[Quest] Thunder From Above Lightening From Below

[Gossamer]

Timestamp: TBD by Sairque Location: The Wilderness around Wind Reach and Thunder Bay Purpose: Gnora's Gnosis Status: Closed. Open to Sairque They were flying patrol. It wasn't actually Sairque's patrol. Oh no, one of Sairque's wingseconds had come up with a bug which automatically grounded him and his eagle, leaving the slot open. No one volunteered. No one ever did. The Endals worked hard as it was and with a dozen nestlings unbonded and two more birds grounded with injury they were short staffed as usual. The nestlings would fledge soon and hopefully bond giving Sairque's wing first pick at the newest recruits. There were two promising birds among the six, but four seemed either off color or a bit small for their age which Sairque knew would make them prone to injury. Patrol duty normally equated to storm watch. Storms could rear their ugly heads in a matter of minutes and catch hunters, gatherers, and laborers unaware. Thunder bay was notoriously for its lightening storms, so all the patrols normally did was keep an eye on the weather. Today's weather was iffy. There was no set pattern of storm, but it looked like it wasn't above the world to throw one out of nowhere. So far so good. And at least this patrol wasn't wholly devoted to weather watching. Today they were on alert for migrating Sytala - nasty reptilian creatures that flew just enough to glide and attack workers in Thunder Bay. They were good eating, but fierce things about the size of horses and well armored. Wind Eagles, if they could grab them, would capture them, spiral up, and drop them after shaking them violently suddenly. The shake almost always snapped their neck if done right, and the fall - or more accurately the sudden stop - usually tenderized the meat. Catabasis had already killed four Sytala and they weren't even hunting. This wasn't a surprise though. Riders on patrol often did so, more habit than anything, since they considered patrol just as much hunting as hunting. Only Watchriders didn't leave their post to hunt opportunities when they arose. But patrol riders had no qualms. So Catabasis was slow on his route because of the return trips to thunder bay each time bringing in a kill. It always impressed the workers there that some eagles hunted more and hunted better quality than others... and that Sairque did it on her patrol never ceased to cause them to talk. More Sytala were out there too... moving in singles, pairs, or flocks of four. It was the right time of year for it. Movement caught Catabasis's eye below and he banked suddenly without warning to his rider. Four... four Sytala were gathered around a fresh killed buck, fighting over it. Sairque was now deep over the range that reached out across the northern arch of islands that created thunder bay. Sand, trees, even jagged rocks loomed below as Catabasis swept overhead scattering the Cytala. the three were bigger than normal, fast, and when the eagle's shadow crossed over their kill, they scattered in complete and utter chaos. Two went after Calabasis and the other two circled back to guard the kill. The big wind eagle was fast, but he didn't have the maniuverablility others of his kind had. The Sytala came at him from underneath, flying more than gliding, which was unusual, though their was for some reason a powerful updraft here. Had Sairque or Calabasis looked up, they'd have noted the reason for it. Black storm clouds gathering, the huge ones that never boded well. These where the things that the riders on patrol looked for to give Thunder Bay a heads up that bad weather was moving in. But they came up fast. They created updrafts, and the Sytala could ride them higher than normal and be more airborne than normal beneath the giant upwellings of air. Unexpectedly, teeth sank into tail feathers and Calabasis lost one in a bloody spurt of pain. Crying out in rage, the wind eagle pumped his wings and took them out of range of the gliders... up and up and up straight into angry storm clouds. They were engulfed in boiling darkness within seconds, slap dab in the middle of sheet lightening from cloud to cloud. Catabasis knew his mistake immediately and turned on a wingtip heading down and out of the mess. He almost made it too until lightening exploded all around them. Sairque felt the pain course through her and she felt her eagles pain as he simply suddenly fell from the sky alight with electric glow. She tumbled from the saddle as well, both stunned, they began to fall... Sairque was in tremendous pain. So too was her eagle. They rolled over and over again, falling limply from the sky. Safety straps snapped and a sudden surge of rain pelted them making visibility near impossible. The two separated. One had to love Fall in Wind Reach. Catabasis would not be fell straight like Sairque did. He instead tumbled sideways rocked by winds and the uplift from their sudden plunge and seemingly disappeared from both Sairque's vision and her inner awareness. On her part she fell and fell, death rising up to greet her. Only... Dira put in no appearance. Sairque hit one tree top, then another then another falling through them, slowing her descent just enough to save her life. When she hit the forest floor, she knew immediately she wasn't in the water where she would have drowned. She hadn't even been unlucky enough to hit the sand which would have felt like stone from the velocity of her fall. Instead she was in dense forest, and she knew she was going to live. Her arm was broken and there were burns all over her, some worse than others, but she was alive even as she lay in the duff stunned. Catabasis was nowhere to be seen in the thick growth.

[Sairque]

Rubbing at fatigue irritated eyes, the small woman once again tried to work out the most efficient schedule for her wing. This latest loss really threw a kink in the delicate balance of rest and work (a losing battle) they'd managed to achieve as shorthanded as they already were. Though she knew it was both premature and pessimistic, she couldn't help but plan for the downed rider's death at the hand of his illness. The one saving grace for Riders was the simple fact that they just didn't come into contact with as many people as the rest of the mountain. They had their own list of killers, and even though pestilence lived a few notches down in comparison to the rest of the Inarta population, the fatality rate was only a little bit better. Thank Rak’keli for the infirmary and blessed healers. Now if only there was someone to help with the other dangers. The only hope for their sanity and survival, tired hunters made stupid mistakes, was the timely bonding of those fledglings. At this point, even one of those four iffy ones would be welcomed into the wing with delight. Perhaps she could be creative with their deployment and somehow mitigate their chances of injury. Get them experience through low-risk patrols or watches, or something. The wing on a whole would still be limping along, but perhaps they could then focus the highly experienced Riders on what they did best and become more productive in certain regards due to lightened stress load. Despite the busy day with dangerous Sytela practically throwing themselves at the duo and the ambiguous weather, it quickly became abundantly clear that the Endal relied upon her mount's sharp focus more than she should. From the very start, this encountered boded ill. Catabasis sharply banked left, and Sai, lost in thought and not holding on in even the vaguest sense of the word, continued forward. Slipping to the right, only quick reflexes saved her the fall when she instinctively jabbed her left heel into a depression of the saddle and halted long enough to latch on properly with her hands. Jerking herself back up, strong thighs latched on like vice grips to prepare for any and all subsequent maneuvers. Those neglected safety straps also found themselves winched down tight. Even tuning back in to Catabasis, who assumed his rider would be right on board with him regarding everything, didn't clear the situation up at all. Suddenly the hindquarters of an attacking Sytela disappeared beneath one massive wing, and the strange sensation of another force, different from wind, acting on the body of the Eagle, had Sai whipping around to greet the hungry, feather filled teeth of another creature. Catabasis screeched, his pain reverberating off the heavy air and through Sai's skull. His pain plucked their bond in sharp twinges. The Sytela's armored body undulated unusually, though nothing within her field of vision could account for it. Its head was easily half again the size of any she'd ever seen before. Catabasis tipped back even as Sai moved to pull out a knife with the imprudent intention of physically removing the Sytela from her Eagle's hind end. With a better view of the creature, it was flying. However, what this might mean on a larger scale would be musings for later, as Sai was saved the attempt to fight the thing off by several powerful beats of those wings moving them out of the little beast's range and into the dark stewings of the storm. Not exactly an ideal maneuver. Fighting the desire to scrunch her eyes closed and pray that the humming and electrified feel of the air didn't mean what it should mean, the little hunter flattened against her Eagle and determinately faced the dangers. They were almost out, optimism germinated. Light blinded them, she could feel Catabasis shrugging off the shock and trying to work through the pain to continue their exodus from danger. She wasn’t sure how long they’d been separated, his body flipping end over end to disappear in an ominous grey haze of chilly rain, when the realization struck that they’d parted ways. The familiar sensation of momentum suddenly changing, the stomach visiting the throat, wind whipping the breath from between her lips, was almost a comfort to ease the searing, sharp burn of scorched flesh. Sai numbly watched the dark tumbling silhouette until nothing more remained, a strange calm stifling the panic of the situation. If there was a way to go, none could beat the serene vacuity of falling; even with the unpleasant circumstances. A crystal clear memory surfaced; plummeting just like this and waiting for Dira to claim herself plus a child and his young eagle. Then, she’d been slightly pissed off. Now, it was the inevitable. Who would take over the Wing…would her spirit invade Aidara’s body like Catabasis had told them? The end of the memory flared, incited by the sudden void that swallowed up the little box in the back of her mind she’d labeled Catabasis. He’d reluctantly saved her then, ultimately giving the bond. Now…now he took it back, leaving her to the mercy of the tumultuous sea below. Couldn’t blame him. Just as she gave up the fight, accepting there was no hope for survival and allowing her body to stop worrying over the dire condition she must certainly be in, thin and pliant branches smacked the charred flesh. Ah, how refreshing. Revitalizing, really. Crying out, branches snapped under the plummeting force of the rider, and the rider snapped over the unyielding strength of the ground. Eyes rolling this way and that, struggling to discern the shapes and offer clarification to that stunned mind, the abused Endal didn’t dare move. Nothing crashed through the brush after her, no avian screams of pain greeted her. How long she laid there, coherent thought long gone…who cared. Grunting at just the thought of moving from the position she’d quite firmly imprinted into the soft duff of the forest, Sairque resumed being okay with laying there like a limp noodle. When finally roused, stiffly rolling over to stumble weakly to her feet, the general ache specialized. Searing pain lingered in a long sheet from one shoulder all the way to the opposite hip, and various other splotches of charred flesh dotted scraped limbs. Her left arm was definitely broken and cradled in her right. The rider quickly rethought gratefully leaning against the solid presence of a nearby tree when a fortunately placed burn reminded her that contact with other things should be avoided. Grunting, the woman set off toward what she hoped was the beach. Walking, thought processes corrected from those she’d entertained while falling. The most important being in regards to Catabasis. Whether the disappearance indicated his death or not, she had to find him. Had anyone noticed their absence, their plight? Would Addy have picked up on anything? They were pretty far away from anything. Had those Sytela watched their fall? Were they closing in? She had to find Catabasis.