I awake in morning. It is early I know this, because I smell it. In the morning there are many fresh piles of dung. It is a bad smell. Dung is sickly-sweet and always wet in spring. I smell many droppings from the Ram, and so I know my head lays in the Forests-Near-The-Mountains where Ram like to jump and scream horrible sounds.
I stretch my wings and shriek. A deep pain ignites, and then it throbs in my torso and back. My muscles pulse evilly. Enough of that. No, I will not move again.
I realize the flying mouth still has its jaws around me, but it is not fighting me any more. Legends were not true. Flying mouths do not strangle to death. They die after eating you, and you are left to starve alone. I know this because this flying mouth does not let me move.
I scream this time to tell my brothers and sisters I am here and I am alive, and that they must not tell Queen I have failed. The Forests-Near-The-Mountains are very far from home. They must hear me or they never will, and here I will starve. I scream again but then my voice is no more and lets out only a whistling wind. I am scared, and I honk like the fat geese from home. Is this why they make the noise they do, because they are just as afraid of me as I am of these flying mouths of the men? I will still give the geese chase, it is funny to see them run.
Such thoughts come and go to me, as I accept death here on the warm grass of the forests by the Forests-Near-The-Mountains. For all that it is worth, the green grass smells ripe, the soil is damp yet warm, and there are fish to watch in the lake that roars some long paces away. I see the fish well from here. They have many scales and have cold, beady eyes that makes dumb of them. The longest fish are better to eat. I pray I could move enough to make them my final meal. I lick my jaws and I can taste them now. I lick dirt from my eyes and I remember I am a prisoner of the flying mouth.
With time the flying mouth seems heavier and tighter. I have tasted its fibers and chewed myself free of one, yet too much remain and I have already grown tired. My empty stomach burns and I cannot lift my head from the ground any longer. I have tried again to call for Longhorn, but only my nostrils flare and whistle. My throat is glued shut under the weight of the flying mouth. The Forests-Near-The-Mountains has lost its luster and now is a shade of grey.
I smell sweat, pungent oil, the hide of a bear. Then, I smell metal, and I know it is none other than a village man. My heart thunders and I growl in anger that I am helpless. My wings only twitch when I ache to move them. My voice must be too weak to scare the man from me, for his scent comes closer and without fear. The smell of bear hide is sharp now and lingers not too far from me.
The man, he is a little man, a village boy, comes closer and I cannot fight him. He is talking to himself. He is mad because he carries a knife as he laughs.
He stomps on my paw with a shout. I growl in fear. I am annoyed the man has decided not to put me out of my misery quickly, for this pain from the flying mouth is growing unbearable.
My paw has a last strength to force him away. The man's eyes grow big and he looks threatened like the other village men when it is time to burn their caves. But he comes to me again with his knife jousted out in front of him as if he will use it quickly.
He mumbles again to himself, I think he is praying, then he shouts to send it to heaven. I think this is how men pray before a kill. I know the prayer is to seal my death, because the village boy glares at me. He raises his knife. My heart quivers. I release all and lay down before the sharp knife slices my neck.
I do not feel anything. Is this the afterlife? Perhaps I was not meant to feel anything.
I feel the flying mouth loosen. The village boy severs it apart with his knife.
My wings scale and grow as I move them, and my legs do not buzz anymore. I feel light, and when I release my power, I grow ten times the size of the village boy.
He is afraid, as he should have been from the start. I clutch his throat upon a rock and stare deep in his white eyes until even his soul shrivels like a gourd. Now he knows his flying mouth will never capture me again.
He cowers. Then, there is a moment when I look into the village boy's eyes where I feel my heart soar in freedom.
It is strange to me. I smell the boy's hot blood rising in an eerie call from the ages, just as mine. There are only rare times I felt such connection to all that there is: when feeling the warmth of heaven when I sunbathe on a bright afternoon, and another is a distant memory against my mother's cozy breast.
I feel...protected.
This is nonsense. I am angry that this feeling comes to me from a human. Only Queen and the gods protect me. I scream at the village boy's face to put the fear of the devil in his being so that we will never meet again. Then, I race away.
When I fly, it is never straight, and I collapse many times to the rocky ground until my scales are bruised and I am dizzy and tired. I will sleep here and try again in morning. I shake in my sleep. Queen will be angry and spit fire at me.