Ruffled Eyebrow

Come see the magnificent new animals, taken by space shipment from the New World of the Moon! Featuring the intelligent grey Moon Parrot--over 6 feet long--Can solve puzzles! 1 Pound for a day's pass into the Great Menagerie of Southerton!
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Ruffled Eyebrow could see, from his enclosed prison, long-armed birds flying in sweeping patterns along the ocean. He recalled something he'd read about when he visited the beach as a child. The s-shaped pattern might just let him glide away from this prison and find his way back home. He waited until one of the apes came to feed him, and he made his move. He threatened the ape with the beak knife he had fashioned, and it backed away. The ape started to call for help, but a quick chirp and advancement from Ruffled Eyebrow assured her that she was, for the moment, a hostage. He waddled along to the moonlight tower, pushing the ape woman along in front, and began climbing it.

Ruffled Eyebrow figured the tower would bring him just high enough to make it to the beach. He eyed his ex-hostage as he made his way up the tower, who began to run to find some police officers. Eyebrow had no acrophobia in nature, but under the much more sluggish weight and apparent high altitude he was burdened with, he was in no mood to fall. By the time he made it to the platform atop the moon tower, the shore seemed almost unattainable. He took a few moments to rest, before he heard the babbles of some ape men who had gathered around the moonlight tower. He ignored their incomprehensible noise, and readied himself for the jump. He performed some mental trigonometry, and took a good running start. Jumping off the platform, he immediately began flapping his wings.

Birdmen were never the best flyers even in their natural habitat, this Ruffled Eyebrow knew very well. He figured an athlete would find the flight trivial, but Ruffled Eyebrow had only been a farmer--a landlubber job. He realized he wasn't going to make it to the shore, and opted to take a break on a roof top. He panted, struggling in the thin air, until he heard high pitched whistles coming from the street below. He peeked down from the roof: more ape men. He found now that they were on the offensive, shooting darts at him which he had no doubt were poisonous.

What was that saying? Don't bring a beak knife to a crossbow fight? All he really had was his wits against the ape men. A glint of optimism entered his mind: perhaps he could learn to communicate with the apes? He shrugged the thought off. That was a job for the intellectuals or explorers that might follow him, but for now he would have to simply get back to his home. A block on the roof held an ape door, which Eyebrow took a few moments to figure out. He waddled down the stair case and found another door in a hallway. He fiddled with it to no avail, before trying the next one. It too was locked. There was a window at the end of the hall way. He saw the ape men entering the building. If he wasn't mistaken, all of them had gone inside. Without much left to do, he smashed the window open and flew across the street to another building. Behind the building there was nothing but grass and sand leading to the moonlit ocean. Home run.

As he entered a final, powered glide towards the ocean, he realized that he didn't really know exactly what to do next.
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Ruffled Eyebrow knew the apes would be after him soon, so he just decided to give it a shot. He ran into the wind, and flapped towards the ocean. He probed the air speed, trying to figure out the skyscape of this strange region. He noted that the wind was significantly faster as he got higher. He swept back and forth, futily, trying to figure out how this worked. If only there had been a nearby albatross. After several more attempts, Eyebrow figured it out. Flying parallel to the shore, sweeping up and away and falling down and towards it. The fast higher winds propelled him forth, but he lost no speed to drag on his downward journey. After fiddling with the mechanics of the situation for several minutes of flapping and wobbling around, Ruffled Eyebrow found an equilibrium and realized he could fly almost for free.  He wondered why more people didn't travel like this.

Ruffled Eyebrow made a little over one lap around the island before realizing how trapped he still was. It took him a tad longer, as he found himself perfectly content to relax and let the wind carry him along. He was not quite as graceful as the albatross with their smaller bodies and much longer wingspan, but he was able to remain in the air for quite some time before he took a break.

He then recognized the moonlight tower and zoo building on the horizon. He couldn't stray too far from the coast, that was certain. Perhaps he could find a boat somewhere? He doubted piracy would be the solution, not alone and disabled. After his short rest he took to the skies again to find a nice, uninhabited part of the shore to set up a nest--at least then he might be safe from the ape men. He found a part of the shore bordered by a forest, which looked good enough for him. Eyebrow was now hungry. He dared not try any foreign seeds or berries, they could be as toxic as the first few morsels they had given him at the zoo. Meat would probably be the safer option. He chose a nice, friendly looking tree, and staked out to wait for something to kill. He spotted a grey rodent with a large, fluffy tail. It would do nicely. He carefully climbed down to a lower branch, drew his beak knife, and pounced like some flying cat. The poor squirrel had only been trying to find something to eat itself, before death from the sky struck its meager existence short.

It was not the tastiest meal Eyebrow had ever eaten, but it satisfied his hunger for the time being. He felt like a barbarian, tearing apart the skin of this foreign creature, eating the meat raw. He realized that, on this island at least, "animal" would probably be more accurate than "barbarian." He had realized by the end of the first week in his prison that he was in some kind of menagerie, on display as just another animal. Infant and adult ape men alike would come to watch him pace around his enclosure, bored out of his mind, tinkering with the simplistic children's toys they'd left him.

The ape men were clearly of an advanced culture, a higher form of animal than the monkeys and apes of his country. They dressed in artificial leathers and fabrics, and were clearly responsible for the impressive buildings and structures. Mastery of iron was obvious, let alone fire. Many of their mechanisms and devices confused Ruffled Eyebrow, but to be fair most of the mechanisms and devices he came across when he went into the market back home confused him. Ah yes, home. Why had he ever left it...

If Ruffled Eyebrow hadn't left his house to investigate a loud, early-morning noise, then he would not be here, trying to find a comfortable spot in the trees to rest.
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Ruffled Eyebrow dreamed, as sentient species have a habit of doing, as he slept. Also like sentient species have a habit of doing, he awoke when he heard a loud noise.

He opened his eyes and his window curtains. It was early morning. The crackling roar subsided, and Ruffled Eyebrow stepped off of his sleeping perch. His wife (a notoriously heavy sleeper) didn't flinch. Eyebrow flew up to the second level and out to the balcony perch. In the distance, and right in the middle of his corn crops, a tall cone sat like some strange metal beak pointed towards the sky. He set off to fly towards the cone.