I do not interfere.

The thought ran in their head, a tired and thankless track worn smooth with repetition.

Salty, stinging water stubbornly hesitated to dry upon their flesh, the cool stillness of the night clinging like a siren's kiss. The waves lapped irregularly, a soft sighing like breath, like life.

It was strangely calm, when only scant hours past, chaos had reigned so diligently, so lovingly. The floods had not touched the cove beyond a gentle swelling of the tide, and the storm that still raged over Scilla Lagoon hung in the sky, distant and hunched, like a stalking beast. They could still hear the distant thunder.

The darkness shrouded them, a careful cover given of chance, though it was not a gift to be taken lightly. If Nusuri understood, the children would have enemies aplenty in this new land, and it was to their benefit to remain hidden. They had little fight in them, just now, besides.

I do not interfere.

They repeated the thought almost mockingly, a mirthless smile tugging at their mouth, where one of sersie's son's, @Karsus, curled in their gentle grip, held cradled by his scruff and tucked tenderly beneath their chin. Their silver eyes fairly gleamed in the pale moonlight, reflected back like mirrors as they paused on the damp sand, looking back for one of the first times in their living memory- looking behind themselves at the path they had laid, counting, assuring.

Their mane was plastered with grit and seawater, and the skin of their shoulders trembled in the night chill, though not so much, they imagined, as the children's did. Their ceremonial feathers were bent, some missing altogether, but Nusuri could not think of repairing it just then. Not for some time, they wagered. Still, their air was calm, though their mind toiled with fresh memory.

”Do not be a fool! Death will wait another day.” But their words were snatched back with the wind, the roar of the downpour like an angry god screaming its wrath from on high. The water was rising, palms and brush swept past dizzyingly fast. Nusuri was up to their ankles already, but the queen was deeper still, and her gaze flickered at the storm like she could stand in its way, like the cubs that were sheltered in her lagoon would not be touched if she simply faced it down. The water was rising. Rising, and the sea churned. Nusuri lost sight of the queen, a roil of roaring, scarred flesh, the crack of a branch, and gone. And still, the water rose.

They had left her there, knowing that it would be wasteful to try and retrieve her from the flood. But wasted not were the lives of the queen's offspring, bought and paid for dearly. The queen's price had at the least driven Nusuri's charge to gather them together, lifting them and ushering them out of the water, across the isthmus just in time. They had brooked no opposition, not from young Kreios who had cried out for his mother and shredded heedlessly at their nose when they had gripped him by the scruff, not by Karsus, who now hung despondent and dripping with seawater, snatched from the waves, nor the others, whether they bit and scratched or followed in desperate zeal. Survival would not wait on the hesitant, and gentleness only came when they had left the rains behind.

Gentleness, now, and exhaustion. But the winding beach curved inwards, and the entrance to the sheltered cove hung just ahead like a beacon.

Softly, Nusuri gestured for the cubs to gather, awaiting their slower pace with easy patience. They lowered Karsus to the sand with a lick between his ears. They glanced between the cubs, uncertain of what one said to children so young, whose mother was now likely lost to them, taken by Death to the sea or to some farther, greener place. They bent their head, nudging @Masten, @Icarus and @Sevasti each in turn, assessing Kreios who hung back, standing wet and trembling, eyes darting madly and his lips curled in a rictus snarl whenever Nusuri's gaze caught him. They allowed him his anger, his confusion. He was alive- they all were- and the priest was certain that they had been brought to the lagoon at just the right time, to escort them to safety.

”Death has not taken you, fledgelings. Though it has tried. But you have your mother's blood in you. Let us not disappoint her by giving in to it now.” they glanced up at the cove, eyes faraway. ”the cove were allies to your mother. We may yet find refuge with them.”

We. How strange a thing, indeed. I do not interfere.

The thought was more like a joke, now.

Inhaling the foreign scent with a twitch of their clawed nose, they left the cubs in their huddle, approaching the entryway with a calm, easy stride. Whatever came now, was as it was meant.

Lifting their nose, they chuffed, and loosed a quiet rumbling roar, careful and succinct. They waited. And in the distance, the thunder rumbled on.


@Kvare
(Or any!)

Art by Cas-Tello || Code by Zay || BG

This content might touch on topics that are sensitive or triggering for some readers. Trigger Warning for descriptions of disassociation, grief, and panic attacks

Kreios was adrift.

Sights, sounds, meant little to him now- the water in his fur ran in weakening rivulets, creating tracks in the soft babyish fur of his face. He swallowed convulsively every so often, his throat burning from seawater he had swallowed by accident as he had been screaming himself hoarse for his mother.

He had never risen his voice so loud, and she couldn't even hear him.

His paws felt disconnected from the wet sand, his head a haze. His nape prickled and stung from where the Mortalisi had snatched him out of the path of the first huge wave, and he had thrashed about as the water crashed into his eyes, burying mother out of his view. He had broken the skin in his attempts to claw out the eyes of the priest, who had barred him from diving in after her. Too much, too much, too much-

He trembled like a drowned rat, and even the sensation of his body shaking, his vision blurring with unchecked tears, seemed a curiously numb prospect.

He stumbled along at a distance from his siblings, unable to go to them for comfort. What loving touch could he accept? Mother was not there to guide him sternly back to himself, to brush a curt nose to his cheek or steel him with her voice. Mother was nowhere.

The waves that licked at his feet made a pained sound, almost a whine, claw its way up his burning throat. His lips curled for so long they ached, some noise crashing in an out in a ragged sound that fought with the cacophony of the water. It was some time before he recognized the sound as coming from him, from the panting breaths that hissed through his teeth. Water, so much fucking water. Water in his eyes, his lungs, his fur, water bearing mother away from him. The priest plucking them from it like a bird selecting a ripened fruit.

Water. Would he ever look at it the same? Allow it to touch him again? Dully, he scrambled sideways away from the tide, nearly colliding with whatever sibling was walking alongside.

The priest was slowing, speaking, and only the mention of their dam managed to draw his gaze, his pupils drawn tightly into points, words echoing strangely in his ears to the pounding counterpoint of his heartbeat. He stood, swaying, lost.

What did it matter? Mother was gone._{BG — ART — CODE}

It had been a paradise.

Swaying palms, warm sun, plenty of things to break. Bountiful prey. Yet, it turned sour. Its claws came up from the white sands of the beaches. It's teeth bared, its roar louder than the thunder that shook the heavens. Its wrath had been unlike anything the once-prince has ever seen.

God had touched him, and smite the land he called home. And he had watched his mother challenge that.....and fail.

But, how could this be so? Mother was untouchable. Mother was a pillar of strength. A testimony of how survival is King. The scars on her body told secrets, told stories. No born royal would look as she had. No, Mother had been a goddess. She had been immortal.

Until she wasn't.

Karsus struggled to comprehend what he'd witnessed. Mother stood against the trees keeping the rush out, then another fell and she was gone. A breath, a heartbeat, a blink--Mother was under the water and it filled his lungs as he screamed for her.

Only to be met with the silence of sudden submersion. The sting of water in his lungs. The fire of inhaling the sea. When the Priest had pulled him from Death's clutches, Karsus fought. He spat, he cursed, he swung at them with all his might. Even as the chill began to settle, even as the cough in his chest bloomed. Even as he shivered.

By the time @Nusuri's feet began to slow, Karsus had worn himself to nothing. A limp wheaten blob in their mouth. He'd been told crying was a sign of weakness. That all Drakes shed one tear, then no more. But the boy cannot keep it hidden. He cannot hide the glassy look in duel colored eyes, or the faint clean streaks down his darkened cheeks. For the first time, he admitted to himself that he wanted more than physical confrontation. The imp prince wanted to be held.

And not by the Priest, but by Mother.

Karsus, so defeated and worn, didn't bother to look up and take in the surroundings. His tiny, soaked form shivered in the maw of their Priest. No more a prince, Mother had gone. What were they now?

They were nothing.

They were nameless.

Maybe the Priest should've let them die.

code by corvus

Kvare knew of loss similar. He had seen the angry sea swallow what all he'd ever known. Kozrain had been gone for years, now, and the hollowness of his absence never quite healed.

He had seen the storm from afar, watched from the safety of the mouth of his den was it swallowed the Lagoon. It felt almost a cruel mercy that it were Scilla instead of them, that Kvare was spared a tempest's wrath that he'd not been spared before. The sea bent and bowed to the Tollaire, now; that much he was certain of. But the ramifications of its fury had been unknown to the King at the time, and what seemed as nothing more than a passing storm would sooner develop into something deeper, darker.

The alliance with the Lagoon had been forged by his Queen-wife, and Kvare was still bitter over the loss of Cirilla. He'd been emboldened, almost excited by the idea of a united front with the Sigrún, a feat already accomplished by his sister. And yet—even he was not blind to the necessary shifts in power, the ambition that drove the stronger to drive out the weak. Yet, Sunder's friendship with Sersie had not been his own, and it is with a cruel indifference that he does not stray from his spot, does not send his soldiers to her borders to assure her safety.

It were a grave mistake, if anything. Perhaps they could have saved them. Perhaps there was little they could have done at all.

Hours passed following the cessation of the storm, and the sky and sea returned to a calmness that held no evidence of the floods that purged the Lagoon. Night descended upon the Cove, untouched by rage and saltwater, and the King had long left his den in favor of moonlit walk down the shoreline. A call echoed out shortly afterward. Strange it were for such a time in the night, but there is an under-handed urgency in its tenor, a demand for his attention that could come no later than this moment. Kvare quickly pivots, making his way toward the borders, noting the call came from the direction of the Lagoon.

Gods damnit.

They were a band of scraggly outcasts. Cubs far too young to be plucked from their mother's belly, haggard and tired and hungry, nestled about the paws of the raven-feathered priest. Kvare slowly slipped from the shoreline, larger and lumbering form swath in the silver light of the moon, clear skies innocent of the havoc they wrought upon this small family. Kvare need not make assumptions. Tragedy was written into their very bones. The gaunt of their cheeks, the darkness clinging beneath their eyes. The scents on their pelts—Scilla, salt, blood.

Come—and quickly. We will warm your cubs by the fire, he begins, knowing all too well just how haggard he was too, just how he'd wanted nothing more than a dry bed and a warm meal after enduring the loss of his twin in similar circumstances. He'd been given nothing then. He'd been driven only by his own greed to return here, to claim the throne for himself, so that none others would have to suffer in such ways again. I am Kvare, King of the Cove. Fill your bellies and dry your pelts first, then we may discuss why you have shown up on my borders.

Had he known the cubs were born of Aeistrios, he would have culled them without question. Sersie had done well to let certain things remain unsaid.

---

@Nusuri @Kreios @Karsus @Masten @Icarus @Sevasti

Art by Rabbit, table by cala

Time marched a quiet drum in the night, and while patience was a familiar lesson for the cleric, pity was not.

Their eyes, lit by the moon that sought to peer bravely out from behind the rolling clouds, traced the cubs in a tired pattern. Each pair of hunched shoulders, each pair of gleaming, tearful eyes. Defeat and grief clung to them, all but a funeral shroud, a sight that would call the vultures down in joy at the feast laid before them, were there any to be found.

Grief, too, was not familiar.

The Mortalisi had cut away their grief long ago, when they survived on the bodies of their children, their sisters, their friends. Generations of worshipful reverence for the cycle of life and death, beloved and never feared, never fought. Only accepted. Nusuri, themselves, had never known the gentle touch of a mother, never known the meaning of the word until much later, when they were long past the need for such things. Even when their longtime mentor had fallen to age, and their old bones had graced their tongue like a prayer- Nusuri did not grieve. Death would come when it pleased, and it was only to be celebrated in its turn.

No, Nusuri had few words for pity, or grief. But perhaps this once, they thought- staring hard at the children who had lost everything- perhaps this Death was a shame. If only for their sakes.

A noise, a rustle of pawsteps on the sand- the priest turned away from the young ones, from their useless pondering, facing the figure that approached. He was a large male, painted in deepened tones that favored the still night; though his eyes, gilded beneath his lashes, swept over the scene they made with a steadiness of assurance. He did not waste time or words, and the priest felt a strange gratitude take root in their gut. Calm urgency swept over them, and Nusuri ducked their head before him, though the gesture of deference was something else unknown to them.

”As you say. We will come.” they murmured simply, their voice hoarse from shouting and seawater. ”all will be told, as soon as they are warmed and fed. They will move slowly.”

It was simple fact, spoken with little inflection. Their youthful gazes were faraway, and their steps haunted. They had been urged on as far as urging and coaxing could allow. Much farther, and they were not certain they would continue. But then, the Drakes seemed to make a habit of surprising the priest. Hopefully they could manage it again.

Turning to their charges, Nusuri crouched over them. Gently, their touch brushed over the nearly comatose @Karsus, their breath fanning warm over his cheek as they brushed him quickly with their tongue. He had been so eager, curious and glinting with a child's passion as they had taught them one of their rites. He did not glimmer now.

Bringing a paw up to scoop closer the darkened plum form of @Masten, whose rage and confusion seemed on the verge of imploding- they brought him closer, their touch light and cradling. But there was not much time for reassurance. Not yet, when the promise of warmth and food beckoned. They must keep them alive before they tended to the wounds that festered in their hearts. Gathering them up with quiet murmurs and nudges of their nose against rumps and sides, urging them again into the last stretch of their tired march. @Kreios balked at their touch, again, looking ready to bolt, or bite, and they withdrew their paw and hastened him with a quiet murmur.

”come, now, my nestlings. Food and rest await you.”

They did not urge them to dry their tears, nor make promises they could not keep. But they could keep them alive, and that was all that mattered now.

They turned to the king, shepherding the children ahead of them, and met his gaze with their own.

”my thanks.

It was rare that they offered such a thing. But then, it was a night of many firsts. Why not another?


@Kvare @Icarus @Sevasti

Art by Cas-Tello || Code by Zay || BG

Wet, warm, comfort of a strange kind. The perpetual gaze held in two-tones eyes broke upon receiving it. The shiver ripping through such a small form began to dull, as had the pounding in Karsus' head. The aches came fishing through the boy, a slow wave. Every joint was fire.

Plopped by warmth, bathed by warmth, the once-prince sees his siblings. Huddled together, fury, exhaustion, anxiety. Left with nothing. And what was this man? A new King? He smelled of salt and sea, but not like they had.

The soft, calm of the ocean lapped in the distance. It was soothing, once.

”come, now, my nestlings. Food and rest await you.”

Karsus had ignored the throbbing in his belly. A gnawing beast had made it's way there, and yet appetite had yet to manifest. The spark of deviousness, that twingle of unhinged purity had seemingly vanished from the wheaten boy. Pondering as the adults talked, if he would ever find joy in carving carcasses.

Turning attention back to them, the boy remembers another cub, one who isn't among them. "Nusuri?" voice is ragged, scratchy. It hurts to speak but....Karsus likes it anyway. "Nusuri, where is the other one?"

Meisia, of whom he'd sadly never learned the name of, had been his adversary. Playfully, of course. Little stakes existed when one was so small. Her nickname for the boy was held to his chest, tightly, and though it had been done mockingly--Karsus loved it. He enjoyed her negative attention. Craved it, even. Sullen, somber, he drops his head again. "Why didn't you get her too?"

Had the priest not been instructed to get them? What other reason would there be? Nusuri worshipped death, and death had come to their very doorstep. Wouldn't such a devout enjoy seeing a pride engulfed?

It made the boys head throb again, and his belly roar. "How...how are we supposed to...how are we supposed to honor the corpse?" the words tasted bitter on the tongue, ichor in the throat. Corpse--how horrid a word. One he enjoyed till this moment. It was different, when one had attachments to the supposed dead.

@Masten @Icarus @Kreios @Nusuri @Kvare @Sevasti

code by corvus

He had trudged along without words once the monsoon had ended. Masten had as his siblings had, watched his mother stand against the might of the storm and defy the gods. She had been swallowed and as a result their home had been swept out from beneath them. The once princling had remained silent.. brooding as they were marched along the shores towards the closest pride by the raven feathered priest.

Once there, neither words nor touch would break the sullen child of his thoughts. His plum form was wet and dripping with the remnants of the battle his mother had waged upon the ocean. As another came, he would stare at his paws, seeing within the shifting grains of sand visions of which he wouldn't speak. It wasn't until @Karsus spoke of honoring the corpse that a spark lit in the sullen, sunken eyes of the child.

Fangs bared as his lips drew back and he would attempt to lash out at his brothers blasphemous muzzle with talons outstretched. {Mother isn't dead. She is STRONG and she WILL win against the GODS!} Someone was a wee bit delusional, but there was a fury behind his eyes..a rage that trembled within his limbs. Had he known the terminology perhaps he might have had more to say on the topic, as it were he turned to give his angy glare towards @Kvare, a growl rumbling in his throat.

{I'll stay but I don't BOW to you..and YOU } He turned rage filled eyes towards @Nusuri. {You're not my mother and I'm not your nestling.} So stop ACTING like it. He glared at the remaining siblings, daring them to argue with him. He had no problems taking swings at them either. ESPECIALLY if they had so little faith in their mother.

Dead. Dead. Dead.

The word was drilling cruelly into his temples, pain brought fresh and bloody with every moment. His eyes were glazed, contracted, staring at nothing, not reacting to the adult male when he came, swift with aid that was far too late, too late to matter. Not reacting to Karsus at his side, the wicked gleam in his eyes spent and vanished. Not to the wind, not to the sea, not to the memory of his mother's voice choked by water as her body was tossed under the waves like a child's toy, helpless.

When Nusuri's paw reached for him, he was only dimly aware, dragged from numbness by the scant brush of warm, wet fur against his own- there was that sound again, tormented and wild, and his throat ached for it. He could have cried for the need of that gentle touch, yet it felt like claws, like pinpricks he was sure must draw blood.

He struggled to focus, numbness giving way to throbbing, pounding fear, and rage, rage-

Masten was shouting, cursing, spitting words like each was a killing blow. Masten's anger, his claws aimed for Karsus and his eyes like a blaze. Wasn't it enough already? Why did they have to keep hurting and hurting and hurting and-

Numbness to fear, numbness to clawing grief at his brother's own denial, when Kreios had watched her mouth open and the water rush in like it was eager to take her. Gods, it was so much. Kreios felt his claws unsheathe as though they belonged to someone else, as though his head floated unattached to his limbs as his trembling, shaking body barreled into his brother like the wave had crashed into his mother; unyielding, without warning.

It felt like he was the one drowning, now, as his body pressed bruisingly hard into his siblings’, a cracked, broken scream tearing out of him so loudly his lungs HURT, and he couldn't get any breath. His entire body seemed to shudder in revulsion at the sensation of his own paws trying to force Masten to the sand, his claws digging into his shoulders, attempting to pin him into stillness, into silence.

”shut UP! SHUT UP! SHUT-” he wailed brokenly, his pupils drawn and his own tears fell like the rain. ”it doesnt- it doesnt matter! She's gone, and you keep just-”

He couldn't find his words. He so rarely spoke, and now his mouth ran like a flood, louder than it had ever been.

”You don't know an-anything! You don't-”

His fury boiled over him- his brother was so arrogant and cruel and he was so, so tired as adrenaline warred with shock in his body, with panic at the touch he had initiated, and he felt so sick he was sure he would never be able to eat again.

All of the sudden, it didn't matter, it was too much, and his body convulsed, slumping over and sliding off of Masten with a noise of pain, retching up bile and seawater from where it roiled in his belly, vomiting through wrenching, hiccuping sobs until nothing came up.

He stumbled away from his sick, shaking so hard he could hardly stand, all of his strength fled with his anger. Now, he was just numb.

He shook his head mutely, his ears pinned against his neck. He left Masten to rise behind him, past caring for the other boy's reaction. Kreios couldn't fight anymore. Perhaps if he were someone else, someone raised by a mother whose touch meant only sweetness, whose siblings rolled and played and laughed, he might have let Nusuri carry him the rest of the way. But even though he had known little but a life of violence, scant in comfort and in pity, his heart broke for Sersie all the same.

He tripped alone after the new king and the priest, and in his mind the only thought was a wordless keening for mama.


---EXIT

@Karsus @Masten @Kvare @Icarus @Sevasti_{BG — ART — CODE}

He is reminded why weakness should never be shown. Within moments of his question given life, Karsus is struck by his brother. Thin kitten claws take across his face in a manner that sparks fire in him again. A rage, at everything, at everyone, all at once hitting a breaking point. But as the young Wheaton boy strove to leap forward and put Masten in his place, @Kreios beat him to it. A flash orange and stripe, he had lunged at their brother in a fury he'd never witnessed. Shock wrote itself a poem across Karsus' face, elegantly raising darkened brows as pupils slid thin, then wide.

But it was short lived, and if there had been anything mother taught them, it was violence. He lunged as Kreios grew Ill, and sank his teeth into the face of @Masten. Baby claws tried to hook under his brother's elbows.

"Shut up fucker" he growled out, between snaps of milk teeth in his jaw. "Just shut the fuck up"

@Icarus @Nusuri @Kvare @Sevasti

code by corvus

Thunder growled a quiet counterpoint, far-off and brooding. Nusuri's gaze pondered the hunched darkness as they gained their feet, awaiting the softly padded pawsteps of the cubs to precede them. When they did not, their eyes flicked from moon, to storm, to child.

@Karsus seemed to come to a hazy half-life, though his eager, biting manner was as distant as that raging storm; now unreachable, now just a sound on the horizon, toothless and imagined. He spoke as if the water still filled his throat.

In truth, Nusuri had little reasoning for rescuing them. They had never been one to need reasons, or explanations. What is, is what must be. But that did not mean they had to be passive. Whatever choice they made was meant to be made; as Sersie's body had been swallowed by wrathful nature, the choice had been simple. Death would have cradled the children gently even as the water ate them up, breaking them in sudden swells and filling their nascent lungs with piety.

Nusuri could have kept to their winged flights of fancy, left them to crack like eggs against the sea and flown again to some other place where they could ply their trade, and it would matter little to them. Yet they had seemed so small against the might of the storm, and their wide, wailing mouths not so unlike hungry nestlings, begging, hungry for life. Life Nusuri could ensure. Life that was, after all, just as sacred.

And so it was.

”I am sorry, Karsus.” their eyes flitted over him, the sullen grief looking for direction, for answers. They did not intend to lie. ”My eyes and claws reached for what was before me, and she was not.”

But Miesia was a clever young thing, remembered with bright eyes and a quick attention. Older, and strong. Strength that would serve her well, they thought in grim humor, so long as she did not charge into the flood.

Nusuri bent, nosing the boy if they were allowed, all of them reeking of sand and brine.

”there are songs that can be sung for them, offerings in their name and stead- many ways we can honor them. We will find such a one, ndege mdogo. They will not go unremembered.”
The promise was hoarse and gravely made. The Mortalisi did not need a corpse to make the dead heard.

@Masten, however, was not willing to entertain such musings. His baleful stare seemed almost to bite and claw in itself, even before his round paws darted to sink into Karsus’ waiting flesh. His words thrashed about like a snake caught in the talons of a waiting eagle, ready to harm anything within reach. Nusuri merely looked at him, at his heaving chest and his eyes full of fire.

”No,” they began, their voice a waning sigh. ”I am not your mother.”

There was no time for more. Rattling breaths gave way to racking sobs and a scream more like a creature dying than a sound a cub might make, a sound of agony, of grief and rage, and Kreios was in motion, shoving, pinning his sibling with what may have been bone crushing force, if he were not so achingly young.

Nusuri feared to lift him off, to push him aside or touch him at all, and thus drive him to greater violence. Nor, they thought, was it their place. They could separate and berate them, they supposed, but it would not heal the brokenness that seemed to live and dance in the children, feasting and growing fat on their torment.

As quickly as he had attacked, Kreios seemed to fold in on himself, tripping away from the darker shadow of his brother and vomiting again and again, weak with it.

They would have held him then.

Yet they allowed him to turn away up the beach, moving off in the direction indicated as though no more than an echo of something, dimmed until unrecognizable.

In the wake of it, the scent of his sick, like harkened to like and Karsus took it in his turn to strike his brother, and Nusuri felt almost helpless in complacency, watching them claw and spit out at fate that kept returning for another blow. Of a sudden, their body ached, their throat burned. They all deserved rest, this night.

Looking at them, it became nigh unbearable, so they tried to press between the two with their body, firm yet inexorable.

”hate me if it is easier. I will take your rage and consider it fair. But it will not fill your bellies now, nor warm your bones, or nurse you to health if the water in your lungs takes you ill. Get off of the sand, and live, or waste your mother's sacrifice and kill eachother here- it is not my decision to make. Your lives are now your only currency, children. I should think you would spend them with care.”

Their pale gaze bore down on them, and they drew away. Nusuri had saved them, and now they must make their choice. The Mortalisi had never wasted time on those who could not stomach the thankless task of survival.


---EXIT



@Kvare @Icarus @Sevasti

Swahili translations: ndege mdogo- 'little bird'

Art by Cas-Tello || Code by Zay || BG