The warhawk was tired but her broad wings kept her sailing over Helovia on her way back home to the Throat. Gaucho had sent her to investigate and her drive to fulfil that duty had kept her at a harrowing pace. She’d been to the floating isle and the deep forest and the fields. She had seen the black hairs and the black feathers and the sand. The sand… Her mind had jumped at once to her home in the Throat, but she would be loath to believe that any of her herd could commit these atrocities… Still the doubt lingered: she’d been away so long, who knows what snakes might have slithered into the nest.

The sun felt good on her back as she beat her way back from the frozen north, Megaera had always hated the cold lands, nothing good ever came the ice and the dark. Birdsong’s return did much to ease her frustration, but her mood was still dark at having been cheated of valuable information. When rumors of another murder had reached her as the investigated the fields, Meg had raced northward. She’d found the bodies easily enough, two this time, but she’d been too late to find anything that could have helped her discover the murderer’s identity. One of the last two slain had been a member of the throat too, though they had never met, and Meg heart was heavy with the dread of bringing that news hone to her Sultan.

Movement on the ground far below caught her attention and her sharp sight focused in on the scene. From her height it was had at6 first to tell exactly what was going on but one thing was immediately clear: one of the two figures on the ground was not moving. Invigorated by the idea of catching the culprit, Megaera cut off the steady swipes of her wings and folded the close to her body as she let herself fall into the dive. She hurtled toward the ground, body aimed toward the scene and eyes drinking in details as she fell. The figure that moved hovered over the second, definitely dead, body.

Was it… eating her?

Rage flared inside the little warrior. This was horrific, this was ungodly, this was sacrilege! Before she could reach the ground, the pink and pale unicorn moved to the water and then stumbled from the grove. A bellow of rage left her as her iron-hard flints crashed into the soft ground. Instinct and anger had her chasing a few steps after the unknown cannibal before skidding to a halt. She was here to investigate, not avenge. Gaucho needed knowledge, not more blood. Impatient as she was, Meg made herself turn and examine the body. The unicorn was laid out on her side and blood seemed to be everywhere except…. That was odd… no new blood had flown from where the other beast had ripped at her side, this one might have died hours before. And there was something else, in her agitated state she nearly missed and still, paid little mind to it: the faintest scent of burned flesh was mixed with that of blood and death. Megaera would know that smell anywhere, had reeked of it once when she’d nearly perished in the fiery pit of Helovia’s Heart. It wasn’t a stench that one forgot. With her head bent low she committed the scene to memory the picked up her feet to race in the direction the monster had fled.


CSI:Helovia