Effervescent ||Tsu'tey||

Don't feed the hungry viperwolves

Trudy's SAMSON rotorcraft thundered over the Pandoran landscape, heavy winds from the rotor blades disturbing animals and plants alike. A black speck of alien technology soaring over an untouched primeval landscape, a blob of destruction tainting an image of perfected peace and prosperity. Alva would wipe it off if she ever got the chance.

They swoop over tall trees, seas of grass and crystal clear waters, and cloud-wreathed mesas. Huge waterfalls cut the edges of grass-covered platoons and below churned water into thick layers of off-white foam and gentle sprays of mist. Trudy flew so close to one of them that Alva could stretch her hand out and feel the water flowing through her fingers.

Trooper Wainfleet leaned against his door gun as his small eyes scouted the sky for predators for he knew, just as well as the others bar Jake, that even the smallest of ikran held enough force to easily force them down. He wore both an exo-pack so that he could breathe, as the aircraft had both sides open, and body-armor, not that it would help him any. Alva thought him to be puny and unattractive, another splotch of wrong in her painting.

"Freedom at last," Alva mumbled with a wide grin, hand clutching a dozen or so of seeds. When Trudy leveled out her aircraft over a large stretch of forest and plains, Alva let them slip through her loose fingers. She hoped that wherever they fell they would thrive, just as she would. "Goodbye cage. Hello freedom."

As soon as the last of the hard shelled seed fell, Alva plopped down on the edge of the aircraft floor. Her long legs hung over the edge and cut through the air with vigorous kicks. A tingle spread from the very tips of her toes and up her spine as she looked down.

Trudy banks to follow a shallow stream where a pack of ayangtsìk – hammerheads in English, named so after the hammer-shaped head – crowded together by the shore, a lone blue yerik waiting patiently behind them. A plethora of other animals grazed, flew and swum around them, everything from the shimmering scales of excotic colored fish-like creatures, great winged birds with razor-sharp feathers and teeth as long as her arms, to small felines with spotted and striped blue and purple fur and pouches hanging low beneath their bellies.

The stream turned into a river and they followed it until a long line of six-legged aysalioang galloped across the shallow waters. Alva spotted them just a few seconds before Trudy did and reached over to pinch Norm in the arm. His jaw dropped when he saw the creatures, gaping and gasping.

"Sturmbeest herd, one o'clock." Trudy called through the comms.

Grace leaned out the aircraft. "Looks like a bull, six cows and a juvenile!"

"The bull has that red on the dorsal armor?" Norm asked, excitement rolling off of him in waves. Grace nodded with a smile.

The herd of buffalo-like creatures disappeared into the forest and Trudy's flying eventually led them to a huge lake with luscious forests surrounding it. Just like many of the waterholes around the wasteland Alva grew up in, an incredible amount of animals had come together to feast on the water; predators and prey alike. All colors of the rainbow made flesh merged together in packs and herds and groups and schools until barely any land was left for any others.

Startled by the sudden appearance of the aircraft, hundreds of ayfkio took flight. Some of them skimmed the blue waters, undeterred by the predators that lurked beneath the surface as they chased their own reflections and that of their kin, while others flew alongside the aircraft. The upper half of the aerial creatures was a stunning purple, the belly a dull yellow (along with the thin, stick-like arms), and the four wings a mixture of pinks, purple and blue mottling together on the leathery hide – each of them carrying a distinct pattern unique to them.