The Raptors

“Are you sure Casagin? Tree Ructs are dangerous…” whispered Welvarin as he followed his older brother through a dense forest, teeming with insect life.

His brother was seven years older than he was, and was a skilled hunter, “They are only dangerous to Raptors that do not know how to hunt them.”

Welvarin gulped, “But I don’t know how to hunt them…”

Casagin sighed, “Do you want to eat, or not?”

Welvarin nodded very quickly, “Yes, yes I want to eat!”

Casagin covered his younger brother’s muzzle with a firm grip, “Shh… Welvarin, you’re ten years old, you need to learn

how to fend for yourself, I’m not always going to be there to help you, and neither is Delwin. You of all Raptors should know that…”

Welvarin looked at his feet, fit firmly with brown boots, “Sorry big brother, I like to forget sometimes.”

Casagin nodded, “We all do buddy, we all do…”

Just then a high pitched screech is heard, and a flock of birds fly away. Both Raptors froze, Casagin moving first by drawing an arrow and notching it onto his hunting bow’s string. The brother moved ahead slowly, Welvarin copying his older brother’s actions and placing the nock of the arrow onto the bow’s snug string. A small amount or rustling was heard and the brothers paused again, Welvarin making sure to mimic his brother’s actions perfectly, knowing full well many Raptors had gone hunting Tree Ructs and had never returned. They crept towards the sound of clicks and warbles as whatever was making the noises began to pick at branches. Casagin held a claw up, quickly causing his brother to stop midstride. The elder sibling carefully moved some branches and looked towards the noise, only to have the leaf he moved be ripped away by a large set of jaws.

The Tree Ruct whooped as it lashed out with a long arm, of which was tipped with razor claws a few inches long. Welvarin’s heart stopped as he saw the beast. Ten feet tall, avian, a long neck and feathered wings attached to its back. It’s arms alone were three feet long and the claws, one quarter of a foot. Casagin jumped back, releasing his arrow and watching as the creature whooped in surprise, batting the arrow away with lightning speed.

“WELVARIN, RUN!”

Welvarin heard his brother, but it was as if he was very far away, and he couldn't quite make out what he was saying. The ‘Feathered Dragon’ spotted him and whooped as its long neck reached out to make the noise, and then quickly receding again. It charged him; though Welvarin just stared in disbelief… he was going to die… As the beast terrifying face launched towards him, he heard a distant voice.

“WELVARIIINNNN!!!”

Welvarin’s eyelids shot open, his breathing rapid. A single thought was going through his mind: Why am I so damn cold? His question was answered by wave as is washed over him. He slowly began to gather his bearings, seeing that his little piece of wood had made it to some kind of shore, and that he was still alive. Shivering, he began to stand, checking his equipment in the process. He still had his knife and bow, but all of his arrows had sunk in the waves as he was tossed around. Looking around, he heard the chatter of birds on the wing. Small birds fluttered around on the early morning breeze, warming up in the sun’s rays and searching for food.  He sighed, seeing his breath. Rubbing his arms, he began to make his way inland.

He opened a latched satchel at his side and retrieved a small canteen of water. He opened the top, looking inside and making sure it was full. Next he made sure that a small tin in the satchel was secured, and that none of his emergency bread was wet, or it would get moldy. Finally he tested his flint and steel, earning a few sparks upon striking them together. He tightened the strap and placed everything in its rightful place before setting out, into the unknown. There was a forest not far from where he stood, and he trusted it had plenty of wood to burn.

A boat rested not far from the shores of the new land, a boat whose sail was bleached white and bared a sun. The Cult had made land during the night and was quick to set up camp and begin to resupply. The Priest in his silken white robes was alone on the landed boat, writing in his personal logbook so he had something to report to the High Priest when they returned. After he had finished, he placed the quill in a special case, the ink was capped and stored and the book was placed in his nailed desk. Rising from his Draco Hide chair, the Priest made his way out of his cabin and onto land. He walked calmly into the camp, and stood at a special alter. Many of the Brothers were already gathered there, and a few of the sailors as well. As soon as every Raptor was attending, the Priest smiled warmly, and opened his holy book.

Soonen dragged a small board onto a nearby flat rock and laid it horizontally. He sighed, sitting on the board and looked at the shifting waters of the ocean. In his arms he clutched the golden tome from the ruin, though it had just made a trip through the salty ocean, the book looked no worse for wear. He opened it, finding the pages to be absolutely dry. He smirked, of course the enchantments protected it from water.

“The magic weaved into this book are incredible, obviously the work of a master warlock. Simply marvellous…” Soonen mused as he inspected the pages.

There was not a single tear, marking or stain on its pages, as if they were indestructible, shining ever onward for him to have hope in. He looked to the surrounding terrain, they were definitely not on Raptoria, the trees were wrong. A completely different genus.

He smiled, “And those clods on the boat thought I was a fool. Bah to them, hmm?”

He stared at the book, “Of course you played your part in this as well. Good job by the way, getting me this far. I can die contently now.”

He laughed aloud upon realizing what he was doing, “Well here I am, talking to myself and a book. Oh well, could have gone worse.”

The Captain leaned against a tall oak tree. He was panting, nearly out of breath to breath. He had stayed awake all night in order to stay afloat; he was not blessed with a piece of driftwood to drift upon. He lay against the tree for a few minutes before gradually standing up and stretching. He looked for any signs of other survivors and began to march down the beach. The Captain walked alone, the strong breeze of the sea cooling him slightly while the early morning sun cast its naked rays upon him. It wasn’t far before he saw another boat on the shore. He felt his spirits rising upon seeing it, and smiled before dashing down the beach. He didn’t get far before he spotted silken white tents and flags bearing the Sun Cults emblem. He stopped dead in his tracks the moment he saw these signs, and slowly began to creep into the forest, praying to the gods he was not found. The moment he passed into the dank woods the Captain sprinted deep into the woods, hoping to find refuge among its leafy embrace.

Welvarin warmed his hands by a small fire he had managed to build using some deadfall he had found and old goats beard off the trees. His armor steamed as the water evaporated from the heat, he kept his armor on only because anything could sneak up from behind and catch him unaware. In this new land, anything was possible. He began to plan how to survive here. He obviously needed to find some good sized birds to kill in order to get some feather to make some fletchings for arrows. He could set up some simple snares to catch smaller game until then. He also needed to find a stream to draw water from, and perhaps find a way to hunt off any of the animals that went there to drink. After the fire had begun to die down and his armor dried, Welvarin doused it with a little water from his canteen, and stirred it with a thick, living branch. After it cooled he made his way deeper into the woods, where there was water, there were berries.

The woods were a little thick, but were nothing compared to the jungles he and Soonen had trudged through before. He occasionally heard the flitter of birds or the chirp or an insect, but the forest showed little signs of life. It was beginning to become brighter as the day progressed, which allowed Welvarin to see more in the woods because of its light canopy. He had made it a considerable distance before the sound of water was heard. He breached the thick brush to enter an area free of trees, a small stream had cut a swath from the forest, letting in the most light he had seen for the past hour.

Welvarin sighed, and spotted a ford in which he could cross if he needed to. Deciding to stay on his side of the stream for now, the Raptor simply filled his canteen. Welvarin looked around, trying to spy out an area that would be ideal for a campsite. He found an eddy down stream that allowed him to hide away from anything crossing the ford and was far enough down that his camp wouldn't be so blantantly obvious. He marked the place down mentally, and then proceeded to walk down the length of the stream a little more. It curved heavy to the left before progressing more forward than anywhere he had seen so far. He followed it until his heard an  unfamiliar chirp. He looked up at the trees and scanned their branches for any signs of life. He soon spotted a nest in a tree a few meters away, right next to the stream. It was an older nest, the greying twigs used to build it showing age an the amount of droppings below suggested it was a spot they often came to. The birds he saw though, were like no other.

They were beautiful, having orange heads and red bodies, eyes seemably one color, a lighter yellow that stared at him with the intensity of an inferno. The bird eyed him curiously, as if it was trying to recognise him. He approached the tree caustiously, thinking about how to get a fresh meal. It was then he saw the amount of feathers that had been molted over the years it had stayed there, and he thought otherwise. Soon, he was beneath the tree, the flame colored bird watching carefully as he picked up the few feathers that lay around the base of the tree. He examined them carefully and then placed them in his satchel. They were oddly warm, like the dead coals of a recently extinguished fire.

The bird watched him as he left, settling in its nest and marked Welvarin down as non-hostile. Welvarin himself could not but turn back and admire the birds beauty once again, even if it was that of flame, the bird had a certain elegance that made him feel as if it knew it was beautiful and did not plan to cover that fact up any time soon. Welvarin eventually looked away and made his way back to camp, and picked out a stone from the river that was mostly flat, then placed it on the ground and took out the feathers he had aquired from the birds tree. He took out his dagger and tried to cut the feather. Welvarin expected it to simply slice through the birds usually fragile feather stem, but instead felt as if he had been pressing against the rock itself. He picked the feather up to make sure that was not the case, and was even more surprised when it had not fallen in half.

He tried again, but felt the resistance increase with the pressure he exerted onto the feather. Welvarin was not one to give up so easily though, and knew that if the feather was this resilient, then it would make for an incredible fletching. He soon found sparks beginning to fly from the feather. Despite this, he continued to apply pressure. He tried sawing at the feather, though this simply caused more sparks. He soon found himself fearing that he would cause an untimely forest fire. After about five minutes of sawing and a slowly increasing amount of sparks, he heard the blade make a solid clink as it collided with the rock. He looked down at the Raptorian craftsmanship and found that the steel was glowing red. He looked down at the rock to see it was also red. He knocked the feather to the grassy forest floor and carefully picked up the end he had severed. It was no warmer than dead coals after a fire had been extinguished...

Welvarin stared at the rock, then back to the feather, then to the rock again. He repeated this process until he was sure that it was the feather that caused all of  the heat. Welvarin began to take the feathers out of his bag and examined each one. They were like your average feather, similar to one another but just barely different, imperceptively so, making each one unique. The only difference was that they were warm, even after sitting around for so long and pressure caused them to omit sparks. They were obviously some kind of evolutionary change so that the bird was never cold and could perhaps be used for self defence if they were squeezed by the predator attacking them. A thought crossed his mind, and he approached the water. Dipping the feather in, he let it sit for a moment in the stream water until his hand became numb and took it out. He took the feather in his other hand and was unsurprised when it retained its heat.

Welvarin chuckled, "Gods I wish I had a coat or something made of these..."

Welvarin thought about it for a while, "Or maybe just some armor full of it..."

At that moment, Welvarin decided it best not to kill the fancy flaming bird. No, instead he thought he might be able to befriend it, and perhaps get some more feathers for warmth and fletchings and fire starters too. Welvarin stood up and began to walk towards the bird’s nest again. This time when he got there, the bird saw him coming, and nestled itself back in it’s aging nest.

Welvarin looked up and chuckled, holding a feather in one hand, “Why didn’t you tell me these were slightly explosive under pressure?”

The bird chirped, then went back to resting.

“Uh huh, no I didn’t ask, but that doesn’t mean that you couldn’t tell me,” Welvarin stopped for a moment, “look at me, talking to a flipping bird…”

The bird rustled it’s feathers, making a sound that was something similar to laughter.

Welvarin shook his head, placing a hand on his forehead, “And now it’s laughing at me, great, I guess all the years of killing and surviving have taken their toll.”

It chuckled again, this time Welvarin chuckled with it, if you couldn't beat it, join it in laughter because you know that your alone on what could be a small island. Welvarin soon calmed himself down, smacking his head a few times to make sure nothing was loose before sighing at the realization of what he had just done. Welvarin leaned against the the birds tree, sliding down its length and looking at nothing in particular in the distance and krrping a blanc face.

Even after all of his adventures and raids and assasination attempts, it had never occurred to him that he might get stuck on what could be an island with no one but a bird to talk to and nothing but water to drink. The latter made him shudder with realization that he was going to be completely sober for the rest of his life. It was then that the bird hopped out of its nest and landed on his shoulder with surprising grace.

Welvarin eyed the beast quizzically, never before had he seen a bird act like this in his entire life. Birds were generally very timid creatures and often flew away if he ever got within a few meters of one, and yet, here was a incredibly beautiful and large bird resting on his shoulder pauldron, staring at him with those intense orange eyes. He felt as if he was being comforted, and smiled, the birds eyes telling him everything would be okay. He reached up carefully with his left hand, and gently scratched the birds chin. It cooed with delight, and spread its wings, showing its pleasure in the action.

Welvarin continued to smile, and scratch its chin, "I think I'm gonna call you... Flare? How does that sound?"

The bird cooed again, though wether it was in agreement or simply because he had found a good spot was unknown to Welvarin. Welvarin let his hand fall to his side and looked up at the bright blue sky peaking through the healthy leaves of the swaying tree. He felt the bird settle on his shoulder, content, and a slight breeze drag the smell of flowers over to both of them. He sighed, maybe living here wasn't going to be so bad after all...

It was then his stomach reminded him it was lunch time.

Welvarin merely displayed an annoyed face as the peace was broken by his reminder that he was in fact a living creature that required food to survive. Welvarin stood, his new bird friend wobbling as he did so, and began to walk back towards the ford in the river, planning on checking that area out for an immediate source of food. Flare did not leave his shoulder, apparently planning to tag along with him in his hunt, or maybe he just liked having his very own Raptor chariot, the way he was sitting there, it was hard to tell what it was.

He soon found the ford that he had spotted earlier, and proceeded to carefully cross it, though Flare did not seem to like taking risk because he jumped off of Welvarin's armor the moment he stepped foot onto the rocks. He didn’t blame the bird though, with all of the things he had done thus far in his life, balancing acts were not one of them. Some of the rocks were further apart than others and so he had to hop to them as the stream water rushed between the rounded stones, making white froth that floated a small ways down the stream. As Welvarin made it to the other side, Flare landed on his shoulder again. He merely chuckled at the bird’s mistrust, and continued into the woods, well lit in the noonday sun.

A Pegasus patrolled the far eastern shore of Equestria; he was on his first patrol of the day, yesterday his partner had turned in sick and so he had to handle the entire shoreline by himself, meaning he only got about half done it before he felt like his wings had lit on fire and he had to return to his cloud outpost for a good night’s rest. He did like his job though, all he had to merely do was enjoy the spectacular view all day and investigate any odd disturbances he found along the way, making sure Equestria wasn’t about to be attacked. Tensions between Equestria and the Griffin Kingdom were always high at their very best, and even if the Griffons weren’t known for their navy, that didn’t mean that they wouldn’t sneak in through one of Equestria’s most peaceful and beautiful areas, it actually meant it was even more likely they would try to do so. He caught a small updraft and glided for a short while before flapping his wings a few times to retain his altitude, eyes slowly scanning the landscape below.

His trained eye caught a trail of smoke ahead, it was faint, meaning it probably wasn’t a forest fire, but it still required attention. He adjusted his wings slight so he would glide down, and began to approach the smoke in the woods.

Welvarin carefully roasted a bird relative to that of a quail over the fire, using a spit he had made. Flare seemed a little bit despondent about roasting another bird, but couldn’t help itself when the scent reached his nose, cooing with delight in the expectation of a meal.

Welvarin simply rotated the spit with a slight smile, “First you freak out when I actually kill something, next thing I know you remember that you’re a bird of prey.”

Flare merely began preening.

Welvarin returned to the task at claw, turning the handle slowly and allowing the bird to cook evenly all over. He had plucked the feathers prior to its cooking of course, and had actually found the time to make three arrows as Flare made a fire. The bird was a smart one, it sentient levels of intelligence, even, and knew full well how to use its feathers to make a fire. Welvarin was grateful for its kind personality and steadfast passive behavior, not caring who it was it helped, just that it helped in some way. Welvarin was unsure whether it was female or male, he thought it might be male, but it had a slightly sleek and feminine look, even if it was sitting there eyeing him it was both male and female, never wavering from its examinations.

It was then the bird looked up from its careful work, eyes watching an incoming creature in the sky it had never encountered. Welvarin caught its gaze and turned to look at the afternoon sky. He spotted the large dark spot and saw how Flare examined it like it had him. It was a rather large airborne creature, and he wondered if it was edible. There was still one more meal after this, and he wouldn’t mind getting a meaty breakfast. He retrieved his bow and one of his less than accurate homemade arrows and took aim. After the creature had glided closer to them, obviously attracted by the smoke of their fire, Welvarin let the arrow fly free. It soared upward perfectly, and Welvarin was sure that it was going to land on its mark, until it veered heavily to the west as the creature dove to the east, and proceeded to increase its speed. Welvarin kept calm though, and grabbed his final two arrows before taking cover in the woods, Flare following him in.

A low whistle whizzed by the guard as he made his way to the smoke, an arrow! He rolled into a dive, and began to charge the creature he had spotted, who nabbed something before ducking into the woods. It didn’t look like a griffin, but that didn’t excuse it from attacking a royal guard. He saw that it had a bird with it as he landed, it looked like a Phoenix… but they were only supposed to follow those with kind and true hearts, so it may have been a relative of the flaming bird. As he landed in the camp, he spotted the roasting bird and gagged, carnivores were such disgusting creatures. He gave chase to the large creature, and soon found another arrow was fired at him. In this space though, he had precious little time to dodge it and so it bounced off of his armor, obviously not a war arrow. He dropped low, diving behind a tree and peeking out, looking for his assailant through the thin tree of the Whitetail Woods.

He saw the edge of a pauldron barely poking out from a slightly larger oak tree. The guard drew his sword, and began to creep towards the tree he saw the shoulder armor from. As he neared, the guard took another peak to see that the creature had moved on, silently as well. He searched much more wearily now, this was a trained soldier, and one who could fire an arrow while retreating and hit his mark as well; fortunately it seemed he was a renegade as his arrows were low grade. As he scanned his surroundings, the guard was unable to see his target, and felt his breath catch in his throat as a branch snapped to his left.

He jumped out of the way of another arrow, this one just barely scraping the back of his neck, he estimated if he hadn’t moved it would have hit a jink in his scaled neck piece. He heard a voice; it spoke in a language he did not understand though it was filled with disdain. Before he knew it the Creature stepped out from cover and drew a dagger. The guard jumped back as the creature stood up to its full height, easily dwarfing him and perhaps even Princess Celestia. The armor it wore was nothing like griffin or Equestrian, being modeled specifically to fit the bipedal frame of the reptile-like monster it protected, odd symbols carved into the small pauldrons during their creation. The shoulder plates were made of metal, as well as its knee and elbow areas, but the rest was made of a material he had never seen in his life, it appeared to be organic. The beast looked a little surprised now that they were looking directly at one another, and for a moment the guard saw it falter.

“B-By order of the Royal Canterlot Guards you are hereby charged with attempted murder and a campsite that does not pass regulations,” stated the guard in a manner that suggested hours of practice.

The tall creature’s combat stance weakened as it heard the words, and began to speak as well, “What?”

It had said something, but it was in a different language.

The guard sighed, never lowering his blade, “Do not resist arrest or you’re only going to make things worse for yourself. Now I just need you to lay down your arms and allow me to arrest you and I’ll get a translator to sort this all out.”

“What?” it said again, the same word, a repeat?

It was then that the Phoenix he had seen earlier showed itself, and flared its wings in the guards face, lighting itself on fire and causing him to yelp in surprise at the sight. He was barely aware of the sounds of the escaping monster as the Phoenix began to cool down, and then chase after the huge lizard. The guard regained his bearings and yelled for them to stop, but the protest fell upon deaf ears as they retreated. The guard wasted no time joining them in pursuit, taking to the air and flying above the forest's canopy.