Outlaw Outlook Outpost

Cathedral's wings caught an updraft and she let it carry her high above her companions, taking in the view from above. The air of Isla Kela was still to be savoured, her lungs still weak from their months spent in the Ashlands of Isla Pera. Cassidy had been looking keenly at her for the last few weeks of their time there, perking up at the slightest hint of a cough. Cathedral had been paranoid that she had noticed the sickness that had plagued her and was about to cull the weakest member of the gang. Instead, after having their feathers blackened by the soot Cassidy had convinced the gang to move location back to Isla Kela where she had been born.

"It's a shame, Ashlands really had that aesthetic I was going for," the pink raptor had bemoaned while Hornet scoffed at her pretentious ideals. The Pachy had been content in the Ashlands, as the only herbivore in their gang she had the pick of the ash tubers that flourished in the oppressive atmosphere at the foot of the Pera volcano. Prey was thin on the ground, and she had noticed Cathedral leaning more into her herbivorous side when her ribs began to show. Cassidy didn't have that luxury, starving or fighting with Cathedral over the scraps they could hunt down. Giving up on the 'aesthetic' of the Ashlands was inevitable, Hornet had just been surprised at how determined the raptor had been to make it work.

"It's nicer here anyway," she grunted, "More folk around to shake down, we barely saw anyone smaller than a building in the Ashlands." Cassidy hummed, knowing they were both recalling a 

"Any luck, Cath?" Cassidy called to the silhouette of Tapejara circling above them. As expected, the nickname caused her to descend in indignation and she landed roughly on the raptor's back, nearly sending both of them tumbling. 

"Nothing I can see, lots more footprints than I'd see in the Ashlands though," she said enthusiastically, keen to play up any advantages to this place and avoid going back. Hornet squinted into the distance, watching the horizon line wobble under the heat.

"Not by much, but" she agreed. Hornet was a little worried about the lack of vegetation so far in the scrubland, grass was useless to her and it seemed to be dried up wherever they found it anyway. 

On the horizon, she could see a figure. 

"Look sharp," she barked at the others, "hostile inbound." Cassidy's feathers bristled and Cathedral took to the air immediately to scout out the scenario. She spotted the same figure Hornet had and circled lower, trying to take in as many details as she could. As far as she could tell, it was just one lone Utahraptor, about Cassidy's size. She practically felt her muscles unclench at the advantage they had over a lone attacker. She doubled back to the group and landed on the dirt, wincing at the coarse feeling under her paws.

"It's one Utahraptor, dark colour, looks like it's wearing a white mask," she informed Cassidy when she righted herself. To her surprise, the raptor's expression clouded.

"Dark colour? Like dark purple maybe?" she asked and Cathedral nodded, confused. "Fuck, I can't believe it," she swore, kicking at the dirt.

"Bad news? We need to take this guy out?" Hornet asked, raring for a fight. To her disappointment, Cassidy shook her head.

"No, no, it's... it's complicated, I know him," Cassidy said, not elaborating and just scanning the horizon.

"And? Do we shake him down? Team up? Kill him?" Hornet pressed, getting more frustrated the vaguer the raptor's answers got. "Cassidy, what's this guy's deal?" The pink raptor blinked at her for a moment, like she hadn't been registering anything until the Pachy had raised her voice.

"We're old friends but he doesn't run with any packs, he's a loner so I don't really know how much we can trust him with gang business," she admitted.

"Do we need to trust him with gang business?" Cathedral asked, titling her head.

"He'd know this area pretty well, could point us in the right direction to a new home base," the raptor pondered, scratching her chin. 

"Couldn't hurt to ask then, saves us walking and flying in circles around these places until we find another abandoned human shed," the Tape drawled.

"Good point, I'll ask but stay on your guard. He won't want a fight, at least the guy I knew wouldn't have." With that, she tipped her head back and called into the air, waiting for a response. Unsurprisingly, Kaiwi answered in kind and they began to walk towards each other. The other raptor seemed skittish when he noticed his old friend had company but with a shake of her head he seemed to relax. This angered her for a reason she couldn't quite understand. Was he this friendly with every random gang he met on the scrublands or was she giving him some false sense of security? It certainly felt false with the wayHornet was gritting her teeth, still unhappy with the idea of trusting a stranger. 

As they came closer, Cassidy could see how much and how little Kaiwi had changed. He had gotten bigger, but so had she and the way they matched heights made it feel like they hadn't grown at all. His dimorphism was coming through now he was an adolescent, soft pink rib-like lines along both of his flanks.

"Cassidy, I thought I recognised that call," he said warmly. His eyes darted nervously to the others but his friendly demeanour remained, "And your friends, it's nice to meet you both."

"Nice to meet you too, we've heard so little about you," Cathedral said coolly as Hornet grunted, not dignifying the raptor with a greeting in return. His smile slipped again into a state of anxiety but he fixed it quickly, back to his default charm.

"So, what did you call me over for? I can see you ladies don't need any help in the team game, you're quite well-balanced," he noted. His observation, as surface level as it was, still made Hornet's hackles rise. Who the hell did this guy think he was? She felt the anger bubble inside her like a nest of her namesake at his nonchalance, he should be nervous, begging for mercy, grovelling with offers of food and shelter to keep them from tearing him apart. There was no advantage here, despite their numbers, and it made Hornet furious. She wished Cassidy would wink at her, tell her it was part of a grand plan and then they'd start taking this guy for all he's worth.

"We're scouting the place for a new base, you have any leads?" Cassidy asked casually, trying not to show how eager they were for information. Kaiwi hummed and looked around, especially to the east, back in the direction of the ocean. 

"Depends on if you want it quiet or not," he said slowly, "You go east and you get the border between here and the highlands, no one will bother you there." He stopped and looked at the three across from him, still leaning in like they were waiting for more. "But if you're looking for somewhere with high traffic, I don't know, the scrubland isn't really the place for that. Out west there's a place called Outlook Ridge. You won't get a prime location since other gangs run their racket there but it's the only safe way from the forest to the coast."

"So a lot of folk pass through there?" Hornet interjected.

"Yeah, especially since they found that tunnel leading to Isla Pera around that area, you'd get a lot of tourists," Kaiwi noted. There was something knowing to his tone, like he had ascertained their more nefarious purposes.

"Can you show us to Outlook?" Cassidy asked, making the other two look sharply at her, "Since you know these other gangs, you can help us to not step on their toes."

"I don't know them personally," the raptor protested, "But you're right, I know their borders, roughly, I can point you in the right direction."

"That sounds pretty useful, long term," Cathedral murmured under her breath to Hornet, who eschewed subtlety and snorted out loud at the notion. 

"You can take us there now?" Cassidy asked to draw Kaiwi's attention away from her bickering pack members. 

"Uh, sure, I don't have anything planned," he shrugged, "Follow me, it's not too far. Less than a day away," he clarified. He turned to face the west and began to walk in that direction, seemingly at peace with leading them there. Cassidy hurried to walk alongside him, eager to catch up on what she had missed since their last meeting. Cathedral and Hornet followed more cautiously, the Tape perched on the Pachy's back but ready to take off at the first sign of trouble.

"You trust this?" Cathedral whispered.

"You know I don't," Hornet replied, louder. Cassidy gave them both a stern look over her shoulder before returning to chat with Kaiwi, leaving the other two to follow along. If you had asked either of them to pinpoint the moment Cassidy had become the leader of their gang, neither would be able to answer. It just seemed to be an undeniable fact, the sky was blue, water was wet, Cassidy was the head of the gang. Cathedral certainly considered herself more of a tactician than the raptor, but even she followed along with her harebrained schemes. So far, aside from figuring out how terrible it was to live in the Ashlands, Cassidy had yet to fail them. Every day survived was another page in the book of why she was in charge, and at this point neither Pachy nor Tape felt the urge to seize control from her. Even now, as she let a stranger lead them to even stranger lands, they trusted her gut instinct to trust this guy wouldn't lead them into a trap.

The patches of cacti began to come more frequently and Hornet's mouth watered at the sight of the ripe red fruit perched on their boughs. It would be child's play for her to grab one, the cactus itself wasn't too tall and her thick skin and feathers combined to make decent protection from the spines. She had foraged from cactus before and it had been pretty straightforward, just the sight of these plants in plentiful amounts had her mind turning towards settling around her. She could tell Cathedral was less impressed, anywhere without trees to perch in unnerved the Tape, she preferred high vantage points in thickly forested areas to scan for prey without being spotted herself. Kaiwi stopped talking for a moment and gestured at them to be quiet while they crept past a sheer cliff face.

"Carnos," he whispered once they were out of range of any prying eyes from the cliff above, about an hour later, "Mean, territorial, you'll want to avoid this neck of the woods." He straightened back up and quickened his pace as he seemed to lock eyes on his destination. 

The destination was a boarded up hole in the wall under an outcropping of rock, a decent height above ground, decent enough to make Cathedral take off to get a sneak peek of it before the others despite Hornet cursing her out. The shelf was resting on wooden support beams, like the old structure was managing to hold the weight of the stone above it. Cathedral perched in the joins of the beams, preening her feathers while waiting for the others to catch up. Old wooden carts lay out in front of the hole in various stages of disrepair, the wooden rotten out of the bottoms of most and leaving the flat iron frame behind.

"Is this it?" Hornet asked, lazily kicking the rotted wood.

"Yep!" Kaiwi said proudly, "Shelter, close to the path, there's a spring nearby too. Wouldn't recommend getting those boards off though," his tone turned grim, "I've heard there's some cursed shit in those mines." The three girls turned to look at the blocked entrance to the mine, hearing a faint breeze whistling through the boards. The breeze aside, the outcropping shielded them from the sun, and the stone felt cool under their feet. Hornet's eye was caught by the view over the cliff,  "Anyway, the stream is just over there if you want to get a drink?" Cassidy was suddenly aware of the dry grit in her mouth and nothing on these islands sounded more appealing than a fresh drink of cold water.

"Come on," she gestured at the others, "Can you wait and guard the place?" Kaiwi's relaxed smile turned into a smug grin.

"Standing guard? So you like the place?" She conspicuously ignored him and gestured for him to point the way to the spring. Following his directions down the meandering path the sound of the trickling water led them the rest of the way to the spring. It sprang from the face of crumbled rocks and led downhill toward the forest. Cathedral felt the urge to follow it, to head all the way down to the forest and figure out what kind of lake this stream ended up as, or if it traversed the entire island to make its way to the coast. Cassidy let the others drink ahead of her, Hornet first of course, and looked back up the path to their new home. She was already strangely attached to the place, planning the first expedition into the mines already. After her drink, the Tape turned to see the raptor to see her watching the way they had come. She decided to breach the touchy subject once everyone had taken a drink and settled down to rest for a while.

"Do we ask him to stay?" Cathedral asked cautiously, "Just until we're settled in?"

"You can't just join the gang if you're going to leave later, that's a security risk," Hornet argued and Cassidy nodded.

"What about-" Cassidy cut Cathedral off.

"That was different!" she snapped, "Extenuating circumstances, she doesn't count." She scoffed at the sour taste the memory left in her mouth and spat at the ground. "Besides, Kaiwi doesn't roll that way, he never sticks with a pack for life."

"Must be unbearable, if no one can stand him for that long," Hornet laughed, rubbing her back into the ground and letting the dust shake the feathers apart. Cassidy didn't say anything, just took her final sip of water from the spring and began to walk back to the outcropping. It was a great start, but they needed to put in a little more work before it was fit for their gang. Kaiwi was still there, surprising her. She had expected him to take off the second he had led them to this place.

"I'm serious, don't go in that mine," he warned her, standing up and shaking his feathers. 

"You're leaving," she stated.

"You know I am, wouldn't want to cramp your style," he joked. He started to walk back down the cliff pathways but paused, looking back. "I'm glad you're back on Kela, I've missed seeing you around." Cassidy couldn't speak, her throat suddenly closed and not letting her shriek the words she wanted to spit at the other raptor. By the time Hornet and Cathedral joined her, he was long gone and she had been watching an empty canyon instead.

"I saw some cactus nearby, I'm gonna go get some," Hornet said brashly, easily breaking the awkward silence. Cassidy smiled and wiped the gritty sand from her eyes.

"Yeah, good plan, I'll come with you and scout the place out a little more. You coming, Cath?" she asked the Tape, who sighed loudly.

"Of course I am, what would you two thick-skulls do without me?" she scoffed, taking off. Cassidy noticed a flair in the sweeping loops she performed around their new home and smiled. The Tape was quiet, but even without the blunt honesty of Hornet she conveyed her emotions just fine. This place was home.