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« on: March 28, 2020, 01:38:31 PM »
Chapter 2
After a temper tantrum, Sierra finally managed to calm down. Well, relatively speaking. “Calm” was not a word anyone would ever have used to describe him, after all.
He decided he’d just keep walking as far as he could. Eventually, the hatchling would get tired and have to stop. Or he’d encounter a sharptooth. Either way, things would work themselves out.
Starting his trek across the barren Mysterious Beyond in the morning sunlight, Sierra grumbled, “Darn it, I barely got myself rid of that last whiny hatchling…”
He thought of the insufferable bigmouth who had dared to bite him. She’d been a real squealer, too. Nothing but a bunch of yep, yep, nope nonsense.
“Well…only good thing to say for this one is at least it can’t hardly talk!”
The brat had finally decided to let go of Sierra, though just hearing it rustling through the grass behind him as he walked made his blood pressure rise. He kept up a pretty good clip that he was sure would leave the creature in the dust. As he went, he cursed his injured wing—if not for that, he could have ditched that brat in seconds.
As the bright circle rose further into the sky, the flyer crossed the plain and ended up walking along a rocky canyon in the midst of a harsh desert landscape. The dry breeze blew red dust into the air past jagged outcrops of rock, and the heat of the bright circle, which was almost directly overhead, made sweat bead up on Sierra’s neck.
That hatchling had to be gone now. No kid could walk so far in this heat. Sierra had been making a point not to look back, not only because it would probably encourage the dumb creature but also because he didn’t want the pest in his sight. Now, he turned back for the first time in hours.
The brat was still there.
Granted, there was plenty more space between him and that thing than when he’d set out, but other than that, Sierra had come all this way for nothing. His feet were sore, dust was blowing into his eyes, and his stomach had begun to rumble like a ravenous animal.
This was the pits! He wouldn’t give up! He wasn’t going to let some baby get the best of him! He found himself wishing the hatchling would catch up a little faster so he could just let the wretched little beast have it, but as it approached at a leisurely pace, Sierra didn’t have the energy left to do anything but slump across the hard ground.
Food—he needed food. He hadn’t anticipated how traveling on foot would drain him of his energy, especially in the middle of the afternoon. Fending for himself in the Mysterious Beyond was just a typical day in Sierra’s life, but he’d been able to count on flying up until this point.
He felt as if the bright circle above was taunting him as it beat down on him, and that filled him with anger. Anger that made him want to take action. It was gonna take more than some sunshine to beat this flyer! He forced himself to stand back up.
That was when he saw it—a single gnarled old tree sticking out over the edge of the canyon. Its fruit looked scrawny and tough, but who cared about that? Sierra was tougher than some dumb fruit, and it was going to sustain him whether it liked it or not.
Much as Sierra hated to acknowledge it, however, there was one problem. The fruit was on a branch that extended at least ten feet over the gap above the canyon…and with no way to fly, the flyer had to risk climbing out to the food.
Whatever. It was just a tree, and he didn’t even have to climb that far. That was what the stubborn flyer told himself as he stepped towards the sorry vegetation.
Never mind that, like any other decent flyer, he’d abandoned the use of climbing soon after he’d hatched. What’d it matter that the canyon was so deep the bottom seemed to disappear out of view below him? Who cared that the tree already looked ancient, brittle, and about to bite the dust at any moment?
Just the sight of food was tempting Sierra so much that it was even enough to make him forget about that darn nuisance coming up behind him! He was hungry!
Sierra narrowed his eyes at his goal, fixed upon it like a sharptooth staring down a leaf-eater. Smacking his lips, the flyer threw himself at the tree trunk and, ravenous with hunger, began clawing his way up the tree. He brushed it off when more than one piece of stiff bark broke off the trunk, even as it threatened to make him lose his grip. One pathetic climb was all that stood between him and a meal!
But he soon heard the faint creaking sound, and the next thing Sierra knew, his support was giving way before he even had time to react. Though, out of his stupid stubbornness, he wouldn’t have reacted, anyway—even as the tree trunk began to split down the middle with a deadly crack, he was still scrambling to reach that food, because this was a challenge now. Needless to say, this struggle was in vain, and Sierra paid for it when a stray twig poked right at the hole in his wing.
“OW!” With a shout of pain, he lost his grip on the tree, and for a moment he could only flail around as he fell, while the tree above him lost one whole side of its trunk, revealing its splintered, brittle insides in a mangled cross-section.
The fruit was still safe on the other side of the tree, though. Just to tease Sierra, as if it mattered that the food remained now that the flyer was falling to his doom.
But Sierra’s frantic clawing made contact with an outcrop jutting out of the cliff, and he dug his grip into it, clinging to it and his life. It was amazing what adrenaline could do. Moments ago, he had been ready to collapse from hunger, and now he was summoning the strength to heave himself onto this ledge, heart pounding like an earthshake. With an exhale of relief, he threw himself onto the firm surface.
Above him, there was a thick root from the ancient tree wedged deep into the rocks. He gripped it with both hands, breathing heavily as he pulled himself back up to where he had started. His head came over the top of the rocky cliff.
And that was where he saw a flyer hatchling—that hatchling!—sitting in front of him, playing with a dried-up vine that had fallen from the same tree which had nearly been Sierra’s death. And when the little brat saw Sierra, it smiled.
Smiled!
“That’s IT!” Sierra roared, while the hatchling cooed nonchalantly. Sierra was satisfied that the thing seemed to take note, though, when he snatched the vine from its hands and flung it out towards the canyon. “I’ve had it with this wing—that tree—but especially with you! I’m not puttin’ up with this!! You get just one more chance to scram, ya hear?? If you don’t, I’m fixin’ to send ya out there after your silly shriveled vine!” Eyes blazing, Sierra forcefully gestured towards the canyon, where the vine he’d thrown fluttered from that cursed branch of fruit in the dusty breeze.
What he sure didn’t expect was for the hatchling to scurry over to the edge of the cliff and dive off.
Hmm. Good riddance. Maybe it had decided to have mercy on him after all.
But seconds later, its head appeared over the edge again, and when it rose further upward, Sierra saw that—it was flying!
No wonder the thing had been able to keep up with him! Drat the way some species started flying so quickly! This wasn’t fair!
His insides boiled as he watched the brat flap over, all happy, to fetch its vine. It perched on the tree with no problem, naturally. Sierra shouted rude things at it, but his fit was in vain, as the hatchling paid no attention whatsoever while it tried to tug the vine from its place. The plaything had gotten tangled around the stem of one of those fruits, and the hatchling was struggling to get it off. It was no use, though, Sierra realized with a smirk. Thank goodness he didn’t have to be the only one who wasn’t going to get what he wanted.
Then the baby opened his beak and snapped the whole fruit right off the tree by its stem, grabbing it with the oversized feet he had yet to grow into and flying back towards the cliff with his prize.
Sierra gaped. He could feel his mouth starting to water with the promise of food.
The baby landed on the ground with the hard, round fruit, and Sierra swiped it faster than a bolt of skyfire, with the hatchling none the wiser that it had just delivered him a precious commodity as it went back to playing with the vine. Smacking the fruit against the ground to break it open, Sierra discovered a sweet-smelling pulp on the inside. The flyer wasted no time diving into it, and he felt reenergized again, which couldn’t have been more of a relief. He was no longer weak, no longer vulnerable.
The hatchling looked up from its vine to blink at Sierra, smacking its lips as it watched him eat. It didn’t know how food had suddenly appeared, but it realized it wanted it.
As Sierra lowered the fruit from his face, he made the mistake of looking towards the baby. It peeped in askance, then opened its mouth wide, waiting for its turn.
Licking juice off his lips, Sierra rolled his eyes. He could have starved the thing just for spite, but as much as he hated to think it, he had no idea when the next time he’d need it to get a meal for him was. Blasted thing.
He scooped a handful of pulp out of the fruit and tossed it towards the hatchling’s gaping face. A bit of the food landed on its beak, but it didn’t care, babbling gleefully as it chewed with its mouth full. It seemed awfully happy to show off all the messy, mushy chunks of spit-covered fruit in its beak.
Why’d these little brats have to be so gross?