It was a beautiful afternoon. The weather was pleasantly cool and relaxing. A gentle breeze was blowing in the smell of fall and the creatures of the forest were going about their usual business of the year. Eating.
A mixed herd of unicorns and horses grazed contently in the still lush fields that rimmed a series of deep gullies. It was a small herd of six mares, two colts and three fillies. Their stallion was a rangy looking buckskin with a black muzzle. He stood on the lookout, ears forward in attention and only occasionally dropping his head to crop grass.
“There’s the herd, Riva,..” An over exuberant voice whispered from one of the towering trees at the edge of the forest. A pair of Shivae chicks were perched up in the branches, as close to the herd as they could get. One of them was a bright flashing orange and crimson with a cream colored belly, black muzzle and paws. The other was a duller tan with the same markings. Brothers. They both had jet-black stripes crisscrossing their bodies. And now, their blue gray eyes were fixated on the herd.
They were hunting, even though they were really too young to hunt. They still had their baby fat and were a little clumsy, but they both also had wings and that helped them immensely in keeping out of harm’s way.
“Let’s go!” Vas clawed the bark urgently, tail twitching back and forth.
“They’re not afraid of us, Vas,…” Riva shook his head, settled onto the branch in observation. “How do we get them to run the way we want?”
Vas cocked his head sideways, peering up at the branches, now in deep thought. “Hmm,…” His brother had a point. The herd was not afraid of two Shivae chicks. They were small and none of them could hope to drag down or even injure a horse or unicorn, without being severely hurt in the process.
