#second part!

The Daylight Prairie is a realm positioned in a high altitude, the islands lying between clouds or flying freely in the sky. Except for the caves positioned in between the realms the only way to travel between the few specks of land, you need a pair of wings.

Therefore, I thought that the Sky Critters of this world are comparable to Bird-Hybrid like creatures.

Their cape is not a cape at all but instead a pair of actual wings, developed and grown in a way that resemble a common moth cape when being closed and draped over their shoulders. The joint connecting the wings to their back is a bit longer, protruding a bit to give the illusion of fabric hanging from their back and not actual mobile limbs of them.

If you look closely, you will nonetheless be able to distinguish single feathers, making up the smooth surface you see if not paying too much attention to it. They take very good care of their wings and rarely use any feathers and if some do fall out, they are most likely taking them for their nests as cushion.

They live, sleep and eat in groups of 5-6 kids, sharing their sleeping hollows and food, often taking turns in hunting. Thanks to their wings they are able to reach incredible hights and speed, which is one of their biggest advantages in hunting. If on a hunt they usually don´t wear their Skyling disguise so they can use all 4 of their limbs freely to shoot down onto unsuspecting prey and kill it efficiently.

The Bird-Kids are almost the same height as a standard Skylings, which combined with their cape like wings forming a great disguise which makes it hard to spot as danger when only seeing flying by.

You should look out for their head when you see one flying past, as this is the best way to tell whether the creature is hunting or just flying around. If they wear the mask on the top of their head, it is merely to lull others into a sense of security, making them believe their focus is on what´s right in front of them. But in reality, they are already have locked into a target and just wait for the perfect moment to strike.

Their hands and feet both spurt three clawed fingers/toes, making it easy for them to quite literally pluck their prey right from the sky. When wearing gloves their hands are a longer than the ones from the common Skyling and you may even see their claws poking through the fabric. Their hind-toe can bend forward completely, giving their disguised feet a wider front, comparable looking to the one of a duck.

When wearing their disguise, they tend to look a bit awkward walking around due to them not being used to walk with their feet compromised like that and in general preferring to fly around than walking.

For their disguise they mostly like to wear dark coloured moth clothing, those blending in with their wings quite well and not pulling too much suspicion to them. They can wear other clothing as well, as long as the colour remains darkish, concealing any eventual blood stains which could expose their true nature.

Their diet consists of smaller birds, young flying manta rays and, if the opportunity opens for them, Sky-Kids flying alone, being new to the realm or lost in the air currents.

It should be mentioned that they do not exclusively wear their disguise to hunt down Skylings but often wear them to play with the ones passing through. If a group of Skylings flies by they have a lot of fun joining their formation, similar to migration birds, and just accompany them for a while or show of some neat tricks to impress the others.

Signs to distinguish a Bird-Kid from a Sky-Kid

But even if they only want to play a little for most of the time, the Bird-Kids are holding a lot of danger inside of them.

The air is their element, they are impossible to escape from if they have set you as their target. Their very good eyesight makes it impossible to hide from and the beak like tip on their mouth ensures for a short fight and quick death to the poor being that has been chosen by them to be their prey.

when inspected closely, cape shows to be made from feathers

long hands with slight claws poking out

wide, duck-like feet

walking looks stiff and uncomfortable

wear dark clothing (can show darker spots/look dirty)

tend to observe Skylings from afar for long amount of time without getting closer

Now, in the "Commander Ardea AU", nothing of this happens, as Ardea is the one who ends up in the Mists instead of Aurelia. The fahrar was the first line of defense into Plains of Ashford and, without her literal firepower, it becomes overrun so fast that the clouds of corruption follow the Branded and everyone exposed to them is turned into Branded (Adamas, Reeva and few others still survive, undecided if in the same manner). In the Mists, Ardea ends up becoming Glint's Herald, and that comes with a bunch of benefits, such as a much larger magic pool to draw from, which then grows tenfold after Aurene's ascension.

Now, her family's ritual spell? With all that magic at her disposal, it's indeed a handy little trick she could pull out in desperate-enough situations, though one that she knows would raise too many questions, so she decides to never use it. She's plenty powerful anyway, and she manages to make her magic appear "strong af but normal" throughout the story, with just two exceptions. The first time was when she unleashed the elemental form during the fatal fight with Balthazar, but given he was the god of fire and on a powerlevel of his own... it was not the best idea to waste her life force on fighting fire with fire, in retrospect. The second time it was inside Kralkatorrik, during the fight with his torment, and the link with Aurene made that form powerful enough to basically wrestle with it. Still, both times no one ever learned about it, as it had happened without witnesses and Aurene didn't snitch. [She was also about to use it against Joko when he trapped her, but Aurene took care of the problem before she could ignite.]

The first time the rest of Dragon's Watch discovers she can do that, it's when it comes out in full force after Bangar shot her. [first pic] For a moment she falls down, stunned by the power of the Jotun magic, then she stumbles back to her knees, steam and then flames coming out of her body as she rises and growls something under her ragged breath. With one flaming hand, she grips the arrow and pulls it out of her chest, calling Bangar a bastard. [second pic] On one hand, Ardea triggered the ritual on a semi-conscious level as an attempt to outburn the Jotun magic that's killing her, but she's also been through the emotional ringer for months at that point and Bangar in particular has always been a major source of rage for her, so she straight up loses control after that moment, lunging towards Bangar as her body becomes fully engulfed with flames (the starting phase of the ritual).

Ryland gets in the way and parries the first swipe of her claws, expanding flames still catching Bangar and making him roll to the ground, then he tries to attack her directly, but with another swipe she melts through his Flamesaw like butter and manages to hurt him as well. As she moves on the solid ground, her flames slowly turn into bubbling magma, but it's not a great idea while in an icy cave under a whole lake and the melting ice raining on her staggers her, the pain turning her rage completely blinding.

Bangar and Ryland take their chance to book it out of the cave, and Braham, Rytlock and Crecia aren't far behind, escaping the howling monster that is now single-minded in finding Bangar and burning him down to his molecules for everything he's ever done, that arrow being the final drop into an ocean lasted her whole life. By the time they emerge from the cave and Ardea follows them, she's a huge magmatic monster, ice around her sizzling into thick steam from the extreme heat.

To keep her from killing Bangar and Ryland, her friends provoke her to try and distract her. When she notices she's lost her target, Ardea turns against her friends. They don't want to hurt her, but without any other option they hurl fire spells at her and run from her, in hopes of tiring her out or something. After minutes of close calls and a dark line of burned ground and lava turned solid stretching across the lake's shore, the beast finally becomes sluggish and pained in her movements, magma growing darker and more solid. The little group thinks they're making progress, but then Aurene suddenly warns them telepathically that they have to find a way to put her fire out, otherwise Ardea will die if she's allowed to burn herself out (Aurene was unable to get to them and help, as she was entirely focused on stunting the flow of magic towards Ardea without stopping it entirely and killing her, which was a hard task in such a volatile state and without her being able to hear her).

Braham, who's been panicking at the idea of losing another mother figure (Ardea had stepped into Eir's role and that caused some friction between them, far more dramatic than canon) since the arrow from his bow hit her, finds the Wolf inside himself and transforms. The dark-red wolf (much like his mother) catches Ardea's attention and maneuvers her closer to the lake, then jumps and tackles the beast's head, causing it to writhe and fall back onto the lake's ice, his actual body mostly protected from the heat by the Wolf form and his own guardian magic. Ardea's elemental form quickly melts through the ice with Braham nearby, steam erupting so strongly that Rytlock and Crecia aren't able to get close. Once it dissipates, there's only bubbling water for the longest time, then they see Braham coming up for air. With his last strength, he had managed to break Ardea out of the rocky shell sinking to the bottom of the lake, and was now struggling to keep an unconscious Ardea afloat with him, so Rytlock throws himself into the water and Crecia helps fish them out.

Braham only got serious burns to his body that the Scrying Pool healed quickly, while Ardea reawakes in it days later, so drained and weak that she can barely summon a little flame, but she's alive and fine, with only a scar from where the arrow hit her (one more for the collection woohoo).