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 Posted: Thu May 08, 2008 1:46 pm
{{Don't worry, I got it!}}
Holly didn't at all mind letting Ossie lead, and her ideas, while they were often wild, were always fun and interesting, and Holly (to be perfectly honest) didn't much mind getting scolded if he had fun the first time around. So he bobbed agreement to her suggestion.
"East is where we go, then!" he said, turning in the direction she had pointed. "How big? Lots bigger'n the streams big?" he asked, curious. Spreading his wings, he flapped twice, experimentally, and then looked where he was going, seeking out the next step in what was already promising to be a very long journey.
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Posted: Thu May 08, 2008 7:04 pm
"'Normous!"
Osprey spread her wings widely to prove her point, but wobbled and quickly closed them to stable herself.
"S'so big it c'd swaller a tree!" She opened her wings again and gave a test flap, then hopped to the next branch and flapped her wings hard to help make it that far.
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Posted: Mon May 12, 2008 1:23 pm
"Woooooooooow......"
Holly was impressed, as he often was with Ossie's stories. Certainly, somewhere deep inside him he knew that Ossie didn't really know all these things and hadn't done everything she said she did (she had definitely never et a fox, that was for sure!). But it didn't stop him from having fun with her. After all, Ossie had all the best ideas.
Following her but flapping a little ways different, so that he landed on a branch above her and to the side (the trees were always close to each other, where fledglings were learning to fly. If not for that, more than just the typical few would fall and never come back up). Shuffling down toward the end, he laughed when the branch dipped so that he was on the same level as his friend. He had thought of a new game.
"See that tree there?" he asked, inclining his head towards an impressive old oak that would be an easy glide for the adults, not so much for the fledglings. The path was easy enough, with plenty of branches. "Let's race an' see who gets there first," he suggested, puffing up proudly. It was a good game. "We count 'a three an' then we go."
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Posted: Mon May 12, 2008 8:46 pm
"Loser's gotta share 'is skurri for until th'nex' full moon!" Osprey responded to his challenge enthusiastically and crouched low, with wings spread, in preparation to launch.
The distance was unsettling, but her competitive nature would not let her live down refusing.
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Posted: Tue May 13, 2008 5:02 pm
“Okay!” Holly answered, fluffing his wings and then quickly preening his feathers in the way his minders had taught him. Fixing his eyes on the tree and then on the branches between him and it, he quickly decided his course and looked slyly over at Ossie.
“One...”
He paused for a while, keeping his eyes fixed on her.
“...twothreeGO!”
And he was off, inexperienced wings barely getting him clumsily to his first decided perch. In all his excitement, he hardly thought to look where he was going...or steer. Resettling himself, he looked around for the next branch, changed his position, and leaped with a burst of ungainly flapping.
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Posted: Tue May 13, 2008 7:16 pm
Osprey shot off after Hollyhock and beat her young wings furiously as she lept to the next and nearest limb. She was determined to make it, although her competitive nature did not fall as much on Holly as it did other sentinels. Her fellow fledgling was one of the few that she dared be more subdued around. If he won, she would not be as sour or as upset as if it had been Songbloom or another youngster.
She quickly turned her sights to the next branch in her path and lunged for it in an awqward furious flurry of flaps.
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Posted: Sun May 18, 2008 8:14 am
Was he winning? Was Ossie? At this point, Holly had no idea. The little deep woods had lost count and was concentrating on only one thing: wholly focused on his task, he had forgotten everything around him. He pointed himself at the next branch, launched off in a flurry of inexpert wingbeats, and stuck to the next branch. Barely waiting to stabilize, he repeated. And again.
Anything could have heard the pair of them, loud and foolish as they were. But Holly wasn’t thinking of that, only of winning. The tree wasn’t that far now. Only a few more branches to go. He aimed, spread his wings, pushed, flapped...
And fell short. The little fledgling gave a loud hoot of dismay as his talons missed the branch, the cry quickly turning to that of fear as his wingbeats failed to keep him upright enough for a second try. He pitched, missed his grip, and fell.
It wasn’t far until he hit a branch that slowed him sufficiently for him to grab ahold with his talons, clinging like his life depended on it, but this only flipped him upside down. Flapping madly and hooting his panic, Holly hung and furiously tried to right himself.
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Posted: Sun May 18, 2008 9:32 am
Hollyhock had been ahead of Osprey, but only just slightly, and the little mist fledgling keened with dismay as her friend missed his branch and plummeted. She had no idea how she could aid the falling fledging. She did not have the skill of flight or Will to save him with and she felt utterly useless. She hop-flapped to a lower branch and her ear tufts lifted with surprise and fear.
"H-h-holly?" She peeped at the upside down fledgling. He didn't fall completely, that was good, but he still had to get back up...
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Posted: Wed May 21, 2008 6:39 pm
For a moment, he stopped thrashing when Ossie spoke. "Y'know those words Pa Twist told us never t'use?" he grumbled, and then flailed his wings some more when he realized his talons were slipping. After a second, he had a thought.
"Ossie," he said between thrashes, "I'ma let go an' try t'get my feet on a branch b'low, mmkay? An' if I fall on th'ground, go get someone."
And he let go and managed to flap-flail his way upright, so he hit the next stand of branches with his front and stomach. The thickly-grown needles and twigs held him just long enough for him to scramble onto his feet and sidle furiously up the already-dipping branch. Eventually, he made it to the trunk, where he clung, panting, pupils shrunk with fear and beak gaping open. His feathers were as sleeked as they could be, considering they were mussed completely and some of them were sticky with sap.
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Posted: Thu May 22, 2008 7:38 am
"Uh-uh-uhkay..." She murmured and her feathers slicked tight against her body as her friend let go of his hold on the perch.
She did not relax until Holly was pressed close to the trunk. She was trembling and her eyes were wide with fear. "Y-y-you uh-kay, Holly?" She inquired worriedly.
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Posted: Thu May 22, 2008 5:08 pm
Holly looked up when Ossie spoke and nodded shakily.
"Yeah...yeah 'm'okay," he mumbled, then turned and immediately started to preen. The thick sap tasted foul and made his beak feel odd, but it wasn't any better to have all over his feathers. And so he smoothed everything back into place and did his best to get the sap off his wings.
"Ugh," he said when he was done, making a face and shaking out his wings and tail. "Taste's awful!"
Huffing, he looked at Ossie, at the tree, and shook his head. "...Iunno if I wanna keep goin'. Maybe we should go home."
If Ossie could talk him out of it, he'd keep on going, but if not, he wasn't gonig to risk it.
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Posted: Sun May 25, 2008 7:33 pm
She was scared and, for the first time in front of Holly, unsure of herself. She did not want to do. She wanted to impress him, but did not want him to get hurt. Perhaps it would be better to go home, instead of risking injury.
"Well... Well... We w'n't be able t'see th'water... The big water... But... But... We c'n go back... That way y'kn' get th'sticky outta y'feathers n'we c'n plan... Plan t'see it, righ'?"
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Posted: Mon May 26, 2008 3:19 pm
“I think..........I think we should go back.”
The words were final, and even though Holly didn’t really want to say them, it’d be better that he at least admit that he wasn’t willing to go on. But planning sounded good. They’d make rules, maybe. Rules like ‘no racing’. That’d be good.
“But, um...” he said, and then looked sheepish. “We’re gonna need to think of somethin’ t’tell the Minders. Can’ say I fell outta a tree when we were racin’. Need another story.”
He knew he could look to Ossie for this one.
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Posted: Tue May 27, 2008 3:26 pm
Osprey was secretly glad that Hollyhock but his talons down on her wanting to press on. It made her mind up for her, so she could agree and go home with him, instead of begging for adventure. While she would not admit it, she really was frightened and worried about other mishaps.
As he prompted her with an excuse, she seemed tolight up as she fluffed her feathers. If she were not so determined to prove herself in a combat position, she could possibly make one hell of a bard.
"Ah, y'righ'... Can' tell 'em that... Nope... Hnn..." She scratched at the bark of her perch as she thought.
"Well... We c'd'a been practicin' our flyin', since we gonna be takin' lessin's soon, yeah? We was practicin' near th' enclave, b'not outtabounds... An then... We was attacked by... Uhm... Some crows. They was tryin' t'peck at us, so we was tryin' to fly 'way from 'em, but they confused us wi' direction. Then y'fell, while tryin' t' get away an got sticky?" She tilted her head and gazed at him curiously while she awaited his ideas on her brainstorming.
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Posted: Fri May 30, 2008 3:12 pm
It was a good enough story, but Holly wasn’t sure how he felt about that. After all, if they told the Minders they’d been attacked by crows (which was unlikely at this hour: crows maybe attacked if it were very early, or very, VERY late, or so he had been told) they might get in trouble, or at least watched. He decided to voice his concerns. “But what if they think we’ll be in danger all th’time?” he asked, putting his eartufts back. Frowning a little bit, he shook out his wings and started to preen again.
“Maybe we can say was tryin’a do somethin’ for the Clan?” he suggested. After all, that was something Sentinels, even young ones, were supposed to do.
But what?
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