Hallux Fallen

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The dappled feathers that concentrated down her back and across her sides roused themselves, pulling upwards so that the gentle breeze touched her skin. They stood there for a moment, quivering in the wild, their soft edges making no noise even as they brushed against each other. Then her body shook and they settled back into place.

Hallux brought her soft white head around and mussed with a feather or two on her right shoulder, the ones who refused to settle in the correct position no matter how hard she tried.

She was nearing the end of a molt - the process of dropping old feathers and growing new ones in their place. Unlike a fox that lost its entire winter coat in one shot feathers tended to drop two a time, one on each side of her body in a mirror of each other. When new feathers grew their center, the vein, was hot with blood to nourish the growth. This meant that they were sensitive, itchy and, if broken, bled often. 

Hallux had been through a few molts at the age of two and so new better then to muss with the feathers for long. Young Fallen often had pink sides from messing with blood feathers until they broke, a lesson hard learned but a trial each must go through. Hallux’s grandmother would say that it was an exercise in pain, in understanding that life would always hurt and so it was best to leave things be.

Hallux disagreed. She saw it as a study of patience, of understanding that better things will come to those who wait without complaint or ire. Patience was, after all, important to those who spend their life observing the Stars, for the Stars are not quick to tell their tales.

A huff escaped her soft lips, a laugh at her own thoughts, and Hallux again roused her feathers, trying to remember her lessons of patience as she waited for the last of the Sun's light to leave the sky so she may observe the multitude of Stars above.