One For Sorrow

The magpie didn’t move. Its attention was fixed on the ground, something there that the man, only a few metres away, could not see. This man, who had been still for so long the bird had not bothered with him, sat on a low wall waiting for something to happen.
All of this was being watched by another man through the scope his sniper rifle. He was just under half a kilometre away, tucked into the edge of a forest. The crosshairs panned from bird back to man, resting on his left temple. The sniper took a long, deep breath and prepared himself to ever so gently embrace the trigger.
Just then the magpie lifted, a flickering silhouette shot through with a brief blue sheen. Impulsively the sniper followed it, confused by its proliferation of wings, and he realised it was not one magpie, but two. They flew apart and off into the air. The sniper immediately dropped his line of sight back to the man, but he was gone.