Songs of Reamere - Hurik's Entry: The Night Before Preparing

"Goodnight girl," with a yawn, a tall elf says to his stryx, Hurik, after he leads her out of the barn for the night. Thankfully it was still a couple of days away before the trip to Reamere would begin for everyone, so he was free to catch up on sleep and try to convince Iolana to take his hawk in his stead so he does not have to deal with the deep waters that come with voyaging over the ocean. Giving one last pat on the shoulder of the dark point brown hawk, the orange haired elf walks off toward his treehouse hidden in the nearby forest.

Watching her elf walk off, Hurik gives an inner smirk at being free from watchful eyes - well watchful eyes that can make her behave that is. Only her elf and his dark-haired female human friend can make her behave as other people and stryx are not impressive enough for her to listen to. Thinking again, she remembers the large white and teal gryph, Fuyu Negai, and shudders. Quickly running to get a start on her flight for a night hunt, the brown hawk does her best not to think of her past encounters with Fuyu Negai and instead ponders on what she over heard about the sea monster from the stryx coming in for the night and the people coming to check up on the other stryx throughout the day. The thought of fighting a strange beast while having to maneuver over the sea was a thrill that she could not wait to grasp with her bright red and blue feet. Imagining a large mysterious beast clasped in under her claws as it tries to strangle her and break free from her hold excites her enough to set of a cry as she wanders through the thick forest under the cover of the night.

Hearing a reply to her cry, the female hawk comes out of her fantasies on the battle to come and pauses in her flight. Quieting down and landing nearby, she finds a dusty red lycan spotted with darker reds along their body and grayer red points in the distance grumpily staring at a few young stryx that had come out for the night. It seems some youngsters came into Eterio's sights again and they did not hear about his dislike for the young seeing as they are still trying to beg the grumpy lycan to help them hunt. Despite all of their enthusiastic cries, Hurik could tell that he was soon to blow his top on them. Debating on whether to knock some sense into the young stryx or eat melon seeds on the side, Hurik saw that there was no chance to choose when she spotted a beast hidden from the view of the group ready to pounce on the unsuspecting younglings.

Jumping up in a standstill liftoff, the bright beaked-and-footed, dark pointed, brown stryx rushes forward and attacks the beast shrouded in shadows just as it was about to hit one of the unsuspecting stryx badgering the lycan. With cries of astonishment at the sudden intrusion of beast and bird, the younger birds scrambled away from fight and tried their best to see if there are any other beasts lurking in the shadows with the little training and experience they have. In panic, they did not notice the second beast that was lurking in the shadows in case its partner needed it. Seeing its companion being attacked, it came out and joined the fray, leaving Hurik stuck dealing with two large predators draped in shadows. Taking a chance, she let go of the first beast and called out to the lycan standing back from the fight and looking like it just wanted to just leave now that the young birds were not annoying him anymore. "Instead of running away like a coward, help!" Giving a sharp cry as one of the beasts took the time for her to call out to claw at her side, the hawk returned her attention back to the fight, only having slight hope that the grump of a red lycan would help kill these blasted monsters. "I never should have come this way tonight!" she complains to herself in her thoughts as she snaps her bright beak on the second monster that was starting to show more feline features as they fought on and she wounded the two creatures that dared to harm her kind, friend or stranger besides, within her sights.

Glancing over at the young stryx, the spotted red lycan huffed and finally decided to help the hawk that swooped in unexpectedly while he was being bombarded by a trio of twerps who have yet to know about his care toward youths of any kind. Since he was partly at fault for not paying attention despite the annoyances bouncing and clamoring around him, he felt it was better to help the hawk deal with the feline-like monsters rather than leaving her to her own fight. Not to say that being called a coward by the hawk was pleasant, but it beat having to calm the brats who were still freaking out over almost being attacked from not watching their surroundings. Sneaking around back behind the side the beasts were on, Eterio smacked one with his left wing claw to grab its attention off of Hurik and proceeds to bite it's leg as it turned toward him, granting him a roar from the sudden pain it felt as he bit down.

With less pressure on her after the lycan tanked one of the felids off of her, Hurik had a better grasp on the first feline that she started attacking with more ferocity without interference from the second one. Quickly smacking it with her wings and giving it a large and fatal gash on its abdomen, Hurik pushed the monster off of her and took a breather from the fight. Keeping watch as the feline tried to get up and attack her again in an attempt to hurt her before it died in hopes to not die in vain, Hurik took a couple of steps forward and lunged at its neck, chomping on it hard with her beak and killing it before it had a chance to. Looking over at the dusty clay male that was fighting the second feline beast, she saw that while the lycan had the upper hand, she could help him end the life of the predator faster and not let him suffer more harm than what they have already obtained. Once Eterio move sideways away from her, the hawk shot over and clipped the feline with her wing, stunning it and letting the lycan bite down on its neck, taking the life of it soon after its partner lost its last breath to death.

As Hurik watched the other stryx finish off the feline monster, both of which can now be identified as scrathoses, giant creatures that look like a mix of leopards and lions with the manes and fur of lions and afghan hounds, now that the shadows they manipulated were fully gone from their forms, she wondered who the parents or teachers of the young stryx were as they did not teach them about either Eterio nor about the dangers of making a ruckus in the forest while forgetting their surroundings. Looking back toward the trio that were now quietly huddled by the trunk of a large tree that had some bushes near it, she shot off some questions toward the lycan who was dealing with the aftermath. "Do you know who were the ones to teach the young stryx or their parents are? And why were they not giving up on getting you to help them hunt? Was there no one else that led them?"

Catching his breath while taking stock of the scrapes he now has because of the stupid beast, Eterio looked back at the hawk that had the audacity to call him a coward earlier and replied with a firm, "I do not know, nor do I care to know." Before Hurik could respond the cloudy red clay lycan stalked over to the young stryx on his feet and wings and proceeded to smack the trio to the ground for hampering his night activities alone away from children of any kind. Much of his anger at their antics was dispelled through the fight with the scrathos just now, so he left it at that before turning back towards the female stryx who dropped in and was now resting in a bit of a daze from his calm actions as she was still expecting him to lash out at the juveniles because of them landing him in this mess in the first place.

With a tilt of her head, the hawk asks, "That is all?" as he turns back towards her. His only reply is to huff and walk back toward her direction. In hopes of getting some thoughts on her future journey with an older stryx, she asks, "Will you be going to Reamere? Do you know anything that could be useful out at sea?"

Instead of giving the response she hoped for, the lycan continues toward her and gives her a heavy clip from his wings. "That is for calling me a coward. And I will not be going, nor do I care for anything to do with there or the sea." With that he moves off into the shadows of the forest leaving one older stryx and three younger ones behind to deal with the corpses. 

Blinking, sighing, then grumbling at being smacked for an insignificant - at least to her - thing, Hurik looks over at the three young stryx that had not gotten up from being smack down by the lycan. "Did no one ever tell you not to bother Eterio?" She begins to rant off at them. "You three are lucky you just got off with a smack from him. He does not like younglings of any species and you just happened to chatter around him for what I can tell to be hours based on that he was about to blow his top off at you!" The trio got up with their heads lowered, not daring to interrupt the hawk for fear of being attacked after watching her fight and kill the felids who had put their sights on them. "I really ought to let your parents or teachers know what trouble you caused yourself tonight! You almost got killed because of your inattentiveness! You three were lucky there were both Eterio and I here to fend off the attack or you would have been less than scraps left!" Finishing her berating at the youths, she saw them with even lower heads than when she started. With a sigh, she waved them off with her wing, "Go on you three. Just remember your mistakes tonight and I won't go about trying to find your parents or teachers to tell them about tonight."

With a quiet cheer, the adolescents scrambled off into the woods in the opposite direction from where the grumpy lycan left, not daring to come across him again after finding out how bad it could have been and forgetting to ask Hurik to help them hunt. With a small smile at the young stryx, Hurik was once again left alone and just remembered that there were still two corpses lying out in the open. Looking up at the sky that peaked through the forest canopy, Hurik decided that because of the time spent in her imagination and the fight that it would be better to take the two scrathos back to the barns for processing instead of trying to find something else to hunt. While they are not the tastiest to eat right off, the riders and their folk have done wonders to make them edible after processing. With the thought of what she could get in return for bringing back the felines and more of what she might need to drag her elf off to Reamere to fight large and dangerous sea monsters, Hurik runs up into flight, turning back around to pick up the corpses and leaves the site of the fight to a final empty silence.

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Word count: 2049

AP for Hurik

Literature: +40

Extra Stryx: +3

Hunting: +4

Personal: +3

Total: 50

AP for Eterio

Literature: +40

Extra Stryx: +3

Hunting: +4

Total: 47