Arrival
The young kestrel was scouring the ground, his sharp eyes searching hungrily for prey. Instead of small mice or large moths, a sudden flash caught his attention. The light was emanating from a narrow opening, hovering some distance from the surface. As the rift was closing a strange creature fell out. The curious kestrel decided to perch on a nearby twig and observe the newcomer. The creature looked somewhat familiar, with a beak resembling his own, but it was much taller and lacked wings. Its four hands were frantically touching the body – a coalescence of exposed flesh and shiny metal, as if searching for something. It was then when the kestrel saw the blue fluid, dripping from a gash on the creature’s side.
“Wounded?” thought the kestrel.
The creature’s right hand soon found the opening, touched it with its claw and made a circular motion around it. The wound’s sides fused together almost instantly and the trickling stopped.
“Alas”.
Just as the kestrel was ready to fly away something else caught his eye. On the ground where the blue fluid had dripped mere moments ago, something strange was happening. He saw a trail of ants coming from all directions, seemingly drawn to the fluid, each touching the droplets, that fell on the grass leaves and then joining the rest in one of the three perfect concentric circles that went around the motionless creature. Soon a large purple butterfly landed on the newcomer’s claw and started to drink the leftover fluid from the now closed wound.
Moments later the insect opened its wings and seemed ready to take off. The kestrel, overwhelmed with hunger, saw his opening. His wings barely made a sound as he darted quickly, snatching the butterfly, eating it whole.
“At last” thought the kestrel as he was about to fly away.
“Indeed”, a voice echoed in his mind. Monotone and rasp, it but had a certain clicking to it, as if a human was winding an old pocket watch, that made it sound almost… mellifluous.
The kestrel’s wings turned and he started to go around the strange creature. He wanted to fly away, but that desire was dwindling with each pass he made around it, with each glimpse he caught of its eyes.
He saw that the ants were no longer circling the newcomer, but were instead standing with their front legs extended toward the creature, as if venerating it. Suddenly the insects started to twitch, their limbs enlarging and extending, transforming into wings, covered with purple chitinous feathers, their mandibles, turning sideways and slowly morphing into monstrous beaks. As they took flight the vision of the kestrel started to blur, dividing into hexagons. He felt his mind clearing of all thought, except a single, perfect idea and the solemn desire to see it fulfilled.
“Now you, too, can see”.
The hawk and his new brethren made a final pass around the newcomer, before taking flight toward their new mission. Just before going over the horizon, the voice echoed one last time.
“Together we will make them all see”.
Author: Madcookie (that's me :D)
Date: 22 August 2021
Side Notes
Brudiclad is my favorite commander - I love the flavour, the visuals, the mechanics but the backstory consisting of 2 sentences always felt like a crime. With this short story I aim to expand and extrapolate on the sparse information about his arrival on Dominaria during the Time Spiral crisis. Hope you like it. Cheers!
