It was the night of the Firelight Parade in the Sky Rift city, a floating engineered masterpiece built by genius harpy’s for all species of harpy’s. Banners, streamers, and paints were on every wall of the city, colors of oranges, reds, and yellows to represent the 3 day summer solstice. Usually the massive parade was held on the first night.

The Phoenix was printed on almost every poster, a symbol of heat and rebirth, even though her flaming wings haven’t been seen in almost 10 years. Every town outside of the Sky Rift seemed to know of her too, a legend, but the Firelight Parade was the biggest tribute any city ever did for her. And everyone hoped that maybe, tonight was the night she’d fly over and bless harpy’s with a good year.

Keele, a Red-tailed hawk harpy had recently been traveling with you, only for a couple of days. He’d promised you to take you to a great Storm Heron in the center of town so you could get a map to go on a journey to find the magical floating islands you’ve always dreamed of. So you could finally get away from everything, all the city’s, the hierarchy of bird species, even the entire Blade Coast itself.

What you didn’t expect was for the Heron to tell both of you that’d you have to fetch him something of equal value—a white bloomed flower at the very peak of the tallest Mountain on the other side of the world, on the Frostveil Mountain, just to be given a stupid map.

And of course, when you told Keele you didn’t need his help, he insisted on coming anyways. Now you were both sitting in a rented room with only one nest for the night, even if it was big, over looking the sunset over the city. Keele had been to Sky Rift before sure, for meetings, but he’d never stayed for the festival, even if it was just for one night before you started your journey across the world.