My tiny body picked up speed as I fell, and it took me several moments to realize what was happening.

As I hurtled towards the ground, snowcapped treetops rushing towards me, my mind worked at a thousand miles an hour. Without even stopping to figure out what that saying meant, I tried to process what had just happened. Was I expected to start flying??? Surely I needed feathers for that, my fuzz was hardly doing anything to slow my descent.

Quickly, I tried to spread my furry wings out to either side, like my black-feathered parent had done when landing. This seemed to work for a moment, slowing my fall briefly, until the imbalance between the lengths of my wings turned my body around, and I spun towards the snowy forest floor.

As I closed my eyes, I let go of any control I had left over my movements, and felt the branches starting to whip up against me. Somehow, I missed any larger branches, only feeling the occasional slap of pain as I fell past the trees.

For a moment, these slaps stopped, and then I hit the ground. Everything was black.

I felt my eyes open. This didn’t help much, as I still couldn’t see anything. My body felt exhausted, and the stinging of the branches hurt like nothing I had felt before. My fur was damp, and I had trouble moving about. All of this, I could deal with. At least I was still alive. Or I thought I was. Maybe I was in some sort of place beyond my previous life?

I felt weight against my two wings as I tried to bring them towards my body, and found that one was still shorter than the other. Either I was still alive, or someone had not felt it necessary to fix my stubby wing in the afterlife.

As I finally got my wings back close to my chest, I felt the area around me. Due to the abnormal wetness of the material I was buried in, I guessed I was deep in some pile of snow. Directly above my head, the snow was less dense, so I started to push and dig with my wings. More snow tumbled down around my wings, but eventually I saw light through a thin layer of white. I started to climb, ignoring the strain on my limbs, and the snow continued to cascade back onto me as my talons clawed it loose.

After some time climbing through falling snow and digging myself out of the hole, my head pooped out of the snow and into fresh air. I pulled the rest of my body onto the top layer of snow and collapsed onto my back, taking deep breaths. Just a moment ago, I was exhausted from a simple game with my siblings, but now I truly knew real fatigue.

I continued to lay on the snow, trying to regain strength, and pondered my situation. Is it normal to be able to fly at this point? If not, was I supposed to fail and should I expect three more tiny bodies hurtling towards me? And finally, when will my parents come get me? It was starting to turn to evening, and as little as I knew about where I was or other animals, surely some large creature with sharpened teeth and an appetite for tiny, fuzzy birds would come along and find me.

I finally decided to wait, partially in case my parents come to this spot, and mostly because it hurt to move. The torture the tree branches had put me through combined with the effort I had taken to get out of the snow left me unable to do anything except pant and think. I suppose that was better than being a bloody pool on the ground, incapable of anything, including panting or thinking.

I lay still for a while, slowing my breathing back down to normal and collecting myself. As time passed, I started to worry more and more. Dusk was approaching, and the sun was beginning to be obscured by the trees more. After waiting for what felt like an eternity, I decided that no one was coming for me. I had considered the fact that I was supposed to get back to the nest myself, but how this would happen I had no idea. The mountain I had been thrown from seemed to be a straight vertical climb, with almost no ledges to rest on that I could see.

As for why I was thrown down, I would have to think about later. For now, I had to find some sort of shelter for the night, in order to avoid any animals in the area. Food would come later; for now that previous meal seemed to be keeping me sated. With everything somewhat figured out, I set off along the ground parallel to the mountainside. If I was looking for shelter, a cave would be my best bet.

I plodded along the snow, thankfully light enough to not sink down, as I slowly realized that the snow was several feet off the ground. Certain areas had less snow, dipping a fair distance and revealing dirt. I did my best to avoid these patches, as I dreaded the thought of making that climb once again.

I started to wander further from the mountain’s face, losing any hope of a cave or indent in the smooth surface. Deeper into the forest, I felt chills run up and down my body, as wind howled above the treetops.

Weird. The trees are much, much higher than me, yet I can hear wind, but no rustling of leaves. Realizing this, I stopped walking, and listened. What I heard was suspicious. Or rather, what I didn’t hear. The only sound I could make out was wind above me. No animal calls, no branches falling, and no wind blowing through the trees.

I continued to walk, now acutely aware of everything around me, and still I was left only with my plodding and the distant wind.

It was some time later when I saw the light. It was growing very dark, and there were still almost no sound. At one point, I had heard a large branch fall somewhere behind me, but nothing else. I approached the light, which cast a deep shadow on the trees around me, and I quickly saw that it was a small fire burning in a clearing.

There was only one thing near the fire. A dark log laying on the snowy ground, and an even darker figure huddled on top of it. I carefully snuck towards the fire, now painfully aware of my own tiny footsteps and the crackling of the fire. As I neared, I could also make out faint breathing, not quite even.

I neared the edge of the light, slowly making my way down the slight incline of the snow. I tried to make out what creature was on the log, but couldn’t see much, even with the light dancing on its body.

I took a step forward, and stepped on a patch of particularly closely packed snow. As my claw made a deafening *cruuuunch* sound, the figure shot up off of the log, turning towards me. It stood many times taller than me, and held out a pointy object that shone against the flames in my general direction.

A gruff voice called out, “Who’s there?”