The Falcon and the Kite

There was once a peregrine falcon who disliked listening to her elders. They would tell her that the cliffs on which they nested were safe and had stood for thousands of years, supporting generations of falcons within their rocks.

The young falcon, on the other hand, felt that there was a great need to change. The cliffs were cold and wet, and seawater sprayed her feathers. A most disagreeable place to live, indeed.

One day, the peregrine falcon decided to prove her elders wrong, so she left the cliffs and flew to a nearby forest. She was confident that the warm bushels of leaves would offer more comfortable housing, and soon she would see flocks of peregrines joining her, leaving that miserable cliff behind.

She was met with many red kites, who swooped above the treetops. They were huge compared to her, but she was much faster than any of them. She revelled in hearing them gasp as she rushed past them, in search of a place to nest.

The falcon soon found what she thought was a good place to build a nest. Deep in the forest, there was a clearing with a castle at the centre. The castle must have been very old, she thought, as not much more than a stalwart wall remained.

As she settled into the crook of a branch in a tall birch tree, she looked around for small sticks. She soon found a modest beakful and set about making a nest. Though as she tried to balance them, she found that she was unable to wedge them together very well.

Days of struggle passed, with the falcon trying any technique she could think of to get her nest to stick, to no avail.

One day, a red kite swooped down to her birch tree, a branch bent at a dangerous arc underneath the bird's weight.

“What are you doing, kid? Don’t you know there’s a storm coming?” it asked in amusement.

The falcon did not reply and chose instead to try and tie two sticks together with some grass.

“Didn’t your family ever teach you how to build a nest?”

The falcon’s heart bled at the thought of her family. They were going to be so disappointed in her when she returned.

“How far away is the storm?” the falcon asked solemnly, already planning her retreat.

“About an hour.”

“An hour?!”

Even flying at her maximum speed, she would never make it back to the cliffs in time to seek shelter.

The red kite sighed at the falcon’s distress, all mirth falling from its face.

“Follow me,” she said with a sigh.

The kite took the falcon back to her nest, and a most impressive one it was, too. High walls of stick and feather stood sturdy in the crook of an oak tree branch. Together, they landed and took shelter within it as the wind started to howl.

It was the worst storm the forest had seen in decades, and soon pieces of the kite's nest were chipping off and flying away. The wind broke through the nest’s walls, and they shivered in cold and fear together.

When the nest gave a terrifying jolt, the kite panicked.

“I don’t think it’s going to hold!” she shouted over the din.

The falcon agreed with her. The nest was going to fall.

Without hesitation, the falcon flew from the nest. The winds were as high as they could be back at her cliffside home. She squinted her eyes and braced her wings against them.

“Fly behind me!”

“I’ll get blown away!” the kite bellowed from the nest.

“We’re going to get blown away if we stay put!”

The kite took flight bullishly, bracing her large wings against the violent winds. Shakily, she settled into formation behind the kite.

“What now?” she panted, swerving to avoid some flying debris.

The falcon squinted around frantically before spotting the old castle wall in the clearing.

“There!”

“The old castle? It will crumble into sand before we even get there!”

“No, it won’t, it’s stood for hundreds of years!” the falcon called back to her companion. She remembered then what the older falcons used to tell her when she worried her cliffside home would crumble into the sea.

‘Worse waves have come and gone, and here our cliff stands strong.’

She had scoffed at the time, wondering why they thought they knew so much better than she did. She realised then how rash she had been.

“Come on!”

With no other options, the two birds muscled their way through the storm with great difficulty. The peregrine managed to find her balance quite easily, using her slim feathers to slice through the storm, but the kite was not built for such extremes, and she was soon left panting.

The pair made it to the very top of the old castle wall after what felt like hours of flying, and the falcon dropped down into a small divot between two large stone bricks.

“Here, see?” she said to the kite, wiggling into her new stronghold.

“Right,” the kite panted, too tired to argue, before she too found herself a divot in between two stone bricks.

Once situated, the kite felt the storm’s winds muffle around her. Her eyes did not water, and her feathers were not blown loose. Shelter, safe and stable.

When the storm ended, the kite would ask the falcon how she knew the old wall would not fall.

“This wall has stood for hundreds of years, just like the cliffs where I came from. Chances are, it has faced much worse than this storm alone. Through storms and seasons, it has stayed strong."

With this, the young falcon began to feel terribly homesick. She missed her cliff and her family within it. Without a second thought, she took flight and began her journey back.

Moral: New ideas must be tested before declaring if they are good ones.

A/N: Hello everyone! Long time no see, again! I have been cooking up several projects, old and new, while preparing to wrap up my writing for this year, so I've been rather busy!

One of these projects is raising some money for charity, as I do on stream every year! This year, I have been raising funds for The Bumblebee Conservation Trust! If you are intrested in donating, or seeing some more info, please click below:

https://tilt.fyi/0i510PqDgD

or copy and paste it into your address bar!

Thank you for another wonderful year of Vocal, and I hope to see you all before the year comes to a close!

Also, thank you to everyone who gave me their works to read on my last post!! I am enjoying them so far!

-TWW