Feathered Musings (Khida)

[Colt]

5th of Summer, 512 AV It was hot today. Summer had decided to end its waiting and had taken the land of Cyphrus full force, driving away any clouds offering relief from Syna and beating the grasslands with heat. The creatures that lived within the stalks had become lethargic now that the sun was at its highest, predator unwilling to hunt and prey unwilling to flee. He’d be lucky to scare a stray rabbit out of this. Shaking his head to dislodge a fly that had been buzzing relentlessly around his head for the better part of five minutes despite his numerous attacks, he scanned the ground again for tracks. There were a few rodent trails and a grouse, but little else. He knew that it would be easier to hunt within the walls of the crater that he now called his home. The trees and foliage provided relief from the heat and the pond and stream showed no signs of fading, and the creatures that lived at its shores were as active as ever. His aversion to the slaying of the animals there was not due to the terrain; true, he was not as accustomed to forest as he was to plains, but the crater’s enclosed nature offered much opportunity for trial and error. No, it was the concept that he found difficult; the place had become his sanctuary, keeping away the glassbeaks and other large predators that roamed outside the walls. It was a place of peace and safety when something went awry, and he had never had to use violence to protect himself within its borders. Killing something for simple convenience felt like a desecration to what it was supposed to be, and if he had learned anything from a season in the wild it was that he had no right to disturb the way things were supposed to be. It would be offensive to nature. Rousing himself from fruitless thoughts, he rolled his shoulders and returned to his scouting.

[Khida]

A smart bird would be sleeping now, resting through the oppressive midday heat. The winged shape presently riding the air is perforce not one of that number. The air cooled somewhat, with altitude and motion, but not enough to counteract the sun's baleful glare; not enough to make the warmth quite seem pleasant. It's stubbornness which keeps Khida aloft -- hunger. Her vested interest in eating sometime today. The day's heat almost made the grasslands seem like home. Familiar. The ground below didn't look anything like desert earth, and the prey differed in particulars, but the horizon stretched wide in all directions and the sun burned bright above; that much was the same. A rooftop or even a cliff edge to perch upon in wait for passing quarry would complete the likeness... not to mention providing a nice rest. But none lay conveniently below, and so Khida keeps flying instead, maintaining altitude one slow wingbeat at a time. Her search for potential quarry is interrupted by a strange and unusual sight: a person, the first person she's seen in more days than Khida can put number to. A sign, perhaps, that the grasslands aren't quite as empty of people as the desert tends to be. Tailfeathers shift, wings bank; the falcon scribes a slow, broad circle across the sky, its center anchored upon the man below. As a difference, he is an object of curiosity... and also as a potential competitor. For that matter, men hunt birds in their own fashion; he might see the falcon herself as proper quarry. For all of these reasons, she gives him close scrutiny. But maybe her luck is turning. Maybe he'll flush something out. There are creatures down there, in the grasses; whether they fly or jump and run, Khida's not at this point inclined to be choosy in her prey. She just needs one to come out to where she can catch it.

[Colt]

He knelt in the dry and cracked dirt. Fowl tracks, fresh. He was in no state to hunt birds, they required something thrown or launched. A knife would do absolutely nothing to— For a heartbeat, his vision dimmed. Was it a trick of the light? No, a faint spot of darkness was racing away from him. Instinctively, his eyes flicked upwards and caught the white dot against the blue. He quickly scanned the bird’s form; lazy coasting of a bird of prey, wings tapering to an elegant point meant for maneuvering in midair and hunting others of the air. It was some type of falcon, a large one, but it was too far away for him to narrow down its species. A plan began to form in his mind. This could work out after all. He picked up his pace, gaze flicking from side to side until—there. Something shaped like a pear squatted amongst the underbrush, but he turned his head and passed it without giving it anything more than glances from the corner of his eyes. He knew where one was, and… there was another. They never traveled too far from groups. His lips curled back from his teeth in a feral growl, slowly growing into a snarl and then into a dull half-roar. He angled straight for the pheasant, ripping up last year’s dead grass as he went and making noise with whatever he could find. It paid off as he neared when the pheasant took flight.

[Khida]

A stray puff of wind riffled through the falcon's feathers, a momentary brush of coolness against her skin; but it wasn't the wind which made that skin prickle. His gaze turned upwards, the man patently studied her in turn. She probably had enough altitude to be safe, but -- maybe not. Khida could only wait to see what he did next. Which was -- Not much, by her reckoning. He appeared to focus again on earth-bound matters, with fairly little regard for her presence. Khida felt the sharp edge of her tension dull: Good. That suited her -- Prey! The first pheasant to flush spooked out its neighbors, the small covey rising with a noisy flurry of wingbeats and alarm calls. All considerations of the human slipped from Khida's thoughts; her world narrowed to her wings, her talons, and her quarry below. The peregrine broke off her circling, picking out a likely mark from the covey and lining up on it. Tucking her wings in, she plummeted from the sky. Flushed out by a threat on the ground, the covey wasn't expecting danger from above. Closed talons impacted soundly against the pheasant, its forward motion ceasing, body falling limply away. Flaring her wings to shed velocity, Khida pivoted on a wingtip to follow it down, both of them coming to rest in the grass.

[Colt]

He sank to his haunches to watch. The falcon slipped smoothly into a dive, become not much more than a blur of dark gray. When it struck the pheasant there was a small explosion of feathers, and he tilted his head with a trace of amusement. He didn’t know that happened when birds hunted birds. The falcon let the broken fowl fall away, following it but making no move to support it. The pheasant landed, the falcon touched down beside it, and he sprang into a run, waving wildly and yelling in an attempt to startle the predator back into the air.

[Khida]

The first thing the peregrine did was bite through the pheasant's spine, ensuring it really is dead. She crouched over it and -- -- mantled her wings as something suddenly came rushing at her, loud and sudden and big. Khida hissed at it, but her nerve failed to hold up under the charge. Not enough to stay on the ground. The falcon took flight in a rush of wings, traveling a short distance over the grasses before climbing upwards. But not too far -- just far enough to swing back around and really see her attacker. Him. Ke-ke-ke-ke-ke-ke-ke! Khida then swooped back down, shrieking frustration and anger all the while, dive-bombing at and around the man's head. That's mine!

[Colt]

The falcon leaped into the air, wings pumping at the air as it retreated. He wasted no time in snatching the pheasant from the ground and examining it. The spine had been severed and there were savage gashes across its back, but the entirety of the meat was intact. A high, clear trill pierced his ears and he raised his free arm to protect his face as the offended hunter attacked his head. Grunting as two lovely new scratches appeared on his elbow, he went backwards a number of steps and tried to swat the creature away. He wasn’t sure if he succeeded or not, but he didn’t really care; an angry bird of prey was not something he was keen on facing off with. So he bolted.

[Khida]

The man stumbled back, and Khida stayed with him, more or less; determined to harass him into dropping the pheasant. She avoided his hand by sweeping through a wider turn, only for him to bolt away during that break. Without dropping the carcass. The falcon climbed a little higher into the air, regarding his sprinted retreat. The sun beat down on her wings and back, heat once more intruding upon her awareness -- the reason there's nothing else out moving for the raptor to catch. In preference to starting over from scratch, Khida set herself to following the man -- the thief -- from above. He was bound to put the pheasant down at some point, surely -- or so she could hope.

[Colt]

Goddamn bird. He had been sure it would give up when he didn’t, but that did not seem to be the case. For all the annoyances it had and probably would cause him in the near future, the thing was very stubborn. Once, long ago, too long ago to remember, he would have been panting. The distance and the heat would have him heaving like a dog and dragging himself to shade and rest, but not now. He was strong, nothing but sinew and wire over his bones that twisted fluidly as he ran. And unnecessary fat had been devoured by the spring season, so no bulging muscles advertised his strength. A family whose name he once knew had built him in their image with years of work, but now they held not even the tiniest place in his memory. In a few short seasons their work had been undone and glorious Caiyha had sculpted him as she wished him to be; one of her animals. And animals did not give up as easily as men. He ducked into the grass and slid sideways to sidle along a patch of briars, hoping to lose the falcon. The ground began to slope upwards as the rim of the crater pushed its way from the endless plains, and he immediately spotted the groove in the dirt and stone. He aimed straight for it, and soon the grass disappeared and he darted into the crack. It was small, less than three feet wide, and he had to focus on his path to avoid scraping the sides as he ran. He couldn’t even look back to see if the falcon had kept its eye on him. The stone walls stopped and he was beneath trees.

[Khida]

Khida flapped up another few dozen feet as her course took her over briars and brambles, cautious of things which might lurk unseen in the thorned thicket. She peered intently down into grasses and brambles alike, trying to see between the gaps, to discern any glimpse of movement. The falcon picked out some -- a rabbit disturbed by the man's passage, zigzagging into cover; small birds, mere flickers of motion, calling alarm chirps as they fluttered into the thicket's safer depths; Khasr himself, a large disturbance in the grassy sea, stalks bending aside as he pushed his way through. The cleft in stone was less readily evident, between its narrowness and the current brevity of shadows. Not directly overhead of it, Khida kept going forward. She passed over the crater walls, and above the interior verdant with trees in full summer foliage, so different from the rolling grasslands outside. Their crowns presented more of a barrier to her sight than the grasses, their boughs an opportunity to perch and take stock. Khida took that opportunity, ducking down into the treetops and picking a branch which gave her a decent view into the crater. The peregrine settled in to observe. At the very least, she now had the relief of shade, and a better chance at new prey.