Lost Change

Chapter 19

When I woke it was already late at night. The bright moon shone down on me, and an owl hooted somewhere off in the distance as I slowly stared up at the sky. My belly rumbled at me, and I hopped to another branch to find an apple to chew on.

I took a few more minutes to take care of the rest of the demands of my body, burying the waste in a small hole, then looked up at the sky again. It was late, much later than I normally would be awake. There were no sunbeams to rest in and absorb warmth. There was no one to... there were no games to play. I felt a gentle tension of energy inside me, felt my body telling me it was ready again... but I couldn't think of anything to do. Even the thought of going back to sleep held no appeal - I had slept enough to make up for the last few days, and my body simply wasn't ready for more.

I stared up at the sky for a few more long moments, watching the silvery stars twinkle and shine in the darkness, until an idea came to me. I smiled at the thought, a sad expression that I accompanied with a mournful chirp, and I fell from the branch to glide silently through the trees.

I glided slowly over the river. I could occasionally see the flickering heat mirages on the shore line - one of the Kymari was watching me - but I ignored them. The subtle fear of them was still there, the nervousness at the unknown, and at what they could do to me. It was countered slightly by the knowledge that I hadn't been harmed by the Kymari when I had fallen asleep in the tree, and it had to have known I was there, so that spoke at least a little to their good intentions. Maybe they wouldn't be a danger to me after all.

But mostly... I just didn't care. What more could they do to me than what one of them had already done?

I watched the darkness below me as I glided along, watching for any changes. It was much harder to see at night - the water didn't reflect sunlight back at me and create any glare, but that benefit was countered by the complete lack of sight into the murky depths. My eyes simply weren't designed for hunting fish at night.

It took several loops along the river, during which I could only imagine what the observing Kymari thought of me... but I finally caught sight of a silvery flicker in the water. I whipped my tail to the side and banked towards the motion, gliding silently toward the target...

I rose from the water just as I had done many times before, with a startled fish thrashing in the grip of my claws. I had to beat my wings harder than usual - this fish was heavy, too heavy to have chosen if I had been able to clearly see how large it was - but I managed to heave myself to the shore.

The fish flopped aimlessly a few times before I angled my claws and severed its head. The tail followed, then the backbone, in the familiar process I had become expert at over the years. I tossed those pieces back into the water, idly wondering what the observing Kymari must have been thinking, then grabbed the rest of the fish and took flight again.

I wasn't sure what I had been expecting to see when I got to the spot where Susie had died. It had been two days - at best, some scavenger would have dragged her off. At worst, her body would have simply laid there to decompose, like a piece of roadkill. I spent most of the flight dreading the sight and worrying about what to do with the fish if Susie's body was still there - leaving a present for her was one thing, but adding a dead fish to... to that, just felt too much like desecration.

I had not expected the Kymari to bury my friend.

I dropped to the soft mound of disturbed dirt beside the tree. A pile of small rocks rested on one end of the grave. It wasn't the exact spot Susie had died at, but...

It was my friend. I knew.

I gave a half-toss of my hands to flick the meal towards Susie just as I had done thousands of times before. It landed on the dirt of her grave with a soft thump.

I curled up by the tree and watched the stars twinkle above me.