Raven Saw
The two-leggeds course through the forest below me, and I follow above. Always when they hunt, these ones leave bounty for us.
It is the pale-headed one, with his fledgling. Their plumage is as variable as the clouds, but I know their relations by the way that they stand.
They do not kill, but only run. I follow. The young one shoots arrows of hunger and rage and pain and desire, all through the forest. The trees shrink from him, and he breaks their branches as he passes. The parent does not stop him, but runs him: far, and hard.
Finally the two stop, many long glides from their nest, in mountains among the clouds. By the ravine where the ice melts last. I choose a dead tree, and bide my time.
They stand together, talking without sound, as we do. The pale-head places his featherless wing across the back of the immature. The young one flinches away at first, then submits, then curls to the ground. The parent guards him there, with his wing across his back. They know the way of the stones. They stay without moving, until the daylight begins to die in the clouds.
At the bottom of the ravine, a doe walks carefully.
The two descend as one, and kill, and feed.
I rise to call my clan, beating hard against the cold, damp air. For soon it will be night. As we gather and circle above, I see the fledgling disappear into the bright shiny thing. Away it flies, on the black river of no water, river of feasts and death. Away to the north, where snow is.