B21C19 - Eyes Worse At Night

Here was the situation. We were all in birds-of-prey morphs. We were flying high. Too high for birds of prey at night with no thermals to lift us up. We were working at it, I can tell you that. We were flapping like idiots, fighting for every foot of altitude.

And to make things worse, we were carrying things. I was carrying a teardrop-shaped lead weight. It wasn't all that big, maybe four ounces, but try carrying even four ounces when you're a peregrine falcon. Falcons aren't all that big.

Tobias, Cassie, David, and Ax were all carrying similar weights: plumb bobs, fishing weights, and even an awl. We'd found them with some old tools and fishing tackle in Cassie's barn.

(...)

We were high above the beach, following the surf line so we wouldn't get lost. There was no moon. Even if there had been, we'd have never seen it because clouds - big, black, rain-soggy clouds - covered the sky.

It felt like those clouds were right on top of us. Actually, they were. As I flew, I'd pass through wisps of their lower edges.

The surf below was bright enough, though. It was a wavy, silvery line, advancing, retreating, but always pointing the way for us. Just in case we had trouble with the darkness, Cassie had gone into a great horned owl morph. Our birds-of-prey eyes were not nearly as good at night as they were in the day. But Cassie could see the individual sand crabs scuttling around hundreds of feet below us.