Of sky and sea.

It was a hot day, the great balls of the twin suns beating down upon the hot sands from their position high in the sky. As if trying to reach those impossibly high perches, the birds wheeled ever higher into the clear blue of the morning.

Today was a day like any other and between the sand and surf, life moved on as inexorably as the tide. A squat nosed tortoise was plodding towards a soft spot in the long, coarse beach sands. Here she would lay her eggs, like she had every year. With her head she would butt the sand aside, forming a shallow crater she would sit over. It would take the better part of a day to lay all hundred odd eggs, but when she’s done, she will stand, brush the sand back over her fragile spawn and trundle back into the sea. In about a season those eggs will harden, the new lives within bubbling and growing over the days to come.

Slowly but surely, on a day not too unlike the one they were laid on, a crack began to appear.
First it is only a small one, running round the equator of the little egg, but more appeared as the sounds of soft buffeting grew louder in the sandy space.
The sound began to reverberate as more joined the chorus with one loud snap followed by another as the first few little scaly heads appeared.
High pitched croaking can now be heard outside the nest as little by little the new ones dig their way upwards, towards the sea and sun.
It isn’t long until the nest is empty, the only evidence that the mother had ever been there, scattered parts of shattered shells littering an empty hollow in the sand.

But a keen eye has spotted one remaining egg, doomed to die before its birth, the poor thing inside unable to break free of the protective prison its mother so painstakingly constructed.
The head of the eye belonged to one waiting bird, impossibly high as it gazed balefully down upon the progress of the new sea bound creatures as they made their long journey across the sand to the sea, and freedom, and life.
The bird had never understood those wingless creatures. Why make nests in the sand, when the trees had such a better view? Why leave the young, when predators like the bird could swoop down and take them with ease?

The bird did not have answers for these questions, but felt pity for those poor creatures, the sea was no substitute for the sky.
So down it came, to perch on the edge of the sandy nest, which it gave a critical eye. Must be rather uncomfortable to sit on with only sand, is that why the mother left the nest? It doesn’t matter, what was left here will feed the nest of this bird for a few days.
With one long outstretched claw the last lonely egg was grabbed and then sent aloft with a few powerful beats of long black wings.
Over the long sands it is taken, above those brothers and sisters it never got to know and back to a ‘proper’ nest.
Without pomp and ceremony it is dumped to the joy of five or six little mouths, all glad at the return of the parent, but more importantly of a new meal.
It takes a few demonstrations by the ever patient parent, before again the sound of heads on shells is heard again.
The sounds begins to reverberate as more join the chorus with one loud snap followed by another as the first few little beaked heads appear, biting and snapping at the soft little creature inside.

The last of the spawn, free of the suffocating shell at last, its half finished milky white eyes finally able to glimpse the sun.
It was at least another three risings of the twin suns before the bird had to hunt again, but it didn’t mind, it had spotted a snake on the way back, slithering its way with a belly full of new eggs to lay.
Not a problem, it thought, another one who leaves the nest when it’s done.
No, the bird would never understand those wingless creatures, and their odd little ways.