Stephaiko knew she was in trouble this time...
After a fight with her little brother ("Sigh - I'm SO sure the Ancients' daughters didn't have to worry about little brothers" she fumed), she had volunteered to venture out from the fortress/homestead to pick some carrot-tops and puff-pansies. Her mother had looked at her appraisingly, wondering whatever had possessed Stephaiko to actually volunteer to do some work - it was not at all like her; but, not one to look a lizard-steed in the mouth, her mother agreed, with the requisite warning to be careful - she had heard a Chicken-Raptor crowing at dawn this morning, so there must be a flock in the vicinity... So, Stephaiko had left the homestead with A Plan. She had a private hiding place up in the hills overlooking the pass, and over time had hoarded a few books and playthings up there. She liked to retreat when the weight of the world (i.e. her annoying brother and her demanding parents) got too much for her. Last time she had ventured up to her hideout, she had noticed a patch of near-ripe puff-pansies nearby, and the carrot-tops were common all around... She planned to relax up in her little cave, and not think about brothers for a while, collecting the food-plants on the way back down. Stephaiko sat down to read and got immediately engrossed in her well-worn book. It was one of those little 'historical romances' fantasizing about what life must have been like for the Ancients way back in the 21st Century, before The Event. Her mother would have taken the book from her if she had seen it - "What's the use of filling your mind with silly ideas of what life might have been like long ago, when things are more than hard enough today?" - but these little fictions were surreptitiously passed around between youngsters at the County meetings, in the time-honoured tradition of keeping secrets from the parents... For a few hours, Stephaiko didn't merely scratch out a meagre existence with her family on a desolate and changed planet - rather, she was the second daughter of a down-on-his-luck administrator, secretly in a love-hate relationship with the dashing young Lord of a nearby city, but honour-bound to see her older sister wed first... oh, the humanity! Eventually looking up, Stephaiko realized with a start that the light was starting to go - she had been reading far longer than she had planned, and should hurry back before her parents got worried. She scurried down the hill, realizing as she reached the bottom that she still needed to gather the promised plants... Quickly, she headed towards the patch... ...and then she heard clucking. Pressing herself to a rock, she peered around it cautiously - straight into the yellow eyes of a chicken-raptor hen. It stared back at her, lowering its head and clucking ominously in the back of its throat. The clucking was picked up by a couple of other hens, which appeared from around the rocks nearby. The dominant rooster appeared atop a rocky outcropping - after eyeing her for a few seconds, he threw back his head and crowed in the setting sun - a sound sure to attract any other chicken-raptors in the vicinity... Yes, Stephaiko knew she was in trouble this time... Now that DAZ's Desolation Earth theme is launched, some folks have expressed interest in seeing some stories about this post-apocalyptic world. I, of course, was interested in doing an image with my own first contribution to that theme, the Chicken-Raptor.
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