The sound of a screaming avian draws Gwyn’s attention like sparkle draws a coon. The lure of something new and unknown is strong, pulling her along despite Duir’s croon of warning that she should not go (he knew death’s sound). As usual, the headstrong maiden ignored his warnings, instead ducking under the rain dampened brush, her head low, and hooves strategically placed on loam and moss, soil and earth.
Her pale eyes find the scene from the shadow of a tall, leafy plant that whispers and caresses her with creepy gestures as she watches, though the girl is by now quite used to what her father calls the groper shrubs, and is unperturbed. A boy, older than her by some many seasons, is standing in the clearing, and, spinning at hooves, making the terribly shrill cries that had perforated the jungle, is a bird.
Its wing hangs limply from a section of its body that seems too flat in comparison to the other, and now that she is so close to it, the sensation of its suffering is palpable, and strikes through her with a seemingly physical force. It makes her stomach tighten, and her chest constrict; her mouth goes dry, and she feels the urge to move away, but, at the same time, cannot remove her eyes from what she sees.
This is life.
The bodies of warriors suspended in mid-air, collapsing into dust and smoke, becoming nothing; the sound of wolves, rushing through the woodland, the red smell of the felled deer in the clearing in which they’d quieted. She had been witness to it, before, this aspect of the world. The adults around her called it death. They said it like it was bad, like it was something that they should strive to avoid, but…
Could they?
Should they?
“It’s dying,” she says, stepping out from her hidden place, head low to hold her eyes upon the suffering creature, but her stance somehow still bold. There is compassion shining in her eyes, and confusion writ on her face, and in her heart, an ache swells and fades, bites and yearns. The thought that, if she could sing, like Lena, the bird could get better, and stop screaming, dawns on her youthful mind as a potential solution to the animal’s pain, first. “I can’t heal. Can you?”
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Rainforest Cliffs
Gwyn
