"The Shaman-Ai was ready to fly the moment I saw her.

From her fixed gaze and protective stance, she'd seen me a long while before I'd managed to spot her, and had been watching me. Though why she had bothered I wasn't sure. If she wanted to fly away, she could have done so and escaped before I was as close as I was. I hadn't even had the chance to reach into my pocket for the offering I'd brought for her.

Slowly I reached toward the belly pocket where the food Gin had helped me to gather was, but the red bodied, wild Shaman-Ai snaked around to the back of the pillar she was perched on as soon as my hand moved, so I held still, watching her.

She watched back, silent.

After a few moments I asked, softly, if she could tell me her name.

She made a soft tutting sound somewhere in her throat, a vocalization I wasn't familiar with.

I told her my name.

She made the sound again, and then raised her wings, which grew in size as she flapped. Pushing off the pillar and free from the planet's pull, she flapped her furry wings and slipped up past the tree tops, and then out of sight.

My ears dipped and I put my face in my hands. If I couldn't either get her to come with me to my manse, where there would be plenty of logical food for her, or to leave the local's grazers and hounds alone, the Furred that lived in this town would try to kill her. No amount of my trying to explain that she wasn't an animal and that they probably couldn't kill her would stop them from trying. The Shaman-Ai had sharp claws, marking which half of the world she'd been born in, and was already killing animals for what was probably sport, I didn't doubt that she could be a danger to any Furred that tried to hurt her. The fact that she was the only flying Shaman-Ai that I knew of made her stranger to them, and thus, more of a danger to their animals.

Rubbing my fingers through my cheek ruffs, I sighed deeply, and then made myself stand up and follow her through the air by making a path for myself on the ground. At least she was only in the outskirts of town when she wasn't hunting, and her red fur against the stone and greenery would make her easy to track. Hopefully if she saw me often enough, as with Gin and Tonic, she'd start to trust me. Until then, the best I could do was keep track of her, and keep her away from the grazers and hounds."

World: Knights of Nodd.
Characters: Red Shaman-Ai.
Media: Easy Paint Tool SAI and Microsoft Paint.
Art, ideas, partial design, and character © me.

-Topknot