Search Posts
Moving up within sight of the filing line for the tournament, I look to Ilk, ruffling a few of his neck feathers to gain his attention"Am I to understand this to be the reason you've led me here? I'm not interested in becoming a spectacle for these people but I suppose if I must I could test my bow once more. Your thoughts?"
Bending down slightly, the stranger at the edge of the fairgrounds allows the great bird on their shoulders to dismount and when the bird finally rises to its full height, it stands almost at eye level with its handler. The pair begin to move towards the sounding horns of the coming tournament, the figure's slow even strides juxtaposed by the bird's ungraceful hobbling gait.
On the edges of the fairgrounds, moving among the shadows of the tents is a figure standing at an even 5 feet tall, draped in black shrouding cloth which hangs and shifts with the airy nature of thin cotton. The figure's legs, limbs and hands are bound in lengths of the black cloth, concealing gender and age, leaving the only distinguishing feature of the stranger to be the great unsightly bird perched upon their shoulders. While the figure's gaze remains fixed forward over looking the proceedings with a cold stillness, the bird's head swivels left and right, tracking the movement of those who walk among the crowd, fixing especially on any who appear elderly or injured. It's feathers shine black and oily, similar in tone to the cloth of it's keeper, head bald of feathers revealing red blotched skin and a smooth hooked ivory beak. Startled by a child's shrill laughter, the bird moves to take off but decides against it, it's wingspan of over 12 feet visible for a moment before it settles once more, head returned to it's pattern of surveillance. |
