Taking what little time he had left before the four-legged, serrated clawed, armor-feathered green bird with bare, bat-like wings came back, Tedrick reshaped his stone axe into a (for him) large round shield with central spike, barely managing to avoid the next attack, feeling vicious talons slam into his shield hard enough to push him back hard.

Shit. He didn’t consider that. In the air, he had no leverage to use a shield. Atop that, it seemed the bird was more confident in its ability to track him, since it was speeding up; it didn’t seem to be as fast as him, but it wasn’t too far off, and way better at navigating the dense woods.It zipped around like the trees like they were less obstacles and more like something to push off of. Wracking his brain, the six-inch sprite tried to think of any way he could take advantage of this or replicate the behavior, but nothing came to mind as panic mounted.

Another attack sent him sailing back once more into the side of a limb, throwing him completely off balance as the branch he hit pushed back forward. Pale blue gore splashed out of his wounds like a pitcher. He was idly surprised that he even had this much blood in his little body.

This tactic wouldn’t work either, he realized as panic began to set in. Cracks had started to form in the shield, too, after just two hits. Four big chunks were missing from the rim, torn off by the claws of the creature. Given its wickedly hooked claws, no doubt it was used to dealing with armor.

No way. No way he could die here. He couldn’t! Not after all he’d been through! Not to a fucking BIRD of all things!

JUST LET ME GO!

He hadn’t intended any magic effect, explicitly, but it felt different than a normal thought. It felt like… an echo rang out from his mind, reaching out to the world around him.

At the same time, he became vaguely aware of another unusual sensation. A feeling reminiscent when the monster stood over him before he came to this place. He could feel the bird, feel its impulses and emotions. Blind fury at this little bug that dared threaten its young. That it wouldn’t hold the fuck still for a second. The lust to feel blood run from its crushed and torn corpse. To feed it to the very young it dared menace.

Then the echo hit it.

The blind, pure killing intent was disturbed like a ripple in a pond. The nature of the feelings didn’t change, but the clarity was ruined, distorting the mental image of flesh in the hooks of its claws with another harsh, overwhelming image of panic and pain, the agony of its would-be victim.

The bird couldn’t focus on its bounce off the tree it was speeding towards, and slammed into it face first, landing heavily on branches and falling before it could stop itself. But as it was beginning to right itself, Tedrick began to get a vague idea what was going on, and it was his only hope.

Its mind began to flow away on reflex, but he didn’t let it. It wouldn’t. He dug in. YOU AREN’T GOING ANYWHERE, YOU FUCKER! STAY STILL YOURSELF!

The more prolonged attack shattered the slowly regrouping mental coherence, not a single stone in the pond but a rain cloud. The fury more and more interspersed with Tedrick's own emotions, no lesser in potency than the anger the bird felt.

It worked. The bird flailed in its artificial panic, even slipping off the branch it had finally gotten purchase on as it began to flail, its own confusion and fear now entering the mix and only making it worse. What was once crystal clear was now a chaotic swirl of many complex feelings. Too much for the simple mind experiencing it. Despite its tough body, its mind was easily broken and unable to handle invasion.

It wasn’t all rainbows though. Tedrick was nearly as uncoordinated as the bird, barely even feeling his body in his intense focus. He vaguely realized that in his desperation to take whatever advantage he could get, in his rush to wrap himself around the bird’s thoughts, he had no idea whatsoever how to let go.

Things weren’t getting any easier, as Tedrick began to get sensations from it too as whatever resistance it was putting up was getting torn apart. The dull whip of branches against a thick feather layer. Panicked twisting of more limbs unfamiliar to him, making his own body jerk and slowly start to lose balance.

Everything was melting together like multi-colored wax in a burner. He didn’t know which sensations were his own. No matter how he struggled, he couldn’t get away. He couldn’t-

His thoughts were interrupted by a heavy impact, coming from hisbirds side. Like a baseball getting hit by a professional. But it didn’t stop there; the bat wrapped around, squeezing, crushing.

Like a snake.

He couldn’t breathe. His ribs just didn’t have the room to expand. He was vaguely aware of a second falling sensation, this time from his own body as his wings stopped.

Another coil, more crushing. Hisbird’s bones turning to dust inside the bird’shis skin, organs lacerating into soup. Hot gore wrenched from flesh by rough-edged scales and sharp feathers. He could no longer tell apart the experiences between the two bodies his mind occupied.

Dying. This is what dying felt like. Pain, uncontrollable desperation, then nothing.

One last cascade of snapping, this time from the birdshis spine. His vision went black from the agony, from the kind of sensation no one felt more than once. Distant sad thoughts of little things starving, dying, helpless. Hateful thoughts of little bugs that wouldn’t fucking die already.

Briefly.

Then he was back, two arms, two legs, two wings. No beak. All of it falling, gravity paying no heed to his temporary paralysis.

Shit! He had to stop falling, had to-

Jerking like a novice, back and forth, making a racket before smashing against a tree trunk and his focus returning with the pain of impact against his shoulder wound.

Seven in. Five out. Breathe. Focus on what you could detect.

He saw whole rainbows of leaves.

He saw vaguely ant-like creatures watching him warily as they resumed their march with food.

He saw a snake monster with horns all along the side of its face, four eyes, scales that looked like sawblades, a tail ending with a rigid-looking hook and covered in spines.

Oh yeah. That’s what just crushed himbird to death.

Time to go then.