Chapter 21: Cheep!? 20

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 Cheep!?

Chapter 20

It had been a long time since Charles had found tracking something to be quite so difficult. The footprints were soft and light, tending towards hard patches of soil that reduced the chances that any print at all could be found. Still, there was a method to the way they moved, such that Charles could follow along relatively well after considering how he himself would have been moving. Granted, if he were to be actively trying to be stealthy, it’d be much harder to track him, but he supposed that the same could be said of whatever left this print. It was probably only passively trying to be stealthy, not actively doing so.

Considering that fact, then this beast was definitely a master in its own right, undoubtedly better than Charles. ‘This could be interesting,’ Charles thought to himself, surprised at how excited he felt at the prospect. The challenge of it spoke to him, to both track the beast and then possibly beat it at its own game.

Whatever that creature happened to be, anyways, that part was still making him wary.

“Do any of you recognize this print?” Charles looked up to ask his siblings, seeing them struggle for a brief time with the meaning behind his words. He realized that not everything he said was going through, but a great deal more of it was. Pushing his impressions of his words via essence helped bridge the gap, at the very least, though he wasn’t positive exactly what they were hearing versus what he was saying. 

It could be that everything that came out of his mouth was horribly distorted, but things had been working out so far.

“Not me. It’s not a good footprint either… but I don’t usually bother with the specific details.” Gabby offered, staring at the print hard, having only really noticed it after he’d pointed it out to them.

“What do you normally look for?” Charles asked as he stalked onwards.

Gabby considered the question for a moment before saying, “Mostly just looking for size, where they’re going, and hopefully how fresh. I’m not really looking for anything other than that, because that’s not really what I need?” She turned to look at the siblings around, “Does that make sense?” 

“Yes, we aren’t all that concerned with details. More just that the prey we’re after are still in an area so we aren’t wasting time flying back and forth over poor hunting grounds.” Owl keened aloud, “That said, we also don’t usually go after anything that much larger than us. The biggest thing we’ve taken down was a badger.” 

Charles perked up at that, surprised in a way that they’d gone after the ironbacks, considering how tough they were. Though, if you were capable of hunting as a group, perhaps that wouldn’t be nearly as dangerous as it was when he’d first done so. 

The next few minutes were spent in relative silence as Charles closed in on the source of the prints. He’d begun to get a vague sense that these weren’t old, given how the soil was still lightly upturned, and in the rare few locations where fluffier foliage was walked over, there were still imprints left upon the greenery. If it were older, those imprints would have eventually gone away, concealed by the plant life. He relayed his suspicions to the others as they dropped slightly further back from him, careful about the noises that they made. To their credit, they were incredibly quiet while flying, and even when they did make noise, it was predominantly captured by the canopy overhead. 

“That’s pretty nice,” Charles couldn’t help but feel a little jealous about that one. Not having to worry as much about noise was an incredible advantage. Meanwhile, he also had to work with the disadvantage that was his decidedly not forest colored plumage. 

He abandoned any such thought as his other senses picked something up, a kind of subconscious ping that told him there was something else in the area. Immediately Charles lowered himself, careful not to brush against any bushes and make unnecessary noise. His eyes cast about, sharp raptor eyes peering through gaps in the brush and looking for any indication of his quarry. More than that, he listened for anything out of place, and carefully tasted the air with his sense of smell.

In the air, he could sense the tell tale earthen scents of the forest, the plant life that abounded all around him. But, beneath all of that were the less common tones, the smell of his siblings and, after a few more seconds of parsing the scents, a stronger scent that belonged to his quarry. The coppery and mint scent was odd to him, and he realized that it was the tinge of essence that changed the aroma for him. Whatever it was, it was very, very close to him.

But more than that, there was another scent, both weaker and similar to the smell. He frowned at that, noting the way it almost smelled like fresh paper, or clear air. It wasn’t clean per se, but it was… uncolored. 

Charles couldn’t quite figure out how to place it. That alone would have been enough to push him forward, his curiosity burning in his breast with every clawed step. He slid through the underbrush carefully, weaving between plants as he could and letting them slide over his smooth feathers. He wasn’t in any hurry, and Charles took the time to test his hearing and sight against his environment again and again as he went.

After a short distance, his siblings flitted to higher branches, trying to be able to keep an eye on things without interfering in the hunt. They were curious to see how he would hunt, and Charles himself couldn’t be distracted during this time. 

When he gently peered through another set of undergrowth, he suddenly heard a sound, a light thump and high pitched squeak of sorts.

‘That seemed… very cute?’ He blinked in surprise before sorting his thoughts. Pushing forward more, he buried himself between a bramble covered bush and a bright, red berried bush. 

In a slight clearing, halfway concealed amidst protruding rocks with moss growing healthily atop them, was something that he was almost stunned to see.

‘Is that a feathering sabre tooth tiger!?’ Charles beak clamped shut just a little bit tighter upon seeing what amounted to a kitten, albeit as large as a medium sized dog already. It’s fur was unusually fluffy, lacking a shiny coat or even especially impressive coat as of yet. Currently, it was fiercely combating a stick, flinging it through the air and tackling it even before it fully hit the ground. 

Charles' eyes found the adult not far away, lounging atop a particularly large, rounded stone with moss covering it. It was large, larger than Charles himself was, though not as tall at the shoulders as Charles was. With a dense, but lean body, the sabretooth might well have outclassed him in weight.

At least, until Charles realized that he wasn’t human anymore, and that he was actually far heavier than he should have been.

‘Actually, how the pluck can I even glide?’ the tangentially related thought occurred before he shook it free. ‘Not important… what do I even want to do here?’ 

For several seconds, Charles considered his options. No small part of him wanted to test himself against the adult, a drive that Charles understood came from his combined instincts. That was a drive that wasn’t getting what it wanted today, Charles decided.

‘I’m not about to attack a family, besides that little cat is cute as hell… yeah, that’s a good enough reason.’ Charles nodded to himself, before casting another glance back at the adult.

And froze when he realized it had its nose lifted into the air, sniffing the surroundings warily.

It stood before Charles could move, chuffing at the youth on the ground. The young sabre paused in its playing, before coming to sit down next to the stone.

For a few seconds, Charles just waited to see what was going to happen. While he wasn’t confident in his ability to win a fight if it came down to it, he also wasn’t afraid that he’d be utterly helpless to fend for himself.

The adult set its eyes in the direction that he lingered in and let out a low, throaty growl. A warning, but not an unwarranted one Charles decided. 

Instead of slipping away directly, though, he wanted to try something that was on his mind for some time now.

Whereas the sabretooth had seemed nonchalant before, that changed dramatically when Charles pushed himself forward out of his hiding place and emerged into the clearing, but only to the edge. He moved slowly, and judging by the fact that the sabretooth went from sitting to standing, every muscle taut and eyes widened in surprise, that might have kept the situation from escalating.

Charles' eyes met its own, and in that moment realized that it had a sense of intelligence within them, different from a humans, perhaps, but still more than an animal from Earth. The low growl became deeper, but it didn’t move forward. Emotions flitted across its eyes, and Charles noted that he could also feel the tinge of the essence that hugged it. While not complex in the sensations he could feel as of yet, it didn’t need to be. It had gone from a casual wariness to an active caution, even a tinge of fear. But not, Charles hadn’t failed to notice, for itself. Instead, its essence almost seemed to subconsciously intercede between Charles and the young cat, who for its part was paralyzed with shock, fearfully glancing towards its parent and back to Charles.

‘Maybe whatever I am is a lot more dangerous than I gave it credit for?’ Charles resisted the urge to click his tongue, wishing for information that he had no way to get, ‘Not yet, anyways.’

Charles had no wish to escalate things further; truthfully, he was curious on how he would match up with the large sabre cat, but not at the expense of potentially traumatizing the young cub. He also wasn’t that hungry, and while he knew that one day he might have to stoop to some pretty low places to survive, that was not this day.

Steadily, Charles let his essence diffuse into the environment around him, carrying a placating, steadying tone along with it. He bowed low, letting out a low chirp as he did so, “Be at ease, I mean you no harm.” 

As he bowed, Charles couldn’t see the surprise on the adult sabretooths’ face, but he could feel its essence shift when he spoke. More than that, he knew that it understood him to an extent.

When he rose and looked to the pair, he still saw them frozen in place, stunned at what had just occurred. ‘To be fair, this is like a dog actually talking to a human. Back on Earth, that’d be crazy.’

The adult recovered first, emulating the bow stiffly, before attempting to communicate back. There was an undeniable component that was sound, but Charles ignored that, having experienced first hand that the physical was the least important component between communication. That was, after all, how he’d finally figured out how to communicate with his siblings, albeit he was still working on the finer points.

Still, he only received general imprints from the sabretooth, but it was enough to know that his message was received accurately enough. At that, Charles nodded, steadily turning away to move in another direction. That was enough for now, perhaps these two would be in the area for a while yet and he could work on communicating with others, but as an introduction this wasn’t a bad start.

He stopped then, hearing a low, hesitant half-growl from the youth. Charles turned his gaze to the source of the sound, noting how the adult had stiffened in what almost seemed to be dumbfoundedness at the youth’s antics. 

‘Fiesty one, hmm?’ Charles couldn’t help but be amused as he saw the low, crouching stance of the youngling. He positioned himself between the adult and Charles, seeking to present a united front against the invader. 

 

‘This idiot.’ Sasha’s gaze froze upon her fluffy little pissant of a younger sibling as he postured against a giant killer bird no less than four times his size. A distant part of the sabretooth’s mind applauded him for his fearlessness, but considering the dominant part of her mind was nearly screaming siren alarms, that small appreciation vanished nearly instantly.

‘Why, why did I let Mom and Dad convince me this was a good idea? I should have let one of the others take care of this idiot.’ Sasha bemoaned her lot for just a split second before she pulled her attention back to the newly developed situation. Today had been going great, they’d been going through their routine, teaching little Tiku how to hunt - admittedly only small furred creatures, much to the younger’s chagrin - and relaxing in sunbeams. It was, all told, quite nice in the forest for the most part. The essence here was just thick enough to be comfortable for her, and more than enough for the growing youth she was paired with.

It was good, up until she’d noticed, far too late, the predatory bird that had snuck right up to their midst. She felt her heart clench at the fact that she’d been snuck up on, and moreso that had the bird wanted to, it could have delivered an instantly fatal strike to her brother in that time. Perhaps to her, too, if the roiling essence that cloyed to its body had anything to say about it.

Yet, an aggressive bird would have been bad enough, but no, this had to be a damned aberrant. Even beasts of a higher essence level were wary of aberrations, no matter what their supposed tier was. Her parents had a few tales of run-ins with aberrants, and of those that had turned to fighting, they were the closest escapes they’d had in their lives. 

Escapes, not battles. That part had always been emphasized in spite of how prideful her higher essenced parents usually were. Any given aberrant was different from anything they’d meet, generally much more powerful of essence, often more intelligent, but most of all tending towards a kind of ravenous drive. They were only a single step above the twisted, albeit it was still a toss up to which one was generally more dangerous.

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Thus, if the aberrant didn’t want to pick a fight, well, Sasha was the last one who’d be willing to start one. Age had taught her a great deal about the virtue of fighting, rather than just the rush of it.

Unfortunately, Tiku was still learning the difference between the two.

“Tiku, stop.” Sasha chuffed quietly in admonishment, uncertain if the aberrant was going to reverse its previous intentions. It had, stunningly, managed to speak to her. Broken and rough, but no less crossing the barrier between species.

Her parents had never said anything about that. That meant that either this aberrant was just especially strange… or was incredibly advanced. 

“What? B-but I bet I can… win?” Tiku started off strongly, but faltered rapidly before even questioning himself at the end. Sasha would have laughed at the spectacle if it weren’t for the fact that the huge bird took a short step towards the cub.

Every muscle in Sasha’s body tensed, ready to catapult herself through the air with a potent essence burst from her hind legs. The pulse of energy running through her compacted, stronger, but also quieter in the sense that it was harder to detect. That was the trick her parents had taught her, that essence patterns needed to be condensed, sturdier, and tightened in order to become more powerful. More than that, it made them harder and harder to detect, more efficient all told. It was a force multiplier.

Which made the fact that the Phorus looked to her, specifically at her legs, especially frightening. ‘Oh, catscratch, does it already have condensed patterns?’ 

Sasha was not adept at sensing essence. For all she knew, the Phorus could have been using condensed essence patterns right then and she wouldn’t have noticed. To be fair, not many could. 

“Peace.” The essence-word poured through the air, carrying with it the intent of nonviolence, and no small amount of amusement. Sasha stuttered in her essence control, rapidly letting it diminish to nothing. 

Contrarily, Tiku decided now was the time to pounce.

“Fool!” Sasha tried to marshall her essence once more, knowing full well that what was done was done. Her fool brother was about to be brained and she’d be far too late to do anything about it. Mid jump to the ground, though, she was surprised to see that Tiku was not only not dead, but was instead plucked from mid air by the Phorus’ beak.

For a startling moment, she wondered if he was going to be used as a hostage, but then realized that he was being held by the elastic scruff of his neck. He hung for a moment in frozen astonishment that his gallant charge had been thwarted so easily, but quickly turned to outrage.

Which only made the trickle of amusement from the Phorus turn into an outright wave of it.

“Silly cat,” the bird chortled warmly, “You’ll give your… elder, a heart attack.” 

He paused at the ‘Elder’ part, but she understood his meanings and words well enough. It had no idea what the exact relationship between the two was, not that it mattered at that moment.

Because the fluffing bird was entirely correct.

“Tiku!” She half-hissed, carefully directing it to the youth - little more than a cub if she had mind to say anything about it - still held mid air. 

“Sis! Help! I’m stuck!” He cried out pitifully, plucking at her heart even as she couldn’t help but to be flabbergasted at how utterly shameless he was.

The Phorus chortled again, obviously somehow understanding the tone of the words. Before Sasha could even begin to try to figure out how to ask, the bird gently placed Tiku on the ground in front of him, carefully ensuring that his legs weren’t in the immediate striking range of the little hellion. 

Sasha breathed a sigh of relief then before gently releasing the essence from her channels and letting it wash back into the core of her body. Surely, this was-

Tiku turned and hissed, going fully fluffed up and poised to attack again.

This time, Sasha was going to brain him herself if the Phorus didn’t, she swore it in her bones.

Before he could move, the Phorus’ entire demeanor shifted, the essence around him contracting, pressuring the area around him. He widened his stance with a stomp - a strike that shook the earth around his feet with a low quake. His plumage and wings spread, an intimidation display that, in spite of knowing it for what it was, did nothing to decrease the effect it had on the sabretooth pair. 

A loud, shrill cry tore from its throat, part threat, part a call to combat. For a brief moment, she felt the essence in her body roil as sensation and intent hit it, violence, a promise to battle, bloodshed, glory, and a kind of half tyrannical, half emoldening sense flashed through her.

Which, contrarily, extinguished any consideration she’d had at fighting the Phorus at all.

And, thankfully, Tiku seemed to be the same, albeit much more statuesque given that the giant bird had just blasted him point-blank range with such a potent aura.

Charles let the essence flow trickle off once he was sure the feisty critter at his feet was sufficiently cowed. Normally, he wouldn’t have bothered to do such a thing to a child. But this wasn’t Earth, and he was more concerned that the cub didn’t quite have the sufficient respect for something of his kind. 

Part of that, he was sure, came from his combined instincts, but he also found that he didn’t quite care to put that into check. His instincts existed for a reason, and if he didn’t see it as directly putting his life in danger… well, it wasn’t exactly feasible to combat all of them in the first place, so why try?

The little cat shied away, and while the sight didn’t exactly make him happy, he was at least glad that the critter was able to realize when it’d bit off more than it could chew. Hopefully that would be a thought process before getting into the thick of it.

Charles decidedly didn’t think about how he himself had plenty of such occurrences in life already.

After a moment to make sure the message was sent, Charles smoothed down his feathers and let himself fall back into a calmer state. Almost at once the essence around him began to relax, and not for the first time Charles thought it bizarre how responsive the strange energy was to him. Then again, it was like an extension of the self in many ways, and thus far most creatures he’d met were the same way. Albeit, there didn’t seem to be many things that caused quite as much of a ripple as he did.

“Be careful in the future,” Charles admonished the small cat as he stared down at it, trying his best to look imperious without outright being hostile, “not everything is going to be willing to overlook your posturing.” 

A small look of understanding seemed to glimmer in the little cat's eyes, but it didn’t dare move still. It still stared at him with wide-eyed shock and fear. He shook his head, turning his gaze over to the adult, noting that she was better off, but had a much more complex look in its eyes. Charles wasn’t sure how to interpret what he was seeing, but he supposed it was closest to when a family member was glad that their sibling hadn’t just stepped into headlong traffic and died, by virtue of someone paying attention.

‘Something like that, anyways,’ Charles mentally shrugged even as he nodded his head towards the sabretooth. “Farewell,” he said as he turned back towards the forest, only dimly hearing a similar response from the shell shocked cat. 

‘Well, that was an experience,’ he pondered over everything that had just happened as he slipped through the underbrush once more, already slipping back into his habits for prowling unfamiliar terrain. ‘It might be best to assume that all beasts have some version of sapience. Though… I’m not sure how much that matters?’ He struggled with that particular line of thought, mostly due to the implications for everything that he ate.

‘Were the badgers able to think to some extent? Are they limited by instinct, or just guided by it? I mean, they could have just been tremendous assholes.’ Charles snorted with amusement at that, ‘wouldn’t surprise me. In the first place, maybe communication between different animals is supposed to be impossible. Or just difficult? Maybe something to do with very high essence skill. I’m definitely no savant, so maybe Alterra’s gifts are giving me a method to cheat, here.’ 

‘If that’s the case, that changes a lot. Can I eventually be understood by humans? I guess that depends on how sensitive they are to essence-tongue. That’s just so weird…’ He momentarily shook his head while thinking how bizarre it was that animals here might actually be able to communicate with each other and with humans with more sophistication than grunting at them and hissing. 

‘It’s not going to help me to go pacifist now, though,’ Charles carefully murdered the guilt he felt at the three - and counting - badgers he’d already hunted, ‘In the first place, that’s basically why I’ve been brought here… body mishaps aside.’ 

He slowed as he heard the sounds of flapping wings overhead and focused on the source of the noise. Not surprised, Charles watched as his siblings flitted to a low hanging branch near him, ranging from delicately landing - in Talon's case - or to slapping down on it hard and shaking the limb - Yak’s fault - with the others on it. The latter didn’t get admonished, though that was by virtue of their attention on Charles.

“I didn’t know you speak cat!” Pecky trilled excitedly, “Why didn’t you tell us sooner!? That’s cool!”

“Can’t speak bird… but speaks cat…” Charles' face stiffened at the half-amazed, half-disappointed tone and expression on Gabby’s face, “Eldest brother is definitely special.”

Charles squawked in protest before snapping at Gabby’s tail feathers. She let out a decidedly unrefined caw as she flapped hard and jumped, leaving the others laughing with thrilling calls after her. She landed again on the overloaded branch with the others, an annoyed look on her face that was ruined by the twinkle of amusement in her eyes.

“I didn’t know I could,” the bladebeak shrugged to them, “but, that’s definitely good to know.”

“Was that why you didn’t try to eat them?” Talon tilted her head questioningly, “Not that I’m especially interested in eating cat, just so you know.”

Charles paused, “Hmm… Yes and no? I guess if I were really hungry? But, I didn’t really feel like eating them. Maybe because the cub, maybe because I could tell they were intelligent enough.” He shook his head, “Though, I can’t say I wouldn’t do so if I had too. But I don’t think it’d ever come down to that. They’re not really on the menu.” 

“But badgers are?” Owl asked, almost sounding hopeful as he swallowed.

“Uh… yeah, probably. They’re kind of plucking rude and taste good.” Charles laughed, ultimately deciding that he and badgers were just going to have that kind of relationship.

After chatting for a bit longer, the group resumed hunting, Charles eager to find something worth hunting in the forest. It would be rather amusing if he did in fact find another badger, but he wasn’t picky. The bigger the better, he thought.

 

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