I braced for impact the only way I knew how, by flinging my hands in front of my face and jutting my legs out in a vain attempt to divert the supersonic procession of the executioner's blade from my vitals into the path of my slightly less important internal organs.

Then, after a beat passed, I opened my eyes to find the sky unimpeded by the colossal figure of the brutal black behemoth. I patted my body in disbelief, and turned my head sharply to face the creature's newest perch; as he crooned again.

"Huak, luak, wualk, kuak, wuak! Ver-ry clever-rer! Did you-u teeeach him to-o do-woo that?" The creature clambered onto the struggling curve of the treetop's girthy span like a man trying to balance on a fishing pole, as he taunted; "Or-rore, maybeee, Weee have found your-r-replacement!"

Then, in the stead of sucking air through its teeth to make a "tsk" noise, it rhythmically snapped shut its inordinately large beak, so that it tutted with a "Clack, clack, clack! Bad luck for you, child. It tur-rurns out that Iii don't need you-woo, after all! Tiiime is up."

Rilah seemed to completely ignore his jeering, as she magically summoned the strength to cry out, "Zoel, you came...! I always believed in you!"

As I was nestled in the strange, tangled impromptu netting of the secret, hidden secondary layer of the canopy floor, I didn't want to wiggle, move, or even breathe too suddenly—for fear that the miracle would somehow undo itself and I would be confronted with the reality of just how far up I actually am—but I risked it all to say one solitary thing.

I said, matronly, "Of course I came, you big baby. I promised I would!"

I heard a distant snap, as one of the vines in the area must have petered out under the strain of my accelerated impact. I froze solid, as if that would convince the integrity to grow back to a comfortable level.

"Lauk, lawk, lalk! You-u don't have much tiiime, boy." The gigasven wore its displeasure at being a secondary passenger in his own conversation openly in its voice, as it tried to press on my clear anxieties. "You-ou can come with meee, if you-u would liiike to live. Iii can eeeven pr-ror-romise that sheee will not beeecome my food, if you-u ag ug ogreee not to-oo-woo str-rar-ruggle."

"Don't listen to him, Zoel!" shouted Rilah, but now I could hear the weariness and roughness in her voice. All gone was the pure joy and exhilaration from seeing me arrive out of the blue to rescue her. It was clear, just how close to the wire we had cut this operation.

"We can make it out of here, together," she directed. "Just as long as you don't panic. The lattice will only shift if you move quickly. You seem to have found a really dense patch, so you're okay for now, but you hurt the vines when you—"

"CAW!!!" he screamed, trying to interrupt our intelligence gathering. "CAW! CAW!! CAW!!!" His voice was so forceful enough to send ripples across the surface of the airborn lake. It was working to crowd out my thoughts, but it failed in the desperate gambit.

By working so hard to get our attention, he made it clear that the knowledge that she was about to share was actually dangerous. I was not about to let him distract me from her life-saving advice, and his voice was too world-shatteringly vociferous to be tuned out, so I listened carefully to make out what she was saying between his breaths.

"Grab the vines!" She uttered quickly, catching onto the same idea that I did.

"Caw caw caw caw caw!!!!!" My bloodied, gashed up fingers wrapped around the circumference of the nearest loop of plant matter that I could find, and I waited for the next instruction.

"Other patches!" was the clarification that followed, stubbornly refusing to budge despite the fact that this crucial piece information wasn't an order; subtly priming me for the fact that there wasn't truly any real urgency to the rescue.

I relaxed my shoulders as I waited for the next break.

"Stay flat, and—" She ran out of time, but I think I understood the gist enough to actually start moving. Something about the "lattice," or whatever it was called, being thin in some spots, and I had to spread myself out as wide as possible so that even the best spots don't get poked through like a needle through cloth.

I opened my legs wide, and pulled my weight up through my shoulders so that my head was at the same height as my hands, and then I reached above, to find another vine for purchase.

It was slow going, but the process had to be slow by necessity. "Pull yourself out, I sai—" She managed, before his caws grew increasingly furious. He could see my progress despite his interruptions, and knew that he was on the losing side, in this battle of wits.

There was no more humor in his voice, as he chortled, "Stop that!" with a snap.

"Don't worry about him, Zoel!" She comforted, before succumbing to the dryness of her throat with a loud coughing fit. Then, she gasped, and said "He can't hurt us because the smart ones know better than to damage—!"

"Shut up! Caw!!! Caw! Caw!!!!!" he resumed, as I had finally worked my full torso out from over the top of my little divot.

'So, there are things that even the creatures from the fifth are afraid of.' I grinned, privately; as I hooked my heels under a pair of lateral vines as footholds. 'I should make an effort to find this out, and use it against them.'

I felt around blindly, over my head, and forced myself up another couple of feet. I squinted at the blinding sun in my eyes, before I realized that I didn't have to be facing the sky at all. Then, I went to turn over, but a bone-chilling shrill scream pierced through even the vocal assault that the gigasven was subjecting us to.

"STOP!!!!!" Rilah howled, with every ounce of air in her tiny little lungs. I froze like a statue, unaware of what I could have possibly done so wrong.

"Clack, clack, clack, clack, clack," quoth the raven king. Rilah was still catching her breath after that superhuman act of caterwauling, so he continued playing the advocate role he was created for. "All that wor-rork sheee did for-r you-u, and you-ou-woo'd just let it all g g go to-o waste liiike that?"

I was at a loss. "W-what did I do?!" Then, as soon as I said it, I felt the blanket of my shame wash over me. By turning onto my stomach, I was exposing my side profile to the vines for even the smallest interval. I could have easily slipped between the layers, if she hadn't said anything!

"Child, you-u should have let him fall," he chided. I couldn't say anything to my defense, so I just continued following the orders she told before; working my way across my back, until even my toes were floating on the surface of this green lake.

She continued to pay the animal no mind, as she spoke with relief. "It's good that you figured it out without me telling you... But Zozi! Don't scare me like that again, you hear me?!"

"Yes princess!" I hollered back.

"Aww-waw-waa," He attempted, failing to make the affectionate sound due to his ghastly speech impediment. "Isn't this cu-woo-ute? The two-oo of you-oo seeem to beee makiiing qu-uite the lovely memor-ry tog ug oughether... but it's w-wr-wrong! You-u w-w-will never return back to your-oar home alive. Iii w-will make sur-rure of that!"

"He's bluffing," Rilah said, confidently. "He needs us alive, for some strange reason, and that's why I'm still here."

"Am Iii?" He asked, faking shock in his voice. "You-u know-w-w me so-oh w-well, after-rur our-r shor-rt tiiime together-rur."

"You already told me that you can't carry me because your talons will slice me to pieces!" she snapped, in return. "You really thought that I would just let you take me away?!"

"You-u hu-umans ar-re such fr-rar-ragile cr-reatures..." he mused, almost silently. "But if you-u beeelieeeve anyyy fact Iii have shar-red, tr-rur-rust in this; Iii cannot let you-u two r-retur-rearn home. If you-woo-ou leeeaave meee aliiive, you-u w-will find no safety on the surface ag ug ogain. It w-would beee myyy pleasur-rure to-o make both your-or liiives as miser-erable as possible."

There was a different level of focus to his words, now, in a way that made it clear that this time he believed every word of what he said.

"But you're not gonna kill us, right? Don't you have something better to do than hunt down a couple of kids until we die of old age?!" I heckled, because it was the only way to confront the gravity of the threat.

"I take it that is your-r w-w-way of decliniiing g g myyy offer-r? and what of you-ou, chiiild? This is the last tiiime you-ou w-will be asked. The bottom of myyy patience has been found."

"You already know," she croaked. "You're a stupid bird brain if you think I will give in now!"

"Hwalk, ualk, kualk! Then let theiiir blood beee on your-our heads!" and he set off into the sky, with a flap of his broad wings, that flung the bounding surface of the vines into chaos. "Iii'll tell your-or familiiiees of your-r decision." and with a burst of velocity that sounded like a thunderclap, he was gone.

"Wait, what do you mean by that?!" I asked, suddenly terrified, over the rushing winds clouding my ears and sending the flexible surface roiling in waves that scrambled the arrangement of the woven fibers underneath, and regularly kicked me bodily into the air.

I still had the presence of mind to use that opportunity to reorient myself face down, before spouting erratically. "What did he mean by that, Rilah?!"

"More lies," she spat, weakly. "He was frustrated by how indifferent we were, because we weren't scared of him anymore, he said that in order to make us worry. He'll be back, I'm sure."

"How can you be sure?!" I screeched, slightly panicking. "He could easily wipe out our entire glade. You know that!"

"I do know that, Zozi, that's why I also know how silly that would be for him. Corvids don't eat living animals, and if he's anything like his smaller relatives, he would be soiling his own crops. By the time they're nice and rotten, a majority of the bodies will have been destroyed by other creatures. Do you really think an animal would waste their own food like that? Or, better yet, why don't you tell me—did you see him fly away from us? Which way is home, Zoel?"

I opened my mouth to retort, but I followed her orders; thinking logically about what had happened. The way he was facing, when he fired off, it didn't make sense, if he was telling the truth! "It didn't seem like he flew in the direction of the glade, at all..."

"See, Zozi? You found even more evidence. It's all lies!"

I chuckled, in relief, as the mood began to settle. "I- I... Guess I just assumed he had friends somewhere. M-m-maybe they're just getting backup?"

She laughed, as well; slowly crawling toward the direction of the tree I had climbed to find her. "Listen to yourself, Zozi. You're such a diving worrywart. Do you really think something that terrifying will need any help hurting our little home glade?"

I murmured, "I really don't think that's something to laugh about, Rilah. Who wouldn't be frightened, after the sentence you just said?"

"My throat hurts, Zoel. I'm thirsty, and I'm tired. Let's just stop talking about this, and go home please."

I sighed, thinking about the others. "Fine! But you've got to promise not to tell anyone what you heard. Janny is waiting at the bottom with a torch, and Fimbs must have made it down to meet him by now."

"Fimbs?!" She scoffed. "Why the five is she here?"

"Hey—hey, cool it, alright? She's actually been really useful on the way here, so we should try to be a little nicer to her, okay?" I assuaged her, as I slowly padded along, behind her.

"Fine," she groaned, like it was a chore. "Whatever it takes to get me to some water."

I looked at the canopy fruits. "Couldn't hurt?"

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