#manuk

so. culturally. manuks are fairly respectable animals, right. even in ppilli, far from their (theoretically) original range, they're something halfway between a noble warhorse and a tiger—fast and hard-hitting, "both the thunder and the lightning." but critically: they are also vain.

imagine. it is the beginning of the world, and you are god's most swagful murderbirderhorse. all the other falcons, great and little—not to mention lesser creatures, the gazelles and cicadas and wallcrawlers and even those awful smooth lumpy bipedal things—ALL think you are hot shit and waste no time getting down to flattery, as is correct and just. but one day you encounter a problem: a baby who has no idea who you are.

normally, this is a non-issue. obviously your praises ring everywhere there is a voice to sing them, and presumably the world is big enough there might be places you don't yet know about (it's still very early, and you haven't checked). but this baby is from here. have its parents truly forgotten their songs of you? you're sitting right here. very rude. yet you are great-hearted and magnanimous, and always glad to spread your fame more widely. how then to ease the burden of recall?

had you human facial muscles, you'd frown. solemn, thoughtful. because you are a manuk you give an irritable honk before sitting back on your birdy little haunches to have a think. you consider your usual, usually effective, problem-solving methods, but it quickly becomes apparent that you cannot simply bite and/or kick the shit out of THE INEVITABLE SUCCESSION OF GENERATIONS. it seems you'll have to be creative.

so you consider. you cast an eye over your surroundings: fields and wood and steppe alike, all gathered under the sky's enormous starry wing. you cock an eye upwards, quick and piercing as a claw.

it is a lovely day in heaven, and you are a terrible murderbirderhorse.

the manuk then runs for days, for months, for a year; flips the point of its hunter's stealth to slip past the celestial guardsmen; breaks into the treasury of heaven; steals the two-leaved diptych and two-tined writing pick; gets discovered; uses all its skills to escape; and, for its hubris, is deprived by the jealous gods of speech forever.

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