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 Posted: Fri Dec 21, 2007 8:38 pm
Finally. Days and days and days have passed, night after night as the nights grow longer and colder. Finally she can venture from her refuge, brave the open air of her burned and battered clearing, leave the outlook to make her way to the realm of the Minders. Still, this journey is not undertaken lightly - Catcher may have assured her that the coast is clear, but Fletcher did not survive for so long on groundless paranoia alone.
She pokes her head out from the depths of her shattered oak, the rest of her body following immediately thereafter; the russet-feathered Watcher speeds across the open with powerful air-devouring wingbeats. The uncertain light of twilight covers her passage, unpredictable shadows masking her true position and helping to throw off the pursuit.. Pursuit which, of course, is nowhere to be seen. Still, Fletcher hurls her body through as erratic a path as she can, never tracing the same route, wings clawing soundlessly at the air. Soon the comforting darkness of the forest envelops her and her pace slows.
When Fletcher nears the Hollowed Red Oak she slows her flight, landing roughly on the nearest branch. She hops and scrapes to a stop before leaping to another branch, talons dragging and scrabbling across the bark. The noise of her arrival should be enough to rouse even the heaviest of sleepers, serving as a 'polite' warning to Citrine and her... ward.
The Watcher stalks closer to the entrance, plumage lifting with each hesitating hop and step, until she almost looks like a great ruddy sphere of feathers. She waits at a safe distance, for noise or some form of acknowledgement from within.
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Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2007 7:44 am
It felt as if her heart was in her chest at the sound, and all thoughts of sleep had left the minder entirely. She moved toward the entrance, leaving the sleeping hatchling within the residual warmth of the nest. I won't be gone long. Maybe a hunter had finally come, even scraps were better than nothing. Deliveries to her tree had become so infrequent that the minder no longer counted on it, but rather was pleasantly surprised when she was included. Instead she turned to hunting the mus that had become so frequent in her home. The slow infestation had been a small blessing and more often then naught the meal for both minder and hatchling.
A movement of a mus caught her eye, but she ignored it even with the empty feel in her stomach. Instead her attention was entirely on her visitor. "Who's there? I'd rather you come inside than loom in my entryway." Dulled feathers fluffed and settled in anticipation, it was obvious that the minder was loosing weight in favor of feeding her chick.
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Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2007 8:01 am
"Won't be so certain when you see me, no no, not certain at all," hisses a voice from outside, the source of the voice of it drawing nearer with each word. Perhaps Fletcher should have called out - that's the polite thing to do when entering another Sentinel's territory, after all - but most other Sentinels have long since given up hope on Fletcher doing what she is supposed to do.
The eerie light of twilight won't do anything to comfort Citrine at all if she looks outside at her visitor, unfortunately. Fletcher looks much larger than usual in the indistinct light, feathers arranged in an almost defensive display, and by the time Citrine can identify her new visitor Fletcher has hopped into the entranceway. She's finally come near enough to the Minder to make it clear that her hollow gaze is not on the once-bright Sentinel, but on the hatchling behind her. Another hiss escape from Fletcher's tightly-clenched beak. And then she tugs her gaze away, sighing and shutting her pale yellowgreen eyes and seeming to deflate on the spot. Not aggressive, her stance clearly states. She did not come to attack, at least not with her talons.
"Don't look so good, Citrine. Hard, so hard to find food, hm? No Gatherers come scratch-scratch-scratching at your bough, no love for she who harbours the enemy," she croons, rocking forward and pinning the Minder with her stare. Fletcher promised that she wouldn't harm the Spectre, promised not to bother Citrine or make her complain to the Brigadier. It's hard to be civil, oh so hard, but she's trying.
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Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2007 8:17 am
Citrine instinctively hopped back and spread her wings in a protective stance. Memories from the hatching suddenly fresh in her mind. "Did you come here to gloat? We've been hard pressed, but I will do what I must so that we can survive the worst of the cold." Her eyes watched the older bird carefully, knowing better than to let her guard down.
"What did you come here for, Fletcher?" Behind her she could hear Tempest stirring as the cold crept in without her presence. Even with non-aggressive stance, Citrine would not trust that to remain for long.
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Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2007 8:29 am
"Watchers watch, Minders mind, best stand down or I'll respond in kind," she singsongs cheerily, light words wrapping a velvet glove around the iron of her intent. Fletcher pauses for a moment, turning her head on its side to peer past the Minder at the hatchling, and then swings her head back to stare at Citrine. "Gloat? No no, no, not now. No. Still alive, isn't it? Still breathing, still eating, still stealing away the warmth and food and life of a Sentinel so it can claw away at its miserable existence."
Her gaze is cold and calculating as she rakes it across Citrine's form, taking in the full extent of her ill health... and then the old Watcher clacks her beak sharply in disapproval. "You gonna starve yourself for it? Both die that way, yes you will. Then what have you won? Another death on their talons, another bright young Sentinel murdered."
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Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2007 12:34 pm
"Tempest steals nothing from me, I give him all I can." She turned back to the nest forcing herself to relax as her wings folded neatly behind her. She'd not start a fight that she knew she'd lose. "And I'm not starving myself, I eat enough. Besides I'm not the one who is growing." Citrine resettled herself upon the nest, covering Tempest from Fletcher's view.
Golden eyes turned back to the larger sentinel, her gaze unwaivering. "Deep winter will be hard, but we will survive. Both of us." She shivered slightly and fluffed up against the cold. Tempest was still warm beneath her.
"You still haven't answered my question. Why did you come, Fletcher?"
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Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2007 12:45 pm
"Watchers watch," she repeats, as if that is all the answer Citrine should need. And her head bobbles while she lowers her gaze, staring intently at the hatchling until it has disappeared from sight. "Not long now, no, not long."
"Lotsa mus," comes the sudden chirp, and one of the little culprits skitters out of view. And with more of Citrine's hollow clear now that the Minder is on her nest, Fletcher uses this newfound space to pace and wander and poke about... clearly not planning to leave any time soon. "Lots and lots. Do you like them? Crunchy, oh so crunchy. Some so big they take two bites, others just a little more than a swallow. I like the dark brown ones best, so sweet."
"You really should just push it over the edge, you know. Better for everyone," her travels have taken her to one side of the nest, and Fletcher cranes her neck as if she can somehow steal another glimpse of the Spectre. "How old are you, Citrine?"
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Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2007 1:05 pm
She clicked her beak in thought of the meal the mus would be. "I enjoy the white and black ones. Some are salty, some are more sweet, but both are quite good... I also like the grey ones." The talk of food made her stomach protest the lack of nourishment, and she shook her head at the thought of snapping after one of Fletcher's Mus with her there.
Citrine resigned herself to the watcher's presence. Fletcher was right, watcher watch and minders mind, and nothing was going to change that. For now she could ignore the comment about pushing Tempest off the edge.
"Me? I'll have seen my 5th summer as a minder this coming year. Why?" It was an odd change of subject, but then anything that Fletcher said in general was odd.
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Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2007 3:28 pm
"Young and ignorant, then," she nods sharply, ear tufts flicking forward with the movement. "Any family in the wars? So sheltered, it's been so so very many years now. Generations even? I forget, time passes so quickly some days. Everyone forgets what it was like to see them drifting overhead, quieter even than us, coming from nowhere to ambush."
The russet Watcher turns about and begins to stalk the mus who had scurried away earlier, her movements deadly slow and deliberate. She calls back over her shoulder, "They hear better than us, you know. Smaller, yes, but oh so canny and vicious. One Spectre is not a thing to fear, but if you are caught by a group.." She shudders violently, then lunges and grabs the mus in her talons.
"Guess what they'd do. Go on, guess."
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Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2008 8:24 am
Citrine watched the Mus in the old watchers talons. She didn't need or want to be told what Spectres did in the wars.
"I imagine it's very close to what you're about to do to that Mus. Look Fletcher, I know you want to educate me on the evils of the past, but I'd rather you didn't. Times are changing, and the wars are long gone. Tempest is my chick, and that is all there is to it." The minder could feel the warm chick beneath her shift, but she did not move. Citrine wanted no enmity between herself and Fletcher, and she could only assume that any wrong movements from either of them would cause the watcher to react in kind.
"I'm very tired Fletcher, and I don't want to debate the sins of Spectres tonight, nor any night in the near future."
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Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2008 1:43 pm
"I could deliver a thousand different tortures and a thousand different deaths to this Mus and never come close to what they would do," she hisses, her pupils contracting suddenly as the Watcher hunches low to the ground. "What they have done and would do again if they could."
The Mus, still clasped within one taloned foot, would squeak if it could draw a breath. "Not just young and ignorant, no, no no. Worse yet, willfully ignorant," a sharp clack of her beak cuts her words short, and then Fletcher's demeanour changes in a heartbeat. She calms and stands upright once more, releasing the Mus - only to catch it with her Will and lazily drag it through the open space between herself and the Minder, hanging it in front of Citrine's face. Her voice quiets, becoming almost lazy and crooning as she speaks.. to herself? "So full of ideals and hopes for the future, our youth. Hiding the truth from them was a mistake, yes, I said it was, but nobody listened... nobody listens. But there's only the one, and one Spectre is a dead Spectre."
Still hanging between them, the Mus claws helplessly at the air.
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Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 4:24 pm
Citrine felt her stomach clench at the sight of the Mus. Tilting her head just slightly the minder listened to the quiet words from the Watcher's mouth. No, did she hear right? '...one Spectre is a dead Spectre? Any further into the madness and something bad was bound to happen. Citrine could feel it in her bones.
"Fletcher.... Fletcher!" Citrine snapped trying to shake Fletcher from the strange state. "Stop it! You made a promise to the Brigadier, did you not? You are not to harm Tempest," she said as her voice changed to a more motherly tone.
"Please, stop."
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Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 4:58 pm
"Oh no, no no. Not to worry, Minder, not to worry. I'm as bound by my words as I am by my past and my task." The russet Watcher is still rather decidedly off-balance and disturbing, but she seems oblivious to her own state - and also to the still-dangling Mus. "Bound and helpless as a hatchling, yes yes, even if it is a monster. Can't help what it is, I suppose, and even if I could help it," and she hisses suddenly, her words slipping from her clenched beak, "I gave my word and by my word I stand."
"The Spectre will come to no harm by my talons, not while it lives here in peace. You would do well to watch him and raise him carefully, Minder, else some other old bird with looser morals than I will rid our forest of that foul presence." And with that warning she turns to go, ruffling her wings restlessly, her gaze never moving from Citrine's hidden charge. Fletcher moves with alarming grace and speed, despite the many years she claims to have seen, and is perched in the entrance without even looking to see where she is going. Finally she tears her gaze from the hidden Spectre within Citrine's nest, and her words echo behind her as she leaves. "Eat more."
With a sudden sharp crack, the Mus' neck is snapped cleanly. It falls to the ground, dead and twitching.
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