The Warrior and his Ward

Zephyr had known from the day he'd been rescued of his father's strange habit of fighting with sharpened sticks of steel. It was not a hobby that made much sense to him, but Artorias was his hero and for him, Zephyrus would accept the oddities he and the others of his kind occasionally indulged in. If his father did not judge him for his childhood of following around chefs and roosting in unlit fireplaces, who was Zeph to say that the knightly wolf could not be allowed to bash shiny things together and enjoy the satisfying sounds it made?

He had caught sight of the training weapons in the wagon on their trip (while scavenging travel rations that he still believed nobody noticed missing) and now, seeing Artorias dancing in the 'courtyard' of the Col, ran to retrieve them. It was an odd feeling, grasping finely chiselled wood in his talons. It made hopping difficult, and so until he made it to a decent elevation the bird was forced to juggle them both precariously in his beak. Thankfully the Col was as high as it was expansive beneath, offering multiple out of the way staircases generously carved for ease of use up into various patrol points that overlooked the valley below. The pack who resided here had clearly worked hard to tailor it to their needs - and to Zeph's needs, as a sneaky ninja bird. Creeping slowly across the stone and upwards, he found himself a point from which he could glide. It took some care to shuffle the tools from his beak back into each talon and more effort still to perch himself upon the stone without full use of his feet for balance. Spreading his wings and wobbling slightly, he tipped his body down off the cliff and entered the air with what he liked to think was style.

Once aloft it was much easier to control his momentum, and while the noticeable weight in his talons was something Zeph needed to account for, he found it was not as hard to fly with the swords as he'd anticipated it being. Swooping down toward the obelisk and his father, the raptor cawed out his signature 'look out, here I come' cry, extending his talons and the weaponry within them out in front. As he neared Artorias and his dance, Zephyr pulled his wings back and gave them three heavy beats, slowing himself just enough that he felt he might be able to lock swords with the man on his roundabout swing.