There was a hot swirl of vexation in the clouds as I flew, slowly churning the eagerness in my heart to a bloom of excited petals. I was utterly enthralled, finding a smile etched deep in my silky brown lips. Only I knew what was to come. Only I had the days ticked off in my head. I was flying to the edge of the Throat, a turbine of hot cloudy mist behind me in the sky, a trail to my secrets.

I knew she would still be there because I hid her well in the incubated crevices of fiery sandstone. The little egg would be perched upright in the delicate strands of moss from the oasis limbs where I left her each morning to attend my duties. Light filtered down there to warm the pale shell of her little egg, illuminating the fearless bird on the inside. I'd already named her. She deserved a strong name for the fierce arc of her raptor beak and her curved talons that scathed the pristine surface of her calcified cage. I named her after the ever illuminant sun that baked her soul so ready to accompany me in the darkest moment of the Throat. We would each serve 'till death truly do us part in the red sands. Until only the fine red grains interrupt our connection.

My hooves find the smooth surface of carved rock, landing in the smooth arc etched so perfectly, layered down into centuries of recycled earth. The colors reflect in the orange light, sifting down as the motes of red dust do, swirling behind my tail, lost in the turbine of reduced speed. My eyes cast a glaze of excitement over the walls, rolling down to the crevice where she lay, twitching, yearning for the calcified shell to break. I carry a dead red squirrel in my mouth, freshly warm and taunt, smothered with kill. It would be her first meal.

The shell rattled, a hum escaping her strong reflex, case cracking, streaks of gray a puzzle on the smooth surface. They shudder and squeal, the only sounds in the cave beside the beating of my heart that sounds like wing flaps. I help the stray pieces fall away from the stone bed with my muzzle. A beak, curved like a barb, juts from the surface, pushing through with vengeance revealing her head. Such a beautiful head, smeared wet by the confines of her shell, eyes closed before blinking away the liquid. She stops. Her eyes without color finding mine in the shadow. We lock together just like that, the sun behind us, watching, saluting our bond. Her uncolored eyes form a rouge to match mine, such a striking, rich hazel that seamlessly stares into mine.

The hazel floods my brain, waves clashing against the walls of my skull. I fill up with the warm liquid, it dances in my heart. I hear the little bird's heartbeat, a half-second behind mine, an echo, a shadow, a rolling purr. "Sumä," I say, bringing my nose to touch her downy head. For once I notice how frail she is, her mass only the size of my nostril. I knew she'd transform in the year to come, but for now she'd need to stay hidden, she'd need a place to stay until she sprouted wings capable of flight.