CHAPTER SIX: ADOPTED
Falcon took her to his home in the Pishkin Building. By now, it was starting to get dark. Margalo was glad to be off the streets, where she'd had to sleep with one eye open, so to speak, to ensure that she wouldn't be grabbed by a predator while she slept. It was starting to rain too. She shuddered as she imagined the dreadful state she'd be in if Falcon had just left her after eating the vulture. She'd be starving and spending her last night on earth freezing in the cold rain. "Why did you spare my life and help me?" she asked him.
"Is it that odd that one bird would help another?"
"It is considering that you're a peregrine falcon, and I'm a canary, your natural prey. You do eat birds, don't you?"
"That I do."
Margalo shuddered. "How come?"
"Well, because my taste buds naturally crave the meat of birds."
"Does it bother you that you kill other creatures?"
"It did when I did some of my first hunts."
"It doesn't any more?"
"It's not that I don't respect their lives and see them as nothing. It's just that I see theirs as being on an equal level to mine. But only one of us can continue on."
"What do you mean?"
Falcon thought for a moment, pondering how best to explain predation in a way that wouldn't come off as self-serving. Finally, he said "Suppose that I hadn't come back there in that alley when that vulture had you cornered?"
"I'd have been vulture food."
"Well, what if you had sharp talons like mine and could fight back?"
"Then, I'd have to fight back, I suppose."
"What if that vulture wouldn't back down and kept trying to eat you?"
"I don't know. I've never really thought about something like that."
"You might have to kill him, wouldn't you?"
"I suppose, if it meant the difference between him living and me dying and him dying and me living, that yes, I'd have no choice but to kill him if I wanted to live," Margalo sighed.
"Now you can understand how I operate. If I don't eat, I get hungry, and will eventually end up as feathers and bones like I found you as. But if I do eat, then the only way for me to eat, other than occasionally snagging something dead from another bird, is if I take a life."
"I guess I understand now. If you don't kill, you don't eat. I see how wrong I was to think you falcons killed for fun."
"For fun? Any falcon who kills for fun is a very nasty bird that I wouldn't want to be around. I take what I need, nothing more. That said, you should now that the stories you heard about us falcons aren't true. Maybe the prey birds take it that way. But, we can't help what we are any more than you can help being what you are. I don't feel that I should have to spend all of my life feeling ashamed because I eat meat."
"No, you can't help what you are and no, you shouldn't feel ashamed for how you were born. I don't blame you for eating meat. It's just that we, well, never took the time to get to know falcons like you. We thought you just existed to kill us."
"No, we have likes and dislikes just like you. And families too."
"I had a family. They were killed in a storm nine days ago. Tree branch fell on them."
"I'm so sorry to hear that. I know what it's like to lose a family."
"You do?"
"Yes. After I left home on my own. I found a falcon I liked and we became a couple. We were going to have a nest soon, but," he paused, shedding a few tears, "she was killed by a hail storm about two months ago. I lost her and our unborn kids. And now I'm all alone."
"That's terrible! But don't you have any friends?"
"I have some birds I talk to every now and then. But I mostly keep to myself. Losing my wife really has kept me down. But now, I have another chance."
"Another chance at what?"
"To have a kid."
"You found another wife?"
"Not yet. But I have found a daughter."
"Where?"
"You. If you'll let me. I didn't just kill that vulture today for food."'
"You didn't?"
"No. I can't stand to see little children picked on. As I said earlier, you should leave the kids alone, unless you're starving and have no choice. He showed no concern for you, despite your pitiful state. He just wanted to eat you, when you clearly needed love and care. And so, after I beat him in that fight, I showed him just as much mercy as he was going to show to you."
Margalo saw that, though Falcon was kind-hearted, it would be most unwise to get on his bad side. He might make a great friend, but he made a scary enemy.
"I'd be glad to be your daughter."
"Good. And I'll try and be a father to you. I know that, being a falcon, I could never replace your canary parents, but I'll do the best I can."
"Thank you."
Lightning flashed in the sky outside the Pishkin Building and Margalo shook in fear. She hated storms! "You don't like storms, do you?" Falcon said.
Margalo shook her head. "They've always scared me. Mom and dad comforted me during them, but I'm even more afraid of them now that-"
"You lost your family during one." Margalo nodded. "Well, I have big enough wings to shelter you and keep you warm. Just let me tuck one over you and we can sleep in peace."
"Thank you, Falcon," Margalo said. He placed a wing gently over her and she cuddled up close to him and went to sleep.
"Goodnight, Margalo my daughter," Falcon said, before falling asleep as well.
