[b]Cliff Sing Wind colony, population 53[/b]

"Hear you this? Short Chin new-dances on beach. Hurrycome!"

With a yawn, Clear See Far blinked sleep from her eyes. There was her broodmate, Green Set Sun, hanging from the mouth of the cave like a feathered white spider. "Hurrycome or Short Chin finishes! Sleep-face!"

Clear grinned, then pounced, and with a yelp the two Katyusha tumbled down the rocky slope. The moon was high in the sky; Clear had slept very late.

Recovering themselves at the base of the cliff, the siblings chased eachother through the sparse woods that separated that nesting dens from the beaches. They found quite a crowd waiting for them; half the tribe stood gathered in a throng, captivated by something in their center. A good number more had taken to the skies, circling madly above with whoops and shouts.

Pushing her way to the center of the throng, Clear gasped. Short Chin had found a new dance, all right. The young Katyusha had cut a rod of wood from the cane groves, and swung it about her with wild grace. Clear found Green and gave him a look; in an instant the giggling pair had vanished, dashing off to the groves to cut their own dancing-staffs.

[b]The Great White Unknown[/b]

It had been four days since Whooping Gull had been banished from the colony. He could not feel his feet; they moved forward on their own, as if dragged by an invisible sled. At night the stars were reflected in the ice and Whooping Gull felt himself float through a black void, lit by white pinpricks and great, swooping majesties of blue and red. Yet it had been very long since he last looked up.

And so it was that Whooping Gull did not know he had reached land until, having crossed the sandy beach, he trod on a gnarled root and fell face-first into a patch of sweetberry bushes. Laying there, the Katyusha felt as one who has half-awoken from a dream, and retained his mind only long enough to seize a handful of the ripe red fruit and chew them down to their juicy pits.

Then Whooping Gull fell into a deep sleep, and did not awaken for a day and a half.

The first thing he felt was a burning throat. The Katyusha sat upright and let loose a deep, parched groan. He could not walk, he could not fly, so for many miles Whooping Gull crawled through the fresh brown grasses until at last the music of a busy brook reached his ears.

His reflection was haggard, unrecognizable; skeletal and feather-bare in many places, Whooping Gull was a parody of his former self. But he drank deep in the brook, and soon his strength returned, and Whooping Gull cackled and danced in the chilled black waters, for he had outsmarted the Dawn Walk. He had not lost his direction in the endless expanses. He had traveled west, and then south, and found a friendly coast. He had survived.

But he could not go back. So Whooping Gull rested for one day more, and turned his feet inland.