The next day brought great excitement. The wyvern warning horns sounded from both of the enclosed watch stations. Prince Willam’s ballistae crews outdid themselves. The wyvern, one of the two adolescents, was caught in all three fowling nets. I got out the door and onto the Wiffleblatt Green just in time to see the creature become so entangled that it dropped out of the sky and onto the ground. Its neck was twisted as it fell head first and so it died instantly on impact from a broken neck. At least it was a fast and painless, even if it was a monster. I did not want to see even a wyvern poked to death with long spears, though I knew we might not have a choice on how they die. Die they must.

Alternatively, I lost another opportunity to try to talk to a wyvern, to see if my theory of their intelligence was correct. The humans had a policy of hiding the carcasses before removing their valuable wyvern skin and then burning the rest. All the two-footed races refuse to consume wyvern flesh, which has an overpowering metallic taste. Hiding the carcasses was to hide the location of the ballistae trap from the remaining wyverns.

Cat was awake but groggy that evening. He was energetic enough to test the repairs Cloud Eye made to his fake leg. Over dinner, Wren did an hysterical rendition of the conversation regarding love poetry. She tried to solicit the same horrified reaction out of Cat as Willam and Sven displayed two evenings before, but with no luck.

“Well, yes, it was tiresome that Sophie was in love with love poetry. I could not fault her for it. The fate of a princess in a human kingdom is to be a pawn in the game of dynastic politics. Sophie knew she would marry the man who would bring the kingdom the most political advantage. To ridicule her hopes that she might also find love struck me as cruel.”

“Willam said you called her love poetry sticky,” Wren accused with an evil grin.

“Never to her face, Wren,” Cat assumed a slightly chiding tone. “I called it sticky because it reminded me of sugar syrup.”

“So, you say it was cruel to ridicule your sister for her love of soppy love poetry and yet, you did just that by calling it sticky,” Wren thought she had a winning argument.

“Not so, Wren,” Cat sounded like an old man passing judgment. “To call those poems sticky is merely my opinion of the poems she liked, but that does not negate that she loved those poems. I can defend my own opinion without attacking hers.”

“I know there’s something wrong with your reasoning somewhere but I can’t figure it out at the moment,” Wren crossed her arms and scowled. She hated loosing any argument with Cat. “You’re too clever with words. It’s not fair.”

Cat laughed, “why must it be fair, Wren? Very little in life is fair.” He then put on a serious expression: “If I am ever a king, I will not subject any daughter of mine to a dynastic wedding if she disapproves of the groom.” The serious face turned to a gloomy one: “It’s been a little more than five years since my sister Sophie died and I miss her still.”

He sounded so sad that I rubbed up against his good right leg and made big cat eyes at him as I rested my snout on his thigh.

Life indeed was not fair. The next day, two wyverns came to attack the people they could see on Wiffleblatt Green. Prince Willam’s ballistae crews were adapt at their trade. Both wyverns were caught in the nets and brought down.

As Cat and I approached the netted wyverns, I mind-talked to the Nordweggians. * Do not attack them unless they look like they can escape. I want to see if I can talk with them. *

“Why, Lady Fuzzy?” Duke Sven asked.

* Red and blue wyverns do not eat two-footed prey. They will attacked only if attacked first and when they do attack, they will lift a two-footed sapient up and then drop it from a height to kill it. This suggests they are intelligent creatures capable of revenge. I want to try to verify this. It might be possible to negotiate a peaceful truce. *

“I will deploy my spearmen,” Prince Willam interjected, joining his uncle, “but for now, I will refrain from giving them the command to attack.”

* Thank you, Prince. *

I padded up to the head of the adult wyvern. It watched me with suspicion as I sat back on my hunches next to it.

* Can you understand me, wyvern? *

Its eyes widened, * You are not a wyvern. How can you speak to me? * I could feel its hostility.

* I am a magical creature just like you are. All magical creatures like divine beasts such as myself, dragons, wyverns, salamanders, trolls, and selkies can all mind talk with one another, or so I have been led to believe. *

* Talk did wyverns no good when the dragons invaded and drove us from our home. The green people attacked us even though all we did was hunt. For this, they and their allies must die or more of the farming peoples will attack us. *

* It does not need to be this way. * I hoped I sounded convincing. * You attacked the animals they raised for their own food. What looked like hunting to you was an attack on their food for them. You could live in peace if you did not attack their livestock. *

* The two-footeds killed my child. They killed the mother of my child. They killed my nest sister last year. I can not live in the same place as the killers of my family. There can be no negotiation with those who hunt us. This can only end with our killing you or you killing us. It is either revenge or it is death. There is no middle way to fly. So quit your annoyance and kill me already or I will kill you. *

* Father, I do not want to die, * cried the adolescent wyvern caught in one of the fowler nets. * If we can live in peace, then isn’t life better? There is no harm in trying to find a middle way to fly. The worst that can happen is that this creature's words are a lie. Then we are back to where we are now. But if he does not lie, then we might find a way to live in peace. *

* You are a fool, child, to think that these creatures have honor. I refuse. Without my family, I have no reason to live other than revenge. Kill me, beast, and be done with it. I weary of the struggle. *