Bird Brains

Marjorie Kaye, Hearthstone, gouache on shaped wood, 12.25 x 17.75”, 2024

The Amalians are said to be former hope of the Oxsadians, a long extinct warrior people originally from the destroyed and desiccated Kamar System. The Oxsadians colonized Amalia, which at the time they believed had no sentient life forms, and they placed eggs of their making far under the surface. The Oxsadians created what they believed was a profound warrior species. But civil war erupted, and the planet was all but obliterated. Due to the elemental combinations of the planet including the abundance of rain and water systems, and the glowing, semi-sentient mineral river systems, the Amalian eggs eventually hatched as the ecosystem replenished and healed itself, and their genetic structure mimicked that of the planet. The Amalians emerged as a gentle, flying, bird-like opalescent people of extremely high intelligence. They are tall and willowy, and fluid in gender. They have never known war, preferring to settle conflicts with ingenuity. – From B. Keifer, “A History of the Inner Boundaries of the Santanian System”

It was discovered that we are not the descendants of the warfaring race that originally colonized this planet, Amalia, as we previously believed. However, they are our originators, and having made us, they then they abandoned us, not caring for our survival or demise. I am Tamour, Speaker of the People, gladly documenting the follies of our relentless youth. For it is just those, embodied in their collective tendencies not to consider the fruits of their actions, that have secured the freedom and well-being of our species and the health of our small planet, from which all life-giving knowledge flows.

Long ago our eggs, as well as the eggs of our kindred species, lay in the cold wastes of a previous world. With very little sustenance, our gestation periods were elongated, and henceforth, our life cells altered. We are unsure if we are as our makers intended. It is said that as the planet healed itself, the entire ecosystem was brought to life. The telling is of a special compound of water and crystal of a precious mineral that abounds here and is life giving beyond its healing properties.

Life abounds in unmeasured joy. We are flying things, crawling things, growing things, all breathing together in an unbroken circle. All know this, and it is embedded into our every cell. All beings give life to all beings. The Water Butterfly starts as a life-seed and becomes a most peculiar and opalescent flying thing. She does not, however, die in her butterfly form, but instead returns to her larvae form, where she finally transitions. She builds a cocoon around herself and lives the last of her lifespan within. The cocoon is rough and plant-like, unlike the initial cocoon, and ensures the success of her transition. Once the being has passed, the pod gives itself to the sentience of Amalia, and it becomes a hallucinogenic ingestible gift, to be smoked or made into tea. It is to give this gift that we on Amalia have welcomed many visitors in the recent past. We become euphoric, more aware, and the gift remains, actively altering our perception of reality. A second passes, then another. Our flights become more vivid.

It is for this gift, as I have told, that we on Amalia have welcomed many visitors, and we are fortunate in that there have been no difficult incidents in the past. Only recently had we been called to heed our inner warning, no matter how eager we are to freely give the gift to outsiders.

It is within our desire to share this good fortune that we have become wiser. Knowledge is a fireball that bounces off the many worlds in our quadrant. Our most wise foretold the of the arrival of the Vantuu. They were welcomed, and some did partake in our gift. They asked for pods to take back with them. We don’t normally allow them offworld, and certainly not for personal gain and profit. And worse, we feared the subordination of other worlds by their devious actions. This is unthinkable. They asked again. We did not comply. They took them. They sold them and defiled them. However, much to their surprise, this is how the Vantuu on their main world went from being a warlike, merchant society to a peace loving one, for one cannot ingest the Water Butterfly pods without a deep molecular change. There are many Vantuu colonies, however, and those on other worlds created a protective suit to steal pods from us without being affected by their properties. They then sold them and collected a profit. One visit with these Vantuu was enough. Two visits were more than enough. The Wise Ones sat in Hencha for many days, and the answer was forthcoming.

In fly our boundless young. They are the Children with wet wings who swoop down upon you laughing, the ones you brush off your shoulder when you are drinking Sacras Tea in the morning. They are the small ones who are collected together for the Learning, the ones who drink the sunshine and lay down in the cool moon for sleep. Small Isa, in their budding wisdom, made a false pod. A false pod for the Vantuu to steal and sell. The Vantu did so. The false pods had no enlightening properties. We knew they would be angry. And the Wise Ones had a solution to keep them from landing here again on Amalia. There was no recourse for them.

When the larvae die within the pod, some of them are left to shrink and dry. This is of the utmost hallucinogenic property, the most powerful on Amalia. The pod is nut-like, and very dense. One must know exactly when it is ready for ingestion. If used before it is ready, the hallucinogenic experience is one of great difficulty; however if one waits long enough, the experience is beyond what is imaginable. Amalians are only granted access to the ripened nut when they are full winged. We grind the nut, mix it with water, We grind the nut, mix it with water, and for those who are ready, it can be taken, without harm, as a tea or bath. This is the key to the ultimate protection of our life energy. We seeded our dense cloud cover with the water of the unripe nut. Our people went to the caves, as there was a chance of rain.

When the angry Vantuu returned, they had to pass through the clouds. Since we seeded them with the essence of the unripe nuts, and this essence permeated even the protective suits they wore, the Vantuu passed through the Halls of Deception. We have rarely lost one of the People to this, but it is in the knowing that it is very difficult. One’s memory is lost, and purpose forgotten. We have witnessed the individual disappearing to an unknown location after suffering a most difficult experience. The Vantuu took this path to nowhere. We seeded many times after. Many more Vantuu were lost. There is tell that Amalia is under a precautionary alert, and that all space-faring ships are not to pass within 12 lightyears of the planet. Amalia is considered dangerous beyond all danger. No ships are allowed to land, nor should they even come close. But to you, the Naxal, we extend an invitation to visit at any time.