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It began a bright and pleasant day, the sort of day that the tropical grasslands of north coastal Aenvarna would experience perhaps four, maybe five times in an average year, when the sky would remain clear from sunrise to sunset, and thanks to a strong off-sea storm carrying with it cold equatorial winds, normally balmy temperatures would be just low enough that the insects that would plague any warm-blooded creature most days of the year would remain settled in the grass. The grass was damp with dew, leaving it tender, nutritious. A small herd of speckled creatures, with the heads of hares set upon a dinosaurian, upright body and balanced by a long tufted tail, had already emerged into the morning sun to feed, cropping stems with rapid nipping motions of the strong and self-sharpening incisor teeth which belay their rodentian ancestry. They move with great awareness, long velvet ears flicking in response to the slightest noise, while soft, wide eyes constantly scan the horizon, popping up in between bites of food, as the herd moves over the region's beautiful rolling hills and valleys, soft northerly winds blowing gently through their auburn pelts. They were at ease - no predators were about, of this they were sure. The grass would be too short to hide a panthergack or Iugulor, while any predator of the plains intent on pursuit would give itself away before it ever even appeared, its scent carrying on the wind. It was peaceful, a great day to feed, one of those days a bronkjird such as these, or any other grazer of the plains - Sheatherian or otherwise - must find positively perfect.
Unfortunately - or perhaps not, depending on your point of view - herbivores alone do not find such mild weather ideal. And there does exist one predator that the bronkjird, no matter how wary or clever it may be, cannot always discover in time for evasion. Today, on this mild and pleasant summer day, this very predator was cruising just as the bronkjirds, taking advantage of mild conditions to secure a full stomach. In contrast, however, raw grass and herbs alone would never suffice for this beast's hunger. It needed far more.
~~~
Seven-thousand feet above the head of even the tallest savannah rodent, a very different creature from anything found on the ground soared over a seemingly endless rolling savannah. She was positively immense, her kind of no comparison to anything else on all of Sheatheria. She flew on silent wings more than forty-five feet together across, and at this altitude had to flap scarcely once on the hour, allowing her the ultimate in easy travel. She could spend days or even weeks at a stretch at this height without ever touching ground - and indeed, when crossing the sea to her northern breeding grounds, as she would begin in only days now, often did - but most normally she would stay at this height only long enough to locate her next meal. Her piercing blue eyes, though proportionately not oversize to her massive skull, are the most perceptive of any vertebrate animal and sport more than one and a half million sensory cells per square millimeter - seven times as many as you or I and half-again as many as the keenest-eyed of eagles. So keen is her vision that even at more than a mile above the ground, she can not only make out the details of potential prey running about it, but additionally can track - and stalk - it, most usually without it ever seeing her. At this height, she appears effectively invisible to anything but another of her own kind standing on the ground, something she knows and uses to her advantage. She has no competition for her food, for no other creature can match her prowess. She is the lord of the southern hemisphere; able to cover thousands of miles in only days' time, riding on thermals and invisible to all below her wherever they take her, half of the planet is effectively her domain, and virtually all of its inhabitants are potentially, in some way, fair game for her hunger. Only weeks ago she hunted near the pole, gleaning man-sized froglemur species from the canopy, striking them suddenly and without warning, diving directly in front of the sun and hiding herself in its glare until the moment of impact, having no need to land for days at a time. Gradually, however, instinct began to call to her, a quiet whisper gradually grown to a shout. She began to move north, compelled by the instinct to breed. She started towards the coast, and would arrive now in only hours, once she began to travel in earnest again.
But now she would take a break to feed once more, amphibian meals of days past now all but used up. Dropping rapidly from her height, she approaches nearly one hundred and fifty miles per hour as she points her hooked bill straight to the Earth, blue eyes fixated on a creature a mile below her, little more than a speck on a green canvas. Invisible to us, she can see already and quite clearly its details. It is one among many, a herding creature. 6,000 feet. It is moving slowly, feeding. It isn't aware. 5,000 feet. She closes her nares, tightening nasal blood vessels to prevent a nosebleed from the rapid change of air pressure - she will mouth-breathe for the rest of the time down, shutting a specialized pallet in her jaw to prevent the drying of her esophagus by rapidly flowing air. 4,000 feet.
3,000.
2,000.
800.
The flick of an ear, the twitch of a sinuous tail. She can now see her prey as if it were already in her grasp, but it still fails to spot her. Wide eyes scan the horizon, but have yet to look up, as the specter of savage majesty now alters her flight pattern suddenly, pulling her head back to the horizontal, with her body and enormous wings following suit. She hesitates for only a moment, aligning her silhouette against the brightest point in the sky, hiding her mass behind its extreme contrast, before turning back down into a dive. The bronkjirds still browse unaware, moving gently through the grass, bleating quietly as small calves try and follow their mothers through the grass which while only to the knees of the adults rises near to the ears of the young ones.
One of whom is soon to become an orphan.
Our predator bursts suddenly into their sights out of the glare, suddenly mere meters above them, barreling quickly down, and at once, a herd bolts. Among the fastest of terrestrial creatures, with agility matched by few, bronkjirds - both the small, woodland domestics and wild variations, such as these larger grassland sorts - generally have a fair shot at evading even the most persistent carnivores. An Emperor Swiftlet, however, is a different story. She shoots just over the grass now, following the hills and maintaining her height, flitting in a wave-like motion over the ground, now beating those enormous wings of hers as frequently as once a second - enough to produce small-scale gale-force winds, knocking her normally fleet-footed prey off balance, tripping them up. She glides noiselessly into the herd; only now do her eyes, for the first time, shift from the single target she picked out at thousands of feet up - he is a strong buck, young and fast, and on the horizontal he is able to outrun and outmaneuver her. Instead, she immediately switches targets, setting her cold stare upon a plump doe which has begun to lose ground to the others in the chaos as dozens of the rodents scramble for cover. Several hundred pounds in weight, she's given birth within the day and has yet to fully regain her stamina; she is as well as reluctant to leave her calf, which has lain down in the grass and so far gone unnoticed, camouflaged by its soft spotted pelt against the reeds, as nature has designed it. If lucky, it may find its herd again and slip into the bond of a similarly-aged calf and its mother, hoping to share the milk supply which is sufficient for two, as sometimes twins may be born. Though not all females will allow this, during the first few days of calving they are filled with motherly hormones and frequently will adopt any young that come about during this time, rarely even of other bronkjird species - leaving this youngster an orphan at the best possible - or rather, least terrible - time, where he may still stand some chance of survival, assuming he can find his family before another predator finds him.
Its mother is not even this lucky. She will have no chance. Tired and out of condition, she can only run so far. As her calf is left behind and comrades in turn leave her, sprinting out of sight into the yonder hills, she grows frantic, bleating frenetically. She runs into a natural ditch, a last desperate effort to lose the pursuer gliding effortlessly just behind her and clacking an ivory bone-white bill of incredible strength - but water has pooled here, leaving the ground a slick and sticky mire of mud. Her legs slide out from under her in the unstable terrain, and she face-plants into the ground. Though she attempts to right herself, in her frenzy she cannot gain traction, her legs only sliding, turning her in circles. She screeches as her assailant grabs her, but the end is instantaneous as close to 1000 pounds of pressure per square inch close down upon her throat in a single snap, severing vertebrae and bursting arteries. Her killer makes no noise and never touches ground as it alights once more into the heavens, its jaws still clamped tightly upon the throat of the now limp female bronkjird. She is not a monster - she is only a carnivore, and - hopefully, soon to be a mother herself; dragging off her prey to feed in seclusion, she will now have the energy needed to make the final stretch of her journey to her population's nesting grounds on the Servallian coast, just across the sea. Here she will hopefully meet her mate, whom she likely has not seen in over three months time as the pair parted to make the most of the winter season's food near the tropical north pole. Assuming he has done as well as she over their period of separation, it should be a joyous reunion as it has been each year for most of the past eighty; Savage Majesty is no newcomer to the game of life - at over ninety-five years old, she is the oldest known living swiftlet known to science and has already mothered over a dozen young to fledging, and may produce just as many more with good luck, with a lifespan of potentially two centuries or more and fertility lasting into her later 140's at least.
~~~
With a few powerful wingbeats, the timeless lord of Sheatheria has reached an isolated plateau where she may alight to dismember and consume her meal in solitude. Calm returns almost immediately to the savannah following her satiation, as prey know she, nor most predators, will take more than she requires for her subsistence. One jird is quite enough for several days' time, though she will consume her 200 pound prey in entirety in this single sitting, bones and all; she, like all of her species, is an extremely efficient feeder. This, combined with the intelligence, adaptability, and highly mobile capabilities of the Emperor Swiftlet are all surely the reason for its extreme success throughout the southern hemisphere. The largest of the flying griffons, she is indeed the largest flying organism - ballonts excluded - ever known in all creation, and most certainly, one of Sheatheria's most immediately recognizable organisms, the Emperor truly is a creature that can live up to its name.
Unfortunately - or perhaps not, depending on your point of view - herbivores alone do not find such mild weather ideal. And there does exist one predator that the bronkjird, no matter how wary or clever it may be, cannot always discover in time for evasion. Today, on this mild and pleasant summer day, this very predator was cruising just as the bronkjirds, taking advantage of mild conditions to secure a full stomach. In contrast, however, raw grass and herbs alone would never suffice for this beast's hunger. It needed far more.
~~~
Seven-thousand feet above the head of even the tallest savannah rodent, a very different creature from anything found on the ground soared over a seemingly endless rolling savannah. She was positively immense, her kind of no comparison to anything else on all of Sheatheria. She flew on silent wings more than forty-five feet together across, and at this altitude had to flap scarcely once on the hour, allowing her the ultimate in easy travel. She could spend days or even weeks at a stretch at this height without ever touching ground - and indeed, when crossing the sea to her northern breeding grounds, as she would begin in only days now, often did - but most normally she would stay at this height only long enough to locate her next meal. Her piercing blue eyes, though proportionately not oversize to her massive skull, are the most perceptive of any vertebrate animal and sport more than one and a half million sensory cells per square millimeter - seven times as many as you or I and half-again as many as the keenest-eyed of eagles. So keen is her vision that even at more than a mile above the ground, she can not only make out the details of potential prey running about it, but additionally can track - and stalk - it, most usually without it ever seeing her. At this height, she appears effectively invisible to anything but another of her own kind standing on the ground, something she knows and uses to her advantage. She has no competition for her food, for no other creature can match her prowess. She is the lord of the southern hemisphere; able to cover thousands of miles in only days' time, riding on thermals and invisible to all below her wherever they take her, half of the planet is effectively her domain, and virtually all of its inhabitants are potentially, in some way, fair game for her hunger. Only weeks ago she hunted near the pole, gleaning man-sized froglemur species from the canopy, striking them suddenly and without warning, diving directly in front of the sun and hiding herself in its glare until the moment of impact, having no need to land for days at a time. Gradually, however, instinct began to call to her, a quiet whisper gradually grown to a shout. She began to move north, compelled by the instinct to breed. She started towards the coast, and would arrive now in only hours, once she began to travel in earnest again.
But now she would take a break to feed once more, amphibian meals of days past now all but used up. Dropping rapidly from her height, she approaches nearly one hundred and fifty miles per hour as she points her hooked bill straight to the Earth, blue eyes fixated on a creature a mile below her, little more than a speck on a green canvas. Invisible to us, she can see already and quite clearly its details. It is one among many, a herding creature. 6,000 feet. It is moving slowly, feeding. It isn't aware. 5,000 feet. She closes her nares, tightening nasal blood vessels to prevent a nosebleed from the rapid change of air pressure - she will mouth-breathe for the rest of the time down, shutting a specialized pallet in her jaw to prevent the drying of her esophagus by rapidly flowing air. 4,000 feet.
3,000.
2,000.
800.
The flick of an ear, the twitch of a sinuous tail. She can now see her prey as if it were already in her grasp, but it still fails to spot her. Wide eyes scan the horizon, but have yet to look up, as the specter of savage majesty now alters her flight pattern suddenly, pulling her head back to the horizontal, with her body and enormous wings following suit. She hesitates for only a moment, aligning her silhouette against the brightest point in the sky, hiding her mass behind its extreme contrast, before turning back down into a dive. The bronkjirds still browse unaware, moving gently through the grass, bleating quietly as small calves try and follow their mothers through the grass which while only to the knees of the adults rises near to the ears of the young ones.
One of whom is soon to become an orphan.
Our predator bursts suddenly into their sights out of the glare, suddenly mere meters above them, barreling quickly down, and at once, a herd bolts. Among the fastest of terrestrial creatures, with agility matched by few, bronkjirds - both the small, woodland domestics and wild variations, such as these larger grassland sorts - generally have a fair shot at evading even the most persistent carnivores. An Emperor Swiftlet, however, is a different story. She shoots just over the grass now, following the hills and maintaining her height, flitting in a wave-like motion over the ground, now beating those enormous wings of hers as frequently as once a second - enough to produce small-scale gale-force winds, knocking her normally fleet-footed prey off balance, tripping them up. She glides noiselessly into the herd; only now do her eyes, for the first time, shift from the single target she picked out at thousands of feet up - he is a strong buck, young and fast, and on the horizontal he is able to outrun and outmaneuver her. Instead, she immediately switches targets, setting her cold stare upon a plump doe which has begun to lose ground to the others in the chaos as dozens of the rodents scramble for cover. Several hundred pounds in weight, she's given birth within the day and has yet to fully regain her stamina; she is as well as reluctant to leave her calf, which has lain down in the grass and so far gone unnoticed, camouflaged by its soft spotted pelt against the reeds, as nature has designed it. If lucky, it may find its herd again and slip into the bond of a similarly-aged calf and its mother, hoping to share the milk supply which is sufficient for two, as sometimes twins may be born. Though not all females will allow this, during the first few days of calving they are filled with motherly hormones and frequently will adopt any young that come about during this time, rarely even of other bronkjird species - leaving this youngster an orphan at the best possible - or rather, least terrible - time, where he may still stand some chance of survival, assuming he can find his family before another predator finds him.
Its mother is not even this lucky. She will have no chance. Tired and out of condition, she can only run so far. As her calf is left behind and comrades in turn leave her, sprinting out of sight into the yonder hills, she grows frantic, bleating frenetically. She runs into a natural ditch, a last desperate effort to lose the pursuer gliding effortlessly just behind her and clacking an ivory bone-white bill of incredible strength - but water has pooled here, leaving the ground a slick and sticky mire of mud. Her legs slide out from under her in the unstable terrain, and she face-plants into the ground. Though she attempts to right herself, in her frenzy she cannot gain traction, her legs only sliding, turning her in circles. She screeches as her assailant grabs her, but the end is instantaneous as close to 1000 pounds of pressure per square inch close down upon her throat in a single snap, severing vertebrae and bursting arteries. Her killer makes no noise and never touches ground as it alights once more into the heavens, its jaws still clamped tightly upon the throat of the now limp female bronkjird. She is not a monster - she is only a carnivore, and - hopefully, soon to be a mother herself; dragging off her prey to feed in seclusion, she will now have the energy needed to make the final stretch of her journey to her population's nesting grounds on the Servallian coast, just across the sea. Here she will hopefully meet her mate, whom she likely has not seen in over three months time as the pair parted to make the most of the winter season's food near the tropical north pole. Assuming he has done as well as she over their period of separation, it should be a joyous reunion as it has been each year for most of the past eighty; Savage Majesty is no newcomer to the game of life - at over ninety-five years old, she is the oldest known living swiftlet known to science and has already mothered over a dozen young to fledging, and may produce just as many more with good luck, with a lifespan of potentially two centuries or more and fertility lasting into her later 140's at least.
~~~
With a few powerful wingbeats, the timeless lord of Sheatheria has reached an isolated plateau where she may alight to dismember and consume her meal in solitude. Calm returns almost immediately to the savannah following her satiation, as prey know she, nor most predators, will take more than she requires for her subsistence. One jird is quite enough for several days' time, though she will consume her 200 pound prey in entirety in this single sitting, bones and all; she, like all of her species, is an extremely efficient feeder. This, combined with the intelligence, adaptability, and highly mobile capabilities of the Emperor Swiftlet are all surely the reason for its extreme success throughout the southern hemisphere. The largest of the flying griffons, she is indeed the largest flying organism - ballonts excluded - ever known in all creation, and most certainly, one of Sheatheria's most immediately recognizable organisms, the Emperor truly is a creature that can live up to its name.
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oh no BAD BIRD run kanrgoo run!!!!!