Scotia (skoh-sha)
Gender: Female
Age: around 16
Hair: Red
Eyes: Green
Pet: female vulpa Sandy (trained)
Drak: Forest (f) Shadeynna
Aspirant at: Descas Doll made from base at Delusional Reality - no longer dollz site
Scotia looked on with wonder, at the draks at DesCas. Izzy assured her that (apart from hating being called that, so she did it anyway) she'd find her pair here. Then he went off back to the Ninja lair, hopefully to find that boy a place to aspire.
Giddy, Scotia was led to the aspirant barracks. There she was told to fill out forms and file paperwork.
She gulped. "But... I don't know how to do that."
The records keeper turned to look sharply at the red headed huntress. "You ... you don't... you're illiterate?"
"I can read a little," she admitted, "but I hunt for a living. I can count money, and read signs. I never needed to learn how to write them..." Scotia was sheepishly turning away when the recordskeeper seemed to brighten up.
"Well then! The first thing we're going to teach you is how to write properly and read better!"
The next three days were intense. She learned more about how to hold a quill, and what sounds were formed when she put one or two letters together on the page... It wasn't something she saw herself doing more than a couple times a year. Or decade. But she learned enough to sound out names, places, and the like. And, enough to then hand off a completed (if slightly messy) form to the records man.
"That wasn't so hard, now was it!" He exclaimed and went back to his duties.
"What a freakin' wierdo!" She muttered. But she had her own place, among the other Aspirants. The draks on the sands weren't ready to show anything off yet. But eventually, once Scotia had learned a bit more about how draks flew, what they did once in the air, and how riding them differed from other animals...
The clutch began to hatch. It was quicker than she expected, too. Istvan's Cephari must have really done a good job locating the place, because she hardly waited more than three weeks.
Scotia waited with the other aspirants, in the big cavern reserved for pairings. The draks didn't have to choose, but if they did, everything was ready for them. Food on the tables, water to drink, and off down the other hall, the rooms where the paired squires and draklings slept together.
The mother led her offspring into the cavern, and one by one they paraded themselves around. The rain that first chose was a strong one.
Then... The next drakling to be pushed out was a forest female. The little
drakling ran into the oval cavern and stopped when she saw the grandeur
of the hall. She looked around a bit, stumbling forward. In doing so,
Scotia, the Ninja-trainee forester came right in her path. It was her
the forest was headed to.
"Sscotia!" the forest squealed happily, "I'm Shadeynna."
And then, maybe to make sure everyone knew her mother was a wind, the hatchling exclaimed, rather uncharacteristically:
"Do you like my colour? It's the latessst fassshion in camouflagshe."
"Your colour is perfect." Scotia assured her bond, "But even ninja's need to eat. Especially if they're still in training."
It was done: there was a strong pair, her mind did feel the tingling of the forest. Sandy yipped at Scotia and Shadeynna, and Scotia could still feel that bond strongly too.
"They were right, huh," she said. The Ninja elders did know things about her that even she hadn't much thought about. How she could control animals?
"We will hunt well..." Shadeynna asserted, as she gobbled up some of the fresh meats. Scotia went easier on the feasting, because she knew if she just gorged herself she'd get fat.
And who could see her as a fat ninja Knight?
***
Shadeynna preened a bit, while the Ninja Elders spoke with Scotia. They were impressed with the way she and her drak flew silently in the forested areas - places where anyone else would have given up and flown away. But the drak was small, and her four wings could press tightly against her warm hazel body while she ran through the woods.
Her ability to sense and partially control animals behavior didn't exactly cause Shadeynna to do everything the ninja-in-training told her. What it did, though, was allow the drak to understand distances and spaces from a different perspective. Where the drak heard a noise that might merely be her own tail brushing up against a bush, Scotia told her to stop scaring the voles and shaking the undergrowth. When Scotia insisted they actually run through a heavily wooded area at full tilt, at first Shad was a bit reluctant.
"I will break my wingsss!" She asserted. But Scotia was adamant.
"We'll get to the other side without a scratch, you just have to trust me. Let your wings do what I told you, keep them pressed down like it's raining. Then tuck your head down and I'll be between your shoulders - you're my extra set of eyes. We can't go wrong, Shad."
Somewhere on the other side of the thickly treed and heavily brush-filled wood, they both heard Sandy yipping and barking. She was the goal, on the clearing at the other side of the wood.
"....Oooookay," Shadeynna said, and hunkered down.
"Don't run so low," Scotia told her, so she rose a bit. The gait of a running drak was different than that of a racer, and Scotia could feel her wings trying to flex and move in synch as though they were flying. But she clamped down on that, mentally. She was learning to control her own ability to ... control...
They bolted into the forest, and at first there were some bushes that came up and scratched the drak's legs. But shortly, when Shad tapped into Scotia's childhood instincts she realized it was much easier. She could twine around two corners with her long neck, body and tail. As long as she remembered where every piece was, the drak could run as quickly as she liked through the heavy trees! When they emerged into the bright day on the other side of this wood, there was Sandy barking and waiting for a treat, along with a number of the Elders who applauded eagerly.
"Never seen a drak do that before!" Said one of them. Another added a hooting laugh.
The leaders had gathered and decided that Scotia and Shadeynna would become their prey trackers. With 'prey' being anything from true hunting for food, to capturing mob folk or simple thieves. Anyone who thought they could hide from a drak by darting into a forest would certainly have something new to think about!
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