Elann’s voice was heard on the wind as she greeted him. He looked at her in return, catching her blown kiss without any real effort on his part. It wasn’t as if he could clutch at it anyway, unless he lifted a talon, but he didn’t want to do that. No order came as it seemed Elann was resting for a moment. He took the time to rest as well, preparing himself for whatever was to come. Hunting was exhausting and his mind would have to be sharper now than before. He hadn’t been in the skies for a while for one, and for two, a lot of the predators that were gone in the winter were back in the spring. Just like him, they would be capitalizing on the fresh crop of prey in the area.

They had gone away from the caravan now, the noise no longer as loud as it was. He hoped they wouldn’t run into anything, but knew of the unpredictability of what he deemed as his domain. Noah wasn’t at ease in the forest at this moment, or not as eased as he would’ve been should Elann and he be just outside of Syliras. His territory had been forsaken and now he didn’t have any boundaries of his own. His borders were nonexistent and he was stuck in limbo until he arrived at the familiar territory of his father.

Elann stood and caught his attention with her words. He waited for her to continue off, following after her with his eyes, until he pushed off from his perch to take to the skies once again. Noah rose up into the air above the treetops and shifted his vision between Elann below him and the area surrounding her. He was playing guard more than searching for anything to swoop down on. The thickness of the forest was making him uneasy because he was unfamiliar with the region, and nothing of it held anything remotely recognizable save for Elann down there on the ground, walking.

For once, Noah felt as if he was too high in the air and forced himself to drift downward. It lessened how far he could see. The river brought cool air to the already cold winds and it was all he could see when Elann was hidden beneath the growing canopy. Noah fell down to the treetops, skimming over them with his belly and the underside of his wings. He didn’t have to flap in order to stay airborne, channeling the power of his divine mark to keep a constant flow of air underneath his wings even if he was going against the natural wind.

Once he saw Elann again in confidence, he rose back up into the sky, banking off to her right to disappearing behind the trees again. He was going to angle himself in such a way that would allow him to fish from the river, but as he was moving to position himself, he felt eyes on him. The wind shifted in a moody way as if in warning but it came too late for him to do much. He heard another furious beating of wings that weren’t his own. Looking over, he saw another bird, smaller than he, coming at him. Noah already knew aggression had ruffled the other raptor’s feathers, but he didn’t have enough time to react readily.

Noah rolled to turn his underside and talons towards his would be assailer just in time to deflect the grasping talons of what he recognized to be a falcon. He didn’t know the exact species, but it was angry and was trying to get him out of its skies. Noah knew the feeling the falcon felt all too well, but it was something else entirely to be on the receiving end of a raptors aggression. It was incredulous, actually, him being attacked when he usually did the attacking. Yet, he didn’t have time to process what was happening. His instincts of defense were already in gear and his man’s mind blurred over to give way to something geared entirely towards surviving.

Adrenaline filled him and his eyes searched the skies for the suddenly flighty falcon. He waited for the change in the winds to tell where the falcon was coming from and turned in kind to deflect another incoming blow. He squawked out loudly in more raising aggression than for help, his wings beating to keep him airborne because the falcon was interrupting the constant stream he had once been emitting. His small eagle heart pattered heavily in his chest as his muscles wakened and rippled with heightening furor in this aerial battle in which he was purely on the defensive.