The sky was purple turning to orange by the time Stalk was up, and the edge of the sun's spherical shape was peering over the horizon as he climbed up onto the steeple of one of Chateau Toussaint's towers. Resting his back against the sloping lines of tiles that covered the roof, the talons on his feet hooking him firmly into place and the earthy scent of the clumps of moss that clung to the rooftops filling his nostrils, the kenku ran his gaze across the skyline of Milisevre.

The rows of mountains that surrounded the bountiful landscape on all sides were like the teeth in the jaws of some great beast, silhouetted by a glow that would soon be so bright that none would be allowed to behold its beauty without going blind.

'The Land of the Platinum Dragon certainly looks like it's caught in his jaws...' Stalk thought to himself, smirking. That was something he'd always found quite apt, in truth.

Having been in Milisevre for a few days before the events at the Cockatrice, even though his flock had never even gotten close to the castles and courts of the knights, he'd already heard the streams of religious malarkey about how 'The Platinum Dragon protects his children' and all that.

It was bold of the Milisevrans to assume that a god would care about them at all, Stalk felt. The teeth of the Platinum Dragon surrounding Milisevre were little more than the bars of a gilded cage. As damning as the curse the Raven Queen had thrust upon his own people, just a bit prettier.

'Dragon gods, raven queens... they're all the damn same,' Stalk thought. 'Still, they might prove some use to us...'

Against the fiery colours of the dawn sky, two dark shapes flashed and flitted through the air, small and swift as arrows in flight as they danced around each other.

Swallows.

Stalk's eyes fixed upon them and watched them for a long while, tracking their every move as they darted back and forth, their movements like an acrobatic airshow put on to entertain the rising sun. They sped hither and thither, twisting and changing direction as easily as the wind, rearing up and flapping high into the sky until they were no more than black specks, hovering together to survey their surroundings, and diving down at blinding speed to swoop over the grass and trees that surrounded the castle. As they flew, other birds – larks, thrushes and the other members of the dawn chorus – sung at the sight of the swallow's airborne dance, making it seem less like an act of nature and more like performance put on for him to watch.

Though if they meant to entertain him, it had the opposite effect.

Something began to burn inside Stalk as he kept his gaze upon the flyers – an agonizing longing, a need that seemed to scorch every part of his body from the inside out. His blood boiled, his feathers itched, and as he looked on, the urge continued to claw at him, compel him... telling him to fly.

But he knew he couldn't. Even as he knew, though, it didn't make him any less melancholy or make the ennui inside him any less painful to experience.

"Hey Stalk!"

Bolting upright in alarm as he heard a voice behind him, Stalk twisted around as his chest rapidly rose and fell. His leafy clothing ruffling in the breeze, Finnan was standing just behind him at the very point of the tower, one of his hands gripping the wooden haft planted into the roof that bore Romain's crimson banner.

"Gods above, Finnan!" Stalk yelled out loud. "You fucking scared me!"

Finnan giggled like a schoolgirl as he heard this, then slid down the tiled roof on his bare feet to land just beside Stalk, laying back with his hands resting behind his head. Smiling, he then asked "You think the swallows are pretty? 'Cause I do too!"

Still breathing heavily, Stalk blinked in alarm. "How did you kno-?"

"Detect Thoughts." Finnan said, cutting him off by saying the name of the spell he used before grinning from ear to ear. "I saw you while I was sitting up here, and I didn't know if you wanted to be alone or not. So I thought I'd make sure."

Surprisingly, Stalk had no trouble with this. In a way, that was rather considerate. Unconventionally so, but it was considerate nonetheless, and the kenku knew better to expect conventional things from Finnan.

After all, the halfling had pretended to be a cat less than a minute after Stalk first met him. And first impressions count for a lot.

"Why are you up here anyways?" he asked Finnan. "Does Arabella know where you are? Is she up too?" Stalk's orange eyes flicked about to see if their other golden-haired party member was around.

Finnan shook his head. "No, she's still getting her beauty sleep," the halfling said. "And I came up here because I like high, stony places." As he said that, he hugged himself and huddled up in the mass of leaves that covered his body, seeming to get cozy before he then took a great sniff of the morning breeze. "They remind me of home. But anyways, I noticed that you like the birdies!"

Stalk grimaced, beak twisting into a look of pain – he didn't know if Finnan was knew this, or if his Detect Thoughts spell had worn off before he could see, but most of that admiration came from envy. Of instincts he had but could no longer follow, and yet the swallows still could.

"I do..." he admitted slowly. "In my own way, I guess..."

"You know, they'll be migrating in a few months' time..." Finnan said aloud before giving Stalk a playful nudge. "Maybe they'll bring us back some coconuts!" he exclaimed excitedly.

Stifled laughter burst from Stalk's lungs and air sacs as he heard this, a grin splitting his face from one side of his beak to the other. He didn't know whether he was laughing out of amusement or mockery, but he was laughing, and as the sound came up from within him, it seemed to banish the melancholy that hung over him from watching the sparrows, parting it like a torch parted the gloom in an Underdark cave.

Hearing that made Stalk realize something – even after their big therapy session at dinner yesterday, he didn't know why Finnan was with Arabella, nor how Finnan became a druid and got all his shapeshifting abilities.

"Where are you from anyways, Finnan?" Stalk asked the little guy. "Sword Coast? Icewind Dale? Feywild?"

Finnan replied "My mountain. I used to live there until a big scary lizard forced me out."

"Sorry to hear that, man..." Stalk said. "Was the mountain far from here?"

All he got from Finnan was a shrug and "I don't remember", and when he looked into the halfling's eyes, it was plain to see that he genuinely just didn't know. Sighing a little, Stalk ground the edges of his beak together before trying a different question. He didn't like repeating himself, and anyways, it wasn't like asking again would jog Finnan's memory.

"What about your folks?" he asked. "Do you have a family somewhere? Did they live with you in the mountain?"

Blonde hair thrashed about like a kraken's tentacles and white specks of dandruff sprayed the air as Finnan shook his head. "Nope!" he exclaimed, surprisingly cheerful. "It was just me. At least, I think it was..." He put a finger to his beard chin as he said that, scratching at a scrap of moss that was tangled amongst the matted yellow hairs.

Stalk was growning more unsettled by Finnan's incredibly nonchalant stating of all this as his little halfling face remain locked in a derpy, absent-minded grin.

"Don't you remember?" the bloodhunter asked.

Finnan replied. "Well, I try to remember, but every time I do, things come out of my brain differently," he explained. "I think I was born either on this bobbing wooden bowl in the sea, or in the belly of a giant whale. Then, there was a big flash, and I woke up next to a group of people like me!"

"You mean halflings?" Stalk asked, to which Finnan nodded eagerly, swinging his head up and down so hard that it looked like it might fly off any second. The kenku continued by asking "So... they must have been your family, right?"

"No," Finnan said. "After a while, they said they didn't want me anymore – mainly because I kept electrocuting them by accident and causing wind to blow down their tents. They left me behind, and after I roomed with a family of badgers for a while, I found my mountain and decided to stay there. The goats and the condors taught me all about the wild, and after a while, I started to learn how to be like them..."

This was the kind of madness Stalk could never even dream of mimicking if he tried. Out there and zany enough to be ridiculous, and yet with Finnan, it seemed just barely plausible enough to be true. Still, Stalk decided to not ask any more questions about the mountain or this 'big lizard' – he wasn't sure how much more of this he could take.

Mainly because how the halfling could be so calm about the idea of living completely on his own for gods-know-how-long was making shudders run through Stalk's body.

He could go without many things in life, but the very idea of losing his family made a cold and hollow feeling gnaw at his insides like a dark eldritch god was draining his soul away from within. If he had to endure an existence without a flock, he'd have ended up nothing more than withered husk of a bird.

Speaking of which...

"Can you turn into flying animals, Finnan?" Stalk asked the halfling. "Y'know, when you Wild Shape or whatever it's called." He'd heard Finnan call it such when he and Ren were talking about druidic magic back at the Cockatrice.

Sadly, he didn't get a nod to that question. Instead, Finnan said "No, I haven't been able to get the hang of that one yet..." He then grunted in frustration and waved his arms up and down by his sides as he exclaimed "No matter how hard I try, I can't turn my arms into wings!"

The sight of Finnan acting like a bird might have been amusing if Stalk didn't feel a grim sense of frustration pass over him at another possibility for his kind to regain flight slipping through their fingers...

"I'm not worried about that, though!" Finnan chirped cheerfully. "Besides, we've got better stuff going on now than that! You and I are both gonna be knights like in the stories Romain told!"

This did rouse Stalk from his brooding... but not in a good way.

"Don't tell me you actually believe in all this chivalry stuff, Finnan..." the kenku said aloud in an exasperated tone, as though he were explaining the most obvious thing in the world.

Finnan turned his way, looking surprised all of a sudden. "Don't... don't you?" he asked.

"Nah," Stalk replied as he waved a clawed hand dismissively. "It's a load of bull if you ask me. Makes for a good show and keeps children in line, I guess, but no-one gets anywhere in life by following the rules all the time. If anything, from my experience, doing that just paints a giant bullseye on your back."

He tried his best to make his point in a way Finnan might understand, but instead he got response of "But if you don't believe in it, then why did you agree to help Romain in the tournament?" in a manner that was more naïve and childlike than ever.

"Remember when I said that my flock are looking to lift our curse by any means necessary?" Stalk reminded him. "Well, if Bahamut is the god of honour, justice an' all that, then the way I see it, if a kenku of the Seekers of Flight finds his magic lake for him in his favourite kingdom, then perhaps he or his angel might be kind enough to lift our curse in gratitude..."

He grinned as he said that out loud – to him it seemed like a solid plan. Use the values the Platinum Dragon had cultivated to further his own ends.

However, Finnan looked at him with wet eyes and a pouting mouth as he explained his reasoning for joining the tournament – a gesture that made Stalk's heart suddenly soften.

"Hey..." he said, tentatively reaching out towards the halfling. "What's up, little guy?" As he spoke, he recalled a sound that Finnan might respond well too – Arabella's soft, genteel voice – and with no more effort than a human might lower the pitch of their words, it was as if she was speaking while his mouth moved silently, the mimicry so perfect that it almost fooled Stalk himself for half a moment.

Whether it worked or not was hard to tell, though, as Finnan recoiled from his touch for a split-second before replying with "It's not nice to trick people, Stalk." His words were as plaintive as they were heartfelt. "Besides, I don't think the Lake Lady will be very happy when she learns that you only did this for a reward."

Upon hearing this, Stalk was unable to stop himself from scoffing – even as Finnan was still looking visibly upset, the naivety of what he'd just heard sent a jolt of cynical amusement through him that he couldn't contain.

"Everyone does something for reward, Finnan..." he said. "No-one's really altruistic, no matter how much they might say they are. In fact, it's usually those who say they're selfless the most who are the least so underneath." He drummed his clawed fingers on the roof, the tips clinking against the tiles as he fixed Finnan's gaze. "Look, little buddy - if life has taught me anything, it's that everyone wants something. All that matters is how far you're willin' to go to get what you want."

Logan had openly admitted that he didn't become a paladin purely to help others last night, after all, and given they were both nobles and knights, Stalk had no doubt that Romain had something to get out of going to this tournament aside from just serving Bahamut, despite his appearance as the perfect blonde poster boy for chivalry and virtue.

'A knight on a white horse – how pretentious can you get?' Stalk thought as he glanced up at the flag depicting Romain's sigil.

As for the rest of their companions, he didn't know enough about Arabella or Ren to make a solid judgement of what they wanted. One seemed your typical proper noble lady, while the other seemed jumpy and nervous beyond all reason.

Truth be told, it was Technus who unnerved Stalk the most, simply because his religion seemed to value being utterly inhuman to the point of exalting cruelty as a virtue, as far as he could see... and their resident psychopathic cyborg seemed to be zealously devoted to upholding that virtue.

From where he and Finnan sat, Stalk could see Technus below in the bailey, standing beside the gatehouse and shifting between peering closely at the structure's stonework and seeming to faff around with the workings of his own body again, rewiring and repanelling his arms and legs for reasons alien to everyone except himself. All with the same cold, haughty and emotionless demeanour he'd maintained since first walking into the common room at the Cockatrice.

'People often reflect the gods they worship...' Stalk thought to himself. Which is why from his experience, religious people were often arrogant, self-righteous cunts.

"Besides, tryin' to save my people – that's a noble goal, don't ya think?" he asked. "If takin' part in this tournament means gettin' a better chance to do what my family have wanted to do for generations, I'm gonna enter." Stalk told him. "Otherwise, if you're expecting' me to be perfect like the heroes in the stories Romain was telling – bah! That just ain't possible..."

Finnan didn't seem to be listening to him, though that wasn't really a surprise at this point. Instead, the druid lifting his hand and examining a large bumblebee that was buzzing around his clothing, swerving in close and then pulling away as it seemed to inspect the garment of woven plants in search of flowers to pollinate. Ever so gently, Finnan extended his hand towards the bee, his movements slow as a snail through molasses, and the yellow-and-black insect landed on his fingertip before scuttling down to his palm. It moved without a care in the world, even as Finnan turned his hand over to watch it crawl across his knuckles, and acted as if the halfling's hand was just another branch of a tree or another wing of its hive.

Stalk was about to wonder if the bee was another flying creature come to remind him of his kind's curse when Finnan started talking aloud.

"According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way a bee should be able to fly. Its wings are too small to get its fat little body off the ground," Finnan said, and as the insect on his palm took to the sky, he continued. "But the bee, of course, flies anyway. Because bees don't care what humans think is impossible..."

The statement was weirdly profound, and seemed to be a response to what Stalk had said before. Nevertheless, it caught the kenku's attention, even as he wasn't sure if the halfling's sudden philosophical musing was more impressive or unnerving to him.

"You know, you can be weirdly well-spoke at times, Finnan," Stalk said aloud. "You don't mind if I mimic that, right?"

Finnan turned his way. "Mimic what?"

Sigh.

"Never mind." Stalk rolled his eyes before looking at the horizon once again – the sun was growing higher, with the sky turning from orange and purple to the turquoise that it would no doubt remain for most of the day. Since arriving in Milisevre, Stalk had never seen a drop of rain or a cloud darker than a vampire's skin.

"Well, it'll be a while before the others are up, no doubt. Do you -"

Finnan interrupted him by poking him on the arm and saying one word:

"Tag."

His action made Stalk lock gazes with the halfling, and there was a deathly silence before the bloodhunter felt his beak twist into a grin that stretched clean from one side of his head to the other.

"I'm warning you, mate... I have nephews and nieces back home. You're messing with a professional."

Finnan gave him the biggest and goofiest grin. "Prove it," he said before poking Stalk again. "Cause you're it!"

With that, Stalk leapt onto all fours and started scrambling after the halfling, who bolted in the opposite direction. They ran around the top of the tower several times, their feet and claws pattering and scraping against the tiles, changing direction back and forth in the hopes of catching each other out. Stalk panted and gasped as he tried to catch the squirrelly little bastard, and then when his target became an actual freaking squirrel and started leaping from one tower to the other, he at once felt like yelling 'cheat!' and laughing as he relished the challenge.

Pacing backwards before hurling himself into a sprint, he shoved himself into the air with every bit of strength in his legs, sailing through the air before landing with a clatter on the next roof, and then the next roof, and the one after that. He bounded from tower to tower after his quarry, and as he did so, the wind rushing through his feathers made him almost feel like he was flying...

... and as that sensation coursed through him, another part of his body began to leap all the more. His heart.