Welcome to Gaia! ::

From beneath the tree Sasha moves her wings, wincing at the prickly pain still left in them.
Needing to get into the air, but not wanting to brave the hail, Sasha flaps her way to the lower branches of the tree.
Hanging with her head down, she begins the delicate influencing of the weather commanded by her Trainer.

Zephyr, who is not nearly as sheltered as Sasha, stares into the sky at his Trainer's command, shielding his sensitive eyes from the angry ice using his tail.
Looking at Kedelko's determined expression with what could be called a raised eyebrow (if he had eyebrows), Zephyr starts walking towards Sasha while moving his wings in strange, short jerks to get his wing muscles warmed up.

Trying to ignore her unusual position, Sasha flaps her wings as hard as the rather feeble grip of her small hands allow her to.
Not being very high in the air, Sasha can only influence the lower winds.
Leaves rattle back and forth as the winds change rapidly until they seem to have found a direction: up.

As the hail stops, Zephyr seizes his chance to move faster and flies towards Sasha, grabbing her from her exposed position. Despite maneuvering oddly to avoid the branches, they are soon into free air with Zephyr gladly using the updraft to gain height.

. . . Until he notices the sky.

From his position well above the tree, Zephyr has a first class view of the funnel cloud forming above. Releasing Sasha, he turns around and tries to get away, but is dragged back by an unseen force.
Sasha, knowing well what she started, lets herself drop with her wings folded tightly to her body.
Something seems to disturb her downwards motion, but her dead weight position serves to keep her from being dragged away like Zephyr.

Back on the ground, dust has started swirling upwards, revealing the slim, helical form of a landspout.

While weaker than traditional tornadoes, landspouts still got some rotation speed in them and this one is picking up hail as it sweeps across the ground.
Something that Zephyr finds out soon enough as he struggles to free himself from the vortex while learning the true meaning of "wind worn" in an up-close and painful way.

Sasha, having been slung slightly out of her original course, has to abandon her idea of breaking her fall using her wings as she crashes into the tree, still in her curled up position.
Branches, meet Sasha.

The landspout dissipates slowly, releasing Zephyr who tiredly flaps his wings to keep himself from falling.
Deciding that it makes for a shorter distance, he steers towards the tree and lands on a sturdy upper branch.

Sasha, on the other hand, is only now uncurling herself to find herself positioned upside-down in a forked limb.



Zephyr: 67 %. I wouldn't blame him if he fell down and puked. I know I would.
Sasha: 64 %. Curling up kept her wings from being pierced, but result is still not pretty. No sir, not pretty at all.

Riiight. Glad I'm not the one having to recover from any of that, it wouldn't leave me time to ref.

Kedelko, your turn!

(Yeah, it's a habit of mine. I can speed things up if you want me to?)

(Ya, its getting interesting. 3nodding )

Cyclone Zephyr. xd