PRELUDE
It was raining. The rain wasn't very hard, but it was enough to make one dreary, enough to soak soft clothing and seep under harder components. Occasionally, a cloudbank brightened, and the sky grumbled, probably offended by the marching army beneath it.
The soldiers in that army had plenty of their own to complain. They had been marching for days, they had lived on a diet of eggs—mostly of the Pukpuk birds, nutritious though not overly tasty—and the rain and the cold were making their joints and muscles ache. However, these soldiers where not just any creatures: they were SharpClaws, predatorial saurians, the most fearsome, advanced, and so to be master species of their world, or so they thought. Yet, being mighty doesn't mean you are always happy.
"This march is stupid," bluntly griped one SharpClaw to his mate.
"Shh," hissed the other, "That might get around to the boss."
"I wish it would, that's what I say. I'm sick of being wet 'n' tired 'n' hungry. I'd kill for a hunk of red meat right about now, and I don't give a damn about who hears it!"
Now, if these two had been good soldiers, they would have been vigilant, and if they had been vigilant, they would have seen, against the flaring sky, a shape, small as a gnat but still perceivable, floating and flapping in the lightning and billowing clouds, seeming to be as helpless as the kite on the wind. Where it is going or even what it is cannot be seen: maybe it's a scout for the army. Maybe its was a curious bystander, or maybe it one of the victims, circling the sky in a kind of penitence, praying for hope and freedom, or maybe, just maybe, it was a herald of that hope.
