From Jenne Gray and C.E. Ayr’s photo prompt, The Unicorn Challenge(10/13/23). No more than 250 words in length. Otherwise, let your creative flag fly!

She stretched and struggled, pecking around the edges. Cradled between clumps of late season grasses, partially protected from the bitter wind, Cora stretched her damp, thin neck toward the fretful sun’s warmth. Late-born, her chances of survival were slim.

Scraps of memory deep in her genetic code told her the wild mood swings of climate change meant Cora was one of few. That she could look to neither mother nor aunt to loosen scraps of midnight shell and scarlet albumen, and direct her toward consumption and nourishment. That she must hurry — not too fast – protecting her wings as they dry and stretch skyward.

She gazed back at the mountains across the lake and under a leaden sky. It was there where she belonged, but not where she could go.

***

Heaving, shell and contents consumed, she hungered still. The sun lowered.

Cora searched her senses for memory of what had happened to drop her on the moor, alone. Sharp ascent, distant shouts, a release mid-plummet, terror at swift distancing, and further tearing as her mother’s soul crossed the veil.

Her eye focused. Movement. Sensing dark, still eyes near the next hummock. Crouching on shaky legs, wings pressed tight to her sides, her hunger roared. Leaping, she felt the rabbit kick once, then yield to her jaws. Sweet blood.

***

With an exhalation of tiny flame and a resentful backward glance at the human village that had hunted and killed her mother, Cora stretched her wings and flew away.

For now.

© Liz Husebye Hartmann (2023)