The birds and the bees

Kea snorted at that. “If so, I bet you go the place where wolves go. Why would they tear you away from us?” his voice rising a little at the end, angry at the thought. Zeph was their brother, after all. If anyone ever tried to tell him otherwise, he’d probably punch them. Why were they supposed to be thinking about life and death, anyhow? He wondered at the origin of this tradition they had all been plunged into. As far as he knew, this was a normal yearly occurrence, despite the confusion on some wolves' faces.

Zephs explanation made as good a sense as any - not the death of them but the death of the season. “That sounds awful, is there no colour in winter, Zeph?” The very young wolf asked. Zeph wasn’t making winter sound very fun. “Do you lose your colour in winter, too?” he wanted to know next. Zeph had all those colourful feathers, would they drop off in winter? “If I come back, do you think I could come back as a bird, like you?”


"Speech"