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Whale and Reconnaissance

Whale and Reconnaissance

Whale and Reconnaissance

The creature took a form similar to that of a whale, soaring through the air with its mouth wide open, yet instead of the expected grey and blue, it was coloured a subtle red, close to that ochre earth.

Along the length of its body were long, thin wings that slowly and gracefully cut through the air, alternating in their movements so that when one wing went up, the next one across slowly fluttered down.

On the belly of the massive beast were a number of protruding holes, from which a low yet forceful drone emanated.

The gigantic beast was not alone, it was accompanied by a pod of other sky-whales, numbering seven in total.

Most of the airborne mammals were significantly smaller, their skin a little deeper shade of maroon, implying they were lesser in age.

Yet the one who had let out the cry, and the current sole object of the Golem's attention, was the two parents of the pod, enrapturing them as they gracefully floated through the air.

But the creatures were not alone, all around them were a swarm of vultures, swarming and tearing away at the flesh of the young whales.

Another grieving cry echoed throughout the fields as one of the parents slowly turned itself to face its children, attempting to help them in any way possible.

Wanderer watched on in horror, wishing they could help in some way yet knowing it was impossible, the majestic beasts were far above the earth and still a great distance away.

Even still, had Wanderer not promised to avoid intervening in the activities of predator and prey?

At that moment, one of the vultures tore through one of the main wings of a young whale, and with a distant cry of pain, the baby leviathan began to spiral down to the ground.

The sky-whale spiralled slightly toward Wanderer, by luck of wind or fate and before the beast had even hit the ground, the Vessel was sprinting toward it.

Several of the birds followed it on its crash landing, intent on retrieving their dinner, only stopping for a beat when their prey landed in the grassy fields before beginning their feast.

By the time Wanderer reached the mammal, it was long dead, the vultures having made short work of its smooth hide and were currently carving a hole in its side with their cruel beaks.

With a quick glance toward the Golem, the birds flew off, yet it was not because of the Vessel's presence that the vultures fled, not even the nearby incense being enough to repel to the ticks from a free feast.

Wanderer just stood there, soul aching to try and prevent the whale’s corpse from being consumed, yet their mind knew there was no point, this was nature.

In minutes the whale was a husk, all blood being sucked out of its body by the ravenous swarm before being left to rot under the hot sun.

And throughout the whole process, Wanderer had just watched, being unable to help that which was already dead.

“This is what nature is like” they knew.

Nature was cruel and unfair, the baby whale had no way to defend itself yet it was still killed and devoured without remorse, before being left to the scavengers once they had their fill.

Unable to look upon the unmoving body any longer, Wanderer turned their sights back to the aerial slaughter.

In a slight turn of good luck, the two parent whales were having some success in protecting their children, circling them as fast as possible and aggressively throwing their tails at anything that came too close.

Yet for all it delayed the vultures, it did not prevent the inevitable, every now and then a bird would slip past and take a snap at one of the children, and it was only a matter of time before another one went down.

Wanderer felt useless, they wanted to help yet there was nothing they could do, nothing but hope for a miracle.

And by some fortunate twist of fate, that miracle came.

Like a second sun, a ball of brightly burning fire shot into the sky, causing the once brightly lit land to seem dark and dull.

And just as quickly as it came, it went fizzling out in a puff of smoke.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Yet despite the flare’s sudden disappearance, it achieved its intended effect with excellence, the cowardly predators flying off.

And if the first flare did not scare them away, the next three that shot into the sky most certainly did.

After a few more circles, the older whales let down their guard, quickly continuing forward with a chorus of wails.

And while they did watch the gigantic mammals slowly fly away into the setting sun, their mind was elsewhere, focused on finding the source of the bright lights.

And after running forward for a few minutes, they soon found their culprits.

There in front of them was a camp of humans, numbering fifteen or so, sheltered underneath a vast leather tent, placed upon a rocky platform off the side of the road.

All sides of the canvas were closed in except for a single, wide opening on the front, facing Wanderer.

Instantly Wanderer was hit with a dread, hoping that they would not have to encounter a slaver again and put their resolutions into action.

Yet looking closer at the group, they all seemed to be in harmony, chatting with each other or doing menial chores, with no obvious division between appearance.

But the Golem wasn’t willing to risk it, they had to be sure that everything was ok, they had to do some reconnaissance, but how?

They were a little surprised when their previously silent Spirit spoke up, suggesting Wanderer use the long grass to hide in.

They quickly brushed off their surprise to follow their Spirit’s suggestion, crawling slowly and stealthily through the grass until they had a clear view of the encampment.

It occurred to the Vessel that this was one of the first times they had ever attempted to use any type of stealth, usually preferring to run away or face their problems head-on, it’s a strategy they would try to use more.

Wanderer settled themselves into a comfortable position and began to listen and watch the humans, intent on certifying that there were no prisoners among them.

They lay down and strained their hearing, completely unprepared for when a long, grassy tendril lay itself on their shoulder.

They nearly got up and bolted in fright before they realised that they only knew one creature that was made of grass, an extra wave of relief followed that realisation when they recognised the red-green, runic eye standing out from the tall grass.

Simultaneously impressed and annoyed at their friend’s stealth, they made a special effort to sign to the verdestry to hide and try to stay silent, so as to not attract the human’s attention.

Seemingly disinterested in the whole situation, Emio wrapped their tendrils around themself and lounged a few steps away from Wanderer, shutting out the world.

The Vessel once again returned to their spying position, readying to strain their senses and disconfirm their suspicions, when two humans stormed out of the tent, neither seemingly happy about the situation.

The largest of the two was a long and slender man, towering over their partner yet possessing so little muscle mass that they were distinctly non-imposing.

Long brown hair contrasted with their olive skin, and they wore a set of green-brown clothing that made them feel distinctly different from the other light-skinned humans they had seen.

In contrast, the other human was quite a bit shorter, yet carried such an imposing presence that it made little difference, they wore long, lose golden robe, frequently accented with every colour of the rainbow.

On their face rested a dark stone mask, on which was carved a solemn face, yet this facsimile was betrayed by the fiery look of righteous anger in their eyes.

“Rio made us gurtrerio not safe with riote careless actions, triutiag can rio say in riote defence?” the smaller human began with a raised voice.

The tall man immediately cried out in his own defence, “Gio was only letriag gurager help the warlio!”

Wanderer wasn’t able to tell much from the fragments of the argument they understood, their knowledge of the language much too limited, yet from what the Golem was able to pick out, the man had done something wrong and was being reprimanded for it.

The argument quickly picked up speed, which combined with Wanderers lacking understanding of the language, made their conversation near incomprehensible.

For a while, the two went back and forth unaware of Wanderer’s presence, and eventually the Golem zoned out from the argument, being unable to make out anything but gibberish.

Wanderer hardly noticed when the curiously-dressed man brought out a robust contraption from a small bag at their side.

It seemed quite like a crossbow, except smaller and mounted on a wooden handle, inside rested a red-tinted metal rod, which was half hidden in an embossed metal tube.

It was quite obvious to the Golem that the tool was what drove off the vultures, even to Wanderer’s inexperienced mind, the machine was obviously meant to launch something a great distance.

Their mind got a little caught up upon how a metal rod was meant to set alight, but that doubt was discarded the moment the smaller of the two humans snatched the crossbow out of the man’s hand.

“Ah, that’s why they are angry.”, the topic of the argument made sense now, for whatever reason, the masked human disliked the taller man saving the whales, and was scolding them for doing so.

Wanderer’s mind immediately went to what they could do with the flare-bow, no longer would they have to run from all their enemies if they could send a harmless flash of light toward them, to provide a distraction for their escape.

And if they had had that, maybe they could have used it to scare off the ticks, much like the man had scared the vultures.

And so Wanderer made up their mind, they would wait, and watch, and when they have the chance.

They would steal the flare-bow.