Jumaane watched the sun set over the ridge, gilding the tops of the sparse pine trees. Gold light filled the air, which was still warm from the heat of the day. Brilliant colors painted the sky, the same reds and oranges of the sandstone cliffs of his foalhood, mixed with the purples and blues of the oncoming night. All colors that brought back memories, powerful ones.He must have sighed. He wasn’t paying that much attention. But a nuzzling at his knee brought his attention back to the present. “Sorry, Lucian,” he murmured with a smile. “I must have been thinking about something else.”
His son flicked his tail, the ends twisting around each other in a display of what Jumaane recognized as curiosity. “What were you thinking about, Papa?”
Jumaane nuzzled him. “It’s not important. Not anymore.”
That wasn’t enough. Lucian huffed and scraped the ground with his foreclaws—when had he picked up that habit? He was growing up so fast… “Tell me anyway? Please?”
Jumaane clacked his beak in hesitation. To be honest, he hadn’t wanted to talk about it. But someday, he supposed, he’d have to tell his children. They deserved to know—after all, his family was his children’s family, and his history was theirs as well.
That’s how it had been in the old days, since the sun first rose and the first beams of sunlight mixed with the breath of the wind and the dust of the earth…
“I was thinking about my family,” he said softly.
“You never talk about them,” Lucian said.
Jumaane sighed. “I know, I know. It’s just…painful.”
“Oh.” Lucian’s tail-tips were still twitching. “That explains a lot. But why?”
Jumaane clacked his beak again. “Okay,” he said at last. “I’ll tell you. There was a star in the sky, and it saw the earth…”
Lucian rolled his eyes. “Papa! I know that story. What about your family?”
“The story of the world is the story of my family,” Jumaane said gently. “Thus it is—”
“Thus it was, and thus it will ever be,” Lucian grumbled. “But I know that part of the story.”
“The star wanted to see the earth, and what it saw captivated it. Its light shone down—”
“It met the breath of the breeze and the dust of the earth, I know this part of the story!”
Jumaane fixed his son with a glare. “Do you want to hear the story or not?”
Lucian sighed, but he settled down. “Okay,” he grumbled. “Fine. Your story.”
“Not just my story,” Jumaane sighed. “Your story as well. You are my family, and this is my family’s story. Now where was I?”
“The sun, and the wind, and the earth made Soquili,” Lucian said. “And one of those herds was your family.”
“Our family.” Jumaane didn’t want to be too harsh with the colt—after all, he’d never met Jumaane’s family (or Livius’s, for that matter). It was hard to imagine people he’d never met as being members of his family the same way his fathers or Lerato were. But it still bothered him. He’ll understand why, when I’m finished. “But yes. They made the first Soquili. And one of those families of Soquili, in the Valley of the Falling Moon, was my family.”
Lucian frowned. “That name sounds familiar.”
Jumaane nodded. “We were there half a mooncycle ago,” he said. “We always go there when the shooting stars pass through the sky.” It’s traditional…
“Oh.” Lucian nodded. “That makes sense. I remember, it had the funny-shaped pond in it. And all the lizards.”
“Yes.” Lucian had spent hours chasing the poor things. In the end, Jumaane and Livius had had to ease him off of a boulder that he had somehow climbed up but hadn’t been able to climb down. It had been an eventful afternoon. “In fall, when the sun struggles to rise, the Kimondo head south to their home in the Valley of the Falling Moon. In spring, as the sun gathers strength, they travel north to their summer grounds…”
“Do you have to go?” The yearling looked up at his mother, tears in his eyes. He knew he was acting like a little foal, but he couldn’t help it, the sorrow and disappointment in his heart. He already knew the answer to his question, but he asked it all the same, in the vain hope that the answer would change.
“It’s spring, my little flurry,” his mother murmured. She nuzzled him gently, then reached behind his ears to preen his feathers. “We travel north in the spring, to the Valley of the Smiling Sun. Thus it is.”
“Thus it was, and thus shall it ever be.” Jumaane clacked his beak. “Will I ever get to go with you?”
There was a sadness in his mother’s eyes, an immeasurable sadness, deep and endless. She nuzzled him again. “Maybe someday,” she said. “I hope you can. I hope you can see our home up north, someday. For now, stay safe. Stay in the valley—if you see the lizards running, run too. Don’t leave the cave at night. Trust the crows. We’ll be back when the shooting stars race across the sky.” She smiled. “This is our home, after all.” She wrapped him with one of her wings one last time. “We love you, Jumaane. I love you. And we’ll be back. I promise.”
With that, the Matriarch of the Kimondo turned to the rest of her flock. “Everyone ready?”
There was a flurry of wings and feathers, and a chorus of ascent. “Good!” With several flaps of her wings, she launched herself into the air. “We fly, like the stars in the sky!”
“Thus it is! Thus it was! Thus shall it ever be!” the flock chanted. And with that, they were off for the summer.
Jumaane watched until they were mere specks in the sky, wishing with all of his heart that he could go with them.
“In the Valley of the Smiling Sun, they would eat the fruits of summer and birth their children. By the end of the summer, as the shooting stars started to dance across the sky, their children would be strong enough to join them in the flight back to the Valley of the Falling Moon. There they would eat the fruits of the mountains and the desert, sip water from the ancestral pool, and refine their flight techniques for the next migration.”
Jumaane took a deep breath. “But one winter, the Matriarch of the flock got pregnant. It was an ill omen, though the shamans assured everyone that they must remain calm. Whatever would happen was the will of the stars, and that we must trust the stars as we always have. Eleven mooncycles later, in the middle of winter, I was born.” He looked over his shoulder at his back, where the feathers of his mane gave way to the smooth curves of his back—bare and unadorned. “The shamans were wrong. A winter birth was an ill omen, indeed. The child—I—was born without wings. When the sun strengthened and it was time to return to the Valley of the Smiling Sun, I could not go.”
Seeing his father’s glance, Lucian turned back to look at his own wings and give them a flutter. Jumaane smiled. His family, and the shamans especially, wouldn’t have known what to make of Livius’s and their children’s wings. They’d heard of Kalonas, of course, and there were stories, even in their isolated valleys, of Flutters. But none of their stories had ever mentioned hybrids of the two breeds—certainly not of hybrid wings! When Jumaane was a foal, he’d been told that there were only three kinds of wings—the bat wings of the Kalona, the insect wings of the Flutter, and the bird-like wings of their own kind. Seeing a pair of hybrid wings for the first time had come as quite a shock to an isolated stallion like Jumaane who didn’t get out much. Both of their children had been born with these strange hybrid wings, and in spite of Jumaane’s secret, unvoiced fears, both of them were learning how to fly well. They flew a little differently from the Kimondo and other bird-wings, but that hardly mattered—it wasn’t as if they could ever have learned the Kimondo way, since Jumaane had never learned his people’s way of flying anyway. It wasn’t like there had ever been a need.
Lucian looked back up at his father. “Couldn’t you have walked? We walk everywhere.”
Jumaane nuzzled him and smiled. “And you complain magnificently about it, too.”
His son huffed. “’Snot my fault I can’t fly for very long. I’m little. I need time to grow. Then I can fly wherever I want.”
“Soon, Lucian, soon. Someday you will fly wherever you want. For now, build up your strength.” That wasn’t the only reason they didn’t fly between places. After all, there was the very obvious reason between Jumaane’s bare shoulder blades, as well. Livius, Lucian, and Lerato could fly. Jumaane was just as flightless as he had always been. “Walking to the valley was not the Kimondo way. There were too many dangers—you cannot encounter a mountain lion or a wolf or a two-legs in the sky. The only dangerous thing in the sky is a Soquili or a storm, but there are many dangers on the ground. Besides,” Jumaane added. “I don’t think anyone knew the way by land. All of the landmarks they spoke of in stories were seen from the air. I doubt anyone would have known how to get from one valley to the other by land. Besides, I was born too late in the season to travel by foot for very long.”
The sun had almost set by now, and it was getting dark. His own pale coat was still visible in the darkness, but Lucian’s dark form was starting to be lost at the edges in purple shadow. “Let’s start heading back to the others now,” Jumaane said, gently nudging his son to turn around.
Lucian obeyed, trotting alongside his father’s long strides as they headed back down the hill to where Livius and Lerato were waiting. “So why are you sad? Because your family abandoned you? Are you going to continue the story?”
“Of course I am,” Jumaane said gently, ignoring the stab to the heart from his son’s words. He didn’t know. He had no way of knowing. He was still little, still young and tactless. He’d learn, and soon. “My mother stayed at home that summer, but it was bitterly lonely. It was hot, and dry, and the summer thunderstorms only rarely rained for us. Dry lightning flashed across the sky, sometimes setting the brush alight. It was a lonely summer, and Mama was worried sick about the flock. This was the first time the Kimondo had ever had to migrate without their Matriarch with them, but Mama was a mother as well as the Matriarch. She chose to take care of me that summer. I will never forget that. Never.”
It was spring again, and Jumaane watched his family preen their wings in anticipation. There was chatter and songs, and some jostling amongst the yearlings. Everyone was excited, in holiday spirit, eager to begin the journey. Some of the unpaired ones were already starting to flirt with each other in anticipation of the summer to come. Now was the time to breed, so that their children would be born in the fertile grounds of the north. The Kimondo had children in the spring and summer—thus it is, thus it was, thus shall it ever be…
None of them came to talk to Jumaane. It wasn’t spite, or cruelty, he knew. It was just that they were so excited and focused on this journey, some of whom were taking it for the first time, that they had little thought for anything other than the summer. If they’d remembered Jumaane at all, he was sure some of them would talk to him. No, it wasn’t malice or deliberate exclusion, just thoughtlessness, which stung just the same, like cactus darts to the heart.
Some of his siblings came to say good-bye, though, and his father came to preen his feathers one last time. That made him feel a little better. He wished his newest siblings luck in the Spring Moon Dances, and wished his older sister, heavy with her latest children, good luck in her upcoming birth.
Finally, it was time for his mother to say good-bye. The matriarch nuzzled him. “You know what I’m going to say,” she murmured.
He nodded. “Stay safe. Stay in the valley. Run when the lizards do, listen to the crows, avoid the night.”
She chuckled. “You can probably leave the cave at night. You’re not a little foal anymore.”
“I know.” Jumaane sighed. “Stay safe, Mama. I’ll see you when the shooting stars race across the sky.”
“We will,” she said with a smile. “I promise. We love you, Jumaane. I love you.” With that, she turned to the rest of the flock. “Everyone ready? We fly, like the stars in the sky!”
“When spring came, they returned to the Valley of the Smiling Sun, and I stayed in the Valley of the Falling Moon. Every year I would spend fall and winter with my family, and spring and summer by myself. Every year I would wait for the shooting stars to race across the sky, waiting for my family to return to me.
“Until one year…they didn’t.”
Jumaane fell silent, and Lucian was silent for a while, too, thinking on his father’s heavy words. Finally, he broke the silence. “What happened? Did they ever return?”
“No,” Jumaane said softly. “The Kimondo never returned to the Valley of the Falling Moon. I spent that fall and winter by myself, and the next one as well. I never learned what happened to them,” he said heavily. “I fear the worst. I fear…I may be the last of the Kimondo.”
“Oh.” Lucian leaned against his father and nuzzled the feathers on his elbow. “I’m sorry, Papa.”
Jumaane sighed. “It’s okay. I mean, I mourn them. I miss them. I wish I knew what happened to them, but none of that is your fault. There’s nothing for you to be sorry about.”
“I’m still sorry,” Lucian insisted. He hesitated, then said in a small voice, “Do you want to know what happened to them?”
Now it was Jumaane’s turn to hesitate. “Yes…” he said. “And no.”
Lucian frowned. “Why don’t you want to know?”
“Because I’m afraid of the answer. I’m afraid that the answer might be that they all died, or that they deliberately abandoned me. If I get an answer, that might be the answer, and that will be the end of the story. I will still be left without a family, whether because they all died or because they chose to reject me from the family, cast me out from the flock. If I never get an answer, then I can still have hope that they are alive and well, even if that means that their traditions must have changed. On the other claw…” He sighed. “My heart aches with not knowing. Because if I don’t know, there is still the possibility that my family is all dead, or not my family at all.”
Jumaane heard a sniff and looked down at his son. “I’m sorry, Lucian, you are very young,” he said gently. “I know these are heavy words. I should not have burdened you with them.”
“No.” Lucian shook his head and wiped his face on his father’s leg. “It’s okay. You wanted to tell someone. And now…now I know. Your family is my family.” He sniffed again. “So is that why you were crying at the sunset? Because it reminds you of them?”
I wasn’t crying! I was just sad! “Yes,” Jumaane said. “The colors remind me of the Kimondo. Many members of our flock had sunset colors. Sunsets and shooting stars remind me of our family.”
“And that’s why we went to the Valley of the Falling Moon last mooncycle,” Lucian said, his eyes growing wide. “You were looking for your family!”
Jumaane nodded. “I don’t expect to find them there, not after so long. But it feels right to visit the valley, at least once a year, just in case. Maybe someday I’ll see a familiar feather there. Mostly we go so that they will not be forgotten.”
“They won’t be,” Lucian said quickly. “I promise, Papa.” They were nearly back to their sleeping place now, and they could see Livius and Lerato settling down for the night. Lucian slipped a sly glance at Jumaane. “So…how did you meet Dad? Was he in the Valley of the Falling Moon one year?”
Jumaane chuckled. “How I met your dad is a story for another time.” He nuzzled Lucian. “I’ll tell you the story someday. I promise.”