A week has passed. King has continued to grow and is now up to my elbow, as are the others. They've recently started flying ahead of Queen when we go out to hunt, deciding their own meals. They've also gotten a lot of practice shooting fireballs. It won't be long until they're ready to leave the nest for good.
I wake up to a gust of wind blasting me in the face. I sit up surprised, and look around. I see Queen, who is also awake, and the siblings, but I don't see King. Then I feel another right as he swoops past me. As I watch him, he's doing incredible tricks effortlessly. After passing me by, he keeps going higher and higher until I can barely see him. Then, he dives. And he spins. When I think he's about to lose control and crash right into the forest, he stops spinning and extends his wings, gliding along the treetops with blinding speed. He angles up slightly, and starts flying back to the nest. He swoops by again, then banks around and flaps to slow himself down and land in front of me.
"Wow, I'm amazed." I say to him as he rubs against me. Tavris comes through the nest entrance, which by now doesn't surprise me in the least.
"He's been practicing since before the sun rose. I think he's trying to tell you he's ready." Understanding, I look at King, who has his side toward me again. I climb on, and he waits until I situate myself on him to start flying. He lifts off in place and starts flapping to go straight up. He doesn't seem to be getting tired, so I'm satisfied. He slowly descends and lands to let me off.
"I think you are about ready," I say as I pet his neck. The others start to wake up, and before long they're clamoring around Queen. I grab the saddle and push my way through them, but she doesn't let me put it on. Instead, she shakes it off.
"You want me to take King, don't you?" I ask. "Well, this saddle doesn't fit him just yet. I'll have to go bareback until he finishes growing." Tavris gestures to me.
"Before you head out, there's something I need to tell you, and I want you to think about it before you respond. The guild's received news from a village in the Old World called Kamura Village, and they're afraid something's about to happen. The letter they sent was vague, but it mentioned something about a rampage. We aren't entirely sure what this means, but I was wondering if you would be willing to join the hunters we were going to send out. Again, I'll let you think about it before giving a definitive answer. Just know that by doing this, you'll be rejoining the guild."
"Who will you be sending?"
"We're currently discussing that. After that, we're hoping to send them out within a week." I turn back around and look at King, who's looking back at me expectantly. I climb on, and look back at Tavris before we fly off.
"I'll consider it. I feel like the others are about ready to take off on their own, too. The timing couldn't be any better." Queen takes off, with me and the siblings close behind.
The others start flying around in front of Queen, and King joins them. We eventually find a herd of Aptonoth near the southwest river, and we simultaneously take down three of them. One went to Queen, and the other two were split between the siblings. Velvet made sure Nip and Scrap went to two different ones to avoid conflict before she herself started eating. I carved off a hind leg of the one Queen was eating and set up my spit. As expected, King blew a small burst of fire to light it, and I started cooking.
As I was turning the meat, Queen finished eating and laid her head down, then started to sleep. I decided to let her, since the others were bound to eventually notice this too and wake her up. They finish eating as well, and King sits beside me as I start to eat my share. I tear off a small chunk and toss it to King, who catches it and gulps it down instantly.
As I'm eating, I think about the news Tavris shared with me. I'd never been to that village before. Part of the reason I came to the new world to begin with was to study all the monsters here and their ties with nature. Now another opportunity for this has risen, and the answer seems obvious. Here in the new world, I've witnessed, fought, captured, and slayed many new monsters I've never seen in the Old World. Now, I have a chance to see even more. After everyone is finished eating, we decide to have a bit more flight practice.
I can tell King's raring to go, because he practically pushes himself between my legs. I push myself back, and we take off. Red and Scrap follow behind, and we form a triangle as we fly. Red's gotten a lot more confident around his siblings, and tries to fly ahead and turn it into a race. Almost immediately, King zooms ahead, and Red forfeits, falling back in line with Scrap. I get king to slow down and let the others catch up before we bank around and start heading back to the others.
It seems they were having their own race on land, because when we see them, I notice Jewel and Pearl running ahead of the others in a wide circle around Queen, who's simply resting and enjoying some relatively alone time. Nip tries to bite Pearl's tail, but Velvet quickly catches up and intercepts. Melody's in last place, squeaking with each step, and Jewel bursts ahead leaving the others to eat her dust.
Red, Scrap, King and I land out of the way of the others. Red and Scrap immediately join the race, with Scrap immediately chasing after Melody. Her squeaks quickly turn into squawks, which attract Velvet's attention. She stops to headbutt Scrap as he runs by, and glares at him. Queen calls to us, and starts standing up. She's slow and careful, and I notice her legs tremble slightly as she gets up. King carries me toward her, and she lets out a rumbly huff as I pet her neck. She spreads her wings and takes off, and we all do the same.
The siblings fly ahead of Queen again, who land first and immediately fall asleep next to each other. King lands behind them, then lets me off before he plops himself on the ground, clearly exhausted from carrying me. I climb off and sit beside him. Queen is the last to land, but she almost immediately lies down and falls asleep, breathing heavy. I rest a bit before Tavris comes back.
"Talem, there's something else you need to know." His voice is unusually stern, which surprises me. I get up as he continues.
"I've been looking through the records for the monsters in your area, seeing if there were any more I could observe you riding. However, as I was looking, I came across the file for the Rathian mother. In these files, we record date of birth, date of death, hunting locations, nesting grounds, things like that." I wonder why he's telling me, but as he continues, a bad feeling starts to well up inside me.
"The average lifespan of a Rathian is around 40 years, considering they live long enough to die of old age. This one, however, is almost 50 years old. She's one among few who have ever been recorded to have a lifespan that long." That explains quite a few things. Even after all this time of helping her, I could see her age. Queen had been through a lot, and anybody who looks at her can easily tell. I look back at her and see she's resting her head, but her eyes are open and watching the siblings. I turn back to Tavris.
"That's something I've been worried about. She's been getting tired easily recently. How long do you think it'll be until she passes?" I stop and wait for him to say something over me, but he takes his time. He breathes a sigh, and admits.
"I don't know. It could be tomorrow, it could be another year from now. I thought you'd at least want to know. I'm sorry." I look back at Queen, and think about it.
"Thank you," I mutter to him. He doesn't say anything and disappears again. I sit against Queen, and King gets up and comes next to me like he usually does. By the way he's walking though, he can tell something has me upset. I fall asleep, and have another dream.
I'm standing up again, looking back at myself. It continues from last time, where we shake hands. Then he starts crying, and the Rathalos goes up beside him. They lie down together, and I notice a shadow. I look up to see what's making it, and see a Rathian flying by. Clouds start gathering around it, and it starts to rain. They're so thick, and the rain is so heavy, I can barely see her silhouette. By the time I look back down, the man is gone, and the Rathalos is walking up to me. It goes to walk past, but stops in front of me. I notice a saddle on his back, which looks strangely similar to Queen's saddle. I climb on. As we're flying away, I wake up.
The others are playing, and King is sitting beside me. I get up and go around to Queen's head. I place my hand on it, and she opens her eyes to look at me. She raises it to look at the siblings, then at King, then back at me. She then lies it back down in front of me. I slowly start petting her head, and she lets out a long sigh. I shut my eyes, and it almost feels as if she spoke to me, only telling me one thing.
"Thank you."
I keep my eyes closed as I continue petting Queen, and the siblings all suddenly start calming down. I open my eyes to look at them. They're all looking in my direction, at Queen. I go to join the others, and so does King. As we're all watching her, Queen's head falls to the side. Her wings stop shifting. She's gone. I fall to my hands and knees, but I can't take my eyes off her. A moment passes, and I finally drop my head, tears streaming down my face.
I sit back and I weep silently, trying not to show my weakness to the others. Tavris comes back through slowly, and speaks softly.
"I think she was waiting until they were ready to leave. She had to know her hatchlings could care for themselves before she let go." I start wiping my tears.
"I knew it was coming. I knew it. 'The timing couldn't be better,' huh? Why the hell did I have to say it like that?" Tavris doesn't respond. I sigh and stand up again, looking at her.
"What do we do now? Will the guild take care of her?
"It's best for us to leave her here. Scavengers like Jagras will find her and take care of it. This is how it always is. I'll take care of the official business myself." I slowly walk back toward Queen, and place my hand on her neck. It's still warm, but it isn't moving. These past few months I have learned so many things I would never be able to in the guild. I've made so many memories. Now, it's time to go back to my old life. It's time for me to move on.
"I'll meet you back at the gathering hub," I say, not looking away from Queen. Tavris nods, and goes back into the bushes. The siblings look around at each other, then fly off in different directions. It's just me and King at the nest now. It's a familiar, but unusual feeling. The eggs are gone, it's the middle of the day, and there's nobody but me and King at the nest. He nudges against me, and looks in my eyes. I look away to try to find Queen's saddle, but it's already gone. Tavris must have gotten it when he left. I climb on King and we start flying back to Astera.
I just want to give my thanks to everybody who followed and favorited me and my story, and leaving reviews. It gained a much bigger crowd than I was expecting, and I'm glad so many people liked it. Being my first ever "official" story written here, I had no idea what I was doing at the beginning. I just had the idea in my head, but with no actual writing experience, it started pretty rough. Around chapter 3 or 4 is when I really started hitting my stride, and people just kept coming, which really helped keep me writing. I had originally intended to write the epilogue after a bit of a break, but I figured it would be better to wait until I got through the story of Rise, that way I could have an idea of where or when said epilogue would take place. Until then, I plan on starting another story that takes place in a completely different game series. Thank you all once again, and happy hunting!