Hawk lay upon the wind, watching the cliffs below. up here, creatures were as chicks, small, twitching morsels. Hawk watched, Hawk was hungry. There! A patch of baked-brown grass shows its white paws. Hawk dives, the ground rushing, distant wave-roar mixing with the howling drop. His wings strain and his talons sink into the rabbit. A slash of beak and the small furry thing twitches no more. Red in talon and beak, Hawk begins to eat. A new sound enters his world, two humans on the cliff path having a great big squark. Unless they are singing, Hawk thinks, but they would have to be very bad at it.

Another flutter behind him, he twists and sees Raven drop onto the mossy grass. She cocks her head; “are you done with that?”

Hawk glares, pointedly taking another gulp of giblets. Any further conversation severed by another crescendo from the humans.

“I hope they’re not going to lay. They don’t have a nest” Raven said smugly.

They watch as one looked out across the grey sea. The other, calmly, slowly picked up a rock and brought it down on the other’s head with a wet crack.

Raven looks at the camera “There’s been a murder-“

“That’s crows.” Said Hawk.

“-most foul”

They watch as the remaining human heaves the body off the cliff, before kicking the rock down too.

“Moron” Said Raven. “Should’ve dealt with the witnesses.”

Hawk returned to the rabbit. There was definitely less of it than he remembered, but that always happened with food.

“Did anyone else see?”

Moments later, they land on the closest sheep.

“Did you see the humans?” Said Hawk from his fluffy perch.

“Meeeeh” the sheep bleated.

“Would you be able to pick them out of a line up?”

“Meeeeh”

“Hawk?”

“Yes?”

“I don’t think it’s fit to testify.”

“Meeeeh”

“We’d best have a look at the body then.”

Leaving the warmth of their ovine perch, they glide down to the spray-lapped rocks. Wedged on an outcrop is the broken human. They look at each other taking in the iron hair, matted with crimson blood. The twisted arms and jagged bones. “Yup. Very dead.”

“We should find another human. They get excited when this kind of thing happens” Hawk says as he watches Raven digging around in the human’s blue plumage. “You’re not looking for food I hope.”

“I’m calling the police.” Says Raven with her mouth full.

Hawk ruffles his feathers. “What’s a police?”

“Humans with black and white plumage. Flash blue in mating season. They’ll scavenge the body.”

“Can’t have it going to waste.” Said Hawk approvingly.

A muffled voice from within: “Which emergency service do you require?”

“Police” croaks Raven.

“Hello?”

“I said police”. croaks Raven impatiently.

“You’ve called 999…”

“Bloody monkeys” Raven sighs.

“Primates” sniffs Hawk.

They flutter away, Raven trailing crumbs. Aloft, away from the sea-spray, wind in their feathers

The sea continues its eternal roar beneath them as they scouted out their next victims. New specks appeared along the cliff path, two new humans and a dog. Just to establish dominance, they soar down in unison, landing on a convenient stump. Then they glare at the dog. The humans were probably a lost cause.

“Birds!” the dog barked. The humans tried tugging it away.

“Any humans come this way?” asked Hawk.

“Yes! Quickly! Smelled like fear! And sweat!”

Having established dominance over one hapless creature, Raven picked this moment to hop on to the taught leash.

“Human! Did you see anything?” Raven asked. Climbing further up the leash, staring them down. Unfortunately, their response was to yelp and drop the leash. Helpful only to Raven’s inflating ego.

“Raven” Calls Hawk, “You can play with the more interesting human when we catch it.”

Only slightly crestfallen, they rejoin in the air, effortlessly gliding along the cliff’s updraft. Above, they look, taking in unhelpful sheep, plunging cliffs and traumatised humans, alone below the clouds.

Hawk is first, picking out the dark green coat as it returned to its nest site. He watched it skulk furtively around the nest-boxes before climbing into one. Hawk zooms out, taking a moment to watch Raven’s eyes dart hopelessly across the landscape before putting her out of her misery.

“Found it!”

Raven rolls her eyes as they turn inland, gliding off the updraft to the unsuspecting hamlet below.

They let themselves into the kitchen, fluttering down onto a table festooned with papers. Muffled bustle from the humans outside gently filters in, mixing with the sounds of running water above them. Raven bounces around, taking the sheets in. There are big ones with small text and small glittery ones. Lots of the small glittery ones.

“Ah ha!” Exclaims Raven. “We have a motive!”

“We have some second-rate nesting material, Raven.”

“The secret is in the glittery ones. Humans eat them!”

Hawk shreds a note and tentatively gulps down a particularly glittery remanent.

“This is awful!”

“I never said they were intelligent!”

Raven flutters around the room, carefully inspecting, or at least, carefully projecting the image of carefully inspecting. Raven helps herself to leftovers before rejoining Hawk, awkwardly sliding into a pile of shredded paper, the results of Hawk’s singlemindedness.

The door slams open, the murderer looking down at his table, at the shredded, half-digested pile of paper and the two inordinately smug looking birds before he howls, leaping for a knife.

“You can’t do that” Interjects Raven “We’re protected species.”

“How do y-” the human slams the knife down. Missing both utterly and, in Raven’s opinion, ruining an entirely adequate table. Still, they take the hint and left him to his own hospitality, soaring amongst the stars, safe in the knowledge that justice had been served.

Even if Raven did go back an hour later and turn the gas stove on.