Not one, but two rangers occupied a secluded corner of the Vanguard’s guild hall.
Secluded, but not quiet. Five adolescent skyscales scampered around, hopping from rocks to sand to water and back again.
“How did you end up doing this, again, Tove?” Kolfinna peeled off her jacket so that she could more easily chuck a ball for the largest and most active of the ‘scales. Her snow leopard had taken one look at the chaos and fled for the hills, but her ice drake was casually paddling around the waters and ignoring the skyscale that kept chasing his tail.
Tove was tossing weighted lures into the water for two others to dive after. “I volunteered, when I heard that they were trying to save them. Now that Ambrosine is back in some capacity, I wanted something to fill my time. And it’s worthwhile, isn’t it? Trying to save a species, no matter how strange their arrival?”
Kolfinna glanced down at her boot, which now boasted several more teeth marks than it had before. “Sure, but there’s a big difference between raising wolves, when you have generations of knowledge to draw from, and…and these skyscales, that we barely understand.”
Indeed, the magic the eggs had been exposed to had resulted in such a mixed phenotype that if Tove hadn’t known better, she’d have hesitated to name them all the same species. Subspecies, maybe…
“Well, then it’s even more important that people with extensive animal husbandry experience get involved. We have a broad base of knowledge from which to draw from, and figure out what we need to do.” Tove retrieved two dripping lures from the excited youngsters and chucked them towards the deepest water she could see. “So far, treating them like highly social drakes is not the completely wrong way to do it?”
(The entire time the fifth skyscale was climbing over, on, and around Ambrosine’s raptor Trouble, who had found himself volunteered for socializing. He was currently trying laying there and whining about it on for size but it wasn’t deterring his ‘friend’ in the slightest.)
Kolfinna glanced at her own drake and shrugged. “My drake doesn’t have wings to sock me with, but you’re right, there’s some similarities there. So what’s going to happen as these grow up, anyway?”
“Someone takes them off my hands, I hope,” Tove said fervently. “Since we’re not really flush in adults to socialize them, they’ve all been hand raised and…well. They’ll need jobs.” She paused and watched as the two she’d been throwing for decided that it was far more fun to chew on Trouble’s horns.
The raptor sighed and got up, walking into the water with two skyscales still dangling.
“…and then I get baby raptors to raise, I guess!” Tove said cheerfully. “That’ll be fun.”
Kolfinna squinted, unsure of Tove’s idea of fun. “…more for you than for him, I wager.”
“Well they’re his fault, so too bad.”
Comments (1)