[The Forge] Feathers!

[Nyx Queen of Darkness]

Feathers: 4
Dice 13 of 20

Zephirine Amachi-Tyrell wove her way through the brush and brambles. The birds trilled in the trees above her but not a feather dropped. This quest had seemed easy from the beginning, perhaps too easy. Apparently birds really didn't like to share their feathers, even when they were done with them. Possesive little creatures was what they were. So far she'd found four and had spent hours beating the bushes with a group of soquili. Unfortunately, boredom was about the only thing they'd be threatened with here.

Odessa had told Zephirine that this would be a tedious quest. It involved a lot of searching and time. Birds used their own feathers to build their nests and were loathe to share them. She had tried to tell Zephirine that they'd do better finding birds they knew or birds that wanted to trade. But she had not listened.

Caught in a bush of berries were two pristine feathers. Hawk feathers she' guess if she had to. Zephirine picked them up and tucked them into her bag to carry back. "Just a bit longer. We have four feathers now, we'll try a little longer."  

[Nyx Queen of Darkness]

Feathers: 5
Dice 16 of 20



Odessa flitted back and forth amongst the trees searching high and low for a stray feather. There was a nest a few branches up that she crept up on. There were small eggs nested in there but on the side of the little nest was a feather tuft sticking mostly out. She took her time examining it. It didn't seem to be essential to the structure of the nest so it would not mess up the nest or cause any issues with the eggs. The last thing she wanted was for the eggs to be injured or to be injured if the parents came back to catch her.


The coast seemed clear enough. The mother could not be far though. Gently, she tugged the feather microscopically forward. She wiggled it forward with her beak tugging it closer and closer to freedom. A flapping of wings warned her almost too late. The mother bird, who was far larger than herself, was fixing to land and had spotted her.

Odessa yanked the feather free and flitted off being chased by the irate mother who was hurling all kinds of noises of displeasure in her direction. Twice, the mother almost caught her but she was faster. The first miss had been only because she'd weaved. The second though had been because she had squeezed into a small knot in a hole in a tree. It was too small for the mother bird to follow her--it was almost too small for her.

The mother bird's beaks pecked at her missing her by less than a feather's width. Heart racing, she waited for her to leave.

Zephirine saw Odessa extricating the feather with meticulous precision. When the mother bird took after her they almost moved too fast for her eyes to follow. When her little companion got wedged in the tree, she knew that she had to help or risk her getting pecked to death.

Using her tail, she scooped up a acorn and flung it at the tree, an inch from the mother bird's head. The bird stopped and turned toward her in amazement.

"Next one hits you birdy." Her tail had already curled around the next acorn and was pulled back like a whip ready to crack. "Your choice. You leave one way or another." Zephirine gave her that wicked smile. The mother bird hesitated only a moment longer before she flew away in a huff.

Odessa finally squeezed herself out and nested in Zephirine's hair as Zephirine put the feather away with the others. This one was the smallest they'd found yet, but it was bright blue and black. Zephirine personally thought that made up for it's size.  

[Nyx Queen of Darkness]

DICE  

[Nyx Queen of Darkness]

After the mother bird debacle, Zephirine had asked Odessa to stay close. She was afraid that her little companion would get injured if she went back flitting in the trees. Odessa would never admit it, but Zeph had seen the fear in her as she dodge peck after peck. Luckily, mother bird hadn't been a long beaked bird or she might have been impaled.

Though she'd often heard of the term "beating the bushes" she had never taken it as quite so literal. Each bush was shook out and looked under, then shook again for good measure. After about ten bushes, Zeph was highly irritated with their lack of finding feathers. Evidently, everyone in the entire lands and their brother were looking for feathers. This area had probably been picked over before they got here. Just as she was giving up she saw something long that looked kind of grey and black.

Digging beneath the branches of some flowering shrub, she found a large goose feather. It was black with grey and white, extremely long. It was very fine and in mint condition. This feather would make up for all the other feathers with it's pristine beauty. She was of half a mind to keep it rather than trading it to he Forgemaster. But then, she could go look for feahers anytime while opportunities like this to get paid for feathers was rare.

Putting the feather in the bag, she took another look around at her companions. Each of them was searching in every nook and cranny in the area. Some had more feathers than others, but all had at least found one. She considered for a moment whether she should look for more. But really, she had six now and these had taken hours. She felt that it was likely not worth it to look longer and waste more time. No feather would be able to top the last one anyways.  

[Nyx Queen of Darkness]

"I think that's enough, don't you?" She asked Odessa as the bird flitted over to a flower for a drink of nectar.

Odessa was more than done, she'd passed done at least an hour ago. "Yes, I think these will impress him!" She chirped merrily.

Zephirine gave her a side-long look and smiled, showing her teeth. "Liar."

Odessa flitted her wings at her and made a kind of snobbish gesture. "Well, you wouldn't like to hear the truth either. This took too long and being almost killed by an irate mother bird was not the highlight of my day."

"Rude." Zephirine rolled her eyes at Odessa before laughing. "Well, at least today wasn't boring."

"Nothing is ever boring with you. You don' have a boring bone in your body," Odessa trilled.

Zephirine laughed again. "Let's see if the others are almost ready to go. There are dark things in these woods, so it'd be best not to travel alone." Turning, she and Odessa went to see how many feathers everyone else had gathered.