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The rope was nearly snatched from Berra's hands as, with a jarring yank and a startled squeak, she was pulled off of her feet and tensed up with a brief moment of panic as she sailed behind TZ. She normally flew like a hyperactive little red-and-white maniac anyway, but at least when she did, she was in full control. She wasn't used to having someone else do the motoring for her.

As the little earth feien balanced herself, her wings extended fully behind her as they caught the air currents, she dared relax a bit.

This wasn't so bad, this was-- ohno, fenceFenceFENCE!!! She pulled hard to the right, canting out of the way just in time to avoid colliding sidelong with the slats of the fence dividing Karma's yard from the neighbor's. Close call...thankfully, she was unhurt and not quite ready to give up yet as she held fast to the rope.

While the ferret liked fences, Kookaberra wasn't terribly fond of them. She was already going up much higher than she normally flew, and while it was exhilirating, she found herself reminded of the storm she and Globin had gotten caught up in near the end of her quest, and the way the wind had suddenly dropped out from beneath her before shoving her headlong at the ground.

She didn't THINK that would happen this time, but--WHOA!! Berra found herself travelling outward over the back of the fence as TZ rounded the corner and went racing for the next. Her hold was jarred on the rope and she scrambled to regain it, despite the fact that she could have just let go.

It was partially a matter of not wanting to give up and partially a matter of not wanting her trainer to think she couldn't hold her own, but she remained clinging desperately for as long as she could.

....which was not very much longer as a brisk winter updraft caught her and tumbled her forward and off-balance, making her quickly let go of the rope to keep from careening out of control. Wincing, she quickly lowered her altitude to avoid the worst of the wind and flapped back to where Silva was standing.

"Guess it takes some getting used to, huh...?" she said sheepishly, glad that her cheeks were windburned and hid their blush.

She nodded, shaking out her arms to get some feeling back into them. "I'm okay." she said agreeably, unable to keep from smiling a bit as she wondered just how silly she must have looked way up there. Thankfully, it had seemed as though the only witness had been Silva...and the ferret, of course, but TZ didn't seem like he would tell anyone.

"That was fun, Silva, thank you!" she said, looking up at him and seeming relieved he wasn't going to chide her for not holding out longer. She reached out to pat TZ as he curled up for a nap, and stopped her hand mid-descent as the guest room door creaked open a short distance from its constantly-ajar state and Talonfaust glided in.

He'd seemed unaware completely of the fact there was a visitor as he shooed sprockets away from himself absently...damned things. Why they had so many of them he'd never know. As a cleaning sprocket dipped in to try and give his horns a quick polish, he batted it aside irately.

....and then happened to look up, stopping short at the sight of the gangly stranger on the windowsill with his daughter. His immediate impulse was to place himself on the defensive as his yellow eyes narrowed themselves, but he forced himself to stay where he was and not immediately intervene. He had been gone awhile. It stood to reason Berra might have made friends he didn't yet know.

Berra looked at her father with immediate guilt and felt her wings droop a bit. She hadn't mentioned a word about Silva to Talon since he'd gotten back and could already tell he didn't approve. "Uh oh..." she muttered, just loud enough to be heard.

"No." came Talon's reply with no hesitation at all, his voice measured and forced into an odd turbulant calm as he nodded in turn, a cordial, yet cold, acknowledgement of the other male. "I didn't." The eyes looked to Berra next expectantly as she bit her lip, squirming in the uncomfortably silence that followed.

"This is my father." she explained to Silva, trying to keep things from getting awkward. "He's been away helping my sister with a quest and just got home a few days ago." She winced a bit then, remembering what Silva had told her about giving out his name and awkwardly offered Talon only the bare minimum. "This is a friend of mine. He's been helping me get stronger" she said, hoping Talon wouldn't pry for more information when she couldn't give more.

"I see." Talon said quietly. "In that case, its nice to meet you." Again, it was not genuine and moreso manners.

There were many things at the moment he didn't much care for....first of all, Berra had never referred to him as "her father" before. He'd always been 'daddy' since her summonday and had come to take the childish title as a given. Secondly, he didn't like that she wouldn't tell him Silva's name. Third, there was something about the other male....something his enhanced senses picked up that he didn't like much. A certain acrid aura that seemed to surround the burgandy-winged feien like a shroud...like he was hiding many things from many people.

Just what HAD he and Berra been up to...?

Talon arched a brow. "Fork?" he questioned. Granted, he'd come home to a houseful of fandangle drama and he hadn't had much time to sit Berra down and exchange quest stories with her, but...again, this was something she would tell this stranger about and not him?

"I--no, I haven't yet." Berra admitted, flushing with embarrassment as her wings fidgeted on her shoulders. "I meant to...!" she said quickly, her eyes shifting between Silva's and Talon's, seeking approval in either. "I just--things got kind of busy, that's all..."

Talon shot a brief glance at Silva and then came forward to approach his daughter, unintimidated by the other feien, despite the other male's obvious advantage in height. "Kookaberra? What fork?" he questioned again, crossing his arms over his chest.

"I--" she began and then sighed. She'd hoped they could have a calmer environment to discuss it, but it seemed like she'd been cornered. Biting her lip, she flitted off of the sill and knelt at the base of the nightstand, retrieving the trident and then returning, clutching it between her hands.

Talon's eyes settled on the trident, seeing nothing in particular that was very special about it. Granted, it was the first feien-sized weapon he'd seen that didn't look to be crudely crafted of household items or made of plastic, but it was still just a trident, all the same.

Making a mental note to press the matter further with Berra later, he next turned to Silva and the offered staff. He regarded it for a long moment as though the burgandy-winged feien was offering him a dead cockroach and then reached out as though to take it, and instead pushed it firmly aside.

His face was still a mask of calm, but his eyes betrayed something else...they were the eyes of an enraged eagle protecting its nest and younglings from a predator that had intruded upon its cliff.

"She doesn't need to be any stronger than she is." Talon said with a flatness that held an undertone of daring the other male to challenge him.

"Daddy--!" Berra immediately protested, and found herself silenced just as immediately as his eyes flicked in her direction. Her wings fidgeted much more noticeably, not wanting to be cost a friendship because of this encounter.

"I don't know what you've been telling her," Talon continued. "I don't know what's been happening while I've been gone, but its going to sto--"

One green-tipped ear caught a faint high-pitched whine, and, acting more on instinct than on reason, he leaned backward suddenly, a crackling bolt of black lightning passing between him and Silva, though it hit neither of them. It DID however, strike one of the sprockets out of its path of flight and send it twitching to the floor, stunned.

Berra, nearby, was trembling all over, eyes wide and frightened as she watched tendrils of gray smoke curl off of the prongs of the trident in the aftermath of its strike. She had not felt herself aim it, she had not felt the fork gearing up to attack, it was as though she'd been in a trance.

Berra heard the burgandy-winged feien's command and tried to comply, but found that her hands wouldn't obey and remained firmly locked on the shaft of the trident, partially from shock at what had just happened and partially from something else.

She--she'd almost--if Talon hadn't--

She didn't answer Silva's question as one amber eye wandered down to the carpet, carefully...questingly...and focused on the sprocket that was still making a recovery back to an operational level. Bearing in mind that they were nearly invincible, what WOULD have happened if she'd hit her father or Silva instead...?

As though someone had put her mind on pause for a moment, and then pressed the play button again as an afterthought, the pigtailed feien suddenly grimaced as though in great pain, frightened tears spilling down her cheeks.

"Berra...?" Talon asked hesitantly, ignoring Silva completely. The dangerous edge was gone from his voice and replaced with a careful tone. Despite the fact his immediate impulse had been to round on her reproachfully and demand to know what the ******** she thought she was doing, he could see that his daughter was near-panicked. She didn't need that right now. "Put it down, Berra." he said as gently as he felt able to. "Everything is fine, you're not in trouble, just put it down."

He and Silva seemed to have the same idea at the same time...mindless comforting babble in their own respective strains to try and occupy her mind and calm her. Which, little by little, seemed to be working. Her fingers eased their grip until the weapon slipped from her hands and clattered on the sill.

Talonfaust's ear closest to Silva twitched once in acknowledgement that he'd heard him, but he likewise didn't move for a moment. At length, deciding to take initiative if the other two wouldn't, he stepped forward and briskly swiped the trident off of the sill with the side of his foot, letting it clunk to the floor where the other sprockets gave it a wide berth, none of them wanting to get near it to investigate. Perhaps they'd seen what had become of the one who'd gotten in its line of fire.

Berra's hands were unconsciously scrubbing at one another as though she were washing them with invisible soap, and for the life of her, she couldn't stop shaking. Like Silva, she'd been staring at the trident until Talon kicked it away....she should have been ready for it, she chided herself. She had spent so much time focusing on getting stronger to be able to handle the trident, she hadn't DONE any actual handling of it lately. This had been the first time she'd picked it up in weeks, as a matter of fact.

At Silva's quip, a small bark of brittle-sounding laughter erupted from her throat. It wasn't so much because it had been funny, but she wanted badly to snap out of the horrified trance she was in.

"I--I'm okay..." she got out...or moreso forced herself to say, the statement sounding not at all convincing.