June 2025 Realmgard Short Scenes: Day 16
Birb.
Bird Cavalry is not an altogether uncommon phenomenon in Fantasy. For example, the Wood Elf Eagle Cavalry from Warhammer — and various other birds, at least winged creatures, for various other factions.
That being said, Pegasus Cavalry is probably more common, but I consciously avoided using a Pegasus for today's scene. It felt a little too on the nose for Amazons…
Lucia yowls in distressed as the huge, ornately-plumed bird she has the misfortune of being strapped to shoots up into the air.
“What are you doing?” she cries, holding on for dear life.
The 15-Span Gyrfalcon — referring to the size the wings, measuring about the width of nine of a man’s hand on each side — are the traditional winged mounts of Amazon warriors. The great birds are their riders are the subject of countless heroic songs and stories. Some of them are even true.
Lucia, Apolline, Peta, Roland, and Alda travelling north has already led them to befriending a horde of endangered Aurorean Mountain Toads. And now, Lucia has somehow found herself joining the ranks of Amazon falcon riders — despite not being Amazon, having no prior experience riding falcons, and not even particularly wanting to!
All in all, the most bewildering part of this whole debacle is the fact that the bird chose Lucia as its rider, and not the Amazon that was standing right next to her.
Though if Petra is at all jealous of being passed over for Lucia, she’s hiding it remarkably well.
“She’s just bonding with you, Lucia,” the Half-Troll Amazon calls from the rapidly diminishing ground. “She wants you to establish trust. She can sense your distress.”
“Of course she can!” Lucia calls back. “This is the worst moment of my life!”
“Just breathe.”
Lucia decides to try taking the Amazon’s advice, taking several deep breaths, though with how thin the air is up here, all that does it make her dizzy. Still, as she starts leaning precariously to one side, the Gyrfalcon tilts the other way to compensate.
Well, the plus side is that it’s not trying to kill her. It’ll just accidentally kill her…
“Oh,” Lucia groans, burying her face in the feathers on the bird’s neck. “I’ll never eat chicken again.”
Suddenly, the Gyrfalcon dives and Lucia yowls even more as the wind howls past her ears and the ground comes rushing back towards her.
Then, the Gyrfalcon comes fluttering to a stop and lands gently and gracefully on the ground.
Lucia tumbles for its back, scrambles back to her feet and stumbles towards her Amazon companion on wobbly legs.
“Wow,” Alda notes. “That was so cool, Lucia! I’m so jealous!”
Lucia absently nods at the girl as she continues towards Petra.
“Petraaaaaaaaaaaaa!” she wails. “Save me! It was terrible!”
She collapses into the Amazon’s arms.
Petra gently rubs Lucia’s back as the Wilderling woman sobs into her chest.
“You’re fine now, Lucia,” Petra assures her. “Everything’s fine. Besides, you’ve got plenty of time to learn how to fly her better. According to Amazonian law, the one way for you to be separated now is if one of you falls in battle.”
Lucia flinches as she feels the bird
“Don’t worry,” Petra says. “She’s just grooming you. She’s starting to trust you so quickly! And you’re not even an Amazon! It’ll be no time at all before she’s regurgitating food for you!”
“Oh, wow!” Alda exclaims. “You’re so lucky, Lucia!”
Lucia just starts sobbing harder.
Ultimately, I decided on "Gyrfalcon" for the name of the bird because it sounds cool, it's a reference to my squad's name in a tabletop game I'm involved in, and they live in pretty northern regions, which is basically equivalent to where the Amazons live in Realmgard.
Also, the one of the bird was originally Kat, but it felt like it made more sense to make it Lucia, since she actually knows an Amazon…
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