Backstory:The hunt had been a long one: the Khelora was certain she had been airborne for far longer than was healthy. Food was so scarce, lately, and it was all those bedamned Magescians' fault. "Fools!" She heard herself spit as she flew over the treetops. The wind whistled through her horns as she made her way back to the den to report her failed hunt; she wasn't the only one, either.
As she came into sight of the lair, she felt the air rattle with the colision of stone below from a massive landing. Her heard dropped as she stumbled her flight to stare down at the pile of earth beating against the cave's entrance.
A roar lit from her, and she charged down at the beast. Others of the lair perched just out of range of the warhammer the thing was weilding, while the tip of another Khelora's nose inside the lair could be seen snarling out at the construct. The male was hers. The EGGS were hers! This Construct, this... Product of Magescian foolishness, was on dangerous territory, threatening HER clan, and HER life!
Another roar split from the dragon-like beast's maw, accompanied this time by an arcing collection of electricity. The thing heard her, this time, though. Claws outspread and dangerous, her wings sang as she plumetted through the air at the thing.
Her charge was stopped short as the enchanted pile of rubble spun around, dragging the two-sided hammer in a wide arc around it. Stars erupted into the world as she was thrown against a tree, and three terrible snaps were lost in the sounds of battle as the rest of the clan erupted against the construct, taking advantage of his distraction to rip him apart with their claws, completely ignoring their magics, for now.
She didn't feel the membranes of her wings tearing as she fell along the tree's length. She maintained an unawareness of her obliterated horns, and the magical monstrousity her clan was desperately trying to remove from her grounds.
Khelora were lost, and when Tarfenal's golden orbs slowly drifted to waking positions and set to fighting off the throbbing headache, and when she set to trying to shrug off the numb pain in every nerve she was suddenly excrutiatingly aware of, she could see the bodies of at least three in the clearing that lead to her lair. She pulled herself to awareness slowly, realizing the construct was no longer terrorizing the lair, at least, but she could hear none of her clanmates, either.
The injured Khelora took a long moment identifying her comrades, growing sadder as she realized who they were. 'My brother... His best friend...' She had to walk over to the last to identify it, and whimpered pitifully when she figured out who the rubble-coated beast had been in life. The broken body was one she had grown attached to long ago, one she had spent many nights with. She tried to stir him, as though that would help, but she knew he was gone.
Slowly, she turned hopelessly to the lair and limped toward it, growing more hopeless. Parts of the roof had been caved in by that THING and it's massive instrument of distruction. Well, it had certainly felt massive against her ribcage, anyways. She sidestepped the cracked lair's rubble, hunting for her nest, and had to push bits of shattered stone out of the feathered bedding. With a shaking paw, she plucked up the remains of one, two eggs. She counted the lost lives, before realizing with a dull thrum of hope that one of her count was missing completely.
Her pack was still alive!
She spun, elated, out of the destroyed lair's entrance. They'd be looking for new nesting grounds, and recent pack meetings had suggested someplace high. She would start there; maybe she could find them yet!
She worked up a tree at speeds that bothered her paw, stopping at one point when a gleam in the next one caught her eye. Two... Three gleams. She stared closely; were those bits of horns? She shook her head softly and leapt off to a branch to springboard into the air off it and gather some altitude, only now noticing the holes in her wings. They stung; more than they should, and she peered over at them to note the tears in her membranes, wincing and whimpering. She had to correct her flightpattern, too, as she turned to look, finding some lacking control in her direction.
She shook her head and watched the forest below, just in case. She found that flying too high was against her wings' preference, and landing from much more than the treetops could be tricky if they gave out.
Anyways, she heard a little squeal off to the side, as the forest broke. Her long neck craned to catch what it belonged to. "What... IS that...?" She murmured at the strange beast erupting from the woods. It looked like a large black cat with horns. She watched behind it as the trees worked to split. What came after it was not what she'd been hoping to see; a large pile of sedimentary rock weilding a double-waraxe. Whatever that thing was, it was in trouble.
Tarfenal rolled her eyes and pulled her wings close, diving for the little beast. If nothing else, it would make a pleasant enough lunch. It squeaked when she caught it up and took to the air again, glaring back defiantly at the living hill.
The Khehora carried her catch with little trouble, although admittedly, the squirming of her captive didn't make it easy. It took a very exceptionally short time for her to find a small spike of earth to perch on to examine her new lunch. What she found was not what she expected; a young dovaa wearing a very animal-like cloak that had put her off from above. She curled her lips down at the plaintive, squirming little beast and snarled at it to sit still.
Much like a hatchling, the little beast... Did. It fell very still under her claws. Tarfenal's growl silenced itself while she tilted her looming head at the little thing; it was hardly bigger than her paw, and only by those long spindly limbs Magescians sported. The blue Khehora's expression evened out in something of a pouty better-than-thou, as her yellow eyes flicked side to side. She examined the wood around her and considered the age of the beast trapped under her claws.
Satisfied none of her clan would see, she dipped her head and lifted the little dovaa by it's cloak and tisted her head around to deposit it on her back, in front of her wings, but behind the slender ridges of her neck. "Stay. Keep low." She hissed out, after she straightened her head. Her tattered wings spread wide and gave a powerful flap, while she hissed through the pain.
It's too dangerous... Pain or no, I cannot travel by the ground.She found correcting her balance a further challenge with her rider, and could feel the tips of pine trees dance accross her scales when she would try to bank. The little Dovaaling talked some, but stayed mostly quiet, and eventually fell into a state that made Tarfenal long to trade her places. So peaceful, was the idea of a rest, it made her wings, and oddly her horns, ache more.
Her flight faltered, and the child woke, groaning, and looking out over the forest. It clung to the Khehora's neck when it remembered the airborne status and cooed over the flight. The child wasn't dull, though, and she knew Khehora should fly higher when well. Certain injuries didn't get overlooked, and her eyes turned downwards, to the forest. It was only another moment or two before she spied the gleam. "There! Let's land there for a few moments!"
The child's darting eye was a distraction and her mount reared in midair, finding her claws caught in the tallest branches of a pine tree for a moment. Tarfenal landed at it's base with a huff, glaring back at the child while her wings felt limp and drifted towards the ground beneath her claws. The cub hopped out of her perch and twisted to tug on the Khehora's wings, ignoring the snarl sent her way.
Tarfenal yanked her wing from the cub's hands and glared at her as the girl just turned to the lake and trotted off. "Come on! This way!" She called, smiling as though there weren't machinations of destruction tromping the forest. The dragonkin raised her head and listened hard for a long moment, listening for things she expected to give away the monsters. The ring of magick was quiet in the area, and the ambience was undisturbed by anything violent or vile, so she grumbled and lowered her head to the earth to follow after the child.
The hatchling had dipped-
No! Tarfenal had to remind herself this was no Khehora hatchling. it was the young of some beast that acted predatorially against her type.
This is a beast, same as any other... Just more annoying and less tasty.The child had by now splashed her face with the lake's cool water and was now drinking it. She turned and waved the Khehora over, oblivious to her wary stature. "C'mon, it's nice! I bet it'd feel good for your horns, too!"
Tarfenal stopped and her head jerked upwards.
My... Horns? she thought quietly, narrowing her eyes at the child. "What's the matter with my horns?" She ground out. The child just stared at her and pointed at the water.
Cautiously, the Khehora stepped to the lake's edge, glaring sideways at her for a long moment. Finally, she craned her long neck over the water and stared at the battered and beaten, and tired, visage that was the dragonkin shape she now occupied. The resulting expression was not one of bliss, and the language was in tones and terms no younglings should here, regardless of race.
"What's a-" The Khehora yowled to drown out the terminology and pressed a claw firmly, but gentle, against the cub's lips.
"NOT a word for you!" She snarled. She dragged her head over the water again to stare mournfully at her reflection. "So much... In one day..." She murmured quietly. She blinked, startled, when she felt a weight against her leg, and twisted her head around to stare at the child against her leg. Two of those long spindly limbs were wrapped around one of hers, and the majority of the cub's form was pressed against the Khehora's electric scales.
Tarfenal gave a look around suspiciously, before her jowels softened and she encompassed the cub in a wing, as well. When the hug had gone on too long, the Khehora sneered and lifted the cub by her cloak to drop her in the shallows of the lake, laughing at the produced image as the little beast flailed and dragged herself to the shore. She looked about to retalliate when Tarfenal's eye caught on a creature across the lake.
It was awkward, with a broad frame and dull, brown skin. Horns poked out of the thing at awkward angles and a pair of antlers echoed from the back of it's elongated neck and disfigured head. The framework for wings existed, but only subduedly, filled with leaves that would never lift such a creature from the ground. Twisted knots rested where eyes should be, and Tarfenal felt both a pang of grief and relief at the sight. A khehora had joined the forest's fight for it's defense; it was far too small to be a dragon. The child watched the deer-like, dragon-like tree as it seemed to stare at them, and seemed on some subconscious level to know what it was, but she shivered for reasons not relating to the water her clothes and cloak were now soaked with.
The beast had not formed properly, and probably wasn't done fixing itself to the forest's needs, for when it turned, and slowly, from the lake, the tail it sported still had scales dancing in odd formations along it, and a familiar, half-sickle blade still to be 'digested' at the end. Tarfenal's eyes watered, and out of respect for the forest's use of things familiar, gave a roar that echoed across miles and startled many bird-things from their perches. When hers died down... The child's died shortly after it.
The Khehora stared back at the child without turning her head, tiny little glowing wings outspread while she threw her whole, tiny little frame into the expression. The half-finished Ent disappeared, and the two remained in silence, watching it's hole in the shadows for a moment.
Then Tarfenal flicked the child into the water again with her wing and chortled out a giggle. The child just glared at her, this time, and Tarfenal gave a playful roar and jumped over her, gliding on her lazy wings until she landed with a wave in the lake, pushing the child out of the water and onto the muddy bank again.
They played, and then they found a wide, flat rock to sun on until they'd dried some, while Tarfenal licked the wounds she could reach. Her horns, though cooled from the water, had gathered a new ache, and the Khehora realized that she had even seen them as she'd escaped the devastation of her pack. She felt foolish for not recognizing her own appendages, and now she knew why her balance had been so ill-formed.
The two had slipped into an uneasy nap in the sun before one was rather rudely awakened. An unarmed pile of magic metal armor lifted the Khehora in claw-like gauntlets and threw her across the bank as the beast roared a feeble snarl at it, caught off guard. She pushed back to her claws as the thing eyed the child now bumbling off the rock in a panic. Her flank felt on fire, and her neck was sore from the toss. She was sure scales had been damaged in both places, but there were more important things.
The Khehora roared and reared when the thing started after the child, charging in to rip at the magic Magescian monster. She leapt away when it swiped at her and took flight, growling down at it. She hovered above it and curled her neck to spit lightning at the thing. For a moment, she was sure it was defeated.
And then it got up, and pulled the magic essence holding it together back to it's core. The draconic snarled at it and swooped for her companion, taking another rend in one wing as she bounced off the ground and took off again, into the forest.
Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted one of the forest's wooden guardians barrel from between the trees to assault the Mara. She snuffed and found a high perch to resettle the child on her back, before hurrying back into the air.
She realized quickly she had to find some place to drop the child off or risk both of their lives. Flight remained a difficulty with the new wounds, even though the others had been soothed, and she had begun to figure out corrections for her horns, angling her head so they would be a minimal problem.
