The Low East was a wild and vibrant land of metal, electricity and magnetic fields. It was a strange and unpredictable place. The metal was vibrant here ranging in a wide scope of colors and strength. There was fauna made of energy and magnetic storms ran amok.
The birds were said to be in the far south of the World. My entire plan was to fly around and hopefully see a glowing bird of lightning, which should be pretty easy to spot.
We landed on the coast of an electric lake. Cyrek stretched casually as we got out of the Vehicle.
"Let's get this done quickly, my girls are lonely." He was on his phone, texting.
I smacked it out of his hands.
"You've changed, Cyrek. You've changed." I narrowed my eyes into slits and stared into his soul.
He looked offended.
"No, I was always destined to be a ladies man," he sighed and put an arm condescendingly on my shoulder. "I know it's hard, but it was you who once told me adversity is growth! Hang in there, brother."
"He's right. Hang in there, brother." The entire purpose of The Lord of Stars was just to entertain himself by bothering me. I began to doubt his entire backstory.
I looked at the sky, and took some deep breaths. It was really hard not to stab Cyrek right now.
"Let's just find these damn birds."
I grew my wings, grabbed the horny mage, and took to the sky. The place was beautiful, lakes of Electricity and magnetic clouds above blue and gray metal coated grass and fauna. Cyrek was using his phone as a scanner. I rolled my eyes.
Humans were too useless. My vision went on for miles and miles. I looked around as I flew, seeing no sign of them. Flying around the southern regions for a while, I eventually saw an electric bird. Cyrek saw it too.
"Ah, the phone caught something, it's over to the east, under that large tree." Indeed, there was an electric raven with a third eye sitting on an electric tree.
I swear to god, it was smoking a cigarette. I swear to god, it was drinking wine. This bird was getting high.
"Are you seeing this too?" I asked, questioning my sanity.
His silence was indicative that he probably saw it too.
"Uhh…." is all he could say.
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There was a special type of bird, which laid 3 eggs.
One day, in one of the worst magnetic storms ever recorded, two eggs were lost. Caught in the storm, they mutated wildly. The data signals constantly being sent across the world were caught in the storm. Letters, words, numbers. Language and data. These two concepts mutated these ravens.
Data in itself, raw information, was one of the purest elements.
When they hatched, they spoke to each other in human tongue. All they ever had was each other. Brother and sister.
The male bird was mutated mainly by text messages from a group chat of many single men.
He named himself "Party"
The female bird was mutated by the texts of fashion magazines and romance novels.
She named herself Glamour.
Years later, they found a colony of their own. For some reason, they were chased away.
"Oh. My. God. Those idiots almost ruined my coat," The female raven groomed her feathers.
"Bruh, who cares about your feathers, we almost friggin' died. Really un-dope of them." He took a puff of a cigarette, and coughed out clouds of smoke, which his sister swatted away, annoyed.
"That's because you kept begging the others for drugs and booze. They don't even know what those things are, idiot. "
"Or, like, maybe it's because you , like, literally killed three of them."
"They came at me like animals, what was a girl supposed to do?" She raised her beak.
"You're a bird, dude." he took another puff, and made an astute observation.
They were kicked out of the tribe, but needn't any fear. They were far more powerful than any of the others. A mutation of this sort allowed them to control their power as a human would. Theoretically, they could walk the path of evolution that all sentient beasts did.
They traveled alone for many years. There were likely not any creatures faster than them on this planet. Glamour ate seeds and salads, concerned for her weight. She once killed a man for looking at her for too long.
Party was indeed a trouble maker, often stealing gallons of liquor, and other smokable and snortable drugs. He ate like an overweight teenager, all the food of which was stolen.
Like this, they gained a bit of a reputation.
At the moment Party was feeling really good. He took some unknown pills and washed it down with this new fancy wine, and he was smoking a blunt infused with magnetism.
He assumed the weird, red-metal, flying tailed man carrying a human was a hallucination.
"Bro," he said. "What the hell are you?"
"Bruh," Said the red metal creature back. "That's what I wanna know."
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"I'm just a bird. hehehe'' He started laughing weirdly. He looked extremely high at the moment. I mean seriously, this bird was totally wasted. How can a bird get this messed up? No, how the hell can it talk?
"Im-" he then threw up what looked like some pizza and noodles, and laid down on the branch, falling asleep.
It was very unfortunate that 'the grid' did not extend to the wilds of the low east. I could not call Au-ha. I could only talk to the mind slime.
"Hey, Big. Do you know of any talking animals?"
"Yeah, I may not know much at all but the drop of beast blood that transformed you in the first place came from a talking animal. It gained sentience after taking a bit of my power. "
"Kind of like you, haha." He was annoying.
"You know what? I'm getting sick of this constant mockery." I was losing my mind in many ways right now.
"You wanna fight? Huh? I'll kick your ass, kid." He didn't even have a body.
"What the FUCK." it seemed Cyrek finally regained his senses, and shouted this loudly while turning and staring at me.
"I don't know, man, just go with the flow."
"Flow? There's no flow here anymore. This is not flowing." Cyrek was clearly stressed.
I had seen stranger things, I think. Well, not really. But still, it was no time to lose our minds over a talking and drunken bird.
I went to reach down and take the bird back to the guild alive. I figure this should earn me some reputation, as the potential discoverer of the first talking creature.
"Petty Thugs! Stay your hand!"
Suddenly, came another talking bird of thunder. I just shook my head, barely surprised at this revelation. What would be unbelievable anymore? I was more offended by the petty thug part.
I held up my hands.
"We come in peace." I made a peace sign. The bird gave me a peace sign back, before pulling out a phone and taking a selfie. She showed it to me and said she looked like a fat owl with a beard.
What was I to do now? Kill these silly little creatures? It would be the equivalent of slaughtering children. If I could convince them to come back, however, it would be a far more valuable contribution than their cores.
"So, is it only the two of you out here?" I asked, still giving the peace symbol.
The bird was texting, and casually said "Yeah" before sitting on the leaf. The weirdest part was there was no cell signal out here. She was just texting herself.
Cyrek whispered to me "Let's just kill them quick, get drunk, and forget this ever happened." in a borderline panicked state.
"How can we kill them now, look at them," I gestured toward the drunken passed out bird and the other one texting herself. "You do it if you can."
"Ehh." He clearly never struggled to kill, and actually shot an icicle at the drunk one. What a savage.
Even more savage was how casually the bird looked up, opened its third eye, and shot a glorious blast of lightning from it, sending Cyrek flying to the moon. It then quickly passed out. The female looked at me, opening her third eye as well.
I tell you, that was the fastest I had ever dodged yet. An instant duck, and my tail went out like a whip. In a second, they both transformed in a flash of light, far above me.
"Look, we don't want to fight, ignore the human, he's been traumatized as a child." I explained, hoping to resolve this peacefully.
"Ai," the male took a swig, "so have I."
"Shut up, I'm the one who's been traumatized by YOU!" she folded her wings, snorting in alarmingly human fashion.
What was their relationship? How could I convince them to come back? Would I gain anything out of this trip other than the honor of discovering two fucked up birds? Was Cyrek still alive?
Found out next time! Which is also now.
I looked and saw Cyrek limping back to the tree, his strength had grown slightly in the past few weeks. He could now make an ice pillar, as he stepped back on the tree branch. I wanted to applaud him for learning something other than shooting icicles. But instead scolded him
"Human! Who told you to attack? Useless pet, go get us some liquor and expensive makeup." I winked at Cyrek, who had a very incredulous look on his face. "Chop chop, use the vehicle and be back within the hour."
The birds both nodded at this proposition.
"Oh and get some tacos." slurred one.
"And the newest Style, Fashion, and Glamour magazines please." demanded the other.
"Are you ser-"
"Don't. make. me. stab. You."
He quickly left, still stunned by the entire situation. He was idly rubbing his chest, as he got on the vehicle. It seems he didn't sustain much damage, either the bird wasnt out to kill or he had grown in defense quite considerably over the past few weeks.
The latter was much less likely, considering his philandering ways these past few weeks.
"So, fellow beasts, have you named yourself?"
"Party, bro."
"Glamour, sometimes 'Vogue' when I feel like it."
"I'm….John Star." I really started to hate this name.
The birds burst out laughing. Looking at each other, and laughing even harder. They pointed their wings at me as they laughed.
"Why? That's like, one of the dumbest names I've ever heard, you literally sound like a Pornstar." Party started roasting me, and the sister gave a cold hiss and high fived him, making matters worse.
"Or a failed musician."
"Or a pedophile who had to change his last name."
Jesus, these birds were monsters.