Life Starts Now Chapter 3: Death in the Flock, a stuart little fanfic

A:N: Trigger warning for minor one-off character death, mention and somewhat graphic depiction. Reader's advised to avoid this chapter if you're not comfortable with the topic.

Chances are, you've probably seen a dead bird before. On the side of the road or something. Roadkill. Fallen out of the sky. With how busy our lives as humans are, we tend to quickly forget the lives lost around us.

But what happens when a member of the flock suddenly passes away, while you're IN that flock? How does Margalo process it? How do the women she was just beginning to think she understood process it? Her mother figure Dolly has certainly taken a nasty reaction. And Margalo is quietly devastated to find out why.

The ants had got to her before we did.

"Get off of her! GET OFF OF HER!" Dolly wails in a voice unlike anything I've heard from her before. Ropes of pulsating black crossed over Adrian's lifeless body and over the ground in all directions, like all the Lilliputians binding Gulliver to the beach.

There must've been a colony nearby, somewhere in the dark. I've never seen anything like it before. Never seen nature act like this before.

We had just found the body an hour ago, Cleo and I. I'll never forget how Adrian looked, laying still on the ground like that. It was dark, nearly midnight. As still as a rock. If not for the fact that she'd landed in plain sight, her kiwi brown feathers would've let her blend in with the dirty forest floor, but there wasn't an ant in sight yet.

It was instinctive, like I knew in my gut she was dead, even before my mind came up with the word. And I knew just as quickly that Cleo knew, too. But she reached forward and pressed a wing to Adrian's chest to confirm it, anyway. The raven's wings seemed even more massive than usual against the junco's little body. There was something innately terrifying about Cleo handling one of the smaller birds, even as she had her ear gently pressed up against Adrian's collar, listening for a heartbeat.

The seconds felt like hours. My body buzzed with anticipation or dread, or some mix of the two. Cleo pulled her head away, then reached for a nearby stone, and placed it in the middle of Adrian's breast. I stood there clueless as she concentrated her grip on the stone, as well as she could do with her wingtips. Everything clicked as she began performing her best version of chest compressions I think I've ever seen in real life. Technically, it was the first time I've seen CPR IRL. I only knew what they were because of one of those '70s beachy rom-coms I'd seen in the park. Maybe it was only because I knew movies, and I knew the surfer with the David Hasselhoff-esque muscles wouldn't die in vain of a sappy ending, but in hindsight, that scene so badly prepared me for the helpless feeling of a real life or death situation. CPR was not something you ever wanna witness in real life. I lean over Adrian as close as I can without getting in the chief's way, ready to jump in and help, ready to run and get food, water, anything that could help.

Three minutes. Four. Cleo checked again. Nothing. No pulse, no breathing.

Nothing.

Finally, Cleo looked up to me. There were no words exchanged between us. Only the briefest of moments to register what's happened before she and I split up. Went to find the other members of our flock, wherever they had scattered to. I was nauseous and panicked and my heart pounded in my chest like a drum. All I can think of is the frustration of being right there, and there being nothing we can do for her. Our inferior. My inferior, as Chief in training.

I didn't realize, even after death, Adrian was still vulnerable.

How could I have known leaving the body came with a consequence? Had I known how fast it would happen, I would've never gone. I would've never let the next thing happen, especially had I known how Dolly would react.

By the time we'd arrived back with all our members, the ants were swarming. Blanketing her body in thick, black, squirming lines. Half of us hadn't even had time to learn that she was dead before they had gone for her.

She had just died, and they were trying to eat her.

"Off! OFF! " Dolly screams even louder, as if the change in volume would make the insects understand her. She's a grandmother, our flock's matriarch, and the current second in command, only behind Cleo. And for as long as I've known her, she's been both steady and adaptive. I don't expect to see her break like this. She's been my rock, and my best friend. Seeing this is threatening to break me from the inside.

"It's not just that she's dead," Dolly said between sobs. I may have never witnessed it myself yet, but I understand. Migratory birds come to accept that spontaneous losses just… happen. And even with a heart as big as hers, Dolly's no exception. While it's terrible to stomach, after a while, you become numb to it. But that's not what's happening with Dolly right now. She snatches a broken branch from the fern nearby and starts smacking the body with the leaves. " Get out of here! For lord's sake! Let me return her to you, and ya and the great Earth and heaven can have her! All I want is to give her her final propers, please! Leave the body until we've said goodbye! Until after we're gone ! THEN ya'll can do what ya must. You can wait THAT long!"

I may have spent most of my life in the city, but it felt like I learned everything I needed to know about In the wild in just a few years. Life expectancy out here is shorter. Loss comes randomly. Death is a much more likely outcome for someone sick or injured, away from the net of human interference. It isn't even a significant event sometimes. Mammals go into hibernation for the long winter, never coming out. Birds leave their northern home along the flyaways, and never come back in the spring. One freak cold could drag out until there's no hope of ever getting better.

While my eyes are on Dolly, Jasmine stares at Adrian, silent, stoic, but with lids peeled back all the way. I can only imagine what she's thinking. She too was an orphan, just like me. Like many things I kept to myself, nobody but Dolly knew of my checkered past, or the events that lead up to it. I wondered how Jasmine would feel to know she wasn't alone in this feeling of stupid helplessness.

She and Sophia had been found by a flock of blue jays Dolly had connections with. Once, while the kids were occupied finding a snack, Dolly told me the whole story. While Sophia had lost her family, she had found the flightless Jasmine, a leave-behind in her own nest. And the two different species got on, taking care of each other until their discovery and shuffling across different migratory flocks.

I came up behind Jasmine. She turned to look at me, her eyes wide and confused. "I don't understand," Her voice was hollow, in the same way a child first encountering the topic of death would be.

"You don't understand that she's gone?" I tried, slowly. I hadn't had much experience talking with little kids. Not since I was a little kid, anyway. Not very useful in a flock where the adults are not only expected to look after the kids, but required to.

"No. I get that," Jasmine shot me down. "But I don't get why. She didn't get hurt, right?"

"No… not that I know of…" I raised a brow. I clenched my gut, and willed myself to really look at the body, which despite Dolly's effort, was still crawling with ants. No gashes, no wounds. No tell of an injury that was incompatible with life. By now, gnats had begun to gather around Adrian's body, too. Getting their sense of the potential meal. How could this be happening so fast? How could she be decomposing already? Less than twenty hours ago, she was in the air, healthy and alive. She was just like us. And now the insects of the forest were coming to do their work. The Earth was trying to erase her existence, and fast. This was insane.

"She had been showing signs of sickness for days." said Willow, our painfully factually speaking crow.

Cleo raises a brow. "What?"

"She stopped eating, got weaker, and fell to the back of the formation. I remember. She asked me to take her rank for a while."

I'm astonished. "Why didn't you say anything?"

"She promised me not to say anything." Willow shrugs. "I follow orders."

"It was her wish not to raise an alarm."

She didn't want anybody to worry. She knew something was wrong.

"Don't get mad at her. She was only following orders."

"Yesterday, she wouldn't stop throwing up," piped up Sophia, the thin little wren with a crown of beads on her head. She herself was just thirteen, and had been orphaned as a baby. Death was nothing new to her.

"All the signs of poison," Cleo affirmed. "Not uncommon in areas with polluted water streams. Must've to be that greenish looking stream a hundred miles back or so! I swore I told everyone not to touch it!"

"I guess it could've just as easily been me," I admitted. I remember that stop. That stream. I was thirsty, too, and after hours flying in the sun, without any drinkable water in sight, I was sorely tempted to defy her. But something about that greenish glow on the surface when the sun hit the water kept me away. "I can't place what it was, but I know that color from somewhere. All I could think about was the neon slime used on Nickelodeon."

"Slime on what?"

"Nevermind." I tuned into the Kids Choice Awards with Martha once, back in Manhattan. Sometimes I forget that these birds don't have domestic comforts to return to like TV or movies during the warmer seasons. Considering Cleo explicitly told us to leave the stream alone, I don't know if the other girls would've been put off by the unnatural tint in the water as well, but none of them would touch the stream either way.

This was the first year Adrian was in our flock, and we hadn't really had a chance to talk at length, she and I. Admittedly, I hadn't been interested in doing so. She came off like a snob. Never smiling, especially not at me.

And she always had the snarkiest comments when it was my turn to cook.

For the first month or so, I let it roll off my shoulders. Maybe she was just trying to protect herself. Save from coming off as weak. Heck, I could relate to that! Like everybody, the time would come for us to get to know each other, and the bond would form.

But Adrian made it clear how she felt about me soon enough. That day at the stream, she puffed up her chest, and sniffed at me before plunged her beak into the pool of questionable water. If she was making it deliberately clear she didn't trust my judgment.

It hadn't even been a week since that encounter, and now I was standing two inches from her lifeless body.

I found a branch of my own and approached from behind. But I stopped short as Dolly swatted backwards at me with her other wing, shouting again over her shoulder. "OFF OF HER!"

Startled, I dropped the branch. Dolly continued her attack on the swarm, and it took me a second too long to understand that that shout was directed at the ants, not me. But her tone . Always so kind, so soothing and motherly towards me, had changed. The ugly situation we found ourselves in had made her hostile. And so I backed off.

She began to slow down. She was getting tired, I could tell. Heaving breaths rocked her body back and forth, ceasing her swings. Bitterly muttering to herself. "Stupid… Stupid stupid waste…"

I watched on, not knowing what to say, or what to do. I'd never seen Dolly lose herself like this. I've never been good at consoling people, not when they get emotional like this. I don't have that gift. Not like my boyfriend. Stuart would know what to say. What to do.
I have to wonder if a breakdown like this was inevitable. She was older than all of us, with hundreds of thousands more miles under her belt. And still, she made this trip every year. She had so many demands on her shoulder. So many birds to look out for. Maybe it was the tiredness creeping up on her. Her words made this development sound as insulting as it was painful. I worried for her. She may have seen the worst of it all, but that didn't mean she was unaffected by it.

I worried about Jasmine. The tiny sparrow was still only seven years old. I don't care if it's normal in the wild or not. Nobody that young should have to see this! I'd learned pretty quickly that innocence is hard enough to protect in the wild, without witnessing the death of your own flock members. Your 'sisters in migration, some called it.' Cheesy all right, but not accurate. I've been with this flock for four five years now, and you'd better believe they were as good as family to me. This group of misfit birds, mostly orphans, the kids were. Those who'd narrowly missed the same fate as the rest of their species. Or in some cases, just leftovers from nests and that had left them behind. Late bloomers who paid the price for learning to fly too late. Cases like Jasmine. Cases like me.

Off to the right, Sophia was weeping. Making up for the tears that Jasmine didn't shed. Even though she was two years older, her tears had always been the more emotional of the two younger girls. As she mourned in what would otherwise be her lonely little spot, Willow stood behind her, mechanically stroking her back, for lack of knowing what else to do. For as awkward as the crow was, she seemed to be so good with the kids. It would be awful to say out loud, but I couldn't help but think it had something to do with her childlike mentality. But if I sucked at something as seemingly natural as looking after kids, what did that say about me?

It occurred to me that this was the first year Sophia or Jasmine had gotten to know Adrian, too. I realized how close she had gotten to Adrian in those short months we all knew each other. I couldn't see how someone so snotty would want anything to do with the children of the flocks. And yet, naturally, Adrian had something hardwired in her DNA that made her a favorite among the kids. Both in our flock, and in her others. I remember overhearing them talk just two days ago, chatting about their favorite bug food. Now she was bug food.
Remembering their conversation shouldn't have made me bitter. But it did. Any thought of sharing my past with Jasmine was no longer something I could stomach.

"They couldn't even wait an hour," muttered Dolly.

"Can you blame them?" asked Cleo. Her voice was calm, her ebony coat silky and smooth and tight against her body. Not ruffled like Dolly's feathers were. "Once a body is returned to the earth, then they'd have to fight both the dirt and the worms for their meal."

"Oh—" Dolly whirled around. Her tiny beak couldn't have been more than a millimeter from Cleo's enormous one. "SHUT UP!"

I watched the grandmother bird recoil from the body and begin to back up. "Dolly, wait, let me go with you!"

But by the time I got my own wings ready, she had liftoff. Periwinkle and black feathers launched her into the sky, disappearing into the pitch black shadow of the canopy. A rattling of branches from high above indicated she'd sought escape high up in the trees.

"Margalo."

I turned to find Cleo having stumbled up to where I was. Her velvety, cool voice may as well have been a whip crack. "Make yourself useful." She pointed to the soft dirt between her toes. Her voice was just low enough that it could only be heard between us. "Find a stick. Start digging."

Make yourself useful. Cool. Glad to know she has full confidence in my chaperoning abilities. I might technically be an adult now, but when I met her, when I joined the flock, I was only thirteen. Not even old enough to be one of the chaperones, and yet, it seemed like right off the bat that she gave me a hell of a lot more responsibility than I would have if I were… well, anybody else. It's hard to read Cleo, but Cleo can read people pretty good. Sometimes I wonder if she was able to look into my eyes and see my criminal history. If she knew just by scanning me that I have no right to be treated like the innocent orphans that populated our flock.

As Cheif-in-Training, I was third in rank in the flock. Though it was unlikely to happen, if both Cleo and Dolly couldn't be called upon for decisions, then it was up to me. All I had to do to keep this job was never skip a migratory season and put in my dues, like the women before me. Depending on demand, as soon as next year, I could be in charge of my own flock. Me, the indentured thief who'd never migrated once until she was already a teen, granted one of the most prestigious titles granted to birds around the world.

There had to be a reason for that. Cleo might be a bitch, but she's a serious bitch. Too serious about this job to trust just anybody with it, at least I think. She knew the dangers of migration better than anybody, even though ravens like her aren't technically even supposed to migrate. We're not sure of the story, but from what Dolly and I pieced together, Cleo's father had been attacked by something. Something predatory. Something enormous. The vagueness of it scared the shit out of me. Think of all and anything that could be big enough to kill a grown raven. Afterwards, she was taken in by another family of birds who did participate in migration. If this was true, no wonder she was so protective of those who were so much smaller than she was. Knowing this was the only reason I could stomach the thought of being around her. After Falcon, I mean.

Still, I had plenty of reasons to not tell her a thing about Stuart. It was hard enough to explain him to Dolly—someone who welcomed me with open wings from day one.

Despite the resentment building up inside, I left without a word, obeying the command. I didn't feel like starting a fight with Cleo, not after what she'd been through (even if I wasn't scared of her,). She'd stepped down in rank chief duties due to poor health. While this should've put Dolly in charge, Cleo never seemed to let all of her authority go, and you certainly wouldn't know it now.

Sometimes being grounded for any reason in the wild is a death sentence. Maybe this is why Cleo refused to stay back this year, like she was supposed to. She caught up with us in November on a wing that had barely half healed. Claimed it was the way birds have been operating for thousands of years. Her determination was admirable. But I couldn't fathom all that physical stress on broken bones.

Regardless, Dolly was technically the one in charge for now, and as far as rules go, Cleo should've been my subordinate, for now. Still, I did as she asked, and used a sharp stick to hoe the dirt until it was loose. I'd never dug a grave before, but I thought it would be easy. As it turns out, I was wrong. When I had enough agitation, I got on my knees and scooped up the loose dirt with my wings. It's not like I had a shovel or anything. What I wouldn't have given just to find something like an old bottle cap.

The hole I dug was just ankle deep, maybe half an inch at best. This is when Dolly reappeared. She approached the grave without a word and began pulling away the dirt and dumping into a pile at her left side, opposite me. I don't know if she felt bad for snapping at me earlier, or if she would've done this for our Adrian anyway. In all that time we worked shoulder to shoulder, she never met my eyes.

The hole we ended up with wasn't very deep. It just had to be deep enough to cover Adrian's body laying flat. Nothing more. And just when I was beginning to wonder about that wing of hers, Cleo came forward and started yanking a few large leaves from beneath another fallen branch. Holding some in her beak and some in her toes, she flew these over and, with more grace than I thought she was capable of, layered them one on top of one another, making a stack next to the body. When she was satisfied with the sheet, she went around the other side of the body, extended both her wings, and with a carefully stifled groan that hinted that she was still in a lot of pain, rolled Adrian on her side. Then rolled her again until the body was on the leaf, face upwards.

We didn't need to be told what to do next. Taking either end, Dolly and I hoisted the body up by the bottom leaf, like a makeshift stretcher, and slowly began making our way to the grave. The ants were still coming out of the corners of Adrian's body. In between her feathers, beneath her cloak, every crevice they could find. They ran up the leaf and started for me.

My skin crawled. My feathers stood on end. And once we lowered the body into the hole, I dropped the stretcher as fast as possible. Slapping my left wing with my right, my right with my left, scraping the ants off of me.

Dolly brushed off her own ants with steady, patient motions that were so uncharacteristically Cleo of her, they scared me. and it wasn't long until we were transferring the dirt back into the hole. Considering how invasive the ants were, we couldn't have buried her any sooner. I saw an ant run beneath the crease of her eyebrow just before throwing a pile of dirt on it. I don't think I could stomach watching them go for her eyes.

Now Adrian could disappear into the earth with discretion and dignity. Everybody deserves that. Even snide people.

"Should we say something?"

This was suggested by the little wren Sophia. Almost a teenager now, she wasn't so little anymore, but she had no reason to be caught up by the tension between Dolly, Cleo, and I. And yet her shaking voice suggested she was nervous to break the silence anyway. "About Adrian?"

"Hey, yeah." I nodded. "That's a nice idea." She was almost a teenager now, and orphaned young, like most of us. I could only imagine where Sophia got an idea to do something like this. I didn't want to think of it too long. "Tell her what she… meant to us."

I thought I saw Dolly smile.

"But Adrian's dead." Jasmine had piped up. "She can't hear us talk to her."

"She can't hear us," Willow echoed, always strictly factual. "But we could pretend she does."

"I guess that makes sense.

"So pretty, Adrian." Jasmine agreed. "You've always been so pretty, Adrian. And really smart. I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to tell you. We miss you already. Maybe I only just met you, but..." She trailed off. She was just a little kid, taxed with trying to give a great honor to someone she barely knew or understood.

So much for a eulogy. The other birds disbanded, even little Sophia. She took Jasmine by the shoulder and led her away. I hoped she'd try and distract her with a game or something.

I should've probably try and helped, but I just wasn't in the mood. I couldn't fake fun right now.

"What about a headstone?" Jasmine asked.

"A headstone?" I stared at the mound of loose dirt and leaves, and thought about human practices I'd learned in movies.
"You know what that is, right?"

"Yeah, I do. I just… didn't realize birds used those, too."

"I mean, I see them on the road sometimes. I could look for a big rock to scratch her name into. You'd help me, right?"

"Of course." How could I say 'no'? "But what else would I put on there? I feel like there should be more on a headstone. I know her name, but I don't even know her age.

"Oh. She's twenty five."

Twenty five. That's it? That's only seven years older than me. She died so young. "We won't have time. The sun's going down. Coyotes will start milling about." Cleo looked to the left at Dolly, who seemed to have made a point at turning her back on her, then to the right, at me. " Chief. Make the call."

Chief. That's the first time she's ever called me that. I don't have time to revel in my new designation, though. I turn back to Jasmine, gripping the tip of her wing in mine. "I'm sorry. She's right. It's too dangerous to sit on the floor where we are for so long. I'm really sorry."

"I understand." Jasmine nodded. "But we can come back, right?"

My breath hitched. I look at Sophia, who cautiously nodded at me.

I know what I have to say, even if it's a lie. "Sure we will."

Jasmine's speech rattled me good. Pretty. Smart. Good with kids, too, if her popularity with the younger birds is evidence enough. 'What a waste' is right.

"You're conflicted."

I blinked. I hadn't realized Cleo was still there until she was talking to me. Despite how little she thought of me, she was putting words out there for me to hear.

"And it's obvious." Cleo was talking to me. "Don't be."

She offered no reaction. If she were still chief, such talk would be insubordination. She wasn't our leader at the moment, but I didn't think that meant she wouldn't be personally offended by that. Let alone hurt. Next to Adrian, Cleo may have been the coldest woman I knew. But that didn't mean she was heartless. I couldn't contain my curiosity anymore. While the others were out of earshot, I went to Cleo. "That didn't bother you?"

"What?"

I gestured to Dolly. "Y'know. That."

"Oh." She stuck up her nose and shook her head. "Please. Never let people who are hurting cut you down"

"Aren't we all hurting?"

"Technically, I suppose… aagh. " She ruffled her feathers, maybe trying to stretch out her wing, and flinching in pain. "Losses hurt a flock, one way or another. One less head accountable for the rest means we're one head more vulnerable than we were two hours ago. And Adrian had a good sense of direction and wasn't easily swayed by their emotions."

She was comparing us. She talked on as if I wasn't quick enough to catch it, or she didn't care that I did.

"With some training, more than I can offer, I believe she could've made a fine Chief herself. It's a loss for chicks, but Dolly's the only one who has a right break down over this."

"God. Dolly really wanted Adrian to be Chief that bad?"

"Naturally. A mother bird only wanted the best for her family."

"Family?" That word stopped me dead in my tracks. "Wait. What are you talking about?"

She turned to me, eye narrowed. "I thought you two were thick as thieves. She didn't tell you?"

"Know what?" I was insulted by this implication that she knew something about Dolly that I didn't. We just bury the dead with respect, if we have time. Helps if the body is in one piece, too. And then, we go. Most of our kind don't even get that. Those the travel alone are remembered by no one."

"That's not true! " I felt the anger in my teeth. "That's not true at all! My brothers! My mother! She was alone on the day she left and never came back. Maybe I'll never know what happened to her, but I'll never forget her! And anybody who Adrian cared about back home, or whoever cared about her, wasn't here to mourn her. Her next of kin—whoever that was— will hear about what happened through the gossip chain. And they're going to care, just as we do, if not more!"

"Adrian's next of kin is here , Margalo."

I stared at Cleo in amazement. "Wha…?"

"Dolly's youngest boy was Adrian's mate. They never managed to make any children together—of course, it's harder for a blue jay and a junco than purebreds. But they met while the boy was one of three cocks escorting Adrian's natal flock in the migration. One of these years, he went out into the rain to test the wind, and never made it back."

I couldn't speak. Lightning flashed across the sky. Silent. Ominous. But it was just heat lightning. No thunder to break the silence.

"I suppose that the one consolation Dolly had in that loss, was that she had gained Adrian through him. A strong woman who could bring honor to the family." And in her controlled way, Cleo bit back a wince. She looked as if she was trying to play nonchalant, wrapping a grip around the shoulder of the unwrapped, bad wing. Even if it was sort of healed now, she'd definitely irritated it by rolling the body over like that. What on Earth she was thinking by doing that, and why she hadn't let me and Dolly finish the job ourselves was another example of what made Cleo so hard to understand.

The pieces started adding up. Suddenly, everything played back in a different light. "Adrian was a widow." The attitude she demonstrated for me at the pond, how hard it was to talk to her. She wasn't simply cold. Maybe she was acting out of defense, protecting her broken heart from more pain.

"And Dolly! She wasn't just mourning one of her flock. She wasn't just losing her cool back there because she was in charge, and the pressure had just ramped up! Those tears… they were personal! She was mourning her daughter in law! The last worldly connection to that son she'd already lost! Those grandbabies that never were."

Dolly had several kids, and plenty more grandchildren. It doesn't matter how many grow up to thrive and survive. "Just the thought of losing one is more painful than anything," That's how Mrs. Little had put it, anyway. As if I'd know. I'm still a child myself inside.

Losing Adrian must have reminded her of the youngest son all over again. The one she lost before his time. Now a whole family had been eradicated.

We left shortly after. Counted heads one last time, and then one by one, wings flap. We take to the skies in an uncomfortably silent formation. The wind had returned, giving a sorely needed lift for tired wings—grief and grave digging will do that to you well enough.

Cleo's flock is different from traditional ones, in that it's made up of small birds of many different colors. Strays who can't flock with their kind, either from being orphaned, left behind, or being extremely novice to the trade. In my case, a pathetic mix of all three.
We flew towards the next town. Our next rest stop. My body was high in the sky, but my mind slipped into a swamp of bitter, selfish questions. And because I felt more monstrous than ever, I indulged in them. Did Dolly also believe her daughter in law would've made a better chief than me? So cold and miserable… Could that be the real reason Adrian suddenly joined our flock this year? Not just because Adrian needed to be surrounded by love and support like the rest of us, but because she's stronger than me?—It doesn't make sense.

If I didn't know what I knew now, if I had lost all my self respect, and if she wasn't hardly six inches under the dirt, I'd argue a girl like that would needed antifreeze for such a cold heart— Antifreeze.

I nearly plummeted to the ground as the word bounced across the inside of my skull. Antifreeze.

That's what turned the pond green. I saw enough pools of it in New York to know what it looked like. Once, I even referred to it as car vomit, because I didn't know what it was really called. A car stopped on a nearby road must've leaked it, running down the side into the slanted ground, and coming to rest in the water. Either way, it was potent enough to turn the tiny pool in color. Falcon didn't even bother correcting me. I had to hear a conversation between two humans to find out what it really was.

Dolly's voice echoed in my head all night. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid waste. I am sickeningly confident that Adrian—mean, cold, broken hearted, slated for greatness Adrian, knew that that water was no good. She just didn't care.

Dolly told me she trusted me once, more than other birds she'd flocked with. Maybe she didn't trust me as much as I believed. I didn't speak to her for days. She was hurting, but I couldn't bring myself to comfort her right now. I felt a little betrayed because she hadn't told me about Adrian. Who that girl was in relation to her. Who she was, who Dolly knew her as, before she became the empty shell of a woman who would willingly drink her own poison.

I wish I knew, before I had made the terrible assumption that she was just a cold, bitter bitch giving sideways glances at my job and my mother-figure, and all the work I'd put into this flock.

I woke up from a nightmare of being paralyzed conscious, ants swarming my body, my legs, in my feathers, in my eyes . The next day I scrubbed at myself, with sticks, thorns, pinecones. At the nearest clean stream, I scrubbed myself head to toe, using a pinecone as a loofa. The prickles turned my skin raw, but the sensation just wouldn't go away. This horrible feeling of tiny legs all over me stayed for days afterward.

Hoped the greedy ants had succumbed to the poison after their feast. I tried my best not to indulge in the thought of what if, and how Dolly—someone I thought was my best friend—would react, if it had been me, instead. But the fact was, I was here. I was alive.

Like Cleo said, it's just another day.

No, you're not trippin'. Adrian's never been brought up in the story so far, I admit. She's only really in the fic for the purpose of discussing death, but also Margalo's changing judgement of people. I couldn't think to kill off little Sophie or Jasmine, and I wanted it to be a older girl/woman who would serve as the favored Leader-to-Be of the birds, over Margalo.

This story, well, this chapter in particular was meant to go with A Little Compromise, the Stuart focused story. But seeing as the Adrian thing is a tangent that doesn't really relate to Stuart directly, I decided to post it with the Margalo focused scraps story.

However, the two are still tied together in the same universe. The date and the topic "Death in the Flock" and "Death and Taxes" are the same as the chapter that's also going up today for A Little Compromise.

I know. I know. Angst and Stuart Little? How very fanfiction of you. But it's too interesting not to explore. A bird's death from the perspective of another bird? Come on, there's not a ton of animated stories that lend to that exact setup! Anyway, I don't think anybody's reading this, but if you are, thanks for making it to the end. Cheers.

However, the two are still tied together in the same universe. The date in the timeline, and I suppose the topic are loosely the same. "Death in the Flock" and "Death and Taxes" are the same as the chapter that's also going up next for A Little Compromise.

In other words, this is what's going on in Margalo's life on this date in 2009. Chapter 6 of A Little Compromise shows what's going on at the exact same time in Stuart's life. I wanted to make their individual lives seem as complete and fleshed out as I could, and as far as my skills go, this is the best I got.