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If one asked the elderly fisherman sitting on the wooden jetty about the patterns of the seabirds, he would teach you more than any professor or encyclopedia could. With a brown, weather-beaten face and hands that almost looked gnarly, Mr. Jean Kirstein still sported a gentle smile and kind eyes despite his age.
On evenings, like clockwork, he would be joined by the retired principal of the village's lone school - Mr. Marco Bott-Kirstein - and the two would sit in comfortable silence to watch the evening dance of the parasitic jaegers.
"It's June in a few days, Marco," Mr. Kirstein mumbled, voice roughly a soothing oxymoron like the crashing of the waves against the rocky shore.
His husband placed a hand over his twisted one, warming up the fingers and knuckles gone stiff with arthritis as the salty evening breeze washed over them.
"Do you think that they will leave to nest for the summer?" came the inquiry of the gentle Mr. Bott-Kirstein, still ever-beloved by the villagers.
The ageing couple shared a quiet laugh as the dark-chested jaeger did an elaborate acrobatic display flight around the slightly smaller bird of pale morph.
The pair landed on the edge of the jetty as the darker bird puffed out its chest and did an impressive call before swooping down near the water to snatch a fish from a tern with a loaded beak. The fish was then presented to the paler jaeger, who accepted it gladly before joining the larger in a practised call and dance.
"Look, Jean, it's us after you proposed," Marco chuckled, eyes crinkling as he beamed at his husband, irises reflecting the warm glow of the setting sun.
The fisherman grinned widely in return, looking a decade younger as he reminisced on the peaceful joys of their twenties and onwards, after the trauma of their teenage years.
He turned his husband's hand to look at the tarnished rings on his finger, bringing them to his lips for a kiss before responding, "At least I didn't steal these off of someone else. That dark grey jaeger could at least catch his offering fish himself!"
The couple dissolved into soft laughs, leaning comfortably together as the birds took flight again.
"I hope we see them again. They comfort me - when I miss them, they really comfort me." Marco looked on wistfully as the pair ascended higher into the evening clouds.
Jean wiped a stray tear from his eye before reassuring his love gruffly, "Who knows? They might make their nest nearby."
The couple stared as the birds vanished behind the waning flames of the setting sun, walking home hand-in-hand as its dying embers ushered in the still of the night.
