“You know, it’s a really nice day today,” Hawke noted.

The sun was shining, birds were singing, and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. While it did look nice, Kim could only shrug.

“The campus is climate controlled, all days are like this,” she said.

“Yeah, but I have a cinnamon roll,” Hawke said.

“I guess that does make the day seem nicer,” Kim said. She also had a cinnamon roll, but was not so delighted by it as Hawke apparently was. The bird song was nice, though. They were singing in strange, lilting notes Kim had never heard before. Perhaps some migratory birds were resting on the island as they traveled.

Kim took a bite of her cinnamon roll and started mentally perusing some digital archives of bird songs. She’d like to be able to put a name to the beautiful music she was hearing.

A few seconds later, her search came back with “no results found”. Kim paused mid-bite.

Some of the strange birds were watching them now. Most of the flock had settled into tree branches and on rooftops surrounding the culinary department, but a few who flocked near Hawke and Kim, and were staring intently at the cinnamon rolls. Kim took a mental snapshot of the brightly colored hawks and did an image search for comparison. No results found.

“Hawke, I don’t want to alarm you-”

“Most things alarm me,” Hawke said. “Can it wait until after I’m done with my cinnamon roll?”

“Maybe,” Kim said.

“Let’s find out.”

Hawke went to take another bite of his cinnamon roll, and never got the chance. He’d just barely opened his mouth when a feathery wing smacked him across the head. A loud squawk of distress followed the smack, and one of the colorful birds snatched the cinnamon roll right out of Hawke’s hands.

“Hey!”

“What the- Hey!”

Kim’s brief moment of distraction had allowed another bird to swoop in and steal her cinnamon roll as well. The two birds clutched their triumphantly stolen sweets in sharp talons and flew away, cackling to themselves.

“Snack stealing birds?”

“Oh hell no,” Hake snapped. “I have been killed a hundred different ways, but this school is not taking my cinnamon rolls!”

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That felt like a weird place to draw the line, but Kim figured it had to be drawn somewhere. Hawke was already running after his cinnamon roll, occasionally making futile hops to try and snatch it out of the bird’s talons, leaving Kim to examine the situation around the culinary department.

The flock of birds had turned into a full-on swarm, and launched a full-scale attack on the culinary building. The odd birds had pecked their way through windows and swooped through open doors, and appeared to be raiding the building. Spice containers and pastries alike were borne away on the frantic wings of the raiding birds. Though the birds were focused mostly on the culinary labs, they snatched the occasional cookie or cinnamon roll from a hapless student as well.

Kim examined this situation and quickly determined it was above her pay grade. She called Lee first.

“Lee!”

“Evil birds stealing food?”

“Yes. Do you know anything about this?”

“No more so than you, I’m afraid,” Lee said. “Hold on, Vell’s calling. I’ll get Harley and Hawke and conference us.”

“Don’t bother with Hawke, he’s chasing a cinnamon roll,” Kim said. Lee noted that and looped in the other loopers.

“Hey guys,” Vell said. “Trouble with the cinnamon birds, I’m guessing?”

“The what birds?”

“The cinnamon birds. The- Uh, wait, am I the only one who knows what’s going on?”

The deafening silence from the rest of the phone call told Vell he was, indeed, the only one who knew what was going on.

“Wow, this is a new feeling,” Vell said. He was usually the one having things explained to him, or at least nodding along with Lee’s explanation.

“Feels good, right?” Harley asked.

“Yeah, I kind of get why you like explaining things to me so much,” Vell said. “Feels good. Powerful.”

“I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself, Vell,” Kim said. “What the fuck is a cinnamon bird?”

“Oh, it’s this old legend,” Vell said. “Way back when Arabia was the only source of cinnamon, they didn’t want anyone else try to grow their own cinnamon trees, so they lied and said ‘cinnamon birds’ brought the cinnamon from far off lands and used it to build nests. And then the traders just collected the cinnamon from the nests.”

“I respect the hustle,” Harley said. “So I guess their lie somehow came to life a few thousand years later and now the birds are stealing all their cinnamon back?”

“Seems like it,” Vell said.

“I wonder how an absence of cinnamon causes the apocalypse,” Lee said.

“Hawke’s going pretty bonkers,” Kim said. He was screaming at the heavens trying to reclaim his stolen cinnamon roll from the birds. “If everyone’s acting like that, the world will end soon enough.”

“Cinnamon rolls are very serious business,” Lee said. “Now if you’ll excuse me, everyone, I think the birds are trying to bust down my door, and I may have some cinnamon tucked somewhere in the back of my cabinet they’re after.”

Lee hung up while everyone else did a mental review of the cinnamon stockpiles.

“Do you think they’ll be after cinnamon candles, because I got- Oop, there it is, got to go guys,” Harley said, before she too cut out. Kim looked at the swarms of mythical birds and watched them hunt cinnamon wherever it might be found.

“How do you know all this stuff about cinnamon birds anyway?”

“Oh, just a bit of trivia I found while searching for a chicken curry recipe recently,” Vell said. “On that note: I think the birds are twice as mad that I used the cinnamon to cook another bird. See you later.”

Vell hung up, and in the distance, Kim could hear angry squawks and the sound of breaking glass. After long consideration, Kim sighed, put away her phone, and chased after Hawke.