A Friendly Competition - AR

Background

Seasonal Bonus

Scavenging

The gentle humming of bees were beginning to dwindle as they sought out their resting place. The warm light was fading as the sun slowly began to dip below the horizon, casting a brilliant orange light to be cast down. The melting snow on the mountain tops began to shimmer against the orange, the last rays doing their best to melt away the evidence of winter. Flowers still did their best to bloom despite the dying light as the woodlands plunged into a deep orange. The trees gently swayed in the breeze, lining a small clearing which had several large rocks scatted over the ground. In the centre of those rocks was a small pond, glistening with orange, reflecting the light back against the gathered stryx. Vyshemir was perched by the waters edge, having just taken a nice, deliberately long drink of water, Spartacus glaring down at him from the rocks over him. Eclipse rested nearby, half asleep at the edge of the clearing. Numali, as curious and playful as ever, was too busy trying to hunt those pesky crickets that sang their song whenever she turned away.

"You really think that you can do this better than I can?" A piebald red stryx asked, their chest puffed out proudly as they gazed upon the pure white one below them. Spartacus, his pride challenged, almost dared them to respond. Vyshemir laughed in response, before nodding his head. "I truly do think I could! If I can teach Eclipse here how to scavenge, then I think I should be able to best you."

"Hey!" Eclipse protested, her feathers ruffling as she huffed at Vyshemir in frustration from her position at the base of a tree, the poor tired canary-gryph leaning against it as she was looking forward to some form of sleep. The white gryph just giving her an anger-quelling smile as she rolled her eyes, defeated and too tired to do anything about it.

"Teaching someone is different to finding something yourself." Spartacus responded, before squawking in alarm as Numali, admittedly not paying attention to her surroundings, managed to collide with Spartacus, sending them both toppling over the edge of the rock, straight down into the water. With a grand splash, the pair sent the waters scattering, showering Vyshemir as he gasped, jumping away from the water while he shook off the excess water. Numali laughed, loudly, as she clambered out of the water, the brown mud barely visible on her feathers, Spartacus glaring daggers at her as he trudged out, before flicking his head back as he preened his feathers, squeezing the excess water free.

Eclipse, upon seeing them fall, quickly woke herself back up, her wings flapping a little as she darted over towards them, worried that someone might have gotten hurt. She jumped up onto one of the nearby rocks, before pausing. Looking down, she saw a slightly wet Vyshemir, with a, now rather brown, Spartacus and Numali pulling themselves free, the former giggling quite a lot. Eclipse blinked. Thankfully that hadn't happened to her or she would likely be tearing into one of those who had dared to get her feathers ruined!

"Before anyone decides to do anything more... Well, for a lack of a better word, crazy, do we want to, go on a scavenging hunt? That way, Vyshemir and Spartacus can prove who's best, and Numali and I can go and have a bit of fun trying to find things!" Eclipse declared, before Vyshemir nodded, "That could be rather interesting, I agree little Canary-girl, let's try that!" Eclipse tried her best not to scowl at the white bird, while Numali nodded, heavily considering what they both had said.

"That could be fun! I think I saw some berry trees nearby, Eclipse, do we want to go and have a look at them while the boys figure out who's best?" Numali asked, already wagging her tail in excitement, splattering the nearby Spartacus with a bit more muddy water, much to his dismay. "Don't I get a say in this?" The red asked, to which all three replied, in unison...

"No."

He groaned, watching as Numali scaled the rocks quickly, jumping on top as her and Eclipse darted away, off to find something for themselves. Spartacus scowled a little, before looking to Vyshemir, a victorious look in his eyes. "May the best Stryx win!" Spartacus declared, before he tried to scramble up the rocks. Unfortunately his foot slipped, and he rolled backwards, landing in the water again. All he heard when he stood up, dripping wet, was the laughter of Vyshemir as he took off, his wings beating forcefully as he took himself towards the edge of the clearing, deciding to take it easy and look for something nearby.

He could hear the laughter and excited interactions between Eclipse and Numali from a distance, but that wasn't his concern right now. They were close enough for him to keep an ear out for, and if they wanted help, he could do that for them. With the light how it was, the orange still lighting up the world around him, he could clearly see some trees having gentle flowers. Moving towards them, he began his own search.

Vyshemirs wings moved down to pry apart the twigs and branches of the small bushes, his eyes searching for any sign of plump fruits. Unfortunately for him, the first bush that he scoured didn't seem to have any berries which he could use, and he gave a small grumble of discontent. Moving himself several paces over to another bush deeper in the forest, he looked through it, his claws moving twigs, branches, thick leafage moving to unveil different things, most of which were just small buds, the fruit still yet to form on most of the plant. Thinking for a few moments, Vyshemir glanced upwards, noticing the rays of sunlight still streaming through the canopy, and as such, he moved to the part of the plant still faintly illuminated by the light. He continued his search for a few more minutes, making sure not to damage the plant in any way, ensuring he didn't break it at all. And that was when he had his victory, he moved his beak, gently grabbing a small bunch of soft yet ripened blue berries. Figuring this was a good enough reward for a few minutes work, especially to put a very arrogant bird back in his place, he made his way over towards the clearing once more, perched on his rock with the berries placed at his feet as he waited.

"I can't believe you used berries as a diversion! They're never going to expect this!" Eclipse proclaimed, as Numali giggled in glee. The pair were having quite some luck, the brown gryph being able to remember the track she to get to the clearing with certain landmarks - like the tree stump that seemed to be surprised it was cut down as the large hollow made a wide circle. Fun little tricks like that had the dynamic duo peeling with laughter every few minutes, until Numali finally found what she was looking for again. "Here we go! we should go down here and have a look near the river, I think there were some nice rocks down there." Numali said cheerfully, a playful tone to her voice as she bounded down the pathway, Eclipse hot on her heels as she followed. Although she almost ran into Numali when the brown suddenly stopped - right at the edge of a clear stream, some sort of colourful pebbles lining the ground.

"Oh wow, these could be fun!" Eclipse chirped, but she paused for a few moments. The water would get her glorious feathers wet! With a small sigh leaving her beak, she made her way into the water, trying to get as little to splash up as she could. But that failed almost instantly as Numali, seizing her chance to have a bit more fun, decided to 'accidentally' use her tail to hit the back of Eclipse's knees. With a squawk of surprise, Eclipse fell face-first into the water, Numali howling with delighted laughter as the canary slowly pushed herself back up to her feet, silky feathers absolutely saturated, glaring at Numali. Numali gave her an innocent look, smiling softly, "It was the only way to get you to have fun." She stated, her face completely straight as Eclipse grumbled, not wanting to admit she had a point. "Come on, lets get started! We have to get back before Spartacus is done!"

With that, Eclipse moved herself deeper into the water, feeling it brush against the edge of her feathers as she moved her claws, her eyes fixed upon the rocks below her. The water made her line of sight a little blurry, but she did her best to sift through different rocks, her eyes watching keenly for anything that stood out. She brushed her claws over the stones, feeling some smooth, others rough, but she was struggling to tell the different in this rushing stream the good from the bad. Eclipse hummed, feeling Numali's gaze on her, before understanding what she was meant to be doing. She grabbed claw-fuls of colourful rocks which seemed to have some good properties to them, including ones which were rather shiny and pretty, before throwing them onto the waters edge, the faint clack of rocks hitting one another sounding as her pile joined with Numali's, before she climbed out of the water, joining Numali in the sorting of the rather huge pile of stones. Numali had some idea of what she was doing, knowing that some stones were more precious than others. She picked ones that didn't look promising from the pile, her eyes investigating them before she picked them back up in her beak and thew them back into the water. Thankfully, Eclipse had managed to pick out semi decent stones, and Numali was able to get the less promising ones back into the stream quickly. However, choosing the best stones took her quite a bit of time, as she looked for the ones which were firm, but have a brilliant sheen to them, or seemed to have small cracks, showing something off that was hidden inside the capsule of stone. 

When the pair were finished, they were left with five different stones, two having similar properties to geodes, and the others just looking really rather pretty with their colours and their shine. "You did a good job!" Eclipse chirped to Numali, as the brown grinned, "See, always consider looking at the rivers, they can hold secrets, and they can even have fish on occasion that are fun to try and snag- but that's a new task you'll have to learn another time." Numali said with a wink, before gesturing back up the path that they came down originally. "Lets go, the others are probably waiting! Lets show them what we can do." Numali declared, playfully as they gathered their items in their beaks and claws, quickly beginning their return trip.

Even though everyone else was having luck, Spartacus, even through all his boasting, sat down on his haunches, still dripping wet, and having no idea why his luck was so bad! He had tried a few times, with Vyshemir watching, to find something. Anything. But he couldn't find anything at all, and he could tell that the white gryph was enjoying watching him be unable to find anything.

Spartacus grumbled again, continuing to walk forward as he scratched away the surface dirt, clearing it as quickly as he could. His talons quickly worked, clearing dirt, grass, everything out that he possibly could clear he did, just trying to find anything that was even worth pulling free from the ground. He moved again, scratching everything up in his wake, clearing sheets of dirt away. However, it was at that moment that he felt the ground be a little off. With delight and relief, the stryx quickly began to dig deeper, pulling clawfuls of dirt free, before dropping it to the ground, then the next grab, he pulled the object free. In excitement, Spartacus looked down, and his heart almost sank. He found a rather large bone, caked in dirt, thick sheets of dirt that stuck to it. He then heard a laughter, from three birds.

His heart was at his feet as he looked up, seeing the three other stryx giggling gently, the other three with various stones and berries in front of him. Spartacus then looked down at the bone in his claw. He wasn't going to live this down any time soon, was he?

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Stryx involved - Vyshemir, Eclipse, Numali and Spartacus

AR Payment 3/7 for @Pimsri

AR Payment 1/5 for @dragonmissy

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Final Word Count - 2108