Feathers and Flight.
He could hear the lizards scurrying, the membranes across their compound eyes like the crackling of stiff cloth. He knew their tusked mouths would be ready for him, should he fall, the frail old man in the heavy cloak, in the woolen robes, in the coin anklets. He was a sage, one of the lorekeepers of the Hezten Republic, but left to wander and fight with his sisters and brother.
He leans on the wall, scrolls packed into the skin drum wrapped to his hip. It is becoming harder to travel the older he gets, and he wishes he was back in his homeland. His curled digits ache with pain as he pushes off again, pulling the cloak tighter around him as he steps from the rock outcropping into the dripping rain, the warm rain making each step easier for the pain, even as the steps themselves become shorter and more careful.
The nest is up on the ridge, and those thin scaled hands clench in anticipation,
something something inspects nest.
Something something mother roc sees him
Knows its death or death, and so leaps off cliff face.
Roc diving after him
Cuts off at the feeling of talons in back.
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