Sustain Trial (PT pt2) - Jeon-e, Mer, Valentine

As the five reos stepped forward, the sun painted the sky in light yellows and pinks, the dark blue of the night lightening up to a pale grey-blue above their heads and pink-yellows where the sun was slowly rising from behind the hill. The air was fresh, with a slight breeze, and the land that stretched in front of them was like the ones out of fairytales, with yellow morning light and bright greens from the grass and vegetation.
They were going downhill, having just emerged from another tunnel after a brief pause on the outside beforehand, and they were finally able to enjoy the air on their fur and the fresh smells it brought to their noses. Their paws were planted on solid ground, stomping on unturned grass and freshly bloom flowers, unlike the tunnels they had been travelling for the past couple days.

Jeon-e kept stretching her body, shaking as she moved forward, and smelling all over while she tried to accustom herself to smelling fresh air once again. The tunnels were a fast way to travel, especially when going between hills and valleys above ground, but they were also claustrophobic mazes of damp stones and dangers at every corner, with them being so constrained in size.

“Finally,” Mer grumbled, shaking dust from his thick coat. “I was starting to think we’d never see the sun again.”

Beside him, Valentine huffed. “Calm your horses, you're not the only one who didn't enjoy it and yet we didn't complain half the amount you did.”

Canna, the quietest and smallest of the group merely looked up at the sky, her eyes readjusting to the ceiling above her head being the bright sky instead of the dark caves. While she was not from Vitalus, she was smaller in size than them all, so the cramped spaces of the caves had not affected her as much as the others. She had been feeling the restless energy from Mer, but she was also confident in his ability to focus after their previous encounter with some haedians, so she had simply exchanged glances with the other three, Jeon-e, Valentine and Saturkeon, and just nodded along as they all knew it would be better to let Mer yap away.

And yap away he did, so much that Saturkeon let out a deep sigh as soon as they could spread out from each other, letting her wings extend fully and her ears catch a break.

They had travelled a good distance, the scene around them mesmerizing, so they were all slowly taking in stock the differences in landscape between the city, bustling with buildings and people both clogging the pathways on foot and the sky above, and the calm and empty sky that stretched above them. The landscape was busy, yes, but not with flying empyrians and now haedians all over, but with floating islands of different sizes, suspended midair freely and swaying left and right on their free will, instrad of shackled to structures like they were in the city. They city had stabilized all the island that floated around it, both "to preserve the safety of the reos that can only travel on foot" and to build on top of them, the greediest reos either building turist traps or trying to harvest any mineral that they could from them

Here instead, all the island floated freely, some hundreds of meters above their heads, some just 1 meter above ground, many of them had undersides that gleamed with gemstones of all colors, blue, green, reds, and the higher islands, the ones that were the first to be hit by the sun rays while also being close enough to the ground, they all cast multicolored rays on the valley, making a stained glass effect all in front of them.

Some of the islands weren't so bare of vegetation, their gems exposed, but where instead full of sprouting roots from the soil underneath and vines dangling all over, swaying around with the light breeze, and smalls specks of color from the flowers could be seen from below. Some of the bigger islands, the ones who floated high above the ground and were big enough to sustain it, they had full on trees on them, full sized trees just hanging in the sky.

“This is… incredible,” Canna murmured, her eyes wide as she took the appearance of the natural side of Vitalus in for the first time.

Saturkeon smiled. “Told you we’d see something worth traveling for, i'm glad i could bring you to see this place.”

Mer whispered to Valentine. “Worth travelling for, sure, worth taking the tunnels? I doubt that”

At the mention of food, Jeon-e's stomach groaned. She had been close enough to hear what Mer said, and she had to agree with him, their supplies were low, with only bread and cheese remaining since they had eaten the things that spoiled faster first, it was enough to keep them going but not to make the travel enjoyable. When her, Mer and Valentine had started this journey they had hoped to find merchants along the way to buy supplies from, but their underground route had provided no such luck, with only long stretches of caves to travel or hostile haedians.

“Let’s keep going,” Valentine pushed, trying to reinterpret what Mer said in a nicer way. “Hoius can’t be that far. Maybe we’ll find some travelling merchants or something along the way to buy supplies from.”

They kept moving, paws pressing into the soft grass one after another while the sun kept slowly rising. The ground was uneven, riddled with unkept hard plants, rock and twisted roots that were a tripping hazard in some parts of the valley. Every so often they also found gems in the ground, letting them know that it either fell from the islands above to the ground, or that maybe the islands above had simply detached from the soil where they were currently standing and just... drifted away.

Despite the hunger they all felt, they kept talking to keep their mouths busy and their minds distracted, with Canna asking more questions about Vitalus and Saturkeon replying. Jeon-e, Mer and Valentine had grown on the outskirts of the city, so they were neither from valleys like this one or from the big cities like the one they departed from, so sometimes they also intervened to give another prospective on the topics discussed or on the landscape they had grown up with.

As the day kept going, more and more shadows passed above them, birds and the likes waking up and starting their days. Many of them were nesting on the trees on land, but sometimes they could see the nests on the edges of some of the smaller islands, the ones with gems and only some bushes on them, and near them there would always be another, slightly bigger island, filled with bushes that looked to be full of berries.

Jeon-e glanced at Saturkeon. “Can you fly up and see what’s growing on those islands? There might be fruit or something edible.”
If her intuition was right, the birds were nesting on floating islands that had berries on them, nesting in the most surrounded one and picking at it first, and when empty they would pick at the others around them.

Saturkeon flexed her wings but hesitated. “I could, but we don’t know if those islands are stable enough for me to land safely. Some might drift if I try it, or they might crumble if my weight is too much for the roots keeping them together.”

Before Jeon-e could respond, a sudden screech spooked them all and made them look up. The reos stood frozen, ears perking and eyes scanning the sky, trying to understand what bird let out that warning sound. High in the sky, near one of the floating islands with still some berries on it, a bald eagle circled its nest, crying out in distress. A huge shadow, right against the now high sun, circled above it menacely and made a dash towards the nest on the island. As it got closer, they five reos recognized it as a basilisk, its white scaled wings shining in the light as it painted a pretty but awful picture, a predator trying to get their meal.

“The chicks!” Canna screamed, spotting the small birds huddled in the nest. She could see four from the ground, all crying for their mother, all not understanding what was happening and why their mother was making such awful noises.

Saturkeon frowned at the basilisk but wasted no time “We have to help!” she said while she launched in the air, her wings beating hard as she tried to gain elevation fast enough to intercept the basilisk.

On the ground, the others could do nothing concrete except watch and fan out, following the basilisk movements and hoping that Saturkeon, the only one with wings, would manage to bring it down so they could intervene too. The basilisk was restlessly trying to gain the upper hand on the eagle, who was surprisingly avoiding all the bites the basilisk was trying to snap at it, and she was trying to guide the creature away from the nest, trying to protect her chicks at the cost of her life, hoping that if she had to become prey, so be it, so she was doing everything she could even if it was tiring her out fast. She was a mother and she thought there would be no help coming her way.

But she was wrong, as Saturkeon reached the fight she let out a fierce snarl, her form cutting right in the chase from below, placing herself right in front of the basilisk with her talons out and once the creature tried to stop in it's tracks at the unespected obstacle bigger than it, she raked her larger talons on the basiliks' wings, making it drop to the ground with a pained sound and a heavy thud.

As the basilisk landed it let out a hiss, turning it's attention to Saturkeon, but it was then that Mer swept in, grabbing the creature by the tail and yanking it, trying to spin in circles and then releasing it when the trajectory would make it collide with a tree. The basilisk swong against it and let out a pained groan but it did not give up, trying to immediately roll on itself and spotting some rabbits escaping from the bushes near the tree it collided from and changing her objective from the eagle to the rabbits.

The basilisk was trying to optimize getting away from the five reos and gaining a meal as well, but Valentine and Canna ran towards it anyway, and Jeon-e and Mer followed, and on the ground, wounded and unable to fly away, the basilisk stood no chance as the four reos dug their jaws into it, chopping its tail in multiple pieces and ripping out the wings from the base. Jeon-e was closer to the head, and she tried to get and keep a grip high enough so that the basilisk would not be able to flip and bite her until she snapped it's neck, while behind her there was Mer with a wing in it's mouth and Valentine with a piece of the basilisk side in it. Canna was holding the tail still so it could not coil.

Finally, Saturkeon dropped down as well with a scream as warning, and they all stepped back a little as, with a heavy paw, she smacked the basilisk right in the face and stunned it enough to let Jeon-e get a grip on it's neck and snap it in half.

They all stepped back all at once, dropping the pieces of the creature to the ground and looking at it, waiting to see if it would move again or if it would stay put. The fight had not taken long, and it was brutally one sided as Saturkeon first and Jeon-e, Mer, Valentine and Canna second both rained down on the basilisk, their bodies bigger, their effort all into attacking and not escaping.

Panting, Valentine nudged it with a paw. “Think basilisk is edible?”

Mer snorted. “Sue me, way to make fun of me for being hungry.”

Jeon-e rolled her eyes but couldn’t help the grin tugging at her lips. “It will please you all deeply to know that it is indeed edible, if we cook it well done.”

Mer laughed fully then, not bothering to hide his enjoyment at the situation. "Guess we know what we'll be adding to our lunch".

They all began to cut into the creature, jaws working together as they split the basilisk in even bits so they could skewer them all evenly and have all the pieces cook in the same amount of time. As they worked they all lifted their head when hearing another cry from the bald eagle, but it was now one of gratitude they were receiving from the eagle, who was now in the nest with the chicks and with her mate at her side.

They would start the fire soon enough, and they would enjoy cooking the creature while overlooking the happy family they helped save.