Bugs and such were less common in autumn months, but she found a long, juicy worm in that cold morning mud. Compared to Piloncilus’s body size this would be a feast. She washed it off in the stream and brought it home. Her little friend was watching the door as she entered, and she realized how easy it would have been for her mother or father to have entered and discovered the opinicus. He let out a cheerful chirp when he saw the worm.

“Shush!” Maj waved her hands frantically. “They could hear you.”

“You live with more humans?”

“Yes. My ma’ and da’. I don’t know what they’ll do if they find you. You see, my dad’s a hunter.”

“This place is your nest?”

She set the worm in her left hand and cupped a cave over it with her right. “I suppose.”

“You are newly-hatched?”

“No, I’m seven.”

“Seven years? But that is newly-hatched.”

“No, not for a human.” It felt awfully strange referring to herself as a human. With friends and family it was never something she had to specify. The worm began trying to burrow out between her thumb and index. “Are you still hungry?”

“Oh, very.”

She held the worm out to him.

“Maj?”

“What is it?”

“Can you squish it? I don’t have teeth.”

She wrinkled her nose at the thought. “How do I do that?”

“Well,” Piloncilus said, “my mother would grind it up and spit it out for me.”

“With her mouth?” Maj stared at the worm, horrified.

“Why, yes.”

“I think…” She felt a little sick to the stomach. “I think I’ll squish it with a spoon or something. Wait a minute.” Returning with the spoon, she dumped out the basin she had used for washing, and began to crush the poor clitellate. Its tail flipped and lashed as the head became paste. Soon it was done. She scooped the blobs onto the spoon and brought it to the scarf-nest.

“Enjoy!” She tried to smile, but still felt queasy.

“Thank you, Maj,” he said, taking a moment to look at her before eating. “I could tell that was hard for you, but you did it for me.” The wisdom shone through his words again. It was something about the paced phrases and even tone.

“Please, go ahead,” she said softly.

“You are very kind to me.”

“As are you. I know you’re hungry, Piloncilus. Eat.”

“I see this friendship will be…”

“Eat! Please!” she whispered, stifling laughter. “We can talk after,”

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He chirped a few times, and she assumed he was reciprocating the laugh. He blinked once, ruffled the few feathers he had, and stretched out his pink-skinned neck, taking the first clump of smashed worm and swallowing it with his head thrown back.

“Ooh,” he said.

“Is it alright?”

He took another bit in his beak and let it fall to the back of his throat. “The flavor is better in the Upperwind,” he said. “But the hunger was worth it.”

“What do you mean?”

“The filling sensation in my stomach could not happen if I had not first been hungry.”

“Ah, well.” She didn’t know what to comment because she had never reflected on it before. She had taken hunger for granted and hadn’t imagined life without it until this moment. “I suppose it can be a good thing, then.”

“Maybe not good, but it makes us appreciate the good things more.”

She nodded and smiled, deciding once and for all, the opinicus was a wise and thoughtful little beast.

“And I get to feel this every time I am hungry?”

“If there’s food, then yes,” she said. She looked down pensively at her hands. “Sometimes the hunger lasts a while, though.”

“And why is that?”

“Well…” She let out a long breath, and Piloncilus sensed sadness there. “Sometimes Da’ doesn’t make it home at night. He doesn’t bring the money or the food. Then Ma’ gets mad at him, and they both get mad at me.”

“But why? Do you do something wrong?”

“Dunno. Probably.” She still didn’t look at him. “I’m another mouth to feed. That’s what Da’ says. He said it keeps him from getting what he wants.”

Piloncilus cocked his tiny head to one side, watching her closely.

“Hard drink and nights with his friends. That’s what Ma’ says he wants. I don’t really know the details. But I’m not sure how he can like it so much. He just comes home crazy and angry.”

Piloncilus had finished the worm paste and began settling again into the scarf. “I am sorry, Maj.”

“It’s fine. You can’t do anything about it.”

“If I were a few years older I might be able to help bring you food.”

“Rat-birds hunt?” She covered her mouth as soon as she’d said it.

He chirped. “I am not a rat-bird!”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” She couldn’t tell if the sounds he made were anger or laughter, still unable to read his emotion. “I didn’t mean to say that.”

“I suppose I do look a little like a rat now,” he said, glancing down at his tiny pink and blue feet. “But that’s because I’m newly-hatched. Opinicuses are more a mix of eagle and lion.”

“Really?” she said. “How big do you get, then?”

“I do not know what to compare it to.”

“To me!” she said, scooting a little closer to him, deathly curious.

“You, big one?” He looked her over. “Maybe ten of you.”

“Ten of me!” she exclaimed.

“Or perhaps more like fifteen. Maybe you can ride me someday.”

“Oh, Pilo, I’d love that!” The shortened name escaped as easily as rat-bird had earlier.

Piloncilus either accepted or ignored the nickname. “But that will be thousands of years from now,” he said.

“Thousands of years?”

“Yes.”

“Humans don’t live that long,” she whined. “You’ll be giving rides to my great-great grandchildren.”

“Then maybe in the Upperwind. There is no limit on lifespan there.”

“But… how can I get there? Didn’t you say it was higher than the stars? You said it was far. And how can you get there? No offense, but I don’t think you’re ready to fly yet.”

“Humans go to the Upperwind when they’re done here.”

She stared at him. “We do? Is the Upperwind like the Vale?” She remembered the old song, Run, O child, into the Wind where your lovers await in the Vale.

“Yes. You go by dying, and I go by flying.”

“But in thousands of years!”

“Time is different there, in the sense that waiting is never a bore. So, do not worry about that.”

“How long until you can fly, then?”

“Oh, only three or four hundred years,” he said.

“Only!” she scoffed. “And how old are you now?”

“Nearly fifty-eight.”

“You’re older than my da’! Newly-hatched?”

“So, opinicuses count age from the egg – unlike humans.”

“Humans don’t lay eggs, Pilo.”

“Perhaps that is why.” He chirped, and she assumed again that it was a laugh.

“How long were you in an egg?” she asked.

“Fifty-one years.”

She frowned, not quite sure what to do with the numbers.

“That makes it seven years since my hatching,” supplied Piloncilus.

“Seven,” she nodded pretending she had understood the calculation, “like me!”

“I suppose so, if we count it that way.”

“Well, you’ll seem very old if we don’t.”

“As you like, big one. While speaking with a human, I’ll count in human years.”

“Less confusing for me,” she giggled.

He chirped.

“Are you comfortable?” she said. “Do you need anything else?”

“Clean, warm, and full. You will make a good mother someday.”