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 Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2016 6:08 pm
Falchion flew past rocky mountainsides. The scenery flickered before him: Rocks, trees, patches of damp mud. What he didn't see was soquili. He knew there to be at least one more family that lived in this area and he had to find them before he could rest.
According to all predictions, there would be a landslide on the mountain soon. It would be a huge one too, if the wise old owl geologist who had informed them was correct. Padmapani had heeded her warnings before and avoided injury. Now that she told them that half the mountain face might come down at any moment, they were inclined to believe her.
The herd was on the move, headed for more solid ground. A few of them had gone out to warn people, those that could fly the swiftest and the longest. Falchion was one of those fliers. He was proud to have been given such an elite task. He was barely an adult and wore the responsibility as a badge of pride. He'd find the missing soquili families and not rest until everyone was evacuating!
He scanned beneath him again. He didn't see a family... but there! The flickering light of a fire caught his eye. It wasn't the season for wildfires so had to be sign of inhabitation. He spiraled downwards, heading to meet them.
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Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2016 6:20 pm
Yao Feng ran the tip of her tail through the flickering flames. The hardened blade, already darkly armored, grew even blacker. What blood had coated it had long since seared off, lost in the smoke that coiled upwards in an inky spiral.
The human had put up a fight. She had to give it that much. It had wielded a dagger with great skill. It might have even skewered her if she hadn't been protected by layers of scales and spines. She cast a glance to the chitinous plates on her shoulder. A scratch was all that was left of the human's daring defense. Soon, not even that would remain.
Her belly was distended with the human's flesh. It had been some time since she'd last eaten. Hunger always gnawed at her but it had grown to a nearly unbearable level before she brought down her latest kill. She was almost tempted to bring down lesser prey... almost. She ate humans so that one day she might achieve immortality. That was her belief, and her belief dictated that eating the flesh of beasts would dirty her soul and ruin her chances.
She pulled her tail from the flames, examining the edge of it for any flaws. That was when a shadow passed between her and the sky. She was no longer alone.
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Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2016 6:22 pm
Young as he was, Falchion did not yet know fear of strangers. He'd had some close calls before but never seriously been injured by another thinking being. He saw that this mare had a distinctively carnivorous look about her, but he knew that didn't mean a soquili was bad in character. Even birds lived off the lives of insects, after all.
"Ho, there!" he called out as he landed, kicking up a flurry of crumpled leaves. "You need to stomp out that fire and clear out of here fast!"
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Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2016 6:25 pm
Yao Feng drew back her lips in distaste. It was some young bravo of indeterminate sex. She had no interest in whatever they had to say and had no intention of hearing them out.
"Begone and leave me in peace, or you'll regret it." She darkly sized up the intruder. The youth was lean and well-muscled but she trusted her experience over that.
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Posted: Thu May 12, 2016 6:38 pm
Falchion snorted gruffly. He had received cold responses before. People did tend to "shoot the messenger" no matter what wisdom advised them not to. "I think you want to listen to what I have to say," he said, stubbornly going on. Even if she was unfriendly, she didn't deserve to die in a landslide.
He sniffed. Past the smoke, something already smelled a bit like death around here. He looked back at her, a bit less certain now. It seemed like she had just eaten something. Even more, it seemed like she had just eaten something that was recently alive.
He tried not to judge meateaters too much. It was natural for animals and he knew it was necessary for some soquili to live. Even then, a quiet part of him that he didn't let escape past his lips thought it was creepy and unnatural. Distracted, he forgot what he'd been saying.
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Posted: Thu May 12, 2016 6:43 pm
There was something snakelike in how Yao Feng watched him. Her expression was cold, focused, yet detached. Like she might see a boulder fall on him right in front of her and not even blink. Idly she began passing her tail blade through the flames once more. If this bravo proved to be more trouble than he was worth, a hot edge cut swifter than a cool one. He had no scales or human-made armor. She could cut through his throat as easily as an overripe fruit.
"Tell me, then," she said, a request and a warning. "Tell me and make it swift. I do not have much in the way of patience for uninvited guests." She didn't eat soquili. She didn't even kill them too often, at least compared to her murderous streak with humans. But... she killed them enough to know how it was done.
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Posted: Thu May 12, 2016 6:52 pm
Falchion sucked in a deep breath. He felt embarrassed for his reactions. It didn't matter if she was freaky. He wasn't here to be her friend and didn't have time to get all distracted about it. He shook off his misgivings.
"This area is due for a landslide." Now he was using his best Official voice. He was a representative of the Padmapani herd, after all! "You should put out your fire and get away from the slope and the base of mountain. They can go pretty far." He'd been told about rockslides that had destroyed whole villages before. It was lucky for everyone that this one was in a much less populated area.
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Posted: Thu May 12, 2016 6:57 pm
"A landslide?" hissed Yao Feng, glaring at the stallion like he was responsible for the bad news he bore. "How do you know?" Her first instinct was to suspect it was a trick. Her second was to know that it wasn't. This young soquili may be a fool, but he didn't bear marks of violence. If he was going about entrapping soquili with false stories of landslides then there would certainly be something to show for it. As a mare of ill intentions herself, she easily jumped to thinking the worst about others.
"You are certain?" She probed once more. She believed that he thought he was saying the truth, but that didn't mean his information sources were any good.
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Posted: Sat Jun 11, 2016 5:30 pm
"Yeah, we're pretty sure about it." Now that she was listening to him he was getting more casual again. It seemed like the worst had passed.
"Our herd knows this owl. She knows a lot about rocks and mountains and studies disasters to find out how to avoid them or stay safe. She warned us that this place was about to go, so we're trying to get everyone out before it happens." He fluffed up proudly at that. He had no doubts about the importance of what he was doing here. He was happy to do it, even when cranky ulun'suti mares gave him trouble.
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Posted: Sat Jun 11, 2016 5:40 pm
"Dammit!" snapped Yao Feng. She still wasn't sure that she thought an owl could predict a landslide, but it would be too risky to ignore. She'd have to find somewhere else to make her home for now. She spread her wings, ready to flap off immediately. That's when she glanced behind her and remembered the fire that she'd been cleaning her tail over just moments earlier.
Swearing more under her breath, she began to kick dirt over it. She didn't really care whether other soquili lived or died, but she cared about wildfires. She was callous and sometimes cruel, but she wasn't irresponsible or an idiot. Even the smallest ember could start a blaze and in a landslide, who new what would happen.
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Posted: Sat Jun 11, 2016 5:45 pm
"Oh!" Falchion realized what she was doing and moved to help. He didn't know much about fire but saw that smothering with dirt was helping. He rolled a large rock onto the blaze but yelped as the sparks jump and struck his legs. That hadn't worked. now the logs, previously arrayed in a neat burning pile, had rolled away from each other.
"Sorry," he muttered sheepishly. He had made it worse. He focused on one log in particular, kicking clumps of moist earth on top of it and watching it sizzle and hiss. The first log seemed to have guttered out so he moved onto the second. Beside him, he saw the mare shoveling dirt with her spaded tail too. He tried that with his, but his tail was barely even long enough to reach the ground, hardly a digging tool. Instead, he redoubled his effort with his hooves. He needed to finish up here fast and move onto the next person!
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Posted: Sat Jun 11, 2016 5:50 pm
Here she was trying to stop a forest fire, and her idiot assistant almost started one. The logs almost rolled out of her cleared fire circle, barely stopping on the edge before they reached anything flammable. She had half a mind to leave him there and carry on with her own evacuation, but there she stayed.
Together they worked on putting the fire out. Even when no more flames licked from the wood, she kept piling earth on top. Embers still might smolder even when there wasn't a flame. Really, the only sure way to put out a fire was to drown it or stay by it for long enough to know it was dead. She didn't have time for that level of certainty, but she'd work with what she was able to. Once she decided it was good enough, she stepped back and spread her wings.
"Thank you," she said, though the words almost choked her. "Now goodbye." With that, she flapped away. By the time the landslide tore through her campground, she was long gone.
~ Fin.
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