IIIIIIIIIIIIIII'mmmmmmm BAAAAAAAAAAAAACK! Kinda like in WITCH, but oh well...

Niol

With Robin:

"Dad?"

"Hm?"

Robin walked up to his dad. "I'm going on a ride by myself tomorrow...I need some fresh air, is that ok?"

His dad raised a hesitant eyebrow. "By yourself?"

"Yea...please?"

"Well...well, all right, I gue-"

"YES!" and Robin ran out, leaving a very confused King Orlon behind.

Raven put Storm in a tiny gap between where her belt and her pants met and walked along aimlessly, humming to herself and feeling Storm pecking at her leg gently while she searched for a reasonable place to sleep for the night. She finally found an unusually comfortable spot in a low tree, she put her stuff there and got back down, putting Storm on the ground before her. She sat there, staring at the gray beauty before her. She now wondered if the tiny hunter could fly at all, much less hunt. She had an idea.

Raven took the tiny bird up and balanced it on the tip of her finger. Storm shifted about nervously and tried to move closer to her, but Raven used her free hand to the bird to keep her in her standing position. Storm finally stood still. Raven smiled and stroked the tiny feathers. "Good girl," she murmured. So, Storm's balance wasn't that bad.

Next, Raven acted as a mother bird, and, using her finger as a branch prop, she gently pushed the falcon off her finger. The falcon fell off. Raven gently picked the tiny gray bundle up and brushed the yellow dirt from its perfet feathers. Setting it back on her finger, she did this over and over again until Storm mastered flying about 10 yards in distance.

Raven picked a large nut off a nearby tree and settled Strom on her finger once again.

Storm sneezed.

Raven smiled and threw the nut as high and far as she could. Storm's sharp red eyes caught the nut flying and flew offRaven's finger, flying almost directly 90 degrees up. At the right moment, Storm dove at an amazing speed, even for a baby falcon, and grabbed the nut in its sharp talons. Cawing with victory, The baby falcon brought the large nut back to its master. Raven took the nut and stroked the feathers of the tiny bird while the tiny bird crooned over its first dive. "Good bird," Raven said. "Good job."

Later on that night, Raven let Storm go find some food. If Storm went off and never returned, Raven wouldn't feel too much at loss-Storm would be happy there.

But, surprisingly, Storm came back in a short amount of time with a wild rabbit in its talons. Raven again congratulated Storm, and this time she rewarded the tiny bird with a morsel of rabbit meat. Storm crooned over her meat and pecked at it before finding it edible and quite tasty at that.

Raven managed to make a fire but was at loss of how to cook the meat with no pot.

Raven began to brainstorm.

'I could hack a rough bowl out of some wood,' she thought, 'but how will I keep the wood from burning? I would need string to make a stand,' Raven's brows furrowed as she dove deeper into her imagination.

'I could build one of those simple roasting stands where you only have to string the meat onto some twigs and hang them above the fire,' Raven's eyes lightened.

Then she frowned again.

'But I'd need string again...'

Raven's eyes suddenly lit up after sometime. 'Not if I carve holes into the stakes!' and she got right to work, searching for strong twigs, hacking some from the tree in which she would sleep in, and cutting notches into them.

Putting the stakes together wasn't as easy.

Raven had to keep carving and re-hacking until she found the right pieces of wood.

She found two thick pieces of wood, about the same size, and another piece of long, thin but sturdy wood. She bore a hole into one end of each fat stick, then strung the thinner piece of wood through one stick. Before she strung the other piece of fat wood on, she balanced some of the rabbit meat onto the stick and then strang the other fat stick on. She balanced the two ends of the fat sticks on the ground, making sure that the thin piece of wood with the meat on it fit snuggily, then sat back, admiring her handiwork, stroking the sleepy Storm and taking in the delicious aroma of roasting rabbit.

When the rabbit was finally done, she put out the fire, untangled the rabbit from her hand-made roaster without breaking the roaster and ate the tender meat. She put the leftover scraps the remains of the still-smoking fire and fried them brfore putting them into her leather bag. Unbuckling her sword from her waist, she hung the sword on a fairly high branch by where she rested her head and climbed on, taking the now-asleep bird and placing it in the loosely-fastened bag.

She fell asleep almost immediately, not aware of what would happen the next day.