D A M A S C U S
Damascus, a child of the sun and stars had found himself wishing for nothing more than to hug his feathers to his sides and shield the cold from his supple hide. Though, being at such a vulnerable altitude with no land in sight, the black bird would have to stay put, allowing the wind to continue it's flogging, tossing him to and fro, dragging his path further east rather than his goal of west. The boy was beyond panic; it was much too late for that. Rather than fretting the delay of his arrival in Terrastella he now had concerns for whether he'd arrive anywhere intact, and so, like the warrior he was or was attempting to be, he would press on through the night with crippled sight. Until the past half-hour or so his journey had been quite splendid. The rumours and whispers of a relic had ushered him from the land of his nest, and up and away he'd flown in search of any signs of it. They'd run afoul of no nasty creatures, run into no tricky situations, and he had even remembered to stop for Dohv to find snacks. All was well until the currents snatched at his wings with their greedy claws and pulled him into the eye of a storm, sending him east instead of west. It did seem that he was making it out of the other side, though, and at last the craggy ridges of mountains were in sight. Dohv, who had buried his long-eared head under a mountain of his own (only this one was composed of feathers) finally plucked his cranium up into the breeze to look down as the gullys and rivers streaking below. "T'e storm - It spits us out!" the jerboa would coo to Damascus with a hoot of triumph. "Mayhaps it don't like 'orseys!" Damascus hadn't smiled quite so wide all day, but that quickly changed as his wings were caught by another gale which once again set his course swooping toward the mountains. Flaring his wings to the best of his ability, fighting with all his strength against the rip and brute strength of the wind current, Damascus managed to slow his dive enough to land without splatting upon the rocks (and thus breaking into a thousand pieces). Instead, he landed with one great stumbling thud, rolling forward onto his neck and wings which were heavy enough to weigh him down, thus preventing him from snowballing any further. Dohv, of course, was sent flying like a missile in the direction of a near-by pair of innocent bystanders, his elephantine ears the only element of wind-catching to slow his bullet-speed down. Laying upon his pulsing spine, Damascus groaned as the air seeped back into his lungs, his wingtips curling as his legs dangled over his ribs. That was one vicious crash-landing, and still as he lay there on the turf he hadn't noticed whether Dohv had hit the two onlookers or not but somehow the creature had survived - he knew this only from the violent tirade of abuse already echoing through their telepathic bond. Another groan fell from the colt's lips as he spilled over onto his side, looking with wide eyes at the male and female who had been so lucky to have witnessed such a moment. He hardly knew what to say to them, so settled on "Sorry," and then went on to introduce himself. "Damascus is I". "!!!” |
