Upon the Wing Above(Monsters, Plot Focus, FxF)

[ObscureObscenities]

Spinning this idea out of my larger game list to get it some focus. Check my siggy for further cravings and tid-bits on me.

Upon the Wing Above
Modern? Fantasy, FxF, Romance-possible, Could be extreme
Picture references below, please refer to them after reading

    Sri'cha came awake slowly, roused from her rest not by some external source, but by the urging of the dreams she had been having only moments before. The dreams had come again, like they had weeks ago, and then weeks before that. At first she had dismissed them, dreams could sometimes just be dreams after all, nothing more. But when again they had come to her in her rest, some weeks later after those first, and brought with them the same confused feelings of need, of urgency, of importance, she had begun to consider if they were more than simple ill dreams plaguing her. It was only today, that she had finally come to decide that the dreams that had filled her this last day, were more than simple dreams, but a message, or perhaps a warning, and urging, one that either each coming of the dreams, had seemed more urgent.
   
    Rising slowly, she sat up amid her nest, a pile of layered fur pelts of various textures, scents, and memories. She let her fingers stroke carefully along one of the shaggy pelts beneath her, feeling the course fur of the great bear she had slain, its hide was thick, and its fur gave both comfort and warmth to her nest, a pleasure that memory was to her. Slowly she took the time to stretch out her arms, her joints flexing and extending, her hands splaying, and then her fore wings rising to extend as well as she spread the great wings wide in a slow casual stretch. She could feel at the tips of either of her wings, the walls of the cavern she made her nest in being brushed by her feathers. The cavern was hollowed deep into a cliff, tucked into the stone, with twists and turns to confuse any who thought to trespass on her nest while she rested. She was proud of the home she had found for herself, and content in the sweet silence of the cavern, the coolness of it, the stillness besides her own rustling wings.
   
    That rustle, a soft of a sound as it truly was in the wide cavern, was enough to seemingly brighten the darkness of the cavern for her. The way the sound of her shifting, and moving touched off the walls, and bounced back to her hypersensitive ears, painted a picture in the blackness of the cavern that no eyes would be able to replicate. Which was fortunate, for her, for eyes were not something she possessed. Lifting herself now, she rose up on her taloned toes, the three front toes splaying wide and bearing most of her forward weight, while her rear toe steadied her balance. She tucked her wings closer to herself once more, folding her fore wings close, and closing her elbows in towards her slender frame. While her nesting cavern was well roomed, the tunnels leading to it were narrower, and she would need to hold herself small in her exit.
   
    With every step, as slight as her touch was, the sound of her own talons against the stone as she left her nest, brought the world of her tunnels to life in her special sight. She could see easily and began the path through the maze of weaving tunnels towards the exit. Only mere steps from her nest, could she detect the scents of fresh air without, the smell of salt on the sea crested air, the dampness of the evenings chill beginning to develop. Her sense of heat muted some, in her cavern her own body had supplied a soft warm glow to her surroundings, her nest warm with the lingering heat of her body, but now as she  walked, hunched lower onto herself to fit through the tunnels, that glow she sensed muted into dark smudges in the carefully crafted vision her senses gave her. The tunnel was colder, and only grew more so as she got closer to the exit, where the sea air and moisture stole the warmth from the stone quickly enough.
   
    She stepped out onto the small outcropping of stone in the cliff face, barely more than a few hand spans, the outcropping dropped off immediately after, a sharp, and fatal plummet to rocky waters below. Again she mused to herself, how fortunate she had been to find such an excellent place to make her nest, shuffling her wings as she spread them, feeling the cool air tickle through her feathers, stroking between their blades and brushing her body. The world had come to life in her senses, the sound of the sea alone enough to sing detail into her minds eye, by way of her extraordinary hearing. Feeling the currents of the breeze, sensing them she crouched lower, legs bending as her talons clutched the out cropping, before she launched herself out, flinging herself free of the cliff, and throwing her great wings wide.
   
    Instantly she caught the winds in her wings, tilting them, shifting swooping into the breeze, and using the seas great winds blowing against the cliff toe buoy herself upwards, cresting high up from her nest, and over the ridge of the cliff she lived within. She listened to the sounds of the night begin to still, the scurrying of animals pausing in fright, the scratching of smaller predators freezing. With her wings spread, gliding over the trees that blanketed the tops of her cliff, she heard life go skill, trying to hide itself from the great predator above. It was foolish, their stillness did nothing to disguise their warmth, the dots of warm little orange glows in her senses telling her where creatures below were, standing brightly out against the chill stone, and cool air that contrasted them. But these prey were small, insignificant to her, they were not worth her time to hunt, as much as they feared her.
   
    She let the wind carry her, tilting her wings as she soared through the open sky, the touch of the breeze and the sound of the wind guiding her, she let it take her where it willed for the moment, thoughts again turning to the dreams. Before, each time in fact, they had come to her before great storms came over the lands she called hers, almost as if in warning, only...not. The dreams were not about these storms which came, but rather entwined with them. In them she saw herself, taking wing, rising into the storm, an urgency to join with the winds, and let them carrying her further than she had ever flown before. It was foolish, she held many abundant lands where she was, and a very fine nest, to take into the storm and soar with it far, would be to leave that, and all she had won behind. Her nest, filled with pelts, were not the only trophies that Sri'cha prided herself with, and most those would not be able to be carried with her if she did as her dreams insisted of her.
   
    Tilting her great wings she let herself curve through the sky, her senses guiding her as much as instinct alone did, and she swept through the night skies, a knife in the wind, silent but for the swish of air between feathers. She caught the scent first, her sharp sense of smell picking up the boar before she could sense it's warmth in the cool night. Her mind focused as her instincts surged, she tilted her wings carefully, adjusting her course to begin tracking the scent on the wind. It did not take her long, her sweeping glide aided by the strong sea winds in the heights she flew at, for her to begin sensing the heat of the creature. This now, would be game enough to break her fast, not a challenge, no, but a meal. She began a circling dive, not turned sharply in, but carefully lowering her altitude while trying to minimize her presence. She could not know if there was a shadow from her presence, she knew of the moon, the sun, but without eyes knowing when those were present could be tricky. The sun was easier, it's warmth making it a bright glow in her senses. But the moon, the moon was cool as night and lost to that sense for her, no she knew simply to behave as if it were always there, turning herself to minimize the size and shape of her shadow.
   
    It only did so much though, eventually even the boars slow and stupid instincts would be able to pick up on a predator looming. Perhaps her scent on the wind was enough for the boar, though how it smelled her over it's own abrasive and abundant scent, she'd never know. It began to run, and she twitched one wing to twist out of the circling dive, into a sharper pursuit. Now, even with the other creatures in the vicinity sensing the threat and quieting, she could still see, for the boar barreled through the trees and brush, her sensitive ears picking up on those sounds and how they bounced, giving to her the means to see. It kept her from diving into the trees, pulling her dive level as she came to the canopy, pursuing but not diving into the branches after the boar. She would give it chase, and when there was a break in the trees...ah.
   
    She dove, dipping beneath the canopy line in the small clearing as the boar tried to barrel through it, back towards the safety of more trees on the far side. Her body sleek as her wings tucked, she speared through the air. Only in the last moment did she throw her wings out, wrenching herself almost painfully with the sudden resistance, and flipping her form over, her feet now stretched down towards her boar, legs straightened so her talons spread wide she snatched it from the ground, already beating her wings again to start rising into the air. The loud squeals of pain and fear from the boar filled her ears as her talons bit deep, piercing hide and muscle, clamping down as she bent her legs, the tendons tightening her talons automatically and gripping the squirming boar securely.
   
    The night below was silent in the boars screams of terror and pain, the squeals silencing even the most bold of beasts in the trees below. The Haroth was not smug, this boar was no proud kill, only a means to break her fast. Carrying the panicked boar high, its screams more than enough to provide her sight she landed, smashing the boars skull into the ridge as she let herself drop out of the air, bearing her weight down and enjoying the satisfying crunch of bone as she killed her prey. Perched on top of it as its body finished twitching she released it finally stepping off and moving to crouch down beside the dead meal. Folding her wings, she listened, lifting her head some, tilting it a little, listening to see if she were truly as alone as she expected to be. It was only when she was certain that she was, did she reach up to the mask covering her face.
   
    It was newer to her, this mask, she had fashioned it from the remains of a great stubborn bull she had hunted for several weeks, the creature had been clever, avoiding her pursuit, using the forests to hide, herding its cows to safety. In the end she had won though, and in respect, she had cleaned its skull and fashioned her new mask of it. As she smoothed her fingers up the upper jaw line of the mask, feeling the bone she had painstakingly cleaned and polished all the way up to the sharp horns jutting from the top, she listened still. Ensuring again that she was a lone she drew the mask up and free of her face. Setting the skull made ornate on the stone next to her she focused on her meal. Her hands went to where she had already pierced its hide with her talons, and dug in, tearing the fleshed back and rending it open, feeling, as well as sensing, the heat of the best beneath her hands. Unbothered by the blood covering her feathers she ripped junks of hot muscle out of the boar, and opened her mouth wide, first down, then out, jaws opening startling wide to quickly feast.
   
    Several minutes later, she was replacing her mask, blood warm on the feathers around her neck, the scent of blood and meat ripe in the air, and satisfied with her meal, she reached down to the boar again. This time, she ripped free one of the creatures tusks tearing it out of its mouth, and jaw bone, with a firm twist and pull. She fingered the sharp tooth, contemplating what she would do with it, before tucking it down into one of the small pouches that adorned the strip like loin cloth, held at her waist by a slender hide belt. She stepped on the carcass, gripping it with a taloned foot, she lifted and flung it out into the night, sending the bloody remains down into the forest below. There were carrion eaters whom would find the remains and finish it, or it would rot. Mattered not to her. 
   
    With her mornings needs satisfied she found she could finally return her thoughts to her dreams, to the storm, to the need to soar, to the sense of urgency it created in her. There was something to it, and she had ignored it long enough perhaps. Bringing herself down into a sitting position, her long taloned legs folding beneath her, she closed her wings about herself, tilting her masked face upward. Letting her thoughts drift, she began to meditate on the dreams. She had decided already, that they were no simple whims of her mind, that they must be more. What, she did not know yet, but she felt it in her spirit, that she was being called. As little as she liked the idea of abandoning her trophies, and her nest, the calls of the spirits was more important than her prizes, though surely they would be there when she returned, yes.
   
    It was with those decisions made that she meditated, resting and digesting her meal, for a time, until she could sense the change in the winds. She could feel the pressure beginning to build, the winds changing, shifting, blowing not from the sea, but from inner land towards the sea. Currents of the storm reaching far ahead of it to her attentive senses, she stretched her wings again and rose. It would be soon, but she would need to prepare slightly more before the storm arrived.
   
   
   
    Nearly two hours later, she stood atop one of the highest ridges in the area, another cliff face jutting out towards the sea, but not the one which her home was burrowed. She had taken the time to find fresh water, drinking her fill, and then some more, knowing it may be some time before fresh water was again at hand. She had then gone to her nest and retrieved a few of her trophies, hanging them from the belted loin cloth at her waist, and around her neck. Teeth, claws, bones, bits of things he had hunted and the challenge had pleased her. She had left much more behind, but these bits she would take.
   
    The winds were rising now, more firmly, the winds from the sea now entirely cancelled out, to the gusts that blew from land out to the sea, and she could scent the smell of ozone, of heavy rain, and sharp crackling lightning on the storm behind her. What came would be strong, fierce, and she was trusting to bear herself before it, intending to remain before it in the safety of the blown winds from it, but she knew that may not hold. One could not control the winds, even as talented as she, she owned the skies, but she did not control them. Lifting her wings wide she let the wind catch her feathers and only her talons gripping the stone kept it from sweeping her up and away. She held for seconds, enjoying the pull of the fierce winds, relishing the slight pang of discomfort her stretched body felt at the insistent tugs of the wind. Finally though, she released, and let herself be swept up and into the sky, soaring above the sea, for what she did not know yet, but she would find out.

Visual Reference

Mask Reference
Body Refernece

Species Lore Reference