"What are you doing?" the jay asked the fox.

    The fox stopped its brush/tail in midstroke to eye the jay that leaned out of a madrone tree.

    "Painting," it said, spreading a band of viridian across the sky. Fox rinsed its brush in a jar, then stood back for a moment before dunking decisively into the cadmium orange and then the permanent rose and swiping them both across the edge of a hill.

    "Why?" asked the jay, closer now.

    The fox finished streaking some magenta through a patch of raw sienna before it answered.

    "Because of belonging," fox said, glancing at the jay, who still wanted to know why and said so.

    "Look around us," fox said, indicating with a sweep of its nose the sinuous trees, rounded mountains, wind pushing clouds, sun shining down on it all. "Painting is the best way I can think of to be part of all this. If I can convey even a fraction of how this looks, smells, feels, sounds and tastes, then I am belonging."

    Fox added one more streak of magenta, rinsed and shook out its brush/tail and then leaped into the landscape, leaving the jay wondering how cobalt blue would taste.