The ground fell away below me. Rocks and twigs receding from my sight, the screaming of my mate and newborn babes chased me into the air. The paralysing residual terror of being land-bound and vulnerable fell from me. Terror and my family's demands forgotten, unburdened, I fought for height. The frozen spray slashed through my wings like the breath of life itself. Shia, the wind, lifted me in her gentling arms and I lost myself for a moment.
The fine interplay of currents and jet-stream brought me back to myself. Far below me the boundless sea flashed and roiled under the veiled clouds, sunlight filtering through to reflect from the silvery backs of the herring. I dived, hunger driving a predatory scream from me as I fell. My world diminished to a speeding tunnel as I carved the air, driving downwards. My wings instinctively folded back at the last instant, my head thrust forward, the crests of the waves flashed past me and I struck.
Turmoil, tumult.
Breathless I surfaced, the air streaming into my grateful lungs past the prey in my grasp. The spray near choked me as I clawed for the sky once again. Swiftly the wriggling fish vanished down my gullet, squirming and flashing as it drowned in the air. I spared only a thought for its insensate panic before I gasped my first full lung-full of sweet blue sky and wheeled around to race for land.
A speeding shadow.
Needle-sharp talons pierced me, the wind driven from my lungs, in that moment Shia abandoned me, I heard her faint sighs dwindling as she withdrew. I knew then that I was lost. The Hunter had me, the great Sea Eagle, king of the coast. Razor sharp beak drove for my breast; even on the wing he was voracious in his hunger, his anger. Once, twice, savage and agonising tearing of my wing muscles, feathers scattered, torn and bloodied. The dark beak flashed once more and the sky turned dark.
The chicks squalled and shivered. Cold salt spray choked me as I huddled to keep them warm, crouching low over the muddle of twigs and sticks. Tiny mouths probed and pecked at me in excitement, the chicks still too young to fully open their eyes, mistaking me for a source of food. My mate had been gone too long.
A dark shadow sped across the sky and I hunkered lower. The great Sea Eagle, favoured of Shia the Blessed Wind, cast his dread presence before him as he soared low over the rocks, something white and flaccid and dead dangled in his grasp. Around me the remainder of the flock quailed or screamed their defiance as he passed over-head. A sudden movement caught my eye.
Two lone white feathers drifted down, their scent familiar and soothing, but cold, so cold...