A Trip Down the Mountain (Closed)

[Renol]

OOCSorry for copying your layout, Sai, but it looked good and I have been wanting to start making my posts look better for a while now. Renol winked to Addy as he heard her burst with laughter at his comment, waving back to her friendly gesture. Fereo tipped his wing in greeting to the group, something that slightly surprised Renol as they flew along. He had to say that he was surprised to see Catabasis transporting someone like that. It wasn’t often an eagle carried a person like a talon sack. It was amusing to say the least. Sai mentioned paying catch and it was all Fereo could do to not barrel roll in excitement at the prospect Can we? You never play catch with me anymore. It’d be fun to toss a person back and forth. The last thing that was alive that Catabasis and I got to toss around was one of the fish we caught on the way back from the first trip carrying all that meat back. Renol shook his head slowly,” I don’t think that your charge would like that very much. And seeing as I haven’t even met her yet, it seems like it would be a little rude, you know?” Fereo pouted slightly before giving up on his little act and going back to watching where Catabasis lead. Renol nodded,” Sounds like it could be fun. Hopefully this time there won’t be a bear!” Renol joked slightly, hoping that the jest was in good spirits. He was still nursing a slight limp from the attack on their hunting trip and he still had the scars to prove what had happened. He knew one thing for sure. He was going to go back to the hunting ground in the spring, find that petching bear, and bring its hide back as a trophy. Nothing would look better as a rug in his foyer then that mammoth animal’s wretched pelt. Renol was still thankful for Sairque and Addy’s help. And Kovac as well, though he wasn’t here right now. Without them, he wouldn’t have survived that trip. He knew it all too well in his head. Fereo fell back into formation from the Catabasis, taking up position just off his right left wing and following closely. Renol watched carefully as they flew along, trying to get an idea of where they were going to. Fereo had tried to describe the location that Catabasis had pointed out to him, but it took the Endal a little bit to find the small area they were angling towards off in the distance. The rider leaned back in his saddle as Fereo kept close over the cold waters of the lake they flew over, taking a moment to relax while they lofted along on the updrafts the sun created off the water. Kanti was the easier lake to fly over, the constant rising steam giving strong updrafts to carry the eagles higher. But from what Fereo was telling him, that wasn’t quite the plan. Fereo was alight with glee as the other eagle dropped into a dive over the edge of the waterfall, screaming downwards. The smaller eagle took a moment, beating his wings to move into a high hover for half a second, getting some distance between them as the larger eagle took the trio downward. Can I? Renol grinned slightly, shaking his head as he settled down tighter into the saddle to hold on ”It’s what we came out here for, right?” That was all Fereo needed before he tucked his head down, rolling his body as his wings tucked in and he headed down into a blistering downward dive. The eagle let out a shrieking cry as he sped downward, outpacing even the falling water as he fought to catch up to Catabasis. Renol leaned forward, tucking his body close to the eagle’s once more to keep from getting pulled off the back of the great eagle. Catabasis would have had to go a little slower, considering he was carrying someone below him. Fereo didn’t have that to worry about, knowing his rider would be able to hold on through the dive. Nearing the bottom of the falls, Fereo pushed his wings out once more, breaking hard against the air to bleed off excess speed as he leveled out, taking his place behind Catabasis once more as if nothing had happened. Renol sat up straight, wiping the beads of water from his face and stretching his back once more. Renol and Fereo glided along peacefully as the followed the group, happy to follow along in the rear. As the closed, both the eagle and rider started judging how it would be best to approach the meadow they were going to touch down in. The circled around, away from the direction that Catabasis was taking in, to come in from a direct opposite heading. Fereo came in low and fast over the tree’s dropping into the meadow as his wings fanned out and he set down, using a few quick hops along the ground to stop his forward momentum and come to a stop, folding his wings in again. Quickly Renol hopped off the back of the bird, dropping to the ground and unfastening the gear that he had brought with him. His bow went across his back , as well as his quiver and he checked his sword, which never left his side. He looked to Fereo and smiled,” Why don’t you head out and get a bit to eat. See if Catabasis wants to go with.” Fereo studied his rider for a moment I don’t know. Last time I left you alone with these women, you almost didn’t come back. Renol glared at Fereo for a moment before turning and heading off toward the group. He waved to Sai, following her over toward where the other eagle had dropped his under slung passenger,” She alright? Looked like a little bumpy landing…”

[Aidara]

OOCI'm sorry for how long it's taking me to post, and the lack of quality. I'm having a lot going on in school right now The dive was surely the best part, though it did take Aidara by surprise. She felt her sister shift against her hold on the Endals waist, leaning back, just moments before it happened. She felt the lurch of gravity trying to reclaim her, and leaned forward into her sisters back as the eagle beneath them dropped into a dive. The wind whipped past them, tugging at her hair and clothes. The force of their decent stung her eyes, and she was forced to squeeze them shut as a few tears were dragged down across her cheeks. Okay, she was not crying, it was what-the-petch-this-wind-hurts tears. Leakage. That was it. Her eyes were leaking. Ah well, before she knew it, Addy was rolling off of Catabasis's back in a way similar to her sisters display of gymnastics, but far less graceful. "Far less" meaning she actually tumbled from the saddle and landed spread eagle (no pun intended) on the ground, face in the grass. A sigh, and the healer just laid there for a moment or two, breathing in the rich scents of the grass and soil. Ahhhhh, nature. Pushing herself to her feet, Addy looked around for her fellow fliers...and saw nobody at all. Fereo and Catabasis sat not far away, the former with his head tucked under his wing while the latter preened pompously. Green eyes picked apart the surroundings, and couldn't find her three companions anywhere. Interesting. Well, she would have heard it if they all had been brutally attacked while she lounged. Plus, they didn't come here for a picnic or a romp around on the field. They came for herbs. Well, she came for herbs. Sai came for her, and Renol came for Sai. Smiling to herself, Addy set off towards the edge of the forest to begin her search. The others would be able to catch up once they stopped romping around, doing whatever it was that they were doing.

[Silwyn]

Silwyn rolled down a small hill once the eagle dropped her off in the forest. She struggled to get to her feet, not used to standing after the trip. Silwyn placed her right hand against the bark of a nearby tree to help steady herself, the other hand was grabbing at the red hair atop her head, trying to keep it from spinning.

Silwyn could vaguely make out the sound of crunching leaves as someone approached her. Within a few minutes, Sai came into view. Or at least, she was pretty sure it was Sai; her vision was a little blurry. Silwyn thought whoever it was may have said something, perhaps about how she was doing, or how long she would take, but she wasn't sure. She just nodded, clutching her head in one hand, and slowly moving the other off the tree. Slowly, she walked over to the other figure, realizing that it was certainly Sai, from her stance, dress, and long red hair, she definitely didn't want the eagle rider to know just how dizzy she was. So she walked slow, made the fact that she couldn't walk in a straight line seem a little less obvious, to her at least.

When she reached Sai, she asked her where everyone else had went, since she didn't see anyone anymore, not even the eagles in the distance. All she saw were trees- oaks, maples, white birch, and little slivers of sky through the autumn leaves if you looked up at the treetops.

Well, this is going to be easy, Silwyn thought to herself. Everything I need is right here.

Finally, the effects of the flight had worn off, and Silwyn wasn't dizzy anymore. She could see Sai clearly, whereas a few moments before, the edges of her body were blurry. She smiled weakly up at the eagle rider before picking up a few acorns which were scattered across the ground. She'd need those. When she had picked up all the acorns she could find, she placed them in the outer pocket of her bag, and asked if she should lead the way, or if Sai wanted to.

[Sairque]

Comfortable in the healer's ability to remain alive and well while on so simple a trip out as herb gathering, especially with two behemoth Wind Eagles, one of which turned down the offer to go eat but professed a desire that the other should hurry back to keep him company, Sairque fell into step with the other Endal and went in search of their luggage.

"I hope she's all right, Catabasis is generally more gentle with people he carts around in his talons but she offended him-well, you heard it back in the aeries," she chuckled, shaking her head and recalling the way Silwyn had spoken of Catabasis as though he were a carriage or horse or mule. Speaking of, the woman, disoriented and leaning too far to the left, came into view within a copse of trees. Tall grasses, dried out from the heat of summer, crunched underfoot as the two strode over. As always, those yellow eyes of hers scanned the area in search of any hostile animals. Some chipmunks(hereafter to be known as groundcougars) chittered angrily at the trio but otherwise left them alone.

Upon being asked where everyone else was, Sai glanced back at Renol and quirked a brow. Despite Silwyns attempt to hide the state of her balance, this question was the final straw. Maybe Silwyn thought she was seeing double. Maybe she had hit her head. With a sigh, the Endal gently took the dyer by the elbow and caught her eyes, making sure there was a spark of awareness in them and ensuring utmost attention. "Dyer, are you okay? Does your head hurt in any way?"

Luckily, if she needed a bit of patching up, they had a healer with them! Oh fortune! Sai was spoiled by always having medical attention just a short jaunt away, for the twins never spent much time apart...even when they tried.

At being assured that she was okay, Sai nodded, satisfied with the answer, and released the woman to collect her acorns. Encompassing Renol in her gaze, Sai took a deep breath of the fresh earthen air, and smiled as only one completely content in their current situation could. "I think, Dyer, that you should meet up with Aidara while Renol and I wander around a bit and make sure there's nothing lurking," she suggested in response to the woman's question.

[Renol]

Fereo bowed his head to Catabasis as he turned down the offer, I wonder if there are any bear around here. Renol shot a look over his shoulder to the eagle once more before the bird took flight once again, heading off to find a quick meal. He said that he wouldn’t be gone for too long. Renol wasn’t too worried at this point. Maybe the bird would go far enough out that the Endal wouldn’t be able to hear his snide remarks anymore. Renol walked along with Sai over to where the other passenger had landed. It couldn’t have been pleasant. Ahead of them, he saw the other member of the party come into view, watching as she picked herself up from leaning against the tree. Apparently it had been a little rougher then he had even guessed. But he followed along, letting Sai control this situation. She knew who this woman was, after all. He had just met her. The question about the others only brought a laugh from Renol as he stood there, shaking his head slowly for a moment, “I guess I’m just chopped liver then, huh?” He let out and exaggerated sigh for a second as Sai tended to the woman. Apparently she was a dyer. That would explain why she was picking up the acorns from the ground at least. He was hopping that she hadn’t hit her head THAT hard. Renol looked over to the angry little chipmunk and it’s high pitched chattering noise. He stomped his foot once and let out a short shout to scare it off. It was a personal thing, but he just couldn’t stand noises like that. They seemed to bite into his eardrums with each sound. So he was glad to see the little animal off. He looked back to the two, shaking his head for a second, “Sorry.” He shook his head again, rubbing the outside of his ear for a second to try and get the sound out of his mind.

OOCSorry. Another short post. Wasn’t sure where to go with this one. My creativity is running low today… But I needed to get these posts up.

[Aidara]

Humming happily to herself, Aidara flounced around in the forest- literally. Energized by their excursion and quickly getting over her irritation with Silwyn once the woman was out of sight, the healer was back to normal. Every once and a while, she happened upon a bush of berries or a particularly pretty flower. These were both plucked up with quick deft movements, followed by either popping the sweet morsel in her mouth or tying the flower into a braid in her hair. After only a few moments of this, Addy had worked her way quite a bit away from where the four had landed, weaving in and out of the line of trees at the forest edge. "I don't even know what I'm looking for! They all look the same. Maybe I should have taken my book along, but that only would have made sense, so of course I didn't. Pft, who needs books when you're the super healer of Wind Reach, right?" The small woman mocked herself as she knelt by a particularly interesting plant. Oh. It was just clover. With a sigh, Addy sent the heel of her boot into the patch of the stuff in a rather childish display of frustration. Resuming her little jaunt, the others driven from her mind in her new determination to find something, the healer bent low to the ground at the edge of the forest and began to pick through the fallen leaves and bracken on the forest floor. "Ow! Petch!" Jerking her hand back, the girl continued to swear, moving her other hand to pluck the thorn from the pad of her pointer finger, quickly popping the digit into her mouth with a suckle. Not bothered by blood, but still not overly fond of the metallic taste in her mouth, she spat off to the side and continued her steady crawl into the woods. "Well well now, what do we have here, you beautiful- but rather ugly, actually- flower?" Bolting to her feet, Addy closed the distance quickly to the plant she spotted. It was tall and stringy, with tiny white flowers spread across the top of the stem like an umbrella. Knowing better than to just pluck it immediately, Addy fell down to her knees, leveling her face with the small plant as she stared intently at it. "AHHHH! Anise!!!" And this is how the others would find her, pressed to the ground, nose to nose with an ugly flower, crying out her joy in success.

[Silwyn]

"I think, Dyer, that you should meet up with Aidara while Renol and I wander around a bit and make sure there's nothing lurking," Sai said. Silwyn nodded. She started to walk through the woods, stopping periodically in front of trees just to check the bark and see if it was what she was looking for, it wasn't. Pretty soon, Sai and Renol were out of sight, and she was wandering through the woods on her own crunching over dead and drying brown leaves, and splitting the occasional twig and fallen tree branch with her step.

Silwyn breathed in heavily- it smelled of pine, animal droppings, and water- as if all of the morning's dew hadn't yet had the chance to evaporate. Silwyn would pick up the occasional acorn she had passed, tossing it in her bag, which she now held on her right side.

"I wonder where everyone got to," she whispered into the thick forest air around her. Knowing that no one was around to listen, except for perhaps, the occasional passing insect or rodent.

At one point, she spotted a blackberry bush, and stopped to tenderly pluck a few from the bush, careful not to step in any poison ivy, or prick herself on a thorn. When the cultivation was complete, she popped a few berries in her mouth, they were sweet, and satisfying. Realizing that it may make sense to pick up a few for her dyes while she was there, she pulled a few more off the bush, before placing them gently in the outer pouch of her bag, hoping the wouldn't get crushed by the time she got back home.

Thinking that she should probably meet up with someone, she started calling, "Addy! Addy!" hearing the words echo all around her, and not much else.

As she continued further into the woods, however, she finally found her pressed to the ground, nose to nose with some sort of flower that Silwyn could not recognize. "Addy?" she called to her, "you alright over there?" she said as she stepped over a large rock, and a few fallen tree branches.

[Sairque]

The dyer wasn't one to chit chat, apparently. Shaking her head, Sai watched the woman until she was out of sight; the trees that she had been previously checking now provided her cover from the two Endal. Wondering how she had got pulled into babysitting duty, the frayed flight leader glanced at Renol and lead the way deeper into the woods but hooking around to trail lazily behind Silwyn, always keeping the bright red flare of her hair within sight. Catabasis would be able to tell them if something come from his side...not that much would show itself to a giant shadow capable of eating it in one gulp.

Stepping over a rotting log, slippery moss sheathing the wood instead of bark, another groundcougar burst from the cover it offered and shot over to a nearby boulder. Sai glanced back warily at her male companion, wondering what his reaction would be to the beady little black eyes staring at him.

"I think," she whispered carefully. "That it knows how you attacked it's poor brethren back in the meadow," she was going to say more but the little beast disappeared from sight. Sai lobbed a lopsided smile at Renol and continued on, getting her bearings in relation to their charge and continuing deeper into the woods. Having taken only three steps, she pulled up short, spotting the little fellow, again, on a taller boulder to their left. "I think he's conspiring against you," informed the flight leader in all seriousness. "You shouldn't be mean to groundcougars, they're ferocious."

Passing by a random berry bush, Sai pulled a few morsels off and popped them in her mouth. They were overripe, but still good, staining her fingertips with deep blue juice. The soft mud near her boot was imprinted with fresh little feet prints. Pausing, handing some berries to Renol, she studied them for a second. "Are those wolverine tracks?" asked more to start a conversation than anything else, well, that and she really hoped they weren't. With the luck she felt breathing down her neck, she was certain her sister or their dyer would stumble on and stick her head in it's den.

The trail was easy to follow while the critter stayed on the soft game path, it got a bit more difficult when it strayed off toward where Silwyn was walking. There were subtle indentations in the forest floor, the occasional scuffle of duff where a claw had caught.

[Renol]

Renol remained quiet as the other woman walked off to gather the things she apparently needed. He followed along with Sai, hanging back from the dyer as they walked along. His eyes surveyed the area carefully. He had a penchant for woods these days. Not that he’d stop going to them, but after the recent events, he wasn’t about to ever let his guard down while he was in them again let alone with other people. He knew better than that. His complacency had cost them once already, and he wasn’t about to let it happen again. Not on his watch. Renol’s eyes snapped around as he heard anther one of the little critters burst from its hiding place and running away, watching it as thought the small animal would be able to take off someone’s arm if it wanted to. He smiled at Sairque’s comment, nodding a little bit, “Good. Maybe it’ll warn the others in the area so they all run away.” He shook his head slowly for a second, “I don’t know what it is, but the noise those little buggers make just grates on my ears, you know? I have no idea why, but it gets to me. Just one more odd little quirk that I have, I guess.” His eyes narrowed once more as she pointed he little thing out once more, a little distance away, staring at him, “At least he’s not as big as the last thing to try taking a bite out of me.” Renol shuddered a little bit as the fresh memory of the mountain of fur and muscle standing before him, it’s great claws bearing down toward him flashed before his eyes for a second. It certainly put the little creature into perspective, though. But Renol’s attention was brought back to the present as he felt the berries being deposited into his hands. He smiled to Sai in a silent ‘thanks’ as he ate a few of the tiny fruit. He looked down to the tracks that lingered around the bush and then made their way off into the forest, “Eh. I’d say it’s a big ol’ badger, really. Especially since it looks like it was eating from the bush. Wolverines are carnivores and wouldn’t be eating the fruit. It doesn’t look like there weren't any little ones with it, so it’s probably a male. Thought it's a little late in the year for babies. But still, It’ll run off from the sounds of us before we find it. It’s probably working on getting the last of its food before going to hibernate for the winter.”

[Aidara]

"Addy, are you alright?" Better than alright! Ecstatic! Thrilled in her discovery, the healer was busy clearing away the debris around the small plant, waving Silwyn over in a wordless response, much too focused to manage words at that exact moment. Going so far as to dig out a little pit of dirt around the plant with her nails, it wasn't until there was a nice, clean neat circle around the plant that Addy sat back up and looked satisfied...well, until she saw the dirt on her hands and in her nail beds. "Ugggh, that was a bad decision..." Looking about the freshly disrupted bracken, the proper tool was spotted. Leaning forward, Addy snagged a broken twig from under a clump of moss. Peeling back the bark to expose a sharp, pick like end the woman shifted her gaze to Silwyn as she came closer "I just found my first useful plant is all. I'm sorry if I've startled you. Do you recognize this?" She was excited, and it showed in her face and the way that her eyes danced over they dyers expression, waiting anxiously for her answer. Meanwhile her hands kept busy, the pointed end of the stick dipping under the edge of her nail to scoop out the dirt that had lodged there. It was a rather odd thing to do, as the woman was sitting covered in dirt, worrying about her nails. But it was more of a meticulous action that made her feel better when she got overly emotional. Belatedly remembering her pack, Addy scampered to her feet and dashed over to where she had flung it. The satchel was torn open and rifled through for a good matter of minutes before she found what she was looking for. With a triumphant cry, the healer dashed back to her spot in front of the plant, sat down hard on her rump and opened the book she retrieved across her knees. "Lets see if it tells me in here how to harvest it."