Instead, he beat his wings once, missing her barely, and slammed into a skypouncer that was stalking her from a short distance. It was quite strong for one of its kind, but no beast could match the might of a god. His transformed fangs dug into the throat of the beast, and as it stilled, he turned to Garlandia.
---
The girl was still shaking in terror, but she had noticed that she had been saved by a skypouncer. I inclined my feline head, and took off, although I landed nearby, following her through my double.
I was pleased to note that by the next morning, she had fashioned two knifes from the fangs of the beast, and wore the skin of the beast as a cloak over her clothing, which by now was ruined by dirt and tears from vegetation.
Over the next few centuries, during which the long and harsh winter occurred, I arranged a few minor spots of good fortune for her. Hollow trees split in such a fashion that they could be used as rafts, leftover materials were found to be "forgotten" by past camps of Icyene, and wild foods grew conveniently in areas where they never did in the past.
That is not to say that I did everything for her. Any other Icyene would have been helpless against the trials that she overcame, although her skin and hair turned white as the snow that she struggled through. When I noticed her fashioning the wings of the skypouncer into a chestplate with fake wings, I thought she had gone mad and would jump off a cliff to attempt flight again.
Then, she walked proudly into New Domina with those wings, and demanded to join my infantry.
Her complexion drew stares, but with a few leading questions to her and a handful of half-truths, she was introduced as the lost daughter of the legendary Icyene warrior Etania, who rode an enormous skypouncer into battle against the Airut. As the Naragi world was dark and dead, the Icyene believed that her skin and hair were a result of growing up there.
13-Dec-2013 19:00:09