Side Story 13 - Bird Business (Patreon)

<AUTHOR NOTE>

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<AUTHOR NOTE OVER>

The animal flew through the air as it tracked its prey below. Daylight was beginning to dim, and it was the greatest time to hunt for food. The rodent scurrying in the open plains below was running for cover, unaware that its death was already swooping down towards it.

It failed to react as the powerful talons closed around it, carrying it off. The hawk flapped its wings as It elegantly landed in the nest placed on the crown of one of the tallest trees in the area. It began eating its food with great vigor as it had to make sure it had enough energy for the coming season.

Soon, its mate would return, and they would spend their third breeding season together. But this season would not turn out to be like any before it.

A few days later, its mate arrived, and they had a reunion at their old nest. They nuzzled up to each other, happy to meet again after so long. Their last year had not ended well, but this time it would be better.

Their first attempt had ended with most of their chicks stolen from the nest during the night before it even became mature enough to fly, with only one growing to maturity. They hadn’t seen that chick for over a year and didn’t know where it was today.

The previous season was far worse. All of their eggs were broken and eaten by some predator in a momentary act of carelessness. But both were determined to make this year different.

Yet before they could get down to what a breeding season is all about, the world… changed.

Everything appeared to shift for a moment as both hawk’s vision went black for less than a second. When the two could see again, the area around them had changed ever so slightly, but enough to make the birds overly panicked. They were still just ordinary animals, after all.

Neither did much differently for the first day after this change but just acted like normal. However, they quickly noticed changes. They were both faster than before, stronger than before. Yet so was their prey. So the two hawks adapted.

For days they hunted more than they needed to as they both grew in power. The male felt like the wind called to him, as slowly he began returning its call. It began to listen to him as the gale became his ally and assisted him in his hunts.

The female was not as blessed as its mate but only learned basic things that even their weaker prey could do. It learned to form mysterious energies it instinctively knew was mana and fire off blasts and bolts. Far weaker than its mate that had been blessed by the winds but still far more potent than a weak animal before the great shift.

Despite their difference in strength, the male protected his mate, and they fought and stayed together most of the day. The female began feeling less and less helpful, a weird sentiment that it had never truly felt before.

They both noticed that they had begun having more emotions and thoughts than before. Far from what a human would have, but levels above what a hawk possibly could before the system. These feelings only helped reaffirm their bond as they become closer than ever.

As time progressed, the two literal lovebirds fought stronger and stronger foes, found many helpful natural treasures to allow themselves to grow until they soon had trouble finding foes worth hunting.

The eagles that usually hunted for the hawks were no longer looking as threatening as before. Now, their roles had been switched, the hawks hunting the eagles. This kept on until one day, they both felt another change.

From deeper within the forest, something suddenly appeared that allured them both. The hawk pair both headed towards this area but found they were far from the only ones. Beasts of all shapes and sizes had come to seize whatever had appeared, and the hawks found themselves in a massive brawl.

It continued for hours, with everything from birds even smaller than the two hawks to large behemoths of bears and bovines fighting to claim the item that had appeared. The treasure was nothing more than a bone, yet it enticed every single beast for many kilometers.

In the end, the two hawks came out on top. The male had simply progressed too far in the last weeks, and its control over wind was second-to-none. Blades of wind cut apart anything that came too close, and a whirlwind of small razorblades helped wipe out the weakest of beasts that tried to be clever and steal the bone away.

The female also contributed but was indeed far weaker than her mate. She fought valiantly but came out of the scuffle heavily wounded. One of her wings was unusable, and once she had been grounded, she had nearly been surrounded and killed. It was only through the help of her mate that she made it out alive.

Once the dust had settled and the hawks claimed their prized bone, they brought it back to their nest, where they tried to figure out what to do with it. The female wanted the male to take it, but the male wanted the female to. In the end, they decided to share it but quickly found out that the male had issues absorbing the energy. The bone simply wasn’t that compatible with his path of wind magic.

So the female absorbed it nearly exclusively and grew in power far faster than before. She even outgrew her mate within only a couple of weeks but kept going nevertheless. The male spent this time defending the female from any beasts that came and attempted to claim the bone from them.

This dynamic continued until one day; the female underwent a transformation. Her feathers turned blueish, and her aura grew to an entirely new level. The male was momentarily startled, but the female gave it a reassuring cry, communicating it was still the same hawk.

That day, they did what a breeding season is all about.

An act that resulted in an egg not long after. Both birds were overjoyed, but they also felt a newfound pressure upon them. Both were far smarter and sapient than before and realized this new world was far different than before.

The one hawk that had just evolved had received a lot of knowledge from the bone it had absorbed. Complicated knowledge that it was still digesting by the day. It could get stronger if it absorbed the rest of the bone… but it didn’t.

Even if only around a tenth of the energy within it remained, it was enough to help their chick immensely. The blue hawk delved deep into its mind and found methods to help the egg through magic and mysticism. It began instantly setting up barriers and magic circles to protect and nurture the egg, as it communicated how the male could help.

The male began scouring the area for any helpful treasures or items, but it had trouble finding anything. It kept flying further and higher until it spotted something in the sky. It felt a pull from what floated above, something similar but way more potent than the bone.

It quickly flew up and found an entirely new world up amongst the clouds. Beasts equal to or stronger than itself to hunt, but more importantly, it found these hulking monstrosities of clouds. The male’s instincts told it that hunting them would be beneficial, so it did so.

The fight was long and hard, but it won and obtained a small orb with energy within. It instantly brought it back, and its mate was elated. These orbs were just what it needed, and the next day they decided to both go.

As an evolved hawk, the female understood how strong it was. Nothing it had met could challenge it, and it planned on collecting dozens if not hundreds of the orbs in a day. So the male carried the egg as they both headed up to the clouds.

They both arrived there, and the blue hawk began hunting with its magics. Yet, it had barely started when they felt a change. From the horizon, a hulking monstrosity of an avian was heading towards them, crackling with thunder.

The female hawk decided to fight, while the male hawk retreated to protect their egg. The battle between the two shook the clouds. Spells of power beyond anything else around could muster made all other creatures around scatter in fear.

At first, they looked equally matched, but it was simply an illusion caused by the female hawk having far more means to fight. Eventually, all its means were stuck down by thunder and lightning too powerful for it to bear, and it was struck by a mighty breath of lightning, sending it stumbling back. Its feathers burned, and its entire body was smoking.

The male hawk had to interfere and took the egg in its beak as it came in and picked up its near-unconscious mate. The massive Roc tried to follow but had taken some injuries during the fight slowing it down. The smaller hawk was also just far faster by default, even if carrying the female slowed it down.

Returning in defeat to their nest, they nurtured the female’s wound as they also took care of the egg. The hawk stayed for a few days till its mate felt better before heading back to the cloud island above to hunt. It did this for a few days until the female wanted to join again to get more orbs. Because they truly needed more orbs…

But once more, the massive Roc attacked the moment it felt the female. It refused to allow her to get near the huge cloud island, forcing her to return to the nest once more. There, it stayed to fully heal its wounds and tried to refine the ritual while channeling mana into the magic circle.

The male hawk kept hunting alone, trying to gather as many orbs as possible… but it was hard. It was alone, and many of the other birds teamed up to hunt. The crows of flames, the massive vultures, all were often in teams and ganged up on weaker parties.

The hawk couldn’t kill the strongest elementals but had to stay in the outer parts. It hunted all day, but sometimes it managed to return with barely anything. The worst days… nothing at all. It knew the orbs from weaker elementals barely helped, if at all, so it wanted to hunt the stronger ones.

One day, it was flying back from the massive cloud continent in defeat. It had tried its talons on a powerful elemental but found itself ganged up on and forced away by a few of the hateful crows. It was running low on mana and was forced to retreat in defeat for that day. It had to go back occasionally to help infuse some of its own mana into the magic circle made by its mate… so it had to return anyway.

The male just felt ashamed. He felt useless. He thought of his chick and felt unsure if he could even protect it once born. Would he keep falling further and further behind, one day left utterly in the dust? Would he even live long enough to see his family grow?

As he was flying dejected, he spotted something out of the corner of his eye. A strange creature was making its way through the air. It could be called flying if one was kind to the poor thing. It flapped its wings nearly desperately, and soon after, the male hawk saw it fall to the ground.

It got up right away and tried to take flight again. Flapping its wing stupidly again. The hawk thought it was maybe a newborn, but it was too large… and it felt too strong.

The hawk couldn’t explain it. On one talon, it felt it was stronger than the creature, but on the other, it felt vaguely threatened. Yet as it kept observing, its reservations disappeared… because there was no way the creature would ever catch it even if it turned hostile.

That is the day the hawk - that would end up being named Hawkie – made an impulsive choice brought on by its parental instinct taking over to help a human who had just recently learned to summon wings.

It was a moment of empathy between species leading it to a decision that would change not just his own destiny but the destiny of his entire family.

A decision the hawk would no doubt look back on in the future as the most impactful it had ever made.