“Well there wasn’t anything to prepare and we did tell you previously that we may need to move soon.” Scáthán meanders over to the box of stuff he brought back for me and wraps it in his tail.
Skaftá lowers her head and inspects the eggs for a short moment, then opens her mouth just enough to pick up one of them, she lifts her head up just far enough so she can tilt it back and swallow the egg. My eyes grow wide as I watch her completely dumbfounded, I want to say something but words elude me as she proceeds to pick up the next egg and gulps it down too, I raise my index finger to interject something but when I want to open my mouth speech fails me and I just drop my hand again and close my mouth. She picks up the last egg and seconds later it disappears down her throat too, she turns her head to look at and smiles. “Don’t worry the eggs are robust enough to withstand this, it also helps with preventing them from getting too cold.”
My brain still refuses to accept that she just ate her offspring but after a minute I nod slowly and decide to just pretend that that didn’t happen.
“We’re ready then?” Scáthán looks over to us as he heads to the cave entrance
Skaftá nudges me. “Time to go.” At first I’m reluctant to get up but as I head outside together with her I realize that there isn’t anything keeping me here, I would have liked to spend more time in the depths of the cave but I’m sure we’ll find other cool places eventually, but outside of that the only thing that matters to me are the two of them.
As I stand there on the cliff, looking over the vast forest and endless blue sky I take a deep breath and close my eyes as I try to visualize all the wonders that lie out there in this world and they were all ours to discover and explore, I needn’t be confined to this tiny cave. I look up to them. “As ready as ever.” They both nod simultaneously, Skaftá wraps her tail around me and puts me onto Scátháns back, I wrap my arms around his neck and hold on tight.
He leaps forward off the cliff, quickly unfolds his wings and begins gliding along the mountainside, he doesn’t glide for long though, soon he begins flapping his wings to rapidly gain height.
I turn around just in time to see Skaftá leap off the mountain and spread her wings, she then flies a very similar path to us and quickly catches up to us. Once she’s only a couple yards behind Scáthán he lets go of the box which she swiftly catches with her front paws and then tucks it close to her chest. Scáthán slows down until they are flying right next to one another, the tips of their wings almost touching.