"You know," I said to the pigeon eating the other half of my bagel, "I thought an ancient bird god would be less hungry all the time."
His feathers puffed up. "If you were cursed to live as a fraction of your former self and serve a human bloodline, it would work up an appetite in you as well. Now give me that bagel. Have we got a nation to conquer today? How about a forest to burn?"
I wasn't sure exactly how Cyclone Wing had ended up here. My family had been keeping carrier pigeons ever since World War I, when they were used to carry secret messages, and I was continuing the tradition of taking care of the birds. They liked to go on walks sometimes. No one had ever mentioned that one of those pigeons talked, though. Or that he claimed to be a firebird god trapped in a pigeon's body. I saw no other logical explanation for a talking pigeon, so I had accepted that as fact.
"Let's not burn anything," I told him. "Let's go down to the lakefront and see if anything fun is happening."
Cyclone huffed and followed me towards the shore. A few kids on bikes passed us, and a mom with a stroller. As we reached the lake, I saw a man with a big, fluffy Labradoodle. The dog started towards us, and I reached out my hand to let it sniff me. "Can I pet him?" I asked the man.
The man shook his head and pursed his lips. I retracted my hand sadly, but the dog ignored me. It headed directly for Cyclone. I started to tell my bird god not to attack the Labradoodle, but I didn't get the chance. The dog bared its fangs and spoke.
"Cyclone Wing," it growled, in a female voice. "Flamehurler. Windshaper. Thief of the Sun Seed. You thought you could escape me?"
Cyclone shrunk back. "Great to see you too, Blizzard Fang. Didn't know you were living among mortals now." Suddenly, he grabbed the back of my shirt with his talons. "Time to run!" he squawked.

“Hold on a moment!” I scrambled, tripping over pebbles as Cyclone dragged me away down to the waterfront and into the crowd. “Hey!”

“I’ll have you between my fangs, you infernal fowl!” The dog pounced, toppling her owner with a sharp bark that sent a sizzle up my spine. “Myself and all three of us here to remind you your curse would only last so long.”

“A later time, my dear!” Cyclone hollered as we trundled down the road. “We’ll catch up over coffee. And chocolate! I’m sure it will delight the tastes of your new corporal form.”

“Blizzard, down! Blizzard, sit, girl!” The labradoodle’s owner scolded, seemingly unaware of her human words. “I told you, I’m not going to keep taking you out on walks if you can’t be nice to the neighbours.” He grunted, puffing with effort to stand upright and hollered after us, “So sorry, still working on house training the newbie!”

He held solid the taut leash and the labradoodle let out one last sullen snarl, curling reluctantly to squat on the concrete.

“There we are. Good dog, Blizzard.” Her owner reached down to playfully rub her head, but she didn’t break her gaze, scouring down at us. Something dark in her eyes still burned my chest after she was out of sight, swallowed by the passersby.

Cyclone was still nearly strangling me by the collar when we reached the water.

“What was that?” I puffed, swatting him from my back.

“Everything flavoured, I believe,” Cyclone mused, once again mashing the bagel hungrily into his beak. “A little heavy on the garlic, if you ask me.”

“No, you birdbrain! Who was that?”

“Oh, her. An old acquaintance,” he replied simply, but shot a nervous glance out into the street as he swallowed. “Someone who I wasn’t expecting to see so soon—certainly not as a labradoodle.”

I considered that I should be more concerned about the speaking dog, but I’d seen more from this self-acclaimed pigeon god in the past week that the adrenaline took precedence at the moment. “She looked like she was ready to tear us apart. What was that about fangs and curses?”

“Oh, dear memories. I suppose soon we’ll be reconnecting with some friends I hoped not to make small talk with again. You see, I’ve not left on the sweetest terms with some… powerful figures.” He turned to me with those big, jerky eyes. “Better to keep our distance from the dog park if we can help it. Now find me a pretzel stand.”

“A pretzel stand? You were just threatened by your life and you want to eat a pretzel?”

“Eat? Gods, no. I just had a bagel and I’ll be tasting garlic for days. No, we need to make some divine contact. See how many connections have made it to this world who… might still hear me out.” He trailed off, searching through the ice cream stalls lined up on the shore. “It’s got to be one of those big fluffy salted ones. None of the thin, crispy-baked nonsense.”

“There are more like you? What have you done that would upset such a—hey!”

He fled from the question in a sudden flutter of wings. I hesitated a moment before taking off after him as he started for the lakeside markets.

He stayed just far enough ahead to cheekily ensure I was following behind. “A labradoodle. A labradoodle!”