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"One man to another, at least afford me the respect of allowing me to pull my pants up," Finley pleaded.

"You needn't worry about that, we'll be taking those too," the scruffy looking bandit replied, arousing a chuckle out of his two comrades. The hostage's green eyes shifted to the side, watching helplessly as they rifled through his belongings, taking anything of perceived value.

Wearing only plain brown and green clothing fit for a common traveler, the young human gulped as his eyes peered down at the sharp tip of the sword hovering over his chest, just a finger's width from his racing heart. Hands in the air and pressed against a large tree, all he could dwell upon was how many precious few seconds remained before they decided his fate. As they did not appear to be the noblest of men, even by criminal standards, he concluded that he was soon to be left for dead out here in the humid jungle. "Curious, do you rob all your victims while they're taking a shit?" he decided to break the silence, carefully watching his opponent with scholarly eyes, hoping that he could coax him to drop his guard if sufficiently taunted.

Unfortunately, he got but a dismissive sneer in response, maintaining his guard.

He pressed on, in his usual cocky methods. "Highway robbery? Or...ambushing from cliff tops? How about wagon heists? Everyone loves a wagon heist. Nothing like that? Just.... wandering around the forest looking for a poor lad to crouch in some bushes?" But he got little more than a huff and narrowed eyes in response. "Well?" he asked only through body language, cocking his head and arching his eyebrows. "Is that a yes? My, such exciting stories you must have to share. So...you must have to have quite a trained eye to wait for them to actually be in the act just enough that they can't respond to your advances in time," he kept going, knowing he was pressing his luck.

"Shut it, boy, lest you'd like to lose that cocky tongue of yours as well," the bandit finally replied with a stern warning and with an expression that sold his irritation.

His heart raced and sweat formed upon his brow. He was close, needing but only a couple seconds away from that pesky weapon to make his move. Without pause, he continued, "I mean if you had at least sprung from the tree tops, that would have been something, but--"

Pushed over the edge, the bandit gave an irritated grunt and repositioned his sword just before he shut up the hostage's provocative taunting with a clean stab through his lung.

Severely having misjudging the reaction he was after, Finley screamed in pain as he pulled himself away from the penetrating blade and clutched at his bleeding wound, doubling over, but barely had any more time to react further before he felt a punch to his back knock him to the hot forest floor. He never was a good gambler, and it seemed like that would be his final poorly judged bet. Regret and misfortune clouded his mind during his dying seconds. He rolled onto his side to face the scene before him, his adversary squatting down before him.

With an amused smile, the bandit finally replied, "You got brass balls, kid, I'll give you that. About as wise as a bag of rocks though." He paused for a moment, only the sound of Finley's painful breathing between them. "Yes, I do rob people while they shit, do you know why? Because it works. You act as though there's some honor between one form of robbery over the other, like some sort of naive pup who got its education from idiot folk stories. I was going to let you live, but that favor has passed since you are insistent on judging me, and..." he paused to look over at the pilfering efforts before continuing, "because you seem to have wasted our time." He stood back up and positioned for a killing blow, waiting a moment as if allowing for some final words.

Finley breathed with a labored effort, trying to think of something, anything to say that might spare him. However, his green eyes shifted away from the man and into the background where he saw a rustling in the bushes. Whatever it was was small enough to evade his vision thus far, but bigger than most of the lurking critters of this relatively safe region.

The bandit caught onto his cue and must have heard something too, and so he turned his head to look at the disturbance. Instead of seeing the jungle background as he had expected, his vision was filled with a small, dark grey feathered raptor flying through the air in pounce, sounding a deadly whistling scream as it latched onto his chest and made short work of his jugular with its sickle claw. Despite the beast only being about a forth the size of the bandit, he was dropped to his knees with no shortage of gurgling noises escaping his mouth as his throat filled with blood, unable to put up any fight as his life was promptly ended.

The two other bandits hardly had any time to look up at the noise before the heavily armed bird sprung from his chest and tackled the second bandit onto his back, dragging its hind claws clean down his chest in doing so. Screaming in bloody pain, he took a desperate swipe at it from the ground with a hunting knife he stole from Finley's bag, but the agile raptor, light on its bird-like legs, hopped out of the way with a squawk and flapping of its winged arms. It then snapped at the attacking arm, biting down on his forearm with enough force from its dagger like teeth to disarm him by severing the tendons to his hand. He had but a brief moment to scream his protest before his neck was crushed by those same powerful jaws bearing down on him.

The final bandit let out a horrified yelp as the reality of the situation caught up to him. Now alone, his fight or flight instinct chose flight, breaking into a sprint and only hoping the little terror would leave him alone and perhaps go after Finley instead. The bloodied raptor would have none of it though, his escape only serving to bait its excitement. It chased after him with a graceful stride and wings held out low to the ground, catching up to him effortlessly and jumping onto his back from behind. Black claws latched onto his leather clothes, but its mouth ripped into the side of his neck, sending the human into a limp tumble just before the raptor dismounted him.

Finley watched with wide eyes as his enemies were dropped all within a matter of seconds, the feathered beast hopping off the back of the last one with a flapping of its winged arms. If given the choice, he would have rather died by the sword than be eaten alive by some protobird. The raptor refocused its attention towards the last remaining man with wide turquoise eyes, and as it padded up to him, he desperately tried to scramble to his feet, panting heavily. Just as he managed to stand up and take a step in retreat, he succumbed to blood loss and collapsed back to the floor, blacking out.

His senses dulled away into unmemorable obscurity, clouded with random memories and strange noises. The noises became louder and louder, making themselves more aware to his consciousness. Eventually, they took form into words, but he couldn't understand them yet. He groaned as his vision returned to him, bright white and blurry. "Allergic, allergic," was the only words he could understand. Why, what a particular words to hear of all things. It prompted his attention to return to him, and he groaned, trying to focus hard.

"What?" was all he could muster, now seeing the head of someone looming over him.

"I ask, are you allergic to red...to spirits?" he could now make out a foreign sounding feminine voice.

The words hung in his mind for what seemed like eternity, trying to make sense of it. He heard her repeat the question over and over, sometimes in different languages, a half dozen times before he was able to pull his thoughts together just enough to understand the question. "Ummm, no," he groaned his response.

The next thing he felt was nothing short of being the worst pain he's felt in his life as his would-be helper unleashed a bright red glow from her hands into his chest. It jarred him from his nearly unconscious state in an instant as he screamed for a good ten seconds during the procedure. He tried to pull away and lash about, to make it stop, but she was pinning him down effortlessly. Just as the worst of it was over, he went into a coughing fit, hacking up the blood pooled in his lung, staining the dirt a blackish red. His eyes watered and he never knew such misery, but eventually he stabilized. When it finally came to an end, he realized what had happened, that his wound had been mended by red magic. "Dragons almighty, I've never known such pain could exist!" he cried his grievance as soon as he was able to talk, clutching his chest. The outburst prompted another bout of bloody coughing.

"Calm now, little man. It was that, or it was death," she replied in a crisp, elocutionary accent, wiping away the human's blood from her hands with a borrowed rag.

Finley looked up at her, and groaned as he rubbed his eyes, trying to clear the blur. He squinted as he looked her over. She was a white feathered avian race of some kind, with a large sweeping crest of feathers atop her head, straight grey beak, and alluring eyes of icy white blue. "Ugh," he groaned, his mind reeling as it tried to catch up with what happened before he blacked out. Her race was of no surprise, as the tropical region he was traveling through hosted a variety of avian folk. But he lost focus of her as his mind recalled what happened. "Oh, by the black blood of Thameria, where'd that vicious little beast run off to? Did you kill it?" he asked her anxiously, head jerking about as he looked around.

"Kill her, our precious wing of death? No, no," she replied, making a face as if offended. As for his other question, she replied by looking up.

Finley looked up at where she was looking, and winced at the sight of the raptor perched on a branch, presumably in the middle of preening the blood off itself. With a bird-like twitchy head and unblinking wide eyes locked onto him, she had a chaotic aura about her, as if she would do something drastic and unpredictable at any moment... especially with the way she held her expression, with her lips as flat as could be along her long head, hard to read. She was dark grey and well kempt, with a clean white underside that invaded into the grey feathers in the form of speckled dots. The beast's ferocity, however, was greatly hampered by a white bow that was laced up in her crest.

"...That bow," dumbfounded by how out of place it seemed.

The avian stood up, and invited the raptor into a gentle clutch by her breast. "Her choice. Not mine," she noted, neither confirming not denying she felt the same way.

Finley grunted in discomfort, stiff and sore, as he stood back onto shaky legs, the pains of the treatment still lingering in his body. He pulled his pants back up as he stood, embarrassed at how vulnerable he had been in their presence this whole time. It was only after he stood that he noticed just now tall this bird was, towering a good two heads over him. With such height, the raptor in her clutches was at about eye level with him. While he acknowledged that he was saved by these two and that the raptor seemed to be under control, it didn't change what he saw, and he took a step back, intimated. Finley had a number of questions he wanted to ask, but he was still quite distracted by the raptor. With his fondness for birds, and he racked his mind over the few times he may have seen such an exotic creature. "Is that a...veloc?" He finally asked in a doubtful tone, having to look up at the tall avian.

"My flock refer to them as doves, but yes," she replied.

"Doves?" he got a chuckle out of that. "Doves are small, docile birds, and couldn't scratch a babe. This is no dove," he explained.

The avian looked unphased and disinterested in his argument. "Merely a language barrier, human, I am sure," and then set the raptor down.

"Finley," he introduced himself after a moment of silence, extending a hand. "And I do believe I owe you my thanks. I am in your debt," he said sincerely.

"Curious, this is a life debt, yes? How fortunate," she said with a big smile as she clapped her winged armed together quickly enough to send a breeze over Finley, disrupting not just his hair but also the sense that he was in the presence of a samaritan. "You may call me Kenki," she replied, taking only his fingers into her bird like hand. Her grey, scaled fingers were well over twice the length of the human's. "And this small feather bears the name Six-and-None," she gestured towards the raptor.

Weary of her choice of words towards the debt and the raptor's strange name, he refrained from commenting on it for now. As Finley had regained his composure enough to engage in dialog, he became aware of the fact that the avian before him was seemingly as naked as could be. His eyes shifted about, not knowing where to look, but also wanting to look. The quickest scouting of his prying eyes confirmed her bare chest, and any features between her legs were obscured by feathers. Tall as she was, she was of a lanky build, and slightly hunched over with digitigrade bird legs. The long pinion feathers along her arm extended so far down that they nearly brushed the ground, as did the fan of tail feathers behind her.

(Click for author's illustration)

"Dear human, why is it you endure the burden of this journey alone and with not a down of protection? Are you not fearful of the danger?" Kenki pointed out to him before he could reply, looking over the unarmored and seemingly unarmed human. Hearing her speak more, Finley couldn't help but notice her accent, angelically clear but also with a distinctive lilt not uncommon to avians. Subtle body language, combined with the way she held her soft eyes, projected a calm and cool wisdom, as though her composure was firm as steel.

Finley walked over to the bloody corpses and began to recollect his belongings as he replied. "Dangers..." he snorted as though that were a joke, knowing this particular forest to be as tame as could be. "I can take care of myself. Well, usually, it's just that these scumbags ambushed me while I was, eh--"

"Yes, I heard your little banter," she replied, cutting him off to spare him the embarrassment.

He felt his cheeks flush with embarrassment anyway, not just because of the rescue but due to feeling somewhat emasculated in her presence. "Erm," he cleared his throat nervously, "you showed up just in time," he wondered outloud, then looked towards the inclining forest terrain towards where the trail was, noticing there was no way a passerby could have had a line of sight. Looking towards her again, the avian held her gaze and crest feathers in such a way that made it look as though she were more interested in the human than could be reasonably expected, as though she had scarcely seen his kind. Naked and without any gear, he doubted she was out here hunting. His mind was nagging that something didn't feel right here. "Where did...how..." he started.

"The chick does not destroy its nest," she interrupted his train his thought, lifting a clawed finger in pose.

"What?"

"It is how my flock would say to not question the good graces that protect you, human. You are safe, what does it matter how?" she tried to tell him, clearly aware of his suspicions.

The fact that she was actively trying to deflect his question only made it worse. His eyes narrowed and he spaced out for a moment in thought, running his eyes along the ground. "So, where you headed?"

"I am on the road, as you are," she vaguely answered.

He paused for a moment before considering his next question. What she was calling a road was nothing more than a hunting trail, and he wasn't expecting to see many people along the way. "Ah, so you're on your way to Port Pavalo too, eh?" he asked.

"I am," she nodded.

Finley shifted back a step, standing a bit taller. "Except there's no such thing as a 'Port Pavalo'," he got her with the trick question. "What, are you tailing me? Why?" he suspected.

Kenki's composure briefly waned as she stepped about in place, clacking her beak together a couple times. She didn't answer for a long time before confessing. "I am lost, little man. The roads, blood of my mother I confess, they begin and end without reason. And so, I have been using you as guidance for some time now. The ambushers seemed like a problem for you, which is a problem to this feather, so we intervened," she explained.

He laughed. "Lost?" he visualized a map in his head, trying to come up with a situation that could possibly lead to someone becoming lost. Given her snowy plumage, he assumed she had wandered in from the mountains to the north. "Well...I suppose I could lead you back to civilization," he said, feeling empathy for the birds. It was a small favor in return for saving his life. The fact that she was of the opposite sex may have also had something to do it, warming up to the idea of a woman's company. "Or were you looking for a way back home. Where is home?" he asked.

She shook her beaked head enthusiastically. "My home is far and I'm sure that you could not pronounce it in your tongue, or recognize its name. By my beak, I'd be happy to accompany you to the nearest town though," she accepted the offer with a humble smile.

Finley grinned as he packed his belongings and slung it over his shoulder, finding her accent and mannerisms endearing. With bright white feathers practically glowing in the sun, and the way she moved about and spoke so fluidly, there was an admirable aura about her that made her invitation to his journey all that more welcome. "Well then, shall we be off?"

The three of them spent a few minutes of silence making their way back to the beaten path, navigating the rocky forest terrain. Back on track, Finley walked to her right, with Six walking in between. With a perky gait and the flat of her back parallel to the ground, the raptor's head twitched about as she kept an alert observation. He looked down at the critter, who occasionally looked back up at him with those same wide eyes and hard to read expression. He coughed nervously as he looked away from her, "So..." he stole a quick glance as Kenki's naked attire. Other than a water flask at her hip, she didn't even have a travel pack or coin purse on her person. Her story begged further explanation. "You sure travel light. Were you down this way to visit family?" he asked her. He doubted that was it, but he had to start somewhere.

Kenki returned a beakish smile, finding his question silly. "Family? No. My plumage is white as the maker's beard. From where might I hail?" she quizzed him.

Finley thought about that for a moment, reflecting on the local avian races. It was true that the color of one's feathers often told a story about where they lived, but not always. "From the far north, then?" he tried.

She looked away, shaking her head ever so slightly. "The north? Sounds good," she answered strangely. "Family, no. I am traveling because it is what I must do now. Please do not be offended when I say I do not expect a human to understand. As the wind guides, I take what I need from the land, and my feathers keep me warm enough at night. Should I encounter any other obstacles, red magic may serve my aid," she explained, looking down at him as they walked.

Her answer seemed reasonably believable to him. Her quest reminded him of a pilgrimage, and as she demonstrated herself as a practitioner of red magic, that notion seemed likely. "Speaking of that, why was your healing spell so incredibly painful? I've never felt anything like that from other healers," he asked her, rubbing his chest in reminder.

"You express a lack of experience towards red biased casters, instead only blue, no? Yes, it hurts, but it is the superior form of healing if you ask this feather... Gets the job done right, in only a few seconds instead of the minutes it would normally take for a questionable mending at best," she said with no shortage of pride in he tone.

He mulled this over for a moment, trying to recall anytime he's really seen a red biased caster. "Most of the races around here don't use red, only blue. In fact, I don't think any do," he said, and looked up at her again inquisitively. "I must confess, Lady Kenki, I'm struggling to attach a name to your race."

"Really now? I am confident the fog will lift soon," she left him with a mystery.

Finley made a baffled, scrunched face, looking away as the conversation grew silent for awhile. There were so many avian races around here, he couldn't keep them straight in his head, and so his thoughts were occupied with trying to recollect his memories on the subject. "Ip," came a small chirp as the raptor circled around him, looking up, interrupting his thoughts.

"Yes, what is it?" he asked her, his gait being disturbed as she kept getting in his way.

The raptor then made a series of hand gestures towards him, and ended with a flexing of her small crest, smiling as a feral would, as though she were awaiting something.

Finley just raised one eyebrow at the peculiar behavior.

"She asked 'What do you have for me?'" Kenki translated the bestial signs for him, but otherwise didn't offer any further guidance, just watching the scene unfold with an amused expression about her.

Finley smirked, understanding now. Six's ability to communicate in such a way was smart, though not unheard of. "Oh, I see how it is. You want payment for helping me out earlier, is it?" he figured, and came to a stop as he pulled his pack around to his front. Six took a step back and perked herself up, awaiting her prize. Finley pulled out a wrapped foodstuff, and squatted down to get on her level. He found a piece of dried jerky and offered it to her. "You like jerky, I'm sure, yes?"

Six-and-None extended her long neck forward to sniff at the offering, but then without warning her head moved over to the side where she clamped her pointers down around the entire bag of food in his other hand, liberating it from his grasp. With a flapping of her wings, she turned tail to escape with her reward, running about awkwardly with the large bag stuffed in her maw.

"Hey! Get back here you oversized turkey! That's all my food!" Finley protested, standing back up and giving a half-hearted chase, but knowing it was hopeless after she disappeared in the underbrush. Finley turned about to find Kenki hiding her giggle with a wing over her beak. "Really? Arg, now I have to hunt for food," he complained.

Kenki just smiled and shrugged but otherwise seem to have no intention on apologizing for Six's behavior. "Six-and-None is a crafty feather," she waved her hand dismissively, and resumed walking. "Let us press onward, the dove will catch up."

Finley followed along with a disgruntled face, disapproving of Kenki's reaction towards his drama, but finding it difficult to engage in further argument in her authoritative presence. Though, he figured he couldn't get too mad. A bag of food was a good trade for his rescue. "Six-and-None...what does that mean? I been wondering since you introduced her," he asked after cooling off a few minutes later.

Kenki looked at him for a few moments before replying, "I know, human... If you can figure out what her name means before sunset, I will fetch food. Otherwise, you will," she instead replied.

He pursed his lips, considering the wager. He was already resigned to the notion of having to get food tonight anyway, so the deal wasn't much of a risk. "Alright, deal. Let me give it some more thought," he agreed, scratching his chin in wonder.

After about twenty minutes, the pitter patter of bird feet ran up from behind them as Six rejoined the party. "Irp irp," she chirped happily, announcing herself and weaving in between Kenki's legs, inviting a pet on the head.

Still a tad upset, Finley glared her over as they walked, trying to crack the code. "Six and none..." he muttered to himself. "Sort of sounds like a score. Did she perhaps win against her siblings six times in some juvenile game?" he theorized. Kenki just shook her head with an incorrect grunt. "Or maybe she had six teeth on one side but not the other?" he thought outloud.

Kenki clacked her beak a couple times. "You are off target, dear Fin."

"Oh, I got it," he said with some confidence after a good long while. "She was the only survivor in a brood of six?"

"The prey is near, but you are not there yet. Only one more guess will be allowed," she warned.

That shut him up. There were several hours left before sunset, so he decided save his final guess for later. Now he had two mysteries the bird had assigned him. He also had to figure out her race, which she seemed to think he could figure out. He occasionally looked over at her, usually out of the corner of his eye. He didn't want to draw attention that he was checking her out, given how very naked she was.

After some time of this, Kenki slowly turned her head down to look him in the eyes, her large eyes lidded and peaceful looking. She sighed, and pointed forward, one polished black claw gleaming in the sunlight. "As far as the arrow flies, that very tall palm tree," she suddenly said.

Finley squinted as he saw the tree she was probably suddenly referring to, far enough away that it was just a silhouette in the distance. "Yes, what of it?" he asked.

"Truthfully, it bears nine fruits closest to us, and a red bird pecking away at one to steal its sustenance," she explained.

He held a hand to his brow trying to see this, but it was too far away to make out any of the details. "Okay?" he asked, confused.

Kenki resumed walking, "My flock have splendid eyes, and observe all. So, do not think I have not noticed you afraid to look at me, yet looking still. Should your mind wish to ask me something, then ask," she called him out, getting an embarrassed reaction from him. "You blush, your pupils shake. Do my words make you nervous, dear Fin, or does my body?"

Finley rubbed at his forearm in a nervous tick before replying, "Um, my apologies, Lady Kenki, it is just that...you're naked," he explained, clearing the saliva from his mouth with a gulp. "Such attire, or lack thereof, would draw the gaze from any man, you see."

"Ah, now I see what has got you in a ruffle," she said, nodding. "Except that I am not naked, instead wearing my finest coat of feathers!" she protested in a playful tone, running a hand down her plumage.

That got a smile out of the human, shaking his head. "That's like saying I'm wearing a hat because I have hair," he retorted. "That doesn't count. Besides, other avian races around here wear clothing," he added.

"The coat of this one grows many times thicker than your local flocks. Feel the air, feel it. It is sweltering out here, and by my beak I am hot enough as it is. To wear more when less is desired, why?"

"It's just that...," he looked down her body briefly, trying not to blush since he now knew that she could pick up on that. "You're..." he stalled while looking for the most appropriate words, circling his hand around.

"What?" she asked impatiently, stepping infront of him and pressing a hand against his chest to get him to stop. "Look at me, like a man. What are you so squeamish about?" When he did not reply immediately, she went on, "I am familiar with your customs to cover the genitals. Do my feathers not do this? Quit looking away," she demanded an answer.

After a hesitation towards her request, Finley inhaled deeply and looked flatly between her legs for a long several seconds. Despite being uncomfortably close to where her cloaca should be, he couldn't really see anything through her thick feathers, as she claimed. "Fair enough. The local avians aren't quite as, eh, 'fluffy' as you are, for lack of a better word," he explained.

Kenki stood her feathers on end as she fluffed out for a brief moment before letting everything resettle into place, in which case Finley thought he may have saw a little something something between her plumes. "You sound disappointed," she said in a teasing tone just before turning to resume her walk.

Finley decided not to answer that, though he couldn't help but admit to himself he'd be curious to know what an avian looked like exactly, under all those feathers.

"You are wrong about everything, dear Finley," she said after they had walked for awhile. "I am, in fact, wearing armor."

Finley looked up at her with doubtful eyes. "Is that so...?" he said nearly monotone, then ran his eyes down her form again. "Invisible armor, no less."

"No. If you doubt me, touch me," she invited him, poking at her side. "Go on, you've my blessing," she reassured him.

Finley reached out and felt her outermost pelt of feathers. They felt stiff, and made of sterner stuff than her inner down, surely protecting her against the elements. "That doesn't count," he objected.

"Not those, silly chick, deeper."

He narrowed his eyes and parted her feathers and sunk his hand into her plumage, losing sight of his fingers in an ocean of warm white down before he felt the familiar rub of metal along his fingertips.

"Mail?" he asked in a most curious voice, discovering what felt like an extremely wide yet thick woven chainmail.

"Mm, to weave every feather, it is no light task," she confirmed, giving him a subtle smile, but then her expression changed to disappointment. "I have spoke too much. It is a secret defense. I pray that I can trust you, for if not, this feather will wait until the human does his business behind a tree," she teased with an open beak grin.

Finley frowned, "That's not funny," he muttered. He scratched his chin though, a bit fascinated at the concept of fully concealed chainmail, wondering if any other races did that.

Silence fell between them as they traversed their way through the forest for the next couple hours, only occasionally speaking of simple, unimportant things. Finley's mind was mostly occupied with the riddles Kenki left him with, but he felt like he was close, and would share in a moment. "Let's take a quick break, shall we?" he suggested as the road merged with the shoreline of a cool running river. They agreed, and Finley dropped his pack off by a rock, and took a moment to rub his sore shoulders while Six drank from the river and Kenki refilled her water flask beside her. He joined them a minute later, kneeling down to fill his palms with the cold water to either wash his face or to drink. "So, I think I have you figured out," he announced as he tended to himself.

Kenki took a long drink of water from her flask before replying, "Is that so?" in a skeptical voice.

"You have a way of speaking and aura about you that is suggestive of something... And no weapons on you as far as I can tell. You're a priestess, yes?" he explained, then wiped his face dry with his sleeve.

"...Go on," she held her hands out, as if waiting for more.

Finley smiled but admitted, "That's all I have thus far."

She quietly stared down the river for a moment, took another drink and then knelt down to refill her flask again. "As with Six-and-None, you are close, but not quite there. I am not a priestess, but I am a Sister of Terioxa," she said in serious tone, tilting her head just slightly to watch his reaction as though he might recognize the name for its significance.

"Terioxa?" Fin asked, furrowing his brow. The name rang a bell. "Terioxa....Oh, that's right, eh, one of the elusive Great Dragons of the second plane," he remembered after a few moments.

Kenki didn't reply, as if just waiting for him to talk it out to himself. She stood back up after refilling her flask to face him with a neutral expression.

Finley rubbed his chin as his gaze ran along the ground, mind racing. "Sister? What, like of a monastery order you mean? But Terioxa is no god, why would...," he began to put it together, eyes widening and taking a step back. Thinking this was a "I'd tell you, but I'd have to kill you," moment, Finley assumed a combat stance as he faced Kenki, as the facts fit together, hitting him like a bag of bricks. "Oh, curse me to the king, you're a Sylvinian!" he decreed, finally identifying her race.

Kenki gave him a small beakish smile, pressing her hands together as if to clap once, replying, "As foretold, the fog has lifted," but otherwise not reacting much to his combat stance.

"Your height, your accent, your red bias," he mentally kicked himself for not seeing it sooner. It was only because there were so many other avian races around here, combined with how his mind would never even consider that he'd ever stumble across one of her kind.

"No, sweet dove, no," Kenki commanded to Six, who was stalking about behind the human in response to the escalation, before returning his attention back to him. "A casting stance? This explains your lack of physical weapon," she pointed out to him in a calm in a cool mannerism. "But really, now, calm your feathers, little man, if I wanted to kill you I could have done so countless times by now," she told him.

Finley frowned at her confidence towards his lack of prowess. Holding his stance, he nudged his head to the side briefly to look behind him, seeing that lethal little beast at the ready. Processing her words, he turned back and asked, "So, what do you want with me?"

Bemused, she replied, "Nothing, except dinner tonight since I do not foresee you winning your wager," she replied and then stepped towards him. He held his stance still, nervous as ever. "Young one, are you so surprised at my presence?" she added, circling around him and back the other side. She took his right hand into her's and lowered it down to his hips to force him out of his casting stance. "Your affinity, I wonder? I will guess," she asked, dancing a finger around in thought. "Thermal? You humans love fire magic, am I right? But no..." she studied the human, walking around to his front and staring him in the eyes, flexing her wisdom. "The way you hold yourself as a hostage...you are of a slower art, perhaps a materialist affinity?" she asked.

"N...no," he answered, still trying to work up his trust towards the outsider. "Kinetics," he admitted after a long hesitation, but she was right in regards to the time it would take for him to defend himself. Something that would not be unseen towards someone holding a sword towards his victim.

"Oh, very fun! The favorite from my plane, as I'm sure you're well aware," she grinned. "Except red-biased kinetic spells are nothing like your blue ones," she thought outloud.

Finley decided to unleash a kinetic burst of energy below himself as both a demonstration and to distance himself from the duo. Taking all of about two seconds to crouch down and press his palms to the ground, he gave a bounding leap up onto a huge rock along the river. They stared at one another for while with scholarly eyes. "'Traveling because it is what you must do'? Are you a spy, or do just leisure stroll here in the first pane?" he asked her.

Kenki smirked and leaned up against a rock of her own as she picked at some of her feathers. "Wrong, dear Finley. Remember, from my point of view, this is the second plane, and mine is the first," she corrected, though otherwise ignoring his questions.

"Language barrier, I'm sure," he replied with a snarky grin. "Visit often?"

"First time for this feather. We ported in a few days ago," she answered casually.

"So how do you like our world?"

"Hot. Gravity is tiring. Relatively peaceful though, so that is a welcome change. And riches riches, your world does have better tasting food," she gave her review.

An awkward silence fell between them as Finley debated on how to proceed. "So, now what? You can't just expect me to ignore that our worlds generally don't get along," he asked her, recalling history lessons both ancient and recent of the interplanar wars.

"'Generally'," she pointed out the keyword, "My being here is not for reasons of conflict or ill intent towards you or your world. Now, come along, you still owe me that life debt," she ended it there, turning away to resume her trek down the path.

Finley didn't appreciate Kenki making the decision for him. He considered splitting up, but at the same time, if they were dangerous, he'd rather keep an eye on them lest he become a victim of ambush once again. But, other than society filling his mind with a deep disliking of outsiders, he personally had no reason not to trust them yet, and he felt as though Kenki had an docile aura of peacefulness that was of no threat to him.

When he hopped back onto the river shore, he gawked when he saw his pack's contents strewn all about the dirt. He jerked his head towards Six, the obvious culprit, walking alongside of Kenki with a pilfered item clutched to her breast. "Arg! That little thieving pest...!" he hollered his complaint. "Get back here you bag of feathers!" he began to chase after them, but then stopped, turning around to quickly collect his belongings. By the time he had resumed his chase, Six was gone, wise to being had.

"Dammit, where'd she go?!" he demanded to Kenki, looking all about. "Your pet stole my watcher!" he accused.

"Your watcher?"

"My watcher! What I use to watch over me while I sleep at night," he quickly explained.

"Cute."

He reddened, replying, "S...safe! And expensive!"

"All is well, the little one I am sure only buried it somewhere, as she did with your food awhile ago."

"What? She buried that food? I thought she at least ate it! Why'd she bury it for, it'll rot long before any of us ever come back here!" he ranted, growing more and more upset with the way Kenki so effortlessly trolled him.

Kenki just shrugged. "You must ask her yourself," she only said. "And she is not my pet, please do not call her that," she added.

"Well, whatever you call her...where is she?"

"'Companion', dear Finley, 'companion'. And she is right behind you," she answered, pointing with her beak.

Finley turned around, only to face the beast that looked as though it was sneaking up on him. "Hey!"

"Onk!" she honked in spook, holding her wings out wide as if to show how big she was.

"You stole my watcher!" he waggled a finger at the small raptor.

"Irp?" she cocked her head to the side, slack jawed.

"Trying to get out of this with cuteness?" he asked her, her response tugging at his heart, especially with her crest bow.

"He claims you stole his rock," Kenki translated on his behalf, gesturing signs towards Six.

Six wobbled her crest about and twitched her head before replying. "No, I just found it on the ground. So it is mine now," Kenki translated back into a common language and grammar structure.

Finley was lost for words. With logic such as her's, he didn't know how to debate her. "Are you kidding me? I set it down because I was getting some water from the river," he argued. Kenki followed along with signing back.

Six seemed to huff her disagreement, stepping about in place before replying. "'I like how it looks, so it is mine now', she says," Kenki said trying her best to keep a straight face.

It was like talking to a child, and he was never much of a family man. "No it's not yours. Give it back you little thief," he demanded, looking back and forth between the raptor and Kenki. Kenki moved her hands all about, exchanging dialog with Six in silence. Finley just watched, holding his hands out in a "well?" expectation.

"Okay...You are blessed with favor," Kenki finally replied. "Six will return it," she told him, though something about her tone hinted there was a catch. And with that, Six turned around and ran off in a blur of white to retrieve the item.

"Hmmm," he hummed to himself, skeptical at best. Sure enough Six did return with the watcher in her maw, looking up at the human with wide bird-like eyes. She transferred it to her hands, clumsily holding it and then lifting it up for him to take. Finley winced as he took the item in his hands, shaking some of the saliva off it with a flick of his hands. After he put it back in his pack, he turned to resume the walk, but Six circled around to remain in his way, holding her wings out wide as though to block his path.

"Irp!" she chirped loudly, hanging her mouth open.

"Now what?" he asked.

She gestured some signs, and Kenki translated, "And now, my reward?"

"What? No, there's no reward. You didn't do anything but take my stuff," he said, irate as ever.

He tried to step around her, but she hip hopped to the side to counter his advancement, keeping her wings out. "Onk onk!"

"Yeah, I figured there was a catch. You've already taken all my food and then the most valuable thing on me, what more do you want from me?" he complained, then turned to Kenki. "Some 'favor', indebting me to her."

Instead of empathy, Kenki seems all more amused by the woes the human was having. "Doves welcome coin," she suggested.

He let out a frustrated sigh and reached for his coin purse, extracting a single copper piece. Putting it in the palm of his hand, he lowered it down for her. Six sniffed at the coin, but then looked up at the coin purse where it came from. Finley got wise to her shenanigans and took a couple steps back and twisted away. "Oh no, I'm not falling for that again," he said as he kept his other free hand clamped down secure over the purse.

Six seems unimpressed and flicked her tail about before replying. "I like the yellow ones more. Do you have any?" Kenki translated.

Finley rubbed his forehead in frustration. "For the love of..." he resigned and took out a gold coin to offer instead, and Six took it into her grasp right away, but then signed to him. "Another?"

The two of them played a staring game for quite some time before he cracked, pulled out a second coin and gave it to her. "Ip," she chirped happily, and signed him again. "Another?"

"No, no more! Curses, you are more greedy than a kobold," he snapped. Kenki was heard laughing some distance away down the road, breaking away from the conversation right after her last translation. Finley caught up with her after edging around Six with a more assertive motion.

Six momentary stored each coin under her tongue, and flapped her wings as she hopped down the road to catch up, tailing just behind Finley. Through the corner of his eyes, he could see her right behind him, holding her wings out. He nervously walked a little faster, hearing the pitter patter of her steps behind him keeping pace. "Shoo!" he scolded her, but instead he felt her nipping at his pants behind him. "Owch! Quit that!" he flailed an arm about behind him.

"My my, another coin would be wise," Kenki shared her wisdom, giggling.

"No! This is robbery plain and simple!" he complained, now just about working into a jog as he tried to get away from Six. The troublesome veloc flapped her wings and stayed right on him, trying to nip at his coin purse. "Go away!" he broke into a nervous run, only provoking her further.

Not to be deterred, Six chased after him until she pounced onto his back, clinging onto the back pack. Finley let out a startled yelp and spun around, trying to shake her off. Flapping herself into a cloud of feathers at first, she held onto the panicked human by grabbing his shoulder with one hand while she rotated around and held onto his coin purse with the other, breaking the threads which bound it to the belt with ease. The purse plopped to the ground with a jingle, and she let go, snatched it, and bolted off into the forest.

"No no no! Dammit! Stop, you don't even know how to use money!" he pointlessly argued to the escaping beast before turning his rage to Kenki. "Do something! This has gotten out of control," he told her, losing his temper fast.

"You did not listen," she calmly replied.

Fists clenched, he snapped back, "You're allowing her to take all my belongings. Quit being so okay with this!"

Kenki just lidded her eyes and and looked away for a moment. "Very well, how much was given?" she asked, though with a choice of words that he did not agree with.

"About twenty gold," he replied right away.

"A petty sum to be ruffled about, young chick. Less than enough for a rowboat," she dismissed his claim.

"That was all my traveling money, Kenki," he whined.

She closed her eyes and nodded her head, bouncing her long crest feathers in doing so. "Very well, consider your life debt...partially paid off," she concluded, laughing a bit, and walking past him.

While she had a point, he still let out an irritated huff. "Well, what I am supposed to do for travel expenses now?"

Kenki looked down at him as she walked, "Wisdom would ask: What would you have done if those bandits allowed you to live, with but a loincloth left on your being? Somebody who can so boldly claim to 'take care of himself' must have a plan, yes?"

He growled his frustration nonetheless. A few moments later he shifted the focus, "But she's just going to bury all that money. And what's a raptor going to do with coins anyway even if she didn't? It's a waste, really," he pleaded.

"I don't know why Six-and-None does what she does, but I feel as though she's entitled to the plunders of adventure just as much as the next feather," Kenki replied.

Finley could have argued this into the ground for a long time still, but he concluded that it was a waste of time. He instead focused his efforts on thinking of how to reclaim some quick coin. On the bright side, he didn't really have anything left for Six to steal from him. It wasn't much longer before the feathered fiend herself rejoined them, rumbling with a coo as she weaved in between Kenki's legs. To Finley, seeing her perky gait and content coos was only salt to the wounds, as she seemed oblivious to any wrong doings.

"The white sun will rest soon, have you an answer?" Kenki broke the silence.

He was a bit too grumpy to really care about that anymore. With a tired groan he said, "I don't know for sure...Six...and none...something birth related. Was she the sixth one born, maybe?"

Kenki didn't answer for a long time. Finley looked up at her, where he noticed her making a face as though she were thinking about something. Noticing he was looking at her, she explained, "I question your wisdom, little man. While you are correct, you do not know why. And so, I charge you with dinner still," she decided. Finley looked as though he were about to protest, but she first added, "But since you were partially correct, I will prepare dessert."

"Fine, whatever. Little beast stole my food, so I'll need to go hunting soon anyway," he rationalized. "So, clarify her name then. How am I both right and wrong?"

"I will try to explain...how would you say the number two two?"

"Twenty-two."

"And two zero?"

"Twenty..." he played along.

"But not twenty-zero?" she asks.

"No. Nobody says it like that."

"Doves do," she corrected him. When Finley was quiet mulling that over, she went on. "Observe, human, her six fingers. With this, they have no word as 'ten'. Their 'ten' is 'six'. Base six, understand, yes?" she asked him.

"Um," he stalled, trying to process this. "So her name is literally just Ten?"

"Only symbolically. It is Six-and-None. Know that her sister bears the name Five, and Six-and-One for the younger sister."

"Naming their offspring in orderly numbers? That must lead to a lot of same names," he wondered.

"Not all of them do this, dear Finley. Just like us, they have their own personalities too."

"Hmm," he hummed, still trying to wrap his head around base six numbering. "How would thirteen be said?"

"'Two of six and one'," she answered.

"How cumbersome," he made a face.

"No. 'Two of six' is its own word, just as 'twenty' is to us. It only seems 'cumbersome' because of the rough translation into an oral language."

Finley exhaled, oddly relieved. "Well, I hate to say it, but that's made the most sense anything has made so far today," he chuckled solemnly. "Come, we can put our backs to that cliff for the night," he pointed off to the right.

Kenki made a weary face. "No, my crest senses danger...Danger that may spring from above," she pointed up at the cliffs' small ledges.

Finley laughed. "Spring from above? By what exactly? A squirrel? I used to camp out here as a kid by myself. These forests have been rid of any threat for generations. Well, aside from the occasional bandit, right? But they're all too incompetent to pull anything like that," he assured her.

"I see..." she said with a thick layer of skepticism and slowly followed Finley. "Safety is scarce in Morinia," she muttered, citing her home world's dangerous fauna.

"You needn't worry. I'll setup my watcher, if Six will leave it alone that is. And that's a big 'if'," he glared down at the raptor. "The cliffs will be nice. They'll keep the wind off us while we rest." Upon arriving to a suitable spot along the base of the cliffs, Finley dropped his pack off and began to fetch some hunting gear from it. "Can you get the fire?" he asked her.

"You want a fire? Why?" she wobbled her crest.

Finley couldn't believe she'd even ask that. "Um, to cook the meat? To stay warm at night? To ward off pests?" he answered in a condescending tone.

Kenki made a funny face, rubbing her beak with a hand. It looked as though she were about to argue with him, raising a finger, but then she relaxed and resigned to it. "This feather will see what she can do."

He stared at her for a moment, wondering what was up with her, but gave a dismissive exhale and turned to head off. "Please at least do me the favor of keeping Six out of my pack while I'm off hunting," he pleaded with her as he departed.

With Six close at her side, Kenki waited for Finley to be long gone before she attempted this fire thing. Being careful to keep her feathers out of the way, she created a little opening between each of her hands, where one hand provided a magical fuel while the other provided a thermal energy. It took her a few tries to improvise a fire with red magic, but she eventually got it, hovering a sustained little flame between her hands. With that figured out, she carefully stuck a stick into the soil so that it was standing upright, and repeated her trick along its tip, setting it on fire after a time. She gave a beakish smile and backed off, leaving the stick there to burn. "The fire is lit," she proudly announced to Six, who was watching with an amused expression.

Finley had meanwhile spent the remainder of the dwindling daylight capturing, skinning, and bagging a deer. He was fortunate in his quest, as this could have taken much longer, but good luck was long overdue. As he dragged it into the campsite, he just saw Kenki squatting down with Six next to her, suspiciously well distanced from a single charred stick that they just seemed to be watching burn to the ground.

He looked about the site. "Where's the fire?" he asked, confused and disappointed.

Kenki looked up at him. "You took so long, the first stick burned to ash. I confess, this new one is not as bright," she casually explained, pointing to the burning stick as though he couldn't see it.

Finley opened his mouth to say something, stop...tried again, still failing for words and just stuttering incoherently. "What?" as he dropped the bagged meat. He wasn't sure if this was some kind of cruel joke to antagonize him further, or if she was truly clueless.

"You said you wanted a fire," she once again gestured to her creation. "Shall I fetch a better stick?"

He picked up the burning stick, looking at for awhile, then at Kenki. "When I asked for a fire...," he paused in disbelief at what he was having to say, "When I asked for fire, I meant a camp fire. Camp fire. Do you know what that is?" he enunciated his words slowly, as if she were having trouble understanding his language.

"It escapes me," she only said, sincerely. "Why set our camp on fire?"

Tossing the stick aside, Finley plopped himself onto the ground and laid down on his back, double face palming for a moment of aggravated silence. He didn't understand how she could simultaneously appear as an embodiment of wisdom, yet fail at the simplest of tasks.

Kenki considered her experience here so far. "Ooh, I did see men with a bigger fire, once. I expected they were smelting a salvage of metal. No?"

He just shook his head along the ground. "How do you cook your food, I wonder?" he cautiously attempted to learn her side of the story.

"Not like that. The flock seldom desire to cook, but if one prefers it hot, we use a hot plate or simply heat it with our hands," she answered. "Fire is a luxury which cannot be wasted on petty cooking tasks," she added.

"Unbelievable. Nothing but a bunch of featherheads around here," he groaned as he sat back up after considering her explanation. "Oye, this'll make a good pub story if nothing else. It's no wonder you think our world's food taste better. Also, 'hot' is the not the same as cooking." Finley could tell that Kenki, for once, seemed a little embarrassed as her alien status caught up with her. "Okay...it's not too late. While I cut up the meat, you gather surrounding sticks and some dry brush...pile it up, brush on the bottom. If you want to do it proper, surround it with rocks," he pointed towards the stone debris along the cliff's edge, "And then set the brush aflame."

Kenki seemed to be in cooperative spirits, and toiled away at the task at hand. Finley busied himself cutting the meat into more manageable chucks, skewering them onto whittled spits. Six sat close to him, cocking her head as she watched and tried to figure out what he was doing. "Irp," she chirped quietly, craning her head forward as though she were about to nibble at one of the prepared skewers.

"Shoo, wait until it's ready," he tried to fend her off.

Six held her wings out and hopped backwards. "Ip!" she chirped again, turned tail, and padded on back to Kenki, successfully vanquished for now. As if looking for something to do, she watched Kenki for a while before copying her, picking up sticks her mouth and clutching rocks to her breast, and dumping them off by the fireplace as Kenki did. Admitting, the materials she was gathering were scaled down to her own size and of minimal use, but Finley couldn't help but chuckle and smile at her adorable aid.

Within due time, the fire was lit and dinner was cooking. Kenki sat noticeably far from the fire, and Finley could only quietly assume Kenki was too hot around it. They chatted on and off about the difference between their worlds, mostly about the wild life. Kenki described her cold world as being without any native furred creatures, and mostly of fiercer scaled and feathered denizens, many of which were flight capable.

Finley tested the meat and gave a neutral response. "Well, I could have made this taste a lot nicer had someone not stolen all my food earlier," he narrowed his eyes towards Six, and then handed Kenki a skewer.

"Mmm," she clacked her beak together, swallowing a bite. "Tug my wing, this is lovely! Crispy, yet remains juicy!" she squealed.

"Ahah, I wouldn't imagine lizard meat to be very succulent by comparison," he gave an amused smile towards her finding a simple meal so enjoyable, then gave Six her share, who was showing surprising patience. Her crest lifted high and happy at the offering, cooing loudly just before she chomped down on it. With her dinner seized, she lowered herself down in a brooding position to eat away, thumping her tail about behind her.

Kenki seemed to be watching the exchange with a heightened interest. "As foreseen," she softly uttered to herself between bites.

As expected, the most voracious of the group finished first, but by the time she had finished preening her feathers clean, the other two had caught up. Finley, who was sitting cross legged near the fire, was soon bumped in the back by Six's head. She circled around with a happy coo, as if thanking him for the meal. "Hello there," he cautiously greeted, having to crook his head back as the tip of her snout was so close that he could feel her breath on his face.

From this distance, he could see every individual grey plume along her feathery face, starting with the short down near her mouth and gradually extending to longer and longer feathers along the top and back of her head. Her turquoise eyes were just a couple degrees more relaxed than usual. Finley gave a nervous grin in return as she just stood there and didn't leave, and so he slowly moved a hand up to her face and patted her softly on the head. "You're going to behave now, yes?" he asked her. Six closed her eyes and moved her head into the welcome pats, rumbling with another cooing exhale. As he pet her, he looked back up at Kenki. "So, where is this dessert anyway? You've not a thing on your person, so unless you secretly gathered some nearby fruits or something while I was away, I'd say you forgot," he asked.

"Sing to me, dear Finley, you are correct. Lend me your cup, and I will prepare it at once," she gracefully asked, and upon receiving it, she filled it with water from her flask. Finley watched as she lifted her winged arm and apparently fumbled with something. He couldn't really see what she was doing behind that large shield of over sized feathers, but when she lowered her wing, there was a tiny bottle in her hand, no taller than his index finger. Without explanation as to where that came from, she spilled a tiny bit of dark red juice into his cup to mix with the water, and then circled her hand over it until a glowing red light infused the drink for several seconds. She stood up to take a few steps over to him, serving him his drink.

He arched his eyebrows at the foreign practices. "I'm not even going to ask," he said. "I trust this isn't some sort of poison, or drug, hm?" he asked with a dry sense of humor, swirling the contents around as he stared at it with suspicious green eyes.

Kenki, in response, helped herself to a spare cup in Finley's pack and prepared the same concoction. She let out a relaxing exhale as she sat down next to him and took a sip. "Queen's crest, that finds me well," she clacked her beak in delight, closing her eyes in brief meditation.

With the way she sat, he was closer to eye level with her now, her upper half hunched over even more compared to her standing posture. He shrugged his acceptance and tried the drink. It tasted very sweet on his pallet, with the consistency of syrup, but there were other otherworldly flavors he didn't have a word for. "That's pretty good, Lady Kenki. I've never tasted anything like that," he praised. It wasn't amazing and what sprung to mind, as far as desserts go, but he was content with it. Facing Kenki again, he noticed her little bottle had disappeared while he wasn't looking, to where he couldn't say.

Returning a relaxed smile, she took another sip and replied, "There are no need for titles, as I'm sure you'll soon find out." Six was meanwhile rubbing all over Finley's sides and back, but she returned over to Kenki to take a lapping of the drink from her cup.

Finley remained silent for several moments as well as several more sips as he contemplated what she meant by that. "And why's that?" he asked after finishing off the drink, petting Six again as she returned to him, except this time she was practically climbing over him, fluttering her wings about and bobbing her head. He grunted towards Six's awkward advances. "Okay now, I get it," he said to the raptor with an uneasy grin, trying to keep her off him.

Kenki lifted her feathered equivalent for an eyebrow as she watched. "What, may I ask, do you 'get', my Finley?"

"Being so affectionate because I fed her," he simply replied.

She let out a soft laugh, shaking her head. "I must share with you two lessons of wisdom. One, Six-and-None is aware that you went out of your way to fetch this food and prepare it for us, and she is also aware that you very clearly offered it to her wanting nothing in exchange."

"So what?" he asked, still battling with the protobird's advances.

"So, in a dove's point of view, that means you are inviting yourself into her inner circle. Which also includes this feather. Eh, like a pack, you humans say, maybe? The second thing you should be aware of is that she is a creature of habit, with a routine that includes playing after dinner. That is to say, sexual play," she went on without any tone in her voice that she wasn't telling nothing but the truth.

And with those last words, Finley realized Six's seemingly cute and affectionate antics were in fact not quite so innocent. "Whoa whoa whoa, what?" he reacted wide eyed, given such critical information without any warning. His mind raced so fast he didn't even know what what to say at first. An intense, conflicted battle waged in his head, packed into just a couple seconds. Like most males, his mind often wandered towards thoughts of sex while in a woman's presence. And so, with the joining of Kenki earlier today, the idea of sex was very cautiously put into his maybe column. But any hopes of that eroded away with all the hassle he's been having, most especially with the fact that she was potentially an enemy of his world. But nowhere in his mind's sexual agenda, good or bad, included this feathered beast. "She's a raptor!" was all he could get to his voice box.

"An insightful observation. You do not wish to offend her, no?" she said as she leaned closer to him, with an expression that clearly marked she was enjoying this.

"No no, this is too much. You two are so far and gone outside of my understanding that I think I'd better be on my way," he tried to wiggle himself away from Six.

Taking a cue from the uncomfortable human, the Sylvinian scooted closer to him and scooped the raptor into her lap, cradling her so that her underside was exposed, legs dangling up in the air. "Seize your squawking, will you? What is wrong?" she asked, her tone just slightly scolding. Meanwhile, her bird-like finger brushed along Six's tailbase, and delicately caressed her cloacal folds, which stood like pink lips in a sea of narrow white feathers. Finley gawked as he looked down at what Kenki was doing right infront of him.

"I can't, she a--"

"...consenting, mature and intelligent female," Kenki finished his sentence for him. "One that is now beginning to enjoy your company," she added. Before giving him any time to answer, she grilled him, "Watching how you react to a female's advance, I find this human's sexual behavior disappointing, and I feel I must ask you: when, and more importantly with what, you have last shared a nest?" she so boldly asked. Her tone and the way she held her facial feathers implied she was genuinely curious towards human customs.

Finley made a disagreeable face. "That's none of your business," he replied.

With studied, honed avian eyes that would not miss a tell, she provoked him further. "Oh, sad little man. Is it that bad? Or am I just that far mistaken with human practices?" slipping her finger down into Six's feral sex as she spoke. The wet noise it created captured Finley's attention as her grey scaled finger began to disappear into her moist depths. Six's toes curled and she let out an arousing coo.

Successfully succumbing to her taunting, he fessed up, "With a woman, about a month ago. Human," he said apprehensively, neglecting to mention its meretricious details.

"Remind me, how many days are in a month here?"

"About thirty."

Her eyes widened a little. "Really? You can stand to go that long?" she asked, as if not believing him. "Truthfully, I confess to knowing races that cannot seem to go thirty minutes," she exaggerated.

His cheeks were glowing red for so many different reasons right now, to the point that it was pushing out an uneasy sweat all over. Though he had on occasion mentally desired a more active sex life, he was not ashamed, and defended his lifestyle. "I'll have you know, that's not that bad."

"And tell me, aside from this human, what else?" she continued to grill him.

Finley was wise as to hole she was trying to dig him into, but answered anyway. "Other...humans."

She let out a disappointed sigh. "It is as dull as a wooden blade. Never an avian? I understand many avian folk inhabit these parts,"

"No."

"How about the lizards? Drakes? Even a kobold? I am told they are easy to bed."

"No."

"Not even a horse? Goat?"

"No," he answered sternly, growing irritated of this interrogation. "By the stars, I can't tell if you're making me look like a prude, or if you're painting yourself as a whore. When's the last time you've been with a male, hm?" he tried to desperately get himself off the defense and take advantage of such an open banter opportunity.

"Never," she simply answered, staring him straight in the eyes as she continued to finger Six slowly.

Finley was about to tear into her, but he caught himself with a delayed thought. "Oh, so then you're a lesbian?" he figured.

"I prefer men," she casually answered, then looked down at Six who was jerking her hip about and cooing loudly.

Finley waited for her to explain herself, trying to ignore and not look at what was happening down in her lap, though his eyes betrayed him more than once. When she didn't elaborate, he laid into her. "Well, what is this then?! You, a virgin, chastising me for living a prudish life? ...Which is not even so prudish, might I add!" he waggled a finger, defending his sex life once again.

Kenki just chuckled in response, not put off by him. "You are young, are you not? Why, I believe even sweet Six-and-None is older than you. Are you nine, ten?" she asked, briefly studying his face and avoiding his question.

"Excuse me? I'm twenty-three!" he fired back. Though the avian was astute about his youthful appearance. He was both cursed and blessed with a boyish young face, even at his age. It was certainly his bane when he wanted to drink at a tavern, subject to much mockery.

Kenki did the math in her head, calculating the difference in what a year is between their worlds. "Apologies, I am not fully studied up on your race. In your world, I believe I would be about thirty-eight years old," she revealed to him, and then pulled her finger out from Six's wet cloaca and patted her on the belly. The raptor was panting heavily, her feathers working themselves all out of place now.

Finley was wondering why she was telling him this, and he was about to poke fun of how she was nearly forty and still a virgin. But then it hit him. "Oh," he just uttered, relaxing from his argumentative posture. "That's right, you're a monk, aren't you?" he remembered, although it only served to deeply confuse him. If she were truly a sexless monk, he would imagine her to never discuss sex or feel lust, as though she had risen beyond such worldly desires.

She took his hand and brought it over to Six, resting it along her tail. "My soul forbids it. And yet, being fenced off from such things for so long...it can...obsess a feather," she explained to him, naughtiness lacing her voice, driving his hand along Six's tail, towards its base.

With a slack jaw, he watched and allowed her to manipulate his hand towards Six's intimate region. It was perhaps due to a guilty, innate curiosity that he kept him from resisting, or even some subconscious degree of fear towards upsetting the two. "Kenki..." he cautioned as his fingertips touched Six's wet netherlips. He could feel no shortage of heat escaping from her vent around his hand.

"You were mere seconds away from dying earlier today, you know..." Kenki reminded him as she rubbed his fingers along Six's entrance. "Remember that. Even now, a bandit could jump us and lodge an arrow through your heart. Would you not like to bask in new experiences while your body still labors?" she coaxed him.

His near death experience hadn't quite registered fully in his mind yet, but as she spoke, it began to sink in. There were a list of things ranging from petty to ambitious he wanted to do in his life, one of which included bedding an avian. Six was not what he had in mind, but as he began to rationalize it, she wasn't just some animal like he originally made her out to be. She had demonstrated her sapience through dialog, understanding, and even cooperation at times. Though she antagonized him today, he was perhaps willing to put that behind him and write it off as a rocky start to their relationship. "But I'm not..." he started, trailing off. Even if he wanted to do, he'd have to get his manhood to agree with this as well, which it currently was not.

As if sensing his problem, Kenki took him by the wrist, the large wings along her arm covering Finley's arms and legs, and slowly guided his middle finger down Six's passageway. "Do you not wish to try her, Fin? She's just the right size for you," she asked again, soon hilting the full length of his digit into her hot depths in demonstration. "Our dove is hot. Wet," she said seductively with a small smile, watching him watch. "Excitable," she added, knowing Six would be repetitively squeezing his finger by now. She leaned closer to his ear, ending with, "A human such as you could even cum into her sanctum without worrying about rearing a bastard child, unlike with your own kind."

Finley gulped the saliva clear from his mouth as he listened to her words, doing their finest work at manipulating his desires and stoking his lust. "For a monk, you speak very dirty," he said, taken off guard by her dirty lexicon. He felt naughty just being around her, as though it were rubbing off on him, second-hand.

Kenki was especially telling the truth about the heat, as his finger felt like it was deep inside a wet furnace, many degrees more intense than even the hottest woman he's ever felt. Six squeezed along his finger, starting near the entrance and working its way on back, as though it were trying milk the penetrating object. He moaned involuntarily towards all the sensations, feeling his pants beginning to tighten. Lost in inherit curiosity, the human explored and felt around her feral, avian pussy, lost in her wet, silken walls which were designed to bring a male raptor to climax as quickly as possible. He asked himself if there was any reason left for him to resist. The only thing he could think of was if this was some all some elaborate trap setup by an enemy from the second plane, but as he had already been robbed and couldn't imagine himself being of any strategic use to them, it was a dismissible notion.

Without consciously realizing it, he had been fingering Six on his own for a little while now. A thrilling coo and jerking of her hips awoke him to this fact, feeling the walls around his finger become flooded with a gush of hot wetness. "Oh!" he exclaimed, suspecting she had just orgasmed.

"Is just a little one," Kenki answered, as if she could read his thoughts. "Like a small bird, she peaks quickly and suddenly. Unlike a small bird, she can take pleasure in your body, ready for you. Now, are you ready for her?" she continued to suggestively bait him.

Finley was falling fast for Kenki's temptations and Six's receptive body, feeling the words crack away at his conscious until finally he caved. How someone could speak with such divine grace while simultaneously being so risque escaped him. He pulled his finger free, watching as the raptor's nectar dribbled off it, sparkling in the light of the fire. "Yes," he only said, looking up at her. He was committed to it, now, sending his heart racing with anxiety on what's to come.

Kenki's big crest lifted joyfully in response to her successful negotiation, and motioned for Six to get up. The raptor rolled off her, breathing loudly and feathers ruffled. "Clothing," she patted the back of her wing against his whole chest. "Do not be embarrassed, we have already seen you naked, if you recall. By your logic, we are naked too, so this feather welcomes you to join us."

Her rationale oddly enough eased the tension. She had a point. Taking a moment to work up the last ounce of courage to move forward with this, Finley began to divest himself of his belt, pants, and shoes. His mind kept repeating "You're about to have sex with a raptor," as if he needed reminding. Meanwhile, Kenki gestured something to Six. Finley waited for a translation but upon not getting one, he asked, "What'd you say?" as he removed his shoe.

Pausing a moment to wait for him to finish remove his pants, she replied, "Instructing her to be gentle, being the fragile egg that you are," she laughed and teased him, poking at his vulnerable thigh with her sharp, black claw.

Finley made a sour face at the jab, though he wasn't going to object, looking over Six's weaponized body. Against his bare skin, she'd cut him into a bloody mess if she got too frisky with him. It then dawned on him that not only was he trying something far outside of his comfort zone, but he'd also have a voyeur watching closely, which was also a new condition. "I take it you...like to watch?" he asked Kenki. He already knew the answer. He resigned himself to the idea, because, all things considered, he was so far and beyond any sense of normalcy that it didn't matter.

"I cannot do as you two do, so this is as good as it gets for one of my pilgrimage," she told him. Watching Six approach the human, she scooted back a nudge to give them room, and her expression shifted to an idle amusement as though she were watching a theatrical performance. When she saw Finley about to engage with Six on his own initiative, she stopped him, "Trust me, you would be wise to let her lead," Kenki gave him one last word of advise, speaking as though she had experience.

Sitting with his butt flat on the cool sandy dirt, he realized that Kenki meant that Six had every intention to be the dominate one. "No surprise there," he uttered to himself, having mixed thoughts about that, though the naughtier part of him thought that might be fun.

The raptor walked over his legs with her head held low, crest high, flicking her tail about as she honed in on Finley's upright shaft. "Irp," she chirped a hello, then nosed at her prize between his legs. As he rested a palm on her crest to run her feathers through his fingers, her pointed tongue emerged and dragged along his sensitive flesh, causing him to tense up. Six moved a step closer, placing each of her three fingered hands on his belly, as she repetitively began to slather his cock with her warm, wet tongue. Just when Finley thought that he may have, to his surprise, been getting oral service from Six, she stopped and lifted her head and held out her wings. "Ip ip!" she chirped again and then signed him a long string which went on and on. There was a calming aura of intelligence about her as Finley got the best demonstration of her communication abilities thus far.

Kenki had to pay close attention to catch the uncharacteristically long dialog, as Six seldom spoke, usually only a few words at a time. "She said, 'I accept you. You are the lowest one here, so I will mount you, do not move, I will be careful. It will be fun!" she translated, but biased it in Finley's favor. In reality, her translation was about four times the number of raw words Six delivered, so Kenki had to fill in the blanks using her years of experience for it to make any sense to the third party.

Finley's first reaction, actually, was hoping that Six would stop stealing from him now that he was part of her "inner circle". He leaned back on one palm as his other rested gently on Six's back as it became apparent to him that the veloc intended to get to the main event straight away, likely a stranger to much foreplay. The little raptor had positioned each foot on either side of his hips and fluttered her wings as she stood nearly upright, bumping her pelvic boot up against his crotch. She took a distracted moment to butt the side of her snout up against his cheeks affectionately before looking down at herself, trying to work out her coordination. Finley lowered his hand all the way down her back until he fell off and took hold of his shaft below to help guide it towards its target. With Six standing on her tippy toes to afford her as much height as she could, she waited for Finley find his mark, lightly gripping his sides with her wings. His sensitive tip dragged along her fluffy white down, feeling hotter and more humid as it approached her receptive cloaca.

Time slowed down for Finley during the final moments. Here he was, he thought, being mounted by a female raptor, the same raptor that saved his life. Her fine, soft feathers brushed along the bare skin of his body, warming him as though he were practically wearing her. His nostrils flared, smelling her scent, tainted by the saps of the forest she may have ran through in the undergrowth. His heart throbbed with anticipation, mere seconds away from...

"Mrrip!" she chirped excitedly as she felt something prodding in between her cloaca folds, dowsing it with an intense, escaping heat from deep within her. It was the cue she was looking for, and all she needed Finley's cooperation on. The rest she could do. Dragging her wings around to his back, she pulled herself closer and began to let herself down, parting her nether lips open and slipping the head of his shaft into her opening. She grunted as she tried to take the human, shimmering her hips to try and push him down her tight passageway. With each bit of progress, she felt just a little more fulfilled, aroused, and eager to proceed further.

Finley expected there to be an obstacle of tightness, being as small as she was, and he hoped she didn't hurt herself. He trusted that Kenki would not have allowed this if it was not safe, though. His mind was racing as the unlikely sexual encounter got started, doing as Kenki recommended and letting her take control. Bringing his hand up onto her feathery back once again, he moaned as he slowly was taken into her incredibly tight, hot sex, and feeling a thick cloud of heat lingering down throughout his lower body. The raptor rocked about and jerked her hips inconsistently, rippling and pulsating her sexual muscles as her flexible, elastic inner flesh adjusted itself to accommodate the male.

"Tight enough?" Kenki suddenly reminded him that she was nearby. Finley's expression answered for him. "You needn't worry. We egg layers are flexible where it counts," the avian smiled assuredly.

He grunted as her tightness was more painful than pleasurable, combined with her efforts becoming more forceful. But suddenly, he felt a hot exhale against his cheek as though something gave, and the second half his manhood slipped right in without effort. He moaned rather loudly along with Six's coo as he was taken aback by just how amazingly hot she was in her deepest sanctum as though it was the source of all her body's heat. Six was rapidly convulsing along her entire track in response, and he felt her loosen up her vise-like grip to a more comfortable level. While she took a moment to collect herself, Finley nudged his hips about to move about inside her, feeling around. Judging by the asymmetrical pressure he was feeling, it felt as though her vagina was curved and tapered inward.

He was still trying to get over just what he was doing exactly, his current state of mind trying to rid itself of the reaction he first had. He told himself that this was no different than having casual sex with any other race, such as someone he may meet in a tavern or the marketplace. That is...if that person had a language barrier, and was oddly shaped. Being fully hilted inside her pleasurable confines, however, he couldn't stand to dwell on it any longer, as his body begged him to embrace it and to now just enjoy himself. Obeying his lust, he relaxed himself and slouched back to better allow the raptor to ride him. With his hand on her back, Six pressed her feathery chest up against his bare chest, wrapped her wings tight around his back and rested her chin on his shoulder. She stepped about in place and then began to work her powerful leg muscles, beginning to girl hump the human. To Finley, there was no lead in, as she went from idle to full speed immediately. He looked up at the stars and stuttered words of pleasurable bliss, moaning involuntarily as she gave his organ a massage like no human ever could.

In perhaps no more than twenty cycles, Six seized her rhythm and began to whip her tail around behind her. With her chin resting on his shoulder, his ears were suddenly filled with the sounds of climactic barking just as her muscles contracted and unleashed a soaking of hot femcum along his cock. Under the pressure of her contractions and continued flow of release, the milky fluids found small exits around their coupling and began to squirt all over Finley's inner thighs and balls.

"There's one," Kenki announced, clapping her wings together fast enough to send a breeze past the lovers.

Six held her position, panting. "Done so soon?" Finley asked her, leaning his head back to look at her. He hoped not. He was just beginning to get into it.

"Fast and often. It is unlikely she will tire before you," Kenki answered for her in a lofty tone.

He took the moment of rest to rub the feathers along her back and neck, finding them quiet agreeably soft and warm along his flesh. Soon, Six began to recover, and started up her dirty dance again. First in short, quick jerks, as if to test, and eventually full strides, dragging the better length of his penis all along her feral sex. Her feathers stood on end as she adjusted her feet and discovered a more workable angle.

Finley closed his eyes and slacked his jaw, soaking in the experience. One orgasm in, he felt as though she elevated in temperature still. He was sure that if they were doing this in the winter air, he'd be seeing the steam rising from under her tail.

Six's anatomy did not afford her nearly the climactic tolerance as her companions. With each hump, she felt the tingles of pleasure running down her small frame's spine, tail and legs, each time growing stronger and stronger until she couldn't stand them anymore. She slowed down a couple times, trying to prolong the act, but she simply didn't have the patience for it and soon let herself release once again. She let out a long, loud coo, terminated with a happy chirp while squirt after squirt of her feminine juices released, once again making a hot mess of the human below her. As much as she was enjoying herself, she would not be content until she felt her male fill her hotly. She let go of him and leaned back just enough to gesture a couple signs using only one hand, her other holding onto his shoulder.

Kenki laughed, thoroughly enjoying the show. "Directly, she said 'water me', because she lacks the right words, but she wants you to cum," she explained.

"Soon, I'm sure," Finley answered, feeling the lust in his balls beginning to boil hot with lust by this stage. Such an exotic sexual experience was not going to allow him to last very long. And the fact that he had some level of hold over the raptor with something she desires was arousing as well. "But you keep stopping," he said as he booped her on the tip of the snout. He wouldn't mind outlasting her over and over again. Now that he had experienced it, he found himself quite turned on by Six using him to reach frequent, bestial climaxes.

With a determined grunt and look about her, Six brought her wings back around the human in tight embrace and went to town on him again. Her head tucked just under his chin, pressing its side up against his throat. She humped him with a vigorous accord, each time sounding a faint little "Ip," as she hilted herself. She had barely recovered, doing this more for the human's sake than her own. Though within a short amount of time, the rippling of pleasure returned and began to dominate her body.

Finley began to breathe louder, tightening up and feeling himself needing release soon. Closer and closer he edged, his breathing becoming ragged. But just before he jumped past the point of no return, Six's motions eroded as she drove herself into a third orgasm. She beat her chin against her shoulder, scratched his back with her foreclaws and thumped her tail, screaming as she gushed more and more of her sweet sexual nectar. By now, she had gotten her own juices all over the feathers surrounding her cloaca, and they began to matte up, sopping wet and dripping off her. She paused to rest, frustrated that the human still had not cum, longing for it.

"Three squirtings. And six scratch marks. My soul, I wonder how many more times the human can last?" Kenki asked in a scholarly tone, as though this were an academic study.

The scratches on his back did not register until several moments after the fact. They stung enough to get a grunt out him, but with the sensations happening elsewhere, they were easy to ignore for now. He felt his climactic climb beginning to settle down once again as Six had to take a quick break, but it seemed each recovery cycle became shorter and shorter.

Growing more and more sexually impatient, Six was not going to allow the human to go on without properly finishing the copulation. Spreading her legs some more, she started up again, at first like before, but soon far more wildly. Succumbing to her feral loss of composure, she was pressing hard up against Finley, to the point where he had to adjust his hand to keep himself from being pushed onto his back. Six more assertively lengthened her motions, giving him the most thorough sexual massage she could manage, practically working her dirty dance into small hops. Small feathers began to litter the ground around them as her rough ride was causing her to shed. Her pointed snout affectionately nosed at his face, rubbing and occasionally pecking at his lips with her tongue.

Kenki found herself getting rather hot and flustered at this point, watching a textbook example of wild feather on flesh sex. She awkwardly squirmed about, wanting to touch herself, but refraining from doing so. Regardless, a milky dribbling of lust found its way out of her cloaca as it began to swell bigger, beginning to soak her thick layers of down surrounding it. Flexing her crest out, revealing her excitement, she as well hoped the human would finish soon.

Feeling his cock throb and pulse with the need for release, Finley could not ride out this sexual storm much longer. A part of him acknowledged fear that Six had lost her composure and was about to slice up him with rogue claws, and yet another part of him was greatly turned on towards how bestial and raw she was behaving now. There was something to be said about how two very anatomically contrasted creatures could enjoy one another's embrace so vividly. Feeling his orgasmic window closing, he leaned upright, taking both arms around her back and clutching a fistful of feathers. "Gonna...!" was all he could manage to grunt out before he felt his cock unleash a mighty volcano of hot cum deep into his feathered friend, shooting well past her avian cervix and splashing against the walls of her shell gland time and time again.

Feeling the human inseminating her, she let a raptorian bark of victory and let down her resistance to finish as well. Her tail swished about happily and feathers stood on end as her sophisticated organ did its finest work milking its guest, rapidly contracting in a wave like manner while enticing him further with a hot gushing of her own juices to soak his flesh. The two held still, Finley pressing his hip up to remain deep inside her as long ropes of climactic semen continued to unload into her with an impressive consistency, one after another after another.

Finley was sure the only time he had cum so much was when he lost his virginity, as though this was as new of an experience as the first time. The experience had thoroughly tricked his body into believing that impregnating this creature was the most important thing right now, as proven by the volume of cum filling Six's shell gland. And still, he continued to even pass that first time experience, easily outlasting his best climactic memory by several fold. He ran his hands up and down her soft pelt, riding out his release as well as feeling her's. By the time they had finally finished, he had felt a thick mess of piping hot, sticky fluids running all down the base of his shaft, balls, and soon wetting his butt below, the excess juices soaking into the dirt. Just as well, Finley could feel a mixture of sexual fluides sunken into Six's plumage all around her cloaca and even down one leg somehow, hanging off her plumes in gooey strings.

Both panting hard, they eventually relaxed their embrace. He leaned back so as to see her face better. "That was...amazing," he spoke between breaths. He had never imagined a creature like her could unleash such an untapped lust within him. He longed for more, to stay within her embrace, as well as physically within her.

The little raptor, with as high a metabolism as she had, was breathing incredibly fast, her slaw jaw revealing a bit of drool as she looked back at him with a feral smile. The human had delivered, though she quickly debated within her mind on if she was content, now that she had a taste. Despite how winded she seemed, she signed the human a familiar enough gesture that he didn't need Kenki to translate, accompanied by an authoritative vaginal squeeze. "Another?"

End Notes: Another? Head on over to chapter 2 for some more feather lovin'! And if raptors really aren't your thing, don't worry, she's not the only one that gets to have fun ;)

By the way, did I mention Six's heat enough? Just how hot is she down there? To give you a hint, based on anatomical correctness, birds have an idle body temperature of 105F to 108F (41C to 42C). And that's just idle...