"fear the Vulture and it will come. fear nothing and you are the Vulture."

Pale, wooled ears sweep and perk. Did he hear the Dorobian tongue screeching through the thick trunks? Thick, heavy, hairy legs paused as his own feathers instinctively ruffled once, then raised as cracking and the unmistakable sounds of thrashing tore through the forest’s calm.

Hah. If ever there were sounds to portray how he had felt when he came through this very forest not long ago, these were it. His great wings had ached to be spread; part of him had wanted to break down the trees as these sounds seemed to imply this newcomer was doing. Instead, the rational lazy part of him had found a small clearing to stretch his monstrous wings.

His bearded, heavy head swiveled to pinpoint the source as another’s voice drifted through the trunks. Though this was calmer, and his white ears could not make out their words, it sounded decidedly male. He wasn’t certain as to the sex of the first voice, the Dorobian’s. It had been to panicked, and he had been too surprised.

So, with long and hurried strides that tangled even more leaves and twigs in his heavily haired legs, he took his interested self to the source of the commotion. Black brows raised the moment he arrived, yellow raptor eyes sharpening on the woman tangled in thorns. His peripheral gaze caught the sight of another winged one, the man he had heard. But the vulture had sights only for the ferocious mare of the plateaus.

“Jy uit Korofi?” His question was out before he could even finish taking in her body with his greedy gaze. And he asked in the Korofi mother-tongue; one he rarely spoke because it was too much of his father’s. Only a single backward flick of his ear belied the thread of annoyance at his choice of language, while his eyes raked the thorn-torn flesh of the sky-born woman. Her face was violent, eyes ringed in red as Korofi faces were so often fiercely painted. Gold coated her back, bright and alluring as it blanketed right were a stallion’s warmth would lie should one mount her. And it was starkly brilliant against the iridescent black of the rest of her coat. Her wings were folded, trapped, but the shapes of their ends told him she was a built for speed and agility in the sky. Unlike his own wings, which were meant for soaring (much to his sire’s disappointment).

“My name is not witch doctor!” The sharp and insulted voice of the other man drew red-ringed irises away from the winged woman and toward the young stallion. His eyes glance over him— though with markedly less scrutiny (for he was not a mare)— as he continued to talk, shrug, and step back from the glowering, savage, Korofi woman.

“Surely someone else will come along sooner or later.” A low, loud chuckle came roughly from his throat, “I’d say sooner,” sharp eyes glance between the mare and stallion as the man of golden wings asked if the woman wanted his help. He snorted in amusement, “Surely a man couldn’t leave such a fine lady all tied up?” he paused, studying the vines that wrapped her body, “Unless you’re the one who tied her, and planned on coming back for her?” Ignorant of the previous accusations, his words were intended to have salacious implications as his tone and eyes danced with lascivious amusement.

“I am Gaal, by the way. And I, also, come from Korofi.” The words were an afterthought.


Jy uit Korofi? = You are of Korofi?

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