"Oh Sir Mytyo, how nice to see you!"

Mytyo grunted in acknowledgement, sighing when his two apprentices raced by him already squabbling about who would get any left over pies that the store owner owner, a lovely elderly lady named Clara, would give away if nobody bought them before their expiration date. Both Sharp and Thorn were big fans, but Mytyo never saw the appeal. Clara had long come to accept that Mytyo's constant scowl had nothing to do with him being angry, it was simply his normal behaviour. It was the days when the said scowl was absent that truly concerned her.

"Oh is that the little one?" The Kapatin lowered her reading glasses just a bit to see the young girl he had taken in. Unofficially of course but he hadn't gotten legally adopted either, besides he obviously treated her a lot better then the orphanage did. Cabica had stayed close to his side the entire way through town, for the villagers gave her unpleasant looks. Only a few days had passed since she had accidentally set the school on fire, and though he was pretty certain the damage had been repaired and all of it was over, the majority of villagers still seemed to think the little girl would set the rest of the village on fire.

He knew how that felt though.

She hugged close to his legs and it prompted him to give her a small nudge and otherwise pull away. Sure he had adopted her but he had no plans to get all touchy feelsy with her. She was the only other Tarcadian left, to keep her alive he had to be hard on her, and he couldn't do that if she turned him soft. 

"Cabica this is Lady Clara, she's the one that makes the bread you like," Mytyo explained, Cabica looked up with a slow to come smile.

"Oh, well it's nice to meet you," Cabica awkwardly followed her mentor, gasping when she noticed through the back window there was a massive pair of eyes. "W-what is that?!"

"Calm down dearie, it's just my diant, Otto!" She folded her hands on the countertop. "He's a sweetheart, why, I've had him since I was but a little girl like yourself." Cabica watched as the brown sleepy eyes shifted a bit back and forth.

"How did I miss an animal that big..?" She looked over at Mytyo, the ex soldier was struggling to reach a higher shelf to grab some goods, huffing under his breath about how how the shelf was offensive to short people, even if he stood a foot taller then the majority of the kapatins. He glanced over when he heard the question.

"That, that's not a big animal." He snorted, no the long eared diant that the elder used to deliver things across town and even to the neighbouring villages was small compared to the beasts that roamed the planet he had been raised on. He tried not to think back but he already was, to days when he still had red eyes and hadn't even earned his horns.

It had only been a month since he had left the Car Factory, left, not rescued. While he was now among others of his kind he knew they didn't like him all that much. All accept one, who in the end got him in more trouble then he'd ever imagine possible.

(706 years ago)

"Is this a good idea?"

That was how it always started, and it would take another three ideas for him to finally realize that whatever Coyogho came up with was never a good idea.

"Positive," the young shield class tacardian edged closer to the cliffs edge, giving a whistle as he saw just how far down it was. "This must be taller then the palace," he grinned, glancing up to the ledges above to see that it seemed taller, but not by much. Mytyo felt an itch of concern seeing his one armed sadly idiotic friend inch even closer. Coyogho had stated up to a week ago that he had lost his arm to a daring fight against a monstrous walking jungle beast, then he finally admitted that he had simply been born like such when Mytyo clearly wasn't buying his outlandish tales. "Right Mytyo! Today's the day we fly! My dads said that to fly all you had to do was find the biggest cliff possible and just jump. Instinct will take care of the rest."

The soldier class eased carefully to the edge, before he even got there he found himself crouching down as if that would make standing at the edge of a cliff any safer.

"I though Childminder Reospa said redeyes couldn't transform until they were twenty five, we're only nineteen." He shuttered at the thought of the childminder, if she knew they were out here, well, there would be hell to pay.

"She's just being a mother hen Mytyo! Apparently we can transform as early as fifteen, you and I and all the others are super late thanks to Childminder Reospa," Coyogho insisted, Mytyo winced a bit.

"Lemme guess, your dads told you this?" He was still getting used to the idea of how Tarcads were supposed to be raised, for their first fifty years they lived in a nursery raised by a childminder, and after they got to live with their parents or on their own. Parents could visit and spend time with their children whenever, but they couldn't sleep in the same house? It was a strange system, something to do with 'if your parent suddenly didn't come back.' He supposed he had no right to question it, his mother hadn't been nice and his father according to her was dead.

"Hmmm hmm!" Coyogho nodded fondly, and his friend sighed.

"Your dads said that walking jungle butterflies were friendly, and what happened? We got stabbed at by it's noodle mouth thing."

"Hush my dads are great, come on let's just do this and when it works you gotta give me a piggyback home, on three!"

Mytyo stood up, biting back the nervousness. If Coyogho was going to be an idiot, he won't let him be an idiot alone. When three hit he followed the blonde haired tacardian over the edge and down, waiting for that surge of instinct that would turn him into a winged creature of grace. The ground only got closer and still nothing happened.

"Coyogho it's not working!!" He screamed, suddenly realizing that he should of knocked out the shield class to-be and dragged him back to the nursery.

"Just give it a second!" Coyogho yelled back, but that second didn't help and Mytyo shut his eyes tightly and prepared for what he figured would be a painful death. Cords suddenly wrapped around his arms and chest and he opened his eyes to see vines that he wasted no time grabbing at to try to save himself. As he tumbled the gunlance he had been leant unclipped from his back and fell, Coyogho's lateran shield plummeted after. Wearily Mytyo glanced over to see Coyogho hanging there by his ankle, a puzzled expression on his face.

"Huh, it didn't work. That's odd," he gave a thoughtful hum, and Mytyo glanced back just in time to see their items hit the bulging rocks that laid along the bottom, blankets of grassy yellow moss lined the tops in peculiarly straight lines. He had expected the two old weapons to shatter instantly upon contact, and he blinked in surprise then in horror when the sword part of Coyogho's shield buried itself into the 'rock' and spurted up a splash of blood, the 'rock' jolting up with a sharp howl of anguish. Not a rock, but a wolf spider, a predator. At first Mytyo thought it hadn't noticed the two foolish redeyes hanging in the vines overhead, but when the four bright pink eyes of the beast laid upon them he knew that they had defiantly been spotted. It brought itself to its feet and launched itself up, jaws snapping, but it fell short by a couple feet.

"Coyogho do something!!" Mytyo screamed again and tried to scramble up the vines, the one armed tarcad gave a nervous laugh.

"N-Nice doggy?" He pulled his hand away and tried to twist to grab the vines, grunting with effort, and then he slipped and screamed. Mytyo had thought for a dreadful moment that he would have to witness his best and really only friend being eaten, but instead he learned that when it came to a childminder's assigned redeyes, they could be absolutely brutal.

With a harsh screeching cry the osprey that flew in transformed into a full grown tarcad, who dove her rapier straight through the wolf spider's skull. It gave a high pitched whine, all four eyes rolled back in their sockets before it collapsed dead. All in a blink of an eye before Coyogho could hit the ground, Reospa snagged him and flew up, grabbing Mytyo as she went. Mytyo wanted to feel relief, but the angry expression his childminder wore won't let him.

When he was finally set down he reached out to touch Coyogho, the poor redeyes had never been silent so long before, but Reospa slapped his hand away.

"Listen here car rust, I know you weren't born here but the very least you could do is not spread around bad influences!" Her harsh green gaze bore down on him, and Mytyo shrank down, red eyes wide with trepidation.

"I-it wasn't his fault," Coyogho finally sputtered when Reaspa continued yelling at Mytyo, shouting about how he had almost gotten Coyogho killed. "It was my idea Childminder Reaspa, I... I convinced him to come." He fell silent when she turned back to a bird and picked him up in her large talons. "Wait what about Mytyo?" Coyogho asked when he noticed that she didn't go to pick him up as well.

Mytyo peaked from between his fingers when he felt her gaze on him, the young Tarcad having raised his hands out of anticipation of a physical punishment.

"He can walk home, he better consider himself lucky that I'm feeling forgiving." She spat, and left him on the cliff side, and the wind howled at him.

"Mytyo."

"Mytyo?"

"Hey sir? Sir!"

Mytyo blinked his silver eyes to see Thorn waving a hand in front of his face, he cleared his throat and stepped away from the shelf he had been leaning on.

"Hm? Yeah?" He started, eyeing a clock on the wall. "Oh, we better be going," he reached for his wallet and pulled out the money to pay. 

——————

Author note: Car rust is a common offensive insult used against those who originate from the Car Factory.

Pronunciations:

Coyogho= co-yog-ho

Mytyo= My-tie-yo

Reaspa= ree-ass-pah