Orin shook her head and looked down at her hands, but whatever she held was still invisible beneath her fingers. She worked it beneath her palms for a moment, then peered at the baby eagle that Niro had been out training. “No, no, no. No one’s hurt. I needed your help. So, I was out in the forest today and I was thinking about your birds,” a smile crept onto her muzzle. “And so I started to do a little hunting on my own. I thought, if you could raise one, then so could I, and we could have something to do together!”
Something crashed in the bushes just outside the gate. She glanced in the direction of the sound, then turned back to Niro, talking faster, “So I found a trail and followed it. Can you believe that, there was a whole bird-scent trail on the ground! And, well, when I got to the end, I found a nest!” She was triumphant and it sounded as though she hardly believed herself, either. Another sound, something was clumsily making its way through the brush. Her eyes went wide and she sped up even faster, “So I grabbed myself an egg and started coming back here to show you. Only, that noise started a little ways back, and I don’t know what it is, I’m scared, something’s coming for me, it’s a monster, Niro, help!” Her tone mutated from triumph to fright as the thing in the bushes outside the gate screeched – her fur ruffled at the noise.
“It wants to take my pet from me! See?” She held up her hands and opened her palms, and there within her hands was a brown egg. “I think it’s an eagle, like yours.”
She held it out so Niro could see, cradled in both palms, but the egg was nothing like the one Niro had fledged. This one was a light shade of brown, and small. So small that Orin didn’t need two hands to hold it. . . she could have just as easily clutched it between two fingers.
The thing outside the gate finally made its way through the last of the brush and was at the iron gates. It clucked and fussed wildly, wings waving from time to time. When it reached the fencing, it easily hopped through, and was coming straight for them. Orin screeched and ran for the porch, clutching the chicken egg to her as she went.
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