We flew around for at least an hour Onondaga looking at a map of the entire region.
A pond with trees around it was found. The trees had holes inside of them that were unoccupied so we decided to make that area our home for the while. The pond was covered with algae.
There was food everywhere as well, even food for Huey. Since he Kate meat instead of fruit which I still can't wrap my brain around.
Anyway this was our base for the night. And we settled in. Seneca was the first to complain however.
"Eww what are we supposed to drink." She asked me.
"The water in the pond, what else?" Seneca looked as if she might throw up
"but the water is green and has dead bugs and stuff inside. Its all murky and muddy and gross."
Her bickering was getting on my nerves.
"listen, either drink the water or die. " I said. She seemed to think about it for a while, which made me feel I won the argument.
I took a bowl made from half a coconut on the floor and scooped up some water.
Ithaca landed next to us.
"hi Ithaca, do you want some water." I held the bowl up to his face and he just stared at.
"see he doesn't want to drink that either." Seneca said to me.
"Well lets have him decide." We both looked at Ithaca.
"I would rather die. " he said
"So what are we supposed to drink?" I asked him.
"Well my dad told me that the vines have some water in them. We cam just cut them open and drink vine water." He said pointing to a tree overrun with vines.
"Drink water from a vine? Are you crazy?" I asked. My sadistic statement didn't bother him though he had already reached the tree and was trying to cut a vine.
Me and Seneca walked up to him and watched. He cut the vine through, and before my eyes there was water flowing out of it.
I was kind if embarrassed I usually want proven wrong, and when I'm proven wrong in front of other people it makes me upset.
So I got angry.
"Well… your face is stupid!" I stomped away and went inside my hollow, Seneca and Ithaca just watched me.
A whistle sound could be heard from where our base was. We knew what the sound was and flew over there were the rest of the different teams were.
My father was as usual at the front of the crowd with a group if adults, but this time a big seagull was with him.
Dad spoke first.
"Okay kids, this will be your first legitimate challenge. You all have to find a way to climb the top of mount Erasmus. "
He pointed to the tallest mountain in the entire region, with a snowy peak and cliff face.
"a flag has been planted on the top, your teams have to reach the top, find the flag, and come back down. There is only one flag."
The crowd began to mumble. Multiple kids started to say that the challenge was easy, a piece of cake, not even a challenge.
But of course, its training they aren't going to give us freebies.
"the catch is, you can't use your wings for anything involving flight. " of course, there was a catch. Always a catch.
The seagull began speaking to us in a loud harsh tone.
"Alright you suckers, you gotta find the flag and bring it back down. No flying going up or down and absolutely positively no cheating. We will know if you forged a flag or not! No in three…" Tusked signaled our team to get ready to begin climbing the mountain, the other teams did the same.
"Two…"
The look of anticipation was on everyone's face, except for a few people behind us but other than that everyone else was excited.
"One…"
I could feel my heart beat inside my chest, but what use would running up the mountain do. We would exhaust ourselves before we reached a couple of feet. I would have observed the slope Mt. Erasmus but there want enough time.
"Goooo!"
Instantly everyone tom off running, most of the kids were only used to walking g and flying and dint know how to run, that included me.
We slipped and trapped and fell all over the ground before we even reached the slopes of Mt. Erasmus.
I looked behind me just as was about to enter into the forest and saw my entire team just walking and taking their time. They had the same train of thinking I had. I wondered how much Tuskee had to do with this since he was the porclamed "leader".
Roberto grabbed my shoulder.
"don't run, we will be too exhausted before we even reach the base of the mountain. We just walk let the other team tire and they will fall behind us."
Roberto always was so wise, I guess.
So the Cayuga's marched into the forest where we started our first challenge.
I hated the journey but one good thing is that I got to figure out the personalities and ways the people in my team act.
Roberto was right, so many interesting and weird personalities.
Thurgood was the exact opposite of his brother Onondaga, always nervous about nature. Scared of everything.
"what was that!" He asked at the base of a mountain after hearing a snap.
"That's a stick." I said to him.
A rumbling sound could be heard.
"What was that?" he asked again.
"It's the other teams war drums." Apache said. Unlike Thurgood he was born a leader, seeming to be able to keep himself together. Roberto told me it was his idea to walk rather than run after arguing with Tuskee, for a good 5 minutes.
Speaking of leader, war drums?
"Wait guys, war drums? Hide!" Tuskee said. Everyone took cover. We looked at were the sound was coming from.
We could see an enemy team, apparently attacking another one and stripping them of their food and tools.
The nightingales , a flag was carried with the name of the group. How they managed to do that was beyond my understanding. They must get along easily and understand each other well.
And they were destroying the other team.
I hid inside of a fern bush. Apache and Naomi were hiding next to me inside of bush. The rest of the team looked on in the tree branches.
We looked on in fear of the other team, they ripped the other team of their supplies left them bruised and injured.
The nightingales left my vison as they continued climbing the mountain. The first group began to get their bearings together.
I saw Tuskee motion with his wing for us to move towards the group that had been attacked, a bad idea in my opinion.
We walked cautiously toward them, Huey was up front as he was the biggest and strongest of us.
Just like a predicted trouble started, one of the members of the group, a raven, jumped to his feet along with a few other members of his group.
A parakeet jumped out of nowhere and tackled me, the fight begun.
We had an advantage as our group had a lot more energy than they did, choosing to walk instead of run, and they just were in a fight also taking some more energy.
After about fifteen minutes the other group gave up and we won, Tuskee took his talon off the chest of a much smaller hummingbird.
"Please just take whatever you want , we give up." The apparent leader of the group a scarlet macaw said to us.
"We don't want anything, you guys are coming with us to the top of the mountain. " Tuskee said to them. Roberto objected to this immediately.
"we can't bring all of them up to the top of the mountain with us, what if they backstab us?" He said into Tuskee's ear.
Tuskee ignored the question, but the other group didn't seem to want to go.
"What? We can't go up there our supplies are gone!" The same scarlet macaw said.
"Well to bad, you are coming with us and will help us find the flag!" Tuskee said holding his stick (he still carried that thing around)
Seeing no other choice (and also being terrified of Huey the owl) they got to their feet and weakly stood up.
"my name is Felipe and we are the Sioux " the Scarlet Macaw said.