As the human was taking care of the bite marks in his arm, I crept forward to take a look at the fallen beast. Seeing past the blood, which didn’t make me gag as much as my first meal had, I could tell that the creature had been starving. Its ribs protruded in an almost skeletal manner, and the skin on its face was pulled tight against its skull.

I turned as I heard the human pull himself onto the log, getting into a sitting position. He made some final checks on the bandages on his arm, slipped his now cleaned knife into its sheath, and shifted his gaze to me.

He squinted at me for a moment, before speaking, “Well, I guess I should thank you for saving my life.” He reached into one of his inside pockets, retrieving a something yellow and smelly. Hmm… cheese, I think it was called. The smell was distinct, even in my memories, and my stomach started growling at the prospect of devouring it. The human held it in his hand for a moment, before reaching out to me, letting me swallow the morsel whole.

Once I had finished, I let out a short “kaak” in satisfaction, and looked back to the human, who hadn’t moved. He seemed to be deep in thought, so I tilted my head in my best attempt to look inquisitive. Eyeing me for a moment, he finally spoke, “So, you need a name don’t you? …I think I’ll call you Senya, after an old friend. She also saved my life, way back when.” He gave a grim smile, and looked at me expectantly.

A name, huh… I hadn’t really thought of that before. I doubted my bird family used names, these names seemed to be a custom only humans used. I searched my memories for a brief moment, but couldn’t find much regarding this.

Senya. I suppose it didn’t sound too bad, as far as names went. Not that I had any experience with what good names sounded like. For all I knew, the human could be making fun of me! However, when I looked back into his eyes, the hint of melancholy convinced me that it was no joke.

I quickly clambered back onto the log, hopped into his lap, and gave him an affirmative “kaak”.

“It’s settled then. From this day forward, you shall be known as Senya!” the human stated with fake grandiose. He chuckled, scooped me up into his hand, and dumped me into his large pocket on his coat. Well, as far as I was concerned, this was my warm cozy pocket now.

The sun was already rising through the trees as he gathered his few supplies and buried the burnt cinders of the fire. Interrupting him, I “kaaked” loudly and squirmed against his chest. He stopped and drew me from the pocket, cupping me in his uninjured hand. As I was faced by that same squinting expression, I tilted my head once again and stared into his eyes.

“Hmm… The legends say that the Falnen possess intelligence rivalling that of humans, but how much of that is actually true… Well, what do you want? More food? Water?”

I shook my head in response to both queries. He seemed to understand the gesture I was making, affirming another miniscule piece of information I had in my memory about humans. Moving your head left and right meant no, up and down meant yes.

The human still seemed clueless about my line of questioning, so I used my good wing to point at me, accompanied by a “kaak”, and then at him with silence. He mulled over this for a moment, before realization spread across his face.

“You want my name? Is that it?”

I nodded and let out a triumphant “kaak”. Communication complete!

He laughed, exclaiming, “Dethen be saved! You really are a smart one! Well, the name’s Crab.” He carefully watched me to see if I understood. I “kaaked” a final time, and hopped back into my new home. I felt my home shake as the laughter rumbled through his chest, and Crab finished clearing the campsite.

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“It seems you can understand me, at least partially. I suppose it’s good to have a traveling companion again, even though you don’t speak Common. It’s been ages since I had someone guarding my back.” Crab chuckled, and then set out in a direction parallel to the looming mountain in the distance, the mountain where I was born.

I took one last look at the towering spires of rock, and the sheer drops created by the natural formations. For a brief moment, I thought I saw a black form soar around a ledge, but at this distance I couldn’t be sure. I sighed internally, and settled into my warm home to get ready for the trip to wherever Crab was headed.

I had drowsed off a bit when I felt a rumble in Crab’s chest. I popped my head up out of the pocket, and saw that we were completely surrounded by trees, late morning light streaming through the thin branches. Looking ahead, I saw that we were on a small, winding trail that seemed to have been created by many years of someone taking the same footsteps through this forest.

The rumbling continued as I realized Crab had started to talk to himself, or rather me.

“This whole situation is out of the ordinary. Just running into you would have been enough to warrant sending back a report, seeing as no one has spotted your kind in these parts for over forty years. On top of that, however, the lack of animals was very disturbing, and the Silver Wolf shouldn’t have been down this far south. It was obviously starving, I’d say that it hadn’t eaten in days!”

As Crab finished his musing, I pondered my first day on this world. One day, yet so exhausting. I’d been born, dropped off a mountain and almost eaten by this so-called ‘Silver Wolf’. I’d been lucky to find a human such a as Crab, and even luckier that he had taken a liking to me, but what would happen if he were to disappear? What if he were to throw me away, or a beast stronger than the Silver Wolf found us? I had to get stronger, and fast. This world was hostile and dangerous, and I had practically no weapons at my disposal.

On top of that… I squirmed in the pocket and stared at my stubby left wing. This would definitely cause a problem one day in the future. If I couldn’t fly like my black-feathered parent, my options for survival would be limited to almost nothing.

A hand suddenly scooped me out of my cozy home and I was once again face-to-face with Crab. As always, his eyes were shrunk into a perpetual squint. He quickly glanced to my stubby wing, seeing that I was holding it close to my chest, and sighed.

“You’re gonna have a tough life ahead of you, that’s for sure” he stated with a certain resignation, “But now you’ve got me. I’ll feed you and protect you until you can do both by yourself, it’s the least I can do after those heroics.”

He gave a small smile, apparently not intending to repay me with that one piece of cheese, instead choosing to supply much more future cheese.

“The way you hit the wolf, I couldn’t believe it!” he laughed out loud, returning to his usual demeanor. “I thought for sure that Dethen had sent that beast to take my life, but apparently my time has yet to come.”

He stroked my back with his thumb, smiling as he placed me back into the pocket. However, as joyful as he seemed to be, his chest betrayed a slight sigh as we continued down the trail to our destination.