ORIGIN - Day of the Hunter

If ever one needed an example of life’s chaos in full bloom, no better option could be found than in Eridanus. All that was green and debatably good dominated that compact space, spreading their influence over every rock and lining the streams like wealth would pockets. What trees there grew tall and sturdy; hulking giants, their greed hoarded every grasp of light, broad leaves of their canopy casting vast pools of shadow beneath them. And in the darkness, vibrant flowers twisted and brawled for whatever sustenance dripped down to their level. It was a tough existence, but which wasn’t?

Though Lessers led lives not much easier here, at least they possessed the luxury of operable limbs. Living was a chase through the tangle of undergrowth, a matter of survival. Where shadows could not hide them well enough, they made their own, digging into stone and dirt; there they waited for the danger to pass and bred in the brief moments of peace.

Plants fought amongst themselves. Prey fed on plants. Predators devoured prey. In the end, the cave claimed them all.

No matter the setting, as far as he observed, the final result stayed the same. Everyone who took out a loan on life paid their debts in time. But for now, his thoughts were focused on a situation more personal than the inevitable dirt nap.

A creature of habit, cycles came and went with little in the way of eventfulness for East. He ate and drank. Perched in places only the winged and wall-crawling could reach, he slept. Waking hours were spent combing through bones and collecting the odd shiny thing that could be used as leverage later. Time crawled at a slug’s pace, but it advanced all the same, until it came to an instant where he’d found himself a hoarder with too many niches of objects to find. Fortunately, the locations closest were unforgotten. The problem was carrying them with him without unnecessarily burdening his talons or beak.

What he needed was a container, a pouch of some construction. With the proper materials and a minor bit of knowhow, making one could be possible if his fumbling toes cooperated. Orion, unsurprisingly, proved less than helpful.

So this was why his current position was one nestled within the forked branches of a jungle tree, the corner of an eye rested pensive upon a rabbit’s tunneled burrow. Dried plant stalks lay under talons, painstakingly split open and the fibers scraped loose. He sighed and flexed a foot, noting its crushing force.

Should’ve gone with the easy way. Flown down, pinned down the Lesser by the neck, and snapped it while the flufftail struggled.

But he doubted that method would be worth it. Meals on the go were his specialty, not overpowering prey that outweighed his hollow bones. His strength untested in that situation, capture might do more harm than good, to himself or his quarry. Trapping was the safer decision, albeit slower due to the required care. He’d simply have to bear the setup, regardless of working with undexterous tools.

Rearranging footwork, he pinched fiber strands between shaky talons and began to twist. Unease breathed down his neck at every turn. Tension tied knots around his spine. Blood pulsed a steady rhythm just behind the eye sockets, a thumping song to accompany the labor. Focus was a heat wave, burning through feathers like blackened timber.

The sharp edge of a talon slipped. A snap. Unbalanced, ripped pieces still clutched in each foot, he fell.

Leaves on trees passed by in a verdant blur. Faster than a yell could escape his throat, East caught every branch in his belly on the descent to ground level, each thud resounding strong through the surrounding vegetation. He met the soil beak-first, battered and bruised.

Master crafter, he was certainly revealed to be not.

@Shiloh

If ever one needed an example of human(oid) ingenuity, look no further than the Elenya camp: a set of simple lean-tos, with stretched hides to keep the scant few rains out. Shiloh, here more often than she was home, had taken the liberty of constructing her own—with guidance from her uncle, of course… and, most of the work being done by him. The wooden material’d been located, cut, and lashed together by her own handi- and knifework, but Attikias and Hunter provided the coverings. She hadn’t minded washing out a woolly deer’s fur for the bed; she knew it was absolutely clean, then.

While the bulk of her childhood possessions were still at home in Monoceros, woven baskets full of miscellany were packed into every available space—an appropriate idiom would be “like sardines.” Trinkets, scraps of fabric, thick thread, bone needles; name it, and it was likely there. The elf wasn’t a hoarder, by any means, but she didn’t concern herself overly much with organization. Her and Anne were always finding more things to collect and tuck away, like whispered secrets for one another’s ears only.

But, of course, that wasn’t where Shiloh was tiptoeing about, now.

No, she gallivanted through the wood dressed in her Sunday best: a flowing one-piece that clung to her careful, doughy frame, painted in pastels like an Easter egg (in keeping with the weekend themes, it seemed.) As a personal touch, after her mother’d given her this dress, Shiloh had cut a heart-shaped window in the chest, through which flowing white hair eked out. A few bracelets knocked against one another on her wrists, and sandals kept her feet from getting too much of the upsetting forest-floor-muck on them.

There was a sort of rucksack slung over one shoulder, pressed flowers set onto the leather surface and smeared over with sap to preserve them. Any passerby would catch the distinct scent of fruit, and perhaps glimpse the empyrean hue of some peach-adjacent. Carnivorous as she was, she adored a good bit of saccharine-sweet. It made a good combination, sometimes, with the heady cocktail of flavor that was Lesser.

Something fell.

Her hands dropped from where they were fumbling through the knots of a self-made braid, mouth dropping in a slight “o”-shape. The bag nearly tumbled off her shoulders as she rushed for the source of the sound—ears pricked up as far as they could possibly go, asymmetrical gold piercing glinting in the light.

Lessers fell from the trees all the time; instincts and keen skill was no match for entropy and its penchant for making miscalculations. A missed jump or a dexterous hand’s slipping was all it took to sign that death sentence.

It broke Shiloh’s heart, the cruelty of life.

So, on more than one occasion, despite her disdain for cooties and various zoonotic diseases, she’d made attempts to nurse injures Lessers back to health. Some had not been well-suited to her methods of handling, and others had simply been far past the brink. Shiloh found that it was best to leave rabbits where they lay, and that she would be hard-pressed to care for a young bird in the way it needed.

But, a full-grown bird donning a sort of gemstone hat? Perhaps.

He seemed to be strikingly ordinary, the elf observed as she broke into the little spot he’d fallen into, and not all that… frantic—but, what did she know of healing and mending? Attikias and Mom had both taught her the basics: splints, wrapping, some poultices. Birds seemed so much more fragile, though, and a far cry from humanoid anatomy. Even as she reached out to pick up this particular bird, Shiloh was uncertain of what she could do for him. Wings were just… so different.

"Are you okay… ?" she hummed, voice raspy and warm.

Not entirely expecting a response, she hesitated and, after a moment’s thought, reached into her knapsack. Withdrawing a good chunk of leather scrap, Shiloh worked it around her forearms—a sort of impromptu fingerless glove extending up to her elbow. It was fairly loose, being a temporary solution, but it’d work (she hoped) in case rather sharp-looking claws (which were… full of plants? Had he been building a nest for a mate… ?) decided to stick themselves into her arms.

Then, she reached again to scoop him up… kind of like how someone holds a child.

@East

As a couple, time and perception were an unfaithful one. Most times, they seemed to be in lockstep, never straying from the other’s side. But moments also came when they’d have an abrupt spat and break up without so much as a conversation between the two. Those instances were unmistakable; it’s when the world slows in the face of danger, but your mind’s flying a mile a minute. Or, in this case, when a bird’s beak was buried in the dirt for an unwanted taste test but his thoughts were still plummeting through a curtain of leaves. Time wanted to keep life going on, but perception wasn’t having any of that.

Stuck tumbling inside his mind, a phantom East struggled to regain balance. Wings flapped for lift from a nonexistent wind. Talons swiped and grasped for a hold to end his fall. Beats of the past slipped through an incorporeal body. Behind reality’s schedule, the crash did not occur for many more seconds, an eternity of futility. And once mental met physical—a flash, a bang of skull upon earth—awareness suffered a blank spot.

Fog filled the emptiness. It sank into every nook and cranny of the brain. White noise followed, cushioning every sensation. Whatever fight was left in him groped for something substantial. Efforts feeble and flimsy, he reached out and found only curling wisps of thought.

It was in this nearly pacified state, eyelids sealing shut, that words dripped like a drizzle of warm rain through clouds. He stirred, the barest rustle of feathers. Earth saturated his tongue, the steep climb to consciousness just beginning. His head flopped sideways, but delirium kept him mostly blind.

“N… okey… nah... muhname.” The tang of metal seeped into his mouth, upper beak cracked. Blotches of color emerged during broken speech: purple, blue, and that damned deadly green. Golden specks grew and fell out of focus in tandem with his labored breaths. “Lookin… fer… kay?”

A shred of instinct told him to move, gain distance from a stranger for safe evaluation. But shards, stabbing—the fog settled over him again, a wing unable to comply. Pain overwhelming numbed senses, dulled reason. Although flesh and bone, East had as much will as a ragdoll. There’d be no retaliation against curious hands.

@Shiloh