The bigger the better, as it turned out, was quite a bit more intense than Charles had anticipated.

Though, the considerable heft that the badger had as he carried it over his back was well worth the previous effort to take it down. It hadn’t taken long to find it after his encounter with the saber tooth cats, and while the fight was brutal and explosive, it was very short. Charles found himself becoming more and more adept at moving and fighting with his body, in no small part due to the continual, subtle merging of his instincts with his mind.

At this point, Charles was having trouble remembering the broader details of having had a human body. It was second nature now to move predominantly with his legs, to not reach for objects with just a hand expecting a thumb to be capable of finer manipulation, and also the fact that his beak was a weapon. Headbutting something as a human would have been the epitome of dumb, but as a blade-beak, it was par for the course.

“Eldest, do you need any help carrying it?” Talon called from overhead, staring hungrily at the happy meal balancing across Charles shoulders.

He smiled, “It’s fine, we’re not far off anyways,” his response came sharper and more understandable, already an improvement over the morning. Charles turned his gaze forward, trying to ignore the slight soreness building up from the heft of the badger. He knew that his siblings were offering more out of wanting to try to help than anything else. He also knew that they didn’t really have a good way to carry this big bastard.

They flew, and while they were quite strong, they didn’t have the ability to lift the body, at least not for long if they tried. So, Charles mustered on, and before much longer they’d made their way back to the nest. As much as he wanted to, remaining completely stealthy was far too difficult with this load. Prints and traces led back to the nest, albeit still less than if he’d not been trying at all. He’d have to go back through and try to erase some measure of the tracks, but he wasn’t so certain that he was even going about such a process right.

Charles huffed as he climbed over another rise of greenery and hilly terrain, only to pause as he spotted an unusually large, knotted tree ahead, clearly visible between the trees here.

“That’s our nest tree!” Pecky happily announced while landing on Charles’ back, adding to the already considerable weight there.

Charles somehow managed to keep the grimace from his face, “Great, let’s get to it, then.”

He paused, turning to look at the bird on his back. Pecky was easily recognizable - as were all of his siblings - due to the unique plumage and colorations they bore. Her chest feathers were streaked up all the way to the bottom of her beak, looking every bit like she was wearing a cravat of sorts, dyed crimson red. She also had similar markings on her eyes, streaking from the corner and at an angle in three points to either side. Much of the rest of her feathers were the standard obsidian black, with grey trim, like ash, framing many of her pinions.

And, as he stared at her, waiting for her to take the hint and get off his back, noted the complete shameless lack of regard for the weight she added.

At least until Gabby flapped by low, slapping her upside the back of the head with a wing and sending her tumbling from Charles’ back with a loud squawk. The siblings hooted and screeched amusedly, save for the scrambling Pecky.

“You’re hardly light as a feather,” Gabby joked with a twinkle in her eye as she landed on a nearby branch.

“Owww, that hurt you pecking twit,” Pecky shook her head as she righted herself, indignantly ruffling out the bits of dirt on her even as she glared at her sister.

“Manners,” Gabby tutted, still beaming with amusement before turning her eyes to Charles, “You’ll have to climb to get into the hollow, but it’s not… too high up.”

‘She just paused at that, right?’ Charles thought to himself dryly, but just nodded. ‘Well, nothing for it. Getting this badger up there is going to be a workout, though…’

He listened to the pair bicker behind him as the rest of the hawks flitted overhead. Gabby herself was slightly larger than Pecky, but her coloration was distinctly different. Her chest had two chevron-like stripes, both deep red, and she had longer red feathers that ran up the back of her neck to the crown of her head. They were short, though, and her face was left devoid of red, instead tinged with gray feathers around her eyes that were just shy of looking silver in the light.

Each of the siblings bore patterns that were similar to the two, something that Charles suspected had much to do with their parents genetics. Charles, of course, was the odd bird out, but he expected that to be due to the influence of Alterra and, more than likely, whatever had side-swiped him during his incarnation in this world.

Yak had a single broad chevron across his chest, but also had stiff broad lines from his eyes that trailed back and down the sides of his neck before joining the chevrons on his chest. It looked more like war paint than anything else, Charles had to admit; but the fact that he also had speckles of red feathers on his cheeks detracted from that just enough to just make him look a touch goofy. Which, given his personality, suited Yak just fine. Besides, he was the biggest of the siblings.

Swooping down low and dodging between branches was Owl. His coloration was similar to Pecky’s, being a solid cravat at the chest that moved up his neck. However, it stopped just shy of touching his face, and instead seemed to spread the colored feathers in a rim along the face, each of the coverts the deep burgundy, with several highlights under his eyes that made him almost seem to have a perpetual scowl, with tired bags beneath his eyes. The back of his head bore a single line of red feathers, whilst the individual feathers were much longer than Gabby’s own, the stripe was only half the length of his sister’s. Charles guessed that long feathers were more common to males, but they could also merely have been growing at a different rate.

Finally, Talon had something of a hybrid pattern, a red chevron and then a gap between a solid patterned cravat that led up to just before her head. She almost appeared to be wearing a mask across her eyes, however, given the coloration of the feathers and how they protruded in five points from the edge of her eyes and above them. Contrary to seeming frilly, they appeared fierce and were brighter tinged than the coloration on her chest. The back of her head and neck bore thicker feathers, each of them burgundy and trailing downwards to just before her shoulder blades.

Each of them also had smaller patterns of gray and red, namely on the tails, but Charles hadn’t quite gotten the pattern for them down as of yet. He was sure that he’d be able to recognize them fairly easily even at a distance, now, which surprised him. Previously, most animals still looked the same to another of their kind, but Charles had begun to be able to easily tell the difference between them. It was funny in a way, he could easily read the facial expressions of these birds in such a way that he wasn’t quite positive he could match with people in his last life.

He dragged his attention back to the tree, now much larger than he’d previously thought from afar. It was knotted and gnarled, more likely having been the product of several trees worth of growth, bound together and joined into one large, many-hollowed domicile. Briefly, Charles wondered if anything else lived there.

Then watched with dismay as his clamoring siblings made calls aloud, challenging each other to reach the top of the tree first. Within moments, the flock streamed up through the branches, making such a ruckus that Charles immediately doubted that anything else lived here, if only for the sake of peace of mind. Besides, what creatures would have been comfortable with sharing the tree with his siblings? Large predatory hawks, a family of them no less, would certainly make for terrifying neighbors for a family of squirrels, for example.

Charles stretched briefly before he turned his head, gripping the body tightly with his beak and leveraging it over a single shoulder while beginning his ascent up the tree. While his hands weren’t much use for finer leverage, they still bore hooked talons that were more than capable of getting a grip on things if damaging it wasn’t an issue. Surprisingly, it didn’t take him very long to shimmy his way up the tree trunk. Ample leverage and the fact that it wasn’t completely vertical in most places, due in no small part to the trunk leaning inwards at the base, gave him plenty to work with.

That said, he had to climb quite high in order to reach the hollow that his siblings had made into their nest. Quite in fact, it was more accurate to say that there were several hollows that they’d converted into their nest. All manner of things had been accumulated, ranging from pretty flowers and seemingly random herbs to pretty rocks and, to Charles’ stunned amazement, gleaming gemstones and other shiny materials. It was a veritable treasure horde that put his findings to shame.

‘Well, not all of them. My hide collection and such is still superior.’ Charles assuaged his wounded pride, but couldn’t help but marvel at the large space within the tree. With a huff, Charles flopped the badger on the floor, the crunch of sticks and twigs softened by the layer of moss that the hawks had provided.

The only downside, Charles admitted, was that he couldn’t stand up to his full height even in the center of the hollow. Along the edges, he had to stoop down much lower, a problem that his siblings demonstrated that they didn’t have as they streamed into the nest through various nooks all around, the echo of flapping wings streaming through the tree.

“Home,” Yak proudly proclaimed as he trotted up to Charles, “My shinies, see?”

He pointed to a nook along the wall that Charles hadn’t noticed, and for a split second Charles felt his heart stop.

‘What in the unholy feathering peck!? Did you rob a bank!?’ Charles blanched at the sight of several nuggets of gold and shiny stones that looked suspiciously like uncut gemstones stacked atop one another.

Yak misinterpreted the shock on Charles' face, beaming with pride, “Good shinies! Want some?”

“I have some, too!” Pecky shouted, not willing to be outdone, “I have a lot of cool plants!”

She did, admittedly, have lots of plants that Charles… had no clue about. At first, he was going to simply nod and congratulate her, predominantly because he didn’t want her to feel left out…

Then he smelled the trace of essence on the plants and had to pause in confusion.

‘That… why does that smell like fire? Wait, what else is that? What? Huh?’ Charles’ brain rapidly turned off with the realization that Pecky had very likely collected plants that, in video game terms, were probably magical herbs.

“I have some too,” Owl preened pridefully, followed by a humbly-proud Gabby and a nervous Talon.

Each of them had collected their own treasure hoards, and all the while Charles couldn’t help but feel a cold sweat break out down his back.

‘I swear I’ll do everything in my power to get rid of my trail leading here… Oh pecking Alterra, this is terrifying. You’re like loot pinatas for the next party of humans to find.’

Yet, not one of his siblings saw the nigh panic they were inducing in their eldest brother.

“Food? I’m hungry.” Yak happily ignored Charles' plight and trotted over to the meal he’d brought with him. Yak was a bird of simple tastes. Eat good food, have good company, and sit on a pile of ridiculously expensive treasure while appreciating both of those other things.

Charles decidedly pretended that this was ordinary, because the thought of a bunch of hawks out in the forest hoarding what might well be insane riches did nothing good for his heart. No matter the world, he had a hard time believing that people wouldn’t do crazy things for this kind of wealth.

And so, instead he helped break their meal up into more manageable parts, carefully putting aside anything that could be strictly counted as waste in an area that Gabby pointed out. They volunteered to dispose of it later, which Charles would gladly let them take over.

They ate, spoke at length about what they’d been up to, and shared embarrassing stories of one kind or another where the siblings poked fun at one another. Charles, too, shared his stories, even seeing the near otherworldly stag and his small herd at night, and finding the Daurghast. When finally the talks came back to humans, though, Charles offered up an additional warning.

“Humans can be the most dangerous,” he said, “their motivations are very different for some things. I’d like to say that the average person is good, but you can’t expect them all to be like that.”

Talon looked to Charles, marveling at the track of the conversation, “You’ve met a lot of humans, then?”

Charles nodded, “In a sense. The point being that I don’t know if they’ll cause trouble for us if they knew where we are. They’d almost definitely want your hoard of loo-” Charles paused mid sentence, “-stuff, that might be fairly useful or valuable to them. And I don’t know how they’ll respond to redhawks either, though I suspect you all are a fair bit better off than me.”

“Why is that?” Gabby tittered amusedly, “You’re so big, do you even need to worry?”

The others chuckled with her, but trailed off as they realized that Charles’ expression contained more worry and nervousness than before, “I… I honestly don’t know? I have no idea how strong a person can get, but I do know that they have immense cities…” Charles trailed off in consideration.

“Cities? What are those?” Owl asked as he tore another chunk of meat and sent it down.

“They’re like… collections of human nests and pseudo-nests. Some humans rarely leave those areas, performing tasks that help other humans keep things running. They’re very social creatures, and one of their biggest strengths is the ability to rely on one another. Though, keep in mind, they have as many goals as there are leaves in a tree, so not all humans get along together.”

“But, the ones that do, tend to group up. Birds of a feather, flock together, as they say.” Charles chuckled to himself with self gratification upon seeing the others perk up amusedly at the saying, “It’s not like they’re all strictly competent at everything, but the problem is that humans will tend to band together when something they want can be gained.”

Owl’s eyes lit up with understanding, “Hence, we should be careful, since we might have something they want?”

Charles nodded happily, “Just so. Hopefully I’m overthinking it, but one of them found me, so I can’t help but worry that there might be more soon. With luck, this is all just me being overly concerned for nothing. But, one thing you should know is that humans are a bit all over the place.” Then he took in a deep breath, trying his best to be ready to take his own advice on what he was about to say.

“Not all humans are bad, but it’s always a risk to find out. If you don’t have to, I’d say to just leave, you all don’t need to risk it. But, if for any reason you don’t have another choice, then find the good ones. Never let them split you up, though; even if it’s the human you think you can trust telling you to do it. In the end, humans trick other humans and you’ll need to watch out for that too. I have no idea if they’ll ever be able to communicate with us, but if you find one you trust and want to stay around, then don’t forget to try to communicate with them. Who knows, maybe you’ll train them well enough to get you,” Charles chuckled at his own joke, though the others didn’t notice. They were all deep in thought at his words, and he stayed silent while they digested them.

Talon was the first to shift on her feet, an uncomfortable look set on her features, “Then, what if we meet humans we don’t like and can’t trust? And that we can’t get away from?”

Her questions sat in the air like a grim cloud, leaving Gabby, Pecky, Owl, and Yak looking to Charles for the answer. They each wore variations of concern on their face, some purely interested, others with a kernel of genuine fear. Another with hunger, as Yak scarfed down another morsel for that part.

“Do everything you can to escape. If that’s impossible, then you only have a decision to make,” Charles met their eyes seriously, “Together, you need to decide whether or not you’re willing to do what it takes to be free. Then you need to bide your time, be sure to watch your surroundings, every detail is important. The more you know, the better the plan you can make. Eventually, you’ll get a feel for how they move, maybe even some insight into how they like to think. At that point, you need to be patient and wait for an opportunity. You’ll need to be ready to take advantage of any situation that might let you escape. And, most of all, you’ll need to be ready to act when that happens.”

“Hopefully, this won’t be important, but the more prepared you are, the better.” Charles finished, seeing the others nod seriously and hopefully take his words to heart.

“We’ll be careful,” Pecky flapped a wing resolutely, “and I’ll be sure to stand behind Yak if there’s any danger!”

“Hmm?” Yak nodded before doing a double take, “Why me?”

“You’re big and… dependable,” Gabby sweetly called to Yak, “so we’ll have to rely on you to clear a path.”

Owl and Talon looked away as though the conversation suddenly had nothing to do with them.

“That’s right! Yak big and dependable!” Yak cawed loudly with laughter, “Yak leads the way.”

The others chuckled amusedly at that, knowing that Yak was playing along - he wasn’t a fool, for what he played things up as - but he also wouldn’t shirk the expectation.

From there, the conversations were much milder in nature, and after a short time, Charles was invited to stay the night there.

He accepted, finding the company a welcome balm to his heart. Charles noted in his heart that he’d have to come over more often in the future. Building new memories, talking about nothing at all, this was something he hadn’t really had the opportunity to do as much as he wanted with his human family.

Maybe this time, he’d do things right. He’d hold onto this family with everything he had.

With that in mind, Charles relished the warmth in his breast even as their talking stretched long into the evening and into the night.