Animade Herald (Also known as the Magemade Courier)

Preface

When a sorcerer decides to create new life, it is a frequently a lifelong passion involving the hands-on help and sage advice of many other kinvari. In the same way as an enchanter can dissect and mimic the arcane structure of one thing and imbue it within an object of their choosing, a skillful sorcerer with a passion for zoarcanology can study, map, and attempt to assemble the blueprints of living creatures into a new, hybridized life-form. The difficulty in doing so successfully cannot be overstated, as living things are exponentially more complex than even sophisticated enchantments on inanimate objects.
A project such as this requires dozens or hundreds of years to attempt and perfect, if one does not give up and grow busy before reaching a viable theriotype. False Dragons took nearly two centuries to craft, tweak, and make self-sustaining as a pseudo-natural species. An aspiring zoarcanologist needs a dedicated laboratory setup and dense documentation for their research into the building blocks of life, as well as an area for complex three-dimensional modeling of said blocks. The arcana used in these projects is frequently highly-refined, delicate, and intricate, like a lace weave or wire sculpture. Needless to say, it is impossible to even attempt such an undertaking without a stable work environment and plentiful arcana and mana.

History

After the Shattering, the environmental arcana of Harokin was exhausted. Arcane magic had no fuel with which to be performed, and arcane technology ceased to work. It was out of desperation that, completely severed from nearby groups of survivors, some kinvari turned to any method at all to craft a new system of communication that did not rely on magic. Hymvari, the kinvari most closely bonded with domesticated and working animals, served as an early form of hand-to-hand written communication between groups, but the danger of traveling overland was lethal even to well-versed kinvari and their animals.
So all minds turned towards anima, which was unaffected by the loss of arcana, for a solution. Anima, the type of magical energy that comprises one's soul, is the very magic that druidic kinvari use for their shapeshifting needs. Perfection be damned, kinvari just needed a creature that could carry messages quickly and unnoticeably across a titan-wrecked landscape.
Their attempts eventually resulted in the Magemade Courier, later refined and renamed as the Animade Herald. Rather than a consistent species, the herald is more like a spectrum of mustelid and avian traits; most of them superficially resemble a feathered, winged ferret, but exact details can vary widely between individuals. They were not designed to be a self-sustaining species; each herald is handmade by witches and manually bonded and trained as adult animals. They mature quickly, reaching their adult size at one year old, and are capable of climbing, flying, and occasionally burrowing. Their deft little hand-like paws are easily capable of grasping, carrying, and manipulating objects--better than a raccoon or lemur, but less dexterous than a monkey.

The Herald

Beggars can't be choosers, say hymvari, and nowhere is this more obvious than with the animade heralds. They are highly intelligent, able to process visual information as quickly as any forest owl or arboreal monkey, and possessed of significant problem-solving abilities thanks to a distillation of corvid brainpower. They were specifically designed to be able to surmount any physical or logistical obstacle, to travel between farflung communities whose entrances were often hidden, and to locate specific kinvari--all without losing whatever written messages they carried with them.
So, of course, the herald is one of the most obnoxious animals any kinvari could work with.
The commonmost refrain is "you made them too smart," usually spoken by those not involved with the impossibly difficult challenge of creating a physically-stable hybrid creature using nothing but soulstuff. Heralds require every iota of their intelligence to navigate the titan-infested geography between survivors, and it's no kinvar's fault that the species involved in crafting the herald are largely inquisitive, playful, and often destructive animals. It's true that heralds cannot be locked into or out of any location, be it by structural collapse or deliberate malice; this applies equally to escaping the destruction of a passing titan and circumventing the anti-herald measures placed upon kinvaren food storage. Heralds seem to approach their eventful careers with an attitude of "known is better than unknown," and they will investigate or deconstruct any unknown they find.
Fortunately, they are not enormously strong animals, and sufficiently heavy items around a sufficiently simple box can keep the box's contents relatively safe... until a kinvar opens it and every nearby herald rushes to inspect the mysterious innards of The Impenetrable Cube. (Unsurprisingly, their senses are very keen.)
The herald's remarkable intelligence does not stop at puzzles; they are intensely social animals, bonding deeply with their kinvari and able to read even unfamiliar people with devastating effectiveness. This can be used to bribe, beg, persuade, or trick a kinvar into doing something the herald desires, from giving them a treat to opening the hatch to a cat-sized access corridor through an underground storage unit. Heralds are able to "lie" with their body language until a kinvar lets their guard down and gives the herald the opportunity it's been waiting for.
Most kinvari have very strong opinions about these flying ferrets - it's rare for one to be neutral about them. Some love their emotional intelligence and creativity, while others abhor their obnoxious curiosity and often-destructive "problem-solving." Some say they cannot be trusted to genuinely bond with a kinvar, while others swear by their loyalty and trainability. Without a doubt, however, heralds can and will do exactly what they were made to do, and they are perhaps the only way that isolated groups of hidden survivors can stay in touch with each other at all.

Animade Herald, Portrait by Ty Barbary via Midjourney

Physicality

Size: small, roughly housecat-sized
Weight: 4-7 lbs
Wingspan: 5-6 feet
Length (nose to rump): 2 feet

Heralds are generally mustelid in build, long-bodied and long-tailed with four short, clever limbs and feathered wings. They tend to be shades of brown, including gold-brown and red-brown, but their faces are almost always pale with dark tear markings. Off-model individuals may be shades of deep grey, darkening into iridescent-black feathers along their wings; influence from corvid souls.
The consistency of their white faces is a point of puzzlement among those kinvari involved in the project. It is an uncommon herald who has a darker face, and they tend to be prized by their handlers for their rarity, who claim these are even more intelligent than the average herald.

Animade Herald, Perched by Ty Barbary via Midjourney

Animade Herald, Falcon-Speckled by Ty Barbary via Midjourney

Animade Herald, Corvid-Winged by Ty Barbary via Midjourney