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therizinosaur) wrote2010-03-30 08:11 pm
therizinosaur) wrote2010-03-30 08:11 pm
Entry tags:
Workplace Safety [Sentient Dinosaurs]
Title: Workplace Safety
'Verse: Sentient Dinosaurs
Rating: PG/PG-13 for predators doing predator things?
Summary: Fiiri takes the village's pack out for a hunt--which doesn't go quite as planned.
Word Count: 1,590
Notes: Yay dinosaurs!
Fiiri hissed softly, signaling the halt of the pack's advance with the hand not wrapped firmly around her spear. All of her hunters stilled obediently at the gesture--all but one. The strange foreigner, the half-bird savage Horak, was still creeping forward, her body angled parallel to the ground and her overlong tail lofted high. Fiiri hissed again, more urgently, demanding Horak's obedience in the truncated song used by hunters.
Either Horak didn't hear, didn't understand, or was simply ignoring the hunt alpha; she certainly didn't stop. Fiiri had two choices: call her to order at the probable expense of the success of the hunt, or compensate for the transgression. On any other expedition, she probably would have gone with the former. This kind of disobedience was unacceptable on a hunt; she was the alpha for a reason, and her experience and knowledge when it came to the stalking of prey was a big part of that. If a hunter couldn't trust her judgment, there was no place for her in the pack.
Today, however, there were fledglings. Having Kreetsi and Sylaan's first hunt interrupted would devastate them, as well as their quadrads back home in the village. It was considered a poor omen, and Sylaan, at least, held much promise as a hunter; Fiiri did not want to risk discouraging the fledgling from pursuing it as a calling.
So she recalculated. Sibilant hisses and bird-like twitters redistributed her senior hunters along the line, positioning the two she trusted the most to flank the slowly-advancing Horak. She gestured the two fledglings close to her, reaching out to adjust Kreetsi's grip on his spear, then ordered the advance to resume.
Their approach did not go entirely unnoticed by the herd of trumpeters they were targeting today. The animals closest to the advancing line of hunters--closest to Horak and the two flanking her, in fact--had started to shift restlessly, their elaborately crested heads coming nervously up from their grazing. Fiiri knew that they were downwind, so something else must have been alerting the prey, and she felt her crest-feathers flare in annoyance. It certainly wasn't her hunters being careless. An instant later, she heard a stick crack loudly in that direction, and it only confirmed her low estimation of the foreigner's skill.
The trumpeter herd all looked up from their grazing as one, the nearest to the location of the sound loosing a haunting warning cry and sidestepping away. Fiiri recognized the way herd was starting to shift and move, recognized that particular charge in the air, and snarled a frustrated sound. She straightened up, raising her spear arm with the weapon turned crosswise to warn the pack off the herd--
And lowering it again when Horak exploded from the low brush bordering the plain and sprinted for the nearest flank of the herd. Fiiri snarled, the sound so aggressively exasperated that she heard a fluted query from one of her other hunters, off to her left. Ignoring him, she yelled for the two flanking Horak to move. They started forward out of the brush, bodies low and spears held at the ready, but skidded almost immediately to a halt.
The trumpeter herd had started to stampede.
Lifting her snout high, Fiiri shrilled withdrawal, catching Sylaan's arm and pulling him with her as she backed off. Stampedes were one of the biggest dangers of hunting, and she didn't want to risk losing any of her people in this one, particularly since the attack proper hadn't even gotten a chance to start. Once she and the fledglings had retreated sufficiently into the brush, she whistled a query, getting a response from everyone in her pack.
Everyone except Horak. Fiiri snarled again, this time under her breath. As far as she was concerned, Horak wasn't one of her people. If she'd gotten herself killed in the stampede, Fiiri decided savagely, it was her own damn fault.
The pack gathered around her as the thunder of the stampeding herd started to recede, and Fiiri realized suddenly that she smelled blood. Alarm made her quills bristle.
"Who's hurt?" she demanded, head swiveling on her long neck as she attempted to examine all of them at once. No one looked distressed, no one seemed hurt, which was a relief, but it didn't explain the blood scent.
From behind them, out on the plain that the trumpeters had been grazing, came a low cry of pain. As one, the whole pack spun to look, the oldest hunters leveling their spears out in front of them. They stared, silence stretching for a moment before one of the seniors whistled appreciatively. Even Fiiri had to admit that she was impressed by the sight of Horak, blood bright on the plumage covering her head and shoulders, circling warily around the still-shuddering body of a small trumpeter.
The pack turned their attention expectantly to her, and Fiiri hesitated only a moment before putting up her spear and starting forward out of the brush. The other fell in line behind her, the two fledglings chattering together in muted awe at the back of the column.
"Hail, hunter; well slain," Fiiri called formally; the words came out oddly stilted, made awkward by her lingering annoyance with Horak. She tilted her head to the side inquisitively, pacing around the fallen trumpeter to get a look at its underside, the other pack members remaining behind. When she saw the torn-out throat that had killed the creature, she couldn't help an appreciative whistle of her own. "Very well slain," she added, more sincerely, stepping closer for a better look.
Horak shrieked, the sound aggressive and unexpected, and leaped up onto the trumpeter's ribcage. Challenge was in her posture, identifiable even across the divide that separated her from Fiiri and the others; the lowered head, spread wings, and showing claws were unmistakable. Fiiri wasn't impressed--at least, not until Horak's long tail came up, the feathers spreading open into a huge fan. Startled, Fiiri jumped back with a squawk, her own quills bristling in a return display that she knew wasn't nearly as impressive as that. The two oldest hunters in the pack were at her side immediately, holding their spears in front of them defensively and snarling warnings.
The foreigner looked between the three of them, her head jerking in birdlike little motions, and then straightened up a little, mitigating the challenge somewhat. Her tail remained fanned open, though, and the handclaws they hadn't even known she possessed were flexing in and out dangerously, blood obvious on their tips.
Hissing for the others to remain where they stood, Fiiri stepped forward again, her eyes fixed firmly on Horak. The foreigner growled a short sound that could only be a warning, stepping slowly down off the kill and keeping her eyes just as firmly focused on Fiiri as Fiiri's were on her. The pack alpha straightened up, lowering her tail and tucking her spear into the corner of her elbow at the same time, the barbed tip pointing towards the sky. Formally, she tucked her own handclaws behind the display quills on her arms; her plumage wasn't nearly as effective as Horak's at hiding them, but the gesture should be recognizable. Expectantly, she waited.
After a moment, Horak bobbed her head and turned away, lasing out at the now-still trumpeter carcass and splitting open its belly with the wicked toeclaw on one hind leg. Using the same foot to pull the gash open further, she thrust her head inside, pulling it back out a moment later with the creature's liver clenched in her jaws. Without hesitation, she tossed her head back, consuming the whole thing, raw, in a few jerking motions of her head and neck. Only when she'd swallowed it did her tail droop, the feathers collapsing back into the more streamlined shape they were used to.
Straightening up as much as she ever did, Horak turned to face Fiiri. "Kill-right," she said, gesturing at the dead trumpeter with a wingtip and enunciating the words carefully. "Now pack can have rest."
Apparently, this was expected to satisfy the matter, as far as the foreigner was concerned; tucking her wings against her side, Horak bobbed her head again and vacated the kill. Fiiri looked after her for a moment, more than a little astonished, then snorted expressively and turned to look at the rest of her pack. "Well? You heard her. We can have the rest. Let's get it back to the village."
She was willing to let the issue rest there, but it was a matter of practicality only. They only had a limited window in which to get the kill butchered and ready to bring home before the scavengers started moving in, and there were some big scavengers that frequented this plain. Still, she couldn't help swiveling her head to watch for a moment as Horak settled herself to the ground some distance off, turning her back to the rest of the pack and starting to groom herself. To Fiiri's eyes, she was looking smug in her apparent contentment with herself, and the pack alpha would have dearly have loved to take her to task for her behavior on this whole damn hunt.
It would have to wait. Besides, it would be far more effective to take it up with Horak's keeper Treeka when they returned to the village. With the packsinger translating, Horak wouldn't be able to pretend not to understand Fiiri snapping her quills over her behavior.
She couldn't keep her handclaws from flexing in anticipation.
'Verse: Sentient Dinosaurs
Rating: PG/PG-13 for predators doing predator things?
Summary: Fiiri takes the village's pack out for a hunt--which doesn't go quite as planned.
Word Count: 1,590
Notes: Yay dinosaurs!
Fiiri hissed softly, signaling the halt of the pack's advance with the hand not wrapped firmly around her spear. All of her hunters stilled obediently at the gesture--all but one. The strange foreigner, the half-bird savage Horak, was still creeping forward, her body angled parallel to the ground and her overlong tail lofted high. Fiiri hissed again, more urgently, demanding Horak's obedience in the truncated song used by hunters.
Either Horak didn't hear, didn't understand, or was simply ignoring the hunt alpha; she certainly didn't stop. Fiiri had two choices: call her to order at the probable expense of the success of the hunt, or compensate for the transgression. On any other expedition, she probably would have gone with the former. This kind of disobedience was unacceptable on a hunt; she was the alpha for a reason, and her experience and knowledge when it came to the stalking of prey was a big part of that. If a hunter couldn't trust her judgment, there was no place for her in the pack.
Today, however, there were fledglings. Having Kreetsi and Sylaan's first hunt interrupted would devastate them, as well as their quadrads back home in the village. It was considered a poor omen, and Sylaan, at least, held much promise as a hunter; Fiiri did not want to risk discouraging the fledgling from pursuing it as a calling.
So she recalculated. Sibilant hisses and bird-like twitters redistributed her senior hunters along the line, positioning the two she trusted the most to flank the slowly-advancing Horak. She gestured the two fledglings close to her, reaching out to adjust Kreetsi's grip on his spear, then ordered the advance to resume.
Their approach did not go entirely unnoticed by the herd of trumpeters they were targeting today. The animals closest to the advancing line of hunters--closest to Horak and the two flanking her, in fact--had started to shift restlessly, their elaborately crested heads coming nervously up from their grazing. Fiiri knew that they were downwind, so something else must have been alerting the prey, and she felt her crest-feathers flare in annoyance. It certainly wasn't her hunters being careless. An instant later, she heard a stick crack loudly in that direction, and it only confirmed her low estimation of the foreigner's skill.
The trumpeter herd all looked up from their grazing as one, the nearest to the location of the sound loosing a haunting warning cry and sidestepping away. Fiiri recognized the way herd was starting to shift and move, recognized that particular charge in the air, and snarled a frustrated sound. She straightened up, raising her spear arm with the weapon turned crosswise to warn the pack off the herd--
And lowering it again when Horak exploded from the low brush bordering the plain and sprinted for the nearest flank of the herd. Fiiri snarled, the sound so aggressively exasperated that she heard a fluted query from one of her other hunters, off to her left. Ignoring him, she yelled for the two flanking Horak to move. They started forward out of the brush, bodies low and spears held at the ready, but skidded almost immediately to a halt.
The trumpeter herd had started to stampede.
Lifting her snout high, Fiiri shrilled withdrawal, catching Sylaan's arm and pulling him with her as she backed off. Stampedes were one of the biggest dangers of hunting, and she didn't want to risk losing any of her people in this one, particularly since the attack proper hadn't even gotten a chance to start. Once she and the fledglings had retreated sufficiently into the brush, she whistled a query, getting a response from everyone in her pack.
Everyone except Horak. Fiiri snarled again, this time under her breath. As far as she was concerned, Horak wasn't one of her people. If she'd gotten herself killed in the stampede, Fiiri decided savagely, it was her own damn fault.
The pack gathered around her as the thunder of the stampeding herd started to recede, and Fiiri realized suddenly that she smelled blood. Alarm made her quills bristle.
"Who's hurt?" she demanded, head swiveling on her long neck as she attempted to examine all of them at once. No one looked distressed, no one seemed hurt, which was a relief, but it didn't explain the blood scent.
From behind them, out on the plain that the trumpeters had been grazing, came a low cry of pain. As one, the whole pack spun to look, the oldest hunters leveling their spears out in front of them. They stared, silence stretching for a moment before one of the seniors whistled appreciatively. Even Fiiri had to admit that she was impressed by the sight of Horak, blood bright on the plumage covering her head and shoulders, circling warily around the still-shuddering body of a small trumpeter.
The pack turned their attention expectantly to her, and Fiiri hesitated only a moment before putting up her spear and starting forward out of the brush. The other fell in line behind her, the two fledglings chattering together in muted awe at the back of the column.
"Hail, hunter; well slain," Fiiri called formally; the words came out oddly stilted, made awkward by her lingering annoyance with Horak. She tilted her head to the side inquisitively, pacing around the fallen trumpeter to get a look at its underside, the other pack members remaining behind. When she saw the torn-out throat that had killed the creature, she couldn't help an appreciative whistle of her own. "Very well slain," she added, more sincerely, stepping closer for a better look.
Horak shrieked, the sound aggressive and unexpected, and leaped up onto the trumpeter's ribcage. Challenge was in her posture, identifiable even across the divide that separated her from Fiiri and the others; the lowered head, spread wings, and showing claws were unmistakable. Fiiri wasn't impressed--at least, not until Horak's long tail came up, the feathers spreading open into a huge fan. Startled, Fiiri jumped back with a squawk, her own quills bristling in a return display that she knew wasn't nearly as impressive as that. The two oldest hunters in the pack were at her side immediately, holding their spears in front of them defensively and snarling warnings.
The foreigner looked between the three of them, her head jerking in birdlike little motions, and then straightened up a little, mitigating the challenge somewhat. Her tail remained fanned open, though, and the handclaws they hadn't even known she possessed were flexing in and out dangerously, blood obvious on their tips.
Hissing for the others to remain where they stood, Fiiri stepped forward again, her eyes fixed firmly on Horak. The foreigner growled a short sound that could only be a warning, stepping slowly down off the kill and keeping her eyes just as firmly focused on Fiiri as Fiiri's were on her. The pack alpha straightened up, lowering her tail and tucking her spear into the corner of her elbow at the same time, the barbed tip pointing towards the sky. Formally, she tucked her own handclaws behind the display quills on her arms; her plumage wasn't nearly as effective as Horak's at hiding them, but the gesture should be recognizable. Expectantly, she waited.
After a moment, Horak bobbed her head and turned away, lasing out at the now-still trumpeter carcass and splitting open its belly with the wicked toeclaw on one hind leg. Using the same foot to pull the gash open further, she thrust her head inside, pulling it back out a moment later with the creature's liver clenched in her jaws. Without hesitation, she tossed her head back, consuming the whole thing, raw, in a few jerking motions of her head and neck. Only when she'd swallowed it did her tail droop, the feathers collapsing back into the more streamlined shape they were used to.
Straightening up as much as she ever did, Horak turned to face Fiiri. "Kill-right," she said, gesturing at the dead trumpeter with a wingtip and enunciating the words carefully. "Now pack can have rest."
Apparently, this was expected to satisfy the matter, as far as the foreigner was concerned; tucking her wings against her side, Horak bobbed her head again and vacated the kill. Fiiri looked after her for a moment, more than a little astonished, then snorted expressively and turned to look at the rest of her pack. "Well? You heard her. We can have the rest. Let's get it back to the village."
She was willing to let the issue rest there, but it was a matter of practicality only. They only had a limited window in which to get the kill butchered and ready to bring home before the scavengers started moving in, and there were some big scavengers that frequented this plain. Still, she couldn't help swiveling her head to watch for a moment as Horak settled herself to the ground some distance off, turning her back to the rest of the pack and starting to groom herself. To Fiiri's eyes, she was looking smug in her apparent contentment with herself, and the pack alpha would have dearly have loved to take her to task for her behavior on this whole damn hunt.
It would have to wait. Besides, it would be far more effective to take it up with Horak's keeper Treeka when they returned to the village. With the packsinger translating, Horak wouldn't be able to pretend not to understand Fiiri snapping her quills over her behavior.
She couldn't keep her handclaws from flexing in anticipation.