Eager Eagle's Arc

Chapter 1 of 3

Eager Eagle limped along the dirt path with one wing held tight against his ribs. He had promised to meet the vet before noon, and being on time mattered to him more than the pain. It always did. He had never missed an appointment in his life, and he did not plan to start today, even with a torn wing and no way to fly. The trouble was the sun. He squinted up at it and tried to guess the hour. Halfway up the sky, maybe. Or past halfway. He could not tell. Without flight, without the wind on his feathers, his sense of time had gone soft. He had already asked a passing rabbit and gotten a shrug. He walked faster and felt the wing throb harder for it. By the time the clinic came into view, he was almost running. The building sat low and neat, pale green boards, flower boxes at the windows, a blue paw print on the sign above the door. He climbed the step and pushed inside. The woman behind the counter looked up from a clipboard. Brown hair pulled into a knot. Blue scrubs, pink shirt underneath. She set the pen down and studied his wing before she studied his face. "You're bleeding on my floor," Valerie said. "Am I late?" he asked. She blinked. "You're injured." "I said noon. Is it past noon?" Valerie pointed at the clock on the wall behind him. He turned. The hands read eleven forty-two. "Sit," she said. He sat. She pulled a tray closer and began cleaning the wing with quick, careful hands. He watched the clock instead of the wound. The second hand moved in steady clicks. He had never owned one. He had always used the sun, and the sun had always been enough, because he had always been in the air. "You walked the whole way guessing," Valerie said. It was not a question. "Yes." "How often are you late?" "Never." She glanced at him. "Grounded eagle who has never been late. That won't hold." He opened his beak to argue and closed it. She was right. Without wings, the sky was just a ceiling. He could not read it anymore. Valerie wrapped the wing in white cloth, taped it, and stepped back. "Four weeks before you fly. Maybe five." Four weeks. He thought of every appointment in that stretch. The trail meeting. The hatchling lessons. The council visit. All of them on foot. All of them guessed at. She reached under the counter and pulled out a small tin box. Inside was a pocket watch on a worn leather cord. She placed it in his good claw. "Belonged to a patient. He doesn't need it now. Wind it every morning." He closed his claw around the watch. It was warm from her hand and heavier than he expected. "Thank you," he said. "Don't be late," she said. "And don't tear the stitches." He stepped back into the sun with the watch ticking against his chest.