it means I get to warm my heart under your wing again. Yours, and no-one else's. Echobright, I want to curl up beside you and never leave you again. Maybe this is early for me to say this, but I honestly think that I... I'm falling in love with you."

I watched her expression in agitation, trying to read it. No, she wasn't angry with me any more. And I knew she wouldn't say sorry, even if she was. I liked that about her. At last, she simply raised a wing in welcome, and smiled. And I knew that everything was right again between us; probably stronger than before.

I stepped forwards to throw myself into that wing's embrace, and as I did so, my right leg at last gave up and collapsed under me, sending me sprawling towards the floor. But I never reached it, because in half a moment Echobright had streaked to my side and caught me.