"If we do this, there's no going back."
The hunter looked down at the snarling half griffon child tangled in the net. To the untrained eye he looked like nothing more then the typical mixed breed of human with the general "other". Bipedal with human face, but a set of wings on his back and a flicking tail caught in ropes. Feathers dripped through his hair and his hands and feet were more paw then anything else.
But the blood soaking through the cut across his face...
If it had been red or blue or even green or silver, then it would not have been remarkable. But instead it ran clear like water, over his skin and into his fur.
Blood of a shapeshifter, near, if not perfectly undiluted.
Considering his size and demeanor, the shapeshifter was young. If they took him there was a chance the caretakers would come after him. But if the hunters escaped with their prize, then there was enough to keep each of them and their children and grandchildren and great grandchildren in comfort.
"We do it," the lead hunter said, his tone brokering no argument.
That didn't stop the child from howling in protest and lunging against the net again, screeching threats of retribution if they didn't release him right now, what do you think you're doing with that sack, oh you'd better not...
# # #
"I can't find Nex," Kostas' statement was punctuated by the door slamming shut behind him "I looked up from the weeding and he was gone. No tracks, he's flown off."
Kostas' voice was ever even, but the young faun's brow was creased with rare concern.
Rhodes echoed that concern, internally, Nex was prone to mischief most dire. Externally the griffin-man just nodded his head and donned his hat.
"I'll go and have a look. He's probably climbed a tree and gotten himself stuck at the top. Again."
"Right. Sure."
"Watch for Finley and Seth. They'll be back round from the Gorgathal's house in the next hour or so," Rhodes pushed the door open and stepped out onto the porch, readying his black and gold wings for flight.
With a rush, Rhodes was airborne, his home sinking away until it was swallowed by the behemoth canopy of the forest. Once he had gotten above the trees but while he was still below the clouds Rhodes leveled out and began to glide in an ever widening circle, eyes of a predator and a parent sweeping through the shadows between the leaves and the branches.
Nex had a tendency to get into tangles with the little wyvern-pixie tribe that drifted through the trees around their homestead and thus kept glancing about, expecting to see a pillar of rising smoke.
But as his head was turned, instead of seeing the tell-tale sign of fire he heard footsteps and hooves crunching through the leaf litter far below him, far off the path that led from the Gorgathal's house to Rhodes' homestead.
With a roll of his eyes and a twist of his wings Rhodes descended to land on a massive bough. From there he leapt from branch to branch, tree to tree, until the shadows of the forest floor solidified into the shapes of crisscrossed roots, scrubby bushes, and two boys crouched against a fallen trunk.
"What are you doing?"
Rhodes couldn't lie, watching Finlay and Seth flinch out of surprise but also guilt, because they knew they weren't supposed to wander from the path.
"There's people!" Finlay rasped in a voice that was intended to be a whisper but was loud enough to reach Rhodes up in the tree. The faun pointed through the foliage and Rhodes followed until he caught sight of a trio of men clad in hunters' garb.
