The gold-throated adult answered Jiang once.
Then it turned its back.
That was not rejection. Not yet.
It was the difference between hearing a stranger and opening the huddle.
Jiang understood before the shelfback took its next step.
The whole sky lurched.
Cliffs shifted above the creature's shell. Streams spilled from one hanging edge, broke into rain, and rose again through root forests on the opposite side.
Beneath that moving world, the rookery leaned together.
Broad feet gripped warm hollows. Adults lowered their bellies over chicks while the shelfback's pulse traveled through living stone.
No bird wasted breath on panic.
The smallest chicks rode the motion between their parents' feet. Older ones stumbled, caught themselves against a waiting breast, and tried the shifting stone again. They had learned this world before they had learned open water.
Jiang shivered hard enough to knock his beak against Raska's collarbone.
"I heard that," she said.
