I quickly jumped onto a nearby branch, continuing forward as Crab followed on the ground. We moved silently through the forest, searching for our prey, until Crab stopped and settled down against a tree stump. Understanding his intentions, I advanced through the trees, my eyes combing the snowy ground for any signs of movement.

It hadn’t taken long to spot one of these snowtails; a grey furred creature caught my attention, only slightly camouflaged by the backdrop of snow. Long, drooping ears slid over the ground as the creature foraged through a clump of bushes. As I inspected the snowtail, I recalled a similar creature from my memory: the rabbit. Well, instead of similar, I’d say identical. The only difference I could see was the snowtail’s size: rabbits in my memory were fairly small, only slightly bigger than what I was currently, while the snowtail was easily triple my size.

It was still devouring the leaves of the bush when I finished inspecting it. Then, I hopped through the wispy trees, placing the snowtail in between myself and Crab.

“SQwaaaAK”

The snowtail’s head shot up, pulling its heavy ears up with it, and froze. I could tell from my perch that it was frantically searching its surroundings for any sign of a predator. I sat perfectly still, and eventually the snowtail returned to munching on the leaves of the small bushes.

I was still watching it eat the leaves, trying to figure out what to do next when an arrow whistled through the air and impaled the snowtail through its lower back. Blood exploded from the wound and spread across the snow as the creature tried to understand this sudden source of pain. It struggled on the ground a few more seconds before Crab came running into view, grabbing the snowtail and finishing it off with his knife.

I hurriedly climbed down the tree as Crab cleaned his knife and retrieved the bent arrow from the snowtail’s corpse. As I reached the lowest hanging branches above him, I ‘kaaked’ and started a… controlled descent down. He looked up, hastily catching me with his free hand and placed me in my usual home.

“Looks like I really do need to practice more.”

Crab grabbed our prey, tied its limbs together and started walking back in the direction of the village.

“I think I’m going to practice a bit more first,” Crab said with a shaky voice I was unfamiliar with. “The poor thing had to suffer a lot.”

I craned my head back to see Crab’s face, and was surprised at what I saw. He had a worried, almost apologetic cast to his eyes, and I could tell he was unhappy.

I ‘kaaked’ once again to get his attention, and he looked down and said, “You did fine. In fact I’m surprised that worked so well. It’s just… I need to practice the bow so something like that doesn’t happen again.”

I went silent and thought about how frantic he had been to kill the snowtail with his knife. Well, it wouldn’t hurt to give him a few days to practice before hunting again, to make everything go smoother the next time.

However, as excited as I was to hunt with Crab, I couldn’t shake the desire to hunt myself, to track down my prey and finish it without any help.

For about three weeks Crab and I hunted together, leaving after the village hunting party everyday, with me locating snowtails and him putting an arrow through their heart. After the first hunt, Crab had spent about three days at the village, loosing arrows at a small target. Crab stopped having to use his knife after the first kill, with every arrow finding its mark, and every snowtail falling silent after impact.

Aside from these hunts, I was forced into being inspected by a group of wrinkled old men, who were apparently the elders of the village. The only reasons I got through this were having Crab there to act as my mobile home and hiding place, and seeing the Chief break out into childlike excitement. I had started to get used to the Chief, mostly due to the charm of the enthusiastic vigor set against his decrepit appearance.

I regularly feasted on the best snowtail catch of the day, and found myself eating more as time went on. I began to need more food naturally as well, as my body grew. Even Captain stopped bothering me as I approached his height. Of course, there were crushing downsides, as I wasn’t able to fit into my comfy home as well as before.

Perhaps the best part of my growth, however, were the tiny grey feathers that had begun to sprout on my wings and body. Although they were weak and useless, their appearance gave me hope for the future. Even my stunted wing had tiny, fluffy feathers sprouting haphazardly from it. I started testing out my new feathers during hunts, and after a few days I couldn’t hold myself anymore; I needed to hunt on my own.

“So, you want to try doing it yourself.” Crab remarked, as we quietly walked through the forest.

I nodded my affirmation, and spread my lopsided wings to show my conviction. Crab gave me a squinted inquisitive look, and then seemed to approve of the idea.

“Alright, first snowtail we see, you can have it. But we’re going to need more ways to communicate.”

Crab proceeded to make two whistling sounds; one low and melodious to signal the finding of prey, and one high and off putting, to warn of danger.

“Should be enough for now. If I see anything, I’ll let you know.”

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I puffed out my chest and climbed onto a low hanging branch near one of our usual spots. I had already spent most nights thinking of a strategy to hunt the snowtails, and all the observing I’d done on previous hunts had given me a good idea of what tracks to look for and what their habits were. This would have to compensate for not being able to fly much, as my feathers were still just starting to come out.

As I climbed to a lower than usual branch, I contemplated the one thought that had been bothering me the most recently: what if I could never fly? My left wing seemed to be growing fine, but the simple difference in length compared to my right made it very awkward to balance in the air. Even just falling, my weight would shift and I would begin to flip if I extended both wings.

I shoved this thought away as I started scanning the snow for the usual signs of life. Almost immediately, I spotted tracks that could only belong to the snowtail. It wasn’t long before I stopped over a particularly large bush, with a fittingly oversized snowtail lazily munching next to it. As I positioned myself as best I could in the canopy over the creature, I was amazed at the snowtail’s lack of awareness. Even though Crab and I had been here several times, the animals kept on coming back. On top of that, none of the snowtails seemed to be able to use their giant ears for actual listening.

I went over my plan once again in my head, if you could even call it a plan. It was essentially a recreation of the way I had attacked the wolf: stab it with the pointy thing on my face. If I couldn’t fly or glide very well, I’d just have to dive bomb it. The rest of the plan just played off of the species’ habits when eating. From what I’d seen, the typical snowtail like to stay still after securing a food source, blending into the snow, only moving to bite off more leaves. This tactic, however, seemed useless since their camouflage wasn’t very effective on me. Considering Crab had a harder time spotting them, I would have to give credit to my eyes.

I watched the snowtail bite off a leaf, making sure it stayed true to my observations, and was relieved as it stayed almost completely still. I tucked my wings under my body, crouching, waiting for the creature to take another bite.

As my prey ripped off another leaf, I let myself drop from the branch, aiming for its upper back. Its neck would be the best spot, but I decided at the last second to change to the larger target.

The snowtail continued munching away as my outstretched beak reached for it. The air rushed past my streamlined body as my beak made contact with the fur of my prey, immediately breaking through the skin. I had incorrectly judged the angle of my fall, but still I felt the blood erupt from the snowtail’s lower back. The creature jumped in shock, writhing from the pain and dislodging my beak. As the creature tried and failed to stand up, I found myself laying on the snow, my bones jarred and throat full of the taste of blood.

I was quickly brought back to attention as a large foot slammed down near me, the snowtail flailing about still unsure as to what happened. As the blood trickled down my throat, I quickly stood and jumped near the snowtail’s upper body, spearing my beak into the creature’s flesh at the base of its neck.

As more blood poured from this new wound, the snowtail slowly stopped jerking around as much, and its wild kicks decreased in strength. As it finally stopped moving, I collapsed back onto the ground, exhausted.

For how long I stayed like this, I’m not really sure, but it wasn’t until Crab found me that I stood back up and inspected my prey. An ugly hole in its lower back oozed with dark red blood, pouring out the contents to stain the pristine snow. Another smaller mark bled at its neck, making the entire scene accurately resemble the death throes the snowtail had been through.

“It’s not the cleanest kill I’ve ever seen, but you’ll practice.”

Crab looked at the snowtail regretfully before he began preparing it for the journey back to the village.

“That’s all we’ll do for today, okay?”

I looked at him for a moment, and then fell back down onto the stained snow, not bothering to respond. Crab took that as agreement, picked up me and the snowtail, and set off for the village.

The forest sang with the same harmonious ring as earlier that morning, but something felt different as I watched the passing trees. I stared through the canopies, occasionally spotting the fleeting form of drab colored birds hopping over branches. What did they eat, I wonder. Probably berries and fruits. Definitely not snowtails, at least.

Ever since I was born, I had been eating meat, or at least what I assumed had been meat. Today was the first time I had done the killing myself. Even attacking the Silver Wolf had been different, that was a rabid beast intent on killing and devouring me, but the snowtail was a peaceful, oblivious creature. The worst part of this, however, wasn’t that I minded killing peaceful creatures to eat, that was just a part of nature. Even the wolf was simply following nature’s laws. No, the scariest part was the taste of the blood dripping down my throat, at how sweet it was, and at how easily I had gotten up and finished my prey; not out of survival, but to taste its blood once again.