in the sky overhead, nor on the branch by the nest where she liked to perch.
“Food?” he called hopefully.
Only silence came back. He continued to call loudly, expecting Saekrae to appear and bring him food, but she did not come, and he called and called until hunger and exhaustion forced him to stop. He slept for a while and woke when the sun was well up.
“Food?”
Nothing. No Saekrae. No food. The chick found the bones from the last meal she had brought and pecked listlessly at them. There were a few bits of dried meat still clinging to them, and he occupied himself for a while with trying to tear them free. These tiny morsels only increased his hunger, and he called for Saekrae again. This time he gave up more quickly and curled up beside the skull of his dead sister, whimpering softly.
The day wore on and his hunger kept him awake. At last, both bored and distressed, he got up and began to explore.
There was no food inside the nest, so perhaps there was some outside it. He had done this plenty of times when Saekrae was away. A griffin chick is built to climb. He dug his claws into the side of the nest and began to haul himself up and over. His hind legs knew what to do; the claws shot out and his toes spread wide to give him purchase as he thrust upward, foretalons gouging the shattered wood, his tail thrashing determinedly.
He reached the lip of the nest and perched there, peering at the branches near to him. One looked close enough; he stretched out a talon toward it and could nearly touch it. He sat still, judging the distance, and then jumped. His wings opened instinctively in midair and he landed on the branch, claws scrabbling to get a grip on it. He rested there, talons deep in the bark, and clicked his beak triumphantly. Perfect. From here he could go anywhere he liked.
He climbed out along the branch, wanting to see how far it went. It was a long one, and spread out into several smaller branches partway along. The chick stuck to the main branch but it grew steadily thinner the further along he went, until he could wrap his front claws all the way around it. Then it began to bend under his weight, and he had to open his wings for balance. Not liking this, he started to turn back. But he couldn’t turn around. The branch was too narrow, and he didn’t want to let go of it. He shuffled backward instead, hoping to get to a spot where he could turn, but it was a mistake.
Unable to see where he was going, he snagged a hind paw in a fork. He stopped and tried to extricate it, but it slipped out of its new gripping place and kicked out wildly, throwing him off balance. He struggled to save himself for a brief moment, wings flapping, but then he slipped, sliding almost gracefully sideways off the branch and into space. He hung by his front paws, hind legs dangling, and tried to pull himself back up with his beak, but then the branch broke and he fell.
He thudded into a branch below, but tumbled off before he could grab hold, and for a long heart-stopping instant he was falling, down and down, bouncing from branch to branch and shrieking. He had fallen about halfway down the tree before his flailing foretalons managed to latch onto a branch and halt his descent. He clung to the rough bark for a few moments, quivering with fright.
He was bruised and winded, and his beak hurt from where it had smacked into something. He chirped his distress, calling yet again for Saekrae, but still she did not come.
Fear gripped him. He wanted desperately to go back to the nest, but the branch above him was too high to reach. He managed to shuffle back along the branch to where it joined the trunk and tried to haul himself up by digging his talons into the bark, but it was soft and tore away as soon as he put his weight on it. He tried harder and managed to go a short distance, only to come sliding back down again. He was stuck.
He stayed on the branch for some time, unable or unwilling to go either up or down. He paced back and forth, searching for a way out, but none looked particularly