Above them, the sky broke into a thousand moving pieces. ☀️
THE BOOK OF TAD
PAGE 103
THE SKY ABOVE THE POND ☀️
They left through the bright shallows.
After so long among narrow passages, the space above them felt enormous. Sunlight trembled across the undersides of floating leaves. Beyond the surface, a dark shape moved against a pale, shifting sky.
Glint signalled them beneath the nearest leaf.
Two long bird legs stood farther along the bank. One lifted, folded, and entered the water again with scarcely a ripple. The moving surface broke the bird’s body into pieces, but its stillness came through clearly.
Zale tucked his tail into the shadow.
“I preferred Bront,” he whispered.
Vael watched the long, thin leg. “I don’t think this one trades.”
They waited. Finley could see a floating seed turn slowly above him, so close to the bird that he wanted to warn it.
At last the legs moved away. The travellers crossed in short runs between cover, with Glint watching the surface.
Finley kept looking up. Beneath the next broad leaf he nearly collided with Vael.
“First time you’ve seen sky?” Vael asked.
“First time I’ve had time to look.”
They rested where the light turned everything green. Finley noticed the shallow channel quicken with an open-water pulse while their sheltered branch barely changed.
Before he marked it on his field strip, he looked up once more. The little seed was still turning.