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Three females were perched on a stone parapet high above the street. Their wings were folded and their long grey necks thrown back as they sang out into the bright blue sky. They sang their parts in the Song, the sky-filling harmony to which we hyeloki all learnt to lend our voices, and they sang them well.

They seemed absorbed in their singing, and perfectly unaware of the diverse bustle of many races pushing through the street below them. For a moment I was tempted to leave them to sing undisturbed, but then chided myself for cowardice. I'd never find a mate if I didn't at least talk to people. So, feeling slightly ridiculous, I swallowed my nervousness.

"Hello up there!"

Three voices cut off abruptly and three pairs of yellow eyes turned to regard me. The one in the middle - probably the most attractive of the three, with a lithe and curving physique and almost flawless white-grey skin - spoke down to me.

"Oh dear. What are you?"

It wasn't, I considered, altogether the best start. But I pressed on, optimistically.

"My name's Grey-Eye. I just wanted to let you know I was really enjoying your singing. I'm sorry for shouting up at you from all the way down here, but I'm afraid I'd find it hard to join you on your comfortable perch."

I unfolded my right wing for them to see, knowing they'd recognise from its bent, shattered shape that I was flightless. Looking up, I could see their eyes as they took in not just my wing but the rest of me too. My face, my neck, my right flank and right leg, all were blighted by a patchwork of ugly scars. Each pair of eyes seemed to say something different as they drank me in. Disdain, said the eyes in the middle. Disgust, said the ones on the right. Pity, said the ones on the left. Under the combined gaze of all three, my scars seemed to burn and itch with shame.

The one in the middle, though, when she spoke again her voice was soft and pleasant. Perhaps she was strong enough to swallow her disdain.

"A pleasure to meet you, Grey-Eye. I'm Cloud-Splitter."

"Cloud-Splitter? A beautiful name. It suits you well."

She smiled at the compliment and flicked her tail coquettishly.

"Yes, it does, doesn't it? Listen, Grey-Eye, I'm getting tired of shouting all the way down there. And as you can't come join me up here, how about this..."

She leaned down towards me and flashed me a warm smile. Eagerly my mind filled in the next words which seemed to be coming: how about I come join you down there?

"How about you go find someone closer to your own level?"

The one on the left hid her head under her wing and tittered. The one on the right was less restrained and threw back her head to howl with laughter. Neither looked me in the eyes. Cloud-Splitter fixed me with a mocking, victorious stare, as though daring me to try and defend my dignity. I didn't. I just turned away, trying not to show my hurt.

It was then that I heard the noise. A faint repetitive click-click-click-click-click, just on the edge of hearing but getting louder. Stranger was the effect it seemed to be having on the crowd. People were vacating the road, pushing towards the edges. Well-meaning hands tried to shepherd me with them but I shrugged them off, watching as the people pressed themselves into two tightly packed strips along the road's margins, leaving the centre clear, myself excepted. Click-click-click-click-click, getting louder and louder, and amongst the myriad dialects of the crowd, I thought I made out a name, passed from voice to voice: Echobright.

Confused, I turned back to the only other hyeloki around: Cloud-Splitter and her companions.

"What's that sound?"

"You really are new here aren't you? That, Grey-Eye, would be someone more on your own level."

The sound, very loud now, was coming from my right, and as I turned my head back that way I suddenly found myself face-to-face with the source. A big hyeloki dropped out of the sky at speed, flying fast towards me with her head straight out in front and tail straight out behind, huge wings held out rigidly to either side. Her feet dropped down to meet the tarmac, landing in a manner more like an aeroplane that a hyeloki. The short distance between us rapidly closing, she stopped clicking just long enough to shout harshly.

"Out of the way, you idiot!"

She seemed to fill the street, her wingtips passing a mere whisper from the faces fronting the crowds. Just at the last moment I shook off my surprise and threw myself downwards and to one side, pressing myself into the road as one great wing sliced through the air above me. When I regained my feet the flyer had come to a rest some way down the street, turning her head this way and that, making the same sharp repetitive click-click noise she'd made in the air. The crowd, grumbling, diffused back into the street and went about their usual business.

I stumbled towards her, fascinated. Female hyeloki are built on a slightly larger scale than us males, but even by female standards she was big. A primitive male part of me didn't fail to note the fluid aerodynamic contours of her body, the solid and feminine strength that seemed to underlie her sleek grey curves, or the subtle and becoming tones of her smooth grey skin, unblemished white on her underside. The rest of my mind, however, was more transfixed by the way her long pointed ears were held rigidly upright, sieving the air for the faint echoes of her clicking tongue. As I drew near I saw her eyes: two featureless milky white pools. She was, quite obviously, completely blind.

I greeted her excitedly.

"Excuse me, but might your name be Echobright? Are you... are you echolocating? It's incredible! Extraordinary! How did you ever learn to..."

"Go stick your head up your own arsehole and practice it, if you're so interested."

And with that she turned her tail and walked away. I blinked, surprised but not overly offended. The rebuff had been harsh, but I didn't feel it was specifically aimed at me. More of an automatic defensive instinct.

Cloud-Splitter, however, was not one to let a good insult go to waste. Amidst the shrieking laughter of her two friends she hollered down to Echobright.

"Hey there Echobright! Don't be so rude to the little guy! He just fancies you, that's all!"

Echobright froze at the sound of her voice, her tail flicking in irritation, before turning her head to stare directly at where the other female perched high above her.

"Cloud-Splitter! Fly down here and insult me face-to-face, why don't you, instead of lurking at a safe distance like a month-old chick?"

To her credit, Cloud-Splitter did come down, swooping with three easy flaps of her wings to land between Echobright and myself. Just out of reach, I couldn't help but notice, of the blind female's bared fangs and flexing talons.

"Hey now Echobright, I'm not here to insult you. I'm actually trying to help you. I feel so sorry for you, you know, living up in that dreary little cave, all on your own."

"I don't need your sympathy, worm."

"Now Echobright, darling, there's no need to be so rude. Not when I've just found you the perfect little mate. After just one taste of your graceful landing and charming personality, why, he's clearly absolutely smitten."

She turned her head to regard me, her yellow eyes lit up in appreciation of some private joke. I glared back, as hard as I could, feeling embarrassed and angry all at once. What did she think she was doing?

"Oh Echobright, but if only you could see him! This one's quite a catch. He's so... strong and fierce!"

Her two clingers-on watching from the parapet contained their laughter long enough to make their own contributions to my description.

"An acrobat in the air!"

"And he's absolutely gorgeous!"

Cloud-Splitter shot them a warning look. Apparently she didn't appreciate interference.

"It's such a shame he has his heart so set on you, or I'd have him as my own in a heartbeat."

I seethed. I didn't like being used as a toy in her sordid little games. Come on Echobright, I willed. Jump at her. Tear at her. Put her in her place. But she didn't. She just shook her head in disgust and turned her tail on our tormentor.

"That's it? You're turning your back on him? Breaking his heart?"

So Echobright was above solving this problem with violence. Maybe I wasn't, though.

"But just imagine what beautiful children you two could... ayyaarrrgh!"

I didn't bite her tail very hard. Just hard enough to break the skin. Just hard enough to really hurt. Just hard enough to show her that I wasn't to be messed around with. When she spun round to face me her easy arrogance was gone, replaced by snarling, spitting fury.

"Did you just bite me, you pathetic little cripple? If you weren't such a pitiful scrap of a thing I'd give you a few more scars to go with your collection! Get out of here before I... AYYYAAARRRRGH!"

I hadn't noticed Echobright moving towards her once her back was turned. Certainly I had no idea how she managed to locate her tail so accurately without eyesight. But as soon as I heard that scream, I knew at once that she'd bitten down much harder than I had.

Cloud-Splitter wrenched her tail free, blood pouring from a red raw wound. I couldn't find any pity for her as she curled in on herself, whimpering.

"Psychopaths, the pair of you! You deserve each other!"

Spreading her wings, she rose shakily into the air and flew away fast. Her two companions followed close behind, laughing again, but this time their laughter was all directed at Cloud-Splitter. She left a trail of red spots along the road where blood still dripped from her tail.

Click-click-click-click-click. I turned. Echobright sat placidly in the middle of the road, her sightless eyes fixed on me, bathing me with probing bursts of sound. I had the impression of being sized up, appraised. As I stepped towards her the clicking stopped, and she sat silent, as though waiting for me to speak. I hesitated for words. "Thank you" just didn't seem appropriate.

"I don't know how well you can see me like that, but I'm afraid I don't live up to their description."

She didn't reply. She just sat there. Listening, I hoped. What to say? The truth. Something told me that Echobright was a person who'd prefer me to spit it out rather than circle cautiously around the matter.

"They did get one thing right though. I... this is going to sound absurd, but... I actually am a little smitten."

Her blind eyes seemed to stare into my soul. I babbled desperately.

"I know that seems ridiculous, since I've never met you before, but it's true. You've made quite a first impression on my silly impressionable heart. You're beautiful, you're forceful, and you're very... well, you're very graceful."

She tilted her head slightly to one side, questioningly.

"You are graceful! That landing. Very impressive. The fact that you can fly and land without eyesight... wow! I wouldn't have thought it even possible! But it wasn't just impressive. It was graceful. You've heard the old saying that a truly graceful flyer can land atop a finely balanced pole with only a single sweep of the wings? Well I think that's twaddle. A truly graceful flyer doesn't mess about performing ridiculous stunts on poles. Grace is something that sets its own course and leaves others to work around it. A whole street full of people erupted into chaos just to make way for the grace of your landing."

Her white sightless stare was impassive, but her ears were erect, listening. Something told me that if she didn't like what she was hearing, she wouldn't be sitting there listening to it.

"I'm sorry, I never even introduced myself. My name's Grey-Eye."

"Why?"

The question gave me a moment's pause. Nobody who could see me had ever had to ask.

"On account of my unusual grey eyes. I was born with them. But then I lost the one on the right, so Grey-Eyes became Grey-Eye."

I noticed a slight trickle of red blood - Cloud-Splitter's - running down her chin; I repressed a sudden desire to reach in and lick it clean. What was it about this proud and standoffish female that drew me in?

"Echobright, if you don't mind me being somewhat bold, I'd like to have a chance to get to know you a little better. Perhaps we could find something to eat to wash the awful taste of Cloud-Splitter's tail out of both our mouths?"

There was a long pause, and I had the impression she was considering the offer. Then she rose to her feet and addressed me in a voice that was calm, composed and invited no objections.

"Thank you for biting Cloud-Splitter. But, no."

With that she turned her tail on me. I stared forlornly after her as she paced casually away, drooping inside and out. But then she stopped, and spoke again without turning around, her voice surprisingly quiet and uncertain.

"Actually... yes. I'll be hunting on the low mire at second noon. Come."

* * *

It was first noon. The red sun was high in the sky, roasting the valley in its hot velvet light. But the white sun was still low above the horizon. I watched it, sprawled on the wooden decking outside my home, creeping achingly slowly upwards.

"Hey, Grey-Eye, what're you doing down there?"

I looked up to see the head of Lens-Of-Infamy, my neighbour, grinning down at me. I lived in the bottommost of a series of basic hyeloki-homes ranged up a steep hillside, each no more than a single comfortable room and a decked landing/lounging area. I'd chosen mine mostly for the rare quality of being at ground level. In the short time since I moved in, Lens-Of-Infamy and his infinitely gentle mate Fall-Of-Snow had become firm friends.

"Nothing very much, just watching the sky spin round."

"Pretty much exactly what I was doing! Why don't you come up here and we can do it together?"

It seemed a pleasant enough way to distract myself, so I got to my feet and rather laboriously clambered up the connecting steps. Lens-Of-Infamy lay sprawled languidly in the sunshine, his wings spread lavishly to either side of him. I lay down nearby, so we could talk without raising our voices above a lazy murmur.

"How's the little one faring, Infamy?"

"Very well, I think. We're expecting her any day now. We can feel her moving about more and more."

He lifted his wing briefly to reveal a dappled cream-coloured egg nestled against the warmth of his body.

"What about your quest for love, Grey-Eye? Found the courage to ask anyone yet?"

"I did, and we're going hunting together later today. At least I think so."

"What, you got a date already? Really?"

I frowned at him for his incredulous tone. He'd been the one who'd warned me, as kindly as he could, not to set my hopes too high. Now, rallying, he tried to recover himself.

_"_Well, of course, I had no doubt you would. Good for you! Who's the lucky lady then?"

"Her name's Echobright."

He stared at me as though I'd said I had a date with the red sun itself. When he replied it was in an awestruck whisper.

"What, the giant scary blind one?"

"You know her?"

"Everyone knows her, Grey-Eye. At least, everyone knows to be somewhere else when they hear that clicking noise approaching. That female terrifies me."

"I don't think she's scary. Actually the opposite - I find her somehow... reassuring."

"Reassuring."

He looked as though he was struggling to incorporate the word into his vision of Echobright. At length he shook his head to dismiss it and talked in a low but earnest voice.

"Listen to me. I'm not judging your tastes, and I'm sure she's a fine female in many exciting ways. But look at yourself: you've got one bad wing, one missing eye and you're not so strong as most people. You need to find someone who can look after you. Echobright's blind, she can't do that for you. She needs somebody to look after her, if she can find anyone brave enough."

I sniffed in displeasure, not entirely appreciative of his condescending advice, even if I knew it was meant for the best. When I replied I did so with slightly more venom than I really intended.

"We can both look after ourselves, and we can certainly look after each other."

He shrugged a wordless apology, and we both went back to watching the white sun crawl ever so slowly up the great blue bowl of the sky.

* * *

As I tramped through the mud of the mire I heard Echobright sing. There were many voices in the Song, all taking each other's lead, passing round themes that morphed and diverged and evolved. But not Echobright. Every note she sang was her own, completely oblivious to the music playing all around her. Sometimes a passing voice or two would try to work Echobright's song into the larger pattern, and the result was confusion. Her voice seemed to tear a hole through the very fabric of the Song.

Her music called to me like a beacon as I waded through reed-bordered pools and deep banks of mud, making my way to her across the broad, flat, waterlogged wilderness that was the low mire: a rich, wild, shining and stinking place. Echobright sat on a slight rise of dry land, and when I finally reached her I sat quietly beside her, listening to her music, admiring its complexity, its strength, its constant inventiveness. Had she wanted to be, she could have been an extraordinary Song-singer.

I waited until she stopped before speaking, not wishing to interrupt.

"You sing as beautifully as you fly. Entirely to your own tune."

Her reply was abrupt, almost severe.

"You walked here. Can't you fly?"

Oh, of course. She couldn't see me.

"Not any more, my right wing doesn't do what it's told. I can glide a little, but I can't push myself through the air like I used to be able to."

She began clicking with her tongue, measuring me up with sound.

"I want to have a look at you."

"A look at me?"

For a moment I was confused, but then she reached forwards and touched her snout to my muzzle. Not in any romantic way, just to feel the shape of me. Self-consciously I turned my head to the right, so that she felt only my unscarred left side. Otherwise I was still and compliant, letting her probing touch explore where it would: down the line of my chin, around my eye and ear, moving on down my neck all the way to my left wing. I unspread the wing, letting her explore its slender joints and taut leathery flight surface.

"You're probably wondering by now if there's anything really wrong with me. Well so far you've only seen my left side. Try my right, it's quite a difference."

I let her repeat the operation, this time forcing myself to hold my head and body to the left, exposing my bad side. Her snout probed me in a gentle but businesslike manner, flowing over my old scars and burns as indifferently as it had flowed over my unmarred skin before.

"Once you've counted all those scars you'll probably be glad you don't have to look at me all the time."

There was something incredibly sensual about the feeling of her muzzle sliding down the sensitive curve of my neck, gliding over my skin in such a delicate and tactile operation. It was a very personal and slightly intimate way of getting to know someone that made me wonder if we sighted folks were missing out on something. I unfolded my right wing as far as it would go, and her snout paused when it reached the old injury that made me flightless. The injury hadn't been painful for years, but the reminder of my deformity still hurt badly, so I spoke to distract us both from it.

"You know I've never had someone look at me in this way before? Maybe its just your talented nose, but I'm quite enjoying the experience."

"Pfah!"

She bopped me on the nose with her muzzle for my cheek, but without any malice. There followed a strange moment. Her snout hung motionless an inch in front of my own. I could feel the hot tickle of her breath. I wanted to reach out and kiss her. Should I? Was this the moment? I girded myself to go for it, and let my tongue slip out towards her lips. But just as I did so she moved away, her ears swivelling this way and that to scan the mire for sound.

"I hear marsh-lopers over that way. Can you see them?"

I squinted into the glare of the setting red sun.

"Yes, I see them. Half a dozen grazing, about a hundred spans away."

"Let's catch one."

I looked at her blind white eyes, and shifted my own useless right wing in discomfort.

"How?"

"Lunge and lurk."

Lunge and lurk. An old two-hyeloki hunting trick. I thought it through, carefully.

"Yes... that could work, I think. You lurk and I lunge? I can see a good spot for it."

"I can smell a muddy pool behind me. Is it deep?"

"Um... yes, I'd say so. But why...?"

"Camouflage."

"Oh."

If Echobright was going to be our lurker, she could use camouflage: her grey and white skin stood out in the browns and greens of the mire. Stepping backwards, she let herself descend slowly into a deep pit of sticky brown mud. I watched in morbid fascination as she rolled over, smearing the horrible mud over her skin, trying to coat every last part of her in the cloying substance. Mud camouflage was another old trick that disguised the scent as well as the skin, but I'd rarely seen it used. Not because it wasn't effective, but just because we hyeloki are - on the whole - a vain people.

"You missed a spot under your neck. And there, just on the inside of your left thigh. Perfect! And can I say you are quite the most alluring swamp monster I've ever set eye upon."

She was painted brown from head to tail, even her wings looked muddy brown if she kept them furled. Not quite enough mud, however, that I didn't see her smile very 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'd 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. Finally we reached a good spot.

"Here. Loper run. Only easy way through for a dozen spans either side. If I were 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's plenty of nice soft moss here 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! I'm a deadly killing machine and I do not need you fussing about me! 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 had Echobright on my mind. She'd said "save your pretty talk for later". That was a good sign, wasn't it? It meant she liked the way I talked, and that she anticipated there being a "later". Didn't it?

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, mapped out likely lines of escape, planned 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 terrible 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 tilted her head questioningly.

"Grey-Eye the Fierce?"

"Echobright the Enticing."

She smiled, and I noticed she was no longer trying to hide her pleasure from me. I felt 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 occasionally 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 female somewhere under all that mud."

She nodded and preceded me up the slope to a clear, wide pool bordered with reeds. Echobright strode splashing into the water and at once began scrubbing the cloying mud off her skin with her feet and tongue. It was tempting, very tempting, to jump in there with her.

"Say, Echobright, how would you feel about me slipping in there with you and, well, helping you out with that?"

She hissed irritably at the suggestion.

"I'm not completely incapable, you know! I can wash myself without needing you to rub yourself all over me like I'm... oh."

Her expression softened abruptly.

"I see. Alright then. If you feel you must."

The water felt pleasingly cool against my skin as I lowered myself until it reached up to our wings. I could feel it soaking into the mud on my feet, slowly washing them clean.

She offered me a wing and I started there, using my own good wing to wash 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 let me lean 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 more concerned with my talons as they stroked the strong curve of her back, working back and forth from her spine to the base of her wings, taking care not to let my claws scratch her skin. A few quick sweeps was all that was needed to remove the mud, but instead I took my time and massaged her. I didn't raise any complaints.

I moved forwards to brush the mud off the back of her long neck, then abandoned my talons in favour of my tongue for the precision work of cleaning her face. She closed her eyes and sighed in satisfaction as I lapped industriously around her blind eyes, her long pointed ears, her nostrils and lips. It's an intensely intimate thing for a hyeloki to clean another in this manner, and a gesture I'd neither given nor received in far too long a time. Echobright received my attentions graciously, finally letting loose a low rumbling moan of pleasure as I lapped the very last of the mud from the soft skin of her throat.

Her head and top-side clean, she flipped herself over in the water to float with her bright white 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 wing but instead I took my time, enjoying the soft warmth of her under my talons as I cleaned in careful, gentle circles.

Once I'd cleaned her belly, her wings and her tail I faced a dilemma. There was only one patch of mud left to clean, and it lay between her legs. I wasn't sure if I was invited there. I had an excellent view of the region, 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'd have been able to see even more plainly 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 for anything that said either stop or go ahead, but she just floated there perfectly still, her milky white eyes unreadable as ever. For all that I wanted to slide my tongue in 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 bent round to lick between her legs herself. I confess to staring as her tongue lapped delicately around her gaping slit.

"Alright. Your turn."

"But I didn't get muddy. Or, only my feet did."

"Then I'll clean your feet. Left leg up."

The water had already worked my feet clean, but I lifted my leg anyway. She lapped at it with her tongue, firm but gentle.

"And the right."

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

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

"But..."

"Over. Now."

I obeyed, and turned myself over to lie floating on my back. I sighed as her talons 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 proud outside its slit. I expected that as I had restrained myself, so would she. I was wrong. Echobright's foot carried on downwards as though there was no issue at all, and I gasped as I felt talons close around my shaft.

She didn't seem surprised. She just carried on cleaning me with her tongue, her talons holding me out of the way now one way, now the other as she licked around my slit, sending a pleasant tingle up my spine.

"And there was me worrying you didn't really like me. Just shy, are you?"

Her cleaning finished, she ran her talons lightly once down 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, know that now. Sorry if 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. I suppose we haven't. Shall we...?"

We turned our 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 thrill 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 tongue occasionally dropping down to stroke and caress 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 tongue. Perhaps she wasn't listening either, for it was some time before anything I said provoked a response.

"When I mentioned you to my friend, Lens-Of-Infamy... 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 me you don'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'd found 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 tongue licked 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.

"People warned me not to set my hopes too high on finding a mate. I was starting to think perhaps they were right. That I'd be rejected by everyone, that I was fated to a lifetime of solitude. That no-one would ever take a poor specimen like me."

Her tongue suddenly stopped its licking. Her wing about me seemed tense. Had I said something wrong?

"But then I met you!"

"Then you met me and what, exactly?"

There was an edge to her voice, and as she said it she removed her wing and leant away from me. I'd definitely said something wrong. But what? I'd talked my way into something and now 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 were desperate, weren't you? When you'd been rejected by every normal female available, was it finally time to resort to me? After all, I'm clearly swimming so low in the dating pool that I'd jump at any offer, even from a poor specimen like yourself. Was that how it was?"

"No! I..."

"Well let me tell you, Grey-Eye, I have standards, and you're just not up to them. If I take a mate, it'll be someone I respect, and who respects me, not a 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 person 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 towards the town.

* * *

The hill, or perhaps I'd 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.

Hyeloki are built to fly, and our legs are not designed for hiking, let alone mountain climbing. 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, 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'd inferred? Either way, I'd prepared some words in my head, and I spoke them passionately, if 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 high above it that it's a tiny blue speck below you. You're beautiful, you're smart, you're really sexy. And you've got 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. I want to warm my heart under your wing. Yours, and no-one else's. Echobright, I want to curl up beside you and never leave. 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.

"Are you hurt?"

"I'm alright, it's just my dodgy leg. I just need to..."

"You need to lie down. Come on."

I let her half guide me, half carry me into her cave. She lived in a traditional hyeloki home, little more than a tunnel carved deep into the rock, but it was dry and clean and sheltered from the wind and cold. We reached a place at the very back and she laid me down on a soft bed of earth and dry mosses. She arranged me carefully with a firm gentleness, curled up on my good side.

"Are you comfortable?"

I was. And yet...

"No. Not yet. I'm still missing a big sexy female wrapping her wing around me."

She laughed and lay down behind me, her belly pressed against my back, her head nestled on the back of my neck, one leg resting over my hips, one wing draped over my weary body. Our body heat filled the little space, keeping us warm. No sound from the outside world made it back there, and no light either, so it was as if me and Echobright and our bed were the only things that existed in the whole world. I knew I could drift so easily into sleep, and wake up feeling more rested than I ever had, wonderfully entwined with my lover.

She licked me gently, the pleasing sensation just enough to keep me awake. As I was lying with my right side up, her tongue ran over scarred and burnt skin.

"Grey-Eye, what happened to you?"

I hesitated. I didn't like to talk about it. But she needed to know some time, and now was as good as any.

"I was a pilot."

She stopped licking me and sat up slightly.

"Really? As in, aeroplanes?"

"Big shiny silver ones."

"I've never met a pilot before."

"Well you rarely even see aeroplanes around these parts. It's one of the reasons I came here. But in noisier parts of the world, we hyeloki are quite in demand as pilots. It's our natural flying instincts."

"It sounds exciting."

"Oh, it was! I was quite full of myself back then. I was young, I was pretty, and I flew aeroplanes all over three continents. And I had a mate. She was young and pretty too, and she was also a pilot."

"So what happened?"

"Remember the six days war?"

"Vaguely."

"Well, we got caught in the middle of it."

"Were you a military pilot? I can't imagine you as a warrior."

"I wasn't. We flew passengers. But we got commandeered to fly an emergency evacuation flight. Half-way to safety, with a plane overcrowded with passengers, and we got shot down. Took a blow to the cockpit, right-wing side. That's what gave me all these exciting scars."

"And the passengers...?"

"Landed safely. By some miracle, both me and the plane had just - just - enough function left after the impact to perform a crash landing. Quite a few injuries but only one fatality. To be honest I can't even remember doing it. I think I was barely conscious. Anyway, that was the last time I ever flew. In an aeroplane or otherwise."

I did remember, a little. I remembered fire, noise, pain. I'd blacked out, before they came to pull me out of the cockpit. Then waking up to pain, pain, endless pain, and even that couldn't hurt me as much as the news they'd had for me.

"And your mate? Didn't she support you?"

"She was the one fatality."

The person I had loved so much, gone in an instant. Saying it now, I was surprised to learn that it didn't hurt so much any more. It was in the past. The only female who mattered now was the one lying pressed against me, whose slow steady breathing I could feel ebbing and flowing as she listened.

Echobright didn't reply. Again I was glad that she wasn't one to say the meaningless phrase "I'm sorry". Instead, when I turned my head to face her, she kissed me, slowly and tenderly.

Many minutes passed by before she spoke.

"I know you're tired, but I want to keep you awake just a little longer."

Before I could reply she let out her tongue and licked my neck, just slightly, but in a tender way that somehow promised much, much more.

"You can keep me up as long as you like, so long as you keep doing that."

At that she began licking me profusely in long, slow, sensuous lines down my neck. I turned slightly to expose my sensitive throat, and sighed in satisfaction as her tongue tingled and tickled against my skin. I tried to play my part and lick her own neck in return, but she seemed disinclined to let me. I was too tired to argue so I lay back, closed my eyes and enjoyed what she was giving me.

It wasn't just licking. Her talons began playing across my chest, stroking back and forth in rhythm with my breath. Her leg rubbed insistently against my hip, and even her tail coiled and insinuated against my own. I moaned out loud, needing more. It wasn't that this treatment washed away my exhaustion. It was more that it supplemented it, turning it into a kind of tired but demanding arousal.

Echobright continued to coat my neck, chin and face in sumptuous kisses, making me squirm in pleasure. After minutes more of this I wasn't surprised, only relieved, when her talons slid down further to close around my erect cock for the second time that day. Instantly all the licking, the rubbing, the stroking stopped as she dedicated her full attention to that part of me, squeezing me firmly.

"You're not so tired that I can't play with this, are you?"

I shook my head, feeling exhausted but invigorated at the same time. We kissed again, intensely, while she gripped hard around me and pulled slowly back and forth, stimulating me agreeably.

Her talons slid themselves up my shaft to the pointed tip, where they explored curiously, finding the liquid seeping relentlessly from me and spreading it around the sensitive head. I groaned.

"Is this good?"

"Yes... yes..."

For a moment I was disappointed as I felt her talons move away, letting my needy cock stand unsupported. But then she was leaning right over me, bending round her long neck to place her head between my legs...

I couldn't help but mewl pathetically as her tongue whipped out to lick my tender head.

"How about this?"

"Oh, Echobright..."

The tongue moved in again, licking and licking the head, licking it clean of precum, then licking it again when more replaced it. I stretched and writhed my tired limbs to show my unbearable pleasure, desperate now for her to go further and provide me with release.

As though reading my mind she moved her head forwards a little, letting just my tip move into her mouth, cradled between her tongue and the warm roof. She toyed with it curiously, rolling it around, wrapping her tongue about it. As I shouted out silently she carried on forwards, slowly pushing my entire length into her muzzle until I felt her nose pressed against my groin.

For a moment we just lay there, relishing the feeling of me resting inside her. And then she tried rubbing her tongue over my engulfed shaft, slowly at first, then more vigorously, soon moving her whole head back and forth in slow but relentless rhythm, suckling me mercilessly.

My breathing came in deep ragged gulps. Summoning energy I didn't know I still had, I began actively thrusting in rhythm with her own motions, intensifying the sensation. When she felt me doing this she stopped her own movements and let me push myself as hard as I could in and out of the warm wet welcome of her mouth, driving myself doggedly towards release, back and forth, in and out of her brutal, beautiful muzzle... in and out... in and out...

I gushed into her. My eyes flickered closed in pure pleasure, she making no complaint as I squirted my semen into her mouth, again and again. Only when I was spent, lying still and panting, did she draw herself slowly from my cock and nuzzle her head tenderly against mine. I licked her throat fondly, and as I did I felt her swallow, felt the liquid seed I'd left in her be accepted into the core of her being.

Dearly I wished I could return the favour, could bring her to her own orgasm. But a new, even more irresistible wave of exhaustion was rushing over me, claiming me. The last thing I remembered before falling into a deep and satisfied sleep was Echobright resting my head gently on the soft bed and draping her wing lovingly over me.

* * *

In my dreams, I could still fly. Dream-flying wasn't like real flying: it was a floating, effortless, wonderful thing. It let me focus all my attention on the female flying alongside me, just ahead of and a little above me. Usually, it was my long-dead mate who flew with me in my dreams. Now it was Echobright, her wings stretched taut and magnificent as she cut easily through the air. She was more than I could resist. I flew towards her, needing to touch her...

In the manner of dreams, unbound by constraints of continuity, we were quite suddenly curled up together on the ground, amidst long waving grasses, her wing draped over me and her tongue playing gently across my skin. I sighed, letting the soothing balm of her touch seep into my soul...

...and gradually I realised I was awake. No field of grasses, but the quiet darkness of her cave. But there was her tongue softly, ever so softly stroking my skin, that had reached right in to touch me in my dreams. And there was her embrace: she clutched me tightly to her, like a child holding onto a beloved toy. I was sure she'd held me so all night. Nothing about it displeased me, and I lay as still and quiet as I could, pretending still to be sound asleep.

She must have guessed I was awake, though, because after some time she whispered into my ear, so quietly that it couldn't possibly have woken me.

"It's a shame you're still asleep, right when I want to give you the first kiss of the morning."

As bait to lure me out of my false slumber, it worked. I turned to face her, barely visible in the deep shadow of the cave. We kissed delicately, saturated with that slow but sexual sensitivity that comes so naturally upon waking.

"Mmm, that's a great thing to wake up to. When do I get the second kiss of the morning?"

"When you get your lazy carcass off my bed and out of my cave, of course."

She licked me playfully on the nose before pulling herself up and away, leaving me lying on my own. I stretched and eased myself up onto my feet. The night's sleep had done wonders: my legs felt a little stiff, but no worse for their ordeal of the day before.

I had to feel my way along, my snout sliding across the rock walls, until I reached a point where there was enough light to be able to see my way. Reaching the entrance, the golden morning sunlight almost blinded me. I had to blink uncomfortably until my eyes accustomed enough to recognise Echobright silhouetted against the sky. She sat on the very edge of the shelf of rock outside her home, looking out over the landscape for all the world as though she could see it. I went to sit next to her and we cloaked each other in our wings. And she gave me the second kiss she'd promised me.

"Sing with me, Grey-Eye."

I wanted to, but...

"I haven't joined in the Song since my first mate died."

I noticed myself use the word "first" in that context for the first time.

"Then forget the Song. Just sing with me."

She started to sing. She sang in much the same way as I'd heard her sing in the mire, with no regard whatsoever for the Song around her, but now her music seemed more vibrant, more energetic, more exuberant. It seemed impossible to listen and not be carried away. And eventually it was impossible to resist joining in. I let myself sing a soft accompaniment to her melody, blocking out all the other voices in the sky and just singing with her, gaining in volume as I gained in confidence.

Soon, I was singing as loudly as I could, and she was singing even louder. It had been so long, I'd almost forgotten how much I loved to sing, and how good I was at it. I had been content to let her lead and to provide harmony, but Echobright began to pass melodies to me and bend her song to my own. And so I found us singing a private two-part Song of our very own, each oblivious to every voice but the other's.

When we stopped, we did so quite simultaneously without the slightest signal passing between us. The Song rushed in to fill the vacuum we'd left. It was with some astonishment I realised it was singing our Song. We'd sung so well that the Song had rewoven itself around us. Neither of us spoke as our music spun through the air, gradually unweaving into threads of song which spread out and wove themselves into new musical fabrics until they were almost unrecognisable.

"Your leg feeling better after all that sleep?"

"Not just my leg, Echobright. All of me feels marvellous! Is your cave blessed with healing powers? Or is it just that you know exactly how to hold me to soothe all my aches and strains? Either way, a few more nights' sleep like that and I feel I could regain even my long-lost power of flight."

"And your pretty talk might just help cure my dead eyes. Describe for me what you can see right now."

The valley was spread out green and vibrant beneath our high vantage point, the reflected light of the red sun making the rivers and streams look like threads of molten gold. But I had no eye for that right then.

"Oh Echobright, if only you could see it, it's exquisite. The curve of your back, the sweep of your neck, the beauty of your jaw leading to the tantalising..."

"Grey-Eye! You know full well I didn't mean me. You have a devilish mind and a tongue that spits out the most trite, syrupy nonsense I've ever heard. Never, ever change."

And you, I thought. Never, ever change.

"Have you always been blind?"

"No. When I was very young my eyes were fine, but then I got sick, and the disease took my sight. I can't remember what it was like to see."

"That may be the best way. I can still remember flying vividly and it pains me. It was always just a part of life I took for granted until I lost it, and now I yearn for the feel of wind rushing under my wings."

"But you can still glide?"

"Yes, if I climb up somewhere high I can glide back down to the ground. But it means a lot of climbing for very little time in the air."

"Could you glide from here?"

I looked down. Beyond the rocky shelf the ground dropped down almost vertically for some distance. A perfect spot for a glide.

"Yes, easily. With a few good thermals I might even make it all the way into town."

"Off you go then."

And quite suddenly, with a great heave she pushed me right over the edge.

I fumbled and panicked in mid-air, a falling confusion of flailing limbs, before instinct kicked in and I pulled up into a controlled glide. Once my shock had receded, I could appreciate the wind roaring under my wings, and the way the world slid by so far beneath me, and the feeling of immense, exhilarating freedom that flight afforded me. This last was illusory. My damaged right wing was stretched out to catch as much lift as it could, but it wasn't enough for true flight. I had to hold my left wing slightly retracted to avoid spinning in an unbalanced spiral, and between the two I could only stay airborne by slowly but constantly losing height. The ground, still so far below, would rise inexorably until it once again claimed me as its own, and then the only way back up to Echobright's cave would be another long, hard climb. But for now I let myself forget this, and enjoyed the thrilling sensations of wheeling and diving and spinning through the air whilst they lasted.

Click-click-click-click-click. I heard the rasp of Echobright's sonar close behind me and closing fast. I shouted into the roaring sky.

"Echobright! You crazy, unpredictable, outrageous, sexy thing! I'd be really angry if I wasn't having so much fun right now!"

"Shut up and watch out, I'm coming in on top of you."

"What? What are you doing? Hey..."

What did she think she was doing now? She manoeuvred herself with impressive precision until she was flying directly over me, then dropped, closing the distance between us, probing with sonar all the while. My instincts screamed to dive down out of the way of imminent collision but I overruled them and held my course steady, trusting that she knew what she was doing, and desperately hoping that I was right to do so.

She bumped gently down onto my back, and in a moment she had her legs wrapped firmly around me, just behind my wings, gripping tightly, locking us together. With a few beats of her huge wings, sending powerful downthrusts of air whistling over me, she sent us both lunging forwards. Pulling me faster. Lifting me higher.

"Oh! This can't possibly work! But it is! We're flying! Higher! Faster!"

We went higher still, and faster. This wasn't mere gliding any more, I was flying! Well, we were flying. But it was more than I'd ever expected to experience again. Echobright was giving me back the skies.

"Keep your wings out! I can't do this if you're dead weight."

"Sorry! Wheeee! Hey, you've stopped echolocating, how do you know where you're going?"

"I don't. You do. Pilot me, pilot."

Until then I hadn't realised that Echobright needed me to help her fly as much as I needed her. Echolocation only worked at short range, and could only let her fly very low over the ground: any higher and she would lose all track of where she was and be instantly lost. To fly at any reasonable altitude, she needed my eye. I could give her the skies.

"Oh! Right. Sorry. Left a bit. Bit more. Fine. Angle down just slightly. Let's do a flyover of the town."

We gained speed as we dropped towards the town, its confusion of white houses getting larger as the wind howled louder and louder in my ears.

"Here we go, level off, keep it straight. Wheeee! There's my home!"

I saw Fall-Of-Snow and Lens-Of-Infamy lying together on their decking and whistled a greeting; I thought I saw Infamy wave back, but I wasn't sure, and in a moment they were out of sight. I whipped my head left and right, eagerly soaking in the sight of the familiar streets from an unfamiliar angle.

"This is amazing, I'd forgotten flying was so much..."

I chanced to look back straight in front of us, and saw a line of tall trees oncoming at some speed.

"...up, up, pull up! NOW!"

Echobright pulled sharply upwards, less than nimble with me weighing her down, and the topmost branches just brushed my belly. She shouted down at me harshly.

"Pay attention or you'll kill us both!"

"Sorry! Oh, damn it. Three old friends on intercept course."

Three winged figures had flapped up from the rooftops and were headed straight for us.

"Who?"

"Disdain, disgust and pity."

Cloud-Splitter fell into formation just behind us, the usual two companions at her tail. There was a smirk on her face and another smirk in her voice.

"Oh now what is this? The cripple leading the blind and the blind carrying the cripple? This is just adorable!"

I felt Echobright's body tense at the sound of her voice.

"Go find another patch of sky, Cloud-Splitter, or I'll have my mate steer us right at you. We've both got quite a bite, remember?"

Mate. She just said "my mate". I glowed inside.

"Hey, if you two are going to perform this circus act in broad daylight, don't complain if you get an audience."

I intervened before Echobright had time to either make another threat, or act on the first one.

"Come on Echobright, we don't mind people watching us, do we? In fact, Cloud-Splitter, why don't you go fetch your mate and he can watch as well?"

Cloud-Splitter stared at me as though I'd bitten her again. Without another word she turned her bandaged tail to me and flew away. I felt Echobright laughing silently before Cloud-Splitter's two shadows edged closer to us and addressed us nervously.

"Hey, sorry about her."

"And congratulations. I think you're kind of cute together."

Echobright shook her head in disgust.

"Piss off the pair of you."

They wheeled away after Cloud-Splitter, leaving us alone in the air once again.

"You really hit a sore spot. How did you know she's never been able to find a mate?"

"I just guessed. I can't really imagine anyone being that desperate."

We flew on, me directing Echobright but not going anywhere in particular.

"Where are we?"

I remembered that she'd asked me to describe the view earlier, and I'd passed it by in favour of an opportunity to flirt. It seemed a good moment to make up for it.

"Right over the low mire, where we caught that loper, a few hundred spans up. I can see it shimmering in the light, looking like a great field of burning gold. We're heading just north of east, toward a big, broad, inviting swathe of bright green grasslands, dotted with trees, rising to our left and merging into the rich forests which bask in the sunlight all over the hills. The town's under us to our right, looking small and sort of lost amongst all the green; little white buildings which sparkle where a sun glances off a chance window. On the far side of that I can see the fields and pastures and roads, a kind of patchwork of neat little lines and squares, all slightly different colours, and beyond them are the higher hills where you live, all bleak and scarred moorland, rising up into the sky, blocking out the red sun and casting a half-shadow over the valley. I really wish you could see it."

"When you describe it so clearly, I think I can. You make it sound beautiful."

Looking up, I could see her neck thrusting forwards through the air, and glancing backwards, there were her great wings lifting us both heavenwards.

"What's below me isn't half as beautiful in my eye as what's above me."

She grunted as though in displeasure, but then bent her long neck down to face me, and we kissed as we flew together, the wind streaming past us, the ground wheeling below us. As we broke apart, she spoke to me in her firm and unyielding manner.

"Alright, find a place to land."

Disappointment washed through me. I'd been starved of flight for a long time, and had hoped to stay in the air for much longer yet.

"Down already? Are you getting tired?"

"No. But I need to make love to you and we can't do that in the air."

A sudden heat sprang up in me at her words. Suddenly I was highly conscious of the tight grip of her legs around my hips, and of the warm press of her underside against my back. The ground became at once a very appealing place to be.

"Down it is then. I see a good spot. Very slightly to the left, and not far ahead..."

I led us down to the grasslands, a broad wilderness of brilliant green grasses broken only occasionally by trees and streams. We dropped until we were soaring straight and low over the ground, my feet brushing the tops of the long grass and throwing up showers of seeds.

"That's it, nothing ahead of you but grass. Just remember I'm underneath you as you land."

She dropped me, and I glide-ran to a stumbling halt. Echobright carried on over me, losing height until her feet touched the ground and she slowed to a standstill some way ahead. She hadn't used her echolocation once - she'd trusted my guidance absolutely.

I watched as she sat herself down amidst the waving green grass. She looked calm and collected, in sharp contrast to my own restless heat which rose at the sight of her waiting for me so placidly, so beautiful amidst the rustling grass and flowers. I began walking towards her, the long stalks tickling my legs and belly. But soon I couldn't help myself from breaking into a run, desperate to close the distance between me and the female I so desired.

Echobright sat listening to my noisy approach, motionless. I didn't slow down as I neared, intending to leap on top of her and smother her in kisses. I never got the chance. Just as I reached her she lunged towards me, going from tranquil stillness to streaking motion like an uncoiling spring, flying hard into me and knocking me off my feet.

I landed on my back in the grass with her on top of me, her tongue smothering my face and neck in delicious wet kisses just as I'd intended to do to her. I laughed uncontrollably, and after a minute of this wonderful assault I rallied and kissed her own sweet neck mercilessly; she even let me roll us both over so that it was me who pinned her to the ground, and she mewled in pretended helplessness as I kissed and kissed and kissed her.

I didn't get away with that for very long. She threw me bodily off her to one side and in an instant was on top of me, and once again it was me pretending distress as she rasped her tongue across my sensitive skin. And suddenly we were playing a game; tussling back and forwards in the grass like children, both trying to pin the other down and inflict more kisses than we received, neither of us trying too hard to block the other's intentions.

All the time, a deep and demanding sexual yearning was building up inside of me. If we were to carry on with this rough play, I knew I wouldn't be able to restrain myself to mere kissing. But something told me Echobright was in a mood to play a little longer before joining me in a more intimate exchange. So as she pushed me off her with a final playful shove, I darted out of the way before she could jump back on top of me. I whistled playfully to invite her to chase me.

She hurled herself after me, shrieking in frustrated lust. Together we ran and circled through the tickling grass, me whistling to let her know where I was, she crashing after me eagerly. Had she been in a mind to, I knew she could easily have chased me down and caught me. But she let me narrowly escape again and again, sometimes even grabbing me only to let me slither easily out of her grasp.

Finally her talons closed around my tail and I felt the difference immediately. Her grip was firm and definite. Enough, it seemed to say, no more games. I stopped running and lay panting from the exertion, the grass soft under my belly, ready to see what Echobright had in mind to do with me. She stared sightlessly at the tail in her talons, and gave it a little lick.

"What's that you've found there, Echobright?"

"Not sure. It's long and thin and twitchy. It could be a snake?"

"I think you might have caught a tail."

"And is there a horny little male attached to this tail?"

"There most certainly is."

"Good. I need one of those right now. Whoever he is."

And with that she started hauling me towards her, reeling me in by my tail like a fish on a line. Just for fun I dug my claws into the earth but it did nothing at all to impede my progress towards Echobright except to leave parallel furrows gouged into the earth.

When she ran out of tail she jumped on me, looping her legs around my hips and lowering her full weight onto my back. Her tongue explored my neck and face exuberantly.

"It seems I've caught myself a Grey-Eye."

"There's not much good eating on me. I'm a scrawny little thing."

"I think you're delicious. But what else could I do with you, apart from eating you?"

"I have an idea, but we need to swap positions."

"But I like this one. It's very comfortable."

I bent my head round to kiss her, tongue to tongue. It was a wet, hungry kiss, so engrossing it seemed to block out everything else. Or, almost everything else. It didn't block out the way she ground her body back and forth over my back in suggestive rhythm. It didn't block out the tickle of her wings playing against my own. And it certainly didn't block out the wet warmth I felt as my coiling tail happened to nudge the space between her legs. She seemed to enjoy that contact so I touched my tail there again, deliberately this time, and slid it slowly back and forth over that moist patch. Echobright mewled.

I was quite enjoying the motion, but it seemed Echobright wanted something more. She stepped off me and in one quick motion had me rolled over onto my back. As she climbed back on top of me, one leg either side of my hips, I reached my wings up to embrace her and pull her down, down until we were pressed chest to chest. My cock strained against the softness of her belly. Having kissed once more, she spoke in a voice barely above a whisper but choked with urgency.

"Touch me."

Although she'd already touched my privatemost part in the most intimate ways, I'd barely touched hers at all. It was a lapse I was eager to rectify. I let my left foot, which had been gently massaging her hip, slip down under her tail. Finding the line of her slit I traced my claws around it in a circular motion, feeling her shiver as I drew the circles smaller and smaller. At last I was tracing up and down the very edges of her sodden lips. I felt her own foot grope shakily between us to grasp my cock, and she stroked me as I ran my claws up and down her tender slit.

Unable to resist any longer, I pushed the tip of a single claw gently in-between her parted lips to feel the warm and wet place beyond. Instantly her blind milky white eyes snapped shut. As I moved the claw slowly up and down inside her she let out a sigh of perfect pleasure, her talons still wrapped around my cock but its ministrations fallen still. Probing something as delicate as a female's genital slit with something as sharp as a claw is a dangerous business, and I had to move slowly and maintain concentration to make sure that I touched her only with the flat and never the point. But she seemed to trust me absolutely, purring in contented pleasure.

Not until I reluctantly removed my talons from her did she remove hers from me. She held her foot up to my mouth, the talons smeared in my precum, and obligingly I licked them clean. Likewise I offered her my own foot, and she wiped her juices from my claw with her deft tongue without hesitation.

We shared another kiss, and I tasted a little of the liquid she'd cleaned from my claws. There we lay, with her still on top of me, gazing down at me with those blind white eyes.

"Are you ready to mount me, Grey-Eye?"

"I've never been more ready for anything."

She licked my neck lavishly. I was suddenly conscious of my cock, pressed hard against her belly, throbbing in eager readiness.

"Are you ready to push that thing into me?"

"Over and over and over again, Echobright my love."

Yes. There was nothing - nothing - I wanted more in the world. She licked me again, leaving a line of tingling fire up my neck.

"Are you ready to fill me with your seed?"

"Until there's not a drop left in my loins."

One last time she licked my neck, before she eased herself off me and positioned herself beside me in the grass. The green stems hid her white underside, only her grey back and wings exposed to the broad blue sky. Her blind eyes seemed to twinkle in an invitation I was powerless to refuse. As I rose shakily to my feet I admired her, and wondered that someone so beautiful and remarkable should be lying there, waiting for me to consummate our love.

Moving behind her, I rested my wings gently on her hips. Her legs were spread and her tail raised invitingly, giving me a clear view of her femininity, so ready that moisture dripped down from it onto the grass. She'd asked me to mount her, to push myself into her, to fill her with my seed. And oh, how I wanted to. But she'd have to wait just a little longer. There was something I wanted to do first.

Bringing my head down to her sex, so that her rich scent flooded my nostrils, I stuck out my tongue to lap up a drop of the juice leaking from my lover. The taste was pleasing, and by the way she twitched and sighed when I touched her there, I knew that Echobright was in no way opposed to me going further. I licked her again and then let my tongue slide between her lips, moving up and down, drinking in her plentiful moisture and making her moan with pleasure.

I hadn't finished with her yet. When I'd entered her with my claw I'd had to be extremely careful, but with my tongue I had no such restrictions. I thrust deep and wiggled. She squealed and gasped. I explored her, locating her sensitive spots by the way she trembled when I touched them. Her tail coiled itself around my neck as though to encourage me as I flickered my tongue in and out of her, driving her wild.

Only when I thought I was in danger of bringing her to an early orgasm did I stop. Echobright was panting and shaking from my ministrations. My cock was screaming so loud for attention that ignoring its needs any longer would have been a kind of torture. It was time to give us both what we craved. Slowly, carefully, I mounted my lover, looping first my left leg around her shapely hips and then the right, putting my penis at a comfortable angle to slide inside her. I kissed her back tenderly, and she turned her head to kiss me in the softest and most compassionate way imaginable.

"Are you ready, Echobright?"

The answer to that was perfectly obvious, but I wanted to hear her say it.

"No. I'm desperate. Get on with it and fuck me, Grey-Eye!"

"As you command."

It took only a single easy motion to slide slowly inside her, all the way. She felt good - tight enough to grip me comfortably without being so tight as to impede movement. I let my head rest next to hers, touching, feeling her heavy breath as I relished the sensation of being inside her.

This position - the traditional hyeloki mating position - put me in full control. I was free to choose the speed. Although it was tempting - very tempting - to pound myself into her as fast and hard as I could, I resolved to go slowly. That would ultimately be the more rewarding experience for us both. And so I began, easing myself in and out in a measured rhythm that was nonetheless enough to send waves of delicious excitement running through my body. Enough to soon have us both panting sandpaper breaths. As I realised how little work it would take to bring me to an orgasm from my extraordinary height of arousal, I was doubly glad of the slow pace. Without it, my journey to a climax might have been embarrassingly short.

I kept up the slow rhythm, relishing the sumptuous wet squeeze of every inward thrust and the urgent shaking rush of her breath on every outward pull. Thrust, and pull; thrust, and pull; each one more deeply satisfying than the last. I found my wings beating up and down in time. With every thrust I had to fight my body's urge to speed up and bring the matter to a fast conclusion; in fact, I fought it so well I actually slowed down my rhythm as I felt myself approaching orgasm, to put off the inevitable end to our pleasure for as long as possible.

I knew it couldn't last much longer. I focused on my lover as I strove to slow down even further, to draw this moment out forever...

Echobright, her chest heaving beneath me as she lay in her own world of delirious pleasure...

Echobright, sliding around my buried shaft so perfectly...

Echobright, waiting for me to explode into her...

Echobright, so very beautiful...

Echobright, my lover...

Echobright, my mate...

Echobright...

Echo...

...bright...

We shrieked wordlessly into the sky as we both came at once. Echobright gushed around me just as I felt my seed scream out of me and into her, wave after wave of gorgeous ecstasy hitting me as I pumped wave after wave of liquid into her welcoming body. As our orgasms subsided we found ourselves shaking and breathless, our gasping voices fading into tired moans, our rapture sinking into a deep and measureless satisfaction. When we'd recovered most of our breath, with me still resting contentedly inside her, we shared a weary but infinitely tender kiss.

We didn't speak. There was no need. Both of us knew we both needed to sleep. Slipping out of her, I crawled next to where she sat and lay down beside her in the grass. With her wing draped over me, I let myself drift into a deeply satisfied sleep.

* * *

I lay awake for some time before Echobright stirred from her sleep. I didn't move as I lay curled tightly under her wing, listening to the insects hum between the flowers and feeling her chest rise and fall slowly, her warm breath on the back of my neck. My mind drifted towards the future. What next? Would we stay here? Would we go somewhere else? What if Echobright was with egg after the night before... would we raise it? I sighed contentedly. So many possible futures. And every one of them seemed brighter than all the ones on offer just one day before.

I noticed Echobright stir and leant over to kiss her before she even had time to fully wake.

"Echobright, have you ever wanted to just fly away, see what's over the horizon? I mean, figuratively, in your case."

She blinked her blind eyes, apparently struggling to digest such a question so soon after waking up. I stroked her neck fondly.

"Grey-Eye, I've never even been out of this valley."

"What? Never?"

"Being blind and exploring don't go together well."

"Would it be better if I'm with you?"

"Everything's better when you're with me."

"Aww..."

I nuzzled her.

"Sell it to me, Grey-Eye."

"Just you, and me, flying through the sky together. When we get hungry, we eat whatever we can catch. When we get tired, we sleep wherever we find ourselves. When we get horny, we stop to make love. That... might be quite often. And we can always come back here if we find you... you know... need to settle down for a while."

She was silent for a full minute, apparently deep in thought, and I didn't miss her rubbing her wing over her belly as though dwelling on what might grow within. Her answer, when it came, was definite and without doubt.

"You've sold it to me. Let's do it."

"We could leave in the morning."

"We could leave right now."

I looked at her carefully, reading in her expression only the same world-hungry love that filled me.

"Right now? Just fly away?"

"Right now. Pick a horizon, and I'll carry you over it."

I glanced about, and pointed at where the red sun was just dipping under the horizon, lighting up the sky in shades of exploding red and gold.

"That one. I mean, the one right behind me, from where you are."

"Good choice. Get ready."

I scrambled to my feet and faced the sunset, my wings outstretched. She broke into a run, lifted into the sky and circled back towards me from behind. As she approached I whistled and started to run, running as fast as my legs would carry me. I ran until Echobright passed low over me and I jumped, jumped up into her embrace and let her pull me up, up into the sky.