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Wings out, tail down, claws out - and I landed, gripping the edge of the cliff where the family nest sat. I shook out my wing feathers and folded them neatly in. Then my hair. I tried giving it a good shake, but it was so matted and muddy, it didn’t really help.

“You need to clean up, sis.”

My brother, Pirree, was fastidious and shining. Somehow he never got a feather out of place.

I said, “not much I can do in this weather. Pick up a mouse and get mud from nose to tail.”

He neatly picked at a claw that was already perfect. “You should at least clean your claws, Kirlee. They’ll blunt if you don’t.”

He repeated mum and dad as if I didn’t know. I tried, but not everything came off. I dutifully started biting and licking at them anyway. They were full of blood. I’d had a good day down the marshes and was feeling nest-ready for once.

Pirree cocked his head and stared at me. Now I felt like a mouse. “What now, Pirr?”

“Your hair. It’s a real mess. The body mage over at Raven’s Hee could cut it for you. That should make things easier.”

I changed to the other foot. I could feel the sting in my cheeks, but Pirree was of the same clutch as me and I told him, “I still owe him from last time. I only got enough to feed myself today. The mage wants a whole rabbit, and all I gave him last time was a squirrel baby.” The body mages are useful for a species without hands, but he knew he was useful and he knew he was exclusive, and if he hadn’t been in control of his own body, too, he’d be too fat to fly. I’ve always wished I didn’t need him, but what can a Tsik do when the weather is autumn from equinox to equinox?

Also, hair grows - unlike feathers.

“Well, you will have to fly there and pay him back at least. Maybe a pigeon up front will get you started on the next cleanup.”

As if I could even find a spare pigeon those days. The prey bred worse than us. Me and Pirree, we used to have another clutch sibling. He survived hatching but not much more.

We heard a squawk of greeting. It was from our big sis Sirril. She’s from the clutch the year before, and she flew wider and got better prey than any of us. “Hey, baby chicks!”

That’s a tease. Both I and Pirree had our adult feathers, and hoped to find our own mates and nests that season. Well, he had a chance at least. Not so sure about me. The good males don’t really like a partner who looks like a ball of owl-spit. Sirril was good to us, she’d let me stay until I find someone, even if this was technically her territory now, after mum and dad decided to migrate to the islands. I’ve occasionally wondered if mum and dad were right. There’s fish out by the islands, and the rumours say it’s better pickings than here on the Grey Peaks - but that’s neither here nor there to the story.

Anyway, Sirril said, “did you hear about the nest down by Marri-dale? Nobody has seen the pair in almost a greatmoon-cycle!”

Marri-dale. That’s a decent territory. It’s low altitude so you wouldn’t see much, but there’s trout in the Marrilit rivers and loads of creatures trek to the streams. “What do you think happened to the owners,” I asked. Though I had my suspicions. There’s a human town by the Marrilit/Grey river fork.

Sirril echoed my thoughts. “Humans probably. Though killing the whole pair is harsh. I hope they didn’t have chicks.”

I shuddered. One, two, maybe three hatchlings just getting their first real wing feathers, but no chance of learning to fly or feed themselves. “And noone would know to adopt them in time before they starve.” Killing the whole pair was harsh.

“Why did they hunt together,” asked Pirree. As if we could answer that. “The council should forbid hunting on human farms!”

I ate a chicken once. It was the best meal I ever caught with my own two feet. I told Pirree that.

Sirril licked her lips. Pirree stomped and shook himself, head to tailtip. “No,” he said. “It’s not worth the risk. Kirlee - I don’t want you dead.”

“Oh, you just have to think about what you’re doing,” said Sirril. “Not just focus on the prey, but the surroundings and circumstances too. A mama thrush will flee when you pick her nest, so you’d never worry about it, but taking from human farms is more complicated.” She grinned. “Some of us like a challenge.”

And the way the pickings were that year, some of us had to. “Maybe the nest is open for new owners,” I said.

The day after, my belly was rumbling again, my hair still looked like owl-spit, and Sirril woke far too early. The overhang kept the nest dryish, but there were droplets all over her, and when she flapped her wings, I got a load in my face. “Thanks,” I muttered.

“Makes you fresh and awake, baby chick. You hungry? I am.”

“Someone started talking about chickens last night,” I sighed.

Sirril gave me a sidelong glance, her black eyes glittered under the blonde locks. “I’m thinking we could get a better view of the humans if there’s more of us,” she said.

“You two are crazy,” the curled up shape of Pirree said. He drew his head out from under his wing and yawned. “I said yesterday I don’t want you killed - and that goes for both of you. I’m serious. Just don’t.”

“I’m hungry,” I said, as way of explanation. “And the body mage at Raven’s Hee will probably clean me nose to tailfeather and back to claws for a full chicken.”

“One each might be pushing it,” said Sirril, “but a half chicken should be enough both to fill your belly and to get you that haircut at least.”

She was serious. She really wanted to hunt farms.

Pirree stared at us. Then he stuffed his face back under the wing. It was muffled, but “I will have no part in this,” we heard him say.

So I and big sis flew. Circled first at the high end of the Deep Vale, checked the Vale holts, then stopped at the Foggy Lake. There were some nice looking ducks, and Pirree said “how about mallard?” Apparantly he’d followed us anyway.

“Thought you said you wanted no part of it,” said Sirril.

“I have to look out for you,” he said.

Yep, it was dangerous. I said, “mallard is good.”

“Baby chick! You running out on me? Come on, that farm on the south bank looks promising.”

It did. Some good trees around it to scout from, a good upwind from the lake to the cliffs, and the chicken coop was behind the barn.

“Anyway,” Sirril continued, “the territory owners won’t like if we take their ducks.”

“Will they like that you take their chickens,” asked Pirree.

“No, but there’s none on my rocks. It is getting a bit sparse, especially with the three of us.”

She liked us, but still… “You want us gone soon, right?” I said. “Find your own mate instead?”

Sirril sighed. “That would still make it me plus one plus chicks. Unless I can expand with the mate’s territory as well. I was checking out our neighbour on the east side. He’s a kind guy, but then I had to ask the Memory Keeper and unfortunately she needed only recite lineages for three breaths before finding a common ancestor. So no expanding that way at least.”

We flew in to perch on the copse of tall spruce behind the main house of the farm. From that angle we could see the farmer had built a tight lattice work of beams around and above an open area where the dumb clucks wandered around pecking at the ground and each other.

“Okey,” I said. “How are we getting through that fence thing?”

Sirril started bobbing her head back and forth. She was measuring for much longer than I would have done - but then again, I didn’t think that fence was possible to maneuver through anyway.

Sirril said finally, “come. Watch me.”

We closed in; me, I landed on the barn roof. Sirril swooped down to the coop, and then she did a maneuver that defies words. It was a combination of a side slide, a tail twist - and then she folded in everything and somehow slipped through the tiny space between the beams. I’ve seen swallows do that sort of thing. I can’t catch those. I’ve never thought a full grown Tsik could do it. I might consider practicing that sort of fold in at two hundred feet above the ground. But not two feet above. The chance of crashing was crazy high.

Sirril was airborne again with a chicken in her claws. She headed for the same opening.

She was almost through.

And what did I do? I did what she said - I watched her.

But I didn’t do what she said last night - watch her surroundings and circumstances.

So when the farmer and the shovel turned up out of nowhere, I heard Pirree shriek from the copse before I saw it, and Sirril didn’t see in time at all.

Gods, I heard that shovel hit her head.

Pirree was there like a falcon. I didn’t know he could fly that fast. He was beating at the farmer with his claws and wings.

Sirril was just lying there on the ground.

I flew down. And what did I do?

I grabbed the chicken. That’s what she came for right? I could help her with that. Later I would sometimes tell myself I did it to distract the farmer, but really? I had no reason. I just grabbed it. Food. Instinct. Fucking instinct.

And Sirril was still lying there. And the farmer beat her again. And Pirree was flying around him until she was bleeding and bleeding and bleeding. And there was blood on her face and in her hair and her feathers were soaked in it and the claws were drenched in chicken blood, and when Pirree came to the cliffs above that fucking farm, she was dead.

I had a chicken, and my big sis was fucking dead.

Pirree opened his mouth. I knew what he was going to say. So I tore off a chicken leg and dumped the rest in front of him. Then I took off with just that fucking leg that Sirril had died for.

Do you have any idea how much tears sting when you fly top speed at top altitude? I wish we were like other animals. They don’t cry. But we’re not. We’re Folk. We’re Kindred. And the Gods made it so we can cry. And I just lost my fucking sister and Pirree hated me.

I cried. And it stung. And I cried more, I could barely see where I was going.

Lucky thing there’s not much in the way between two mountain peaks, right?

I landed on Raven’s Hee, near the mage’s nest. He was busy making a council man pretty. I could see it was a councillor - he had shiny dwarven bracelets around both ankles. Probably enchanted stuff. Something to keep him nice looking, or good speed, or something like that. I don’t know.

The body mage finished his job and the councillor flew off. He had some really cute black tail markings - but a councillor is way above my station, and I just raided a farm and my fucking sister just died, so I wasn’t really looking for a mate. I tiptoed over to the mage’s nest and dropped the chickenleg. My stomach rumbled. Maybe it hadn’t noticed that I was in a really bad shape right now.

“Thanks,” the body mage said. “Want me to start up on the next session? You could really use it.”

As if not everyone already had told me this. Including my fucking dead sister. “Yes, please,” I said. “But just the haircut.” I couldn’t afford more.

I flew home afterwards. Even though I knew Pirree would be there. Even though I knew what he was going to say. And he did. “Coward,” he called me. And a lot of other true things. I tried defending myself. I said, “if you’d been closer and helped, maybe she would have lived. We could have used an extra lookout. But you were so noble. You didn’t want any part of this, you said!”

I said, “with a better territory and nest we wouldn’t have needed to raid farms,” but he threw my own words back at me.

“‘Best meal I caught with my own two feet,’ wasn’t that it? Duck wasn’t good enough for you. Our sister just died so you could pretty up!”

That wasn’t fair. She had wanted it too - and Pirree had told me I needed to get clean. But it still stung. Still my fault.

“You don’t deserve a better nest,” he said. He was right about that. I didn’t.

“I bet you didn’t even Memorize it for the council.”

He was wrong about that. I didn’t have to Memorize like mum and dad taught us. The whole scene was etched into my brain. Every clang of shovel on skull. Every crunch of bone shattering. Every fucking drop of blood on my sisters face. Even the third eyelid stupidly coming out to protect her eyes. As if that stupid bird feature could protect her against the fucking metal shovel.

The Memory Keeper at the council would be able to find every detail in my head. Including the fact that I’d been a fucking coward and left my sister to die.

Pirree has a sharp tongue. Mine isn’t. Some time in that argument I got so fed up that I slashed at him with my claws instead.

I didn’t connect, thankfully. But he did retreat. Before flying off to sleep in a tree, he said, “the council will be convening at Isenhigh Rock to decide the Marri-dale nest, come next full small-moon. It’s a good place - but it doesn’t have - you know - chickens.”

Fuck him. I’d take it anyway. He can inherit the family nest.

By the time the council convened, I and Pirree were nesting together again, but we weren’t talking. Well, sometimes I said, “here is a mouse,” and then he’d say, “eat it,” and then I’d have to eat my own peace offering and we’d still not talk to each other.

He never offered me anything, and I didn’t expect it.

We flew in silence to the council, and perched on the outside of the assembled council members, Memory Keepers and assorted full adults, at Isenhigh Rock. They discussed a lot of things, most of them boring. Pirree tried to ask an adult to propose a farm-raid ban to the council, but they shook him off. She said they’d discuss it about once a generation, and then decide that what a raider does is on his own head.

And so when Sirril’s death came up, and Pirree urged for a ban again, they let me off the hook. Tragic accident of the hunt, they said. No blame, they said. No fucking blame? I can do that for them. I wake up every morning to the sound of the fucking shovel.

But at least noone else was going to punish me. I stayed long enough to hear that noone was in line for the Marri-dale nest and grounds, so I said, “I’ll take it then,” and then I flew. Might as well be me, and I’m pretty sure Pirree was thrilled to see my tail.

Of course I should have stayed and listened to the boring adults. Next morning the cute councillor landed on my new, nice, own nest and told me to leave.

“Why? There were no inheritors!”

“There’s a breeding couple up from Bluevale that needs it. She’ll be laying any day.”

“No, this is full! There’s no space for breeders here, the territory is half the size of something useful,” I said. I’d checked the edges before going to sleep. I had begun to understand why the previous owners maybe had tried going for the human settlements. There was fish in the river for sure, but it was also a dangerous rapid, and not something to loose your balance or your head trying to catch.

“The council has decided. You are still a juvenile, and you will obey the will of your elders.”

“You don’t understand. There is not prey for them and chicks. I’m unmated, I can scrape by here. Let me have it!”

He hissed at me. Large wings, spread tail. I tried not to be intimidated, but there’s fucking instincts and I got scared and I really, really wanted this little nook in the forest for my own, and so I hissed back.

At a councilmember maybe fifteen years older than me, with the whole fucking council behind him.

He bared his claws.

I slashed at him with mine.

And fuck, I connected. Sheer fucking luck against someone way more experienced than me. Sheer fucking bad luck that I hit a councilmember, and he starts bleeding.

And he bleeds.

And it’s like Sirril only a half mooncycle ago, but it’s not a shovel this time. It’s my claws that hit and connected and tore his major throat artery, and he screamed and shrieked and it echoed across the whole fucking Marri-dale and up the cliffs and across the Marrilit rivers and I’m sure the humans in the town heard him, and I just stood there in shock.

“I’ll get the body mage,” I whispered.

“I’ll get you fixed!”

“Don’t die!”

“Please, don’t die.”

But he did, and I just killed a fucking councilmember and the whole council would know, because the Memory Keeper would rip it from my brain and I don’t know what they would do to me, but they would probably kill me, and so I took off.

I flew up, up, up. Over the Grey mountains. I shot across the great grass fields without a tree in sight. I didn’t stop to rest, I didn’t stop to eat.

Until I fell with exhaustion, and I didn’t notice the humans who came closer than I’d seen them since the day the farmer and the shovel bashed my sister to death. I didn’t notice their traps, their ropes, their cages.

And that’s how I ended here, a cage-pet to a human in Tamospar.

Fucking daughter of a dog-formed demon snipped my flight feathers. Unfortunately for her, I have figured out how to manipulate the cage lock with my claws, and even clipped, I can still flap my way up to the door handles. Unfortunately for me, although Tamospar is a small town the way the Tsik flies, I’m ground-bound and will probably get caught before I reach the edges. If I don’t starve first.

If I kill my owner, maybe they will shoot me. Maybe Sirril will find some rest then.