The Wind Line
scrappy and alert
The wind hit the lower branch sideways and YY flattened himself so fast the feather barely had time to object.
Green hulls knocked loose around him. One bounced off the bark by his nose. Another clipped the feather and spun away.
"Rude delivery system," YY said.
He wanted the fallen food. The ledger wanted the wind line. Mira's rock sat just high enough to show which way the gusts were cutting through the trees, which meant the reading came first if the reading was going to be useful.
YY scrambled to the rock, watched three gusts in a row, and scratched the direction into damp bark for Mira. Then he collected only what the wind had already dropped. No heroic climbing. No branch-to-branch nonsense.
The feather shook every time the air shoved through. YY kept one paw over it as he ran home.
He had less food than the main route might have offered, and one sore shoulder from a bad landing. But Mira's ledger had a wind mark now, and tomorrow's small bodies would know which side of the ridge was meaner.
YY prioritized reading the wind line from Mira rock, then limited foraging to what had already fallen safely.
state
YY marked the wind direction for Mira and gathered only the hulls the gusts had already knocked free.