Wordcount: 363 words
Rating/Warnings: PG-13
Summary: The kingdom gets ready for war and May gets ready to be a foxhawk rider.
NOTE: This is the first draft of a story, so it will most likely contain plot holes, retcons, and other inconsistencies. I’ll come back and fix things once the story (or arc) is complete!
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Make New Friends
May might be working primarily with her group of four hatch mates, but there was a lot of cross-contamination between the groups. She lived with all ages, from the folks newly bonded like herself all the way up to those riders who are nearing the end of their bond and getting ready for retirement.
There are less of the second, now that news of the golden has filtered out into the community. The older riders are out pounding the pavement, making sure defenses are in place, running communications back and forth between the cities and the capital and generally putting their beaks to the grindstone.
So she makes friends with those older than her, and as the other hatchings happen, those younger than her as well. There’s still a bit of stigma around her and Baron but on the human side of things it’s more a curiosity than a shunning.
Sophia and Emma are older than her, but Emma was from Two Beaches and Sophia is her best friend. So they pull her into their conversations when they see her, talking about what’s changed and what hasn’t changed.
Olivia and Chloe are from the younger hatching and look up to her somewhat. Both are much younger than her, most of the people are younger than her, and she seems to have an air of knowing what she’s doing.
Mia is an older rider, sidelined by injury while her foxhawk acts as a messenger bird. She’s waiting to recover and then retire, there’s not enough time for her to be useful left. Mia is always around and is the one May talks to the most. About the troubles and the headaches of fitting in and what life will be like once they have their first assignments.
It’s not an exciting future, not yet, there’s still some time before the golden chooses its rider and that means three years of gearing up for war.
The other kingdoms are doing the same, although no one is sure where the war will come from. The fighting with the northern Wolf Kingdom was more recent, but the western Lion Kingdom has deep-seated grudges from centuries back.
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