I soar up swiftly and spot the mass below. From this height, I can see the crowds gathering. I am searching for what my lazier compatriots simply wait for. 

There is an art to this, you know. You need to cater. It’s embarrassing and a little pathetic, but that’s how it is. If you are aggressive they get angry or run away. If you do nothing then you can be sure those fleet-footed maniacs with the horrendous tails will beat you to it. 

I don’t think I’ve just gone out and gotten my own food since…. Since I can remember. Admittedly, that’s not very long. But still. I remember my father would tell me things like, “Back in my day, you could only rely on them for food in the Summer. Nowadays you are all so spoiled.”

I suspect his father said something similar to him. 

From where I stand I see a mass of red and white. From the facades nearby I sense that others have the same idea as me. I wait. A moment will present itself. Against the green grass the red mass stalls and finds a place to rest. I glide down and shimmy up, alone, towards them.

These creatures, unlike our kind, really do all look the same. The golden fur that furls from their crowns, and the sheen of hairless skin that blinds, blazing our eyes. 

One of them, a smaller one, sees me. Out of a basket comes the mana, and they toss it. It lands right in front of me; I begin to eat. 

Before I even take ten bites, I sense the motion and hop away. One of them is screaming at me. The screaming one is holding the hand of the one who fed me. I stare at them. They usually stop when eye contact enters the picture. But this one keeps going. On and on, rambling low murmurs mixed with high-pitched noises. So I turn around to break more distance between us. Eventually, the taller, yelling one stops. They go back to sitting on the grass. 

I’m hungry but I’m watching and waiting. I see Drekethalamantaphon glide down from a wire. He’s a feisty one. No patience.  I once saw him wrestle one of their four-legged slaves for a bite of burnt triangle. He came back with a scar across his face which he still bears with an air of pride. 

He does not wait for them to throw anything. He goes right up to the basket. They shoo him away and yell. 

It’s a beautiful day on the great grassy square, and the sun is a nice balm to the near-end winter winds. It’s been three or four months since a gathering like this. If only Drekethalamantaphon were more patient… there will be excess… plenty…

He flies back and is shooed away again. 

The smaller ones always try to catch us. In my time I’ve never seen it actually happen. They are too hulking to ever succeed, they are seldom faster than the statues of them that we shit on. 

Drekethalamantaphon flies right back.

The one with the long, long, golden fur that ripples from their head, makes a move so fast I can hardly believe it. 

She grabs him!

She grabbed him? With one hand she holds him, and his haughtiness is suddenly gone. I see the terror in his eyes. 

She holds him up like a prize. Then three or four more identical golden-haired beasts start rallying around her. They are plotting—what should they do? I can sense them asking among themselves.

 Let him go. Let him go. Let him go.

The one who fed me earlier is screaming, their face contorted. A crowd of my kinfolk gather behind me, and we watch the scene unfold. 

And in an instant we see the beast lift Drekethalamantaphon up and slam him into a tree. His neck is broken. Then she tosses him like discarded trash to the side. 

A certain terror and anger wells up, and I turn to those around me to seek reassurance. They, too, are angry. And it so happens, hungry. We are not all kin now, there are ravyne foule here, too. 

This gathered red mass is no longer welcome. 

As if with one consciousness we soar to their basket and pick the foodstuffs one by one. They are shouting and yelling but we do not budge. A thin-beaked lad, for kicks I presume, hops onto one of their golden heads, which provokes another to punch them in the face on accident. The chaos is loud and growing, and from the sky come more of our kind. 

The one who killed Drekethalamantaphon is selected by the parliament of ravyne for pecking. And they are pecking with a fury I’ve never seen before. 

The red mass is running away…

The one who fed me stares in horror as the murderous beast is pecked into disfigurement. Half her face is hanging, an eyeball unnaturally protrudes. Her cheeks no longer exist. 

The red mass is gone. But then we hear the clanks and booms, and now come those monsters with the nets and the weapons… I take my leave.

From the sky, I see another mass of red, and those golden-haired creatures are populating each avenue and quarter. 

Out of the blue sky, the sun is setting in a posture of indifferent beauty. 

“For all their trouble, we coexist,” my father once said.

I’m beginning to have my doubts.