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 Posted: Sun Sep 20, 2015 6:53 pm
Entranced, Sangmu looked upwards. It was autumn, really only the start of it. However, the birds had already begun on their miles-long journeys. Migration season was upon them, and every year, Sangmu looked to this time with joyous anticipation.
There were more birds than she could count if she spent all day trying. There had to be thousands, all moving with a singular intent. They grouped and pulsed in the air as if they were not made of many individuals, but one whole. They were dark sinuous shapes in the sky, not like the V formations of geese and other more organized birds.
She wondered, how did they know to act? How was one bird able to read the motion of the entire flock? Certainly she understood herds. Sometimes they moved together like that in a herd, but it wasn't the same as this breathless movement.
She didn't often think about it, but at times like this watching the migrations occur, Sangmu longed for wings. So many soquili were able to fly like those birds, but not her.
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Posted: Sun Sep 20, 2015 6:54 pm
 Greta had been watching the soquili for some time now. She knew that look. She had seen other soquili with that look, and felt some of that same longing in her own heart. She was perched in a tree above the soquili, but now made herself known. "Do you think they all have names?" she asked.
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Posted: Sun Sep 20, 2015 7:00 pm
Sangmu startled. She hadn't realized she had an audience. Now, she looked up, chagrined, to notice a long-tailed bird roosting in the tree above. "I don't know," she replied, too surprised to come up with a better answer. "Don't all creatures have names?" As soon as she said it, she realized it couldn't be right. Some animals were simply animals, dumb and mute. Certainly they didn't have names if they had no voice to speak it. Or, was that correct?
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Posted: Fri Oct 02, 2015 4:53 pm
"Maybe," said Greta. "But maybe not." She had the gift of tongues, but couldn't speak to those birds that did not. It was an odd separation, to look so alike and yet live in such different worlds.
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Posted: Fri Oct 02, 2015 5:00 pm
Sangmu considered, but only briefly before responding. "Ah, but I do know that familiars have names." She smiled warmly as she prepared for introductions. "Would you tell me yours? I am Sangmu." She gave a respectful bob of her head. "I come from the Padmapani herd." She expected that a local bird would know of the Padmapani herd. They were large and well-established. Not only that, but they had relations with the local bird flocks. Some of them they had arrangements to pass information. Others, they used as scouts. Many times had they avoided danger due to the early warning of birds. Sangmu had a lot of respect for them and the work that they did.
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Posted: Fri Oct 02, 2015 5:03 pm
"My name is Greta," said the bird. "But I am no one's familiar." She ruffled her feathers, just a little huffy. She didn't have anything in particular against those familiars t hat chose to bind themselves to a soquili, but that didn't mean she was in a rush to join them.
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Posted: Fri Oct 02, 2015 5:07 pm
"Ah," sighed Sangmu. The pink of her nose grew a little pinker from her blush. "I am sorry for offending you. We don't have many unbonded spirit-touched creatures in the Padmapani herd, so they are called familiars by us." There were the birds, but they didn't seem to mind so much what they were called so long as their food payments came in on time.
"But it is a pleasure to meet you, Greta." She tried to salvage matters with politeness. Being polite was always a good fall-back plan if being clever or collected failed.
Still, part of her couldn't help but wonder... Greta was unbonded. Could Sangmu hope to attract her as a familiar for her own? She still wasn't entirely certain how familiars and soquili grew attached, but she certainly envied the bond that they shared. She was too young to take a mate, but had a craving for companionship.
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