Welcome to Gaia! ::

Ganon walked out behind Midora a few moments later to find Nicky trying to keep the hawk away from Tare's prying nose. "I wanna seeeeee! Is it food? Can I eat it?"

"Brother! No! It's too cute!" Midora rushed over and shoved her smaller brother away, snorting. Tare grumbled, but complied and watched as Ganon took the bird, examining it. The bird hissed and dug its talons into his arm, but he paid it no mind, examining it. "Ooooh. Broken wing. And it looks like a raccoon's been dragging him around. Midora, did you save him from a raccoon?"

Ganon blinked and turned, allowing Nicky to see that he was supporting the bird with his other hand. "I have to lift the wing to check it, hon. Yeah, I can help him, but... I don't know if he'll take the help willingly. Unless any of you can speak hawk and communicate that I'm helping him. And in the meantime, his talons are starting to hurt. But I need a way to keep him from thrashing while I'm getting his splint on him."

"Yeah, all right. I'll take him into the shop. Call me when dinner's ready, okay?" Ganon turned and carried the bird into the caves, making the walk all the way to his own caves (this involved moving down a series of interconnecting corridors that linked the two caves) and into his workshop. There, he tranquilized the bird and set to work making a splint for his wing with two pieces of very light balsa wood that were cut in the wing shape, strapped around the wing by tape. He set the bones and put the splint on the bird, then set about cleaning and applying salve to the hawk's cuts and scrapes. It took some time, particularly making sure that he set the bones correctly. Once he was sure (and he was comparing the wing to diagrams in three books) and had attached the splint and fixed up the wounds, he made the bird a perch and bowls for water and food, which he attached to the perch. He mounted the perch on a five-foot pole and attached supports on the bottom.

Finally, hearing his mate call him to dinner, he picked up the perch and the bird and took them both out to the dining cave. He lifted the tranquilizer spell and subtly altered the bird's hormones to make it more calm, at least for now. It climbed onto its perch with little resistance, and he poured water into its bowl, then took some meat from the table and placed it into the other dish. "There you go..."

Lorne grumbled softly, eyeing the little bird. "You," he muttered, "are causing me undue boredom. If not for my daughter, you would be dead now. What the hell am I doing talking to a hawk?"

A number of evenings passed this way for Lorne.

Lorne looked up and grinned, then tore into the buck while Astor nibbled at the rodent. After a second, Lorne picked the deer up and went to his own room, leaving Midora to fawn over the bird.

Astor squawked softly. A voice suddenly sounded in Midora's mind, a relaxed, cool, almost sexy voice.

lock on it!>

"No, really, that thing will help fix it so you can fly again."



"If he didn't do that, it wouldn't heal right and you'd never be able to fly again..."

<... Oh. Oh, okay. Okay... uh. So how long does this have to stay on?>

Tare wandered into the room and looked around. He blinked as he heard his sister talking to the bird. It looked like a pretty one-sided conversation to him.

"Well, I'm not sure. A few weeks, maybe. Yes, yes, of course he'll take it off. No, he's really not torturing you. No, of course we wouldn't!"

Tare blinked. "My sister has totally flipped..."