Shilo's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Shilo had eagle wings, and she could not fly. Every morning she stretched them wide and beat the air, and every morning she stayed on the ground. The great migration would pass over the forest in a few weeks. She meant to join it. But her wings hung heavy and slack, weak from years she never used them. She lived in a small shelter built around a tree trunk. Soft feathers covered its curved walls, tied down with woven cords. It looked like a nest, and it had kept her hidden and safe. Safe was the problem. She had stayed too long inside it. This morning she stepped out and looked at the old oak beside her home. Its lowest branch stood higher than her head. She had a plan. She would not try to fly across the sky yet. She would climb, drop, and force her wings to catch her. Fear would teach the muscles what comfort never could. She gripped the bark and pulled herself up. Her arms shook. She reached the branch and stood, wobbling, her talons curled tight around the wood. The ground looked far. Her stomach turned. "Down," she told herself. "Just fall and beat." She jumped. For one breath she dropped straight, wings tucked. Then she snapped them open. Air slammed into the feathers. Her wings jerked, screaming with strain, and she pumped them hard. She did not fly. But she slowed. Her fall bent into a long, clumsy glide. She hit the dirt on her feet and stumbled forward three steps before she fell. She lay there, chest heaving. Her wings burned all the way to the bone. But she had felt it. For one moment the air had held her weight. The muscles had answered. She climbed the branch again. She jumped again. This time she stayed up half a second longer. Her wings learned the shape of the work. By afternoon her shoulders throbbed and her feathers hung ragged, but each drop lasted longer than the last. The sun sank low. She stood at the base of the oak, arms trembling, too tired to climb once more. She spread her wings and gave one slow, full beat. They lifted clean, no shaking, no strain. Strong. She could feel the strength in them now, coiled and ready. Then she looked past the oak, at the open forest and the wide gap of sky above the trees. Strong wings were not the same as flight. She had never left the ground on her own power. She had only fallen slower. Her wings could work now. But to truly fly, she needed height and open air, and the nearest way up was the tall cliff at the forest's edge. Between her shelter and that cliff lay the whole dark forest, and she had never once walked it alone.