Solo To Old Shores

[Faradae]

Spring 12th, 517 AV

There was excitement in the way the eagle flapped her wings, gliding gracefully through the afternoon sky. She had more than a goal now: She had an adventure.

She had left Alvadas the first day of spring, with a bit of boredom and homesickness mingling and sending her fingertips twitching to be feathered again. She loved Ionu’s city of illusion, it had its own charm, but she could not feel at home here, not in the way she had in Nyka. In fact, she was not sure she could feel quite at home anywhere. Syliras had been too clustered, Alvadas too changing. Nyka was restrictive, and she knew the monks were not to be trifled with, but she needed to see her family every once in a while and stay until that feeling of longing and the urge to see nothing but forest beneath and endless sky ahead got the better of her again.

She had crossed the Suvan Sea at its narrowest point this time, on wing. The first time, she had booked passage upon a ship to make the journey, but she needed a different perspective, this time. She had to spend a few days in the wilds before she approached Syliras, and while she still did felt exposed and uncomfortable out there, she had begun to develop a routine over the course of her last journeys. As long as she did not stay too long in one place and never landed on the ground, the dangers were reduced significantly.

Syliras was a hub of whispers, just as it had been last time. Stormhold castle was comparable to a buzzing, smelling beehive, and while Faradae did not enjoy the place much, now that she had seen its most exciting parts, it was a necessary stop before starting a longer trip into the wilds. She knew a few people here, but did not bother to seek them out – the only one she asked after was Alexander Faircroft, the squire she had met in an alleyway a year ago and who had promised to teach her basic fighting techniques, but those she asked either did not know him or told her he had left – where to, she was unable to find out. There were more acquaintances, Vivienne, Ball, but she had nothing to ask of them and nothing to tell, so she kept for herself did not stay longer than necessary. She purchased dried meat to last her for a while and stuffed her harness full of it, sacrificing the space she usually used for thin garments and letters. The leather pouch was not designed for rations, but it had enough space to keep the eagle fed for a week or longer, if she hunted successfully. Once again, she silently thanked the tanner who had designed the piece for her. It had been affordable, and the work was solid.

She visited the Temple of All Gods once and offered a prayer to Eywaat, the only god she worshipped continuously and out of habit; and Aquiras, whom she had felt closer to ever since her first journey. She overheard some prayers, and one caught her interest: It was thanks for luck and the sign of the star.

The star?

Curiously, she had asked after the phenomenon, and learnt that a falling star had been sighted to the north at season change. Now that she knew what to pay attention to, it did not take long to gather all information available: Some saw a good omen, some a bad one. A sign of the gods, a gift, the precursor of seven years of misfortune.

But nobody knew what it truly had been, and Faradae felt the familiar spark in her heart: She needed to find out.

Ledger-5gm deducted for 1lb of salted pork.

[Faradae]

Spring 25th, 517 AV

Faradae was steadily running out of provisions. Her supply of salted pork would not last her longer than a day or two now if she did not hunt to stock up. Even so, she had no equipment to preserve food and lacked the skill on top of that. Her only chance was to hunt continuously. Small game, once a day. She did not need much, a mouse or a rabbit would do. But even mice and rabbits needed to be sought out and found, snuck up on and caught before they had a chance to escape. Faradae had hunted before, and part of the process came to her naturally, but she was by no means adept at the craft.

The landscape below seemed to be stretching on forever. Forests upon bogs upon forests and rolling hills, the Wildlands of Sylira were a repetitive pattern that looked all the same from above. Some areas were preferable to Faradae than others. The land around Nyka was marshy, so navigating the wetlands was easier for her than a tangle of trees. There had been an unfortunate encounter with yukmen in a bog on her first journey ever, and it had made her cautious. Even if she could not see a danger from above, that did not mean that nothing would spring her if she dared land.

Just as she could spot enemies earlier without trees littering the horizon, so could prey sense her. It was not like she had not tried hunting before. Her eyes allowed her to spot voles easily, but their little feet always scurried away before she could swoop low enough for the catch.

Hunger twisted her stomach, but she refused to use up the supplies she carried around in her harness. They were too precious, and she needed to save up what little she had left for extremely dire situations. Her small size was a blessing and a curse: She did not need much to sustain herself, but she also could not carry much.

She was low now, her belly’s down feathers almost touched the surface of the murky water below. Muddy puddles and lakes bordered each other here, with slim, treacherous paths of dirt snaking on between them. It was unwise to land here, even less wise to shift. It took little weight to sink in, and she had heard enough stories of folk being lost to swamp and will-o’-wisps not to take her chances.

But the animals living here knew where to put their feet, knew where it was safe to tread. She spotted a sleepy horned owl in the crooked arms of a lone rowan tree and sailed higher to land closely. The owl’s eyes opened a little wider as it regarded her with open curiosity.“What are you?”

“An eagle from the south”, Faradae replied, aware that her colours were unusual and her camouflage alack.

“What brings you here?”, the owl asked, narrowing her eyes. It was hard to tell whether she was suspicious or simply sleepy.

“Traveling north,” Faradae said a little evasively. She was not sure the owl would take it well if she told her that she was human as much as she was avian. It was not a risk she was willing to take, not while she was alone and needed help. “Seeking what fell from the sky.”

“The star of colours”, the owl remarked, and it was not a question. “Very well. You must head north, little eagle, beyond the wetlands, into the deep forest. The birds are wary of outsiders there, be prepared.”

[Faradae]

“I need your help with something else,” Faradae said, inching closer to the owl. “You live here, and you hunt here. Whenever I try to catch something to eat, the prey sees and hears me before I’m close enough to kill it, and so I stay hungry.”

The owl made a sound that came close to a sneer, and Faradae realized that the only reason she was speaking to her was the owl’s feeling of superiority. She was a stranger to be laughed about, perhaps a little crazy for venturing into the unknown all by herself. It was true, she did not know where she was going, and part of her envied those who had a home, but she was a driven one, never satisfied until she had seen it all. In her heart, she held the same disregard for the horned owl as the owl did for her. In that regard, they were equal.

“Has your master not taught you how to provide for yourself, little eagle?”

Ah, so that’s where the arrogance was coming from. The owl had spotted Faradae’s harness and assumed that she was a pet, or perhaps a messenger bird gone astray.

“Has the star’s pretty light convinced you to abandon your job and see if you can make it on your own? I already told you that the birds up north are less welcoming than I am. If you aren’t even able to hunt, it’d be wiser to turn back now and seek refuge with whoever usually feeds you.”

“Wait, I –“ But the owl shrugged her off and took flight, vanishing over a hilltop. Faradae was left alone on a shaking rowan, none the wiser.

The star had been seen here, more clearly than it had been from Syliras. She was close now, and the owl had given her directions. It had also called the object Fara was seeking a “star of colours”. Faradae had no idea what colours she was talking about, but it was an interesting new detail.

As she sat motionless and pondered, something moved below. There was a tingle in the water, circular waves and a furred body. A muskrat climbed out of the puddle it had previously taken a bath in, unaware of the eagle above. Faradae tensed, aware of the chance arising. Her wings twitched to dive right at the mammal, but she willed herself to stay still just a little longer. The muskrat skittered along the water’s edge, closer to a cluster of reedmace. It bit off a stem and began to chow on it.

That was when Faradae struck. She was certain that the muskrat would see her move from the corner at its eyes and try to flee, so she did not try to approach it stealthily. She pushed herself off the branch audibly and dove for the mammal as fast as she could. The distance was short, but the muskrat reacted quickly. It shot up and darted for the water. Faradae barely reached its thick tail, but that was enough to stagger the rat. It screeched in pain and slowed in its escape. Before it could swim to safety, the eagle had caught up and unceremoniously lifted it out of the water with sharp talons.

[Faradae]

The muskrat was her only catch in several days. A glorious feast for a starving eagle, it filled her belly and refreshed her spirits. Her strength regained, she pushed the horned owl’s warnings aside and continued her journey northwards.

The bogs slowly dried into meadows and forest. The grass was lush and green at first, with the groundwater level not far underneath the earth. There was small game here, but Faradae had just eaten and did not need to hunt again so soon. She glided high above, using the currents and barely flapping her wings, saving energy for when she would need it more direly. Instead, she watched the patterns below: Which trees stood in clusters, which stood alone, which close to rivers? Where did the rabbits run when they spotted her shadow? They hid in burrows, behind ferns and in thickets. On open lands, she spotted hares, faster than her on the ground, and always on their own. Forest rabbits were different; they were always in groups, warning one another when they heard something suspicious. Their little ones, she imagined, remained in the holes they dug with their strong hind legs, safely guarded by their grown-up family. They were fat and plump here, with abundant vegetation to feast on, but she noted that none of them were slow. The slow ones and those that did not hide fast enough, she figured, had long since been eaten by creatures that did not show themselves in broad daylight.

Slowly, the land shifted from meadow to grove and then, to forest. The trees became denser and grassy areas scarcer. From time to time, Faradae happened across a meadow or a shallow river. Those were the places where she settled for the night. Never quite out in the open, and never in caves, even if the smells were stale. Sometimes, she could tell where a fox or a badger had once dwelled, but she could never be certain that other predators would not seek out the same shelters in case of rain or storm, and that was a risk she could not take. More seasoned survivors, she was sure, would have laughed at her for her caution and the numerous shortcomings that she was certain her defences had, but so far, she had survived, so it could not be all wrong. She had yet to meet a person in a city that could teach her how to survive better than her own instincts could.

After the horned owl, she met no other birds of prey, or at least none showed themselves to her. She came across a few sparrows and heard the occasional woodpecker or nightingale, but they fled when they saw her. An eagle was a bird of prey, and smaller birds knew to be cautious. Even though Faradae would have liked conversation right then, it was true that she might have hunted them if she were hungry.

[Faradae]

Spring 27th, 517 AV

Two days later, the hole in her belly was once again large enough to make Faradae feel hollowed out. The forest had been promising at first, but once she attempted to hunt here, she realized just how different it was from the marshland she was used to. The trees were treacherous, casting shadows and dappled light, mimicking movement where there was none. More than once, Faradae thought she had spotted prey and dived between the trunks only to find herself hunting a leaf or a branch. Even if the prey was real, the time it took her to find her way down to the bottom of the labyrinth of bark and wood was twice of what a mouse needed to find one of the many entrances to its tunnel system. The area was incredibly hard to navigate. Her wingspan was just too large to fit between trees when fully extended, and the thickening of the forest did not help. She staggered between branches and went down in a bundle of leaves, usually regaining her balance just before she hit the ground. She flapped frantically when she was threatening to go too low, and it happened more with increasing hunger, when her strength faltered and her attention slipped. There were bruises where bone was close to the skin, and a few nicked feathers. Once, she dropped into a pile of leaves and pebbles and took several chimes to get back up.

She attempted to hunt again, but it was harder now. More trees meant less undergrowth and more cautious prey. The rabbits here were thin and wiry and more careful. The forest was quieter, the birds sang a song of breeze and shadows and Faradae could feel the chill. She spotted a wild cat on silken paws, caught up in its own hunt. While the feline was too large for her to fight, she watched the approach it took from above. The cat took in the air, perked its ears, moved in a certain pattern – it circled the mouse it was staling until its scent drifted away from the small rodent. It set its feet carefully, and its pelt blended into the surroundings. There was no sense the mouse could have used to detect the predator – a perfect hunter. Faradae envied the grace with which the cat pounced on its prey and brought it down. She half-hoped that it would hide the catch between the leaves and seek out more – as it was, she was not above stealing. But the wild cat picked up the mouse and left the clearing.

Faradae’s own sense of hearing was good, so she could find prey. But her smelling was underdeveloped, and predicting where her own one was drifting was hard for her, even if she could tell where the wind was heading. The bluish shade of her feathers stood in stark contrast against the greens and browns of the forest, and her talons scraped over the ground. She was not sneaky at all.

Each vole fled before she approached, each rabbit heard her from miles away. Most of the time, she was completely alone wherever she went. On the third day, she ate another piece of the salted pork she had brought, and devoured the last scrap on the fourth day.

On the 28th of spring, she was completely out of food.

[Karyk]

 

Faradae

Skills
Observation: 2
Socialization: 1
Hunting: 2
Wilderness Survival: 2

Lores
Rumor: A star fell to the north
Owls can give directions, if you speak the language
Wild birds look down about domestic birds
Trees often provide tricky, and annoying, shadows
Wilderness Survival: Picking safe places to land and shift in a bog
Wilderness Survival: Seeking shelter; never in caves, never in the open
Miscellaneous

 

Notes and Comments

CS Checkmarked: ✓
CS Reviewed by Me: ✓
Season Request was Submitted for Grade: Summer 517
Season of last IC post: Summer 517
Season of last Paid Seasonal Expense: Spring 517
Eligible for grade? Yes

I didn't see any wilderness survival in this thread, mostly hunting and observation.

Edited after extensive lore discussion.

An enjoyable thread, particularly with the interaction with the owl. Well done. Please mark your queue post as graded.