There was more of a chill to the morning than usual, one of the few signs that a Frangea winter was upon the land. Esper wore a slightly thicker coat and leggings in deference to this as she settled herself thoughtfully on the smooth wooden bench in the empty park.

She could hear things. Rustling rhododendron leaves and the creak of flowering bushes. The distant hiss of air through cedars and pines and the rumble of morning traffic along Pinecone Boulevard further down the slope. What she could not hear was the whirr of feathered flight, but then she didn't have to.

Just a taste was all she had needed and the essence was immediately recognisable amid all the other sensations that flowed around her. It was a vague sense of uplifting, a freedom amid open skies and distant horizons. Every now and then some instinct would nudge her senses toward some indescribable goal. That feeling spiked within her and she knew why. They were here.

Flutterings and cooings filled the air and Esper scattered crumbled snacks upon the laid brickwork at her feet. The Wobbly Pigeons had arrived not in tentative numbers but all at once as if multiple decisions had been made in unison. The flock was one connected mind right then and it chose to descend to enjoy the food offered. Without hesitation the birds pecked away at the scraps, gently competing with each other as they ignored the donor of the feast.

Esper watched complacently for a moment and then focused her attention on one colourful creature in particular. The bird seemed to sense this scrutiny and ceased feeding to glance around. Then her wings spread and she lifted into the air and was free.

The ground fell away, the trees became a blur of greenery and pathways a mere network of light ribbons tracking across the ground below which served no purpose she could figure other than to make patterns in the landscape. A twist of flexible pinions and the view altered. Geometric shapes that merely confused the eye and brain with repetitive regularity were succeeded by the more comforting roughness of rock and sand and beyond this a great luminous blue that was the sea stretching to that other luminous blue which had no end.

Waves crashed against cliffs and harsh shrieks from flitting shapes that shared the air threatened menace before another dexterous tilt of wing feathers and the world turned over and over until landmarks inland drew her back to the safety of the trees again. Tiredness at such exertions made her seek a branch in some dark pine where she perched, examined her immediate surroundings and then cooed to companions she knew could not be far. A single answering call brought her back to Orangey Park where she alighted among other pigeons and resumed feeding, without a moment wondering why she had left all this nourishing food merely to circle in the sky while others enjoyed the early morning banquet.

There was one who could tell her but there was no language to bridge such a gap in understanding. Esper stood, stretched, and felt a lingering fatigue as she crumpled her now empty paper bag before tossing it into the recycle bin next to the bench. She glanced again at the milling shapes on the pathway, shook her head, and gently stepped through them to return up the slopes of Mount Syzywyg to begin her school day.

It was a dreamy day and she missed a few points in more than one lesson that almost merited punishment so that she was glad to descend from the heights again at lunchtime and settle with friends at the Squeaky Tomato for a meal.

"What's with you Esper?" she heard a voice cut in on her distant thoughts. "You've been pecking at that plate of chips for ten minutes. They're congealing in their own juices."

"Pecking?" Esper glanced over at the mischievous gaze of Meresinth Woodbine, a girl whose wild dark hair was accentuated by a single tight braid that threatened to dip itself in a bowl of salad dressing as she laughed at her friend's perplexed stare.

"I could have devoured two meals in the time it's taken you to nibble on three chips. Speed up. Lunchtime's almost over." She took a sip of fizzy drink and belched melodically, drawing applause from some boys in a nearby corner of the eatery.

Esper's eyes were drawn to the window as several people ran past.

"Something going on." It was a statement, not a question, for Esper did not question what she felt.

"Some kids larking," Meresinth said, leaning towards the glass to better survey the street. "I'll check it out," and she departed like the eager thing she was where possible mischief was to the fore as Esper well knew.

She sighed, toyed with some paper napkins and then watched the others who were taking lunch in the relaxed atmosphere of the Squeaky Tomato, an eatery famed for its cheese and tomato sauce with everything. Her eyes took on a vacant look as one of its sauce dispensers drew her fingers around the comfortable shape and absently she squeezed it. The squeak that gave the place its name brought her back down to earth at the same time a splatter of redness fountained onto her table.

"Excuse me, accident over here," she said, waving a hand for attention and a wipe.

"I'll get a doctor," someone shouted seeing the mess and making the inevitable error that set everyone else laughing. Veterans of the eatery were all too familiar with this scenario to be unduly worried by someone actually bleeding to death before their eyes. One day, Esper thought with dread, one day it might not be a laughing matter.

"Which vital artery have we severed today?" the waitress said, smiling grimly as she cleaned up the mess with brisk tolerance for the vagaries of unaccompanied children.

"Sorry, thoughts were elsewhere."

"Homework? Dolls? Boybands on the grid?"

"Uh, none of those," and Esper shook her head with a frown, not of annoyance at the girl's comments, though she took it thus with a huff and final flourished wipe, departing before an explanation could be made.

Esper had paused because that explanation eluded her for the moment. What had her mind been on? Something about rising air currents, invisible barriers that tore across muscle and sinew, lines of magnetic force telling her stories of distant lands never yet visited, and shadows with claws, piercing claws that sharpened the senses to starry points of flashing agony.

Then there was the hunger which rippled through her frame with a raw yearning that could not be denied. The feeding frenzy. She looked down at her cold chips and began thrusting them into her mouth with both hands, moaning in delight at the feeling of being filled with life preserving sustenance. A few there were who watched this performance with nervous smiles on quivering lips, except the waitress who pondered the vagaries of unaccompanied children with no table manners.

Esper was saved from the embarrassment of verbal comment, unaware of the boys chanting and clapping encouragingly as she destroyed a hunk of the eatery's best cheese, by the clatter of the door being kicked open and two familiar figures staggering in.

"Look what I found," Meresinth said, a little bedraggled, which was nothing compared to the girl whom she hauled over to Esper's table and sat tearful and panting before chip fragments and half-eaten napkins.

"Vetta?" Esper said, squinting at the comical way the girl's fluffy blonde hair looked positively frightful, an explosion of golden curls forming an irregular halo around her head. "Have you been feeding the Wobbly Pigeons again?" she asked.

"They said I was a criminal," Vetta gasped, sobbing out the words.

"The birds attacked you because they thought you dishonest?" Esper looked to her friend for an answer as Vetta gulped in more air.

"I had to rescue her from a mob," came the startling response.

"It wasn't me," Vetta finally said. "It all happened before I was born."

"Famous robbery," Meresinth explained, or rather added a layer of confusion to the explanation.

"They tried to arrest you?"

Just then the waitress, who was really not having a good day due to being assigned to this troublesome table so that she considered asking management to alter her rota for the next five years, came forward, eyes wide with interest.

"Say, aren't you-?"

"No," Vetta whimpered in a small crouching voice.

"Can I have your autograph?" came an unexpected request.

"Not again," Esper said and ate a bread roll voraciously to stifle unkind laughter.