Chapter Text
“The hell you mean my monstie is a giant rat? At least I got something that CAN protect me, you still don't even have a monstie!” A young woman said as she placed her hands on her hips as she stood next to her massive bat of a wyvern. They were barely outside the village as if getting ready to go on an expedition.
With a grunt, the guy crosses his arms, “I said your monstie looks like a giant rat. I didn't say it was! Whatever, I refuse to have a monstie that isn't cool.”
With a snarky snicker, the woman goes, “Well, good luck with that, if you aren't experienced with at least an easy-to-train monster you may as well be dead.”
She then began to notice her Paolumu was starting to glare at the guy as he said, “Well, that's why I have you, don't I? For some protection and also some fun if you catch what I sa-”
He was immediately cut off by a massive gust of wind that shot out of the Paolumu, definitely indicating that she did not care much what he was about to say. As he was blown away the young woman shouts at the douchebag, “By the way we're through asshole!”
She sighed as she gently petted her Paolumu along the head and neck, as she slightly purred. “I'm sorry you had to deal with that asshole Fuwa. I should've kicked his ass for calling you a rat but you beat me to it.”
The brunette giggled as she got onto the back of the small wyvern, the saddle specifically customized with an arrangement of pink and teal feathers and fur of similar colors. The handles were a deep cherry wood Pink along with the leather of the saddle seat. The handles had a semi-velvet feel on her fingers as she held onto them. The paolumu began to fly up as she headed away from the village and to a nesting area where two fellow riders were waiting for her. A brunette with her Blue Yian Kut Ku and a blonde with her Pukei Pukei looked up to see their friend as the paolumu spotted them and began to land herself close to the other two monsties. The fellow monsties wore a similar get-up that Fuwa was wearing as her decorations, but obviously, the pukei pukei had more facial decor, which she did not seem to mind in the slightest.
“Hey, what took you so long, Momo? We've been waiting for an hour! Don't tell me you were doing it with your boyfriend.” The brunette spoke as the blue yian Kut ku just glanced over at her and Momo. The cherry haired woman rolled her eyes as she got off of the bat wyvern and answered, “Ew no and he's my ex now, which sucks because he was my first boyfriend.”
A slight grumble of shame was heard from Fuwa as the blonde mentioned, “We told you not to go out with him, he seemed like bad news, why did you even have the hots for him anyway?”
Momo quickly turned her head away with shame as Fuwa just looked at her disappointed, “Um….well..he looked like the famous rider Ken Takakura…”
Both of her friends sighed in no surprise but still disappointed at her as the Pukei Rider mentions, “You do know that men like that technically are about as hard to find as finding an elder dragon, right?”
A whimper came out of Momo's closed mouth as she knew Muko was right, but she turned back to them and said, “There's still nothing wrong with liking cool, silent types like Ken Takakura!’
All three monsties had their eyes widened by this, but out of all of them, Fuwa was the least surprised by her rider's words. She nuzzled against Momo as she purred, doing so, causing Momo to get out of her Ken crazy trance. The rider looks at Fuwa and thinks about the breakup from earlier. Why would she prioritize a boyfriend or even a partner when her friends are right there by her side? Still, to her, a partner would be nice to have, but not someone who wants Fuwa or any of her monsties to get hurt for them. She gave up on the idea of dating a hunter; they kind of terrify her(don't tell the other two).
“Well, I'm just saying you're kind of limiting yourself if you stick with that. But you have your standards, and we can't change your mind on that.” Miko mentioned as she stood next to her Kut Ku. “Now, can we go on our expedition? I wanna find some feathers to decorate my saddle with. Would you say no to this face?”
Miko asked, hugging her monstie as the blue yian kut Ku made herself have puppy eyes, monstie being exactly like the rider who's hugging her. The Pukei Pukei that was with Muko did the same thing as the rider with her. Fuwa slightly backed off from Momo, doing the same as the other four. “Oh, come on, not you too! Fine, we can go, but I wanna find more than just decorations for the saddles, you know, I actually wanna go further in.”
Momo's human friends just looked at her, confused. The locale of the village they all lived in was a year-long blossom forest near some ruins hidden in the non-blooming parts, but the problem was they weren't allowed to go that far. The trio would normally break such rules, but considering what monsters could lie around there, for their safety, they usually wouldn't dare to go. Muko goes to Momo with her face merely inches from hers as Momo can smell whatever perfume Muko was wearing(perhaps wildflower?), “Momo has that idiot sucked the brains out of you?! We don't know what lies around the ruins. I've heard rumors about ghosts.”
“And? What if they’re just endemic life we never discovered?” Momo suggested, very much sounding like a total smartass. Though secretly, she did want to go in there to find a supposed elder dragon that had been dwelling in the ruins. “Besides, we’ll be fine. Hell, I can go by myself if neither of you can.”
Momo’s friends just looked at each other with concerned expressions, but they knew her, and they both knew she was going to be stubborn about it. Reluctantly, Miko says, " OK, we can go, but if we get too scared, we’re turning tail, and that includes you too. Your grandma is one of the head riders in the village, and if she finds out you or Fuwa got hurt, she’ll feed us to that leviathan of hers; he’s terrifying.”
“Ok, fine, I will. But we should be fine as long as we stick together.” Momo says as she begins to walk into the forest with her paolumu alongside her. The rest of the group followed suit as they began to hike around the area.
A few hours in, and the group managed to find quite a few important items they could bring back to the village. However, for Momo, she still wanted to find the elder dragon, and maybe another monstie would be cool, but she was pretty satisfied with Fuwa and another monstie of hers being her only ones. The forest was pretty lush with vibrant, colorful plants which explains the pink blossom from the trees being in permanent bloom alongside some fruit growing from them. Seeing the nice ripen pink fruit made Momo kind of hungry so she went ahead and climbed up one of the red bark tress to grab a few as Fuwa caught them in the light pink sac she carried. The trees weren’t to tall so climbing up to grab them was kind of no problem to her even though anything that would cause physical exercise would make a groan come out of the young woman’s mouth, but not when she had a craving. She climbed back down with one of the fruits she foraged in her hand and took a bite out of it, sharing an extra she grabbed earlier that she had in her pocket with Fuwa, which the wyvern happily ate. The vibrant forest was starting to turn from the soft warm colors to a more cooler dark green as the neighboring trees were a more basic leaves, which were still pretty but to Momo they were lackluster without the fruit she enjoyed. While walking Momo turned around to see if the other two were doing ok as Muko and Miko were just being quiet and being a few yards away from her, not even the monsties were making noise as Muko’s Pukei Pukei was quietly eating a mushroom she found. Even with the unusual quietness Momo stil wanted to keep going as she continued on. The forest looked ok with all the usual wildwife but it was certainly more humid as it was almost like a swamp with certain ponds they nearly step into, but unlike the farming ponds near the village these were a lot more clear than the average ponds she would see. “Could this be caused by the elder dragon?” Momo thought to herself as she kept going, the grass was a lot higher than she previously thought as she kept going. Eventually Miko and Muko decided to get on their monsties to not ruin their armor, which were both just basic hoodie and jeans with some metal slapped on to the knees and chest area. Momo wore the same armor as them but her hoodie was pink while theirs were different shades of blue. Momo decided to get onto Fuwa’s saddle as the large bat kept going in the general direction they were heading.
Then a slight screech emitted from Fuwa as she lifted her pink foot in pain, as Momo got off to check her Monstie’s foot. The foot was fine but the overall cause of the pain was right in front of them as Fuwa had bumped her foot into a reddish grey rock. It was generally hard for even the monstie to notice as the grass was so thick and hard to look through. Momo took a closer look at the strange rock as its shape was similar to that of a brick, but this rock was covered in a yellowish-green moss, as it seemed to have been there for years. She knew that this rock had to be a piece of a ruin. So she gets back on and breaks the silence. “I’m going to fly up and look further. You two can still go with me or head back.”
With a hand over her eyes, she checked where in the sky the sun was. The sun was barely close to the center of the sky, so it must be afternoon by now, and they still have time to look around for said elder dragon. But since the elder dragon was mostly her secret, she didn’t want to risk her friends getting hurt because of this hunt. A plan was soon brought up on the spot as she brought up. “If you two still wanna keep exploring, we can split up, if we get lost, we can shine our kinship stones.”
With a lift of her right hand, she shows her kinship stone as the gem shone a bit of a teal color with its metal holder being a nice pink color as it had the shape of the blossoms they had previously walked under. The band that tied the stone to her hand was a reddish brown leather, holding it as it was neatly tied with the glove she was wearing. The other two riders had their stones showing as well, though their stones were both the same sky blue color, while the holders had been decorated with gems and colored feathers. Momo knew that their bond would lead each other back and if they all flew, they could cover more ground, though she would want to find the elder dragon before them, so she wouldn’t get an earful. “We also should fly around to cover more ground and make it easier for us to find each other.”
The two just looked at each other and just shrugged, possibly being tired from walking for so long, so they didn’t really wanna argue as their wyverns flew up. Fuwa followed along as the trio was airborne. Momo had Fuwa fly towards the ruin area as the bird wyverns flew in a separate direction. The wind felt nice as Fuwa flew towards the ruins with them flying against the gentle breeze. The peaceful quietness ended when she heard the crashing of brush and trees as she looked down and saw a group of Maccao going after something red. Momo couldn’t see what the red thing was as she tells Fuwa to fly down as the monstie began to descend. The red creature looked more canid as a black and white creature was on its back, which she could not make up what the black and white creature was as it seemed to have black scales around the supposed arms holding onto the canine’s saddle. She then began to realize something about the creatures, the red canine was one of those palamutes she heard about, and if she could guess correctly, the odd-looking creature was someone wearing armor but they didn’t seem to be possessing a weapon as the two were actually running away from the pack. “Why would a person, let alone a hunter and their palamute, be out and about without their weapon?” Momo thought to herself as she knew she didn’t have much room to talk at the moment as she left her bow at the village, mainly because her ex distracted her with his bullshit rants while she was getting ready. She couldn’t just stay midair while her own kind was being attacked, even if they were a hunter. “Ok, Fuwa. Attack that pack and keep it away from the palamute and its human ok?”
Fuwa nods in response to the command as she sucked up the air she inhailed, causing the sac around her neck to inflate and basically cause her to float for a brief moment as Momo yelled out with her kinship stone shining, “Ok Jet balloon! On that maccao pack!”
Momo held on tight to the saddle as Fuwa exhales all the air out of her neck sack to launch herself directly towards the pack and the leader, not far behind. The paolumu uses her beaver like tail to hit the pack releasing a giant gust of wind, somewhat pushing the palamute and its rider down as a reaction, causing the two to stop running and look back as the small creatures were flown back with the great maccao being hit in the head by its pack member. Fuwa picks herself up with Momo still holding on as she flies up and then lands in front of the maccao pack. The pack was more bruised if anything, by the bizarre attack, as Momo knew that maccao were more cowards than other bird wyvern species. She stared at the leader, which was a decent-sized Great Maccao, as he raised his yellow feathered crest at the wyvern she was on. Protectively, Fuwa roared at the great maccao with her wings spread out, as this immediately caused the jumping raptor to back down. The overgrown raptor made a call as its pack retreated away from the group. It glared at Momo and Fuwa before following its pack, possibly back to its den. Meanwhile, the rider and the palamute just stared in awe as Fuwa turned around, lowering herself to let Momo off. With a sigh, she then asked, “Hey, are you ok?”
With a better chance to look at the person, she noticed that the individual was roughly her height, but maybe a tad bit shorter as they got off their palamute. The armor they wore was very strange, as the black scales were very similar to those of a zinogre, as there were glowing pink stripes speckled throughout. The white fur was what covered the head in almost a mane-like way, with trims of it being on the black scaled part of the armor as well. The helmet had two grey horns coming out of the forehead as the face was completely covered with a black mask that was very wolf-like like with grey teeth showing up at the mouth. If she hadn’t known better she would mistake them for some kind of beast. “Hello, are you mute?”
“Oh! Sorry about that….uhhh…yeah I’m ok.” The voice sounded like it came from a young man, though seemingly more raspy and moody as he reached his arms up to remove his beast-like helmet, revealing his face as which looked nothing like the demon voice she heard before. He had hair as dark as the scales he wore around his body, with curly, short hair. He reached into the pouch of his palamute and pulled out a weird, lengthy dark blue pouch, which Momo thought was gonna be a knife but turned out to be just a round pair of glasses he put on his face. Momo slightly sighed in relief as she noticed the boy looked slightly scared as he stared at the mammalian wyvern. With a much less raspy and deep voice, with a slightly shaky tone, the young man asked as he pointed out, “You control that monster…..?”