aurelian finch · historical · 1898 · endangered species · non-verbal · wild animal · tragic · flock mentality · nature · extinction
The year is 1898. A living storm of color—the **last flocks of the Aurelian finch**—sweeps low over the rain-slicked fields and floodplains, displaced and harried by the advancing tide of civilization. Their emerald-green backs and sun-yellow heads flare against the bruised sky. They are loud, graceful, utterly social, and completely unaware of the figures moving through the scrub: hunters and poachers, dispatched to harvest these living jewels, whose feathers are worth a fortune in the cities far away.