WoF: Scavenger Hunt

Ch1; Alone

Moray sat on the roof of his hut, the weaved grass roof rustled gently in the cool breeze from the nearby ocean. He had propped himself up on the incline of the roof, getting the best height while still laying down. He gazed out at the purple-tinted dawn. He was surrounded by dark green masses bearing early rising songbirds, sitting on his very own wooden island onlooking the pale plain of the beach. He sat there for a bit longer watching the sun rise higher, carrying with it the vibrant colors of daybreak. 

Moray hoisted himself up and plopped onto his hut's wooden platform. He enjoyed watching the sunshine make its way through the trees and across the beach then stretch into his windows. He stopped and stared into the doorway... although there was no door. It had blown off in a recent typhoon and he has yet to fix it, he reminded himself for the fiftieth time these past 4 days. The room inside was a total mess, but no matter how messy it was it had always somehow felt empty. He couldn't place the feeling to a certain reason, but the room felt like it was missing something. Except for the scroll rack, the only thing tidy and organized in the room. It felt entirely welcoming and full of reason to Moray. 

The other things were okay, but they did not provide the same comfort as his scrolls on that shelf did. A purple hammock hung from the wall alongside a net holding multiple fruits, a few clay pots holding clean drinking water sit on the floor, and a desk holding blank scrolls with wells of colored ink on the other side of the room. A few paintings hung on the walls, one depicted two dragons; a smiling RainWing and a smiling SeaWing. His grandparents. The rest were small talon sized canvasses depicting colorful tropical birds. 

Cloth, leaves, repair materials, and unfinished weaving projects littered the floor and hung off of most everything. The flowering vines that grew along the floor and walls didn't help the cluttered look of the confined space. Moray sat for a moment longer as the sun crept up and shone on his back. He spread his wings, absorbing the warmth after enjoying the cool night air. The morning birds were at full blast now, warming up with him. Their joyous calls made the morning tranquil below the pink clouds on the lavender sky, emanating from the bright yellow and orange sun from beyond the waters. 

He surveyed the beach thriving with early morning life. Birds, crabs, sea turtles, fish leaping out of the water, all enjoying the new day as well. Then he turned back at his hut, it didn't have the thriving life as the rest of the surrounding area did. Deciding to not join his hut in the lonely brooding just for today, he turns and walks down the ramp then heads towards the beach. His tail tugged behind him limply through the tough wispy grasses, then through the soft sand. He couldn't feel the textures of the ground below him with his tail, but under his talons the top layer of sand felt of dull morning warmness with the cool of the night just underneath. He could play with the sand for hours. He has ended up doing that before. 

The shorebirds were doing their usual morning routines of patrolling the water edge for stranded night fish. The fish they were after were small and perfectly shaped to fit in their beaks, it seemed. It made him wonder if it were fate or the food chain that made them perfectly edible. There were usually what looked like thousands of them in the waves rolling across the shore at night, as if they were trying to get stranded.

 Hm. Maybe it isn't fate or the food chain after all. He pondered to himself.

These little fish litter the edges of the beach every morning until the birds wake up for breakfast. Their thin silvery bodies dot the shore sparkling like treasure in the new day's light, just out of reach of the sea's waves. He reached the more solid sand near the water and admired the view. The forest bird's sounds were drowned out by sea the bird's here. They chattered at each other over who ate who's stranded fish... He liked to imagine that's what all their noises were about, anyway. 

He was watching a group of birds jump up, glide in the wind for a bit, then settle back down pecking excitedly through the sand when he noticed something. A presence, someone else was here. The feelings he sensed weren't his own, and they felt distant. As distant as those birds... but seagulls couldn't send out feelings like dragons do, do they? He couldn't sense them, at least. He was familiar with his "power" of sensing dragon's feelings, although it was a rare occasion when he even had the opportunity to use them. Sometimes he forgot he even had this useless power of his.

The group of birds suddenly lifted off as a turquoise dragon with sand-yellow underscales lunged out of the water towards them. The birds flapped into each other and dodged out of the dragon's way just in time. The blue-green dragon received a snout full of sand instead of the snack she hoped for. Moray sensed a jab of annoyance and underlying embarrassment from her. The SeaWing stood back up from her crater sputtering and huffing the sand out of her face.