Dragoncrest Cliffs The Devilll for my Hurt

When dawn broke, Chacal was the first to respond to the budding warmth, and carefully pulled herself from the pile of sleeping pups. She heard a soft voice, and she moved to nuzzle Requiem, who blinked at her in the early morning light. She gestured for him to come outside with her, so he might not wake up his siblings. 

She moved out into the golden spread of sunlight, diluted in the heavy fog that had blown in, and dipped her chest down, spine bowing as she stretched and yawned. It was quiet; the gulls had not yet begun to wheel overhead, and even the songbirds held their voices. Odd, she thought. Usually this was the right time for their dawn chorus. 

What happened next was ruthlessly quick. She felt something brush her flank as she rose from her stretch, turning her head just in time to see her son lift into the air. Like mighty, heaving bellows the golden eagle’s wings beat as he pulled her son up into the sky. Chacal screamed and leapt, but her teeth caught only the tip of his tail, and she fell back to the ground with a few strands of his fur. 

She would remember the look of pure panic and pain on her son’s face. She called out to him, screamed, caterwauled, and ran along the edge of the field below, praying the eagle might descend, or drop him in a bed of flowers. But as she pursued it to the cliffs, her heart dropped as she watched it ascend rapidly on the rising, warm air. Into the fog it lifted, disappearing from sight. Her voice lifted again and again, begging for the fog to lift, so she might see her son again- beseeching the eagle to spare his life- all the while slowly beginning to understand that her Requiem was gone.