"~lets get down to busi-ness, to deafeeeat. the hun!~ did they send me daughters. when I asked. for sons!~"
I always did love that movie... anyways, me an' little Myr were currently rushing out to join the morning food run and since I had some new skills to test out, I figured we'd spend the most of it on guard duty this time. the few previous fights I had been involved in usually ended quickly, with me ending up poking around the edges of a fight, taking down a few weaker enemies and then having to head home to recover. well that only counted for the smaller fights anyway- the bigger ones had been seen only in the corner of my eye, and heavily avoided, imagine beautiful but glaring lightshows of rainbow colours while blood and fire rained down onto the audience... yeah, those had a very real certainty of instant super-death.
on the upside however I was still better than the other new fledglings in the flock. I don't think they would stop being the babies who were watched over until after their first evolution was well past. so really, I was far ahead of the curve! go me. but that also meant, unless I wanted to wait however many years it would take me to hit that milestone - that I could only leverage my advantages to keep me ahead of the game. not to mention that I now had to feed another little mouth too, living life slow and leisurely would only be hurting me at this point.
It's fine though really, after all my personality could never really be called low-energy, antisocial yes, but also fairly industrious. and channeling that energy into something productive was all too easy in this world. that and studying was a lot more relevant- even reading up on history would actually matter because most of the past events would still be very relevant to actual living conditions.
My daydreams could keep themselves company for a little while though, we had integrated into the massive cloud of teensy birds and their muscular, slightly bigger, teensy birds who were on their way to establish a foothold on some seemingly random stretch of waves out at sea. I still hadn't worked out the overarching logic of how the locations were chosen, but I had worked out that in fact it wasn't random, reason being that while observing my neighbours on previous flights, I spotted that the leaders of the flight always had a weather eye on their surrounds and could be seen to occasionally steer the flock around certain areas- I could only guess they were the grounds of some other species or something. that said, the leaders were also smart enough to realise that with so many birds to rear and feed that overfishing would be a huge problem, hence the shifting of feeding areas. actually you know what? now that I think about it the whole concept matched up almost perfectly with nomadic practices and tribalism, but I guess instead of just migrating with the seasons our tribe also moved feeding grounds to avoid overgrazing... I guess the most important part of that though wasn't actually related to the practices themselves, but rather, these concepts were not part of my 'bird brain', instead it meant that the leaders of our bird tribe were smart enough to think of and manage this system! and thanks to Myr, I would soon have a chance to meet the families leader caste sooner rather than later.
*****
we were flying along, just a girl and her little ghost friend, when the space in front and around us cleared up a bunch as the other birds moved away from us, forming an empty section almost like a road, and then I went nuts... sort of. What else would you call hearing voices? It was a warm, deep- and well, it just had this nuance to it that evoked the feeling of a spry old grandmother, gentle and caring, but seen-some-shit-in-my-day strong.
"well, well, what an odd little fledgling, why don't you join me a the front of the flight for a while, this old bird loves talking to her grandkids and it's so rare to have such an interesting little thing like you born to the flock."
well how was I suppose to reply? erm... no really, how do I reply? I didn't know how to speak, and I had no idea how she was speaking either...
so I just sort of flew through along the cleared path towards the front?
it wasn't until I had flown for a while, almost to the point of reaching the front of the flock that I spotted a potential grandma tank- erm, well it's not my fault okay? She was the biggest bird in the flock, easily. Her body was sleek and covered in gorgeous feathers that had no chance of hiding the underlying shape of ungodly amounts of muscle. The feathers were like shining metal, a majestic and grand mix of silvers, whites, and browns. she looked like an empress in a full suit of shining armour, outfitted for war and flying surrounded by guards and clansmen.
this was a bird that had seen some shit, and I was somehow sure that my impression was not undeserved. I bet my left bird cheek she had fought beak and claw for everything she had.
In fact she was such a badass that I only figured out it was her that I was looking for when I felt the vibe coming off her as I approached. recognizing it from the feel of the voice that had entered my head. maybe it was a magic thing? Mana carried attributes and Laws had their own feelings, so did a Mage's mana carry parts of the mage along, like a signature? I could only guess so.
It was only as I pulled up alongside her, awkwardly dodging the side-eyed glances her honour guard were casting my way- that she started to speak again, tilting her head back to get a decent look at me, the odd bird out.
"oh my you are talented aren't you dear, I thought I sensed mana coming from you, so young yet already blessed by the world! not only that, but you have a familiar too?who is this little one?"
"...well dearie, introduce yourselves to an old bird hmmm?"
Our gazes met for a few seconds, just long enough for me to see the mischievous glint in her eye turn into awkwardness... hehe, that's right, I had no idea how to speak, good luck trying to be the wise old granny when you have to carry the entire conversation yourself!
I wasn't proud of myself I swear!...
okay I admit my sense of humour might be a little strange, but it works for me mmkay?
"I'm sorry dear, you must be new to this, your familiar is also still very young, here dearie, I'll teach you how to packet your mana with some thoughts inside, its the main way we beastfolk communicate at a certain point, many of us simply cannot make a standardised language given how our physiologies conflict."
following quickly after that 'thought' came a pearl looking thing that I felt apear in my mind like a pebble cast into a pond. it then softened as it landed into the center of my consciousness, unfurling into a flower, the petals disappearing and releasing images and thoughts into my mind.
It was only through my amazing intelligence and superior wits that I remained flying... is what I would like to say, If I hadn't frozen like a deer in headlights and plummeted down for a good twenty seconds as I absorbed the information...
lucky me I felt a gust of wind form under me, lifting me gently back up and along as we flew. I'll disregard explaing the details for now, but it turns out that there was an entire field of magic that focused on using mana as a transmission vector for thoughts and emotions, when the concept was published the realisation that mana could be used as a carrier for intangible things had spawned a dozen major schools and revolutionized every field of magic too.
but I digress, the key point was that these concepts brought out the inner nerd I had discovered when I started playing with magic, and I was full to bursting with ideas for soul magic, in the future at least, after a ton of experiment and study... lord I really was a bookworm huh?