B21C27 - While Morphing Back

David stood there, maybe three feet tall, still covered in feathers. His face was an eagle's face. But there were human fingers beginning to emerge from the wing tips.

He reached over and clumsily grasped a jagged piece of wood about as long as a baseball bat.

<Come on, little birdie,> he said. <Try for the window, go ahead.>

I flapped hard, making a lot of noise with my wings. But I didn't fly. I skimmed across the floor on my talons, using my wings to get up speed.

David saw what I was doing and tried to bend over to slam the stick down. Just one problem: He was still more bird than human. And birds don't have a waist.

WHAP! The stick missed me, and I was under his guard. Under his guard and now flying straight up, up at his face.

He staggered back. He batted at his face with his half-formed hands. But I was too close and he was too clumsy.

I raked his face with both talons.

"Aaaaahhhhh!" he cried with a mouth more human than bird. I dug one talon into his emerging nose and -

THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP.

Footsteps racing.

WHAM! The broken door blew back on its hinges. Hork-Bajir poured into the room.

David was still blinded by my feathers and the blood in his face. I immediately let him go, dropped straight down, and turned for the window. I blew through it with Hork-Bajir claws tearing at my tail feathers.

David leaped! Out the window. I was airborne, but his falling body slammed me out of the air. We went down together. Hard. The swimming pool was behind us.

David was on his back, but already remorphing.

Hork-Bajir leaped fearlessly out into the dark yard. They were a species raised in the trees. A ten-foot drop meant nothing to them.