Walk the lands we seek to call home

From the day he began to fledge, nearly all of Zephyr's time was spent on the daunting task of becoming flight-ready. The castle offered a multitude of surfaces to dive off of or leap between, providing not only a safe and secure location to build up strength in his wings, but to improve his confidence and courage as well. The more he began to learn, the further out from the courtyard he'd venture. It was rare that he'd see a Hallowed wolf head out past the border and not aim to chase them down, and it was no different as Artorias headed northeast.

His lesson in hunting had clearly shown where the young raptor needed improvement - everywhere, really - and so his trailing doubled as an exercise in stalking. There was no subtlety to the heavy beats of his wings, nor the fluttering of feathers as he hobble-scurried across the earth. To follow his Aegis unseen would require him to tuck his wings away and walk, slow and steady, and a good distance behind.

By the time he reached the wildberry grove, Zephyr had lost Artorias' trail entirely. He paused at the tree line, craning his vulture-like neck up to observe the maple trees and the canopy they formed. His father was in there somewhere, but running blindly would accomplish failure. Artorias would smell him long before Zeph could catch sight of his bi-colored fur. Being a bird was hard.

Cautiously, he approached the trunk of a nearby maple tree and clasped his beak firmly around a low-hanging branch. Finding it could hold his weight, he fought hard with beak and talon to scale it's rough bark as high as he dared. It did not open up as good of a vantage point as simply flying might, but it did enable him to see past the thick shrubbery that littered the ground. There was a place further into the woods where the trees appeared to thin out, but before he could consider what that meant for this particular grove, the gentle call of his Aegis sounded.

Target acquired.

With a well-practiced hop, the young raptor leaped from his branch with wings extended. Lofty glides were all he was capable of in this stage of his lessons, but the distance from him to where the summoning howl had originated was short enough that Zephyr was sure he could manage it. Threading through the sparse maple branches, he swooped down through the air toward his 'prey,' sounding a shrill, playful call of warning as he neared his blue-furred guardian.

He realized a moment too late that he'd really not practiced much stopping. Artorias was incredibly forgiving, but that only made the concept of barreling into him even harder to stomach. A brief expression of panic replaced the thrill on his feathered face, and then suddenly Zephyr found himself lost in foliage. The landing had been soft enough, but also... squishy? "Hi." He gave his father a sheepish grin. Hanging suspended in the smushed bush, he craned his neck around to see what exactly it was he'd landed on. "Berries!"  

"Zephyr"