Buoyant are her golden wings

Gold ringed irises fixate on the radiant creature, dutifully scanning his exotic procession of jade, beryl fringe. Their crux is hard with adamance…but the molten rim softens to reflect grim amusement. I can’t help but wonder how this beautifully eccentric creature could groom itself with such ease…with such confidence. As if the forest was his cozy, earthen den; rather than hell incarnate...with menaces stalking for easy prey beneath a grievous, disagreeable sky. In the inactive moments of waiting for my companion to procure a decoy…this mind slips onto a scarlet track. It barrels inward -- ushering a constant, internal buzz into focus. There was a sense of wrongness that ate me…(the same guilt had arose the night after our previous encounter) likely fed by his lack of caution and the ease of our ambush. The buzzing noise strengths, becoming warbling static…then a hissed word, ‘look,’ it rasps, passing over my subconscious like a snake passing his tongue to taste the air, ‘look what this place is turning you into.’ We'd been reduced to petty thievery; the sort of trouble that children seek when their fathers weren’t looking.   Eyelids squeeze shut, willing the jeering voice to disappear. Miraculously, it does…it dissolves on command, as easily and gently as snow on the first warm day of spring. These eyes reopen just in time to see our target rise from his hunkered position - indigo face laboring forward, obviously distracted by something I couldn’t see. An impression of coolness strangles my astonishment until stern, unyielding focus is all that remains. As quietly as they can, these broad shoulders push through their cover of interlocked foliage. They force past a collection of resentful briers that prickle against my damp flesh; though the nettles aren’t long enough to pierce – they could (and did) leave a raked path in my rain slicked coat. One patched foreleg lifts, scattering mud when it sharply comes down upon his pristine train. Ebon jaws twitch apart, snaking low; their ivory gullies aim to loosen a quill and jerk it away. Hindquarters quiver anxiously, ready to pull back when the pin was secure.