RAPTOR TALON TALISMAN.

         At the Jillison site, we identified seven raptor talons, suggesting the claws from a minimum of two predators were preserved as a group.  In addition, a single phalanx was found at the same level.  

          Of the collection, four talons bear multiple, edge-smoothed cut marks; seven show polishing facets and/or abrasion.  Three of the largest talons have small geomantic symbols at roughly the same place along the plantar surface, interrupting the proximal margin of the talon blade.  The associated phalanx articulates with one of the talons and also has numerous alchemical emblems, some of which are eroded.

          These features suggest they were part of a talisman assemblage, the manipulations a consequence of mounting the talons in a necklace or bracelet.

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         Sacramental ornaments are commonly associated with the fossil born civilizations of Early Eos and are thought to represent the special cognitive abilities and allegorical capacities of the youngest continent.  Studies in recent eras have documented the fossil born using or producing art and symbolic items evidenced by unusual lithic objects, feathered remnants, knotted string, modified shells, ochre paintings, and very rarely, raptor talons, presumably used as protective pendants.

         In Early Eos, a raptor talon was believed to be all-powerful, being the ideal symbol of the absolute predator, and therefore connected to both planetary and elemental forces.  In its constitution, the upward curve of the claw represented the good of the continents, and with its inverted hook, the evils of the unknown.  Consecrated talismans made from raptor talons were trusted to protect against threats and fatalities, and were also thought capable of providing good luck, granting wishes, and warding off hostile or vindictive forecasts.

          The presence of talon designs such as those found at the Jillison site provide multiple new lines of evidence for the existence of an ancient raptor cult on the continent of Eos.   Taken as a collection, these talismans represent the earliest attempted forms of resurrectionist jewelry and demonstrate that the fossil born civilizations possessed a complex understanding of anatomical reckoning and resurrection long before the afterlife of fault lines arrived.

         Every day in tunnels, in the cave, I wore the talisman and swore the talon's oath.

         Seven claws hung high and sharp around my neck, each one easily reachable by either hand.  They were Jillison’s grave luck piece, an empty ornament to remember where we’d been.

          Avalanche was the only calendar I had left.  It was our cold and voiceless season, more violence was unspoken than snow and ice could show.

          We were alone and almost unconscious.  Children of the youngest continent, still lost enough to trust a raptor would protect us.

          Jillison called them savior claws and said they were enough to start us over again.

With injuries removed, I thought, maybe this time it would be new.  We could charcoal a path to a colorless sun, work around the frost killed instincts, sharpen the talons to keep us together for good.

          I counted past seven and tried to imagine the lasting alternatives.  An uncornered darkness, a devil’s advocate, an extinction with eyes open or closed.  Always an outcome might overlap to keep our evolution vague.

          False positives or future imperfects, it was up to us to tell the difference. 

          What raptors had we known before?  Slavewrecker sons, town ruiners, nocturnal outliers.  Anyone looking backward and forward at the same time, feathers and scales in the same place.  No viscera for division, no need for symmetry, no reason to ask for it.

          Like Jillison said, first birds of the afterlife.  Blind and incapable of of sustaining their own body heat.  Hatched in caves or sinkholes, brought up by the opposites of each other.

          For all we knew, they learned to leave flight behind.

          We had traces of a location, a continent, a constellation.  Navigation was guided by hail and thunder, handfuls of necessary dispersal.

          Jillison told me we could become an inside-out winter, he called me his blood white.   I could barely see how backwards the days went.  Missed opportunities, specific routes, the speed at which light attaches to past and present tense.

          And even if his skin had been paper thin, hardly resistant to a ready flame.  Maybe I should have taken that trespass for him.  Maybe that’s what love was then.

          Could have been one of those sacraments still to come, a collapsing season, a coincidence of solar reckoning.  Unstable weather often accompanied a raptor’s shadow, when warmer air begun to invade the caves, while glacial currents was still pushed on occasions from the poles.

          An upward branch died and fell, left a small scar, a knot-hole.  Exactly as the continents moved without us, a preparation for migratory abandonment.  Before our wings were grown back, we were brought toward a stop to make our bodies forget.

          Even with snow up to my neck I was still soaking wet with sweat.  We waited there afraid and tired with denial.  I clung to serrated edges, sharpened curves, seven talons on a torn red string.  Jillison’s apology in advance, and I clung with both hands, honestly.

          With or without a talisman to tell what came next, I still searched for steady light and tried to stay ahead.  I was alone, with no sky to read or crutch to keep the cold in place.  I fought against cave fall like it was a form of frozen war.  I crossed out charcoal characters from the walls and ceiling, corrected for casualties to keep us both awake.

          If raptors evolved to leave those losses to the past, we would have to too.

          But suppose we never left each other.  Suppose I held up the talons like they were actually a lantern to lean on.  And what if Jillison really was better and weaker now?   How much was an adaptation and how much depended on climate and chance?  How much of it was true?

          All our nesting circles were like coils of a spring.  As soon as we separated, I knew Jillison had a secret that would set them in motion again.