your nightmare, to me, is a dream,
we can grab everything that has been lost

She had thrown her name and her self in the ring for queen and came up wanting; such was the life of a valkyrie. It had been foolish of her to hope for something sedentary, something permanent. There were always other battles to fight, other horizons to crest, new suns to see and watch fall and bleed. So she gathered with the many who came around underneath Solis’ heel and paid homage to their god-king as he named another, a mortal the color of bleached bone and just as fragile, and raised him up to the throne and placed a flaming crown on his shivering head. Adonai. It was as fine a name for a king as any.

There was no bitterness on her tongue, no resentment or heaviness within her save that of her noble bone. She bore no ill will against the new king and would do as she had done before; there would be no bowing in prostrate supplication, no, but instead she would offer limb and muscle and mind and back, and wing to carry and strength to bear what he may need. It was what one did with kings. It was what she did, with calling.

Warbird was a soldier, after all; she was the child of soldiers and her flesh was that of the noble fallen, the dead soldiers. She would provide what strength and service she could and she would not fail in her duty and, eventually, when the calling songs of her holy mothers pulled her ear beyond this land, she would go. Always, she would go.

But she was of little to no use to anyone, king or common, if she did not know the land around her. So she took wing and lifted into the glorious new dawn as Adonai’s words rang out over the heads of the people-- his people, now.

The world beneath her shifted and changed, greyed out beneath a layer of cloud and fog; inland seas and mountains and volcanoes; shadowed forests, heartless coasts, and jungles. Warbird slipped through a raincloud and felt the restrained condensation cool against her warm chest and wet her flailing hair.

Nestled on her back between her powerful wings, Stykkislange hissed her displeasure.

“You are descended from the greatest sea serpent that ever lived,” Warbird growled. “That you cannot abide a little rain is disgusting.”

it isssss cold, and with no warning, Styikki hissed, flexing her great viper-like mouth and coiling further down between Warbird’s beating wings. Her tone shifted from animosity to a pathetic, pleading whine. i hunger. Find me something to eat?

Warbird huffed hot breath into the air and angled her patagium down; her coverts contracted and soon she went into a deep, spiraling dive, legs tucked in tight, neck long, head a battering ram through gusts and atmosphere. She burst through a final cloud bank above a grand, single-towered citadel.

will you let me eat a princesssss? Styikki asked, wet-mouthed.

“No,” Warbird said, leveling out her flight, “but I can barter for goat or calf.”

Styikki let her head fall back, top third of her body dropping free of Warbird’s heft in the sea-serpent version of a swoon. goat or calf! She cried, voice dripping with facetiousness. my masssster ssspoilsss me thisss day!

“It sounds much to your master like you do not want to eat,” Warbird said. She bent her wings and caught the air to land smoothly, trotting a few steps before coming to a pause.

Stykki continued to peel off her mistress, looping her long, seven foot body underneath Warbird to come up on the opposite side, so she was wrapped round in a triple loop. i do not want to be fed beassst, she hissed, long tongue lashing the air, i want to hunt. sssomething with a brain.

“You’ll get what I give you or I’ll feed you to something,” Warbird snarled, tucking her wings down as far as she could with a giant serpent wrapped around her midsection. “Like to that thing over there.” Across the way a bit there was some sort of giant, feathered reptile, and its smaller, equine companion, dark like night and crowned in something vaguely silver. Perhaps royalty of this land? Stykki hissed her displeasure as Warbird made her way towards the duo. “Ho, there!” she called (Stykki made giant, giant fangs at her throat, a useless threat) “Does your beast fancy a taste of snake?”

i’ll ssssssmother you, i sssshall, Stykki snarled, air whistling through her bared fangs.

"Warbird speech." stykki speech | @Entia |