"Hoping's all we can do, really," Parker murmured. Teige shot Hawk a sidelong look; Hawk just furrowed his brow, silent.

It was barely dawn, and he was talking to Kim and Aram. Blood was running down his face from the place his head had been split open, and he was weary as he signed to them. The dawn bloomed very quickly into daylight.

"What are you doing?" Kim asked Hawk. He couldn't quite make out her face, but he could read her hands.

The midday sun shone brightly in a blue sky piled high with clouds. Hawk brushed his hair from his face, confused. He was bleeding quite badly, now.

"What?" he mumbled.

He couldn't quite recall Aram's face either, just his smile. The daylight ran together into a spectacular red sunset shot through with purple clouds.

"Don't you have somewhere to be?" Aram signed.

Hawk looked over to see a river, or a road, stretching away from him to the dark horizon. In the night the moon was the face of a barn owl, shining bright and heart-shaped above the landscape.

He leaned forward. Liya was sitting next to him, not seeing what he saw.

Oh yeah, he thought, and the heat and light and tall grass came surging back to him. I guess you're right. Sorry.

He lay himself down, wings outstretched, in the grass. He was burned and bleeding all the places he had a scar now, and he was hungrier and leaner, and the earth beneath him seemed to bow upward to hold him, sloping away towards a fiery orange light and the shape of someone else lying in the grass.