Tricia opened her eyes, blinked, then opened her mouth the protest against the giant bird looming over her.
She flinched backward as the bird pushed downward, shoving its beak into her mouth (holy shit) and with it a slimy, sour piece of something.
!
Her throat convulsed, a deep, aching hunger rearing up with it. Without even realizing what was happening, she felt her mouth work to swallow the meat, gulping it down hastily.
She felt it sink heavily into her stomach, the hunger relenting just a bit. The enormous bird had sat quietly, watching her with one keen, black eye.
The shock of what had just happened was slow to settle in,
Much faster, was the realization that her body felt wrong .
Her body felt bloated, lopsided and tender. Her arms were too short, legs so thin and weak she could barely move them. The hunger quieted a bit more, and she fell quickly into unconsciousness.
The next time she awoke, her body felt… less sore. A bit less soft, but just as lopsided. She was able to drag her oversized head to look around, blinking against the way her vision swam. The enormous, disgustingly high-definition body of a baby bird leaned against her.
No… that was her body.
She groaned, hearing her voice come out as a warbling sort of croon.
Fuck.
A few ideas flitted through her head, ranging from hallucinations to dreams, before finally settling on 'Reincarnation'
My next life is a fucking bird. She thought, becoming a bit manic. Of course it is.
With the knowledge that her body was just as lumpy and disgustingly porous as it was supposed to be, she dragged herself across the (prickly) nest, looking out at the forest around her.
She felt… tiny.
Insignificant.
A single bird in an entire forest - in a whole world. Probably doomed to be eaten by raccoons or something. This sucked.
This sucked !
Tricia chirped sadly, dragging her head down and resolving to sleep as much as she could. Her feathers would grow in eventually, right?
"Wake up."
Tricia groaned, tucking her head a bit closer to her chest, wishing the world would just pass on by. She'd died once already, and was now doomed to sitting with an achingly empty belly. A warm shadow passed over her.
"Wake up, before I eat you."
A jolt of fear shot through her tiny body, and she shot upright, flailing little stubs of arms (wings?) and kicking out with her feet.
She slumped onto her back, heart racing, muscles already tired from that small movement. The shape above her sharpened into the black bird, beak open in mocking, raspy laughter.
"Now that's better." it growled, finally stopping the harsh choking noise. It sidestepped around the edge of her nest, peering at her from different angles.
"You wake up when I come back." it finally demanded, nipping at her tiny stub of a wing. She pulled it away, tucking it closer to her and trying to sit upright. She glared at the bird with as much strength as she could muster, trying not to feel put-out when the bird just huffed another chuckle at her anger.
"Don't be so prickly, little squirt. You need to eat more, or your flesh will fall off your bones. I'd rather not try hunting down that good-for-nothing this late in the season. Egg laying is a pain" The bird muttered something under her breath, beak clicking with irritation.
Tricia blinked, feeling stupid for not making the connection.
"You're my mother?" she asked.
Well, she tried asking.
The sound came out more like a vibrating grunt, and several hissy clicks. She quickly shut her mouth as the crow snickered at her again.
"You'll have to practice using that tongue of yours, little squirt." The bird's eyes squinted shut in what could be called a smile. "Since you're awake and responding again, I'll assume you'll eat something, yeah?"
Tricia nodded meekly, the gnawing hunger writhing like it could carve open her gut. Black feathers rustled as the bird leapt away into the air, the sound of wings blending quickly into the quiet slide of leaves and wind.
The crow (raven?) returned after a short time, shoving another sour, brightly-colored piece of something into her face. She flinched away at first, but the bird was having none of it. It didn't take much prying to shove her mouth open, and the rotting meat pushed down her throat.
She coughed and gagged, more concerned about the concept than the taste.
The hunger abated once more, and she realized with a bit of misery that her gut liked that kind of food. Gross.
It was difficult to tell when the large bird was present, or if it had left yet to retrieve some other weird food. Sometimes she wondered if it even flew, or just appeared somehow. No, that was ridiculous. Maybe flapping just wasn't as noisy as she thought it should be.
In the next few days, she'd be introduced to a variety of long or recently-dead things, and a whole host of leggy, crunchy bugs. (To be honest, she preferred the bugs to the meat.)
That pattern continued for what felt like several weeks, her days broken up by feedings and sleeping. Every once in awhile she woke up at night, black feathers draped warmly over her body, smushing her comfortably into the nest.
It was a bizarre sort of existence, but not too terrible.
Her evaluation of her new life quickly changed when her feathers started to develop in earnest. She had quickly grown to nearly the size of her 'mother', filling up the nest and making it a bit awkward for both of them to sleep in it.
A sense of restlessness grew in her chest, and she started beating her wings whenever her mother was away. They actually looked more like wings now, instead of bald (ugly) stubs. Rough feathers and black down had spread across her bald little sides, and from what she could tell, she looked more like a ruffled soot ball than an actual bird.
Still, it was an improvement on the lump of hamburger meat that had broken out of an egg.
It was easier to look out over the forest, watching other birds and small animals flit around. She felt a pang of longing, and looked forward to the day she, too, could fly. There must be something good to come of this weird next-life thing, right? Surely, she hadn't been fated to be reborn, only to get eaten by a hawk or something, right?
Her claws gripped the bark easily, wings pumping absentmindedly. Gotta strengthen those muscles.
She wasn't sure if it was a gust of wind, or if she really had just lost balance, but Tricia definitely noticed when she started falling ass-over-teakettle down through the branches. She squawked and scrabbled at the branches and leaves, before landing in a painful pile at the base of her tree.
She lay quietly, panting and getting her bearings for a long moment. Wow she was small.
She pushed herself awardly upright, hunching down and shuffling backward until she was sort-of protected by a large root.
Not good.
Her mind flashed to a dozen ways a baby bird could be gobbled up by passing wildlife - from other birds, to snakes, to cats or dogs. Hell, there might be bird-eating spiders laying in wait.
She eyed the half-decayed leaves suspiciously.
Tricia nearly jumped out of her skin at the dark shape rushing at her, but relaxed when it settled into the feathered shape of this life's mother.
"A bit impatient, are we?"
Tricia shifted awkwardly, forcing her tongue to move deliberately.
"It wassn'Accident."
The other bird clucked at her, hopping around before stepping closer to her and prodding her sides with that sharp beak.
"Not hurt!" Tricia added, and her mother stepped back, satisfied.
"Find some bugs or something." The older bird instructed, looking distracted. "Your squealing pulled me away from a good meal, so you're on your own for this one."
She must have sensed Tricia's swelling terror, and flicked her tail in irritation .
"Not abandoning YOU, idiot squirt. You need to learn to feed yourself sometime. Not going to have a layabout in MY shadow." The bird scoffed, taking again to the skies.
Tricia swallowed, watching the bird alight on a nearby tree, turning to stare down at her. She obediently stood up, wobbling a bit as she tried scratching at the leaves and dirt for a bug.
(Honestly, she didn't know which was more humiliating. This, or waiting for a chunk of mouse to be pushed into her face.)
She hopped over an oddly shaped throwing knife, and a rusty plate of metal in a half-hearted chase after a centipede before deciding it was too much work. Centipedes were bitter anyway.
She did eventually find several black beetles, almost caught a mouse, and apparently that satisfied her mother enough to come swooping in and drag the little rodent back by its neck.
They shared a bloody meal that night, and the black eyes on her back felt much more comforting, on the forest floor.
When morning arrived, she woke up to find her mother missing from the branch she had last seen her in. The warm (summer?) breeze stirred some leaves, and hunger rumbled in her belly once again.
She ended up flipping leaves over, hopping around the underbrush and kicking over half-decomposed sticks and bark to find little grubs. One large chunk of bark revealed a coiled up little snake. Tricia stared at it for a moment, frozen where she stood with wings half-open for balance. Then it was moving, and she shrieked, flapping backward and tumbling into a graceless pile. Leaves rustled as the brown snake fled, and she relaxed, rolling upright again with an ungainly flop of wings and flailing legs.
"Sometimes I wonder why I even bothered to let you live."
She nearly jumped out of her skin at the sudden voice, chirping in distress and whirling to find her mother standing on a nearby rock. The older bird jumped down, walking toward her with an aggressively lowered head. Where on earth did she come from?
"After all this work, you jump out of the nest like an idiot , and freak out at the smallest thing."
Tricia blinked at the grumbled words, meekly pecking at a small spider crawling near her feet. Her feathers prickled, chest sore from two days of repeated attempts at flying.
"I'll keep try-"
"You won't be able to fly."
Her mother cut in over her words, snapping her beak with no small amount of irritation.
"Not before a damn fox gets you, anyway. You're too young and stupid to use the shadows properly, but I'd rather not have wasted all this energy for nothing."
The ruffled chick froze, feeling her mother looming over her, regarding her with one dark eye.
"You're the only one out of your siblings that had a lick of Chakra, so don't make me regret not eating your egg as well."
Grey eyes widened, and she twisted to look at her mother.
"You ATE-"
Darkness swallowed her.