Obora seemed determined to kill the recruits before winter arrived, putting them through endless drills and tests. Today was yet another murder attempt, and Mazdall felt as though she was on the verge of collapsing. She still had not quite gotten the hang of the advanced course, and to her dismay, it was set up differently today. It was twice the length now, with a wide turn curving into where the basic course was yesterday. She wondered if she would ever overcome it at this rate.

 Taking off into the air, Mazdall threw herself at the course. Twisting and diving, spiralling and weaving, she practically danced through the first third of the course. However, somewhere around the last half of the course, she would always get caught between the two swinging objects guarding the next set. As she unfortunately came to expect, a hard wooden sting arrived at her side, sending her out of the boundaries of the course.

 Cursing under her breath, Mazdall barely caught herself mid-air, flapping her wings as she looked at the contraption.

 “MAZDALL!” A voice yelled towards her, “Get it together! Stall, rise, boost.” Obora was calling up to her- she looked as though she was ready to take off into the air towards her. Instead, Mazdall elected to lower down to Obora’s level, landing carefully in front of her.

 “I’m trying-” She said, “I can’t get the boost fast enough-”
“And why not? I saw you do that fancy air-trick yesterday. Just do that again.”

 “I-... It takes time for me to-”

 “Well, learn to do it faster.” With that, Obora walked away, calling up to another recruit.

 Sighing, Mazdall shook off the remaining dizziness whirring around her head. With a swivel of her head, she looked up to the start of the course. Leihen was on the starting platform. From here, it almost appeared as though he were looking at her. 

 With a burst of power, he took off, shooting into the course. Mazdall watched as he masterfully navigated the course, his wings slicing through the air and his body diving through the obstacles. Eventually, he came to the same point that she had just gotten stuck stalling at, and without any strain did exactly as Obora had just told her to do- stall, rise, boost. As he shot past the two swinging contraptions, Mazdall was certain he was looking at her. Smug, arrogant, mocking.

 She bared her teeth. Practically growling, she was cut off by the sound of a familiar name in the distance.

 “Udakai?” Obora questioned, “What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be scouting?”

 A smile climbed across Mazdall’s snout.

 Udakai waltzed up to Obora- not in the manner one would approach a superior, but rather a comrade, an equal. It got Mazdall thinking- what was Udakai’s rank?

 “Good morning to you as well, Obora.” He waved off her concern, “Actually, I’m here to steal a recruit of yours. I was hoping to help one of them get some field experience.”

 “How nice of you.” She said, though it sounded rather sarcastic. “Well, let me think for a moment. I want you to set off with a capable recruit.”

 Udakai smiled at first, thinking to himself how capable he figured Mazdall was, but then out of the corner of his eye, he saw Mazdall shaking her head defeatedly. 

 “How about Lei-”

 “Uh- actually, I was hoping to choose. Completely randomly, that is.”

 “... ‘Randomly’.” Obora repeated back to him. By the look on her face, she was hoping he would hear how ridiculous that sounded. However, he avoided her stare and therefore her cynicism.

 “Mhm. Um… So… lemme pick.”

 Scanning the recruits with false indecisiveness, he watched as Leihen shot through the end of the course. A few more recruits were lined up near the starting platform, one mid-way through the course. Just as said recruit was knocked out of the sky and landed beside Mazdall, he suddenly pointed.

 “That one!”

 “... The one that just fell-”

 “Uh- no, the other one. Ma- uhh- snowy, over there.”

 “... You want to take Mazdall?” Obora didn’t sound convinced.

 Udakai continued to avoid her scrutinizing eyes, scratching his neck. 

 “Uh, yes.”

 Obora burrowed daggers into Udakai’s skull- a feeling he was familiar with. After a moment, she sighed.

 “Mazdall, come over here.” She called.

 Brows struggling not to twitch, Mazdall made her way towards them.

 Once she arrived, Obora addressed her, “Mazdall, Udakai here would like to take you as a scouting apprentice for today. How does that sound?”

 “That sounds wonderful. Thank you, Obora. Thank you, Udakai.” Mazdall was trying very hard not to stab scrutinizing eyes towards him as well.

 Obora looked between them, confused, before finally sighing and walking away. They could practically hear her roll her eyes.

 “Good luck out there. You’ll need it.”

 Neither were sure who she was talking to.

 Nonchalantly- or at least, in an attempt to be nonchalant- Udakai started to lead Mazdall out of one of the exits. Once Mazdall figured they were out of earshot, she hissed at him.

 “Snowy?!”

 “I panicked!”

 Mazdall pinched the bridge of her nose with a grunt, but tried to let it go. He tried his best, she supposed, and he was helping get her out of flight drills. How could she stay mad at him?

 Following after him, they maneuvered through the barracks, through parts she had never seen before- though that wasn't saying much, she had only seen a small section of the Perch. However, this felt different- these were parts she assumed were off limits to recruits. Rugged and pristine soldiers alike walked the halls with them. For a moment, Mazdall could almost imagine herself as a Talon, walking among peers.

 After a while, they arrived at an exit from the Perch and into a field; the field was littered with set up stations and tents, as well as other Talons working on various jobs.

 Udakai led Mazdall through the small settlement, waving and smiling at each and every Flocktic he recognized. Mazdall couldn’t help but remark to herself how social Udakai seemed to be. 

 As they strode past the settlement, a question lingered in her mind, “Udakai-” She started, “What… rank are you?”

 Udakai seemed somewhat surprised by the question, “Oh, I’m just a scout. I mean, I’ve worked some pretty important missions, but overall I’m not all that.” 

 Mazdall couldn’t bring herself to believe it, “Really? You just seemed so… confident with Obora.”

 “Ah, well I’ve worked with Obora a lot. Besides, even the real big deals here are just people. At the end of the day, we’re all the same.”

 This ruminated with Mazdall for a long moment. She wondered if this meant that he behaved this casually with everyone. Would he speak that way to an official? What about the Commander? A Lordmayor?

 With a shake of her head, she let it go, only responding, “Huh.” She had to admit, his confidence and laidback attitude was impressive- if a bit horrifying to her.

 Eventually the both of them found themselves in the middle of a field, a cluster of trees shading them from the harsh glint of the sun. 

 “Well, we’re here. This is my start point. We’ll start by checking these trees before we begin our flight.”

 Nodding along, Mazdall followed him into the trees. The small forest area was serene and beautiful, the oranges, reds, and yellows of the trees casting the light every which way. Some leaves had fallen, rustling to the touch as the two explored.  She watched him closely as he started to scout every angle to make sure nothing was hiding. Despite his carefree air, he took his job rather seriously, searching thoroughly and inspecting to make sure there was no angle that something could hide from him. 

 Though she was impressed at his dedication, her curiosity persisted, “So… What are we looking for?”

 “Anything out of the ordinary, really. This part isn’t all that exciting, we normally just end up looking at a bunch of sticks. Still, it’s important.”

 “What would be considered out of the ordinary?”

 “Tracks from other Flocktics, kicked up dirt or scratched trees, signs of struggles or out of place items. It’s not often, but sometimes bandits hide in the trees and try to mug people. Rarely, they try to sneak into the Perch to steal.”

 “Oh.” Was all Mazdall could muster as she slowly craned her neck down to the ground, looking for any tracks. Indeed, there were tracks, but they appeared to be from boars. Occasionally she spotted tracks from some sort of large fowl- most likely a pheasant. 

 Regardless of Udakai insisting it was boring, Mazdall was enthralled. She felt as though she was actually doing important work. The fresh scent of pine needles and sap added to her thrill, and she took a deep breath of the forest air.

 After a moment, a glint caught in her vision, and she quickly swiveled to follow it. Slowly, she moved towards it before it became clear that what she had seen was the glint of the tip of an arrow- laying pathetically in the dirt.

 She contemplated for a moment before calling to Udakai, “Udakai, I found an arrow.”

 “An arrow? Here, I’ll come look.” 

 Within a few seconds, Udakai emerged from a small grouping of trees. He looked at the arrow with narrowed eyes, slowly picking it up. 

 “Hm. Yeah, I think this is one of ours. Must be from the hunters- nothing to worry about. Either way, we’ll take this back.” With that, he tucked it into the bag around the side of his body.

 “Good eye, Mazdall!” He gave her a wink before returning back to his spot. 

 Mazdall lingered for a moment on the spot where the arrow was. With a steady hand, she brushed at the dirt where the arrow was. The arrow hadn’t left an impact in the ground, suggesting it had fallen. This meant it was either dropped or was fired from a great distance before falling there. With a keen eye, she looked around the small forest. There was no obvious sign of a struggle, combat or otherwise. No tracks of Flocktics either. That was exactly it though- no tracks. She supposed that meant that the second option must have been true- the arrow was fired from a great distance before landing here. However, she couldn’t help but notice some of the piles of leaves. Some of them looked so purposefully scattered- though she was probably overthinking it.

 “Hm…” Wandering in the direction opposite to the arrow’s tip, she inspected the ground. It led her to a tree, which her eyes trailed up before narrowing at something within the branches. With a single flap of her wings, she was launched high enough to see that there was a strap of torn leather impaled on one of the branches. Carefully, she pulled it off, inspecting exactly how it could’ve snagged. What the leather was from, she wasn’t sure. However, this could explain the lack of tracks if a hunter- or something similar- was in the trees.

 “Udakai, I found something else.” She called, but heard no response. She figured he must’ve been further away by now. 

 Landing back on the ground with the leather in hand, she slowly tried to match its seams to her body, imagining what kind of gear it had originally belonged to. 

 After several attempts to mentally recreate the item, she was stumped. Regardless of the origins of the leather, another question entered her mind. If a hunter or scout of some sort was in the tree, why had they not retrieved the arrow? From such a spot in the tree, anyone could have easily seen it. A hunter or scout wouldn’t have left it there, right?

 Her questions unanswered, she tossed the leather over shoulder, and wandered back in the direction she had seen Udakai head in. 

 Finally, she found him, his head craned down and inspecting a broken tip of an arrow.

 “Huh.” He said aloud, “Another arrow…” 

 With a sudden turn of his head, he noticed Mazdall, and with her, the leather. “Oh, hey- what did you find?”

 “I don’t… know?” She admitted, picking it off her shoulder and presenting it to him. “I can’t figure out what it is. I found it snagged on a branch not far from that first arrow.”

 “That is a bit weird. Though I suppose it’s possible that one of our scouts or hunters just snagged something- happens all the time. I mean, just look at my pouch-” He gestured to the pouch tied around his arm, its poor stitching barely covering the tear.

 “Still,” He continued, “I’m going to bring this stuff back and talk with some of the other scouts. If it was one of them, they’ll say.” Though Mazdall was still skeptical, she handed off the leather piece as he shoved it all in his bag.

 With a pat of his hands, Udakai exhaled, “Alright, we’re done here. Now on to the flight. Ready?” 

 A smile immediately returned back to Mazdall’s face. “Absolutely I am.”

 She couldn’t wait. She was practically giddy to get to fly for non-tortorous reasons. 

 A long, steady flight on the cold autumn wind sounded completely and utterly delightful.

 Despite her excitement- as they exited the forest, she couldn’t get the scene out of her head. It just felt… off. Perhaps she was simply being paranoid. Yet she couldn’t help but feel as though a scout or hunter wouldn't have taken off so hastily so as to miss or ignore an arrow and snag something- not without a reason, at least. Even so, there was no sign of a struggle. They must be missing something…