In the wake of Quentin's injuries, Mira was having a harder and harder time justifying just hiding out in their den. He couldn't hunt for her all the time, and more over, he was risking his life for her every time he went out to get food for them.

By now, she was a bit older, and while her own injury hadn't completely healed (it still hurt if she twisted her body wrong) she could walk and even flap her wings a bit. She wasn't quite able to fly yet, but she wanted to see if she could find some quillmice and hunt them like Quentin had told her about. You had to be careful of the quills, and knock them on to their back to expose their underbellies.

She did not travel too far south to be trotting on the sand dunes where flagrant danger of the massive Sandworms thrived, sticking close to the outskirts of the Cruicible where the ground was still mostly packed and hard from the harsh light.

She kept her eyes open, but trusted her magic to warn her of threats quicker, hopping about in search for something to eat. The main reason she didn't travel to far was almost certainly because she didn't want to be too far from Quentin, but today she was feeling particularly brave and stubborn.

There had to be something she could hunt nearby, right?
@GM

Mirage's choice of travel path was a wise one, though in fairness her tiny form would be hard-pressed to attract any but the most sensitive of Sand Worms. There was no life to sense nearby, either; the closest few arthropods were huddled away in crevices and cracks to wait out the heat of the day.

A great distance off, back over the Crucible's edges, a couple Eyehooks circled high, but Mirage was safely far away.

Dangers aside, there would certainly be prey to be found, as well: like the scorpions and spiders, huddled in the shade against the light, their heartbeats far more warm and alive than those of the many-legged beasts.

@Mirage

After the baby mouse - and a few unsuccessful attempts to upchuck its already-digested form - V had moped around in the honeycomb cliffs. Her eyes wandered about for dinner, of course, but she never did find the water source she had met Warrior at again; she didn't think he'd be there anyways. The colt didn't seem like he ever wanted to see her again.

Realizing that her fangs had fallen upon something that could have walked and talked and stalked like herself, the snake didn't blame her.

After a long, cold first night, V set out again, towards the widening cracks in the cliffs high above and the stifling heat of the sun. It felt good against her skin and scales, heat retained and warming her blood. Her gemstone, still undiscovered but lying jagged against her throat, buzzed, an inherent magic rolling out in a new spell. All of the bodies a nearby owl saw were sorted, arranged in her eyes into specks of gemstones. Some were high above, belonging only to the Eyehooks her sister must have been referring to, and others were deep below. One, off to the side, hovered a bit off of the ground in the distance.

Curious, she slithered towards it, quiet but chirping as her approach was made, "hello! Are you - talking?" The thing definitely looked weird... it had only two legs and seemed like it was covered in fur but not. Big, bulging eyes were shielded by its shard-stone, and V ogled shamelessly.

swoonces right on in here with permission from shaf!
@Mirage

Mirage crept toward the warmer heartbeats, off toward cracks and outcroppings in the earth that provided shade. She was certain she could find one, but catching it would be harder. She had never taken the life of something, even if she understood it was necessary to survive. Knowing that had helped her get over her fear of sandworms somewhat... Knowing they were just hunting to survive, like everything else.

Something suddenly squeaked at her, and she turned her head toward the sound with a fluffing up of her feathers. A long, slithery creature was wiggling toward her, its heart beat as flagrantly audible in her ears as every other nearby creature's was. "O-oh! Hello! You must be like me and my friend." She blinked her large, round eyes and hopped closer. "My name is Mirage! Do you have a name?" She hadn't had a name at first, after all; she had to spend some time thinking about it after Quentin had met her.

The little snake did seem pretty small, which made her wonder how old it was. It looked almost like a baby sandworm! But the sandworms hadn't talked to her, and she couldn't imagine something that tiny becoming so big.
@Vee

V puffed excitedly as a voice did, indeed, come from the strange two-legged creature. She was a talking creature - that meant she wasn't going to get hunted down at a moment's notice. Green eyes briefly fixated on the sky, head tilting, before coiling up and settling in for a chat. At the prospect of another friend, she grew even more eager. "Who's your friend? What's they look like?" she blurted rather childishly, skipping over the fact that they had solidarity in sentience and not-having-four-legs... ness.

"Mirage is a very pretty name - I'm V!" the rattler squeaked, opening her mouth slightly to simulate a gummy little smile. Then, it was right back to curious interrogation: "what're you doing out here? There's... big things that fly, I think. My - sister told me..." Her voice grew quieter than it already was, a great aching in her little snakey heart. V already missed Warrior dearly.

@Mirage

V was a good name! Mirage nodded, wriggle down to sit in front of the snake as they coiled up beside her. "My friend is Quentin! He's a furry fox, with ears bigger than my head and four paws and a big fluffy tail. He's great at hunting, but he got hurt so I'm hunting today." She didn't mention it was her first time hunting, and hopefully V didn't ask. It was a little embarrassing, but... Maybe V could help her!

"There's Eyehook Vultures," Mirage noted, raising her head and staring out at the far distance where she felt their far off heartbeats pulsing like quiet pings in the sky. "Quentin thinks I'll be able to fly like them some day. But I'm still too young." She clicked her beak, and tilted her head all the way to one side.

"I think I found some quillmice, if you want to come hunting with me?" She offered, sounding a bit hopeful. She wondered about V's sister, and what a sister was, but she felt a little too shy to ask. It was different with Quentin-- he had known her since she hatched, so he would never pick on her for not knowing something. She didn't think V would either, but she still didn't want to make a bad first impression. She was supposed to be all brave and tough today, for Quen!

@Vee

She'd never seen anything furry before - like, actually furry and not velvety-looking like Warrior, but her little imagination quickly set to work. V ended up with something like the colt, but with paws, big ears, and an even fluffier horse. It wasn't right, but it had the spirit. "That's awful nice of you to do that, Mirage!" the rattler crooned, wishing (a little) that she had friends like that, "do you —" V shifted a little closer, head lowered and eyes shimmering with some unknown emotion (solidarity-seeking was the name of it) "do you hunt and eat living things, too?"

Her eyes flickered then to Mirage's wings, or seeming lack thereof. They were mostly downy, and the owl was made up of a lot of leg like Warrior had been. They didn't seem like the sky-swallowing expanse that Eyehooks had. But, V was never one to not be optimistic: she ogled appropriately and called, "maybe! I'd like to be able to some day!" Imagine whst it'd be like to rule the skies, too! Ah…

V, baby as she was and sweet as she was, couldn't pass up the opportunity to help out. "I'm not really hungry but —" the snake uncoiled, at the ready, "I can get any quill mice out for you! And bite 'em! But I think my… fangs do weird things to them. They can't really move but keep trying to." She didn't seem too downcast.

"Let's go!"

@Mirage

"Yeah! Quentin usually takes the quills off, and then we share... But I can almost swallow a mouse whole!" She normally didn't, since they typically shared, but he was more careful about the bones, where as she just gulped it all down. The crunch was fun, but sometimes she was too hungry to care.

Mirage chuckled, a chuffing, huff sound clicking out of her beak. "Maybe when I can fly," she offered, not wanting to tell V that she had only seen wiggle-bodies dig about in the sand, not fly through the air, "we can soar the skies together!" At the very least, she could hold V in her talons (gently), right?

She was glad that the snake wasn't too hungry, but still willing to help out. That was a good friend right there! She couldn't wait to introduce V to Quentin. Privately, she figured that three mouths would mean having too catch more mice than she thought she could bring back... She only had one mouth, after all. V could help carry, but... Well, she would be worried about V accidentally getting pricked by the quills.

"That's cool!" She chirped. "I've never heard of anything like that. I hope it doesn't hurt them too badly," she added, "do they make a sad sound? Quentin says if you don't bite them right they'll cry." Which was dangerous, because then other predators might be alerted and other prey would run away.

She nodded enthusiastically though, and started to hop toward where she had sensed the quill mice hiding down in the cracks of the earth. As she got closer, she lowered to the ground, changing her movement to a slow, careful stalk where she raised one set of talons and crept forward, inch by inch. "They're right down in those cracks, there," she turned her head back toward V and whispered, feeling a weird itchiness through the feathers on her face that made her almost want to sneeze. She shut her beak tight and resisted it, doing her best to stay quiet and not alert the nearby prey.

@Vee

V wasn't really aware that quillmice were babies or adults, but shared the sentiment that "I can swallow a mouse whole, too! But - they have quills? I don't feel any when I eat them?" Funky. For being called that, they didn't seem to live up to it. Maybe she just plain didn't know what quills were.

She was too excited about the prospect of meeting the air, anyways. The rattler puffed eagerly, nodding. "That would be fun! If I don't get wings, too, then maybe you could hold me?" V was operating on the assumption that any extra limbs simply hadn't grown in yet.

Taking the time to show off her fangs - flicking them out in a little snake-smile - V adjusted her jaws. She hoped they didn't hurt too badly, but privately. Maybe they forgot how to hurt when she bit them? It didn't seem like they responded to... well, anything. "I think they try to..." she murmured quietly, "but I can't - bite hard enough or fast enough. I just have to swallow and make them feel weird." It seemed, at least, like the baby had been alive still when she gobbled it up.

But, soup was on, and V couldn't emotionally afford to go back on her offering help. She'd just struggle through it, she thought. Maybe she was biting wrong, as Mirage's friend suggested. V's tongue flickered out from her mouth, a slow slither across the cracked earth. Green eyes darted towards a particular crack - the one Mirage had whispered to her about. Tasting the air around it again, she hesitated. She could definitely fit her head down there but - did she want to?

Her head moved towards the owl. Quentin was hurt, at least, and needed some sort of food. A life for a life was okay, right?

V huffed quietly, almost imperceptively, and stuffed her face down into the crack, fangs out and jaws ready to snatch up whatever mouse laid closest. Her little nose snubbed against rock, but there was a furry lump snagged against her teeth. It was much larger than the baby she'd eaten before, and squealed with twice as much fury. Quills rattled in her face, and it took all of her might to dispense her venom and heave herself out from the den. V's tail shook as she brought the rapidly increasing (deadening) weight out of the crack for Mirage to see. One of her teeth had sliced through the thing's throat, and another the side of the neck.

It fell still rather quickly, and V peered up at the owl. "I - sorry, I just - saw a chance to jump in and - I'm sure you wanted that kill, right?"

@Mirage

Mirage eyes widened as V immediately went for the crack, hopping forward with a nervous lurch in her heart. She hoped that V wouldn't get hurt--! She cringed, head shrinking down into her fluffy torso, as the quillmouse squealed. She hoped it was okay. She drew even closer as V's tail began to rattle with a noisy threatening sound that made her want to back away. She was going to be brave today, though, so she stuck as close as she dared.

"V? Do you got it? Is there anything I can do--" She chirped in a quiet, anxious voice, glancing about for signs of any predators. There hadn't been anything too close... Scorpions and the like seemed all to be hiding down in the cracks, avoiding the hot light of the Hydra.

The rattlesnake managed to pull the quillmouse free of its hiding hole, however, teeth deep in the prey's neck. She set it down as the mouse stilled, and started to apologize, but Mirage hopped even closer and reached forward to touch the side of her beak to V's cheek. "No, no, no! It's alright! You did an amazing job! We can take this back to Quentin, he'll be so impressed!"

... Ah, but she hadn't caught it. Maybe she should try to get one of her own... Two mice split between three of them would be plenty of food. "-- I'll catch the next one, no sweat." She raised her head proudly, puffing up her chest feathers.

Even as she suggested it, however, she turned her head to scan the horizon, and struggled to pick up anything among the hot, blinding light and the deep crevices of the earth. She hopped further down a ways, feeling a bit lost and uncertain. She was... Definitely nervous, to say the least, especially now that V had done such a good job...

@Vee