Recovery and Amateur Birdwatching

I woke up a little sad, or well- Melancholy might be a better description. this was the second time I had such an odd dream, but this one managed to land a hit right into my heart. I remembered the smiles of the brother-sister pair as they sent my soul on its journey, and while I was worried about the supposed 'burdens', I wasn't afraid. For one thing I was unfathomably far from that future problem, but more importantly... isn't that what family was supposed to be like? all of the stories I read over my old life said that good families support and cherish each other, and... It was depressing to think this, but I had lost count of the times where I would have traded away the world for that. when weighing them on the scale, having people I could share my existance with, grow with, and who would support each other. well that seemed like a good deal.

but there was only so much moping I could do before I realised that I hurt all over.

|Status|

|Name - Emilia Eternal|

|Level 1|

|Species [Storm Petrel][Tier 0]|

|HP 30/40| |MP 0/0| |EXP 76/300|

|STR - 4|

|AGI - 8|

|INT - 7|

|-Skills-|

[Peck] Level 5

[Swipe] Level 3

[Winged Flight] Level 6

[Appraisal]

[Dreams of the Psychopomp]

"Y'know seeing that I'm missing what used to be my entire pool of Health points is kind of terrifying. That's considering I must have recovered overnight some too, but was it Earth healing or 'magic' healing?"

Big suprise, no one answered me, but I guessed it was Earth healing as my MP stat was still at 0. that was one of my biggest questions right now too, taking the place of food supply. I had done better than I thought, clearing all of my early survival goals on day one, though no small part of that was thanks to having a 'tribe' to rely on. I was quite curious about my cuddly brethren, and with so many of them at least some should have evolved or gained special abilities right? I guessed I should be on 'light duty' until I recovered from my wounds, so I could take the opportunity to do some bird watching!

Before anything else though, I was hungry, my body wouldn't heal on its own and the food from the previous day had been burnt off to support my growth in strength. Luckily, now that I knew what I would be dealing with I knew how to avoid most of the troublesome dangers while hunting, I also guessed that going alone would be a good idea. A single bird would also be less likely to draw the attention of predator groups, and I had some confidence in myself after yesterday's scrap.

It was decided! I- *flap flap flap* *Rrrrrrrr* *Rrrrrrr* ...Apparently I had a guest?

I couldn't help but groom my feathers as I waited for them to arrive at my entryway, but lets be honest, could we even communicate at this point? would we have any common interests? ...okay thats not a valid complaint, the amount of things I would ask if I could was enough to keep any conversation moving. While I was distracted a cute little bird hopped in from the crack, and if I ignored what I guessed was a greeting gift in its mouth, I got my first up-close look of what I must look like!

If I was the of a similar size as this birdy then I must be about 8 inches from head to tail, it was the wingspan that was more impressive, lovely brown wings stretched and from tip to tip was almost 17 inches! speaking of color, little friend had a white head and belly, bright and pure and immaculately clean, and a mottled brown-grey back and wings leading to a little cap on its head. but the most notable feature was the black streak that graced each side of its face leading accross each eye like heavy mascara. "If I look half that cute then I'm okay with staying a bird for a little while longer I guess..."

while I was busy admiring it, little birdy dropped the 'gift' into my nest, turned out it was breakfast! thanks birdy friend! after dropping the crab it chirped at me in a friendly fashion and did a little dance before promptly leaving. "wait birdy friend" "nooooooo... aww"

I guess It wasn't meant to be? ...but it wasn't over either, shortly after little birdy left, another bird came and dropped a fish off, and there was one after that and so on. why were they delivering food? well, I'll check after breakfast...

after breakfast I flew out of my nest and higher up the cliff to an outcropping, from here I would have a great view of my flock as they went about their day. and I settled in to watch the birds as they went by. it wasn't long before I saw the breakfast delivery service visiting a few other caves, but it wasn't until I saw one of the injured birds from the fight yesterday that I figured out what was happening, they were delivering food to flock members that had been hurt! I didn't know that the flock would be so closeknit, it was honestly, really endearing.

Two days passed by like this, starting with food being delivered and then birdwatching, and I saw some of what I was looking for, some birds were sleeker, some larger and beefier, and occasionally a bird came in different colors, it was these last ones that caught my attention the most, because these birds seemed like they were using some kind of magic! one type of bird had its brown colouring replaced with a stormy gray, this type of bird could be seen moving much faster than the others, and only seemed to beat their wings when they needed to change direction. they almost seemed to have a personal stream of wind lifting their wings and keeping them afloat. others seemed to have lost their white colouring and were brown all over, these ones were almost three times the size of the rest of us Petrels, and seemed able to buff other birds. the last type I could see were also of a special coat, their brown was a deep blue, and they tended to fly low over the water, the water seemed attracted to them, rising out of the waves, forming streams and returning to the sea again.

none of my watching however told me just how they acchieved these powers, was it evolution? or did they have mana?

At this point I was healed enough to join the food runs again, The system clocked my HP as fully replensished and I had only to grow in a lost feather or two. Once again we were a large procession, just that this time I was near the front of the flock. around me were alot of the variant Petrels, I hadn't noticed them last time, but this was probably the norm. It was as if the flock followed an invisible path as they headed to a specific stretch of ocean that was apparently our hunting ground, and things proceeded as they had last time, only I caught a better view of the process. the young and less experienced birds went down to find prey whilst the older and variants stood guard. occasionally the guards swooped down to assist younglings, I had the feeling that as more bird caught their fill that they would swap places.

But it seemed that no mealtime could proceed uninterrupted with me there, things were in full swing when I felt something- vibrations running first through my wings and into my chest. they started small and seemed to resonate with each other at slightly different wavelengths, forming a beautiful symphonic resonance, it started low but grew as minutes passed.

The other petrels seemed to sense something too, and the entire flock stopped fishing and took to the skies. I was a little confused, but following the flock had never led me wrong so far, and I made sure to fly with them. It wasn't until we were halfway home that I figured out what the raging crescendo in my chest meant, not because the sounds made sense, but because I found their source. It was a Storm! The Storm was singing! This. is. SO. COOL.

As my wonder at nature surged, my usual Intelligence flew away and took a nosedive, leading to what suddenly seemed like the best idea I'd ever had in my short life here.

"We's gonna see what the inside of a storm looks like. let's dance my pretty!"

What I didn't realise until later was that I wasn't the only bird-brain. I and around thirty other Petrels turned towards the storm, flying into the surging wall of water and wind as the others in the flock kept ahead of it, heading towards the safety of our nests.