Flying-Winged Beast

Biodata

Appearance

• Body: Enormous, long-furred, and somewhat raccoon-like 15.
• Wings: Broad, birdlike wings grow from all four legs. The first beast encountered has its wings spread to a size comparable to a house 15.
• Head: Round ears and large, expressive eyes 17.
• Claws: A claw at the front of the wing can grip food; the front paws also scrape away snow and soil while foraging 21 72 86.
• Tail: Ends in a poisonous bone spur 17.
• Individual variation: Ying'ao is larger and more muscular than Jiujiu, with longer claws and sharper fangs 299 300.

Biology & Behavior

Diet

Flying-Winged Beasts are omnivorous, although their wild diet consists mostly of plants 16 490.

• They eat meat, roots, fruit, and grass, and can forage while their riders gather supplies 16 28.
• They have hearty appetites. Feeding them is a substantial part of their upkeep 27 309.
• Jiujiu particularly enjoys cooked food, including meat-filled pancakes, sausages, and fish balls, and also drinks Pack-Pack Beast milk 29 63 141 300.
• Food-sharing expresses friendship: Jiujiu offers vegetable cakes to a visiting Flying-Winged Beast, which accepts them enthusiastically 188.

Temperament & Intelligence

Wu Jiong describes Flying-Winged Beasts as docile, but their willingness to trust people varies considerably 15 300 302.

• Jiujiu is affectionate, playful, and comfortable around the tribe’s cubs 201.
• Ying'ao initially reacts warily to crowds and later avoids cubs, despite becoming attached to Jian Mo 300 302 357.
• Jiujiu and Ying'ao are unusually clever. Other travelers find them livelier and more intelligent than mounts they have previously encountered; Jian Mo also considers Dala less clever than the pair 309.
• Their calls convey excitement, distress, warnings, and requests. Friendly individuals chirp back and forth when meeting 115 188 299.
• Jian Mo suspects that they do not live in groups, but this is presented as his assessment rather than an established fact 300.

Despite their size and poisonous tail spur, Flying-Winged Beasts are not particularly powerful wild animals. Ying'ao is explicitly an unusually tough member of the species 490.

Abilities & Skills

Flight & Load Carrying

Flying-Winged Beasts provide fast transport across mountainous terrain and carry both riders and supplies 28.

• Jiujiu takes off after a short running start and flies smoothly even on the first ride following recovery from a broken wing 27.
• Jiujiu can carry Jian Mo, Wu Jiong, and two large baskets of roots, or transport three adults together 93.
• Aerial scouting allows riders to inspect lakes and locate gathering grounds beyond intervening mountains 47.
• Jiujiu and Ying'ao carry caravan goods, while Ying'ao later transports supplies separately as Jian Mo and Wu Jiong ride Jiujiu 309 490.
• Flight does not eliminate weather-related limitations: Jiujiu becomes frightened by lightning near Thunder God Mountain and lands, leaving the travelers to continue on foot 93.

Learning & Navigation

Trained beasts can respond to physical cues, spoken instructions, and gestures 27 47.

• Jiujiu understands conversations well enough to turn toward the waiting gathering party before receiving a direct command 47.
• Jiujiu independently gathers Wood-Stabilizing Roots and later guides Jian Mo and Wu Jiong to edible flowers 70 71 72.
• Ying'ao eventually trains young Flying-Winged Beasts, performing the work better than a human instructor could 510.

Recovery

Jiujiu demonstrates a strong capacity to heal, though the passages do not establish an identical recovery rate for every member of the species 17 25.

• Several infected wounds dry out or begin scabbing after one night of treatment and rest 17.
• The broken wing mostly recovers before flight training begins 21 25.
• Ying'ao remains capable of steady flight despite a serious infected wound containing a broken Fork-Horned Beast horn 299 300.

Domestication & Care

• Taming: Flying-Winged Beasts are difficult to tame. A completely uncontrolled mount may endanger its rider in the air, making forced capture unsuitable for an unwilling beast such as Ying'ao 302 309.
• Rider preference: Jiujiu initially flies only when Jian Mo is aboard, though other people can accompany him. Later, Jiujiu carries other tribespeople without Jian Mo, but shows little enthusiasm for those trips 27 100.
• Equipment: Early training uses a sturdy rope lasso and reins. Cargo baskets and bags are tied securely to the beast’s back 25 26 78.
• Food supply: Large appetites make the species expensive to raise. The Riverside Tribe agrees to provide half of Jiujiu’s food when Jian Mo takes responsibility for him 27 309.
• Sanitation: Jiujiu’s large food intake produces enough droppings that Jian Mo cleans the enclosure twice daily 27.
• Shelter: Wu Jiong takes Jiujiu to a nearby cave during heavy rain or thunder 57.
• Restraints: Jiujiu bites through a reachable tether, showing that ordinary rope does not reliably prevent an unsupervised departure 70.
• Value to tribes: Their meat tastes poor, so people generally prefer taming them to eating them 302.

Notable Individuals

History

Jiujiu’s Rescue

Jian Mo and Wu Jiong find the first Flying-Winged Beast unconscious in a cavern beneath a hole in the mountaintop. Nearly every available adult helps hoist it out with ropes and carry it to the tribe. Jian Mo identifies a broken wing, infected wounds, and a charred branching mark suggesting a lightning strike, then cleans the wounds and drains their pus 15.

After recovering, the beast refuses Ban Ming’s attempts to make it fly but willingly carries Jian Mo with Wu Jiong. Further trials confirm its preference for Jian Mo, who agrees to raise it with the tribe’s assistance and names it Jiujiu 26 27.

Ying'ao’s Arrival

Jiujiu befriends an unfamiliar injured male and helps persuade him to follow Jian Mo back to the tribe. The newcomer has a broken Fork-Horned Beast horn embedded in an infected wound and requires surgery 299 300 301.

Although Ying'ao initially resists domestication, he later shares the caravan’s load with Jiujiu and allows Jian Mo and Ye Luo to ride him 302 309 357.

Expansion of Tribal Breeding

By the later story, several tribes reserve Flying-Winged Beast cubs from the Tianning Tribe. Huan Yu credits Jian Mo with encouraging the growing interest in raising them, while Jian Mo stresses that the beasts should be treated well 490.

The Riverside Tribe subsequently obtains several cubs from Tianning. With Jian Mo’s agreement, the tribe pays Ying'ao to train them, and he leads the youngsters on formation flights 510.