Too Much Work (Hermit)

[Hermit]

The ancient simian watched with slowly blinking eyes as the girl stood and tried to compose herself. His deep pools of liquid amber swallowed her whole. It seemed an easy choice to make in his own opinion, but it wasn't him making the choice. Humans, despite being the oldest race in Mizahar, often seemed to weigh their choices out in life with the ponderance of a hummingbird.

"Perhaps at first I was not clear.
I'll try again for you, my dear.
Your choices are as clear as night.
You may take the owlet or simply take flight."

Her answer was the same as most humans. Fear and distrust. It would be a shame to let this time and this owlet go to waste. Perhaps he would attempt to save it if the girl could not comprehend. Taking a small sigh, which would easily encompass the full lungfuls of several men, he took a moment to rub the fur on his head before placing his hand back on the ground.

"Human, human, full of fear.
No one made you trespass here.
You chose to enter and claim a prize.
Now you have it and still surmise."

He pushed his large face and rarely blinking eyes toward her until the air leaving his nostrils caused her hair to move. Subtlety was not with this one. A shame considering the nature of the Sootwings. His voice was a whisper, yet at the range he spoke it, it was impossible to overlook.

"I will put it plain.
This is no game.
You have crossed the point of no return.
When the owlet came to hands, not wings
Its life took a momentous turn.

If you decide to run and cower,
You take the bird or you do not,
If left behind, its mother chooses
Its life will end, Caiyha casts her lot."

[Aidara]

Addy blinked in confusion as the giant creature began to rhyme at her again, scolding her misunderstanding. Though the past bell had completely whirled her scenes out of proprotion, the little woman hardly even had any idea where she was, let alone what was going on.

"Wait... she'd kill her baby?!" Mothering instincts surged, arms tightening around the bundle she kept in her arms, still careful of the splint. "Why would a mother kill her baby?" Even in the animal kindgom, this seemed overly cruel.

It didn't even take a thought for Addy to make a decision. She had come out here hoping to catch her own bird anyway, hadn't she? Sure, maybe an owl wasn't her first choice but...

"I'll keep it. I will not let it die." Green eyes were hardened, her bottom lip jutting out in defiance as she finally raised her gaze to meet that of the giant Jamoura's. A little shiver of fear tried to wriggle down her spine but Addy hardened her resolve, squaring her shoulders and bracing herself. She took a step forward, towards the Jamora, so that she had to tilt her head back to keep their gaze in contact.

"Call her off. This chick is mine."

[Hermit]

The Jamoura wanted to think about fear and how it applied to the young woman before him, but he knew as well as any that once a Jamoura began to ponder a thing, time began to slip like water in the midst of the thought. Perhaps he would do so later, once she and the little owlet were gone and silence returned to the forest. A sigh, which no doubt escaped as a great bellows to Aidara, crossed the lips of the great simian. She would never understand. Perhaps she would, but not this day. He turned his lips upward into a smile.

"A choice was made.
A life was saved.
Your understanding
A casualty."

"Perhaps in time
You'll come to find
That motherhood
Is complexity."

Looking up into the trees, the light of the moon glinted off of the mother Sootwing's eyes. He knew that any semblance of pain could not be felt for the little one now. Its scent masked permanently by human hands, a switch flipped in the mother, who nonchalantly gave a shrill and final hoot before disappearing into the night. Looking back down to the defiant woman before him, he shuffled backward. It was plodding and with purpose, not a retreat but a graceful maneuver.

His head turned slightly as he pondered the two before he also turned away, creeping back into the foliage. Nightfall and the Jamoura's kinship with Caiyha made it soon seem as if the great ape and its companion had never been there at all. The small bundle of black fuzz chirped in approval to its new mother.

[Hermit]

Thread Award

Negotiation 3
Animal Husbandry 3
Observation 2


Meeting a Jamoura
Nature's Cruelty

You are now the proud owner/mother of a Sootwing Owlet. The Sootwings are a breed of owl which look like horned owls, but their colors are a sooty black and tufts of dark gray, lending to their given name. In darkness, they are supreme hunters, as their camouflage and silent swoop give their prey no chance of escape. Of course, in snowy terrain or in daylight they are not so camouflaged.

Thank you for your patience and I hope you are pleased with the results.

Please PM me should this not be the case.