I sat completely still as the figure scanned the darkness above me. My attention rested on the long pointy thing in his hand. It was a… a knife; the name popped into my head from somewhere in my mind, and I suddenly remembered that knives were used for stabbing things, and being stabbed did not seem to go well together with staying alive.

As the tall figure finally located my unmoving body, it pointed the knife in my direction and its face was illuminated by the fire. Two beady dark eyes squinted at me, first in suspicion, and then disbelief.

Hmm… this creature seemed so familiar, yet I could not remember its name. One thing was for sure, it wasn’t another bird, and it could use weapons. As it continued to lock eyes with me, seeming to be trying to figure out its next move, I decided to take action.

I move my beak slightly upwards, and let out the only sound I was confident I could make. A weak “kaak” left my mouth.

The figure stared at me for a few moments, and then promptly put away its knife and let out a throaty laugh.

“This trip just gets stranger by the day!” it exclaimed, falling back onto the log, its face now fully shown by the fire’s light. I could see it had a weathered face, with dark hair sporadically covering its chin and cheeks, and short cropped black hair on its head.

“I was beginning to think that there were no animals at all,” it continued, eyeing me from its position on the log.

Hmm… it seems that it wasn’t just me who noticed the lack of life around here... Wait a second, what did he just say?? I can understand him?

I stared at the creature, lost in thought. How could I understand it, but not understand the speech of my bird family? I tried to think hard about what this creature’s species was, and finally came to the conclusion that it was probably a human. Vague memories of humans dressed in brightly colored clothing surfaced in my mind, but I could not tell where they came from. Could there be a connection between these memories and my ability to understand the human? I pondered this for a while, but no more memories came, and when I looked back at the man I found he was still staring at me. Now, however, he was chewing on some sort of dark brown substance.

Seeing this, I knew there was one thing I had to do before anything else. I scampered over to the log the human was resting on, and climbed up under his watchful gaze. As I reached the top of the log, I looked at him and opened my beak.

He seemed confused at first, but soon figured out what I wanted. Giving a grim laugh, he tore off a piece of the food and placed it in my mouth. The food was tough and chewy, but it settled better than my previous meal.

I sat down on the log after eating a few more pieces of food, belly full and content. This human didn’t seem to bear any ill intentions, so I seemed to be safe for now. I looked back to him once again to see him gazing at me with curiosity. Then, he held out his hand in front of me, gesturing for me to climb onto it. Carefully, I stepped onto his hand, and he lifted me up to his face, staring intently.

His rough features inspected me once over, and then he said, “The real question is, what kind of bird are you…”

I let out a “kaak” back at him, unsure of what else to do, and he once again gave me that quick, grim smile. Thinking about it even more, he eventually seemed to decide on what kind of bird I was.

“I’d be inclined to say you are a Falnen Black hatchling, but those haven’t been seen around these parts for years. I suppose stranger things have happened, and it would explain your eyes and why you walked right up to me.”

He appeared to recede back into his thoughts, so I “kaaked” at him loudly. He chuckled, and put me back on the log.

“Well, no matter. It’s late, and maybe I’m dreaming this whole thing.” He gave out a quick laugh and slumped onto the log, settling in for the night. I stared at his coat for a second before deciding what to do. This human didn’t seem to want to cause me any harm, and he could be a source of food and protection. I wasn’t so ready to believe that there were no other animals out there. Parent one had brought back some meat, and that had to have come from something.

I hopped onto the human’s arm, feeling him go completely still as he watched me from the corner of his eye. I used my beak and talons to climb my way up his coat, finally reaching his shoulder. I turned to locate my destination: a large pocket on the front of his clothing that seemed to be empty. I Jumped off of his shoulder into the pocket. I landed in the pocket, with the brim rising just below my beak, and squirmed until I was comfortably warm.

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As I settled, I felt the human’s chest rumble as he gave out a loud roar of a laugh, one that lasted quite a while.

“Dethen take me, you’re a cheeky one, aren’t you?” he said as his laughter died down, and repositioned himself on the log. Soon, the steady rise and fall of his chest told me that he was asleep. Exhausted by the day’s events, I promptly followed suit.

I still couldn’t see the sun when I woke up again, and the even swells of the human’s chest told me he was still sound asleep.

As for why I had woken up, let’s just say I was feeling an urge, one that I hadn’t felt before in this body. It seems that the two meals I had eaten had finally gotten to me, and I needed to relieve myself. Once I had carefully climbed out of the pocket and back onto the log, I proceeded to let everything go. Acutely aware of the noise I was making, I tried to be as silent as possible. Once I had finished, I started to stealthily climb back up. Pausing, fearing that I had woken the human up, I listened to the few sounds around me.

The steady breathing of the human, the crackling of the fire, the quiet footsteps… I went deathly still, listening for any sound outside the range of the fire’s radius. Eventually, I heard near silent footsteps, growing louder by the second. The noise was coming from the right of myself and the sleeping human, and I peered into the dark to make out any figures.

I saw a wisp of movement, and then two glowing green eyes, set at about the same level I was. I froze for a moment, and then immediately started making as much sound as my little body could. The eyes seemed to stare at me as I frantically tried to wake the human. The eyes started to approach faster and neared the edge of the light. Panicking, I reared back my head and slammed my beak as hard as I could into the human’s arm and he shot up, wide awake.

“What in the…” his voice drifted off as he saw our new visitor. The two green eyes prowled closer to the fire, as the body they rested in was revealed. Silver fur, mottled and dirty, lined a gaunt and sickly looking body. The creature stood on four skinny legs, each one ending in a paw with claws extending out. The creature opened its mouth, showing a wide row of yellow jagged teeth, as drool fell from its lips onto the snowy ground. Finally, a torn up tail hovered low over the ground, blood and dirt lining the cuts in it.

I glanced to my side to see the human crouched low, hand on his knife, ready to defend himself. I edged on the log to be more behind him, as far away as possible from the feral beast. As I neared the edge of the log, the wolf shot forward towards the human. My protector quickly unsheathed his knife, aiming it into the beast’s chest in one stroke. As the knife shot forward, the beast twisted its torso to avoid being gutted, and the slash only cut a superficial wound into its shoulder.

With that the beast was on the human, clawing at his face and neck. Falling, the human sacrificed his left arm in order to block the beast’s wild attacks, but dropped the knife onto the ground. As I watched the two wrestling on the ground, the beast sinking its teeth into the man’s arm, I came to a decision. If the human died, I didn’t think I could live either. This rabid creature would surely find me and eat me at some point. I took a deep breath, going over what I had to do, as the human was slammed into the side of the log and I nearly lost my balance.

Gathering my courage, I jumped. Well, dived. Ok, I launched myself off the log, beak first, aiming at the wolf. Whether it was luck, skill, or something entirely different, I managed to connect my beak with the side of the beast’s face. I bounced off of the beast, falling onto the ground, and scrambled back up to prepare myself for retaliation. The beast had been briefly stunned by my attack, and had released its grip on the human’s arm long enough for the human to retrieve the knife and attack back.

The knife ripped into the stomach of the beast, and blood spilled onto the white snow as a pained howl was forced from the creature’s mouth. It tried to escape, but the human continued the attack, stabbing again in the beast’s stomach, and then once into its neck. Blood exploded from between its teeth, and it struggled a brief moment before falling to the ground twitching in its death throes.

The creature finally stopped moving, and the human collapsed backwards against the log. He sat still, trying to get his breathing under control, and then turned his head to me.

He chuckled, obviously in pain. “Real cheeky, huh.”