Wolf’s growl echoes through the forest. Even after she comes to regret it, even after she closes her maw and hides her fangs, the snarling still echoes. Wolf swallows a frustrated howl, as she acknowledges they had already crossed the border again, and that it will not easily be uncrossed.
Raven flies up among the sycamore trees. He cannot remember soaring or deciding to, but once Wolf’s voice booms, his black wings flap on their own, and he shoots up among the branches so high Wolf could never hope to jump after him. Not that she tries anymore. At the very least, Wolf has learned that chasing and barking at Raven only made things worse. He lands atop the nearest tree, the hidden forces within him reaching some equilibrium between flying from and to her. He glances back. Wolf is frozen solid, looking up with eyes full of guilt over letting her frustration get the best of her again, a twin to Raven’s guilt over bolting.
Wolf watches Raven as he shuffles his feet slowly, and something in her heart breaks, as it always breaks, seeing him afraid of her. She wonders if she could ever censor herself enough, restrain herself enough, to become something Raven isn’t afraid of. “Raven,” she apologizes, and despite her softest tone, Wolf’s voice spreads easily through the woods. “Let's get some water.”
Raven wonders if he will ever be brave enough to hear her anger without fleeing. If that’s something that he’s capable of, something worth trying to achieve. “Yeah,” he finally agrees. He can’t remember what they had been fighting over… Oh, that. It seems so meaningless now. But all of their fights are like this, starting from something trivial and growing into an explosion of primal energy. They are, after all, animals.
He leaps once towards Wolf, landing on a slightly lower branch, and then another. Though he’s still scared, he cannot leave Wolf hurting; the only way to ease her pain is to overcome his own. She loves him so much, he knows. She didn’t mean anything. Hell, she didn’t even do anything. And yet, as he finally lands on the earth, he does so at a distance from her.
Wolf allows herself to soften. No, not allows, she does everything she can to appear less threatening – moving slowly, speaking sofly, keeping her fangs hidden – but there is only so much she can do. She would stop being a wolf if she could. Wolf starts walking away, knowing it will be easier for Raven to go alongside her than towards her, at least until he relaxes. It’s not easy for her to turn away, but her reward comes in the sound of Raven’s wings beating as he lands by her side.
For a while they walk, Wolf steadily, and Raven in a series of hops and short flights. In the light of the rising sun, its rays filtering through the pine trees, Wolf’s eyes search for the relief of spring flowers. Raven’s eyes inspect the sky, searching for predatory birds.
They approach a stream, shallow enough that Wolf could pass it by walking, and narrow enough that Raven could cross it with one flap of his wings. Wolf reaches the water first, and lowers her mouth to drink. She plunges her tongue into the water repeatedly, an unbroken rhythm of smacks and gulps.
Raven joins her by the bank, slightly closer than he was before. He isn’t thirsty. Rather, he drinks because it is something they do together, something other than fighting. He does so intermittently, peeking around between sips. Even with Wolf’s protection, it is not something he can stop doing. Having drunk more than his fill, Raven stops and gazes at the face of the water. “Wolf,” he asks, his voice suddenly distant. “Do you ever see something in the water? When you’re not drinking, I mean.”
Wolf raises her head and gives him a confused look. “Do you mean fish?”
Raven doesn’t know how to explain. “No, not inside of the water. On the surface.”
Wolf paws at the surface of the water, not understanding. “I don’t see anything. “
Raven shakes his head. “No, don’t do that. As soon as you touch the water, it’s gone. Don’t you see it?”
“No.” Wolf gives up, frustrated at finding another difference between them. “What do you see?”
“Here, look now; can you see that right below us? It’s like there’s another Raven in there, but the way it moves…” Raven trails off, feeling that there is something just outside of pecking range. “Hey, you. What do you want?”
Wolf squints, but doesn’t quite manage to see the thing Raven is talking about. “Do you want me to kill him?” She asks.
“Sure, ye-”
A little way from them, on the other bank, a stork coughs uncomfortably. Wolf and Raven turn to her. “Raven,” Stork says. “Wolf. Not too hungry, are you?”
“We ate yesterday, Stork,” Wolf says. “Relax.”
Raven nods. “Stork.”
Stork folds her wings, delicately balanced on one long leg, seeming assured they mean her no harm. “I met a monkey once,” she says, matter-of-factly. “Far, far away from here, in a place nothing like this one. And the monkey said that when you peer into the quiet water, you see something that is called ‘the self’, though, for the life of me, I couldn’t understand what he meant. The monkey tried to explain, went on and on, but the more he spoke, the less I understood.”
Raven had never seen a monkey, though he had always wanted to. “Monkeys are a little like humans, aren’t they?” The latter were another source of fascination for him.
Stork points her bill at Raven, happy to answer. “No, the similarities are very superficial. Most monkeys aren’t any danger, not really, as long as you keep a safe distance and don’t listen to them talking for too long, huh! And they will tell you the wildest things, the most crazy nonsense that you will not even belie–”
A red flash bursts from the bushes and latches onto her neck before she has time to spread her wings. All teeth and ears and tail, Fox puts Stork’s neck against the ground.
“Um, I’d really rather you didn’t–” Stork croaks before Fox wrings her neck between his jaws, leaving her head lolling.
Raven gives out a terrified cry as he hops to hide behind Wolf, and again her heart clenches. “Fox! I’ll bite your face off!”
“Ok, ok, I’m leaving,” Fox mumbles around a mouthful of neck. “Nice to meet you too, Wolf.” He lets out a high-pitched giggle and winks. “Raven.”
“I will eat you, Fox,” she threatens. “Watch it.”
Right now, Raven is more afraid of Wolf than he is of Fox. He knows Wolf will protect him from Fox, but who will protect him from Wolf?
Wolf eases her eyes off Fox as he drags Stork into the bushes. Looking for Raven, she sees him further away now, ready to take flight. Wolf can’t quite hide her canines, or smoot her raised hackles. “Sorry,” she says.
“It’s fine.” Raven says, his beak going under his wing to unruffle his feathers.
“Are you ok?”
“Yeah, just give me a minute.” Raven reminds himself that Fox is gone, and with stork to sate Fox’s hunger, Raven shouldn’t be any danger for a while. He also reminds himself of how Wolf moved to protect him. “Are we ok?”
Wolf nods. “Yeah”
“I’m sorry, too.” Raven hops towards Wolf as she stills. Turning her head away, she attempts to make it easier for Raven.
The sun inches up the sky, and as the wind whistles through the pine trees, rays the color of egg yolk caress Wolf’s brown fur. “I have to go,” she whispers. “See you tonight?”
“I hope so,” Raven answers quickly. “Where are you off to?”
“Meeting Bear. He’s woken up recently.”
“Oh, Bear. I haven’t seen him in a long time. What are you going to do?”
“We’ll see.” Wolf peeks at the cliff a short distance away and above them. It’s the edge of an elevated plateau, where a stream becomes a waterfall before dwindling into the slow stream flowing under Wolf and Raven’s feet. “Climb, probably.”
“You’ve been talking about it for a while,” Raven says as his eyes follow hers. He can’t climb, but can easily fly to the top, and doesn’t really understand what the big deal is about going up the slow way. Perhaps Wolf just wanted to be alone with Bear and talk about predator things. No point being jealous.
Wolf sees Raven’s head cock to the side, a fraction of an angle, but can’t quite read the emotion behind it. She wants to approach that, but doesn’t know how. “Yeah,” she finally sighs. “What about you?”
“I’m going to see Hoopoe.”
“Oh, have fun,” Wolf murmurs. Hoopoe had always made her opinion clear on Wolf as a partner for Raven. Wolf hadn’t held a grudge, but she didn’t like her either. When Raven hops a little, she turns her head to nudge him with her nose, and watches in frustration as he startles and flaps his wings.
Raven just stops short of taking flight again. One hesitating step after another, Raven reaches Wolf, his beak scratching under her jowls as she raises her head. Only then does he allow himself to spread his wings.
She watches as he flies away, a black stain growing smaller and smaller.
#
Raven flies swiftly, among trees, staying low as he always does when he’s on edge. Hoopoe would find him for herself, obviously – there was no reason to go looking for a bird. In the meantime, Raven flies. There is something left in him after the fight. Something refusing to release him no matter how quickly he flees, or how far away from the danger he gets. Not that Wolf herself is the danger, of course. What is the danger, then?
“Raven!” Hoopoe chirps from above. “Found you!”
Raven rolls mid air, spying the black, white and orange pattern of his friend’s wings, and lands on an oak’s branch. “Hello, Hoopoe.”
Hoopoe lands in the tall grass, the feathers on top of her head unfold, spanning from the back to the front of her head as she scrutinizes Raven up close. “Oh, Raven, what happened? Have you been fighting again?”
Raven pretends to unruffle the feathers under his wing, but they both know it’s just an excuse to hide from her, even for a moment. “It wasn’t a fight, not really,” he says as his head pops up again.
Hoopoe leaps with a small flap of her wings, the contrast of her plumage flashing again as she lands on a fallen branch. “Looks like one to me,” she says with a trace of admonishment in her little black eyes.
“Maybe,” Raven admits. “How’ve you been, Hoopoe?”
“Not too bad,” she says, her crest folds again. “Heard a lot of things, said a lot of things. A lot of birds pass through these parts, bringing gossip and news.”
Raven is happy to hear that, turning one eye to look directly at her. “Made a lot of friends?”
“Hardly. But I didn’t projectile-diarrhea anyone, so that’s something.” Hoopoe laughs, the thin parts of her beak parting to make a surprisingly deep, comforting sound for such a small creature. “You know I don’t play nice with others.”
“Well, I’m glad to have you here.”
“Thanks, Raven,” she says, and though she doesn’t say it back, the way she turns away, exposing the back of her head to him, exposes volumes. “Now will you tell me what’s up?”
“Nothing’s ‘up.’ It’s Wolf… We just seem to find ourselves in these uncomfortable spots.”
“That’s not new, is it?”
“No, but it’s getting worse. Before, every time we had a fight we’d just let it cool off and return to normal. But now, it seems like the fight itself adds to the weight of the initial problem. Every time something starts, it just gets worse and worse.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, when Wolf gets angry at something, there’s a rage in her that I can’t even compare with anything. Even when she tries to be quiet and gentle she’s, well, still a wolf. It’s not something you can just stand next to.” Raven’s legs bend a hint, as if they’re going to throw him into the air any moment now, then relax. “It’s intense.”
“And is that before or after it spirals?”
“That’s before. After, I have to get away from her. At first it was no big deal, but now it only makes her angrier. Our fights are not about the thing itself, but about the rage, about how I flee from her.” Frustrated, he pecks at the un-ruffled feathers of his wing. “ Somehow it’s always my fault for leaving her alone and upset.”
“That sounds terrible,” Hoopoe says, tilting her head to the side. “I’m sorry.”
“Thanks. I just… I don’t understand why it’s that big of a deal. When I fly, I just fly.”
“And what does she do then?”
“Well, she stopped jumping after me.”
Hoopoe hides her long beak under her wing for a moment. In embarrassment, but not without sympathy. “She really doesn’t get it, does she?”
“Yeah! I mean, why does she think I’m running from her?”
“Well, why are you running from her?” Hoopoe makes it known she has a very clear answer in mind.
“You’re not being fair, Hoopoe.”
Hoopoe hops off the branch, flies about in little circles before climbing up in bursts of flapping, and finally folds her wings to herself and lands on the same branch as Raven, beside him. “Why not?”
“Because it’s not Wolf’s fault that she is a hundred times my weight. That she chases when she sees something getting away. She’s a canine.”
“You’re not wrong…” Hoopoe lets the hidden meaning of the statement hang.
“I love her, Hoopoe. You only hear about our fights, you don’t know what it’s like to just… be beside her.”
“I’m not saying you two don’t love, I believe you do. I just think, if you loved someone that wasn’t one bad day away fro–”
Raven’s wings, as if on their own, take him away. Hoopoe flies behind him, not exactly pursuing, but not permitting him to leave either. “Raven, wait!”
#
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Wolf is walking alongside the river, towards the cliff, when she catches a whiff of Bear. A pleasant coincidence? Bear got here at the same time as Wolf? Probably not. Bear has a tendency to lazily arrive exactly where it would serve him best.
Wolf follows the scent until she finds Bear in a sunlit clearing – standing on his hind legs and scratching his back against a rock, his eyes closed with pleasure. Wolf trots towards him. “Bear! What’s up?”
Bear’s massive head turns almost imperceptibly towards her as he draws one long breath through his nose. “Wolf. It’s good to see you,” he says, his voice deep and low, sleepy. His eyes don’t open fully. They rarely do – Bear doesn’t often give his full attention to any particular thing. “How are things?”
“Well. You?”
“Yeah, I’m doing well.” Bear tilts his head a little more, shifting his gaze, and Wolf feels the weight of his intense attention on her. “Something’s wrong, though,” he isn’t asking.
Wolf affirms with a growl, but says nothing further. “How about you, Bear. What have you been up to?”
“The same as every winter, a timeless dream of sunlight and honey and blood; nothing of import. Let’s walk together, Wolf.” Bear drops forward and hits the soft soil with his front paws. Nostrils flaring as he breathes, he takes the entire forest into himself. “Do you still want to climb the cliff?”
“That’s what I said last time, didn’t I?”
“Very well.” He lifts into the sunlight a muzzle so large it is not a muzzle at all. “You talk to Raven that way, too?”
“You know I don’t,” Wolf snarls.
“And why is that?” Bear either ignores the aggression, or genuinely perceive it as such, coming from a smaller animal like Wolf.
Wolf is at a loss for a moment. Bear moves slowly towards the cliff, his pawsteps as soft as they are heavy, and Wolf finds the words. “The thing about Raven is that he eats plants, you know?”
“I eat plants.”
“It’s not the same.”
Bear’s question hangs in the air, but he might as well have asked aloud.
“The first time I met you, you took my kill and threatened to throw me off a cliff if I didn’t give it up.”
Bear smiles at the memory. “A fawn, wasn’t it? I took it because I could, just as ravens tear rats to shreds when they find them. What are you implying, Wolf?”
“I mean that I’m a wolf. When I get angry, I growl and bark. And every time I do, Raven can’t handle it. He just… goes away. And not just physically.”
“He’s afraid of you,” Bear says plainly.
“No, he knows I love him, but there’s this instinct in him, one he can’t control.”
“Yes, and that instinct has a name.”
Wolf curls a lip, exposing a fang. “Ok, clever-nose.”
Bear bows his head, the closest to an apology Wolf has seen him come. “Go on.”
“When I was a cub, that’s how my siblings and I worked things out. We’d snarl, bite, and thrash. It wasn’t even considered a fight until somebody bled.”
Bear gives the words a moment to ring as they walk. In front of them, the cliff nears, growing taller with every step. “What was Raven’s family like? How do you think they worked things out?”
“I don’t know. I guess they just cawed at each other from a safe distance. They don’t even have teeth to intimidate each other with.”
“And what are you going to do with this observation?”
“I don’t know, Bear.” Wolf knows Bear well enough to know that the fact that he isn’t sharing doesn’t mean there isn’t already a sharp perception hiding behind that sleepy gaze. “What’s on your mind?”
“When I dreamed, Wolf, I saw many things. Many animals, with many different problems.”
“Yeah?”
“And I saw that animals solve things by letting them happen. We roar when we want to roar, we cuddle when we want to cuddle. Many different problems, many different instincts. But that’s the thing about animals.”
“What do you mean?” Wolf says, her voice slightly lower.
“You’ve never seen a human, have you, Wolf?” Bear asks, and Wolf doesn’t even finish shaking her head before he continues. “Terrifying things, they are,” Bear says in a quiet tone Wolf had never heard from him before. “Just the sight of them…”
“Have you seen one? I didn’t know you traveled away from these woods.”
“I didn’t,” Bear says sadly, a rejection of Wolf’s admiration. “My mother wasn’t born in this forest. She migrated here, as strange as it sounds, and when I was a cub, she told me about humans. The only time I’ve seen her scared. They have a way of appearing out of nowhere, she says, cutting through the flow of things. You can’t prepare for it. By the time you smell one, it’s already there. If it comes, it comes, and that’s that.”
“Are we still talking about Raven?” Wolf says, pausing at the bottom of the rock wall, near a boulder that’s just the right height to be the first stepping stone.
“I’m saying we shouldn’t go about this like a human. I have a feeling… We should climb, and let things happen as they do.” Bear places a single clawed paw on the first step of the cliff, and something shifts in his demeanor. A certainty. They are going to climb.
#
Raven flies deeper into the forest, arriving downstream at the same ravine Wolf and he drank from that morning. He swoops low over it, catches a glimpse of the thing in the water, and makes a series of turns amongst the trees. The maneuver would have slowed down almost any predator – but Hoopoe is not a predator, Raven remembers. He lands on a branch and Hoopoe, flying as she does in quick bursts and drops, joins him by his side again.
“Sorry,” Raven between pants, beak wide open.
“It’s alright,” Hoopoe says. “I understand.”
“Thanks,” Raven says, not sure if there was an implication in those words.
“It’s not that big of a deal,” Hoopoe says. “If you don’t want to be somewhere, just don’t be there.”
“But I do want to be there, Hoopoe. It’s just… That I don’t feel like she lets me. She’s not making it easy.”
“And have you told her that?”
“Of course I’ve told her that!” Raven caws, his chest expanding with the effort.
Hoopoe hops one step away, as if offended by the volume. “And she hasn’t changed?” she asks.
“It’s not that easy to cha-”
“Isn’t it? I used to be an egg,” Hoopoe says. “And look at me now. Do I look like an egg?”
“That is not the same thing.”
“We can all change, if we want to enough, it’s just a matter of –”
Hoopoe is interrupted by a tremor in the ground, a shake so violent the branch they perch on almost throws them off. Hoopoe lets herself fall, spreading her wings as she does. Raven bends his knees, preparing to flee again, but he doesn’t know where to go.
“I’m going to see what that is,” Hoopoe says, and shoots skywards.
#
The climbing starts easy, the incline shallow, and Wolf doesn’t have to use her claws to hold on. She looks for a stepping stone, jumps to it, then looks for the next one. Though they are both slowly going upwards, Wolf’s and Bear’s motions are completely different. Bear just walks up, as if the sheer wall is nothing more than rocky ground.
They soon settle into a rhythm, a pace. Silent they go, and Bear goes ahead, further up the cliff. Both have a lot to think about. Or maybe it’s just Wolf. Maybe Bear isn’t thinking about anything at all. Who knows?
Halfway to the top of the cliff, Wolf’s nostrils catch a scent, one she has never smelled before. Something indescribable, like an animal, but not like an animal; like a plant, but not like a plant. The foreignness of it causes Wolf to shiver. She turns her head, but she’s too low on the cliff to see into the woods. “Bear!” she howls up.
“Yes?” Bear says, his intonation deceptively tranquil, but there is something wrong with the way it rings. He is frozen a little way above her, holding on by his claws, his head turned to gaze down at the woods below him.
“What do you see?”
Bear doesn’t answer. He looks at the thing behind Wolf, and his lower lip trembles.
#
Hoopoe flies up and as soon as she is above the trees, she makes a sound that Raven has never heard her make before. A frightened clicking, so loud it hurts Raven’s ears.
“What is it?” Raven asks, his own voice shrill.
“I don’t know,” she says. She flaps her wings to hover, bobbing and peering down at Raven. “But I don’t like it.”
“What is it?” Raven finds himself asking again. “An animal?”
“I don’t know,” Hoopoe now flies in circles, confused, then dives back under the cover of the trees, landing near Raven. “I don’t think so.”
“Tell me something!” Raven screams.
Hoopoe shakes her head from side to side, panicked. “It’s moving.”
“Here?” The ground shakes, as if something large beyond belief is crawling out of it. Through the trees, Raven sees, but does not recognize, a skyscraper erecting, reaching for the sky.
“No, towards the cliff.”
“Are you sure?”
She flies up again with quick bursts, before diving back to safety. “Yes, it’s moving right for it.”
The ground shakes again, the vibration so violent it makes Raven hop. “Hoopoe, what if that’s a human? If a human reaches the cliff, it will destroy it completely.”
“Do you think so? There’s no one up there but birds, and we can take care of ourselves.”
Raven freezes in horror. He’s afraid of saying the words aloud – as long as he doesn’t say it, they remain unreal, in a way. But this is no time for cowardice. “Wolf and Bear! Wolf said they might go climb! What if it catches them when they are on the wall?”
“Raven, you don’t know if that’s–”
“Can you see them from here?”
“No, my eyes can only see up close. Listen, they might not be climbing yet–’’
“I’m not leaving this up to chance.” Raven’s voice is resolute, surprising himself.
“What do you mean?” Hoopoe asks, worried.
Instead of answering, he spreads his wings before his resolve could waver. He flies low among the trees, where it would be hard to see him. But he isn’t flying away, this time - he’s going to get the jump on the human, like a predator would.
Hoopoe screams as she chases after him. “Raven! Raven, have you lost it? We don’t know what the thing is!”
“You. Don’t. Have. To. Come,” Raven croaks. His body compresses with each powerful flap of his wings, his breath restricted by the rhythmic contortion of his entire torso.
“What the hell are you going to do?”
Raven has to admit it’s a good question. He has no idea.
#
“A human,” Bear finally manages to say, his voice meek and so terrified she’d expect his legs to shake. But bears’ legs never shake.
“Is it coming towards our direction? For the cliff?”
“Yes.”
Wolf’s fur bristles, puffs. Her muscles tense, ready to pounce, but there is nowhere to pounce, and nothing to attack on the wall. “I’m going to get back down. I’m going to fight it.”
“No,” Bear says with a mix of authority and shock. “You’re not.”
“Then, what the hell do we do?”
“We climb. Run away from it.”
“No.” Wolf’s voice is defiant. “I’m going back. I’m going to kill that thing.”
Wolf’s words seem to wake Bear out of his stupor, and his eyes finally lower to her. “Wolf, you can’t beat it.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Wolf snarls. “I’ll give it something to think about, if it likes thinking so much.” She speaks the words, and knows them to be true. She will fight that thing even if she doesn’t know whether she will win. Wolf looks for a way down, and there is no regret in her heart.
“Fine,” Bear says, and his voice softens. “What do you want me to tell Raven?”
Wolf looks up, her expression tormented. “You’re not helping, Bear. What am I supposed to do?”
“Don’t fight it. Run. Just this once. For him.”
Wolf gnashes her teeth, claws at the rock, and then, with great effort, finds the next stepping stone and prepares to leap towards it. For the first time in her life, she is running away.
#
“Raven, do you have any idea what you’re doing?” Hoopoe chirps.
“I’m figuring it out.” Am I? He wonders.
Hoopoe flies above Raven, her chirps higher and higher. “Are you crazy? Do you have brain worms or something?”
“I need your help, Hoopoe. I need to think.”
“Think? What is there to think about?”
“How to scare away a human.”
Raven leaves the safety of the trees as he reaches the meadow, his line of sight to the human no longer obscured, though Raven wishes it was.
It is an awesome thing, silver and reflecting the rays of the mid-morning sun, naked of all fur or feathers, slick, standing almost as tall as a tree on its two shaky legs. Around it, a whirlwind of transformation swirls – trees stripped of their limbs and erected into telephone poles, resting boulders disintegrating and re-integrating into boxy suburban houses or towering concrete skyscrapers. Railways sprout around it in unnatural, jutting angles, leading from a coal mine to a power plant, which sprouts power cables that snake all the way towards the houses and skyscrapers, making a city grow around it as it walks. Not that Raven can understand any of that. He just watches in mute horror as it walks, and unnatural things grow around it. Raven almost hits a porta-potty that pops in front of him, shooting up at the last minute and goes back to watching the hulking, walking disaster.
Its shoulder slams against one of the shiny, tall buildings unlucky enough to sprout ahead of it. A chunk breaks off, showering the ground with a rain of glass.
How could it not see it? Raven wonders. Was it not looking? He flies towards the human, closer and closer, over train tracks, between a museum and a Starbucks, and stops when he reaches the field of glass shards, most of them bigger than he is. He stares at the alien material, seeing the other Raven more clearly than he ever had before. “Do you know what I should do?” They ask each other. Raven hates that guy so much.
There is no time – he has to stop the human from reaching Wolf, but he doesn’t know how. He can’t come any closer, and for now the human doesn’t notice him, staring ahead of itself, turning a patch of forest into an Ikea store with an adjacent parking lot.
“Hey, human. human! I’m here!” Raven calls. It does not react.
Hoopoe lands next to Raven. “Great. Now what?” she asks bitterly. Still, Raven finds himself emboldened, knowing she stuck with him through this. And to save Wolf, no less.
Raven spreads his wings and crows so hard his ribs hurt. “We’re here, human! Look at us, look at us!”
Hoopoe chirps in frustration, and joins the effort, flying into the path of the human, right in front of its head. It is a magnificent sphere, blindingly gleaming in the sunlight, the eyes staring unblinkingly ahead, always ahead. “Ayy, I’m flying here!” Hoopoe calls at the top of her tiny lungs, flips midair, and blasts the human’s head with foul-smelling liquid.
Just when Raven is about to give up, something happens. Slowly, so slowly, the human revolves its head towards Hoopoe, like it’s filled with so many thoughts that they weigh it down, so densely packed nothing can get its attention. The human grunts as Hoopoe’s excrement runs down its nose, a low, mechanical noise, like the grinding of a thousand gears, the thumping of a thousand engines, the simultaneous connection of a thousand 90’s modem routers, and Raven regrets. He regrets having ever called this thing’s attention, and ever thinking he would be the one to save Wolf. Regrets dragging Hoopoe into this. He could still flee, he could still- No. Raven clacks his beak. He has an idea.
Raven chooses a piece of glass, almost as large as he is, that pierces the ground like a huge claw and remains standing. He takes it in his beak and soars, laboring with each beat of his wings as he flies up, avoiding the glacially flailing arms.
“Look at me!” Raven crows through the beakful of glass, a thin, shrill sound, but with all the qualities of a roar. The human’s eyes, shining orbs, are again set forward, towards the cliff, but it doesn’t matter. Raven flies into their gaze, and angles the glass so that The human can’t avoid seeing the other human reflecting on the surface. “Look at yourself!” Raven calls. There is a single, brilliant moment in which Raven sees the human’s reflection reflecting in the silver orbs, a reflection of a reflection going on and on.
The human’s face distorts disgustingly. The crystalline mouth opens at an ugly angle, and it shrieks. Its cry, an anguished, dissonant sound, is even worse than its grunt. It thunders throughout the forest, rocking the trees and echoing off the mountains. Raven doesn’t turn away.
Then the human explodes.
It is a final burst of transformation — A gust of wind pours from it and turns the glass shards to sand castles, the museums into greenhouses, and the Ikea into a massive treehouse. The skyscrapers transform into colorful slides looping and swooping down the cliff face, one of them channeling the waterfall into a waterslide. Raven is tossed up by the wind, unharmed, and the first thing he sees after he maneuvers himself to a glide is Wolf standing at the top of the water slide, gazing down at Raven, Bear beside her.
“Raven!” Wolf howls, her voice carrying over the clearing. She paws the slide carefully, then steps on it, slips, and slides down with the water.
“Wolf!” Raven caws at the top of his lungs, and flies to the bottom end of the slide where she would eventually arrive.
Wolf splashes into the puddle of mudd, and Raven lands in the dry patch as close to her as he can without landing on the mud or on her. “Bear’s coming,” he warns.
Wolf stumbles out of the puddle just in time to avoid Bear, who barrels down the water slide, laughing as he falls ass-first into the squishy mud. She lies down beside Raven, who pecks behind her ear affectionately as she nudges him with a muzzle larger than his entire body. Raven submerges himself in her fur, feeling as safe as ever.
Hoopoe lands on Bear’s head as he stands up, dripping mud. “Long time no see, Sleepyhead,” she greets him.
“Long time indeed,” he answers, and takes a long look at the unnatural structures that now reside in the clearing. “Well, that was something.”
“It certainly was,” Hoopoe answers, her crest folding and unfolding with the last of her nerves. “But it’s over now.”
#
Raven and Wolf are alone in the forest again, what’s left of it. Wolf trots with her nose to the ground, following the day-old tracks of Elk with mild interest, while Raven is up in the trees, searching for abandoned nests.
“Raven,” Wolf says suddenly. “How did you kill the human, back then?”
Raven hops down from the branches and lands beside her on her rock with a single flap. He gives her a long, sideways look. It’s not that Raven doesn’t remember, it’s more that he can’t hold on to the idea, the shining glimpse of… something else, neither animal or plant , but not human either. He shakes his head. “I don’t know. Humans are weird.”
What does it matter, anyway? Wolf thinks, and plops down in a sunny patch. “Ok. Could you scratch between my shoulder blades? I think I have a tick back there.”
“Sure.” Raven hops over, and combs Wolf’s fur until he finds it. “Oh, my. That’s a juicy one. It’s going to hurt, so don’t snarl at me again.”
“I won’t.” And she doesn’t. Not this time. She clenches her teeth as he rips the parasite away. “I’m grateful,” She says. Not just for the tick, but for being close together in the spring sun, for trusting each other.
“Pleasure’s all mine,” Raven says after gulping down, and he too, means more.
Raven and Wolf enjoy the silence together. There will be more disasters to save each other from, more fights to resolve, but that’s in the future. Right now, they love each other very much, and they live happily ever after.