Kewa Meets Human

It was a peaceful summer night, the first of Spherus Magna's suns having already vanished beneath the horizon while its smaller teal companion still clung futilely to the seam between land and sky. One Toa, or rather, one Great Spirit, was currently walking to the home of Kaylynn S. Combs, the planet's resident human and, coincidentally, his parent in a sense. Upon his shoulder perched his trusty albino Kewa falcon, Zephyr, who was currently busy preening his wing, the walk to Kaylynn's house being a bit too… well… boring for him. Not in a rude sense; not at all! It was just that the barely-adult tiercel was easily bored unless he had something to eat, drink, investigate, play with, or do. In this case, his wings needed grooming, so he occupied himself with said task during the walk. His wing and tail feathers, currently longer than they would ever later be, were one of his personal prides, and he was constantly checking, double-checking, and triple-checking them to make sure they were perfectly arranged and squeaky clean.

Now, usually, Matoro would let Zephyr stay back at their house when he went on an errand or, if he thought his Kewa was cooped up too long, take him with him and let the Kewa perch on his shoulder throughout the small task, as the tiercel was doing now. However, Matoro had to leave on something much more than a simple, short errand; a recent Skrall raid had gotten away with several important artifacts, and he was one of the Toa who were leaving on a week-long trek to recover said artifacts. Hence his current destination.

Kaylynn, you see, had agreed to take care of the falcon while Matoro was away; after all, Matoro, in a sense, was her son, and what is a parent if they do not help their kids even into adulthood? Thus, she found herself nodding and telling her son, "Good luck! And be safe!" as she watched him turn and fly off to the outpost the trek would start from. Closing the door and walking into the living room, she looked over at the Kewa falcon that was perched on her shoulder and was also apparently quite intrigued by her long, turquoise hair, which was put into two braids, one on either side of her head.

Zephyr had never seen hair before. Having been raised by a Great Spirit and lived around Toa, Tohunga, and other biomechanical Rahi like himself, the closest thing he'd come across were downy body feathers. However, none of them had been quite like hair. It was much more shiny and sleek and long, not to mention tougher. Now focused completely on this new find, he pecked slightly at the braid on his side of the human's head, then began to climb it, following Kaylynn's hair until he came upon its base - or, rather, the bases of all her hair - and investigated this spot of convergence quite thoroughly, standing upon the aforementioned human's head as he did so.

Suddenly, a quick whistle and motion in the corner of his vision grabbed his attention, and he looked up to find that Kaylynn was holding a small warbler up in one hand. Suddenly realizing his own hunger, he hopped down onto the human's sleeve-covered right arm and, walking over to perch on said human's wrist, gobbled up the tasty meal in a flash, then fluffed his feathers and looked around.

This house was a new place. And the rule for all Kewa falcons concerning new places was, If in a new place, explore everything!

His first target was the rocking-chair. Though he was quite familiar with many types of chairs, from elegant desk chairs like the one Matoro used to have to simple barn-style stools, a rocking-chair was not one of those types. And thus we learn of another rule of Zephyr's logic, one that he'd made himself: Always investigate a new type of something to see what happens.

So he hopped onto the floor and ran over to the rocking-chair, his little metal talons click-clacking against the tile with every step. Flapping up onto the seat of the new thing, he was slightly startled as it tilted towards him. Thinking the motion to only be something he'd imagined, he then hopped up onto the back of the chair. Suddenly it tilted again - once more towards him!

He leapt off the thing. This creature of cushions and wood was not wanting to play. Best to give it a wide berth and leave it be.

Hearing laughter behind him, he turned around and was quite confused to see Kaylynn was the one laughing. Cocking his head and looking at her sideways inquisitively, he thought to himself, what's so funny?

Whatever it was, it didn't matter.

Noting a wicker basket atop the table, he flapped up there instead and landed on the handle. However, momentum and balance were not on his side, and the basket, which was full of balls of yarn, flipped up in his face. Falling backwards and flapping frantically to regain his balance, he ended up dragging the basket down with him, as well as its cargo. The whole fiasco ended up crashing to the floor, with Zephyr getting quite tangled in the balls of yarn. Backing away from the yarn balls, the falcon only became more frightened as they appeared to follow him, and ran away, only for the process to repeat.

By now, Kaylynn was laughing so hard it was difficult to breathe. No wonder Kewa falcons were adored!

Finally calming down, Zephyr realized that, though they had followed him, the yarn balls hadn't hurt him. Deciding that they probably just wanted to be friends, he shook himself and let them follow him as he continued exploring.

Which resulted in an hour-long chase as Kaylynn tried to sort the mess out.

••••••••

Bathtime was a new concept to Zephyr.

Not once before had he had any reason to take a bath.

However, he had gotten some maple syrup on himself somehow during the chase (somehow) and needed to be cleaned.

Before the night was done, bath would become Zephyr's idea of the b-word.

As Kaylynn filled up the bathtub with water and bubbles, Zephyr watched in interest. What were those shiny clear round floaty things? They looked pretty… and fun!

Once the tub was full, Zephyr perched on the edge for a closer look. Leaning forward, he touched his beak tip to one of the bubbles…

… and was quite startled when it popped.

Now, Zephyr wasn't very fluent in physics and gravity. Thus, it hadn't occurred to him that leaning to far over the edge was a bad idea. This, combined with his surprise, resulted in him falling into the water.

It was at this point when Zephyr made an interesting discovery.

He… hated… getting… wet.

As Kaylynn scrubbed him down and rinsed him off, he constantly attempted to escape, but with no luck.

At last, he managed to escape, but only because Kaylynn was done. Suddenly he found himself being roughly dried with a towel, then what he thought to be a huge, scary red wind monster began blowing hot air at him! He went into a defensive posturing, rotating his wings forward and poofing out his feathers, swaying back and forth and hissing and clapping his beak. When the beast dared get too close to him, he beat it back with his wings and screeched, returning to his defensive posture as the beast backed away again. Finally the "beast" appeared to be asleep and Zephyr, feeling insulted by all that had happened, icily preened, refusing to let Kaylynn pet him… for now.

••••••••

Seven days later, as agreed, Matoro picked Zephyr up, entering Kaylynn's house only for Zephyr to immediately land on his arm and begin chattering away like crazy in bird-language, telling his "daddy" everything that had happened. Looking at Kaylynn out of the corner of his eye, the Great Spirit quirked an eyebrow and asked, "I'm guessing a lot happened?"

Kaylynn grinned. "You could say that.".