dated to just after this thread and subsequently this thread

He had his list, a number of things he required for Hunter's "payment" of granting life to his stone. He'd decided to seek the leather, first--and given the things he needed, Pegasus (as close to Cepheus as it was) seemed his best option.

He decided to rise up, first, and canvass the cave for signs of deer--particularly gemless--for that. And if he found those with gems, he'd check their color, and see if it was one of those he needed--black, purple, or grey.

By a terrible fluke of bad luck, the start of his search was very nearly the finish: as he lifted into the air with a flash of ethereal blue wings, the magic faltered and failed.

The Sentinel went from starting to skim neatly over the grassland to plummeting, with only an instant to save himself.

He reached for his magicka again, in a brief panic--any magicka would do. About half a second later, a Sentinel-sized, Sentinel-shaped body thudded chest-down into the dirt.

It lifted its head, spat out some grass, and... looking suddenly thoughtful, chewed the rest.

Well that was odd.

He rolled upright, sitting, testing his limbs to see if anything were broken. It didn't appear to be. ...He chewed another bit of grass, puzzled at why it suddenly tasted... less than terrible. Had that been the magic-?

With a grunt he hauled himself back upright, fishing his halberd from the grass. It was good he'd not been in Draco; a fall like this on solid rock would have devastated him. The ground here, at least, was more forgiving, but even so he now ached.

He squinted up at the bright light. He'd never had that spell fail, before--it'd be good to bear in mind.

He set off slowly, wincing just a little. His ribs hurt, and his legs hurt, and... maybe a little magic would help repair things. It'd slow down his progress, but so be it; outrunning anything would be hard like this. A faint wash of magicka set things... if not right, then heading in that direction, the pain receding. He'd still bruise beneath his scales, but it was what it was.

Rather than using magic, then, he focused on his senses. Nose--such as it was--was lifted to the air; eyes, squinted against the light, scoured the landscape for clues. Footprints, perhaps, or fur tangled in the grass--twigs broken to show the passage of prey. He hunted for himself frequently enough--it was just a matter of doing so again.

After a time he settled into pleasant rhythm. Yes, the urges and visions of Chaos still came and went--his hand tightening, now and again, on the halberd's haft. But for the most part, the soft touch of grass underfoot (and the taste of more on his tongue as he plucked some as he walked), the breeze over his skin--Pegasus was... pleasant, and it was easy to get lost in that pleasantness.

He wasn't sure, at first, that the initial trail across which he stumbled was really a trail at all. There were indentations in the moss, yes, but when he knelt and touched them, inspecting them closely, he gleaned nothing more than that. They could have been hoofprints, or merely places where the water had pooled, or collapsed mole-mouse tunnels.

I will follow them, then, and find out. And they did stretch onward, he saw--more likely to be prints, then.

They wound up the meadow's flank, toward the edges of the trees, and as he ambled along he found himself taking his time. It was... relaxing, being here. Admittedly, he'd had the 'rights' to wander from the Forge for many cycles, and he sometimes took advantage. But generally speaking, his guardianship of the Aperture was something he took quite seriously, and when he left to hunt, it was swift and with purpose.

He did not often take... vacations, even ones so short as these.

There.

He slowed, carefully coming to a halt, as he spotted movement off ahead. Cave deer, then. Three of them, relatively small. He dropped lower, using the cover of bushes and trees, focused intently on them--each time one lifted its head from grazing to glance around, he froze completely.

They were feeding, browsing the bushes along the forest's edge, just inside its shadows and he--he clung to the same darkness a little ways behind them, doing his best to stay hidden.

When he'd drawn close enough, over several slow, patient minutes of stalking, he lurched up and broke into a swift sprint, hefting his halberd over his shoulder.

Almost at once a tree root caught his leg--and over he went, stumbling and skidding in the mossy dirt. His halberd went flying, and he heard the panicked thud of little hooves recede swiftly into the distance.

I must not have recovered fully from the fall, he decided, wincing as he came back to his feet. It took him a moment to find his weapon among the tangled underbrush--and by then, his intended targets were long gone.

It was nearly an hour before he made another serious attempt. Instead, he looked for a time rather like a vacation ad: standing staring off at the treeline, sitting by the side of a bubbling creak, or leaning down to gently scent the flowers. (His chaotic urges snarled at him to tear the flowers all up; it was good practice to ignore them. He did, however, take one flower, plucking it free and tucking it behind his pointed ear.)

Flower safely stowed, the Sentinel set off again once he was feeling more capable. He flexed a little, then risked magic--but this time, determined to stay low and slow, for now.

Nothing came. He tried not to be angry--tried to fight down the vague frustration that rose in him. Instead, he took a breath, and decided to start with... something different.

The berries, perhaps.

Or feathers.

He angled up toward the treeline, then slipped into the shadows there. It was cooler, here--the lack of direct hot light kept it a little damp. That left him the pleasure of a drifting mist, albeit a thin one, and fresh, crisp air. The odor of petrichor sifted in his nostrils.

The Sentinel picked his way through the trees, pausing periodically to inspect the underbrush. In retrospect, he realized he ought to have brought something to carry it all with--whatever 'it' might be. But for now, he could risk searching for feathers, at least. Those would be easy to carry.

If they were berries, though--that might prove a little tougher.

As he went, he nibbled on a leaf--until the taste turned sour. The magic he'd cast earlier, it seemed, was fading.

He picked his way up along the hillside as it grew more steep--necessitating a slower pace, and a more cautious eye. So far, he'd found nothing--a few red berries, but red wasn't what he was after. It wouldn't do him any good.

Only when he'd nearly reached the ridgeline did he find what he was looking for: clusters of glistening, jet-black berries hung thickly on a bush.

They did not look, nor smell, particularly edible. They weren't the "black"berry clusters that would prove, in the end, to be blue; instead they were genuinely jet black, shining like little drops of oil. The Sentinel considered them, lifting them in his palm, running a thumb across one; he slit one with a claw to test that its juice was the proper color.

It was, and so he solved his "no container" problem by plucking off an entire branch and sticking this in the edges of his breastplate. He looked a little strange, now, with berries and a flower just sort of attached to his body--but he did not mind. He wasn't the self-conscious--nor even self-aware--sort.

He turned and plodded on, looking now for "purple." Or, perhaps, some "gray."

He made his way along the ridge, though he angled somewhat downward, now. He was coming to the northern reaches of Pegasus, where--unbenownst to him--a wall would block his passage into a beautiful meadow beyond. His stone, his element, would not allow him that place.

He hadn't quite reached it yet, though, and for now he turned, heading down through the towering trees here.

To his surprise--and luck--he found a bowl-shaped cluster of amethyst gemstone just ahead, half-jutting from the peat. Not only was it purple, but it wasn't too heavy to carry and it could serve as a container! He knelt, carefully sweeping away leaves, twigs and dirt with his hands. He wasn't sure what the gemstone had belonged to--if anything. Maybe, instead, it had indeed been created as a sort of decorative container--though it was admittedly somewhat unwieldy for that.

The Sentinel pulled forth the black berries from his breastplate, and settled them into the 'bowl.' Then he pushed up again, satisfied thus far, and moved on.

It was time to find something gray.

Gray, he thought, might be a little harder. He'd never seen gray berries, before--only reds or purples, black or white. It didn't occur to him to try and mix the latter two. Instead, he began to scour the ground for feathers, in the hopes of finding one or two in a suitable monochromatic shade.

What he found, instead, was berries--another inconvenient cluster, but surprisingly perlescent and pretty and definitely the right color. As before, he cut one with a claw before severing a whole branch, settling these carefully in alongside the black.

There; that was purple, black and gray done. Now he needed leather--and silver metal. And someone who could make rainbows.

He still wasn't sure about that last one, but he'd figure it out, in time.

For now, he stood, satisfied, and headed down the slope--trying to ignore the visions of an army rushing by toward an oh-so-tempting battle.