Lemmi vs The Swan

These are versions of the same story told from very different viewpoints. There's an interesting story and huge coincidence to do with their creation too. which I'll have to tell at some point.

THE SHOT

Lemmi put his eye back to the scope and dialled it in tightly on the swan’s sleek white head. There was a shot there but not the one he was here to take. With one mittened hand he reached down and unscrewed the lid from the brushed steel thermos at his side. Steam rose as he poured the coffee, the dark nutty aroma filling the canvas hide. Adjusting position carefully, he steadied the tripod, held the cup in both hands and raised it to his lips. The steam condensed in his blonde moustache. He wiped it off before it could freeze.

He huddled, jacket bound in a winter camouflaged hide. This in turn was secreted under the pines at the edge of the freezing lake just outside Rovaniemi. In the blue tinged twilight a light snow was just starting to fall.

He’d been watching this pair for a few days now, knew their territory, their routines, their relationship. Around the same time every night, the female, he’d dubbed her Tuonela, took flight for an hour or so. Her partner, kala, remained on the lake his lonely cry echoing over the water and ice, through the low mist which was forming, guiding her home.

In his hide Lemmi scanned the sky. There. Low across the tree tops. He got her in the crosshair of his viewfinder, wings extended, slender neck stretched forwards. As she crossed the horizon where the sun lay she was silhouetted, black, against the watercolour sky. He took the shot.

SWAN

As we round the shale outcropping, taking care to clear the shallows, she moves to the air, two beats of her magnificent wings and she soars, her graceful neck pointing her upward, we cry out for the joy of the wind.

 The lake is ours. It tells us in ripples and breezes. It shows us our sky. In summer it warms and feeds us. In winter it turns our calls to clouds and gives us shelter. Yet we understand the lake has more than we can take and so we allow others to stay for a short time.

Through her eyes and mine we can see that the Fettered one still hides here. He is devious, but we have seen many come and go, and this one means no harm. I sound to her to tell her that the lake is taking the form of a shroud to disguise our movements. She tells me the clouds are crumbling to cover our tracks later when we take to the land for sleep. I call again to hear the echoes form the trees and rocks. The sound clear in the sharp air.

There are movements from the Fettered’s hiding place. I feel that she is returning. I cease my movement and turn my head to see her and in that moment as she spreads her wings to embrace the Lake, framed against the waning light and crumbling sky I lose myself again for though we are two halves, she is the greater.