I dig my claws into the mountain. Snow swirls dust-like from beneath the summit, painting the sky in rainbow refraction. I feel outward, reaching for the extent of my range, swallowing the rock and snow and greenery in my essence. I unfold my Center so that it flows viscous into the air, a blooming rose. I feel the vibrations of the mountain, taste the dirt and stone as though I were licking the mountain clean.

I open my eyes fully. Though my lids remain stationary, unblinking, the insides of my eyes reform to see in new colors like ultraviolet and electromagnetic flow. At the same time, heat-sensing pores in my maw direct an overlaying infrared heat map to my mind.

Peerless avian vision lends itself to appreciating the crags and gorges of this relatively untouched landscape. I twist the sensations of sound and sight together to add another dimension of beauty to my sight. Altogether, the mountainscape before me is unparalleled in strangeness, in its euphoric color and movement.

The sky bends and distorts with the electromagnetic currents of the Earth’s poles, strengthened by proximity to the upper atmosphere. My enhanced hearing picks up the soft whispers of the wind, painting the clouds in cyan and gold. Ultraviolet light dances amongst the electromagnetic ribbons like streamers. Infrared coats the thermal lifts of wind in shades of pale red, a gradient fading with elevation, backlighting the peaks in pale red fluorescence.

And the centerpiece of this paradisiacal vision: the setting sun, shooting out across the clouds in deep magenta. Its orange-red flame grazes the peaks, setting them alight. Descending, the sun scorches those same peaks black. Burrowing into the mountain, the sun leaves the world behind it dark, a deep purple, glinting and shifting in swirls of color now bright on a pitch canvas.

I take comfort in how little things change. The rim of the world, this section of the Alps, are still very much my domain, inhospitable. Nature protects her beauty.

Should humans encroach against my stretch of mountain, I will remove them. A few of their skeletons lay under the snow.

I stretch my wings, feel the air nestle around them, buffet them behind me. I snake my tail into the snow, feeling its icy wetness as my tail extends to caress the grain of the rock.

I wait for night to fall and night to pass. So many million evenings and still, I think that I'll glimpse it. That which drifts in space, beyond this Earth, perhaps whatever led to my genesis...I wait for it to rear its head, to pay me notice. To bat an astral lash, open a nebulous eye, in subtle, profound revelation.

I sigh orange into the wind. Not tonight.