Horizon Ridge with many a flirt and flutter

Ending here ;_;

Shiv swore she heard a rather heavy thump down below a few moments after the raven disappeared amongst the treetops. She stopped, hovering in mid-air as she canted her head in the direction he had vanished, before swooping down with renewed vigour. With any luck, he had crash landed and knocked himself out, allowing her the perfect opportunity to quickly find the precious pebble and take it back to the Heartwood where it rightfully belonged — in her mind, at least. To her dismay, however, she found the raven upright and furiously searching through the many divots and crevices that surrounded a tree and it's exposed roots. She quickly bounded over to him, feathers bristled as she watched the stranger seek out his lost treasure. Shiv quickly formulated a plan, and was about to throw up her wings in a theatrical display, crying how it was lost forever and that he should give up his search — so she could come back later and find it, of course — before he suddenly turned to face her.

Angry, dark eyes met an equally infuriated gaze, and Shiv gave an indignant squawk. "Is not game!" she retorted, flitting forward. No, this was serious business. Their valuable stone was lost! Lost forever in one of the many networks of this trees roots. Alone and cold and...

...oh! The magpie trilled excitedly as she realised what her fellow bird was doing. Decidedly interested in a certain den, he struggled and squirmed, trying to fit his much too rotund body into the small entrance. Scoffing at his insult, Shiv hopped around to face the other direction, already certain of what he was going to ask when it dawned on him that he wouldn't fit. She heard him wiggle his way back out of the darkness their stone had fallen in to, and peered out of the corner of her eye as he demanded she retrieve it. How rude. She would have refused to do as he said until he asked nicely, but this was a situation of utter importance. There was no time for pleasantries.

Displaying her irritation with his blatant disregard for politeness (even though she herself was being equally as ill-mannered), the magpie strut past him with a dissatisfied hum, obeying his wishes regardless. It would mean that she would have the pebble again and, if she played her cards right, she could have it forever! Eagerly, Shiv wiggled her way into the opening, disregarding all sense of personal safety and ignoring the faint hissing sound that emanated from it.

It was suddenly apparent that the birds' endeavour for their golden rock would be a failure. Almost as soon as Shiv disappeared into the darkness of the den, she immediately shot back out of it in a flurry of feathers and frightened squawking. Fear for her life had overridden the need to regain possession of the pebble. After the magpie came the form of a very large and very angry snake, hissing and spitting after the infiltrators of its den. Without looking back to see if the raven had also escaped (nuts to him! Him and his silly stones), Shiv fluttered quickly into the foliage above, bursting into the air in a shower of leaves as she broke the tree line and swerved, turning to fly back to somewhere safer — somewhere away from hungry snakes and insufferable ravens.