”If we can find the seeds of a suitable plant, that would be good, too. I'm especially skilled with seeds.”The trek past the limits of the hamlet had been uneventful. After the path had disappeared visually, Niara used her magic to hear the earth and help lead them, but that only go them so far. After a point, they had to go by instinct. Eventually, however, they did come to a clearing. Things were mostly flat, a feature Niara was fairly familiar with. There weren’t a ton of hills on the islands, though there were some mountains on some of the larger ones. They were old mountains, worn by ages and ages of wind and rain, without any tectonic activity to give new edges. Not that Niara knew what a tectonic plate was. Maybe she’d heard something of it in her earth magic studies, but that would have been it.
The Root Elf had just been examining the new grounds they’d found, taking stock of what the earth had to say, when Yingmei said she’d seen something.
“Something moved?” She shared a glance with Mei before the other decided she would go forth to investigate, even by herself. Nooo, no no. Bad idea.
”I’ll be right behind you, sweetie.” She made sure her sword and shield would be ready to grab, should she need it, and followed behind the farmer girl.
Her heart was thumping and her adrenaline beginning to spike before she finally got to see what it was that had spooked the both of them. Some small, white, feathered thing, muddling about and pecking for some food.
”Huh…” It didn’t seem aggressive, and seemed interested in Mei as she called to it.
”Hey, there, fella.” Niara stepped slowly from the tall grass she’d been hiding in and knelt down, making soft clicking and cooing nose to the creature. It looked at her for a moment before waddling up to her and looking at her expectantly. She chuckled softly and pet the thing,
”oooh, how’s a thing like you surviving out here, hm? Nothing out here to eat you, huh?” She took a look around, before looking at Yingmei,
”Sweet little thing. Probably descended from whatever animals used to be kept here.”She stood and pointed to the field they’d just stepped away from, investigating the bird,
”this was probably a farm field. The ground seems like it had been worked, once. It’s fertile, at any rate.” She looked at the bird, then, rubbing her face a bit in thought,
”what do you eat, then. Bugs? Plants? Not picky?”