Songs of Reamere - Hurik's Entry: Getting Ready to Head East

     With a heavy sigh and less help from the surrounding townsfolk and villagers, a dark haired female runs her hand through her short hair as she walks toward the barn where her fiery red tyto resides along with her orange haired elf friend's brown hawk. Iolana, the female, would have been ecstatic to go, but her tyto, Keahi was less than enthused to go wandering about the sea and stuck on a boat for who knows how long. Still, Iolana could not help but want to get any information in case of any chance for her to go or if another of her friends might need it. Though with everyone really only talking about the sea monster, it was hard to know what the seas of Reamere were like right now. Danger was prevalent, but that was all that was really known as the crater at the Edge only covered a small fraction of the entire Reamere with it's heat and magma that is cooled once it reaches the waters it resides beside.

     While the Reamere does touch the north as it connects to the Pernese Seas, it is mainly in the warmer area of Wyvera. Given the time of the year, there was still a chance for colder weather and storms at sea, but it was hard to know with only the focus of gossip being the sea monster attacks and the less than enthused usual sea farers not willing to chance their cargo and ships being damaged or lost because of it. All of this bogged down on the human female as she thought if it would be better to try and convince her tyto to go despite the adamant refusal from before, just to get more accurate information for future endeavors that way.

     Heading inside the barn while thinking about the distant seas, she finds Keahi snoozing calmly in her stall despite it being daytime to show her dislike of the thought even possibly having to get stuck on a ship that Iolana brought up to her. Because Keahi faced her head away from the open stall door, Iolana could clearly see the orange osprey mark in full on the back of her neck, though Keahi's lighter red are tightly hidden from view. Walking up to the red female, Iolana softly pets Keahi's head in hopes of getting her up and out of the barn. She has fully given up any thoughts of heading off on an adventure with Keahi and just wants to keep Keahi messing up her sleep schedule.

     While getting Keahi up, Iolana hears a knock on wood from behind her, prompting her to turning around and missing Keahi also perking up to the noise. Behind them, standing at the doorway stood a tall thin and muscular orange haired elf looking at little embarrassed and with his raised hand in a fist lowering from knocking on the stall's door frame. "Finn!" Iolana calls out in surprise at seeing him standing there.

     With a slight smile the elf replies with a wave. "Lana, you have a moment?"

     "Sure! I was planning on seeing you after I get Keahi out of the barn so she can get exercise," Iolana confirms in response as she looks back toward her red tyto who as now standing up, wide awake. Keahi ruffles her feathers and nuzzles her rider when Iolana looked back at her, indicating that she was ready to go and would stop ignoring her. Leading the way out of the barn with Fionnlagh walking next to her she asks, "What did you come to me for?"

     With a stern look on his face after getting over having to ask for help, the tall elf coughs and says, "Hurik wants to go to Reamere." Looking over at the elf with a bit of surprise and jealousy, Iolana waits for Fionnlagh to continue as they walk through the barn only to stop at the loud bang coming from the stall to her left.

     All three look towards the stall to see a silver hooded gray raptor banging on the door, looking like he was trying to get out. "Who latched Glas's door and forgot to let him out?" The human female exclaims out in exasperation. Walking over to deal with the goofy raptor causing trouble, she tries to soothe Glas Madainn down a little so he does not run her over as she opens the door to let him out. "Glas, calm down boy. Let me get the door for you instead of you trying to break the stall door and have us suffer to replace it!" Pausing his ramming, Glas looks up at Iolana and the others, blinking slowly with a little bit of a dumb look on his face.

     The dark speckled silver hooded gray raptor had little patience in trying to figure out how the door works when it usually is left unlatched for him to come and go as he pleased since he was not a trouble maker like some other stryx they all have heard about, including a harpia that lives with them. Glas heard his door being closed and locked last night, but did not give it much thought since he was close to the land of dreams. He did not expect for the door to still be latched even though it is daytime when he is awake, thus when he heard the one human female that he remembers as being kind even to other stryx that are not under her care he rammed the door to get her attention. 

     Clicking his dark beak, Glas waits for Iolana to open the door for him to make his way out. Watching as the door slowly opens, he cries out in happiness and after he gives the female human a rub on her cheek in thanks he runs out of the barn without waiting, not realizing he pushed Iolana down on accident in his excitement to be free from the stall.

     With both human and elf chuckling at the antics of the raptor, Fionnlagh gives Iolana a hand up. "Well, that was a very lively Glas," Fionnlagh speaks out as he pulls Iolana up to her feet and helps her brush off a bit of dust from the floor. 

     Shaking her head, Iolana brushes off that Glas just pushed her down, knowing he was just a bit to hyper from being cooped up when he was supposed to be active and out. "Now that Glas is out, it would be best to mention it to the other riders with stryx in the barn to see who locked him up and forgot to let him out in the morning. Though I have the faintest idea of why anyone would do that when Glas doesn't cause trouble like Anisha." Looking back at Fionnlagh, she asks, "You have any clue?"

     Shrugging, Fionnlagh replies with a "No, but I wouldn't put it past it to be Anisha herself to have done that since I know she does stay in this barn and knows how to work the doors."

     Nodding in agreement, Iolana continued her walk at the prompting of her tyto and asks, "Now where were we?"

     Calmly moving forward to keep pace with Iolana, Fionnlagh mentions again as they walk outside, "Hurik wants to go on to Reamere to help investigate what the sea monster is all about." Walking over to a fork in the road the trio stops again, but this time to let Iolana and Keahi hug while they separate, Fionnlagh waits for Iolana to wave Keahi off and watches with his human friend as the red tyto runs to fly of on a hunt and to go play during the rest day. Taking the other path, the elf walks with the human with a steady stride as the head toward where Fionnlagh last met with Hurik, his bright beaked and footed brown hawk he unexpectedly met at the forest by the Edge of the World when he had gone to help in the investigation that led to finding the Rhakos. While the bond between the two started out as a rescue, it did not end there and they stuck together since then.

     Coming out of his reminiscence, he realized that Iolana was quiet next to him. He finds that the female prefers to be quiet and is a little awkward at times, but is still good to others, as was seen earlier in helping out Glas Madainn. Looking ahead, he sees his hawk ahead on an empty grassy patch packing what looks to be a large bag. Reaching her, he stops, sighs and looks over to Iolana with a pleading look on his face. "Lana, can you do me a favor?"

     Blinking, Iolana looks toward her companion and away from watching Hurik trying to pack an overstuffed bag with more random things and not caring if the bag might split from the effort. "Sure, what is it?"

     "Can you go in my stead with Hurik?" Fionnlagh looks back toward the hawk who was starting to take all the items out of the back in an attempt to retry and make everything fit better. "I'm afraid that she would do something stupid while on the hunt and I deeply do not want to leave land and the forests for the seas. A forest elf is not meant for waters deeper than a lake and the Reamere is very deep and dangerous with the sea monster freely swimming there. I do not want to leave Hurik alone there despite there being other people and stryx around. As you can see by all the 'necessary items' as she puts it, I feel she is going to go the wrong way with everything."

     Walking over to Hurik and her bag that she is filling up ever fuller again, Iolana sees that there is probably a lot of useless items among the necessities for the trip. With a chuckle, Iolana pats the hawk to get her to stop packing and turns back to the male elf with a bright smile that is not awkward like the others she tries to force out. "I would love to travel the Reamere! The deep waters, the danger lurking beneath!" Iolana replies excitedly with shining eyes, "BUT! I will have to discuss with Keahi and I hope that you can take care of her in return while I'm away. While she does not need as much care as this girl," Iolana pats Hurik's shoulder as she speaks, "it would not be good for Keahi to mope in her stall while I am away from her for such a long time for the first time since we met when she was young." After getting a smiling nod from the elf, she turns back to the female hawk with a light note in her voice at being able to go to the seas, deciding to worry about convincing her girl later and figuring out how to keep her tyto from eating too much vinegar from going on a voyage with another stryx besides her or Winter, the gold streaked white and teal gryph that the pair are close to, despite Fuyu Negai being a tsundere and not liking much contact with people after loosing her first rider. 

     Ignoring the elf behind her, Iolana focuses on Hurik and the items strew around her, seeing that there was some food as well as a large coat that should be for her elf rider that will not be heading off on an adventure with her. Looking up at the large bird in front of her she speaks out, "Hurik." Seeing that Hurik's focus is on her instead of her rider, Iolana continues, "Some of these things you will not need, especially since Finn will not be coming with you." Hurik squawks out in despair at the mention of her elf rider not coming with her. Quick holding up the dropped hawk's head, Iolana hurriedly speaks, "Hey, hey, hey! He might not be coming along while you travel the shifting waters of the Reamere, but I will go with you. He is not built for the seas, but I can handle the ocean just fine. You just need to help me out and keep me safe while I look out for you as we look for that sea monster, right?"

     Hurik nods with a slightly depressed look glancing over at her rider while she slowly rummages through the items to take out the items she picked out for him. Iolana just quietly looks back at Fionnlagh and waves him over prompting him to come comfort his stryx then helps the bird to move the unneeded items out and sort through the rest to see what is missing. Finding a deflated ball and an air pump among the items, Iolana calmly sets them aside in the pile of things of not needed.

----

     Late afternoon, Keahi wanders the stable grounds in search of her human rider after coming back from her hunt and teasing other young wild stryx while helping them hunt and learn as well. While out she came across a silver hooded gray raptor that she was certain was Glas Madainn running amuck and looking at all the trees while snagging fruit here and there as she has seen him do as of late for some reason. To be fair though, she never really bothered with asking him what he does with his finds as she thought it was none of her business and went back to hunting.

     Looking around for awhile more as the sun slowly heads off to setting, the red tyto finds her human rummaging through a pile of items next to a brown hawk. While she heads over to Iolana, she finds the dark haired woman instructing an orange haired man who had just come back with some more items that he hands of to her rider. The man then goes to rush off once more leaving Iolana and Hurik to organize what is there.

     With a cry, Keahi comes up behind Iolana and nudges her in hello and waits for a reply. Look back and up, Iolana finds that Keahi has returned and that it was getting late. "Hey girl. I forgot as the time passed." Putting down the rope and straps she was holding, she stood up and gave Keahi a hug in excitement telling her the news. "Finn asked me this morning to go with Hurik to Reamere for him." Grabbing the fiery girl's head in her hands she stares right in Keahi's eyes with a firm but bright expression. "I know this means we will be separated for some time for the first time since we met, but you know how much I wanted to go. I was set on not being able to go, but with Finn needed someone to look after his girl since he cannot as the sea is too much for his people to handle. Hurik is too set on going and she had thought that bringing a tent would be a good idea among other things. She really is in need of a caretaker with her battle oriented mind." Keahi gives a soft sad cry upon knowing this, but nods her head in understanding of what her rider wants.

     Looking over at the brown hawk, she sees Hurik watching her and her rider and gives the hawk a glare and cry making sure the hawk understands to look after Iolana or else. Despite her fooling around and getting useless and unnecessary equipment, such as the tent and air pump, for the trip across the Reamere, Hurik knows better and ruffles her feathers, giving off a 'humph' sound at Keahi's threat. She survived the Edge, she can protect her rider's friend at sea and any nasty sea monsters. Seeing Hurik's response Keahi clicks her beak and looks through the pile by their feet. Seeing what looks like an air pump and a large hat among one of the piles, Keahi can see what Fionnlagh was worried about with leaving Hurik to travel alone and was a bit more content that he asked her responsible rider to be the hawks babysitter despite her worries of the danger that might be.

-----

     Yawning bleakly and blinking slowly, a dark pointed brown hawk meanders slowly back toward the barn where she normally sleeps in during the day. It is currently night out, but after being up since last night instead of sleeping during the day as she normally does, the bright beaked and footed stryx had decided that it was better to stay up all day, hurrying to and fro on foot and wing trying to pack a bag full of items she thought would be useful for the trip to the seas of Reamere, only to be told that half of it was useless by her rider's human female friend. Still a bit depressed on the fact that she cannot go on the adventure through the waters of the Reamere to find the sea monster attacking the ships with her orange-haired elf, Hurik did her best not to loose track of the path as she made her way to her cozy nest to sleep in for a night and day to make up for the lost sleep.

     As she slept memories of the day flitted through her mind: the attack of the scrathos, looking for items among those in storage, continuously trying to stuff items into her bag, getting reprimanded kindly by Iolana, finding out that her elf won't be coming along with her, returning and regathering items need and not for the duration of the sea fare at Reamere. Much happened while she was awake and she still cannot wait for when she can finally set foot in Reamere and fight something even stronger than the two scrathos beasts. While fishing and hunting have their fun, it can be boring after awhile once you find that the predators can still be defeated in a few hours and become prey and delightful delicacies under the hands of the humans and other handy species. That is not to say there are other species out there that make good food even without the use of hands, but it always amazed her how well they cook food and find various ways to turn odd fauna and flora into an edible meal.

     Sometimes Iolana would make some yummy meat dishes for her, especially since Fionnlagh, being an elf and all, rarely has any meat, red or white. Thoughts of the dark haired human female and her awkward smile made memories of the trouble she had trying to pack her bag only to be told half of what she had gotten was useless and while the clothing she had packed her elf was fine, it ended up as a useless endeavor since he wasn't coming. Hurik thought it was completely reasonable to bring a hand air pump! There might be some bags that need to be stuffed with air as a flotation device! Sadly though, the air pump, the unicycle kit, and the root beer maker kit are some of the things that were taking out of the bag among others including a rubber chicken and some ball toys. In her defense, she thought she needed some kind of amusement while on the ship as she did know that she would not be allowed much flight freedom in case a storm comes over or she forgets where the ship is because she was not paying attention to her surroundings while playing in the water, snagging fish and teasing water creatures.

     In the end, she left out some miscellaneous items from what she had planned to pack and even ended up using a smaller bag than she first got with the help of Iolana. At this point she is fine with the female human coming along instead of her elf, even if she still wanted to go with him more than anything. It does mean though that she cannot sneak around or out of the premise just to go to Reamere on her own since she is to be tied to the hip of Iolana to make sure that nothing happens to her. The hawk had a feeling that if she let Iolana get hurt, she would not hear the end of it from Keahi and would have to deal with the wrath of the usually gentle tyto.

     During the time she had to go back and forth to return unneeded items and gather more that were actually useful for the the trip, such as a waterproof blanket that can cover her easily as well as a smaller one for Iolana, Hurik caught snippets from Fionnlagh and the female whom she would be gallivanting across the seas of Reamere with. They mentioned the talks from other travelers of the dangers they encountered and were discussing some possible countermeasures. If she could, the hawk would have piped in with a grumble that her power was all that the human needed to protect the two, but alas it was extremely difficult talking with others besides her rider and the funky items he makes. She knew that her elf was hiding something from her with him sneaking off to the blacksmith and communicating with merchants for awhile now, just that she could not figure out yet what it all was. Her only thoughts were that he was gathering some information about what was happening at the Reamere.

     The whole day got her tired with running around gathering bits and pieces here, then trying to place all of it in a large bag. Most of the time after turning in the two scrathos corpses was spent rummaging through what she had personally stored as well as seeing what was in the shared storages and warehouse for checking out or buying. A lot of what she saw and gathered she thought had a use somehow, so for one reason or another she picked it up and brought it back to the spot she had "claimed" for herself and the small growing pile of items. She did remember to get some dried food and clean and full water bags as she knew that anything can happen away from home, but that was among the few odds and ends that she gathered that were truly reasonable to take along. As the night passes through the day, the hawks time in sleep falls deeper and deeper till her dreams return to silence and her rest continues undisturbed, letting her catch up on the lost rest from packing and running about for a full night and day and her next dreams be filled with fighting claw and beak against a large mysterious foe that tumbled through the sea as they struggled and fought in the storm that raged through the night.

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Word count: 3815

 

AP for Hurik, Keahi, and Glas Madainn

Literature: +76

Event: +4

Rider: +5

Personal: +3

Total: 88