Fauna
The Saddleback Striderk is a flightless biped bred for the Valari grass-roads, three meters tall at the shoulder and built like a feathered sprinter with the bone of a small dragon. Amber-tan downy plumage covers the body, paling to cream at the throat and darkening into a russet dorsal stripe along the spine. The legs are scaled and tendon-bowed, ending in three forward toes capped with ivory claws strong enough to kick through a clay wall. A long counterbalancing tail trails behind, plumed at the tip with brighter chevroned bands that flick when the rider signals a pace change. Tiny clawed forelimb stubs hang folded against the chest, useless for grasping but bristling with sensitive feather-whiskers. The head sits high on a flexible neck, copper eyes set forward and a beak that hooks just enough to crack seedpods. A natural saddle-hollow rises behind the shoulders, padded with thick contour feathers, and a Valari-bred line will kneel on chord-command to be mounted.
Valari clans measure status by the depth of a Saddleback's russet stripe, and a wedding gift of three matched striderks is a serious dowry. The first striderk a Valari child trains becomes a lifelong partner; the bird is buried under the family hearthstone when it dies. Old grass-road songs claim the Saddleback was bred from wild plains-runners by tying chord-bells to their necks for a hundred generations until obedience entered the egg.
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