Fledgling Developments part 1
Big changes are coming to Jarzyl's life, and she's very prepared. Or maybe she isn't.
Life's been real busy, for a multitude of reasons this whole year _. But I'm still chipping away at writing and I'm not quitting_. Here's another Jarzyl story, that will tackle several big developments in several ways. (P.S. long time readers may recognize that this story's opening scene is the scene mentioned in the Breakhorn Series, featuring Pyxis and Nerlin: https://www.sofurry.com/view/1455281. I've been waiting to write this story, featuring Jarzyl, for a long time.
The deer was quietly nibbling small red berries from a bush, unaware that it was being observed as it enjoyed its fruity snack. Several pairs of eyes watched the deer with a keen predatory gaze, as they stealthily moved to encircle the wild beast.
Jarzyl Mintaka crept forward slowly, moving on her belly and lifting one paw after the other with a forced slowness. Camouflage paint dulled the dragon fledgling’s bright orange scales, mixing her outline into the greens and browns of vegetation so her prey wouldn’t see her coming. Her wings were flat against her back, tightly furled to minimize her profile as she crouched low to the ground.
The deer seemed so close. A quick sprint and it would be in her claws, yet she had to patient. The hunting master, Drak Tasilus, always liked to remind them many things could run faster than dragons, especially deer. Dragons weren’t made for running, they were made for flying—so don’t let the deer see you, and don’t let it run.
The hunting party had split apart to surround their chosen target. The six young dragons had formed a circle that was closing around the deer, slowly sealing off its routes for escape. Eventually someone would get close enough to attempt a pounce, or the deer would spot one of them and make a run for it. The idea behind the hunting circle was that hopefully the deer would dash towards another dragon in hiding who could then pounce and slay it.
Jarzyl glanced to her left and right, making sure that her fellow hunters were still within reasonable range. The fledgling to her left was her close friend, Atlas. She had known him since they were both young hatchlings, and for as long as she could remember, Atlas had been a cripple—he was a three-legged dragon with only one foreleg. Whether this was the result of a hatching defect or a childhood accident, Atlas had never clarified. His disability slowed him down, but they were creeping forward slowly enough that he could keep up without any trouble.
Like most nocturnal dragons, Atlas’s scale colouration was muted and drab. From nose to tail his scales were dark as night and seemed to absorb all light, so his natural stealth meant he didn’t have to bother with camouflage paint like Jarzyl did. Noticing that she was looking at him, Atlas gestured silently to her with a quick paw gesture. “Wait. Stay low,” he signalled.
Jarzyl wanted to signal, “Yes”, but a flash of pain in her head distracted her before she could raise her paw to reply. Since waking up in the morning she had been getting strange flickers of pain every now and then, but she’d been doing her best to ignore them as she concentrated on the hunt. The fledgling grimaced, trying to keep still and not spook the deer, and the headache faded away in a few seconds. Taking a deep breath, Jarzyl made a small shake of her head, then tried to refocus on the hunt.
But when she looked up again, the deer was nowhere to be seen. It must have wandered behind a tree or some bush, but her brief lapse of concentration had caused her to lose track of it. Bothersome! A quick glance to the left and right confirmed that her fellow fledglings hadn’t moved too far, so—
“Rraah!”
Before Jarzyl could locate the deer again, someone roared loudly and there was a burst of noise and movement in the clearing ahead of her. Three young dragons sprang out from the bushes, leaping forwards with teeth bared and claws extended to catch the deer. They came close, but the deer barely managed to escape their clutches, lunging backwards then bolting away in a blur of motion. It ran away from the disturbance with desperate speed, but it headed right towards the second trio of dragons who were waiting to cut off its escape.
Jarzyl watched the deer dart from left to right as it bounded around trees and rocks. Her hearts were racing in her chest, pounding to a quick double beat. Many minutes of stalking came down to these critical few seconds, and success or failure would be decided right now. She moved forward and leaned back on her haunches, preparing to spring forward from the cover of the bush line and grab the deer with her claws and teeth. It would run just between her and Atlas—the deer clearly didn’t know the dragons were there in hiding, so all she had to do was lunge and it would be an easy kill. She could almost taste its blood in her mouth already.
Jarzyl waited patiently despite her excitement, resisting the urge to jump to quickly—and then the perfect instant came, where the deer was just in range. But then without any warning, pain stabbed through her head and her concentration shattered at the worst possible moment. The young dragon winced and tried to jump, but she’d lost her footing and she slipped onto the ground instead of pouncing forward.
“No!!” With a furious hiss, Jarzyl pushed herself up from her belly, scrambling with her wings and her four paws. She whirled around, hoping that she could still catch the deer, but it was already too far past her. In a gallant effort, Atlas tried to intercept the deer after Jarzyl’s failure to pounce, but his missing leg slowed him down far too much for him to get into position. Caden, the third fledgling, rushed past Jarzyl in an open sprint, dashing after the deer. But it was a lost cause. The deer had the advantage of speed on the ground, and Caden soon realized the futility of her chase and slid to a stop.
All six fledglings got to watch as their prey fled into the bushes. “Not today!” the deer seemed to say, bouncing away and flashing its white tail in a mocking stot.
Not today!
The six young dragons closed up their circle, and as was tradition, instantly started to trade blame and insults.
“Nice work, idiots! You let it get away!” sarcastically exclaimed Knaster, a grey-scaled fledgling who had been the first to leap. His sides were painted with stripes of green and black to break up his outline, but all the sneaking through the forest had smeared the camouflage paint into wide streaks of mixed, muddy colour.
“You were too early! Does it look like I can teleport?” snarled Caden, who was the fledgling who had been on Jarzyl’s right.
“Too early? It was heading right for you three, but you all managed to miss!” Knaster retored.
The fledgling who had been stalking next to Knaster (her name was Pyxis) growled and added her voice to the squabble. “You know, maybe if you hadn’t jumped so fast, we would have caught it in the first place! But nooo! You decided to pounce without even signalling us!”
“I did signal! I signalled twice!! And if you and Nerlin had been paying attention instead of staring at each other, you would have seen that the deer was close enough! We could have caught it if you took your head out of the mud!” snapped Knaster.
Another fledgling (named Nerlin) growled back at him. “Rrrr… Oh, that’s rich, coming from you! A whole hour of slowly tracking and trailing a deer completely wasted, because you couldn’t wait just a few…”
Jarzyl would normally have been enthusiastic about assigning blame and highlighting fault in her peers, but not today. Today she was holding a paw to her head and gritting her teeth from the pain. The thrill of the hunt was wearing off, leaving her headache ever more noticeable and increasingly concerning. The pain hadn’t gone away like before. Now it was a continuous sharp sensation in her head, jabbing her again and again.
“Hey, are you alright?” someone asked.
Jarzyl looked up and found that Atlas was standing next to her. Now that they were hiding away behind shrubbery, she could see that the nocturnal fledgling was wearing a pair of goggles with lenses tinted dark so that his night-sensitive eyes wouldn’t be blinded by the sunlight. The dark glasses meant she couldn’t see his eyes, but she could still recognize the look of concern her best friend was giving her.
“I’m fine. But my head’s feeling strange. I think it’s just a headache. Really hurts, though,” Jarzyl replied, trying to downplay her illness.
Meanwhile, the other fledglings were loudly proclaiming the perceived faults with each other’s hunting techniques. Insults and accusations were being hurled around and deflected with great fervour.
“—hardly a run! At least Atlas tried to pounce, and he’s missing a whole leg!” Knaster had been saying.
“Oh, now you’re picking on the three-legged dragon? That’s really admirable of you, Knaster! Just blame Atlas for your own failings,” retorted Caden, letting sarcasm drip into her voice.
“I’m not picking on him! In fact, I’d say he did as well as could be expected. He certainly made an attempt—unlike Jarzyl, who must have been taking a nap while we were trying to hunt. So what about you, Mintaka, missing that intercept? What’s your excuse?”
Jarzyl turned her head at the sound of someone calling her by her clan’s name, and she found that the other fledglings had decided it was her turn to bear blame.
Knaster raised his paw and pointed a talon straight at her. “That deer went right past where you were crouching but you didn’t even move. It was practically in your jaws but you didn’t pounce, or did my eyes deceive me?”
Before Jarzyl could reply, Atlas did it for her. “Hey, Taslin,” said Atlas, using Knaster’s own clan name, “Maybe you should get your eyes checked because you were the one who jumped on the deer before it was in range! You should have just waited for it to walk closer instead of blaming us!”
Nerlin growled, though who he was growling at wasn’t very clear. “Rrr… No question that Knaster should have waited, but he’s not entirely wrong about Jarzyl. She ought to have caught that deer even after we missed the first lunge. It was an easy kill that anyone—”
Before the argument could descend into a brawl, an adult dragon dropped out of the skies and landed in the middle of the fledglings’ circle, making them all jump back. The downdraft from his wings kicked up leaves from the forest floor and blew away the ongoing squabbling.
This was Drak Tasilus, the master hunter who’d been accompanying them. His responsibility as an educator was to coordinate and oversee the training hunt, and he’d been watching their attempt on the deer from high up in the sky. After a hunt it was his job to give the young dragons advice on what they’d done properly and correct any mistakes they’d made along the way. Of course, this time-honoured learning process required a certain amount of constructive criticism.
“Silence, silence! If there were any deer left within this entire forest range, you all would have scared them off from all your clamouring! Save your noise for cheering when you actually catch something! If your food weren’t grown in farms for you, you’d all starve to death!” thundered the drake in his booming voice, which instantly halted any further argument. “All so ready to blame anyone else but yourself. It’s easy to cooperate and function as a team if you succeed, but the moment a hunt fails you all act like a bunch of chirping hatchlings.”
The six fledglings fell silent as the master hunter glared at them in turn, as if challenging them to disagree with his assessment. “You all know hunting skills by now, so the point of this hunt is to learn teamwork and self-discipline. Start with self-improvement! They can probably hear your whining all the way back in the city!”
The hunter started addressing their performances, one by one. “Knaster, you were taking the lead and that’s good, but you did jump too fast. It was close, I admit. On a lucky day, you would have made that catch. But you could have waited a few seconds more and it would have been even easier.” Knaster looked annoyed, but he nodded his head silently instead of objecting.
“Pyxis and Nerlin, you were both a bit too close to Knaster, and you two were definitely too close to each other. Watch your spacing next time.” The master hunter gestured around the clearing, pointing out where they’d been waiting and how they’d reacted in the final moments of the failed hunt.
“Caden, you did alright, the deer didn’t run towards you so there was nothing you could’ve done. Good attempt on the run, but you can’t hope to outrun a deer. Same for you, Atlas. Now as for you, Jarzyl, I don’t even know what happened. Did you freeze up?”
Jarzyl felt the gazes of the other fledglings all turn on her, and the scrutiny made her feel ashamed of her failure. Her neck frill drooped low in embarrassment. “I lost my balance and missed the lunge. I could have done better than that. Sorry…” she murmured.
The master hunter nodded, looking pleased at her response. “Good! Everyone makes mistakes, or gets unlucky, and the important thing is to always keep trying to improve. Anyone else got anything to add? No? Then keep in mind what I told you all before, which is that ground hunting is one of the most challenging ways to hunt, and on average most training hunts don’t succeed. It is what it is. But we still have some time left for today’s session, so we’ll try something different before we start heading back to the city. Let’s finish off with an aerial hunt—a quick attempt, but it’ll be good for you to exercise your wings too.”
The drake gestured further into the forest with a wing. “I spotted a large herd of breakhorns to the north, in the plains past the forest. We’ll do some swooping and see if we can single out a calf or an older stray. Remember not to commit to a pick off until you’re sure the herd won’t turn on you. Once you touch the ground, assume that you won’t be able to take-off without a running start. If you get stampeded by a breakhorn herd, I’ll have to call for a medical evacuation and that will be unfortunate. Pyxis, you lead the way north. I’ll tell you all more when we get closer, so hold your questions until then. Go!”
One by one, the other fledglings spread their wings and jumped into the air, weaving between the trees to climb into the open skies. Before Jarzyl could follow them, Drak Tasilus strolled up to her. “Jarzyl, are you alright?” he asked.
“Yeah. Yes,” replied Jarzyl. The fledgling unfurled her own wings, trying to ignore the stabbing pain that was throwing off her concentration. Above them, the other young dragons had cleared the treetops and formed up into a rough arrow formation, flying northwards at a leisurely rate.
“You don’t look alright. Is something the matter?”
“She said she’s got a headache,” said Atlas.
Jarzyl glanced to the left and found that her friend was still standing beside her. She turned back to Drak Tasilus and shook her head, determined not to make a big deal out of her discomfort. “It’s nothing. I’m fine.”
Drak Tasilus ignored her insistences. “A headache? It’s a bad idea to hunt if you’re not feeling well. I’m asking you, so tell me—how are you feeling? Did your headache make you mess up the pounce on the deer?” He was speaking calmly, not shouting like before, but his voice was still deep and commanding.
Truthfully Jarzyl didn’t feel well, yet she didn’t want to sound like she was making excuses. “It’s… I don’t know. It just hurts. I guess it might have been what made me miss the pounce? It’s a headache. But it’s… it’s not the worst.” Even thinking about the question made her doubt herself. Had it really been her headache that had made her miss her leap, or had it just been her carelessness and impatience?
Tasilus gazed over her with a critical eye and quickly made his decision. “Alright, no one’s immune to disease, and I’m not letting you get gored to death by a breakhorn. Go wash off the camouflage paint in that lake nearby, then head back to Avaeria. If the pain keeps up, go to a clinic or the medical centre and have the healers take a look into your head.”
“I… but…? You’re sending me back?! But we’re only halfway through the training hunt!” Jarzyl exclaimed.
“Yes I’m sending you back. You know the policy is safety first, so consider yourself done with the hunt.” Tasilus nodded towards Atlas. “Atlas, you fly her back. Make sure she makes it back to the city in one piece. I’ll see you two in next week’s hunt, understood?”
“Yes, drak. Understood,” replied Atlas.
“But… uh…!” Jarzyl started to say, but drak Tasilus turned to her and raised an eye ridge.
“Safety first. You agree, yes?”
Jarzyl blinked. “Safety… first… yes.”
“Good then.” Tasilus spread his broad wings and leapt into the skies, ascending quickly to catch up with the other learners before Jarzyl could fully voice her protest.
She directed her complaints to Atlas instead. “Hey, I’m fine! Why did you tell him my head hurts? Now he thinks I’m sick or something.”
“But you are sick,” replied the nocturnal fledgling.
“Not that sick! I’m fine! I don’t need to be sent back to the city—I want to kill a breakhorn. Grah! It is a mark of our great friendship that I’m not yelling at you, like you deserve for telling drak Tasilus that I’m sick,” grumbled Jarzyl.
“And I suppose it is a mark of our great friendship that I’m not just letting you take the risk of crashing. You told me that your head really hurts and it was enough to make you miss a simple pounce. What if you misjudge your dive and crash, and then a breakhorn herd tramples you?” Atlas countered.
“Then in that case I’ll just die, and you can say ‘I told you so’ to my corpse! But I won’t die, because I won’t crash, because I’m fine. It’s just…not enough sleep or something,” Jarzyl grumbled.
“You always have not enough sleep, but you don’t get headaches unless you’re sick. If it turns out to be nothing you can always join next week’s hunt, but if you are actually falling sick than you shouldn’t endanger yourself.” Atlas was sounding responsible, cautious, and all the other disgusting words that meant ‘not having fun’.
The pain in Jarzyl’s head was making it hard for her to concentrate on arguing, which probably meant Atlas was right. How annoying—he always did this! Saying boring things like, “you shouldn’t climb that tree, the branches are rotting”, or “that caterpillar is poisonous, stop poking it”, or even “maybe you shouldn’t play with that, you’re going to light your tail on fire”.
“Look, if you really want to rejoin the hunt we can still go follow the others. We could tell Drak Tasilus you are feeling much better if you’re sure your head is alright. It’s your choice,” Atlas said to her.
Jarzyl sighed. When her friend put it that way it was hard to argue without making herself sound reckless, but the thought of swooping and diving at breakhorns that were hectically stampeding in all directions was infinitely more thrilling than the alternative—which was to not swoop and dive at breakhorns that were hectically stampeding in all directions. She liked adventure, and loved dragging Atlas along with her on adventure, but it would be far from the first time his good sense had acted as a counterbalance to enthusiasm.
“Alright, alright, let’s go to the lake and wash up.”
TO BE CONTINUED
Mini-series Chapter 2: https://sofurry.com/s/3egJw231