Barrow Fields Something with blood.

val eased to a sit as pepper studied the snow. thin prints like dinosaurian tracts in old shale; remnants of another age he would not know in this lifetime.

he was in no rush. pepper set in the snow besides him and for a moment val allowed himself this rare pleasure of good company on a crisp morning where the sun was just barely simmering over the horizon and the world was fresh and quiet.

i’ll sniff around. val suggested while pepper regathered energy. he rose in a slinky trot and began canvassing the spruce; his third rotation around a flutter of feathers sounded like gunshot in the quiet morning. val stilled, eyes falling on three birds clattering as they balanced on a fallen sapling’s winter-rotted bough.