As I'm trying to organise my thoughts and find a decent way of showing my new grey friend I'm not totally puddled, the Eagle screams so loudly I can hear the "Ow!" despite their height.
The bird falls rapidly and a couple of red drops hit the ground in front of us. The grey man licks his lips.
The bird isn't managing to pull itself together ad flap away again, the wriggling of the salmon in its talons seems to be unbalancing it and I can hear muffled words from the salmon itself. Well, that's not true I can hear that he's going on about something at great length. I have no idea what the individual words are.
The grey man leaps -
- and suddenly there's a large, grey wolf jumping in his place. Jaws snap around the eagle's leg and there is no more attempt at regaining balance. There's only a desperate flapping and struggling for freedom. Both the eagle and the salmon seem to be panicking.
"Gerroffgerroffgerroff!" the eagle shouts. "Get the fucking wolf off me!"
I still don't know what the salmon is saying, other than disagreeing with the whole situation. He has something in his mouth but, with all the movement, I can't see what it is.
Despite the attempts to flap to freedom, the bundle of fur, feathers and scales lands. The wolf seems to have the upper hand--paw?--and is soon dragging the rest of the struggling mess away towards the scrubby bit.
The screams are terrible. It occurs to me I should probably go but I'm unable to pick a direction. The wolf has gone to best cover available and there's no way I'm running away from him in the open. I've seen that kind of movie too often. I have? What movies were they? I can't remember.
I sit down, scrunch my eyes shut and cover my ears. I feel the need to say "There's no place like home," repeatedly.
A little later, the wolf says, "I suppose that's true."
I look up. He's back to being a grey man, though liberally decorated with red. "What?"
"That there's no place like home," he says.
He holds out a reddish brown feather. "Here. A feather taken from a flying fish."
I stare at it. There's some actual red blood on there, too. I have a distinct feeling that the me I don't remember didn't used to be this squeamish about blood but right now I really don't want to touch... that.
He waves the feather at me. "The salmon was in flight, being carried by the eagle, and he took a lump out of her, stole a feather. Therefore a feather from a flying fish."
"Oh."
He grabs my hand and puts the feather in it.
"Consider it a thank you for feeding me," he looks back at the scrubby area, "twice. That human guy was probably the better tasting meal, though."
I stare at the feather.
The wolf leaves.
I have no idea where to go next.