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Though large and shadowed with the hard, dark hues of frozen ground, this brown maneuvers his rangy build with premeditated precision. His square jaw is grizzled paler than the rest of him, as though encrusted with ice, while eyeridges the color of dirty snow shade his piercing eyes. Headknobs, neckridges, the spars of his wings--each of these is rimed with frost, winter's hoary touch melting as it seeps down a long neck and lean shoulders, a cascade of slush that peters out along his chest. There, bands of color gradually darken as they encircle him, on the way to muddy paws and bone-pale talons, cruelly hooked and flecked with clay. Little of his length has escaped the rising mire that clings to him, outlines every muscle of his flanks and striated tail, until their deep tobacco-brown color is murky and damp. Even the charred chestnut sails of his wings, unfurling high above his back, do not escape the muck: they, too, are splattered with the stains of earth.