The Dig Site

Mexico.
A warm, dry wind swept over the salt sand plains of Serenity, Mexico. The sun beat down on whatever organism tried to create a life in it's territory. Today was Tuesday, the 25th of June and even at the start of summer, the temperature rose to over 40 degrees Celsius.
"I'll be happy when we leave." Avara sighed.
"I thought you wanted to come here." Kariya said while she wiped a few blond strands of hair out of her face, leaving smudges on her brow. She turned and looked at her fellow student.
"I didn't realise this was going to be hot." Avara said.
"It's Mexico you know."
"Have you ladies rested enough?" Pitros asked.
"Slave driver." Avara mumbled below her breath.
"I heard that." Pitros, their history teacher and leader of the excursion, said.
"I know." Avara said, looking like their supervisor in this school-funded trip was dumb.
"Just dig." Kariya hissed and returned to her own work.
Pitros on his side was placated by Mara, the second teacher who always managed to keep Pitros from blowing a blood vessel. Rumour in school was that the two of them were hot 'n heavy, but no-one had been able to verify that rumour yet. Even on this trip, Mara kept to the girl's tent and during the day they were always in sight.
Kariya let her eyes wander and soon she spotted the two boys just a football field away. They too were digging. Rixos, just a tad smaller than Lithos, who was a year older than the rest of them because he'd doubled a year was busy listening to whatever Lithos was telling him. Kariya felt sorry for him.
The six of them had been allowed to dig for anything historically significant before the site would be flooded, covered in dirt and used as an irrigation site for crop-farming. The six of them could not even dream of digging everywhere so a few places with a higher chance of finding signs of civilisation were all they'd do.
"It seemed so fun you know." Avara said, "An archaeological dig. Indian artefacts. Finders keepers."
Pitros laughed, "You mean the school gets to keep everything."
"I'd keep a few things." Avara said without a hint of embarrassment.
Even if Pitros was 13 years their senior and a teacher, Avara wasn't going to let his status ruin her treasure. People were all the same anyway. She was an adult now, or was going to be in just a couple of weeks when she had her 18th birthday and then she'd finally be able to do anything she wanted. Not that she let things stop her now. Maybe that was why she and Kariya got along so well. The two of them were stubborn and decisive.
"I wonder why we ever got the boyfriends we have." she mumbled, lost in thought.
Kariya smiled. Certainly, Lithos and Rixos couldn't exactly be called daring. Lithos lived only for history, which is why he'd dragged every last one of them here in the first place. And Rixos couldn't be called anything else than a pushover. A nice and cute pushover though. In ways of looks, Avara had definitely gotten the better man. But Kariya wouldn't trade Lithos in for anything. His passion made up for whatever persistence he lacked.
As if he heard that last comment, Lithos looked up, waved and then came closer.
"I think I found something." he said with all the enthusiasm of a 5-year old.
"What?" Mara asked.
"It looks like bones." he shrugged, "I can't tell if they're human."
"I'll have a look." Mara nodded and turned to Pitros: "Don't do anything rash while I'm away." she whispered.
She picked up her shovel and brushes and followed Lithos back to his personal dig. Mara herself had found a few bones already, but all of them had turned out to be animal. She was starting to doubt that native Americans had ever lived here. But then, maybe they were digging for much older civilisations. Maybe at some point in time a river had been here. The whole place looked like a valley anyway.
"Here." Rixos broke her away of her thoughts.
"We took a look at it ourselves first." Lithos said, "But I really can't tell what type of bone it is."
Mara looked down and got excited despite herself. The bone definitely looked humanoid. It seemed to be part of an arm. But than an oddity struck her. Some weird knobs seemed to be attached to the bone, almost as if more than a shoulder and lower arm had been attached to it. Or were the knobs a kind of mutational genetic insignificance?
"I think we might have found something." she said, "Maybe."
"Really?" Rixos asked wide-eyed.
"It isn't an animal." Mara said.
"But also not really human." Lithos added while Rixos ran away to get the others.
Mara nodded and waited for Rixos to return. One look to Lithos and she knew he wouldn't say anything inappropriate. It could still be an unusual mutation. But in her mind the other possibility whispered gently: "aliens... winged aliens."
She looked at Lithos' dig site and noticed he'd only dug to the layers of 200 years ago. If it had been a mutation it would have been the right time to join the circus and tour the world. Or was this area to remote for the circus? Was the bone they'd found part of an outcast?
"You found something?" Kariya asked Lithos, taking the opportunity to hug him.
Having teacher supervision meant no closeness among the members of the trip even if the four of them were couples. Lithos smiled at her and said: "Come with me later."
Kariya smiled and nodded.
Avara fell right into Rixos' arms, who blushed enough for the both of them. Despite the fact that Rixos knew what he was allowed to do, he too got an angry glare from Pitros.
"What?" Avara said as Rixos carefully lifted her to a stand.
"Let's not when everybody's watching."
Avara snorted, but kept her reply to herself when Mara started to tell them what Lithos had found. From now on the dig would focus on this dig and they'd work until dark. Lithos made sure he and Kariya got the opportunity to shop for the evening meal. Everyone set out to do their chores and soon more bones were discovered. Along with stone and crude metal artefacts. To the trained eyes of Mara, Pitros and Lithos, it was obvious that what they were uncovering wasn't an Indian settlement...

***

Lithos x Kariya: Serenity
Lithos waited for Kariya near the truck they'd loaned from the airport. Since Lithos was an adult, he could drive it. Time ticked away while Lithos tried to make sense of what had happened. He knew Mara had spotted it. he'd seen it in her eyes when she'd looked at him. So he wasn't the only one who thought something was amiss with the bones.
"What are you thinking?" Kariya asked, "Excited about finding something?"
"It's strange." Lithos said.
"Huh? Didn't you want to find bones."
"These aren't normal bones. Not really human, definitely not animal..."
"Are you saying E.T. made a detour before heading to area 51?" Kariya quipped.
"I think he did." Lithos said.
Silence rained down as they entered the small town Serenity. Just about all they could get there was vegetables. They had been ordered not to trust the meat because it usually wasn't stored in freezers. They'd brought an assortment of dried meats with them on this excursion, but it wasn't the same as real meat.
When the two of them left the market square with it's loose-running chickens and children behind. Kariya asked again: "Aliens?"
"It sounds funny, but the bones were really strange. It's like there was something attached to the arm bone. A wing or an extra limb."
"And mutations?"
"It's unlikely they'd grow to be adults." Lithos said, "Especially there."
 

***

Avara x Rixos: Nightlight
"Is this ok?" Rixos asked Avara.
"Of course it is."
"We aren't supposed to be by ourselves unsupervised."
"We are not allowed to do too many things. Are we doing anything wrong?"
"No?"
"Are we going to?"
Rixos waited for a moment. What did she mean by anything wrong? Then Avara kissed him and the type of wrong she meant sprang to mind. Rixos was very much ready to give in when Avara stopped the kiss and giggled, "You don't seem to care about the rules now."
Rixos opened his mouth and closed it when he couldn't think of a reply.
"Come on. I'm going to look at the dig."
"What for? We've been there all day."
"I couldn't take a souvenir during the day."
"That kind of wrong..." Rixos was almost disappointed.
The two of them ran toward the dig, Avara taking the lead. When she got to the site she stopped dead in her tracks. They had packed the bones away in boxes and had wrapped most of the artefacts in foil, but what remained, the bits and pieces of broken metal were glowing.
"What's this?" Rixos asked when he joined her.
"It's glowing..."

***

Mara x Pitros: Campfire
Mara was busy cooking the dried meat and fresh vegetables in a dish that held the the midst between a paella and a wok. They'd been here for 10 days already and would have to leave at the end of the week. She hoped the time that remained was enough to completely expose what lay buried in the ground.
"Thinking?" Pitros asked, gently caressing her hair.
"Be careful." she smiled, "What if we're seen?"
"Lithos and Kariya have gone to town to research and Avara is busy with Rixos." Pitros noted.
"Such an unlikely couple." Mara laughed.
"Such a masochist, you mean."
"That's the you I know." she smiled.
Pitros always had had a keen sense for caustic humour. Though they didn't show it, they'd been going out for 5 years already. Much longer than the existence of the rumours about them. Maybe it was because Pitros was so good with words that no-one had ever doubted his words when he denied a relationship between them. Even if he only denied it for her sake. Mara still felt a bit uneasy dating one of her colleagues. What if things backfired? What if they broke up and people found out? Wouldn't one of them be asked to leave?
"Thinking about the find?" Pitros asked.
"No." Mara sighed.
"But you are worried about it."
"You read me too well."
"I would not be a man if I couldn't see what was on your mind."
"Pitros, what do you think about aliens?"
"Fantasy."
"What if I said these bones are neither human nor animal?"
"Then I say it's up to science to decide what they're going to call the new fossil."
"You're so straight forward." she smiled.
Pitros crept closer, taking her hand and placing it on his shoulder. He kissed her softly and quickly, little more than a brush with his lips and then asked, "Should we dance before the others return?"
"I think we don't have time for that." Mara sighed, hearing the faint sounds of running feet in the desert, echoing of the canyon walls.

***

Lantessama
"It's glowing!!!" Avara called.
"What is?" Pitros asked, thinking the two of them had been interrupted because of fireflies.
"The metal... the bones..." Rixos wheezed, his body not used to all the running he'd been doing.
"How glowing?" Mara asked.
"They glow in the dark. By themselves." Avara said.
At that same time Kariya and Lithos returned for diner. The sound of the jeep, usually so noticeable in the night air, was drowned by the shouting voices of Avara and Rixos who were trying to explain what they saw. In the end, all six of them returned to the crash site.
Mara stayed a bit behind and pulled Lithos back, "What have you learned?"
"People have been seeing strange-coloured moving lights around these parts for several centuries. Opalescent, iridescent globes high in the sky or embedded in the stone. Pulsating light orbs. And sometimes large dark figures in the sky. Winged reptiles."
"Winged reptiles?" Mara asked trying to make sense of it.
"Dragons." Kariya said.
The six of them reached the dig site and the metal fragments had only grown more luminous. It was almost as clear as day up close to the circle of fragments. But the light did not carry far. Maybe because it was broken.
"It's almost like a lamp." Pitros said.
"An inter-stellar flashlight?" Kariya only half-joked.
"Interstellar?" Avara asked.
Suddenly the air above them tightened. A coldness raised the hairs on their arms and a chill got into their bodies even with their coats on in the already cool night air. A large shadow enveloped them, but it was hard to see just what was approaching them because the light of the fragments had made them night-blind.
"It's big!" Rixos shouted.
And then it was upon them. A large green, winged reptile with swirling yellow-orange eyes that almost looked like a gateway to hell.
"Why thank you for the nice description." an alien voice sounded.
"Who said that?" Mara asked.
"Dresynith said it." Another voice said. This one didn't sound in their heads and sounded mostly human.
A puff of warm air reached them as the dragon tried to hold it's laughter.
"Very funny." Maira said.
"Tell them the news."
"Fine." Maira, a brown-haired, average looking woman, said as she stepped into the circle of light.
"My name is Maira, and this is my dragon Dresynith. We come from another planet. A planet where dragons such as Dresynith are born and raised. We'd like for you to come with us and bond one of these dragons to help us. They're amazing companions."
"Do you just expect us to leave everything?" Pitros asked.
"These children need to return home over the weekend." Mara added.
"Oh that wouldn't be a problem. These dragons can teleport anyplace, anytime they want to. You could be home in an hour and spent over a year on Lantessama."
"And what about the dig?"
"Same thing."
"Is it a dragon that lays here?" Nara asked.
"No." Maira said as she looked at the bones, "Looks like an elf or avian. I've seen a couple of those. But I rarely saw one that glowed. You could come with us and then we'd try to find out. there aren't many civilisations in the universe that haven't had dragons visit."
"Even centuries back."
"Honey, they've been here since time was created. Now want to come?"
"I will." Mara said without a doubt.
"Mara!" Pitros called.
"What? I see no harm."
"Who knows what this Lantessama is like." Avara said feeling a bit hesitant."
"I've heard other earthlings refer to it as Californian climate."
"Doesn't sound bad..." Rixos said.
"It's by the sea." Mara added.
"We're going." Kariya added, dragging Lithos with her.
Maira smiled, knowing she made the deal, "If you'd all get in line. I'll have to make two trips..."

HATCHING & FLIGHT:
Kariya x Lithos
Avara x Rixos
Mara x Pitros

STATS

KARIYA 17, female blond hair, blue eyes, 1.77m Kariya is a person who doesn't know the meaning if the word 'quit'. She is very stubborn and decisive. Lantessama Summer 2007	AVARA 17, female brown hair, green eyes, 1.62m Avara is very calm and collected. She doesn't really care about what others think of her and does her own thing. Lantessama Summer 2007	MARA 27, female brown hair, brown eyes, 1.70m Mara enjoys studying and in such has chosen to be an educator. She likes to read, write and is a liberal thinker. Lantessama
LITHOS 18, male black hair, blue eyes, 1.83m Lithos, though not the smartest of the bunch, has a great passion for history and archeology. He's always thinking about the past. Lantessama Summer 2007	RIXOS 17, male blond hair, brown eyes, 1.80m Rixos signed up for the dig because of Avara. He's easily worried and wants to be liked by everyone he meets. Lantessama Summer 2007	PITROS 30, male auburn hair, grey eyes, 1.78m Pitros is a dependable leader. Someone who you can trust. He likes to keep things in order and philosophical discussions. Lantessama

Lantessama Isle
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