Hilda would never be wholly comfortable on boats, too conscious of the weight of waterlogged feathers, but it was worth a small battle with her nerves to see how happy her children were when she joined them in the middle of the lake, balanced in a coracle she'd purchased secondhand from a local Weasel family and equipped with a tablecloth sail since a paddle was dreadfully awkward to handle with either her feet or her beak.

"Mama, Mama, look, Tawny says she's going to fly, really and truly this time!" her daughter Glimmer shouted, beating her own wings (remnants of baby down still fuzzy around her new-grown flight feathers) against the water in excitement; "Come watch, come watch!"

As Tawny flapped and kicked her way across the lake, straining until an inch-thin gap opened between her belly and the water, then widened and widened until she was truly airborne, Hilda clucked to herself in satisfaction for a job well done.