Noitcerru

Up above there is no shelter from the sun's glare. Angled as he is the winged man has no escape from its gleaming brilliance, the blaze of pain in his skull at such direct exposure to the sun as familiar to him as the air currents themselves. Yet like his precious sky not all can translate so easily down to earth -  the ground below is shrouded in a chiaroscuro of shadows. To the man high above it is nothing but a shifting sea of murk and twilight, crowned by gathering darkness on either side.

Regardless he can see Wessex-from-the-Basin is of stone and scree and slab and the birdman cannot pull his eyes away from her. She is head on to him; he cannot see the spiralling dragon on her shoulder in its full glory but or does he have to to be enamoured by that which is so different to him and what he knows. What he sees fascinates him, but it is not the mottled grey of her coat nor the orange flare of her eyes which holds his attention any longer as his vision sharpens and his eyes adjust to the gloom; it is the points that rise from her skull in tapered arcs instead, jutting backwards in a crown of bristling spines.

And, too, the fine claret dipped on the fine ivory extremities. The stallion's eyes narrow, lips rising to show faintly yellowed teeth. Is it life-blood that drips from her points? Yet it cannot be so; he cannot detect its sharp, metallic scent. If the man had been in any position to think rationally he would have noted, too, the chances of dripping blood onto points positioned away from the face and not tapering in front. But he does not, and thinks only of weapons and points and hooves and the savage, strange menaces of the landed that he must remain guarded against. Arrows may not reach his lofty heights but here, in territory that is not his own, it is a different story that makes the birdman bristle where he treads air.

Yet she is...aware, too. Noitcerru cannot see her eyes and exactly where they fall but she seems wary, careful. A frown crosses his angular features. What has she to be fearful of? Sward and sod are hers to own, surely. But it occurs to him that the hoofed have territories. They put a price on the land, tax the tangible beneath their hooves. There is no such ownership in the heavens but there is such a thing in the earth. Is that what she was worried about? He refused the urge to look, if only to refuse to be reminded of the sheer labyrinth that lies around him. The birdman is out of his element, painfully so, and his heart still desperately lurches against his chest.  

So he does not look behind her as the mare demonstrates where the Basin lies. Water. It is no better than land; his wings could do little to raise him from the waves if he were to fall. A memory rises to his consciousness then but he bats it away, hearing Wessex-from-the-Basin's question. "Far away." The answer is short and sweet and curt, a conversational avenue well and truly closed. But her comment on birds prompts a disparaging snort. "Crows fly slow." They drifted on the currents; he has little time for them. The mare's nickname for him does not go unnoticed but he says nothing, stony silence greeting the epithet. She is accurate in her naming of him and Noitcerru does little to correct her. He does not land; she is...observant to notice.

Like no other bugger had mentioned it before.

But his ears flatten against his skull at her next words, her sarcasm. He believes it to be so; the ways of the hoofed are puzzling but he is no fool. A glimmer of fire sparks behind his eyes. "You know what I mean, She-from-the-Basin." Powerful muscle quilled with feathers bristle behind him. He has no time for this. He is caught and chained and on edge and he does not appreciate sarcasm - a simple taunt as it is he has no patience. Intellect tells him to keep this Basin woman on side - she could hold the way out. But panic and anger tell him otherwise. He grinds his teeth. "Tell me and tell me quickly. How could I get to - ?"

But there is confusion and he cuts himself off at the noisy interruption. Suddenly something comes from above, all flapping wings and creaking branches. A squeal passes the birdman's lips before he is truly aware and his own wings widen as far as they can in the space, lips drawn back in a defensive snarl. No embarrassment comes across him at his overreaction to the intrusion, nor to the comparative size difference of him and this new arrival - he has wings too, and Noitcerru sees a rival in the limited space under the canopy. It is beginning to feel claustrophobic.

"And what are you?" Like an owl the stallion inclines and bobs his head, raptor eyes watching him with a keen gaze. He is so small, almost like a mare. But there are two subjects in front of him now and he glances at the Basin woman, careful to keep her in his sights too. And then his gaze whips back to the pegasus. And that is what the smaller man is; one of his own. A threat...or perhaps someone to trust, if minimally.  The birdman's ears flick towards the other man. "You would help? To fit me through?" He could, that was for sure. The other winged had been able to break the branch, one that would have caused Noitcerru significant difficulty. Already the space is enlarged by the adulteration. The stallion is tempered by this, although still avian in his caution.

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Thank you for the welcome, Neve! Thank you for the information as well. ^^ Truth be told I don't have the foggiest as to how to pronounce it either, but I go for noy (rhymes with 'boy')-sir-roo. Though my pronunciation of it changes on an almost daily basis, so there's that. ;P
@Wessex @Pippigrin

run boy run