Nickel shivered. “Yep, this would be it.”"Pigeons," muttered one of the crows with disgust.
"Ha! You feathered tennis balls are dead meat!" Another cackled. The crow who didn't quite know who Salty Fries was cocked his head quizzically at her.
Cement eyed the crows with distrust. She flapped after the other pigeons.
When they alighted upon the trash pile, she picked her way over to her mate. Though the dump was bursting with birds, this area seemed rather barren. A clump of feathers in the breeze caught her eye. Except this didn't look like feathers dropped in a molt, or pulled out from a skirmish. No, she could almost see something on them.. something red-
Then they were whisked away in the wind. Cement, though not frightened easily, found herself puffing up her feathers and searching around them for any sort of movement a bit more thoroughly than was required for simple caution.
"Are you sure this is the place?" She asked her chirpy companion, her coo even quieter than usual. This place made her feathers feel on edge, literally.
“Geez this place gives me the creeps,” Russet muttered. Bloodied feathers blew in the wind. They were dove-grey. “Are those pigeon feathers?”
“Prob’ly,” Nickel said. He held up his wing in something like a feathered salute. “Glad to be of service!” He chirped. “You really have a death wish, don’t you.” He said it as a comment, not a question.
Russet blinked. And then the little pigeon was gone.
“That’s ominous.”
“Oh,” Moonlight cooed. Her eyes followed the trail. “Which means...” her eyes narrowed at Riski, who seemed to possess more intelligence than his accomplice. “You were lying. There was a bird here. What did you do, eat him?” Actually, eating him was a possibility, given the bird’s size. In fact, with that thought, Moonlight should have been a little more afraid.Blizzard stepped forward at Moonlight's squeak, showing his first real signs of aggression as he tensed and watched the movement of the strange huge gull-thing. When Riski didn't do anything more, the pigeon stepped back, inspecting their surroundings. His eye caught on something splattered on the ground. Is that...?
When Moonlight was let up, Blizzard stepped to her, lowering his voice to a barely noticeable coo. "There. On the floor." He pointed with his beak to a trail of spatter, which led to a pool, that could've been drip from the ceiling if it wasn't red. "Blood." He looked up at her. "A pool of blood. None of these birds are injured badly, but you said your fugitive was." All this was said rather quickly, but Fish Sticks was occupied with a leaf and hadn't heard them.
“There was no one here, and you must go before I eat you!” Riski growled, shoving both pigeons towards the window.