Chapter Four

I am sitting on my wyvern Blizzard looking right at my friends the Orkish. A strong green and very causious group of people not human in origin. Star the woman who've developed feelings for is staring right at me for some reason. She like before had a question on her mind, but this time she asked me what was on her mind. "Would you opposed on having us spend the evening with you at that farm you talk about so much. My father wanted to see it in person since you're so proud of it." I looked at Island and he just smiled at me, "sure I don't have a problem with it all. Just be sure you follow me and stay very close to me. I have Rex guards that patrol the area."

I said making sure they knew that there was real danger if I wasn't with them. We then headed to the farm soon after the Orkish said good-bye to their party leaving for home. So riding with me was, Island, Zer and Star riding right behind me. It was a bit heavy for Blizzard but she managed the whole way home. She even landed nice on the makeshift landing zone Brad had made weeks back. When I got everyone off Blizzard Brad came to see me and saw we had visitors. "I take it that those meetings went good?" Brad said jabbing at me for bringing Star and her family home to visit. "Yes, for what I picked up, they went fine and even established a trading treaty with everything."

I said to my brother, Zer, Star's brother went right up to my brother and greeted him. "Hello Jacob's little Brother, it's been a couple weeks since we've seen eachother." He said to Brad and those to walked off talking about life. I brought Island and Star to my stables where they got to see what I all raised. She saw that everyone that lived and worked on my farm were staring at her. I saw this too and placed my hand on the fence on my fire wyvern's stable. "They might be worry of you lot now, but give them sometime. Meeting strangers that are very different from us can make them uneasy." I said to Star and she started to pet a baby fire wyvern.

I smiled at that sight and some of my crew stopped staring and got back to doing their duties. Just who was in the crafting shop came to see what was going on. He saw Star and froze for a moment but continued getting closer to us. "Jacob, I assume this is Star the woman you talk about alot?" He said holding out his hand for Star to shake. She stood up, I forgot sometimes how tall she was to me. Her six and half foot stature made Just feel small. "I am Star, I am also one of the four leaders of my village." She said shaking Just's hand and he introduct himself to her. "I'm a old friend if Jacob's here, you can call me Just it's short for Justin."

He welcomed her to the farm and then left for his duties. I had something poking at me like I forgot something then I remembered that Zer was all by himself. "Zer do you want to help us feed the Rexes at all?" I called out and he came right over to help me. I grabbed a couple boxes and he could only pick up one at a time. Star could only grab two as they both wondered how heavy these Kibble boxes were? I was so use to lefting heavy stuff I got a bit to strong. I could pick up or carry four of my feed boxes full. Which they weighed about the same as a Moschops which we had one running around the farm. Everyone in my crew could carry atleast two at a time.

So it wasn't a really concern or a mysterious reason why the boss would be the strongest. But when I saw that the Orkish or Zer and Star were having trouble lifting simple to me was eye opening. "Jacob are you really human or is human that strong?" Zer asked me and I shurgged my shoulders. "I've been doind this work for seven years, so I guess I just got stronger with my work." I said back him and he watched me a bit closer. "You don't even seem tired from carrying all of that." He stated and I laughed, "I'm not tired yet but I will feel it when I go to sleep tonight." I said thinking about what I was going to do for them for the night.

We could use the guest cabin but they don't use our style of homes. I would worry about that later now it's time to finish feeding the animals. That is what we did, going from stable to stable feeding each and every animal. Then we came to my special area where I study weird cases of friendly animals that are normally mean. Star and Zer saw my newist creature of study. A seven foot tall Raptor that was white in color. She was an aphla from what I could tell but didn't have a pack. I named her Snow for the mean time and took care of her on my own. Brad would feed her but that was it for his interaction with her. Star when I looked at her was scared of Snow.

I gave her a weird looked and Zer glared at me for a second. "A Creature or one like it killed her Husband." He told me and I felt sad for her, "I can assure you that this one wasn't that creature but might be related. Don't worry though she's calm for right now." I said back to Zer showing him as I feed her. Snow took it out of my hand with her claws and retreated to her little home I made for her. "Why would you trust being around something like that?" Star asked me whipping her tears away from her eyes. I tapped my belt where I had a hand gun attached to it. "I never trust a raptor, but I'm willing to study it so I know how to interact with them."

I said watching Snow as we talked about what I did when I wasn't farming. "I write guides for my leader Cyric about the animals I have. I do this because like you I've lost love ones because we were careless." I told them as I teared up thinking about my family we lost when we first crash landed on this island. We left Snow's stable and went to the dining area where dinner was being prepared. We all sat around the fire as the sun went down, trading stories like we did back in the Orkish Village. It was nice like when I first met them months ago. We passed food around and I told the Orkish a bit of what happened to my family.

"Years ago when we first landed, actually the first night we all found each other. Cyric and the others of the first wave of survivors wanted to take a look around the area we were in. It was the heavy red wooded place in the east." I said pointing to the east as I took a drink in the other hand. "They only took eight people with no weapons of any kind. I pleaded for them to not go out and stay to help bring in more people. I knew this land was dangerous by the strange sounds and movement beyond the brush." I stopped for a second and I took another drink with a tear rolling down my face. "Only three people made it and we lost my mother and father among them."

I stopped talking and Brad finished the story. "Our parents wanted to find lost survivors and bring back food for everyone. Instead of starving for one night and taking in the land they followed someone who didn't listen to reason." Brad looked at me saying with his eyes, "I still hate Cyric and what he did." I whipped my eyes and I smiled, "From that one tragedy Cyric heeded my warnings and listened to me when I had a opinion about possible dangerous stuff." I looked at my Blizzard and I took one long last swig of my drink. "If you'd like you guys and lady can sleep in my guest cabin. I know there not like what you're use to but they're warm and dry."

I said to Star, Island and Zer as I when I said good night to them. I went to bed that night suprisingly fast after I hit my bed. Star and her family stayed up a bit longer talking with Brad and Just. As the sun rose the next morning, I was just waking up with the voices of Star and Zer. They were just waking up like me and were looking for some where to freshen up. I got up and dressed into my regular clothes. I stepped out and walked across to the cabins. "You two looking for somewhere to was up from yesterday?" I asked them and both nodded, "We only need some water to clean our faces." Star said and I had them follow me to the makeshift shower I made for everyone here at the farm.

I used gravity and hand made water stone pipes to go into a old water drum I had. There was a plate you could take out for water to come down. I showed them how to use it and Star took the first shower while I showed Zer my other things. I had a fish hatchery and a large hand built boat made by Just when we established our farm. "Zer looked at the boat and asked, "How long did it take to build that raft?" I smiled, "I have no idea, my friend Just made it with the help of the farming crew for a couple years." I said patting the boat with my left hand, Just was on top of the boat when he heard a knock from my hand. "Good morning Jacob, have you been up long?"

He asked me and I shook my head "No" when I told him that they were waiting for Star to be finished with her shower. He smiled as we saw her coming up to us drying her hair with a towel one of my crew gave her. She was smiling herself and she looked brighter. "We should make something like that for the Village brother. It's washed all of the dirt I couldn't get in my hair." She said letting her hair blow into the wind. I stared at her hard then I felt my face blush a bit. "When are we going to leave brother?" Star asked Zer as we all refocused on getting them home. "Would you guys like to have a Wyvren, it would help with trading and visiting me if you wanted to?"

I asked them and they really didn't want to but I showed them the poison types that might be a good choice for them. "You guys like to match the forest surroundings, these guys can and are very tame for poison Wyverns." Island looked at me after looking at the dark green wyvern. "Son, we don't know how to fly these, is it hard?" He asked me and I shrugged a bit, "It can be if you don't get practice with a hard wyvern. I can teach you with either Blizzard or her mate who's the hardest wyvern to ride." I said to them and they looked scared. I've never really brought out my second ice Wyvern and that was because he was difficult to settle down.

He though let me ride with him like Blizzard, for anyone else he would be rough with them. I looked back to Blizzard who was looking back to her shelter in her stable. "Lets go for a ride, you two, (pointing at Zer and Island) Blizzard. I'll take Star on my second Ice Wyvern, he might be easier with my riding with you guys." I said crossing the farm to Blizzard, all three of the Orkish hesitated as I called out my male Ice Wyvern. "Frost can you grace everyone with your face today?" I said out to the shelter, when I did that everything began to shake. Frost stood up from his nest area and walked right up to everyone and right next to Blizzard.

"He's a huge Wyvern, why didn't you mention this one before?" Star asked me and I held out my hand to Frost, He leaned in and let me touch him. "He's not very social with humans but he seems to like me. I also don't like making him uncomfertable." I told her and she understood why I left him alone. I looked in his eyes then I asked him. "My friend will you help me with something today. These fine people need to learn to fly Toxin and Lilly, So I thought teaching them with bigger stronger wyverns might be a good idea. Would you help me with that, your person to train is the Orkish woman next to me?" I watched him look at her and she didn't even flinch then she said."

"He's a beautiful Ice wyvern his black spikes look like that dark stone." Frost then looked at me then he bowed a bit then, "what does that mean Jacob?" Star asked me as she saw I was suprised. "He says he'll help out with teaching you. You'll be upfront while I sit behind you on this one." I said lifting the almost seven foot woman on to the wyvern. She struggled in my hands till I sat her down on Frost, I looked at her brother and Father. They were laughing that I just did that to her. Then I motioned for them to get on Blizzard, "Be careful getting on her and don't touch her eyes." They slowly got on her and we walked to my runway like area.

"you see that rope by your hands, if you pull left or right she'll turn that way. To get her to fly just tap her lightly with the ropes and she'll get up in the air." I said making sure Star heard me to as she started to back out. "I don't know if I can do this. I've never flown anything, and I'm scared of falling." She told me and I smiled as I whistled for the wyverns to fly up. They took off slowly and went straight to clouds not listening to anyone but me. We hovered for a moment as everyone but me hid their faces. "You guys can look now, this isn't that scary!" I yelled watching Star looking from behind her hands. I watched her brother and father do they same.

They seemed to be in shock as we flowed with the wind current. Star petted Frost and thanked him, then she turned to me. "You get to see this all the time, no wander you love these wonderful creatures." I tapped Frost and he let Star take over the fly for a bit. I showed her how easy it was to stir them, Her Brother who was flying Blizzard followed what I was telling Star. After an hour of flying both siblings got used to controling the wyverns. Then we got to the landing part. How I got them to indicate to the wyverns to land wasn't hard but they had to learn to hover over the ground. How I did that was to pull back a bit to get them to slow down.

We slowly got about a foot off the ground and I showed Star my method to land. I placed my hand on the center of the wyverns neck and he landed hard on the ground. Zer saw what I did and Blizzard landed a bit softer than her mate. We all got off and I asked them, "You guys see that it isn't hard to fly them, you just have to pay attention." I said to everyone and they agreed it was easier than it looked. Then I let them take the poison ones back home. After they practiced for a bit, I said goodbye to them and I returned to my farm.

(Months later)

I am here today sitting in the middle of the Orkish Village spending the week with Star. Star when I was helping the crafters came up to me and asked me. "Do you want to learn how to speak my people tongue, you seem to have a difficult time understanding what they're asking you?" I was hammering in a nail when she asked me that, I smashed my thumb but I never flinched. "Sure, I would love to learn something that could be useful to me." I said to her and seemed a bit to happy to teach me something. I put the hammer in the hands of a crafter and I followed Star. Walking with her down the path I really noticed how much taller she was than me.

I was only six feet tall but I was a bit of a huskier man. I can say though that I believed I looked good for being a bigger guy. I saw Star looked at me because I was watching her a bit. "I wanted to teach you my language so you could talk to my kids. They seem to like you but can't ask you anything because you don't understand them." She said to me and I laughed a bit, "I thought this was for something more than talking with the crafters. I would like to be able to conversate with them too." I said back to her and she snorted but in a happy tone. So this whole week we spent hours with her teaching me her language and how to understand her peoples writing.

I got use to conversating in her tongue that I stopped speaking english when I was with them. When I returned home I started expanding my farm a bit more with the idea of making a farming village to unite the two people. My crew thought the idea was a bit to much but they had to get use to it since I was the one the animals listened to. I know that was a bit harsh, but I hand raised and spent the most time with most of the animals. Just got everyone together and told them why I wanted this. They all weren't suprised with one of the Female workers saying. "You want Star to feel at home so you're making her people a decent place to live."

I nodded and she just smiled at me as she went back to work. I spent a week on the expansion when I got a visit from Cyric. "Hello old friend, I see that you're doing some home improvements here." He said to me and I told him what I was preparing for. He was worried with this plan and if it doesn't work out with the Orkish people. He though wished me luck on everything and check on my progress with my studies and my animals. He left hours later right before I went to the Orkish village. For a couple days I spent my time there hunting with Star and her extended family. They didn't think I was going to be good with a bow but soon saw that I was decent with it.

I saw was looked like a big deer, I raised the bow and I shot once. I watched the arrow hit the animal and he feel right away. I without hesitating ran over to make sure it was dead. I got it in the spin so it couldn't move but it was clinging to life. I shook my head as I pulled out my hunting knife. I jabbed the knife into the deers heart as I said, "I'm sorry." Everyone was impressed I gave it a mercy death. We then took it back and butchered it and cooked it for the village to eat. Zer and his cousins told the people around the village about how I got the deer. I didn't smile while he told the story since I had to make a creature suffer like that in its last moments.

I ate with them as Island told me the history of his people and why they really didn't like humans. "A thousand years ago, this land was ruled by humans. They were not many but they had strong weapons, much of which were like yours. They lived like nothing could kill them till that was when they came across my people our ancestors. Our people were cleaning and fishing near a deep river east of here. They were scared of us but that didn't last long." Island stopped and took a drink of water as I asked him. "Let me guess, they came in the night and took everyone and burned what they couldn't?" I asked him and he looked at me like I've heard this story.

"My Ancestors from where my people is originally from did something like that to our own people. For a while we didn't do that only a hand full of humans know about it now. I'm guessing that history repeated itself here too." I said, Island nodded then continued his story of his people and what happened to the humans. "My Ancestors after being inslaved for a couple hundred years made a plan one night to a escape from the humans. They opened the Gates during the night a bated the area with strong smelling raw from the food they were given. The bate attracted a couple different creatures ones like that raptor you keep. The others were much bigger and hungry."

"As those creatures attack that human Kingdom my people escaped into the forest hiding from the humans. Some humans survived but not for long, we had a long winter following that escaped that whipped out half of us and the entire Human tribe." Island and I talked about the history of his people and how this village is only one of twelve on the island. He then even mentioned that there might be more islands on this planet with humans or Orkish on them. We even apotheosised that this world might only have islands with even more dangerous creatures on them. For that week I learned alot about Star and her people to the point where I almost became an expert on their culture.

From there I shared my farming secrets and taught them how to build some of my creations Star enjoyed at my home. It was going good for a long time, six months infact till people on both sides started to get suspective of me asking Star to marry me. I didn't know how to ask her but I did know how to propose to her. In her culture you or the male Orkish made a neckless for their choosen mate. For Star that would be difficult because she was or had been married already. So the protocal for that would to be add my own charm to put on it. I saw what Star's late husband made for her so I wanted to make a charm like that one but with my own spin. For the charm that was in it had a sun symbol carved into it.

For mine I thought maybe a wyvern outlive would be good but I didn't know what to use. I looked at Blizzard who was with me today like she always was. We were on my good fishing spot where no one would or could bother me. I had a pad of paper and I was drawing my ideas out to see what I could make. "I don't know what to use for this charm, I could use anything but it's gotta mean something." I said out loud, then as I drew perfect outline of the Wyverns foot pattern. I saw a spike had fallen off of Blizzard's head right next to me. It was solid like stone or a gem. I looked at her and she turned back around and contiued to nap.

I laughed a bit then I brought out my carving knife I had in my pack next to me. I was sitting on a rock that I had made into a permanent seat for me. I started to carve out my wyverns foot till it looked just like Blizzards but a bright red flatish charm. It looked good and I hoped it had the right size whole for Stars neckless. I then placed the charm in my pack in a safe pocket and I headed to the Orkish Village. When I got there I saw that Star was waiting for me for some reason. This was the sixth month of me knowing Star is she going to tell me something I don't want to hear right now? I landed right outside the village like I aways did and I greeted her.

"Hello Star hope you've been good my dear?" I askd her and she looked even more nervous than before. It was like she was hoping I'd asked her something or do something. "Star are you alright you seem destracted today?" I asked her again and she stopped freaking out and asked me to follow her. We went to her home and then she asked me. "Jacob, do you think this secret relationship can last much longer with people from both Villages?" I smiled at her for a moment but then I stopped. "I don't think that this can keep being secret for very much longer. I'm pretty sure your family wants us to move more forward with it." I said to her and she gave me a weird look.

"You have something in mind of how to break the news to everyone?" She asked me and I looked right at her Daughters who were now standing in the doorway. "Girls come in here, I have something to tell you both." Star said to them, they ran into the room and sat in the couch like thing next to us. I got down to them and I asked them, "Do you girls like me at all even though I'm not an Ork like your people?" Ira who was the eldest of the girls looked at her sister Saf. "At first we didn't but know we like you, because you make Mother happy and give us rides on Blizzard, why?" Ira said and I looked at Star then I pulled out the charm I had made.

"Would you girls oppose to the idea of me marrying your mother in the future?" I gave them the charm and they looked at it for a moment then saw their mother was red with excitement. "I've been studying, learning about how to propose to your mother. She was married to your father so I couldn't make the whole neckless. I was told my a medicine woman here that to get remarried the male must honor the previous mate. So I think puting thing with your fathers charm might do it." I said to them looking at both of them in the eyes. "So would you girls allow me to marry your mother?" I asked them and they looked up at Star trying to see what her face said.

"Like Sister Ira said, you make mommy happy and plus this means we'll get to see the farm and Bradley." Saf said giving my the charm back when Ira gave me her blessing too. I stood up and I stared right at Star, "You make me a better person. A Person I can be proud of, I want to be the one you call for when you need something. I want to be the one that makes you smile when you're having a bad day. I want to be the one the girls can go to when they can't find you. I love you and I think you feel the same way, am I wrong?" I asked her and she blushed a bit then she waited for me to give her the charm. I handed it to her and she looked it over noticing something about it.

"Is this a spike from Blizzard?" She asked me and I nodded saying, "I was trying to find the right material to use, she broke this off herself and gave it to me." Star looked at Blizzard from the window who was now looking right at her. "I don't know how my family is going to react but..." As she said that Her mother and father came into the home. Her mother saw the charm in Star's hand and instead of her glare she looked excited. "Say yes my daughter, even if he's human." Her mother said and Island repeated his wife, "Say yes, don't be a Packy." I laughed and Star took off her neckless and put the charm on it. I then went over and I put it back on her neck.

"My shinning Star I will always be here even if I fall I will still protect you and your people." I said to her as she turned around to give me a big kiss right on my lips for the first time ever in front of people. When she stopped we saw half the village watching us from the window. "Finally, now we can stop worrying about you girl." One of Stars female cousins said through the window. We both blushed and went out to celebrate with everyone.