RAW KINGDOM ENTERTAINMENT

                     Unexpected Air Journey

 Behind the mountain, which in the far-off haze was turning a deep and misty blue, there dwelt a mighty golden eagle. His vast eyrie clung to a sheer and towering cliff, where no careless climber would dare to tread. Each morning the great bird rose into the brightening heavens, wheeling in smooth and stately circles. Thus did he keep watch over all the lands below, surveying the wide world with keen and ancient eyes.
 One morning, he spied the hare returning from the fields, his ears flicking nervously as he sought refuge beneath the thorn. Yet he did not stir, for hunger did not yet gnaw him sharply. As for the partridges, small and fleet, they drew no interest from his keen eyes—they were trifles unworthy of pursuit.
 He turned, about to climb the rugged path toward the mountain, when something caught his gaze: a dark shape, mottled and glinting where the sun and rain had left their mark. It was Thumbelina, lying in the sodden earth, quiet as a stone yet thrumming with hidden life. Beside her, where the tortoise slept, curled in patient slumber, was Yoshi.
 The eagle’s mind lingered upon his young eaglet, who had never known the delight of a turtle’s gift. With a deliberate sweep of his mighty wings, he seized the turtle in his talons, intending to break her shell upon a rock before presenting her to the fledgling.
 Far above the land of Thumbelina, he hovered, his keen eyes measuring the distance with unerring precision. Then, folding his wings like dark banners, he plummeted toward the earth, a shadow gliding over the syllabic hills below.
 Thumbelina stirred in her dreams, yet before she could discern the source of the swift motion, a great shadow blotted out the morning light. The eagle’s wings, broad and black-brown, beat with dreadful power, and his claws, curved as scimitars, descended with a terrible inevitability, seizing the sleeping figure in a grip that was both sudden and absolute.

Yoshi clutched the turtle tightly and tried to pull her from the eagle’s claws, but in an instant he found himself lifted high above the slog, dangling like a leaf caught in a storm. The eagle’s mighty wings, carrying him aloft, light as smoke.

“Help! Help!” he cried, his voice tiny beneath the vast sky.

 For a moment, the thought of letting go and plunging to the earth below flitted through his mind—but the eagle, with eyes bright and unwavering, soared even higher. Far beneath, the slog lay stretched like a narrow ribbon of yellow, gleaming faintly in the sunlight, and the fields around it became a distant, patchwork quilt.

 The wind whipped around him, tugging at his body and hairs, and Yoshi clung with all his strength, the turtle’s shell warm against his chest, as if some unseen magic held them together in balance between sky and earth.
 Twirling with a heart both anxious and eager, Yoshi shut his eyes and clutched the turtle with all the courage he could muster. High above, the eagle’s wings beat with a quiet strength, steady and unerring. From the eagle’s steady and smooth flight, the two realized that they had risen high enough and that the bird was now heading for its nest.
 The hedgehog dared at last, and his small eyes flickered open, gazing downward. The wide field he had left behind seemed to stretch endlessly, dotted faintly with the tiny thatched roofs of the village, nearly swallowed by willows whose branches bent like whispers over the river. That river gleamed under the sun, a shining twisting thread of silver. The eagle was already above the mountain, and below him, as if in an abyss, the curly peaks of the forest and the bluish troughs of the ravines were patches of green.
 After a few minutes they soared above the highest ridge of the mountains, where the wind sang sharply against the eagle’s wings. Beyond, jagged peaks of another range thrust skyward, crowned with snow and mist. Nestled upon one such pinnacle, the eagle’s home clung to the stone like a crown of feathers and rock.
 Between the two ranges stretched a narrow, winding plain, traversed by a river that glimmered silver in the sunlight. In the midst of this plain, the waters of a great swamp lay murky and green, shifting faintly as if hiding secrets in their stillness. From afar, the land seemed both inviting and perilous, a place where shadow and light danced together over marsh and meadow, whispering of adventures yet to come.
 When the eagle at last swept down to the shadowed swamp, a second great bird appeared, poised across the gilded sky, where the sun poured its quiet light. Yoshi and Thumbelina discerned the broad, graceful wings of another eagle, yet this one was unlike their captor. His feathers carried the pale gray of dawn, and beneath its beak hung a tuft of downy plumage, like a little beard of some woodland spirit. His wings stretched longer and tapered finer, as though made for distant journeys over mountains and rivers far from the eyes of men.
 Their captor quickened his flight, wings slicing the air with a terrible swiftness. The dark brown feathers along his neck bristled like sharpened spears, and the golden eagle knew well that he faced no idle threat. The wind lifted him upward, yet the prey beneath denied him the heights he sought. The fight began. With a sudden, blazing speed, the bearded eagle fell upon him like a falling star. The two birds met in a tempest of feathers and talons, their cries ringing through the sky with such piercing fury.
 The air around them seemed to tremble; sunlight glanced off their wings and glinted from their eyes like fire in the shadow. Each strike and dive carried a weight of ancient, primeval ferocity, as though the mountain itself had held its breath, watching this battle unfold.The two opponents uttered piercing cries that made the captives faint with fear.
 The golden eagle’s strongest weapon—his talons, curved and cruel as mountain scythes—were engaged. To defend himself successfully, he released his prey from his grasp, tumbling into the void below.
 Yoshi and Thumbelina plunged earthward, their hearts thrumming like a pair of wild drums. The wind roared in their ears, and the world blurred into streaks of green and brown. Above, the cries of the battling eagles rent the sky, a terrible symphony of talons and feathers.
 Clinging to each other, the two companions were frozen, as if time itself had halted. Words forsook them, and only the primal pulse of fear spoke through their trembling forms.

“Oooh, oh, oh!” — screamed the turtle and waved her crooked legs, as if trying to catch hold of something.

“Aaah, ah, ah!” — moaned the hedgehog, tightly hugging onto her shell.

 With terrible speed they were carried down, where something large and smooth was shining… Suddenly a deafening splash rang out beside them. Darkness and cold enveloped them from all sides... They had fallen into the waters of the swamp...