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S - Berra - Young gryphon - 2

For

'You've been ordered by another Nachtbrag (aren't they pesky?) to go deliver a message to a humanoid gryphon spy in the human village. The only problem is, there's a massive storm in your way! Struggle through the tumultuous storm to deliver the message for the Nachtbrag and prove your strength.'

There was no getting out of this one...

Berra had been having a lovely nap in the afternoon sun when a shadow disturbed her rest. Someone was circling down at her from the north. A great dirty reeve, scarred up to her primaries and bleeding with new cuts landed and loped up, glaring in bad-temper down at her.

She looked in a hurry (as well as a mess of bruises and cuts on top of older scars), and without preamble, shoved something right into Berra's face. 'Deliver this to to the human village, there will be someone waiting for you on the east side of town.' In the ordinary course of things, Berra would flirt and flutter and slide her way out of the task. But somehow she did not have the courage to try this against the old battered reeve.

'Ehm... yes...' was all she could manage, dithering.

'NOW, fledgling!', the reeve snapped, swiping at Berra's head with claws outstretched. She managed to duck the paw, and scrambled to her feet ungracefully. As she put her ruffled feathers back in order with a disgruntled expression, the Nachtbrag exclaimed in exasperation again and barrelled into her, pushing and shoving her.

'Get. Going. Idiot.', the reeve hissed venomously at her, 'Or I will take you back to the fight with me, and you can get a few scars to mess up your own pretty little face!'

Berra finally took the hint and took off, beating away hard, staying low. She kept the corner of her eye on the bad-tempered old bird, and noted that as soon as Berra was on her way, she had taken off and gone back in the opposite direction.

'Stupid ugly bully...', Berra muttered. The wind was picking up, and as she looked back south in the direction she was going, she noticed that this task may be harder than she thought. There was an enormous storm just breaking in front of her. She took a quick look back to make sure she was out of sight of the Nachtbrag, then made a decision. She spiraled down and landed on a rocky outcrop.

There was no way she was going to fly through that storm, it was ridiculous! She would be torn to shreds! Plus she would get all wet... She decided that the amount of time she would lose trying to struggle through the storm, getting blown off course, could not be much more than the time it would take for the storm to just blow over. Besides, what would anybody know? She could always say that she had gone through the storm, and that it had blown her off course...

She quickly hunkered down under some dense conifers as the wind started to pick up.

After the storm had mostly passed, she decided she had probably better not delay any longer. 'Might as well get this done', she thought, sighing.

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So I realised that I skimped... majorly... on Berra's first challenge picture. Especially on the *ahem* 'background'...

I will not do that again. And to make up for it, I tried to put some effort into a proper background in this one. My backgrounds... still need a lot of work. Every bit of practice helps though so...

Anyways, Berra after the storm, flying towards the human village.