Chiaki had given up taming the short winged birds that day, with their bellies now full they would be even less interested in her attempts to win them over. She picked up the bag, now roughed up from the birds beaks and talons.
Inside the house, she left the bag on the table in the main room. Curtis was out hunting, but Qianhuang was home and she headed to find him. It was an easy thing to do, knowing he was up on the second story of the house with Kimba as he instructed the cub on basic flying knowledge. Kimba's flying feathers seemed to double every day and she believed Qianhuang when he said the cub would be flying before Autumn.
"I'm not interrupting am I?" She asked as she made it to the top of the stairs.
~Mama!~ Kimba yelled and jumped towards her, gliding a short distance before he crashed at her feet. ~I fly!~ He said proudly.
Qianhuang coughed, a blush on his face. "Well, fly might be-" He stopped and shook his head. "Of course you aren't interrupting, my lovely mate."
"You are doing so good!" Chiaki praised Kimba. "As for why I am up here, I wanted to know if you can read, Key?"
"If I can read?" He repeated, puzzled. "I was taught a little by the village matriarch, the written language is mostly used in large cities... like this one. You need me to read something?"
Chiaki nodded. "Yeah, it seems one of my 'admirers' got- well never mind the why." She waved her hand like she was dispersing the thought. "I have a message on a leather bag."
Downstairs Chiaki handed the scrap leather to Qianhuang. He studied it and she could watch his mouth move as he parsed out the written words. "Uh, well... I can only get a bit of it, but I would say the message is 'Feed birds.'?" He said as his eyebrows furrowed together.
So it hadn't been an upset male tired of her ignoring him. She took the bag back. One of the males had known what the short winged birds liked to eat. The worms had been fresh and alive, still damp from being dug from the earth. They couldn't have been in the bag for days. Whoever had been trying to give her them had been replacing them each day. It was... actually kind of a sweet gesture. She never saw who left the bag though, and today when the bag had landed in-front of her had it really been tossed from outside the stone wall... or from above? She hadn't even thought to look up into any of the nearby trees.
"Thank you." Chiaki said, kissing Qianhuang on the cheek.
A light flashed through his eyes causing Chiaki to laugh. "Oh I know that look!" That certain sparkle that he got in his eyes when he thought about mating with her. Chiaki looked up the steps, Kimba was up in the main bedroom- "Eep!" She found herself picked up in Qianhuang's arms. He started up the steps. "Kimba is up there! We can't!"
At the top of the steps Qianhuang jerked his head to the side in a 'get moving' type of movement. "Cub, go play outside."
Kimba rushed up to his parents, stopping a moment to look up at them. ~Yes father!~ He said then continued passed them and down out of sight.
"Now he isn't." Qianhuang said as he nuzzled Chiaki with his nose.
Chiaki squeaked. "It's the middle of the day, really." She said in exasperation. She knew it didn't matter, day or night. They were in their own home and could have sex if they wanted. Actually from what she'd seen, most people didn't care if they found you having a good time in the bushes. She wondered if her scent was changing and if that was why her husband was worked up.
o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o
Chiaki didn't find a bag waiting on the top of the wall the next day. Her suitors were starting to show up though, some looking downtrodden that the gifts they had left the day before were once again untouched. She glanced upwards, there was no tree directly above her but the branches of the one did reach over the yard. Plus the open sky was an option. She hadn't met many flying males after leaving the grouped together winged tribes where she had landed in the Beast World.
The short winged birds watched her today with a little less hostile stares, at least she thought the birds looked less annoyed at her. She crouched down and held out a hand full of dry corn. One bird did look curious. Chiaki sighed, knowing it was going to be another long day.
Curtis lay draped lazily over the window sill of the upper bedroom watching his mate. She was determined to befriend the birds, or as she called it 'tame' them. It was a wonderful idea. Easy to collect eggs and the birds themselves if things didn't work out as she hoped. She'd told him about the bag of worms and noticed there wasn't one today. So he was sunning himself as he considered a way to collect the worms the birds seemed to like the best.
Qianhuang was outside with Kimba, working on the cubs flight instructions. Kimba's feathers were coming in nicely. Soon the teaching would include actual flying attempts. His cub was growing faster than any cub he'd seen in the winged lion tribe. Was it because Chiaki insisted he still drink milk on top of eating meat and plants? Was it because he had no siblings to compete with food over? He could feel it might be a combination of the things Chiaki was doing differently in raising their cub.
A few more days passed before Chiaki woke to the need to wash her sleeping furs. The small blotches of blood signalling the start of yet another period. She'd been waiting for this one, the first one she would have after moving to the City of Beasts. Her plan had been to live here for as long as she needed to gather information on the Beast God and the transmigrated women from Earth.
Of course staying in one place for a long time meant something else too, the time to have children. Chiaki had no false assumptions that she would somehow solve the mystery of the Beast God and earn a trip back to her home world. Of course the idea of having lots of children had not been on her to-do list back on Earth. Her life had changed though and the idea of having a bigger family was not so alien.
Every male wanted a mate, and they wanted that mate to have children. Most importantly, they wanted to have a female child because they were so rare. Chiaki had counted the amount of females in the winged lion village and in the leopard village, plus what she had been told about the number of females living in this city. The average came out to anywhere between one female born to every ten to twenty males born. No wonder they had so many husbands, with that gender ratio keeping a large genetic diversity was hard as hell.
"You have started your breeding cycle?" Qianhuang said as he breathed in the change of scent in the air.
"Yes-"
"This time I shall be the one to mate with you during your cycle!" Curtis said as he pulled her towards him and away from Qianhuang.
Seeing a fight was about to break out between the two males Chiaki ducked out of his grasp. It was rare that the two of them got into a big fight, the difference between the power of a single-stripe male and a four-stripe male was huge. It made most fights verbal, where they were on more even ground. Sometime it would become what Chiaki called 'play-fights' where both males limited the power they used. It was mostly for posturing, like the males outside who still vied for her attention each day.
"Oh, I know what you want." She said good naturedly, a happy smile nearly splitting her face. She backed out of the reach of either male and headed down the steps. She'd left her cotton stuffed rabbit pelt pads in the storage room under the house.
Qianhuang and Curtis looked at each other. Curtis lifted an eyebrow, looking smug. Qianhuang closed his eyes and looked away. He needed to get stronger, both to protect Chaiki better and so he could have a chance at kicking the snakes ass in a fight. He knew Curtis was the stronger of the two of them, a low blow after being considered the best of the Winged Lion Clan. Chiaki had given him a cub though and that made him first there.
"Once Chiaki stops bleeding, I think I will take my cub out on a longer training trip." He said evenly.
Curtis lifted his head a little higher, understanding. "Of course."
