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Post by Flare on Jun 6, 2024 4:54:44 GMT -6
Her muzzle splits in a small smile. Angling her head to show the kitebodied male her collection. "I am; I collect feathers to decorate myself and my hoard." She bows her head briefly, picking a longer thinner feather loose to let it drift to the blood dried rock between them. "Mostly from the carrion birds I hunt, but whatever other birds I can catch. Every species I find has different colors, different types of feathers. Its what I like to study." Hama nods to the feather she pins beneath her paw on the edge of its quill. "This one came from a carrion bird's wing. The longer ones we witness once they open their wings to fly." "I'll ask you again. Thoughtwarper. Has your ability ever worked on a draconic, or anything else." Because she's got an idea now. Just how far his ability could go. The one of life and of death. 15
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Post by Skylos on Jun 6, 2024 5:01:54 GMT -6
"I have not tried it on my draconic kin, no. Mostly sheep, some plants and the occasional bird." Thoughtwarper answers, his eyes narrowed as he arches his neck to look at her. She's got that sparkle in her moonlit eyes for an idea. "Why. You pose the look of one with an idea." She is a collector. Ah. Dislodging an ornamental feather from her crest to show him. To explain about it. The eye catchingness of the black irridecence to accent the warm black scales. "It is a fetching decoration. I'm a boring individual in comparison to your accentry." He hasn't looked too closely at a fowl's feathers to really know anything about them. Curling his tail around to glance at it, the feathers are not so, more like frills then feathers. "Does your collection collect white feathers at all?" Would it alter his flight path to dive more efficently if he decorated himself? More specifically. "Landwalker, your collection is interesting. But I haven't collected your name." 16
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Post by Flare on Jun 6, 2024 5:10:50 GMT -6
"Follow me." Is all her answer is on his prompt of explaining her idea. She bounds down from the rock to lead the kite- no, his name is Thoughtwarper, the kiteboddied Thoughtwarper down to her hunting grounds. The gravel patch where she does most of her collecting. The birds may have already stolen the remains but... it never hurt to try. He compliments her collection as she resituates the feather back into her crests. Well thats part of what they were there for; to be decoration. "I don't find you boring to look at. Bright, yes. Boring, not as much. I don't travel far from my cave unless I'm on the hunt for new feathers for my collection. Or food." she talks while making sure she's paying attention to the path, it gets mildly trecherous on one specific spot here. "Be glad you don't walk like we landwalkers do, little kite. The jump here-" she has to leap to scale a small drop "is not easy unless you can jump far. Not high." She nods upwards at a jut of rock. The gravel grounds meet her welcoming paws soon after. Bringing Thoughtwarper down to where she and the Tainter male had hunted birds together. Theres a few strewn, plucked carcasses, picked mostly clean. Carrion birds don't care if they eat their own once dead. "Can you bring THIS back." 17
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Post by Skylos on Jun 6, 2024 7:59:24 GMT -6
Curiosity draws the shalaya to follow the female landwalker further into the canyon, wisely avoiding the jutting rock she notes while walking and leaping down the canyon. Only one other time has he seen a creature with such walking finesse. Now at this gravel patch, she acts extremely familiar with this area. It smells of her even. And the stench of the dead. Being shown bird carcasses. "It is a fathomable hypothesis to try. For my ilk to be the 'healer', a 'necromancer' of war. Where your clan possesses the abilities of something else, our clan claims light magic as a forte-damn." His thought process of explaining her thoughts back to her in his own words is interrupted when he lands and sinks halfway into the rock. His head, two larger wings, and the tip of his feathery tail poked out of the rock. "And it requires a great deal of concentration to keep a physical link in this world." he seems to sound resigned, his tail twitching catlike, the floating claw still gripping his lower jaw. "If I do not... I sink through the ground as soon as I land." It sounds as if this has happened before....? Multiple times.
"Surely you jest, landwalker. If I could portray myself being perfectly frank, I am but a bored specimen of my species with too many questions and not enough reason to hover in a library with my head stuck halfway into the bookcase and attempt to read the books with x-ray vision." Did he just attempt to make a joke of his present predicament? Gesturing what part of his head he can still move at the plucked carcass. "I have not done much experimenting with reviving long-dead creatures. The ram is at most 600 heartbeats dead once I revive it. This is... estimating weeks." With snapped necks. THey don't appear to have been crushed by jaws either. How were they caught. 18
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Post by Flare on Jun 6, 2024 8:08:43 GMT -6
"A few weeks at most, usually I do dispose of the carcasses in the river but became indisposed once I had completed the plucking and eaten my fill last time." Draconic don't blush but she looks pointedly at her gravel patch. Many stones have been stolen, the lines interrupted by imprints of bird and beast in the rocks. "You showed me your hunting process, Thoughtwarper. Let me show you mine." She takes one of the more whole carcasses by the leg, dragging it over to lay in the gravel patch like a bit of bait. Crouching as she carefully retraces out the pattern in the gravel patch, completely undisturbing it as she stands there. When she looks back, the kitebodied male has sunk halfway into the rock, and he looks resigned rather then upset about it. She nips the edge of her cheek to keep from smiling too widely. "Is this frequent?" He does sound consistently bored, ever researching his own power. "In my opinion, if it doesn't work, we'll know you can't revive the long dead. I'm less concerned about that part. But stay in the shadow of that rock if you can, and quiet." As she whispers, having backed away to see if the bait is enough to catch... yes. There is one circling carrion bird who comes down for food. The smell is atrocious. "Watch me." As she MELTS INTO THE EARTH, barely the tips of her horns seen as she sneaks up on the distracted bird... its squawks as its pulled from below into the earth like its water. A loud struggling comes to hearing, a snap, and she emerges like the ground is a pool of water, a dead bird in her grip. 19 x.20
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Post by Skylos on Jun 6, 2024 8:18:19 GMT -6
The pointedly irritated expression speaks volumes to her smirk; Yes, it is more frequent if his mind wanders. Thus the constant seeking of knowledge. Of using his brain. Of concentrating on the physical realm. Instead of raving this, he just bobs his head in a nod once. Yes. She's not upset on the potential, if not higher, failure of her idea to use his breath to revive a long dead creature. A budding researcher of her own ilk. Good. She does show him something fascincating with diving into the earth like it is the river behind her...and he can 'sort of' see her swimming her way to the patch of gravel, baited with a carcass, being picked at by a stupid carrion bird. They are too fast adn not fat enough to provide a meal for him. But pulling it underground like that, and when she emerges from the earth, it has a snapped neck. "That is how these carcasses were killed..." he realizes. "Your ilk are ambush hunters." Fascinating. Color him impressed, while stuck. "I haven't met any clan who can dive into the earth as you do." 20
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Post by Flare on Jun 6, 2024 13:42:51 GMT -6
"I am a loziuyesh, of the Clan of Steel. The ground is water to me." She turns away, abandoning her kill briefly. "The water" as she steps upon the water's surface, her undulating mist tail ghosting on the water "is my ground." And she's so proud. Very few clans outside of the Thalassa can swim naturally. Except her own kind. Coming back to that twisted tree beside the gravel patch to her stuck conversationing companion. Yes, do be impressed. Possibly. "I've seen a reptile or two do something similar in the swampier portions of the river; laying in wait under the water to strike; I hide under the sand and gravel. You should barely see me." "Do...you need some help. I don't find it comfortable to attempt to be one with the rock." Well, he doesn't have limbs to worry about going numb when getting stuck but that can't be a comfortable position. 21
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Post by Skylos on Jun 6, 2024 13:53:32 GMT -6
"No." Carefully he focuses inward, on his core, and rises out of the rock to hover in place, his wings moving back and forth. Think of those four-winged insects that remain in motion with constant wing movement. "If I do not remain at least partially focused on my physical link to this realm consistently...that happens." He has not encountered any loziuyesh otherwise, so he knows little of the noble and just Steel clan. To swim through the ground yet stand upon the water, she defies logic. "An impressive set of abilities. But can you swim through water, not just stand on it." To his memory, only Thalassas are swimmers unless they take the time and care to learn how. "Have you tried this ability on larger prey?" Now freed from the embarassing position, the shalaya male stretches his wings wide, catching the sunrays briefly, casting a glow on the water. Its almost like a mirror but without a reflection. 22
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Post by Flare on Jun 6, 2024 14:01:18 GMT -6
"I have not. That is the main reason I seek to find the bighorn sheep herd. If I can take down a sheep, it will feed my children and myself for a few days at least." And the grumpy "uncle" if he so inclines to speak to the mortal draconic folk instead of a rock. "I want to see what happens when you use your mending ability on that dead bird in the gravel there. The long dead one, not this one." She puts a paw forward, dragging the freshly killed bird back. This one wasn't in as good of feather condition as the rest; skinnier and a lot easier to grab. Perhaps one falling on hard times on a lack of prey, or chased out of its group. Such an unusual male, this shalaya. This Thoughtwarper. Consistently needing to focus to maintain not falling through the ground. "Are you ever able to land and sleep, or are you constantly hovering." 23
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Post by Skylos on Jun 6, 2024 14:18:58 GMT -6
Ah. He understands now, why she originally approached his kill in the first place; she actually is looking to hunt and bring food back for her clan. Questions bubble up inside his head as he listens. Did she have a large family, how many members of her clan were there. Are they all like her, defiers of land walking logic. Next thing he knows, she'll tell him she walks on air too. No no. She did tell him she doesn't fly. "Let us find out then." He lifts higher off the ground then his iinitial hovering to come by the bony carcass. It doesn't look like much meat remains; all his experiments have been with reviving a freshly dead sheep. Inhaling deeply, the tickle of the aerosol mist bothers his nose briefly with a long focused exhale, the sweet scent of freshly wet hay and flowers over the entirety of the bird. For a solid minute, he doesn't see anything happen. Then, the sweetness grows stronger, almost sickly smelling. He has to take a breath, pausing the continuous healing breath. The bony carcass shivers...as theres tiny pink tendrils growing slowly from the browning chunks of meat still clinging to the skeleton. Only part of it starts mending, mostly around the head and the legs and a bit of the stripped wingbones. A white glow gleams from inside the dead sockets as the beak opens wide, SCREAMS loudly. Then the whole carcass explodes into dust. Achoo "My conclusion, I cannot bring a long dead back to life." He ponders her question. "I don't know. When I close my eyes, I am aloft. When I open my eyes, I am still flying." So likely he rarely lands. "You are an unusual landwalker. The only other female who has engaged in my company and conversation this long desired progeny. Is this what you want from me, or just directions to my hunted sheep." 24
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Post by Flare on Jun 6, 2024 14:28:05 GMT -6
She hadn't expected something to happen. Maybe for the carcass to break earlier. But something Did happen. Hama nods, her snout wrinkling at the sickly sweet aftersmell of the dust settling into her gravel patch. "An acceptable conclusion. I appreciate your willingness to test my idea, even if it didn't work. There are limits to our strengths." Theres not one bone remaining of the exploded carcass even. Thats one way to clear the carcasses out of the way. Questions bubbled up in place of the failed idea. What was the time limit before his healing magic broke down? Did it work on himself or other draconics in healing, not revival? She wants to talk to this unusual shalaya more. His wit and smarts exceed her own; hes asking questions she never considered asking. The 'why' questions. Wait. The only other female who had talked to him this long was interested in... "What is progeny." She hasn't heard of this word before. "Does that mean children?" Its a recoiling question. "I... am looking for the directions to the sheep herd. If you could lead the way, I would appreciate your time." His answer has thrown her off. 25 x.20
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Post by Skylos on Jun 6, 2024 14:50:44 GMT -6
"Yes, progeny is a higher-learned word for children. For descendants." his sake-bottle head inclines in her direction. "You are well-learned for a landwalker. Engaging in conversation with you has been most interesting." Alleviating of his boredom, that's for sure. One can only drop a ram so many times before getting bored. "You mentioned multiple times throughout our conversation of already being a rearing mother, struggling to find sufficient resources for food. Once you have access to the sheep herd, it should feed you and your family for a deal of time." Side flitting alongside her, he still doesn't know her name. "Follow me, I will take you to a safer route up the walls that I've seen the sheep using. They do have to traverse down to water after all." Thoughtwarper holds great appreciation for the smarter draconics he can hold extended conversation with. If she ever DID change her mind, he wouldn't abhor the thought of reapproaching the subject. If she asks more questions, he does nod, and does lead her to the watering area for the sheep. One is even drinking there. "Care to try?" 26
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Post by Flare on Jun 6, 2024 15:00:09 GMT -6
The shalaya male does keep his intent to lead her to the sheep drinking grounds. And Mother's luck abound, one is even drinking here. It has horns even. Perhaps it may even be the ram he'd been dropping from great height. She doesn't take the prompt twice, dipping her head and body downwards into the ground, the barest tips of her long orange horns visible as they approach. Several minutes seem to pass as the sheep drinks without worry. Occasionally lifting its head to look about before going back to drinking. Its alert. But suddenly theres splashing. The ram's thick wooly body seems partially stuck in the water? Panicked baahs as it kicks and scrabbles to free itself from whatever has its head. Theres a long struggle as its a big animal and whatever is attacking is slowly pulling it into the mud. Shrieking, baahing, the scrambling underground as the sheep fights back with sharp hooves and thick bony horns. An audible CRUNCH... and Hama does come aground again. She pulls the ram from the earth, its head at the opposite direction it should be. Sitting down on the beach, her limbs shaking. "I never did give you my name. Outside my clan, I am Hama. and honored to make an acquaintance with you." she finally replies. What happens next isn't known. -fin 27 x.20
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