I woke up early in the morning, while the sun was still close to the horizon. The sky was still a dark orange, and the sun was just barely shining through the branches. I look over at Queen, who is still asleep over her eggs. I go to the edge of the nest where she departs to hunt and take out my binoculars. The only creatures I see that are up and moving around are a few shepherd's hares that I can just barely make out. They must be foraging for food this early in the day, while most predators are still asleep. Taking inspiration from this, I put away my binoculars then head over to carefully and quietly step outside the nest entrance to look for a few nulberries as a morning snack.
Nulberries often grow on vines, making it easy to gather multiple at a time. Most hunters often use these berries when hunting monsters, so they seldom have a chance to savor them. Aside from the benefits these berries contain, nulberries often go very well in a pie, where the flavor and sweetness of them are drawn out. Just thinking about it makes my mouth water, and once I find and pick some I head back to the nest, eating a few along the way. Careful not to wake her, I make my way back over to Queen and sit beside her. I continue to observe her as I eat, while waiting for the sun to rise.
As I get to the last vine, she slowly starts to stir and wake up. I watch her as she gets up and stretches, extending her legs as she almost tiptoes and extending her wings as much as she can towards the air, letting out a big yawn as she does this. After she completes her stretch, she looks at me gently. I pick off a few nulberries from the vine in my other hand, and hold them out towards her. Do rathian eat nulberries? As she leans in to sniff my hand, it's clear she knows what I'm holding, or that I'm holding something, because she carefully takes them from my hand, chin spike going under my hand as she does this. I'm not sure why she did this, so I try to think of reasons she did. Does she appreciate my treat for her? Is she able to taste the berry like I can? Is it a part of her natural diet?
I bring my hand back to pick the last few to eat, and she watches me again. I pop them into my mouth, keeping an eye on her while I do, and I press them against the roof of my mouth and swallow the juice. As I do this, I notice the underside of her jaw start to go up, then back down. Did she just wait for me to swallow so we could eat them at the same time?! I stand and walk towards the edge of the nest so I can get a better view of the land below, then sit again. I hear Queen shift behind me, but don't turn around to look, my gaze instead drifting across the view of the ocean. I hear her heavy footsteps coming in my direction, but I continue to distract myself, and… she nuzzles my arm. I'm so surprised by this that I jump and look at her, greatly confused.
Turning around while I get up, we look at each other, almost staring. Her head is level with mine, the end of her chin spike a foot away from my neck. I slowly reach for her with my right hand, then place it on her nose, right in front of her eyes. This time, she doesn't move away. She closes her eyes, and… purrs? It's a very low and faint rumble in her throat as she exhales, I'm barely able to hear it. At this, I take my hand away and head for the nest entrance. Queen goes back to laying on her eggs as I put on my armor, then we take one last look at each other before I go to camp to report what just happened.
My first ration is on the table in the tent, and there is a slip of paper with my first assignment of the day next to it. "Deliver 10 Parashrooms." After eating and writing down what just happened at the nest, I head out to gather the shrooms. There's a trick to gathering parashrooms, you need to be particularly careful when cutting the stem, otherwise you risk your entire hand becoming numb for hours. Gently grab the stem, then cut as close as you can parallel to where the mushroom grows. After doing this, I carefully place it in the basket I brought and look for the next. Searching for parashrooms is easy, however; just follow the mosswine tracks, and you'll eventually find a cluster of them growing together, if the mosswine didn't eat them all. After gathering the amount I needed, I bring them back to camp and place the basket in the delivery box.
Walking back to the nest, I hear loud growling and hissing coming from the nest. I pick up my pace, then emerge from the entrance to see a Rathalos making advances on Queen, who is covering her eggs with her entire body and wings, and hissing at the Rathalos, head low to the ground. I run towards the Rathalos and ready my slinger with a flash pod, and he hears me approach and quickly takes to the air. I've fought enough Rathalos to know that he's getting ready to roar, so I quickly plug my ears. After the roar, he swoops down to swipe at me with his talons, but I quickly roll to the side. Positioning myself between him and Queen, I raise my slinger and fire it in front of his eyes, causing him to fall to the ground temporarily blinded. He quickly gets up though and turns his head towards the sound of my footsteps running towards him.
I bash my shield into his left ear as hard as I can, then take the opportunity while he's dazed to ready my clutch claw. He swipes his head towards me jaws open, but I duck and roll right under it, the momentum causing the rest of his body to turn. Firing my claw at his now exposed right leg, I'm pulled towards it, and I swing my sword to slash at his thigh, almost crippling it. As he slowly regains his sight, he takes to the air again, leg hanging limply. He shoots a fireball at me, and I bring my shield up to block it. I was not expecting him to come flying towards me right after it, though, and he pinned me to the ground. My armor was the only thing keeping his weight from crushing my arms that he was keeping down. I watched as he opened his jaws to ready another fireball, then Queen came in from the side and tackled him away.
She roared at him even louder than he had to me, but this time I was behind her, so most of the sound was in his direction. She runs toward him then spins around, swinging her tail and landing a blow on his neck, successfully poisoning him. I ready my clutch claw again as I run around Queen, then latch onto his head. I bash my shield into his head again, keeping my grip with the claw, then bash once more to knock myself away and retracting the claw. He realizes he's outmatched, because he knocks me on my back again running toward the edge of the nest, then quickly flaps his wings to take to the sky and flies off. I get up and run after him, but I'm not fast enough to catch up after he flies away.
I stop at the edge of the nest and yell with all my might at him, the yell almost changing to a roar of my own as soon as I run out of breath. It wasn't nearly as mighty as Queens or the Rathalos I had just fought. As I catch my breath, Queen walks back over to her eggs and makes sure they are all okay. I turn around and make my way toward her, also inspecting the eggs. Her breathing is heavy, which is expected after what I assume is her first fight since I was sent here to gather the eggs. She looks up at me, I run my hand along her head, and she closes her eyes and accepts it like she did this morning. This time, however, she gently pushes her head into my hand, as if embracing it. After I finish, petting her head, I inspect her for any new wounds, then sit down near the eggs after finding none. She walks to the edge of the nest and gets ready to take off. After she leaves, I take my helmet and arm guards off, and check the damage the Rathalos did to my arms. They're going to be pretty badly bruised, but I don't think any of the bones are broken. I slowly put my hands behind my head, lay on my back, and stare at the sky.