Grave awoke from his deep hibernation, his senses coming back to him one after another. His large body was slowly becoming aware. His hands wide and taloned for parting rock, folded against his chambered chest. Two massive wings made of skin and scale unfolded from his back formed a roof, ceiling and floor roughly the size of a coffin surrounding him.
In his groggy state, his wings began shifting its hard protruding scales in waves. He tunneled this way through the earth, his back toward the surface.
His consciousness fully returned. Absently, his arms extended downward into the empty space his wings created, seeking a body that wasn't there. Grave frowned, and remembered there had been no female to join him last sleep.
His kind were regarded as gods for their power over the earth and rock, they were called Shakers. His body was built to tunnel through the earth as fish do in water. His specialized wings muscled and dug through solid rock with ease. The fang-like "scales" on the outside of his wings simultaneously crushed and burrowed, like thousands of long bone fingers. Although mostly solitary, his kind were responsible for earthquakes when they moved in unison.
He was compelled toward the surface, tunneling 4o miles upward, Grave tried to sense whether the sun was up. He could tell by the warmth of the earth, it was at least mid-day. He could tell by the way the earth parted, it was spring. The earth was softer in the spring, he thought, they said so and it was true.
He slowed his progress roughly one mile from the surface. He was completely blind, the male Shakers had no use for sight. From deep in his chambered chest, Grave let out a percussive beat. The low frequency sound shook the surface above him, and the returning soundwaves gave him a picture of the landscape. He was in the desert, near canyons.
Not wanting to get involved with the Flyers, he changed course away from the rock formations, and sought flat landscape.
Grave felt an ache in his chest, a burning hope. It was unnatural for Shakers to be completely solitary. The males used their powerful wings to part the earth and keep their comparatively more vulnerable bodies away from the pressures of rock and temperature. The largest of the three Kind, even their massive bodies seemed small compared to their wingspan.
That was because the females of his species depended on living wrapped in the wings of a male. They were unable to control their own body heat, and the males provided warmth. The male's wings would shield the female and any young at all times. Young males would leave their father's wings once their scales grew in. Young females would leave once an unaccompanied male was available. `
Grave's parents had been the last of his colony. There were no other young around them where he was born. So when his scales came in, he set out to find other colonies in the hopes of finding a mate.
His kind were never meant to be alone, but he had spent years searching for more of them. The social need of being a Shaker required him to hold onto a member of the opposite sex. It was a need he'd never had the chance to fill, and the years of it's absence have had its toll. He'd practiced over and over in his head their sacred language. How he would introduce himself to a female. His mother had been warmed by her mate and her son. He remembered her cool flesh and how he'd been comforted by it. He remembered his father's nest, and how the two of them were always in embrace. Truly, the Shakers only looked like complete beings when there were two.
Grave maneuvered easily through the spring earth. He let out short probing beats from his chest periodically, not strong enough to wake any slumbering members of his species, but enough for him to locate where they were.
After a few hundred miles, his heart sank in his chest. He couldn't identify a single nest. In a panic, he let out a distress signal. The vibrations reached the surface, shaking stones, and traveling far.
He waited in his blind earth. Every scale a receptor anxious for a response.
As his distress call returned, he noticed something unusual about the subterranean landscape. Evidence of his kind wandering through this rock, the remnants of a colony. But a few miles east, there was what was left of a nest. He could make out the pocket in the ground, and the layers of shed scales that hallmarked a nest. The sound indicated that no male was occupying the space, but it wasn't empty.
Grave stilled. The only reason a nest would be unaccompanied by a male is if there was a young that needed feeding. He wondered if he should investigate, or if disturbing a family unit at a sensitive time would result in violence. Making a mental note of that nests' location, Grave slowly moved closer in proximity, and stopped far enough to send non-threatening probes.
He would stay far away and wait until the male got back into the nest.