Aging

As they began to grow, the raptor twins were outgrowing their hatchling stomping grounds. They felt like two big fish in a small pond, cramped by the lack of sizable food and the competition only being other scrawny youngsters. The cruelty of the outside world was unknown to them, so one day they simply decided to wander out of their wooded haven and find their fortune in the city that surrounded it. The rats and voles they caught in the park were starting to no...

Quil had found another secret spot to show Cherry and both raptors were hustling through the streets of the Sunken City to reach it before the sun went down and the tide cut them off. Cherry was struggling to keep up but she didn't want to slow Quil down so she stayed quiet and wheezed along behind her. At least the sun was beginning to set, letting her see a little more clearly in the dark. It was still in that murky stage between day and night but that suited ...

When the sun rose the next morning, it failed to wake the three raptors curled in their makeshift nest. Instead, the building sheltered them and allowed them a few more hours of uninterrupted rest until Dexter blinked awake around midday. He gently extracted himself from the cuddle pile and climbed down the shelving rack until his claws touched the cool concrete floor. He walked out of the back room to see the sun streaming through the broken glass storefront, a...

"You see this?" Quil asked her companion, her head twitching as she tried to contemplate the sight in front of her. "I can't see much," Cherry reminded her patiently, trying her best to keep up. "What are we looking at?" Quil put an arm around Cherry's shoulders and gently turned her to face the direction she was looking. "Can you see that big white building, it's half sunk...

Living with a full functional pack left little for the hatchlings to worry about. With time, they grew into strong young juveniles on a steady diet provided to them by the adults, all the while learning to hunt themselves. Sooner than they realised, they were joining in on hunts and helping to feed the next generation of strays that Peaches swore she wouldn't take in.  Bigger and bolder, they could hold their own in most fights and were now capable of holding t...

Hatching solo wasn't uncommon on the Kiama Isles; a lot of eggs simply rolled away from the nest, were stolen or were rescued from ravaged areas by good samaritans. The important thing for a lone hatchling was to find your place in the world as fast as possible. For most hatchlings, this meant finding a group to stay safe in, to find someone slower than you that could take the fall if you ran into trouble if you were uncharitable and someone to trust with your l...