The flying mesenger

If you need news delivered fast, you either got a artefact or a flying messenger. it's true, artefact are faster, but they are also prone to failure and very hard to find, while flying messenger are abundant and easy to maintain. Only a fool or a pampered bureaucrat will trust the first over the second.

— Seras articles, Miliatian in garison chief

The flying messenger is a small bird, that can be commonly found almost anywhere in the world, where there are seeds for it to eat. This bird is both a blessing and a curse for any settlement, as if not handle properly, it can eat crops seed, after they are planted, reducing the posterior harvest. The best approach to prevent this is dual:

• A area away from the crops is prepared from them, with seed they can eat safely. This seed are sometimes discards, but in occasions, are harvest just for them to eat
• Ginny zats patrol the areas after seed are planted, and stop them from eating them

Curiously, if prepared areas with seed are present, Ginny zats rarely need to actively scare any flying messenger from the fields, as they don't try to eat from patrolled areas.This is not the case, if no offering is present in town.
Killing one of these birds, or even finding one dead by natural causes, is considered either bad luck or a bad omen for anyone. So it's common, for people who find hurt animals to take them home, in hopes of restoring it to health.
The reason for all of this, if how good they act as messenger. Any of these creatures can carry messages to anyone in a town, that have existed from some time. There are two ways to accomplishing this:

1. Professional: There are establishment, who offered, already trained flying messenger for hire. These birds are faster, that regular ones, and they don't require any courtship to accept delivering the message from you.
2. Courtship: Any flying messenger has the ability to deliver messages, but if you want to use one, you will need to entice it with food or offerings, so it will accept the job. This is a lot cheaper, than using a professional service, but it will take longer.

The Courtship process

If anyone wants to recruit a flying messenger to deliver a message, they will need to go to the offering place, with some extra offering of their own. They will start to offer some seed to the group, leaving them at a small distance from the regular place. After this, they will stand on the place with seed on their hand or in some cases a small pouch or plate. At this point, one of the flying messenger will separate from the group and investigate the offerings.
After inspecting and eating from them, if they are considered sufficient by the bird. It will pose, on your shoulder or arm, ready to take the message and the destination.
If this is not the case, it will return to the group, and the prospective "client" will need to come with better offerings or wait for another less exigent flying creature to approach him or her.

Pigeons with messages attached. by Unknown author - Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. 275, April, 1873.

Scientific Name

small flyying creature

Lifespan

15 years

Average Height

20 cm

Average Weight

Around 1 kg (without load)

Average Length

30 to 40 cm