The sky-forest becomes bare.
Sitting up on a high perch, the yellow-feathered harpy looks around herself at the scenery. Branches twist off in every direction, from which more branches come out that lead to even more branches. This network of brambles is impossibly thick and dense and takes much of a long time to fly across and around. The top of the great tree is unto itself a forest even more dense and dark than the one below its shadow.
In the spring and summer, leaves had covered it so densely that inside of its many tangled limbs were full caves and holes made of nothing but the absence of greenery. These made for perfect nests for her kind and for the smaller sister birds who also find sanctuary in this high tower.
That is not to say that it is entirely safe up here. Nowhere in the world is entirely safe, not even the skies.
There are other creatures that live up here at the top of the great tree, creatures with many legs and many eyes, like the crunchy spiders she sometimes snatches out of webs when she wanders the ground.
Now, however, as the screaming-year moves toward its end, the leaves of the tree begin to fall like those of every tree that it towers over. Many of their hidden nests have become exposed to the sunlight of the autumn sky and, less forgivingly, the harsh, icy winds that torment those who live up so high.
She folds her wings over her body, her feathers puffing out as she scans the area.
Now that the walls and floors of leaves are going, they have to move their nests down deeper into the knotted, interwoven boughs of the great tree. But in those deeper places, that is where the other creatures live — the spiders.
While they have since cohabited, it is slowly becoming a point of conflict amongst the species of the great tree’s crown.
Her head turns to the side, her eyes and body facing straight, as she locks her gaze onto a fuzzy caterpillar. Slowly, as it creeps along a nearby branch, her head rotates to follow along with it, her eyes staring directly. Patiently, the harpy waits as the wind blows. Many bugs and many things live up here. There are many creatures that have become separate from the forest below the great tree. In order to live at such a height and in such a place, they have adapted and changed in order to survive. While it is mostly insects, there are also a few other critters, such as squirrels, who she can only imagine are the offspring of wildly industrious and adventurous progenitors. To climb such a tree as this one as a squirrel is a feat worthy of admiration, she supposes.
— Those squirrels wouldn’t be good to eat. They’d be too strong and muscular. Too stringy.
Their children, however, are delicious.
She snaps her body forward, her taloned feet never leaving the spot they claw into, as she eats the caterpillar with one bite. Chewing, she stands back upright and looks down at the mesa below from her high vantage-point.
During the good years, humans and her kind never spoke. There was only ever blood and fighting for good trees. However, it seems that the ash-months have a way of making things fuse together that would otherwise be separate. Now they fly as war-sisters together and go on meat-hunts.
She tilts her head back, letting the caterpillar mush drop down her throat.
Spreading her wings out and flattening down her feathers, she takes off, plummeting off of the side of the world tree like a falling stone, before she catches the wind and glides toward the waters of the lake.
If autumn is to be here soon, then winter will follow afterward, as it has always done.
Before then, she must catch many fish and eat many bugs. It promises to be a cold year. She must find a partner soon if she wishes to create a brood this season. Otherwise, it will have to wait until next year.
Passing by a grove in her flight, she looks at two humans down there fighting with each other for a moment before continuing toward the waters with an idea.
“What the hell do you mean you have a flag left?!” yells the officer, raising his fist again. The other soldier waves his hands, taking a step back and then stopping, his foot hovering indecisively in the air for a moment before he steps back to exactly where he was. Held in his hands is a small red flag about the size of a child’s forearm.
Nervously, he laughs, trying to defuse the situation. “It’s probably just an extra. Grabbed one too many is all.”
The threatening man leans in toward him, the rucksack on his back folding as he bends. “Fifteen mines. Fifteen flags,” he explains. “There was not an extra flag,” he says.
All around them is a clearing in the forest, dotted with little red flags. Each of them marks the position of a planted landmine. These had been placed before, in preparation for prior invasions. However, now, with a shift in the city’s defensive and civil doctrines, this piece of land is needed for other things, and so the mines have to be carefully extracted by professionals.
This isn’t their job.
Their job is just to mark the mines for the others to remove.
“Check the map, dummy,” sighs the officer, lowering his fist to instead rub his face in exasperation.
“I can’t, sir,” replies the nervous soldier, holding the little flag in his hand. He points off to the side of the clearing. There, on a stump, lies a folded piece of paper — the map of the minefield.
The two of them stand there, the wind blowing through the glade and blowing the fabric of the red flags around at their ankles. Fourteen flags, hinting that one mine lies buried here somewhere next to them — unmarked and ready to explode if someone steps on it.
“I forgot it over there,” he explains.
The officer stares at him for a while. “Soldier…” he starts.
“It’s not a problem, sir!” replies the man. “I’m sure someone is going to be here soon.”
“Go get that map!” barks the officer at him.
“I can’t,” replies the soldier. “What if I step on the mine?” he asks, nervously staring at the ground around them.
An audible groan comes back to him. “You made your way to me; just make your way back to the damn stump!”
The two of them stare for a while, both of them waiting for the other to do something. After a minute, the lower-ranking man turns his head. “…I forgot the path.”
“Just walk from one flag to the next.”
“But what if the mine is between two flags?” asks the man, rubbing his face in quiet concern.
“It won’t be,” explains the officer. “Guidelines dictate that each mine has to be far enough apart so that they won’t trigger the others if they explode.”
The soldier nods. That makes sense. For a moment, he seems confident as he lifts his leg to take a step toward the nearest flag.
But then he turns his head back again. “…What if whoever planted the mines didn’t follow the guidelines?”
“IDIOT!” barks the officer. “We planted the mines!” he explains, grabbing the fabric of the man’s uniform. He wobbles, letting out a terrified noise as he flails his arms around in an attempt to not fall over. After a terrifying second, he balances himself, wobbling in place as he regulates.
“We should just wait for help, s-”
The two of them stop arguing as the tree next to them rustles and snaps. Turning their heads, they look at the massive, colorful blob that lands on a branch. A yellow harpy looks at them from above, tilting its head. In its mouth is a massive, flopping fish.
"Oh, thank the powers that be,” sighs the officer in audible relief, lifting a hand and waving to her. “Hey! Help us!” he calls to the harpy. “We’re stuck!”
She tilts her head.
Damn. Do harpies even speak the language? Hell if he knows.
He lifts an arm, pointing at the soldier. “This dummy got us trapped! We need help to get out!” he explains, pointing away from the clearing. The bird-like creature sits on the branch of the tree, tilting her head and swaying up and down for a moment.
“…T- trade?” squawks a broken, scratchy voice as the monster tries to speak. “We trade?” she asks, her head tilting almost fully upside-down like an owl.
“What…?” he mutters. “'Trade'?" He ponders aloud for a second, thinking. "Sure. Sure!” says the officer after a moment. “Get us out of here, and I’ll get you whatever you want!”
She looks at him confused, clearly not understanding. “Trade?” she asks again, her voice croaking as she speaks with the fish still held in her mouth.
He nods fervently. “Yes! Trade!” says the officer.
The harpy nods to him, spreading her wings and flapping them a few times as she gets ready for flight. He breathes out in relief. “You’re off mine-duty from now on, soldier,” he remarks dryly, looking in confusion for a moment as a massive, wet fish flops down on his boots. The gust of wind from a powerful pair of flapping wings causes him to duck down, and the other man screams as a pair of large, taloned feet wrap themselves around his shoulders.
He watches as the yellow harpy flies up and away, past the edge of the clearing and up toward the sky, with his horrified man kicking in the clutch of her talons as he rises further and further away by the second, up toward the top of the world tree.
Lowering his gaze, he looks back down at the fish lying on his boots, a dropped red flag on the grass next to them both.
Good trade!
Excitedly, she flaps her wings, flying up toward the boughs of the tree with her new partner held firmly in her talons.
The man she has expertly bargained for is excited, like a frightened squirrel. He kicks and screams as they fly.
Very good.
He is energetic and strong. She can feel it in his struggle and voice. A strong partner to help her eat nasty spider-creatures. A strong partner to help her make a warm den in the hard boughs of the great tree. But she must be watchful. The others in her brood will be jealous of her success.
— As they ought to be.
Not all are as clever and sharp as her — not all would make such a good trade. Good trade.
She knew it was worth investing time in learning human words. Excitedly, she flies as the ground below becomes more and more distant by the second, letting the man’s voice as he utters so many words like a pretty birdsong float off in all directions.
