It was a city all right, no different from any other on any planet except for its diminutive size. The structures were larger than those he had encountered when he had first landed but, as he discovered with cruel delight, just as fragile. He swooped low, marveling at how readily the flimsy constructs shattered beneath the simple draft from his wings. As his shadow raced across the grid below it sent the puny meatbugs scurrying. Their terror was intoxicating, their flight bringing out the predator in him. They were helpless before him -- him! Tiren, the biggest badass their world had ever seen. "That's right! Run!" he bellowed. "You'll all be whitewash by morning!"

He landed feet-first on a pair of boxy structures and rode them down as they crumbled satisfyingly beneath him. Stepping from the rubble he raised all of his feathers and shook the dust from them, then turned a scornful eye to the puny creatures that swarmed below. Their stumbling and squeaking made him roar with laughter and he leaned down, scooping up ten or more at a time with just a sweep of his hand. The sound they made as they flailed in his grip was like sweet music; their wiggling made his crop quiver in eager anticipation. "You ought to be proud," he cooed to them. "You get to be my first full meal here." With that he threw his head back, gaped wide and dropped them all together into his mouth. He waited with his eyes closed, letting them writhe about in his beak before he began to swallow them one and two at a time, moaning in delight as their struggles traveled down his throat and settled in his crop.

The swarm had moved away when he opened his eyes again. "Oh, no you don't," he growled. It took only four steps for him to catch up to them. His hand cleared a wide swath through their midst and bore another squeaking dozen to his mouth. He savored them the same way, then gave in to his belly's insistent pangs and began to cram them into his beak as fast as he could snatch them up. He gulped down a dozen more, then a hundred, a thousand, until his crop bulged heavier than it had since his conviction. Even though he had gorged himself he was pleased to see that there were still millions left. "This is paradise," he cackled, "and it's all mine..."