Arista Wildheart's Arc

Chapter 3 of 3

The chick took another step. Its beak hovered over the golden dust. Arista's mind raced. She had no lure, no treat, nothing to pull the hungry bird away from her spores. One more peck and a generation of moonblooms would vanish down a newborn's throat. She scanned the shed. Twigs. Feathers. Bare shelves. Then she remembered the bucket by the door. She kept it for the day the phoenix hatched, brimming with tiny silver fish. She lunged for it, slow enough not to spook the chick, fast enough to matter. Her fingers closed on the handle. The chick's beak dipped toward the spores. Arista pinched a fish and tossed it onto the cloth, just past the golden dust. The chick froze. Its bright eyes swung to the wet, glinting fish. It hopped, ignored the spores, and swallowed the fish whole. Arista breathed again. She tossed a second fish farther from the nest. The chick chased it. A third, farther still. Step by step, she drew the hungry bird across the shed floor, away from the moonbloom dust. Each fish bought her a few feet. When the chick stood a safe distance off, Arista set the bucket down beside it. The chick plunged its beak in and gorged. It forgot the spores entirely. Now she had to move fast. A full chick was a calm chick, but not forever. She needed the spores out of this nest before the bird finished eating. Against the far wall sat the other cradle, the empty one. Woven twigs, soft fibers, a warm hollow shaped for something newborn. She had built it as a spare. It would hold the spores now. Arista lifted the cloth by its four corners, gentle as carrying water. The golden dust pooled in the center, thousands of living spores held in the fold. She carried it across the shed and lowered it into the empty cradle. She smoothed the cloth flat so no spore spilled. The moonblooms were safe. Separated from the phoenix. Cradled and warm. But when she turned back, the bucket lay empty. The chick had eaten every fish. It looked up at her, blinked, and let out a thin, hungry cry. Then it waddled straight toward the new cradle, toward the golden dust, its beak already open. Arista stared at the empty bucket. She had no more fish. The chick would not stop being hungry. It would hunt the spores again in an hour, and the next hour, and the one after that. She had won the spores a home, but she had also fed a predator that now lived beside them. She could not guard the cradle forever. She could not starve the chick. To save the moonblooms, she would have to solve the phoenix itself.