She hardly had to wait before an echoing roar erupted from across the plains towards the direction of the mountains. The bright white clouds parted in the deep blue sky to reveal a massive shape flying towards Bloo. She laughed and jumped onto the rock waving her arms about and giving a couple more blows to the whistle like egg. Another roar sounded from the sky as a mighty Torveus dragon soared towards the ground, flapping it's leathery wings to land softly several feet from where the girl perched. "Qannik!" she squealed, running towards the green scaled beast. The dragon clawed at the ground and shook his great head before craning his long neck to meet his owner face to face. "We gotta go to the Keep," she said softly as she stroked his long snout, "A courier told me to check my Eagle's talons. Must be I've got mail!"
The dragon turned his head noting that the Keep was but a half mile away, a simple 5 minute walk for the human. He looked back to her and chortled giving his head a quick shake. "Ya ya, hush. I got tired of running!" Qannik lowered himself to the ground so his golden belly brushed against the grass tips, he seemed to smile while a slight flick of his head told Bloo he was ready. She smiled and kissed him on the nose then ran to the dragon's side and climbed up his outstretched wing to sit comfortably on his scale back. She didn't believe in saddles and reigns, they only chaffed the beast's scales and told him he wasn't trusted enough to be in full control. The Troveus beat his wings for departure while Bloo wrapped her arms around his neck, "My bag!" she exclaimed realizing she'd left it on the rock. The dragon rumbled with laughter and hooked the straps on his claw then sailed towards the Keep.
Qannik circled the tower a few times before dropping silently onto the cobblestone path that led up to the great double wooden doors inlaid with steel crafted designs. Bloo slid off his back and patted his side then retrieved her bag from his yellowed claw. "Thanks," she grinned whilst reaching into her bag, "Here ya go!" From her hand flew a golden chain with true rubies hanging from it. The dragon caught it gracefully with the tip of his beak and grumbled loudly in thanks then took off, heading again towards the mountains. Bloo shook her head and chuckled, skipping up to the doors and shoving them open. Just inside the door on a gnarly wooden perch sat a Stelera Eagle with a crimson ribbon tied to her ankle.
Bloo let her bag slide off her shoulder and land on the ground with a thunk and a jangle of metal items clashing together before resting. She approached the Eagle, still new to her, and held out her hand. The bird cocked it's head and spread it's wings uncertainly then retracted them again pushing it's hooked beak into the girl's outstretched hand. Bloo gave the bird an innocent smile then stroked her head. The knot in the ribbon was tight, someone wanted this letter to get here safely. "There we go.." Bloo said, finally getting the tie undone and opening the scroll carefully. The parchment was crisp from rain, Indigo, the Eagle, must've flown a long way to have encountered rain when the grass just outside the Keep was as dry as a bone. After having fully unfurled the letter, Bloo's eyes moved back and forth reading the whole thing aloud so the creatures in her Keep could hear. "Well! This man wants to know how our summers are, here at the Keep!" She looked up while the creatures curled in their roosts and hollows looked down, squeaking and squawking in reply. "I think that deserves a response! We do so much here in the summer!" Bloo said tapping her finger in the air as if making a point. She paced to a cabinet at the other side of the circular room and opened the wooden doors. Several tools of craft sat jumbled upon the shelves but she took only a stack of parchment, an inkwell, and a fine tipped Silver Amagnae feather from their place.
The teen brought her supplies to a desk just next to the cabinet under a window. The items fell from her arms onto the desk which she quickly tried to put upright, the inkwell for instance which had leaked and splattered in the tumble. The now stained wood would have to do as a writing space anyways. Bloo flattened the parchment and dipped her silvery feather into the inkwell. She began to scratch away and continued to do so even as the creatures of the keep gathered around; Talvars and Agaori perched on her shoulders and on the window sill, the Anaugi wrapped itself around her feet though had a spat about the space under the desk with the Paervem, and even the Tenabre Fox was present, crouched on top of the cabinet peering down with his hollow eyes.
Bloo looked at her handiwork and smirked with satisfaction. She picked up the parchment papers only to have the inkwell that had been resting on them tip over and spill black ink all over the top right corner of the page. She frowned as the creatures about her chittered with laughter. She picked up the feather and scribbled a quick note on the bottom of the last page.Dear Mister Emander Tyris,
My name is Bloo. I, along with my family of creatures and beasts, reside at my home. This tower I call "The Keep". We all live here and sleep here and indeed spend our summers here. There are so many things we do to keep busy and have fun around here! Everyone knows and..most of the time..gets along with each other. We've got this kind of festival, like a family tradition, that we do every summer, it just ended so I'll tell you about it!
We call it the Heather Festival, I guess because it's held in the field where ridiculous amounts of heather grow! I had a friend of mine named Nick help me sew up the tents and set up the festival, he's one of my best friends; he's also Centaur! We try to get as many colors in the fabric as we can, oranges and reds and yellows, then greens and blues and purples. There's even a white tent because the Pegasus think they're purity needs to be an official color. I don't know, they're always rambling on about things. Oh! Before you think I'm crazy, they don't actually talk, but I've come to understand a lot of what my creatures try to say, we're pretty close. Anyways, the tents are set up in a big circle in the field, the hooved creatures of mine stamp out the circle so there's no pesky tall grass in everyone's way! Then the Puvia and Hydra help to erect the tents because they're pretty big. Each tent has something special going on inside whether it be games or food!
The red tent is the smallest, I put all of my creatures in charge of their own tent because they know how to interact with each other better than any human could. The vendors of the red tent are the Hummingbirds. They're small but they love chatter! They're very intelligent birds and run their event as a sort of jeopardy. Then there's the orange tent, the main food tent, which is run by no other than Calli, she's an Onrosus! The yellow tent is a picture game, Gull and Uriel, our resident lovers and Avrael host that one. The green tent is the biggest, but it's been claimed by the smallest creatures of our family. All that's in that huge tent is a small wooden table where the Taijitu Beetle, Jareen Vitriums, and Razan Orchid perform tiny circus acts; their ring leader is the Celestial Butterfly! She's always taken control of them, she really does think she's the prettiest 'bug' out there. The blue and purple tents are kind of conjoined, it's a giant tag game between the two. Nobody really runs it, creatures just go in there to goof off!
In the center of the circle every year, we decorate the tree (I forgot to mention! Our circle isn't totally random! We center it around a tall tree with a wide trunk and very long leaf bearing branches. It provides shade for the entire area!). We adorn her branches with lanterns and wrap lights around the trunk. Streamers are thrown about and every creature brings a bundle of flowers they've gathered from the fields to lay down at her base.
We're just about to start our own Summer Olympics of sorts! The flying races for the birds, Pegasus and dragons; the swimming and diving competitions for all of our water dwellers, and then of course the land races between anyone willing to compete! The prize for the winner of each section will be for them to accompany me to Synara City! That really gets them all working as hard as they can to win! I'll be sure to let you know who wins!
Last year's winners were LaGuerta, a Raza Quetzalcoatl, in the flying competition, Nero, a Caeralis, in the swimming and diving competition, and Taze, a Kitsune, in the races. They all gladly accompanied me to the Caillisto Islands. It's beautiful there and they had an amazing time!
That's quite a bit about me! What about you? I'd love to hear how you spend your summers, wherever you are! Please write me back soon! The creatures in the Keep would love to hear from you again!
Sincerely,
Bloo; Owner and Mother of the Creatures at the Keep
She stood and went back to the cabinet, the Tenabre fox curled up and pushed itself as far into the shadows as possible. Out came a small piece of violet ribbon which Bloo used to tie the papers to Indigo's foot. "Out ya go!" she grinned as she grabbed the Eagle and threw her out the window. She spread her wings and soared off into the evening sun.P.S. I'm so sorry for the ink stain!
Word Count: 1952 Character Count:10657
