Dragoncrest Cliffs This island our prison, our home.

Over and over, Suzu was reassured she was now too large for any type of bird to grab. It had taken a lot of convincing, but even when a small hawk was seen, she noticed now that they were smaller than she’d imagined. 

The golden eagle had not returned; it would loom forever in her dreams like a phoenix. 

She scouted along the beach in low tide, sniffing through the new piles of driftwood. She’d begun selecting pieces of driftwood and had begun piling them in a large semi-circle, with the opening pointing away from the beach. With each stick she added, the walls grew higher. She thought someday, she might be able to put light sticks across the top, and drape seaweed across it to block out the light. Then, they might have an emergency shelter on the beach. 

She was reaching for another piece of driftwood when she heard an ear-piercing scream. A flurry of white feathers suddenly battered at her face, and she stumbled backwards to realize that a seagull had somehow managed to get its foot trapped between two pieces of driftwood.

Her heart raced. The gull snapped its beak in her direction and flapped its wings, eyeing her fiercely. Gulls only ate fish, she told herself. But its beak did look horribly pointy…

”I sorry,” She told the pitiful creature. Its foot looked firmly wedged between the two pieces of wood too heavy for her to move on her own. And even if she did move one of them- how much blood would there be? 

Not knowing what else to do, she began to dig away at the sand beneath one of the driftwood logs. Maybe, if she dug the sand out from under it, it might shift- and release the full.