2023 Bingo Impressing a Wanderer: Easily Distracted

The sun shone warmly down on a very strange scene indeed. Three drakiri stood in the shallow valley of a series of foothills, with their snowcapped mountain looming in the distance. Two of these drakiri were aware of each other, the third watched on from atop one of the graceful hills, the sun glinting off the gold streaks in his mane and along his feathers.

Icarus Sinbad sat to rest his hooves, feeling each of them throb in turn as he lifted them to take pressure off his swollen pads. Pregnancy had been all well and good thus far, and though he'd spent all this time bonding with his unborn children, he could hardly wait until they were his born  children. They were wreaking havoc on his body, especially his poor hooves and ankles!

At least this time when he stopped for a rest he had something intriguing to watch. He looked down into the valley, his head cocking to the side as he watched a colorful dracus kick off from the ground into flight, only for a much smaller drakiri to leap into the air after her--was that a sprite? No, certainly not, it looked far too long in its torso, a mix of sorts, though Icarus couldn't have said which. But what he could say for sure was how thoroughly the dracus had become annoyed with the smaller drakiri. He was a good distance away and he could practically feel the irritation pulsing off the stranger. Why didn't she just fly away?

The dracus darted up into the air, and the smaller drakiri sprang up into the air like a flea, keeping pace easily with her. Ah, sprites had a special ability, didn't they? Swift, that was it...oh dear and if one of its parents was a dracus...which it certainly seemed. No wonder the poor Dracus couldn't shake the little thing.

Icarus could see in the way the dracus's muscular tail lashed the air that she was close to swatting the smaller drakiri away like a fly, and though the kainu had enjoyed the display thus far he didn't want to see anyone hurt. So he lifted his wing and angled his flight feathers just so.

A brilliant flash of light streaked across the grass between himself and the two flying drakiri. He adjusted his feathers back and forth so the light danced across the ground in tantalizing patterns. It took a few moments before the sprite noticed the light, but once it saw the motion, the sprite dove, its hooves slapping the ground where the light lay. Just as its hooves made contact, Icarus moved the light a good distance away. He led the sprite away from the dracus in this manner, watching the crossbreed hare away across the grasslands even after Icarus had relaxed his wings.

He chuckled lowly and turned to look back down in the valley, but jerked back slightly when he saw two amber eyes an orange, black and cream colored face staring at him from only a few paces away.

"Goodness, forgive me," Icarus said in a blustery sigh as he tried to force the feathers on his wings flat once more. "You gave me a fright!"

The dracus studied him up and down, her feet hovering just far enough off the ground that her long, sharp claws brushed the tips of the blades of grass beneath them.

"How did you know how to get rid of the sprite?" she asked, her voice low and flat. She didn't seem disinterested, perhaps she just hadn't spoken to anyone in a while.

Icarus shrugged and then winced as an old injury to his shoulder protested the movement. Pregnancy seemed to bring every old ache and pain back for a visit.

"If you spend enough time around enough people, you start to learn their tricks," he said finally. "I learned long ago that some sprites are about as attentive as their namesakes, and it doesn't take much to catch their fancy. Especially if it's bright and moves tantalizingly."

The dracus stared a little longer before she finally touched down on the grass in front of Icarus. Her whiskers moved slowly with her interest and she looked around them as if making sure the sprite was truly gone. 

“I do not care to owe strangers,” the dracus said, her amber gaze coming back to meet Icarus’s. 

“I don’t care to request payment for something that was given freely,” Icarus replied as he layed down, his knees beginning to feel the same swelling as his ankles. “If you insist though, you could share your name and spend an afternoon watching the clouds with me.” 

The dracus squinted at him for long enough that Icarus thought he may have made a mistake in asking for her name. His wings stiffened slightly as she walked around him, but relaxed as she laid down, wrapping her tail neatly around herself so the white fur tuft at the end rested over her paws. She lifted her head to look up at the clouds and then closed her eyes, letting out a contented sigh. 

“Syatha.” 

“Icarus.”