Miya and Meekachu continued to march. They marched through sand, and thick forest, and grassy clearings. They marched until their feet were blistered and sore. Miya had not spoken a word, nor uttered a compliant, until several hours later, when dusk was approaching Yoshi's Island once again.
"Meekachu... I am tired. May we rest now?" she asked the yellow one, who was strolling far in front of the pink Yoshi, trying to safely scout the path ahead.
"Yes. Let us stop here. We can continue tomorrow," Meekachu decided. He circled around a small clearing, then sat down on a cleared patch of dirt. Miya joined him after only a few swaying steps.
Meekachu somehow enjoyed the way he had taken matters into his own hands. The Yoshi had always assumed a more passive role, especially with matters concerning Miya, but on this trip, he had to put his foot down and take the lead. It was the only way to convince Miya to leave those savage creatures back at the west beach...
Speaking of the creatures, that was the first thing Miya spoke of as soon as she opened her mouth.
"Do you think those animals are okay? I mean, with the dragons and all..." the pink one trailed off when she caught Meekachu's gaze. The yellow Yoshi frowned and replied quickly, "I don't know, Miya. Try to forget about them. They're not your concern now."
"How can they not be my concern?? We found them first. When we get back to the village, if we get back to the village, we will probably be asked about them. Of course, that is assuming that they do not become dragons' bait first. What are we to say?"
"We are to tell the truth. The only truth there is to tell. We saw them, we took away their weapons, and we left. That is all that happened. But we shall not worry about them now," Meekachu grumbled.
Miya didn't bother to ask where they were going, or how they were going to get there, or when they were returning to the village. She couldn't ask. Everything seemed so wrong right at that moment. The Yoshi knew she shouldn't have left those creatures behind. But was her father right? About the weapons? And the wars? Why was she not told of such things before?
Actually... she was. But it was just a tale to be told to hatchlings. No one ever really believed it. Meekachu enjoyed telling stories about great wars and fierce dragons, but Miya had only considered them to be fictional. Was there truth to this tale? If so, how many more of Meekachu's stories weren't really stories?? It was a subject which the pink Yoshi would have to bring up... later.
"Aren't you worried? About Salith? And Baroth and Barnoth?" Miya tried to start a conversation.
"Of course I'm worried. She is my mate. They are my children. But I know they're safe. It's a sixth sense. I don't know how to explain it," Meekachu answered dully. He was busy watching the skies, and the first bright stars making their evening appearance. The Yoshi looked troubled, as if his past were consumed by flames, which was reflected from the flicker in his hazel eyes.
The pounding of dragon wings against the night sky could be heard from above. An entire heard of the beasts were swooping down from the highlands. They scattered in the twilight, and searched the canopies for food... or a token to bring back to their filthy lairs. Miya and Meekachu fell back under the cover of a fern bush, with hopes that the dragons' sharp eyes would not detect their quivering forms.
"What are they doing? What has brought their attention to this place??" the pink dinosaur nervously whispered. "I don't know," Meekachu's strained voice replied.
Minutes passed, which slowly grew into what seemed to be hours, as the dragons' calls sounded through the night air. The two Yoshies remained hidden in the ferns, while silently watching the skies overhead for signs of the giant beasts' return. Slowly, the creatures glided away back to the mountains, one by one, with giant scraps of polished rock dangling in their massive claws.
"Oh my... Meek, is that what I think the dragons are carrying away?" Miya asked with great concern. Meekachu gulped. "Yes... It is."
The pink Yoshi looked away from the sight with tear-filled eyes. She knew exactly what had become of the four animals. The dragons came. The beasts probably killed all four of them, and took their giant stone eggs back to their lairs like trophies of war. It was a terrible thought, and Miya couldn't bear it. It was all her fault. She should have never left them behind.
Both Yoshies remained still and quiet throughout the rest of the night. Miya attempted to stay awake, and watch for approaching Yoshies, but the chanting insects and warm tropical breeze eventually lulled her into sleep. Her dreams, although rare, were haunted with nightmares, as they always were...
...A Yoshi mother wanders through a thick jungle alongside her mate and with a young hatchling in her arms. A sanctuary lies ahead: the jungle's edge, and the ocean. It looks promising, and the Yoshies march ahead to the distant haven. The mother; a green, and the father; an orange, are suddenly being chased by a great crowd. The Yoshies run. The green one's heart beats faster, and her breathing comes in quick gasps, but neither of these drown out the sound of pounding footsteps approaching. The two Yoshies run, and run, and run! The beach is just within reach. Streaks of light race by, and one strikes the orange Yoshi square in the back. He falls. The green one races to her mate's side, but is driven away as the attackers near. The beach is right there! Another streak of light... the green Yoshi is hit... the child flies from her arms, and disappears into the bushes of the jungle's edge. The green one struggles, but her leg is burned, and she soon cannot move any further. She turns over onto her back, and gets one last, blurred look at a standing lizard hovering over her... There is a strange stick in its arms... The lizard points it into the green one's face, with the hollow end clearly visible. It is the last sight she ever sees. A blotch of red consumes the Yoshi's vision, then blackness.
Miya, with a sudden jolt and a gasp of air, awakened from her most horrible and vivid nightmare ever.
StarFox had marched all day through a hot, thick, bug-ridden jungle, with an army of grunting reptiles armed with spears surrounding all sides of the little 'parade.' It was an exhausting form of travel, and Fox at least wished that his hands were not tied behind him so that he could swat at the flies hovering overhead. Falco, Peppy, and Slippy were close behind the fox and marching in a single file line. Everyone was tired, even the tough-acting creatures that were holding the mercenaries prisoner.
The sun had already disappeared several hours ago, and aside from the small torches carried by some of the natives, it was almost entirely dark. Not even a slice of moonlight cut through the forest's dense canopy. Fox stumbled over bits of tree root and clumps of grass protruding onto the thin path. He started to wonder if these creatures would ever stop to rest.
One of them turned to the fox and chirped, "Yo yi ya," while smacking the back of his head. Fox instantly recoiled from the painful blow to his sensitive ears. "Ow! Geez, what was that for?" he growled angrily. The creature chuckled with a ghastly grin, and soon others joined the reptile's snickering. Fox smirked. Being laughed at was something he was NOT prepared for. Slippy briefly muttered something, but it was beyond the fox's hearing.
After many more minutes of endless walking, the group had finally arrived at the end of their long march through the jungle. A vast clearing lied ahead, dotted with small huts and several lit torches suspended on wooden stands. A small crowd of even more reptilian creatures, big and little, arrived on the scene to greet everyone. From the looks of things, though, the greeting more applied to the other reptiles than to StarFox.
For a village, this place was huge! Trampled paths rolled around the straw buildings and converged at the center of town, where an peculiar object similar to a stop sign was placed. Some of the huts were stocked with melons and berries, others with pearls and beads of all sorts, and the rest had nearly everything else. The air smelled of fresh fruit and smoldering fire, which reminded Fox of a pleasant trip he once took to...
"Yo, yoshi! Yo yishi!" one of the creatures' shouts interrupted the fox's train of thought. Fox, Slippy, Peppy and Falco were shoved ahead of the line and forced past the gathering creatures towards an aged hut lined with wet clay and sticks. Each Lylatian was pushed into the cramped structure, where only two of the reptiles followed.
"Yo yo yi shi. Yo yo yi yii. Yishi?" a pale-skinned creature asked. It was handling one of the torches with one arm, and pointing into a caged room with the other. The other creature dragged Slippy into the room, and nearly slammed the frog into the opposite wall while attempting to do so. "Hey, knock that off!" Slippy cried. Acting completely oblivious to the complaints, the reptile approached the frog, unsheathed a cutting knife, and snapped loose the ties that were holding Slippy's hands together. Falco attempted to slip out of the hut at the same time, but he was stopped by the jagged edge of one of the creatures' bone-handled blades. The falcon jumped away from a third creature who had wandered inside, then was snatched by the wing and thrown down beside the frog. Peppy and Fox were treated in a similar manner, before a barred door was slammed behind the four Lylatians and locked tightly with a strange latch. The three creatures exited the hut while laughing up a haunting cackle. StarFox was then left alone in the darkness of the tiny prison.
Slippy and Peppy immediately scrambled to the front of the cage, and tried to pick at the door's lock in the dim light. "Ack! It's useless!" the frog pouted. He sat back and folded his arms like a two-year-old. Peppy sighed deeply, then stood up and walked back to Fox, who was sitting on a straw bed with his head resting in his hands mournfully.
"I can't believe the mess we're in..." Peppy groaned while taking a seat on the floor near Fox.
"Even if we could get out, how would we make it past all those lizards outside? You saw how many there were," Falco mentioned while waving a blue wing towards the small window on his end of the room. He tried to help everyone relax a little from that fact, but his effort seemed to make the situation only more hopeless.
"Unfortunately, Falco's right. There has to be a way to get out, though," the fox reassured his teammates.
"Well, I honestly don't care right now. It's too late to worry. I'm going to sleep," the hare announced as he propped his head on a nearby straw pillow, and immediately started to snooze. "For once, a good idea," the falcon remarked. Peppy awakened himself to raise an eyebrow at that comment, then he shrugged and returned to his rest. Fox collapsed with a sigh onto the straw mattress he was sitting on, and silently gazed at the ceiling as Falco stretched out on the only other bed in the room. Slippy curled into a corner and started snoring right away.
The fox thoughtfully watched firelight splash through the prison's small window and onto the ceiling caked with mud and dry grass. Oddly enough, he was pondering Falco's words from earlier that day.
'Well, this DOES suck.'
Miya and Meekachu awakened the next morning and began their traveling day anew. The pink Yoshi did not bother to mention her dream, so it was simply placed at the back of her mind. She was not the type to really rely on dreams much anyway, especially nightmares. Thus, it had met the fate of so many of Miya's dreams: it was forgotten.
Meekachu continued to lead the pair further inland, but at one point, Miya began to believe they were walking in one giant circle. As the mid-day sun was streaking across the blue sky, she finally asked, "Meek, where are we going?"
"We are going to visit Tieka."
"But I thought you said we couldn't visit her yesterday."
"No, I said we couldn't take those creatures with us. I never said we couldn't go visit her by ourselves."
"But Meek, she would have wanted to meet them."
"We can just tell her that the dragons got to them before we did. Stretching the truth a little never hurt anyone."
"I used that line on you, once. I told you that Barnoth stole the fire sticks when I was the one who did. You found out who was the culprit, and I was grounded. That line is a weak defense."
"Well, this is different."
"How so?"
For a moment, Meekachu couldn't find the words to explain this paradox. He finally answered, "This was a life and death situation. We had to leave those creatures before they endangered our lives. Not to mention that telling Tieka that will hurt her feelings."
"My feelings were hurt, but that certainly didn't stop you from leaving those creatures to die," Miya replied with a disgusted grunt.
"Miya, if you ever mention that again..." the yellow Yoshi half-threatened with a balled fist, but never turned around to look the pink one in the eye. He dropped his arm, and continued to explain their travel plans before Miya could muster up a smart alec reply.
"Besides, I promised Tieka that I would tell her right away if another of her kind ever came here."
At those words, the pink Yoshi slammed her foot onto the soil and planted herself at that very spot. She folded her arms across her chest and refused to move. Meekachu spun around to meet the angry Yoshi's gaze.
"I thought you said we couldn't go back to the village, either," Miya growled, as if to make some kind of point from a fact they already both knew. The pink Yoshi was simply trying to provoke the yellow one into actually telling her something informative... or at least the truth.
"It should be safe there by the time we get to Tieka's hut. We are taking the longer route around the village," the yellow one spoke with hardly a hint of remorse as he started to walk away.
Meekachu didn't seem bothered at all by the thought of bringing death upon four innocent creatures, but became very irritated when he got lectured about it. Miya frowned. She couldn't understand him at all, and didn't want to. It was too hot, too late, and too pointless to start that conversation again in a vain attempt to conjure up that Yoshi's conscience. The pink one sighed and began to follow after her father, who had already disappeared around a corner in the trail.
The two Yoshies stomped through the jungle for the remainder of the afternoon, and on into the evening, before eventually returning to the Mulhollen village. By the time they had arrived, another spectacular sunset was in the making, and the skies dulled into a deep red color and left the village square marked with the leaping shadows of straw homes and shops. Strangely, the town was nearly empty of Yoshies, and silent as the surface of the moon, spare one crackling torch burning to ashes.
"Where is everyone?" Miya wondered.
Meekachu didn't speak. He led Miya past a row of buildings, and into a hut marked with the insignia of the family residing inside. Meekachu's family has a symbol sketched into their door frame, too. It is a way to ward off evil spirits, and a convenient system of identifying houses. Miya marveled at this house's symbol; a large eagle with bright green wings. The bird represented courage, and the green plumage was the family's official color. The bird also clutched a sword in its talons, which represented strength. The pink Yoshi could easily tell that this hut was the home of a family of warriors.
Meekachu took Miya by the arm and led her through the doorway and into the hut, where a large black salamander was weaving a net from spider's thread and a bone needle. The animal was seated in a chair in the far corner of the room, and it hardly noticed the two Yoshies walk inside until Meekachu grunted a hello. The salamander immediately looked up from her work and motioned for the two reptiles to come forward.
Meekachu whispered to Miya, "Do you remember how to sign?"
"I know 'hello', and 'how are you', but not much else," the pink one whispered back.
"Alright, then I'll do the talking," the yellow Yoshi volunteered. Meekachu stepped forward, and began to talk slowly in Yoshian while motioning his hands in correspondence to his words. "Greetings, Tieka. How are you today?"
Tieka gently placed her needle and thread down on her lap, and signed a message with quick movements and a keen smile growing on her face.
"Tieka says hello, Miya... She also says that her master is... dragon hunting... with most of the warriors of the village... Three dragons so far were killed..." the yellow one translated as quickly as he could while the salamander excitedly signed her news.
Meekachu's jaw dropped as Tieka finished her chattering. He gaped in awe and shock as Miya frantically asked him what she said. "Meek, what is it? What's wrong??"
The stunned Yoshi turned to Miya, and silently mouthed the words to himself before announcing them aloud. "She says... that four prisoners were taken from west beach."
Miya's eyes widened, then she stepped away from Meekachu while trying to grasp what was said. The Yoshi understood almost entirely a second later, however, and she started to ask questions faster than she could think them up. "S-she found out from whom? What do the prisoners look like? Has she seen them?? Ask her!"
Meekachu translated the message, and the salamander signed her reply along with a curious click of her tongue.
"She says she hasn't seen them yet. She asks why we want to know."
Miya's expression grew stern, and she harshly whispered, "Tell her about the foreigners, Meekachu."
Meekachu reluctantly did so, with Miya's angered gaze watching his hands sign out the words. Naturally, the pink Yoshi was upset. If it had not been for a fortunate circumstance or two, those four deserted animals would have been dead thanks to Meekachu... But... were they really alive? Miya needed answers.
Now Tieka was the one who looked shocked. Her eyes widened just as Miya's had earlier. The black salamander then jumped from her chair, sent the needle and spider's thread flying to the dirt floor, and lept in front of Meekachu with a giant-size grin. Tieka hastily signed another message, which Meekachu replied to just as quickly. The salamander paused, glanced around the tiny room, then signed one of the few messages Miya understood:
'Come.'
With that, Tieka ran from the hut and onto the village square. The two Yoshies scurried after her.