I am the Raven and I am the Eagle.

I am neither of these at once. I am one then the other.

When I begin and fly north, I am the Raven. I am coarse and loud and am found by myself or with other black-wings. I feast on the living, the dead and the leavings. I am not choosy.

I do not fly in a straight line. I survey the milky white rivers and green forests and turn towards whatever catches my attention. I fly low; I cannot and do not wish to miss an undiscovered carcass or shining artifact.

I stay close to the paths cut into the dirt. These are the places where hooved animals and humans put their feet. They are dirty, these creatures. Gloriously careless with the kind of trash I like.

But I have a destination so I don’t linger long. The trees become fewer, the ground more open, the river wider and louder. The wind nips the scalloped edges of my feathers. It is far less predictable to fly when lifted by it, but possible to be carried further away than I wish. As I stretch northward, the villages are fewer as are their scraps. But there aren’t as many of my kind so I’m not fighting for what is there.

I arrive to land made of stone. White covers the highest peaks and I cannot let the wind take me there. My wings don’t allow me to be aloft for long because at that height, they no longer hold their shape. My feathers feel crumbled to ash.

I alight on a rock overlooking colors, shouts and murmurs among the rocks. Flags flutter and metal backpack snaps glint. As a cloud passes between me and the sun, a gust of wind swoops from below. My balance is upended and I raise my wings to catch the updraft. I am carried up and higher and towards the place where, last time this happened, I lost my lift and fell until the air was thick enough to catch me. The wind does not heed even my strongest objections. Up and up I ascend and any moment it will be down and down again.

The sun emerges and my eye catches it. There is a flash and I am suddenly unaware of direction. I am without a left or a right. Wingless.

But then, all at once, I am no longer subject to the whims of only the wind. I stretch side to side to find I have purchase in the draft that previously controlled me. I blink, my eyes too crisp. The ground seems closer and even what’s beneath the grass becomes clear. I land and my feet scrabble on the loose rock.

A bit falls away and lands far below with a thud and a crackle. But I do not hear it as my feet…have changed. My toes are thicker and the wrong color. I lift them one by one but they do not morph into anything familiar. I am fearful, so I fly to flee.

I rise higher than intended, my wings giving me more loft than previously. My shadow is longer too. As I climb, I realize that I am no longer the Raven. My feet, my wings, my eyes – they are all signs. My heart is slower, the power unmistakably different.

I am no longer pulled up the valley. The North no longer calls. I know that whatever I need, it can only be found lower, back where I came from. The wind whispers to follow the whitewater, to flow in the same direction. To move down, to glide, and to conserve energy. To observe but not investigate. To seek no others.

So I do. In the arc of one sun, I move. I see the valley anew from a lofty height and without the need of shimmering disruptions.

When I return to where I started, there is no Raven left. I am no longer what I was when I began. The trickster has left and in her place is the wisdom held in the eye of the sharpest predator.

I am now the Eagle.