https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1987-04-05-8701260243-story,amp.html fun fact, birds can’t let go of something once they’ve grabbed it until they land.
Anna's Artists Chat Thread
- Thread starter lilmillefleur
- Start date
I’m super having issues transitioning from action to not action. Other than that, I think it’s better than the last Chapter.
Chapter 9
Peregrine awoke with reluctance, his muscles protesting his every move. My own body has turned against me, he thought gloomily. Instead of a sun-bathed grass hut, he was met by wood walls, dark and unyielding.
Beside him, Gia was waking up. Needle and Pearl had already left on some unknown errand. Peregrine was grateful for this. Pearl was difficult to share a room with.
Gia sighed happily. “Isn’t this whole place great? I got to meet the red canaries… and my mother!”
“No, it really isn’t that great, Gia,” Peregrine said. “The red canaries are really pretty and all that, but the only interesting thing that happened to me was meeting that creepy senator guy. And now we have a whole day of flying with sore wings.” Overall, the whole experience had been disappointing for him. He expected a bustling village full of birds, a cheerful and exciting adventure as he explored it. Instead, there were only a couple dozen, dwindling and scared. Maybe his expectations were too high. He’d never been to another village before, barring his own.
Gia gave her wing an experimental flap. “I’m not really that sore, actually,” she said. “I must be getting stronger. And you will, too. Soon. All this flying will help.” She flexed happily.
Peregrine gave his wing a weak flap. “You wouldn’t understand. You didn’t have to carry that rucksack. And you’re bigger, too,” he sighed. “The misery of youth…”
The whole fact that he’d had to carry the rucksack was a very good point. But Gia wasn’t all that great at seeing very good points.
“Why are you like this today?” Gia asked. “You’re never whiny like thi…”
A cloaked figure suddenly eclipsed the entryway, casting a shadow over the room and bringing the conversation to a screeching halt. The bird had something in its beak, which it swallowed with an audible slurping noise.
“AAAAUGH!” Gia screamed, jumping a couple of inches into the air, raising her wings in a very cute but very ineffective karate-chopping position
“P-p-pearl…” Peregrine whispered, as the newcomer, Pearl, hopped into the tree cavity.
“Maybe don’t block out the light of the sun the next time you make an entrance,” said Gia.
Pearl frowned, genuinely confused. “I was just coming to tell you to get yourselves breakfast.”
“Get ourselves breakfast?” Peregrine asked.
“Yes,” said Pearl. “Get yourself breakfast.”
“But my mom feeds me!” said Peregrine.
“You may be an impertinent fledgling, but you shouldn’t act like a chick,” said Pearl. “You should have learned how to forage already.”
Peregrine opened his beak… and then closed it again. The last thing he wanted to look like was a chick, especially in front of Gia.
“Fly along now,” said Pearl, waving her wing.
As it so happened, there had been a great many compelling orators throughout canary history. But not one of them could ever be quite as persuasive as food was. If Peregrine had to find his breakfast in order to get any, then he would just have to go find it. Peregrine followed Gia out the door with total compliance.
Peregrine didn’t make any more complaints as he picked juicy berries or pulled worms from the ground. In fact, in the presence of food, he found that maybe his wings weren’t quite as debilitatingly sore as he had thought. He actually ended up enjoying foraging.
Peregrine snapped at a beetle, but it crawled into a hole in the branch he was standing on. Gia landed next to him. “I didn’t know how to forage either when I was your age,” she admitted. “You didn’t?” Peregrine asked, perking up. There is something very encouraging about mutual failure.
~
“I don’t know why I let the smallest one carry our lunch yesterday,” Pearl said, shifting the rucksack on her back. She was the official snack-bearer this time, and she made it look easy.
Peregrine, Pearl, and Gia were already well on their way to Oakland, and they were weaving their way between sunbeams and deciduous trees.
“This rucksack is heavy. I don’t know how you did it, Peregrine. I really don’t give you enough credit.”
Peregrine nodded weakly, smiling faintly. He wasn’t lagging, exactly, but he was behind the other two, and he wasn’t talking either. At the moment, he was putting all of his energy into flapping, trying to pretend his wings didn’t hurt him as much as they did. His pride still stung from the time Pearl had called him a chick.
“Did you see that sly smile?” Gia asked. “Don’t let it get to his head!”
Gia had been wheeling in annoying and lazy circles around Peregrine and Pearl, making obnoxious comments. “You guys are sooo slow…” she drawled. “I’m going to fly ahead.” Gia began flying ahead with all of the steadfast impertinence that was typical for an impertinent fledgling.
“Hey, Gia!” Peregrine yelled. “Maybe you should try carrying the basket!” This only made Gia widen the gap more. It didn’t take long before she was completely out of sight.
“I oughta’ smack her,” Pearl muttered.
Peregrine shared similar sentiments. Gia could be very empathetic if she wanted to, but most of the time she liked to play deaf when it came to others’ feelings.
Peregrine expected Pearl to pursue Gia or for Gia to turn around. But instead, he found himself flying for a whole minute in silence beside a fuming Pearl.
He cleared his throat, which was thick from trying to avoid talking. “Are we gonna…”
“Help!” A disembodied scream echoed through the forest and interrupted Peregrine’s question. Actually, it did have a body. Gia’s. He just couldn’t see her. “Hawk attack!”
Gia’s in danger! All it took was one rush of adrenaline before Peregrine’s sore wings felt strong and capable, though it was pretty obvious his body had intended for him to fly away from the scream, not towards it.
Peregrine found himself flying towards danger nonetheless. Maybe I really am as brave as that Feron guy says.
Pearl shrugged off the rucksack, letting it drop like a stone and drawing her dagger from within her cloak. Its steel blade was blindingly bright, blinking like a firefly in the dappled light of the forest.
Pearl and Peregrine zipped between the trees at a clip. Peregrine was hardly aware of his surroundings because he was too focused on thinking brave thoughts. He was in the middle of feeling very graceful when he ran into Gia.
Peregrine was shoved back by the collision, but he barely saw Gia’s terrified eyes. Behind her was something more important: a hawk, massive, primal, predatory.
Peregrine hovered for a critical moment, Gia’s screams for him to move entering his brain, but as alien as the mournful howl of a loon. Because his vision, his senses… they were all overwhelmed. By the grasping claws and hungry eyes of a predator. There are advantages to seeing your enemies. And there are disadvantages. In that hawk’s face, Peregrine could see something that paralyzed him. He was wanted.
The next thing he knew, those talons were enveloping him. Peregrine screamed. The black claws were dug into his tender muscles. His heart battered against his rib cage, seeking freedom.
Gia very bravely but rather fruitlessly clawed the cage of flesh with her own tiny claws.
That’s when Peregrine saw a flash of red and black and he turned his head just in time to see Pearl slash the hawk’s spinal column. Peregrine’s stomach dropped and he hit the
ground with a thud before he could even realize that within the hawk’s grasp, he wasn’t immune to gravity. Peregrine was surprised when the hawk didn’t get back up again… or suddenly eat him.
“Is he dead?” Peregrine asked. The hawk’s claws still smothered his resistance. The hawk twitched, but it didn’t move.
“Yep!” Peregrine had to crane his neck to see Pearl hovering above him.
“What you did there was pretty amazing!” Peregrine tried to slither his way out of the hawk’s grasp, but it was about as flexible as a boulder.
Pearl smiled sadly and landed on the hawk’s feet, sheathing her dagger. Pearl hooked her beak and claws into that hawk’s talon, prying the talons open enough that Peregrine could squeeze out. “A hawk is some tough work when you’re trying to pry the claws apart,” she muttered. “Shove your way through there.”
“Thanks,” Peregrine exclaimed, wriggling out of the hawk’s grasp and hopping into the soft grass beside her.
Pearl bowed mockingly and removed a copper medal from a pouch in her belt. “Officer Potter at your service,” she said. The copper medal had a pair of wings embossed on it.
“What’s that?” Gia asked, landing beside her.
“I was a member of the Winged B.O.P. Squadron once. That’s where this cloak came from, too. Before the massacre. Afterward, they excused me and any red canaries from the squad. Because it’s a ‘governmental position’ Like it gave me some kind of special power.”
Pearl jumped to the ground so she could rip at the grass with her claws, staring at it with conviction. “So I took the same old profession as my father. I became a potter.”
Pearl stopped abusing the grass and stomped her foot. She fixed her gaze on the dead hawk as though it could suddenly open its eyes and explain why her fortune took such a horrible turn. “Red-tail,” she muttered.
“They don’t have any Squadrathingy birds in the red canary village, and they could probably use you,” Peregrine pointed out. “Why don’t you go there?”
Pearl fixed on an unreadable expression. “What happened here was a lot of dumb luck. And also Gia’s skill in evading the hawk long enough for me to get here. The B.O.P. Squad is a squad for a reason. No squad? No bop. I can’t launch an offensive attack on a falcon nest all by myself, can I?”
“Why don’t you just go to the village anyway? As yourself?” Gia asked. “They’d accept you.”
Pearl’s whole expression sunk an inch. “They probably would. But I can’t.” She flicked her wing as if dismissing the question. “I think we have more important matters to discuss.” She put on a stern expression, which was extra-scary with her hooded cloak. “Gia.”
Gia swiveled her face towards Pearl, barely able to meet her eyes. Which was very rare when it came to Gia’s relationship with adults. “Gia,” Pearl said. “You can’t fly off like that. Did you see how long it took me to get there? When you get older, it’s only going to get harder. Red canaries don’t have camouflage. From now on, you’ll be carrying the rucksack, so you can stay with us. It won’t make a B.O.P. attack less likely, but at least I’ll be with you. I don’t think you know what it feels like to carry its weight.”
Gia retrieved the rucksack from where Pearl had dropped it. They ate lunch right after she brought it over, but Peregrine could tell that even while empty, it made Gia uncomfortable. Pearl’s mood was improved by the “righteous punishment,” but Peregrine just felt bad for Gia.
While Pearl began to sing a “flying song,” neither Peregrine nor Gia felt like joining in.
Peregrine awoke with reluctance, his muscles protesting his every move. My own body has turned against me, he thought gloomily. Instead of a sun-bathed grass hut, he was met by wood walls, dark and unyielding.
Beside him, Gia was waking up. Needle and Pearl had already left on some unknown errand. Peregrine was grateful for this. Pearl was difficult to share a room with.
Gia sighed happily. “Isn’t this whole place great? I got to meet the red canaries… and my mother!”
“No, it really isn’t that great, Gia,” Peregrine said. “The red canaries are really pretty and all that, but the only interesting thing that happened to me was meeting that creepy senator guy. And now we have a whole day of flying with sore wings.” Overall, the whole experience had been disappointing for him. He expected a bustling village full of birds, a cheerful and exciting adventure as he explored it. Instead, there were only a couple dozen, dwindling and scared. Maybe his expectations were too high. He’d never been to another village before, barring his own.
Gia gave her wing an experimental flap. “I’m not really that sore, actually,” she said. “I must be getting stronger. And you will, too. Soon. All this flying will help.” She flexed happily.
Peregrine gave his wing a weak flap. “You wouldn’t understand. You didn’t have to carry that rucksack. And you’re bigger, too,” he sighed. “The misery of youth…”
The whole fact that he’d had to carry the rucksack was a very good point. But Gia wasn’t all that great at seeing very good points.
“Why are you like this today?” Gia asked. “You’re never whiny like thi…”
A cloaked figure suddenly eclipsed the entryway, casting a shadow over the room and bringing the conversation to a screeching halt. The bird had something in its beak, which it swallowed with an audible slurping noise.
“AAAAUGH!” Gia screamed, jumping a couple of inches into the air, raising her wings in a very cute but very ineffective karate-chopping position
“P-p-pearl…” Peregrine whispered, as the newcomer, Pearl, hopped into the tree cavity.
“Maybe don’t block out the light of the sun the next time you make an entrance,” said Gia.
Pearl frowned, genuinely confused. “I was just coming to tell you to get yourselves breakfast.”
“Get ourselves breakfast?” Peregrine asked.
“Yes,” said Pearl. “Get yourself breakfast.”
“But my mom feeds me!” said Peregrine.
“You may be an impertinent fledgling, but you shouldn’t act like a chick,” said Pearl. “You should have learned how to forage already.”
Peregrine opened his beak… and then closed it again. The last thing he wanted to look like was a chick, especially in front of Gia.
“Fly along now,” said Pearl, waving her wing.
As it so happened, there had been a great many compelling orators throughout canary history. But not one of them could ever be quite as persuasive as food was. If Peregrine had to find his breakfast in order to get any, then he would just have to go find it. Peregrine followed Gia out the door with total compliance.
Peregrine didn’t make any more complaints as he picked juicy berries or pulled worms from the ground. In fact, in the presence of food, he found that maybe his wings weren’t quite as debilitatingly sore as he had thought. He actually ended up enjoying foraging.
Peregrine snapped at a beetle, but it crawled into a hole in the branch he was standing on. Gia landed next to him. “I didn’t know how to forage either when I was your age,” she admitted. “You didn’t?” Peregrine asked, perking up. There is something very encouraging about mutual failure.
~
“I don’t know why I let the smallest one carry our lunch yesterday,” Pearl said, shifting the rucksack on her back. She was the official snack-bearer this time, and she made it look easy.
Peregrine, Pearl, and Gia were already well on their way to Oakland, and they were weaving their way between sunbeams and deciduous trees.
“This rucksack is heavy. I don’t know how you did it, Peregrine. I really don’t give you enough credit.”
Peregrine nodded weakly, smiling faintly. He wasn’t lagging, exactly, but he was behind the other two, and he wasn’t talking either. At the moment, he was putting all of his energy into flapping, trying to pretend his wings didn’t hurt him as much as they did. His pride still stung from the time Pearl had called him a chick.
“Did you see that sly smile?” Gia asked. “Don’t let it get to his head!”
Gia had been wheeling in annoying and lazy circles around Peregrine and Pearl, making obnoxious comments. “You guys are sooo slow…” she drawled. “I’m going to fly ahead.” Gia began flying ahead with all of the steadfast impertinence that was typical for an impertinent fledgling.
“Hey, Gia!” Peregrine yelled. “Maybe you should try carrying the basket!” This only made Gia widen the gap more. It didn’t take long before she was completely out of sight.
“I oughta’ smack her,” Pearl muttered.
Peregrine shared similar sentiments. Gia could be very empathetic if she wanted to, but most of the time she liked to play deaf when it came to others’ feelings.
Peregrine expected Pearl to pursue Gia or for Gia to turn around. But instead, he found himself flying for a whole minute in silence beside a fuming Pearl.
He cleared his throat, which was thick from trying to avoid talking. “Are we gonna…”
“Help!” A disembodied scream echoed through the forest and interrupted Peregrine’s question. Actually, it did have a body. Gia’s. He just couldn’t see her. “Hawk attack!”
Gia’s in danger! All it took was one rush of adrenaline before Peregrine’s sore wings felt strong and capable, though it was pretty obvious his body had intended for him to fly away from the scream, not towards it.
Peregrine found himself flying towards danger nonetheless. Maybe I really am as brave as that Feron guy says.
Pearl shrugged off the rucksack, letting it drop like a stone and drawing her dagger from within her cloak. Its steel blade was blindingly bright, blinking like a firefly in the dappled light of the forest.
Pearl and Peregrine zipped between the trees at a clip. Peregrine was hardly aware of his surroundings because he was too focused on thinking brave thoughts. He was in the middle of feeling very graceful when he ran into Gia.
Peregrine was shoved back by the collision, but he barely saw Gia’s terrified eyes. Behind her was something more important: a hawk, massive, primal, predatory.
Peregrine hovered for a critical moment, Gia’s screams for him to move entering his brain, but as alien as the mournful howl of a loon. Because his vision, his senses… they were all overwhelmed. By the grasping claws and hungry eyes of a predator. There are advantages to seeing your enemies. And there are disadvantages. In that hawk’s face, Peregrine could see something that paralyzed him. He was wanted.
The next thing he knew, those talons were enveloping him. Peregrine screamed. The black claws were dug into his tender muscles. His heart battered against his rib cage, seeking freedom.
Gia very bravely but rather fruitlessly clawed the cage of flesh with her own tiny claws.
That’s when Peregrine saw a flash of red and black and he turned his head just in time to see Pearl slash the hawk’s spinal column. Peregrine’s stomach dropped and he hit the
ground with a thud before he could even realize that within the hawk’s grasp, he wasn’t immune to gravity. Peregrine was surprised when the hawk didn’t get back up again… or suddenly eat him.
“Is he dead?” Peregrine asked. The hawk’s claws still smothered his resistance. The hawk twitched, but it didn’t move.
“Yep!” Peregrine had to crane his neck to see Pearl hovering above him.
“What you did there was pretty amazing!” Peregrine tried to slither his way out of the hawk’s grasp, but it was about as flexible as a boulder.
Pearl smiled sadly and landed on the hawk’s feet, sheathing her dagger. Pearl hooked her beak and claws into that hawk’s talon, prying the talons open enough that Peregrine could squeeze out. “A hawk is some tough work when you’re trying to pry the claws apart,” she muttered. “Shove your way through there.”
“Thanks,” Peregrine exclaimed, wriggling out of the hawk’s grasp and hopping into the soft grass beside her.
Pearl bowed mockingly and removed a copper medal from a pouch in her belt. “Officer Potter at your service,” she said. The copper medal had a pair of wings embossed on it.
“What’s that?” Gia asked, landing beside her.
“I was a member of the Winged B.O.P. Squadron once. That’s where this cloak came from, too. Before the massacre. Afterward, they excused me and any red canaries from the squad. Because it’s a ‘governmental position’ Like it gave me some kind of special power.”
Pearl jumped to the ground so she could rip at the grass with her claws, staring at it with conviction. “So I took the same old profession as my father. I became a potter.”
Pearl stopped abusing the grass and stomped her foot. She fixed her gaze on the dead hawk as though it could suddenly open its eyes and explain why her fortune took such a horrible turn. “Red-tail,” she muttered.
“They don’t have any Squadrathingy birds in the red canary village, and they could probably use you,” Peregrine pointed out. “Why don’t you go there?”
Pearl fixed on an unreadable expression. “What happened here was a lot of dumb luck. And also Gia’s skill in evading the hawk long enough for me to get here. The B.O.P. Squad is a squad for a reason. No squad? No bop. I can’t launch an offensive attack on a falcon nest all by myself, can I?”
“Why don’t you just go to the village anyway? As yourself?” Gia asked. “They’d accept you.”
Pearl’s whole expression sunk an inch. “They probably would. But I can’t.” She flicked her wing as if dismissing the question. “I think we have more important matters to discuss.” She put on a stern expression, which was extra-scary with her hooded cloak. “Gia.”
Gia swiveled her face towards Pearl, barely able to meet her eyes. Which was very rare when it came to Gia’s relationship with adults. “Gia,” Pearl said. “You can’t fly off like that. Did you see how long it took me to get there? When you get older, it’s only going to get harder. Red canaries don’t have camouflage. From now on, you’ll be carrying the rucksack, so you can stay with us. It won’t make a B.O.P. attack less likely, but at least I’ll be with you. I don’t think you know what it feels like to carry its weight.”
Gia retrieved the rucksack from where Pearl had dropped it. They ate lunch right after she brought it over, but Peregrine could tell that even while empty, it made Gia uncomfortable. Pearl’s mood was improved by the “righteous punishment,” but Peregrine just felt bad for Gia.
While Pearl began to sing a “flying song,” neither Peregrine nor Gia felt like joining in.
Okay, so I’m adding to the story but I don’t know if it will interest the reader. There comes a natural lull in The Peregrination, which is what I’ve named it. But would the reader even be interested in Peregrine’s education? He got grounded for flying off and now because of this he is starting to journal about his life so far.
How did you learn to translate canary characters?
A little bird told me. ;3
How did you learn to translate canary characters?
A little bird told me. ;3
- May 21, 2017
- 14,797
- 36,223
- 1,032
I don’t know. As I’ve said, I’m not very good at continuing stories. Or starting them. XD
I like the thing you added that makes it sound like it’s happening in the real world. It’s always cool when an author does that.
Yeah. I created the canaries to seem like they could really exist, but they’re mostly extinct, and ornithologists refuse to acknowledge their existence.
- Thread starter
- #249
I made some new outfits for Sam to go with my story!
The left is her adventuring outfit, on the right is her caretaking dress that she wears while tending to a magical cave garden (I don't want to spoil much else).
I'm going to draw the other characters (in their fantasy forms) next.
So anyway I freaking love her
The left is her adventuring outfit, on the right is her caretaking dress that she wears while tending to a magical cave garden (I don't want to spoil much else).
I'm going to draw the other characters (in their fantasy forms) next.
So anyway I freaking love her
Sapphire Sebright
Roman Catholic who won't shut up
- Jun 22, 2019
- 14,414
- 132,406
- 1,376
Awesome! Those look great!
(Can't wait to see what's what with that magical cave garden...).
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