Several Hours Prior…
Rinka loved the feeling of the sun warming her back while the wind moved through her feathers. She let herself fall through the sky, her muscles completely relaxed as gravity took over. She watched the ground far below for a moment before closing her eyes. The Peregrine Falcon took in a deep breath through her nostrils before letting it all out in one long sigh. When she opened her eyes again, the stone and dirt ground was much closer.
Calmly, Rinka stretched out her wings, gust of wind catching in them and slowly her descent as she became parallel to the earth below. As she soared high above the heads of traveling land animals, the falcon glanced over her shoulder to the sky behind her. She spotted two small shapes in the distance coming her way, no doubt pumping their wings off trying to catch up to her. The queen had left her guards in the clouds again. Oops.
With a sheepish smile to herself, Rinka tilted her tail feathers and circled around. She considered flying back to her guards and even started to do so, but after thinking about it, she decided that having a few minutes by herself wouldn’t be so bad. And so, after gaining some altitude, the she-falcon began to make wide circles above the land as she waited for the two to catch up. It was during this time that she looked across her land.
Below her was barren land of broken up stone, covering the area with a radius of a kilometer. There were several areas like this across her land where no vegetation grew. The only green that could be seen in these areas of stone were the weeds that poked up through the less dense patches of rubble. Rinka wasn’t sure why these areas were placed where they were, or how they came to be. But she heard rumors involving the dwellings of ancient beings known as “humans”. To be specific, about how they were ruins, the remains of a species that became extinct overnight. Rinka honestly wasn’t sure what to make of these rumors, but she always kept an open mind whenever she heard someone talking about them.
These areas of stone were surrounded by a territory of grass and bush, home to prey animals such as mice and rabbits. But, because this specific territory was so vast, it was hard for the land animals to find them, which was why birds were usually sent out to hunt in this part of the land.
Rinka turned her gaze further west where, several kilometers in the distance, the land fell away to form a short cliff with a blanket of forest at its base. This cliff, known as The Western Ridge, which stretched in both direction for hours of travel, gradually decreasing in slope before finally becoming one with the flat earth, was the border of her land. There were certain places along the cliff edge where clumps of trees grew, especially towards the southwest where a thin forest lay. After certain incidents over the past few years, Rinka herself had knocked over several trees in the forest and lined them up along the edge of the cliff in order to warn the land animals of the danger and hopefully prevent them from running right off while chasing after prey.
“Your majesty!”
Rinka snapped her attention to the call. The guards had finally reached her.
The falcon straightened out her path as the two fell in on either side of her. Both, she noticed, were panting heavily.
“I’m sorry!” she apologized, now feeling bad for deciding not to go back to them, “I should have warned you.”
“No no! You’re fine!” the Sharp-Skinned Hawk to her left wheezed, “Her majesty can do whatever she desires! But it would be great if she would stay at her guards’ side.”
“Toro,” the Northern Harrier to Rinka’s right snapped with a glare to his partner.
“No, he’s right. I shouldn’t have left you behind and I apologize for that,” Rinka defended with a gracious smile. Though it felt nice having those moments to herself.
The Northern Harrier paused before nodding once.
“You are forgiven.”
The three fell silent as they soared through the air. The guards were at her sides, but Rinka was the lead. They would follow her wherever she wanted to go across the land. It was their duty to protect the queen and assist her in any way they could. Even when she wasn’t on a mission and just wanted to go out to stretch her wings, like she had been doing until then.
It had been a relaxing flight across the land, but it was time for Rinka to go back. And so, without a word, Rinka changed course and led her guards home to the East.
Somewhere along the way, the grassy plains below turned into silt, rock and random patches of vegetation. Soon after, the trio entered the true remains of a human city.
The city, Rinka didn’t know, was barely a skeleton of what it used to be thousands of years ago. The buildings were collapsed together, forming hollow spaces beneath the ruins that were suitable for dens. Towards the north, only a short flight distance away, was a building that was much taller than the rest. Long ago, it had caved in, bringing down its height as well as half of its structure, but even so, it stuck out from the sea of ruins surrounding it. This building, Queen’s Rally, with a clearing at its base, was where she had rallied those under her rule together the day she had become their queen. How long had it been since then? One, two years ago? It felt like so much longer…
Rinka and her guards continued east, soaring over the ugly landscape, and those who lived there. Lying ahead was the largest human remnant in the land. It was a building like Queen’s Rally, but if it had been standing instead of lying on its side, it would have been taller. There were several points where its walls had caved in, but the metal that had served as the building’s skeleton held even the walls of rubble up. It served as the home of most of her subjects, acting as sufficient shelter against the elements. And, running along the ground right through this massive structure were several streams of water. It was not the prettiest place to live, but with plenty of room and water for hundreds of animals to dwell, it was enough.
A mile from Queendom’s Center, the ground stopped at a rock wall. It was known as the Eastern Wall, a formation much like the one known as Western Ridge, with a short cliff that stretched for miles in both directions also with a gently decreasing slope until there was none at all. It was at the bottom of this wall, with its branches just a meter from touching the rock face, that a great Weeping Willow grew.
With a soft smile at the sight of her home, Rinka let out a cry to signal her approach. As she and her two guards drew nearer, two more birds circled from behind the tree and pulled a section of the thin, hanging branches apart. After the queen and her escorts soared through the new entrance, the branches were released, falling back in place.
Nothing out of the ordinary has happened today. The scout patrol returned. They found no signs of Shades beyond the Western Ridge. They also checked the main streams and ponds in the territory. The water is still good and the water level is still normal. My subjects will not suffer from thirst yet. We have yet to figure out why all of the river, lakes, and other water sources across the Pridelands dried up. I know Agathar is behind it, but I don't know why or how. I've sent many scout patrols to investigate. But now, no matter how many witnesses they question, they all say the same thing. Basically, "The water was there one day, the next it was gone." It’s come to the point where if I truly want to know why most of the water across the land disappeared, I need to send someone into the Burned Lands to investigate. I need to send them to Agathar’s base, where his followers, Shades and Non-Shades alike, roam. But I can’t do that. I am not willing to send my subjects to their certain death. The risks are too great. How could I even ask one of my loyal followers to take on such a deadly mission, knowing the chance they’ll be discovered, tortured for information and then be put to death is much greater than the chance they’ll return home at all?
The sounds of scrabbling paused after the final question mark was dotted. Rinka hovered over the open book of parchment that was bound together by string at the spine. Twirling a quill in her talons, she looked over the words she had written. Then after a moment, thinking of nothing else to write, she sighed, stuck the quill into a small bottle of ink to her right, and settled back in the pile of moss that she sat in. She rested a talon on top of the book, keeping it open while the ink on the page dried. Absentmindedly, the she-falcon looked into the small glass bottle that rested on the floor in front of the book, watching as the ball of flame inside slowly swayed to and fro.
This flame was her own, encased in the corked fire with no fuel to keep it going. And yet it still lived months after its creation, bringing light to the hollow where none penetrated through. But this was not the only one, for hanging from the walls on bowls of metal mesh were four other bottles of varying shapes and sizes, each holding a ball of flame themselves. These makeshift lanterns were spaced evenly from each other, circling the room and granting each corner of the hollow a fair amount of light, save for the area where the only empty lantern holder hung.
After several minutes of staring off into the flame, she pulled herself forward and flipped back several pages after making sure the ink had dried. Skimming words she had written in the past, she flipped forward a page and found what she was looking for.
The mission to retrieve the disk piece was a success. But it brought many more questions and concerns than I hoped it would solve. Understatement of the century… The tower Kale and I infiltrated was the one that held the piece. We reached the room where the piece was located, but we barely met any resistance. There were only four shades in that tower, all of which we took out. I still find it very strange. I left Kale outside the room, expecting a trap to be sprung as I approached the piece. But what happened was more surprising... I don’t have the words to describe it except that it was more than what any ambush could have done to me. What I saw after I picked that disk piece up… Even I have a hard time wrapping my mind around it, even believing it. And I was the one who experienced it.
With a sigh, Rinka shut the book there, having read this passage many times after recording the visions to the best of her ability nearly a moon ago. She didn’t have the energy to go through it again.
The she-falcon grunted as she got to her feet and began putting everything back in it’s place. The book was pushed into a row of others of varying sizes and materials that lined one of the walls on the ground. The ink bottle was capped and it, along with the writing quill, was placed in a wide, horizontal crevice in the wall about the books. After tidying up the pile of moss she had sat in, Rinka picked up the glass bottle and carefully returned it to its holder. As she turned to leave, her talon caught on a piece of thread, part of a lump that dragged behind her foot as she stepped forward. The she-falcon immediately looked down. Her gaze softened as she realized what it was.
The lump used to be a stuffed doll, no bigger than a five month old chick. It used to be a bright orange with red patterns, and very soft to the touch. But now, horribly scorched as it was, it looked nothing like the hawk it used to be.
Gently, Rinka took the blackened, disfigured toy in her wings and hugged it to her chest.
“Mamma! Pappa! I found Ku-Ku!”
“Great job, Ambyra!”
“Well done! ...Oh! Ku-Ku says he’s tired. He wants to go back home-”
“No Mamma!”
“I want to play some more!”
“Ku-Ku! One more time! If I find you, then I win!”
“Please Mamma? One more time?”
“I don’t know… What do you think, love? It is just about naptime…”
“One more time wouldn’t hurt!”
“Ya! Please Mamma?”
“Alright, alright. But once more and then we’re going home okay?”
“Yay!!”
“Now close your eyes my dears, all four of you, so Ku-Ku can hide…”
Rinka silently buried her face into the precious memory, hugging it closer to her as she stood alone in the dim room surrounded by the five balls of fire that gently flickered inside their bottles of glass.
After setting the burnt doll inside a circular niche beside the northernmost lantern, where it belonged, Rinka walked to the center of the hollow. She stopped in front of mat, woven out of thin branches of the very tree she was in. She bent over, grabbed one side of it and lifted the mat, allowing natural light to flood in through the hole she had uncovered. Propping it up with a wing as she released the edge, Rinka stepped forward and dove through the hole, allowing the mat to fall behind her, closing the exit like a hatch.
The Peregrine Falcon flapped her wings once before landing on the floor of the hollow she had just entered. It was a spacious area, large enough to fit five birds at one time. Against the western wall was a desk covered in paper stacks and scrolls. Hanging above it was a map of the Pridelands, marked all over in ink. Rinka walked to the side of the desk and silently looked over the map.
There were windows along the northern and southern walls that allowed light into the hollow, but due to the branches of the tree on the outside blocking most of the sunlight, it was never the brightest place to be. But Rinka didn’t mind. She could see the little notes beside areas she had circled on the map before, and so the lighting was good enough.
The falcon’s gaze lingered on the western portion of the continent, the words “Burned Pridelands” written in the center. Her former home… The home of her family…
With a sigh, Rinka turned and walked around to stand in front of the desk. She looked down at all the clutter on its surface and, unable to handle the messy state it was in, began tidying it up. She had barely started putting the scrolls into a neat pile on the right side of the desk when she unintentionally brushed her wing across the top, sending several of those scrolls to the ground.
A sound of frustration sounding in her throat, Rinka clenched her talons and lifted her chin to the ceiling with her jaw set tight. After taking a deep breath, she let out a sigh before beginning to gather up the fallen scrolls and setting them back on the desk.
As the falcon picked up the last scroll, she realized there was one that had not been there before she had last exited the hollow. It lay separate from the others, wrapped in a shiny red ribbon. Her curiosity peaked, Rinka exchanged the scroll she was holding with that one and looked it over. After a moment, she began to slide the ribbon off.
“Your majesty!” someone shouted as the door banged open on the other side of the room. Rinka jumped at the sudden intrusion, her heart leaping in her throat as the scroll was crushed in her talons. She whirled around to see one of her guards standing in her hollow, his chest heaving. Seeing him so out of breath, the queen thought they were under attack.
“What? What is it?” demanded out of fright for her people.
“Kale!” the guard gasped, “His hollow! Agathar attacked his hollow this morning!”
Immediately, Rinka felt her blood run cold. No…
“I-Is he?...” she choked.
“We don’t know,” the guard shook his head, “One of the patrols, they said the hollow exploded-”
“Exploded?!”
“They say it knocked Agathar back, but they don’t know if Kale escaped. They didn’t see him, not even after Agathar left-”
“Gather the birds who were on that patrol and tell them to meet me at Queen’s Rally. Then spread word to prepare for a search,” Rinka ordered, already heading for the door, “I am forming a team to investigate the hollow and heaven forbid we find anything. If we don’t, I want anyone who can out there on the lookout for him!”
“Yes, your majesty!”
The two flew out the hollow, shutting the door behind them. The scroll, with the red ribbon still wrapped loosely around it, lay once more on the floor. Having been dropped with the parchment beginning to unroll, the single feather of a Red-Tailed Hawk slid out of the scroll and settled on the ground underneath the desk.
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I can keep half of a secret, it seems~ )
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